THE OX.

(Translated from the Italian of Giosuè Carducci.)

I love you, pious ox! Tranquility

And feeling of great strength steals round my heart, Whether in fertile fields and meadows free

You stand on guard, a monument, apart;
Or 'neath the yoke, contented, bending low,
With man, swift, agile worker, you pass by-
He pricks and urges you while you with slow,
Meek rolling of your patient eyes reply.

Your breath like dim, blue altar smoke I see
From your wide nostrils, black and damp, arise;
Your lowing like a hymn sung joyously

In quiet space is lost. Sea-green your eyes—

There mirrored 'mid sweet gravity is seen
The silences, divine, of pastures green.

David Hamilton.

KHESDEB'S QUEST.

HESDEB, the widow of Nehat, the weaver, arose with a

cry of terror from her bed at midnight. The last fragments of those fear-textured dreams that had caused her to moan and pant heavily in her sleep still remained in her mind, though the exact nature of the disquietude had since departed. A palpitant sense of impending evil possessed her, a feeling of fear and dread that seemed to float all about her and pressed upon her soul. The room lay in darkness; the censer had not long since burned forth its life and still sent up a choking cloud of smoke. From behind the curtain which separated her room from that of Nebka, her son, came the feeble flickering of his lamp and his quiet, regular breathing. Khesdeb pushed aside the curtain of her door and went out into the air.

The night was hot and sultry. Not the faintest sigh disturbed the gaunt palm-trees near her door as they stretched mournfully upward into the brooding darkness. A few stars blinked wearily in the sky with a feeble, evanescent light. The moon lay buried in a mass of clouds, from which it broke, now and then, to glare spectrally at the earth, and then to be swallowed up again. Opposite her, was the dwelling of her neighbor, Basha, the midwife, and further off that of Adah, the Jewess, and she shivered as she dimly discerned there the dark stain of sheep's blood upon the lintel of her door.

Suddenly, she became aware of a slight breeze that had arisen from the direction of the Sacred River, and, looking thither, she beheld a strange Form whose ominous presence sent a chill of horror through her. Tenuous and subtile it was, like a frozen breath, with features that changed as she looked upon it; a Form that had not the semblance of living things, and yet was dimly like one. Fearful and dreamlike it moved, and, as it went, it brought with it a coldness as of Death.

And, first, the dread Form touched the house of Adah, the Jewess, and glided over it. And then, pausing for a moment at the dwelling of Basha, entered it with a quick, insucking

rush of air. An instant later, the Form reappeared and the voice of Basha quavered plangently from within. "Woe, woe," she cried, "the spirit hath left my darling Baufra; the lamp of my life is extinguished!"

Khesdeb shuddered as the full significance of her dreams flashed upon her. The Form glided on, and, with the same quick onrush of air, entered her room. At the same time, Khesdeb felt all the blood leave her face and her whole body become paralyzed. She would have fled to the bedside of her son to grapple with the strange cold Form, but her feet became heavy and she could do nothing but stare hypnotically at the door, her breast heaving, her eyes fear-laden and strained. A moment later, the Form glided out and her trance was broken. With a sob, she fled into the room of Nebka, her son.

A cold breath, which had extinguished the last fitful gleams of his lamp, struck her as she entered. With panting dread, she groped about in the darkness until she came to his bed. Not a sound came from it, and her hand, touching his body, found it cold and damp. She felt his heart; not a throb responded to her nerveless fingers.

With a shriek, Khesdeb fell at the foot of the bed.

That night there was moaning and lamentation in Egypt. High and low, rich and poor alike, wept at the dread fulfillment of the Tenth Plague. And Pharaoh and his Queen dismounted from their purple-decked bed to wail at the bedside of the dead heir to the throne. And Pharaoh arose from his grief, and he spoke: "To-morrow shall they go forth, they, and their wives, and their children, and all that is theirs; that we may not see again the brethren of Joseph, for lo! it is their God that hath wrought this injury to Khem. To-morrow shall they go forth, and we shall see them no more."

And while it was yet dark, and the night still travailed with the unborn day, Khesdeb ceased her lamentations, and tenderly wrapping the body of her son in hides, placed him on the back of her mule, and set forth.

At first, wheresoever she went, a lugubrious chorus of groans and shrieks assailed her ears, but it left no impression on her

grief-absorbed heart. Soon, however, the dismal chanting grew feebler and feebler as she reached the outskirts of the town, and, at last, died off altogether in a faint, distant wail. Khesdeb plodded wearily on, though now the city lay far behind her, and dreary expanses of deserted fields and moribund palms, drooping mystically in the ashy twilight, lay on both sides of her narrow path. At last, the road made an abrupt turn, skirting about a hill that rose precipitously in its way. Without pausing, Khesdeb drove the beast forward until, from behind a withered clump of bushes, a cave appeared. She hesitated a moment, and then knocked at the rudely-formed door. A shrill, querulous voice answered from within.

"Who is it that cometh here, while it is yet night? Hath not the day enough in its length?"

""Tis I," replied Khesdeb; "I, Khesdeb, widow of Nehat, the weaver, who is come to see thee. Open thou, I pray!"

A fumbling as of the withdrawal of a bolt followed, the door was opened, and Khesdeb entered.

The strange habitation presented, within, a scene of most forbidding gloom. It was a narrow, spider-bridged cavity, extending some distance into the bowels of the hill, from where it branched off into unfathomable, dark recesses. Weird, cryptical carvings adorned the walls nude of all covering, save that granted by the profusion of webs and rank-smelling mosses. A pool of stagnant water added to the noisomeness of the place with its feculent contents. A pallet of straw lay in one corner, over which a heap of skins was disorderedly thrown. In the opposite corner burned a fire, over which a kettle gurgled complainingly.

The strange dweller of the place was scarcely less fantastical. She was a shriveled hag of dwarfish stature, bent almost double with a load of inconceivable years, and with hair of snowy whiteness that fell, unkempt, to the ground. And yet, despite her withered visage and her palsied hands, her eyes maintained all the fiery force of their prime, and scintillated with a piercing. unwavering scrutiny that sent a cold, hypnotic thrill through the bosom of Khesdeb.

"Hail to thee, Aahmes, the sorceress!" cried Khesdeb to the strange apparition.

"Hail, thou, Khesdeb, widow of Nehat, the weaver!" she answered shrilly. "Why hast thou come hither, and what lies there, bound to the beast?"

"Alas!" said Khesdeb tearfully, "my sorrow hath brought me here. Lo, the Messenger of Death hath come in the night and called forth the spirit of my son."

The beldame shuffled angrily about a few moments, and then, fixing her eyes intently upon Khesdeb, broke out fractiously: "And what wouldst thou have me do? Surely the magic of Death is more potent than my feeble skill!"

"Ah!" cried Khesdeb eagerly, "but I have heard thou canst call forth the spirit of the dead, and even restore the breath to such as pleaseth thee. Oh, help me, I pray, and do likewise to my beloved Nebka! Lo, I have here certain precious stones, even those that my mother Hatason gave me when I did become the wife of Nehat, the weaver! Take them, and bring back the breath to my Nebka!"

She had eagerly drawn a small casket from her bosom and extended it now imploringly toward the old hag.

Aahmes broke out into a weird peal of shrill, piping laughter. "Oh, thou foolish Khesdeb!" she cried. "What availeth me those sparkling trinkets thou offerest? Know thou, that to call forth the spirit from the judgment hall of Osiris is fraught for me with such danger, that not all the gaudy baubles of Egypt could pay me for my task! Whensoever I dare use my power to lead back the troubled dead to earth, I ask not for polished stones in payment for my skill. It is not oft that I may dare disturb the weary judgment of the soul; yet, lo, thee, now, for that thy husband was kin of mine, shall I do even as thou desirest! Bring thou in the body of thy son!"

Khesdeb hurried out, eagerly unfastened the grewsome bundle from the back of the beast, and carried it in. With the aid of Aahmes she unwound the cerements from her dead son and then placed him tenderly near the pool. Having carefully washed the body in the turbid water, the withered sorceress smeared it with a pungent, aromatic ointment and then scattered a heap of incense on either side. These acts performed,

Sud

she began crooning in a doleful, inarticulate manner. denly she rushed forward and set fire to the herbs, emitting