Only in the Bay. BY THE AUTHOR OF "TWICE LOST." WE are only in the bay; At our gate the storm must stay, Leave to show his face within. Through our floor the sunbeams go, In a slow embrace,- On a lovely face. Pleasant must it be to stay When the sea looks dim and large, When, like silver javelins hurled From an angry hand, Birds, across the blackness whirled, Then we shake our heads, and say, If a wounded ship and spent Hungry waves that, far from shore, Winds like flame, that smite and tear, Slaying as they go; While white darkness fills the air O! we hold our breath, and say, S. M. VOL. X. NN BY THE AUTHOR OF 66 "It will out." A WHITE HAND AND BLACK THUMB." STUDENTS of classic literature may remember that when the Emperor Caracalla invited Papinianus to justify the fratricide of which he, Caracalla, had been guilty, that polite jurisconsult replied that the murder of one's brother was an act more easy to commit than to excuse. Some time before this, Papinianus' conscience had like to have been put to a still severer test. Caracalla had accompanied his father, Severus, to Britain; and, riding one day in his train, under the control of a frightful impulse, drew his sword to assassinate him. A cry from some one induced the intended victim to turn his head. At his look, Caracalla's weapon stole back to its sheath. That evening Severus summoned his son to his chamber; Papinianus and Castor stood beside him, and on the table lay a naked sword. “If, my son, you desire my life," said the old Roman sternly, “take it now, and here,-not in the light of day and before mankind. If you want courage for such a deed, here stand two men whom I, their emperor, have commanded to obey you." What mild censure would have emanated from the worthy Papinianus had the offer been accepted, can only be matter of conjecture. Caracalla, as we know, turned out so excellent a son, that when at length Severus died the natural death of age, he put to death the entire medical staff, whose exertions had failed to prolong his parent's days. Solon and Romulus, whose criminal codes embraced every imaginable delinquency, assigned no unusual penalty to parent-murder, in a noble pretence of doubt that so foul a crime could stain the annals of humanity. Unhappily, as ages rolled on, it became apparent that the malignity of human passions recognised no such limit; whereupon (said Cicero, pro Roscio Amerino), "Since there is no law so sacred that man's audacity shall not violate it, those whom nature cannot restrain must be deterred by terror-striking punishment." The Roman law ordained that such a criminal be enclosed in a leathern sack, together with a dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape (the first to signify the parricide more brute than man; the second as type of a wild libidinous nature; the third in allusion to the pain which was believed to accompany its nativity; the last because its half-human features destroyed the sole remaining distinction), and with these companions flung into the nearest river. In later times, the law of almost every nation has annexed to the usual penalties of murder some circumstance of obloquy calculated to mark its detestation of this horrible form of turpitude. In this country an exceptional punishment-burning alive-was, as in the case of husband-murder, sometimes applied. At York, in 1705, Mary Coole was convicted of parricide. In her defence, she boldly asserted that her crime was no worse than that of the Parliament of England, who had destroyed the king their father; or of the queen, who had permitted hers to die in exile. She was deprived of her tongue and hand, and condemned to the stake. In France, much later, this crime-even the intention of it-was punished by cutting off the hand; after which the culprit was broken alive on the wheel, his body burned, and the ashes scattered to the winds. And such was the inevitable penalty at the period when the following remarkable case was added to the black archives of French crime. The 16th of October 1712, a fête-day in the little town of St. Barnabé near Marseilles, was, moreover, a day of reconciliation in the family of the Sieur de Salis, a retired officer of distinction, inhabiting a handsome villa just beyond the town. This gentleman's family consisted of seven children, viz. two daughters (professed nuns) and five sons: Antoine (a lieutenant in the navy), Jean-Baptiste, François-Guillaume, Etienne-Gayetan (in the army), and Louis-César, a lad of thirteen. M. de Salis, at forty, had married a woman twenty-two years his junior,-very beautiful, but of a violent, implacable temper. Their married life had consequently been one series of bitter quarrels and hollow reconciliations. In all these, Madame de Salis had never lost sight of one especial object,—that of weakening the bonds of duty and affection between the children and their father, and attaching the former exclusively to herself; an aim in which, as will be seen, she had been but too successful. On the day above mentioned, M. de Salis had been induced to forgive his second son, Jean-Baptiste, a grave dereliction of duty, in having married, without consent, the pretty penniless daughter of M. Senelon, curate of the parish. The reconciliation was, however, complete; and the old gentleman had insisted upon his son's remaining to dinner, though engaged to partake of that meal with his father-in-law. The dinner had passed off with unwonted good humour and cordiality, and Madame de Salis had withdrawn to her own apartment, when François-Guillaume, intending to go to the fête, applied to his father for some money for the purpose. Now it was one of the mother's plans for maintaining her ascendency with the children, to be herself their purse-bearer. Her husband, therefore, unprepared for his son's request, and having, indeed, but little to spare, tendered him a coin of such modest value that the latter conceived himself insulted. This may seem a trifling cause for anger. In point of fact, it was but the breaking forth of that hidden fire which had never ceased to smoulder in the hearts of all the sons against their unhappy father. The latter becoming irritated in his turn, words rose higher and higher; others (especially the newly-pardoned Jean-Baptiste) joined in the quarrel; and finally, Madame de Salis, rushing in, and taking the part of her sons, increased their fury tenfold. At length FrançoisGuillaume, not content with vituperating his father, in his maniacal rage drew his sword. At this last outrage M. de Salis started from his seat, and summoning a Turkish servant-one Hassan-Ali-bade him saddle a horse, loudly declaring his intention to proceed straight to Marseilles and lodge a formal complaint against his unnatural children. Not reflecting that the parent who threatens most loudly is often the slowest to execute, and completely blinded by passion, Madame de Salis exhorted her sons to oppose their father's exit, assuring them that, should he do as he had threatened, their ruin was inevitable. The old gentleman persisting, a desperate struggle commenced, the maddened woman actually dragging him back by the hair of his head, while the sons secured his arms and legs. Thus overpowered, he was flung to the ground, and, in falling, received on the forehead a wound so severe as almost to render him unconscious. Rallying a little, the unhappy father appealed in touching terms to his cowardly assailants: "What have I done to you, boys, that you treat me as though I were your deadly enemy? If you have ceased to obey and honour me as a father, at least remember that we are still united in a common humanity. Look at these gray hairs! Will my own children be my murderers ?" Finding his remonstrances produce no effect, M. de Salis now uttered a loud, lamentable cry; and it was probably in attempting to stifle this that Jean-Baptiste grasped him so tightly by the throat as to reduce him to complete insensibility. In fact, whether or not he died at this instant was never fully known. What is certain is, that the guilty band felt they had now gone too far to recede; and, with clutching, convulsive hands, and-it was said-the sword of François-Guillaume, made their horrible work complete. During the frightful scene, the younger son, Louis-César, had crouched weeping in a corner, longing, but not daring, to succour his father. For a similar reason, the Turkish servant had remained inactive. The only other domestic, Susanne Borelli, was absent at the fête. No sooner was the parricide consummated, than dismay succeeded. The actors in this tragedy, disordered, breathless, flecked with blood, stood gaping in each other's white faces, as though they wist not what next to do. The bright autumn sun streamed in full upon the recumbent figure of their victim. They almost recoiled before the mute |