the sky blood-red with fire, of the ships alongside, of the sea covered with ships and wrecks, of the fight closed in about the pilot's quarter, the assailants many, the defenders few—when suddenly his foothold was knocked away, and he pitched backward. The floor, when he reached it, seemed to be lifting itself and breaking to pieces; then in a twinkling, the whole after-part of the hull broke asunder, and, as if it had all the time been lying in wait, the sea, hissing and foaming, leaped in, and all became darkness and surging water to Ben-Hur.

It can not be said that the young Jew helped himself in this stress. Besides his usual strength, he had the indefinite extra force which nature keeps in reserve for just such perils to life; yet the darkness, and the whirl and roar of water, stupefied him. Even the holding his breath was involuntary.

The influx of the flood tossed him like a log forward into the cabin, where he would have drowned but for the refluence of the sinking motion. As it was, fathoms under the surface the hollow mass vomited him forth, and he arose along with the loosed debris. In the act of rising, he clutched something and held to it. The time he was under seemed an age longer than it really was; at last he gained the top; with a great gasp he filled his lungs afresh, and, tossing the water from his hair and eyes, climbed higher upon the plank he held, and looked about him.

Death had pursued him closely under the waves; he found it waiting for him when he was risen-waiting multiform.

Smoke lay upon the sea like a semi-transparent fog, through which here and there shone cores of intense brilliance. A quick intelligence told him that they were ships on fire. The battle was yet on; nor could he say who was victor. Within the radius of his vision now and then ships passed, shooting shadows athwart lights. Out of the dun clouds farther on he caught the crash of other ships colliding. The danger, however, was closer at hand. When the Astraea went down, her deck, it will be recollected, held her own crew, and the crews of the two galleys which had attacked her at the same time, all of whom were engulfed. Many of them came to the surface together, and on the same plank or support of whatever kind continued the combat, begun possibly in the vortex fathoms down. Writhing and twisting in deadly embrace, sometimes striking with sword or javelin, they kept the sea around them in agitation, at one place inky-black, at another aflame with fiery reflections. With their struggles he had nothing to do; they were all his enemies; none of them but would kill him for the plank upon which he floated. He made haste to get away.

About that time he heard oars in quickest movement, and beheld a galley coming down upon him. The tall prow seemed doubly tall, and the red light playing upon

its gilt and carving gave it an appearance of snaky life. Under its foot the water churned to flying foam.

He struck out, pushing the plank, which was very broad and unmanageable. Seconds were precious-half a second might save or lose him. In the crisis of the effort, up from the sea, within an arm's reach, a helmet shot like a gleam of gold. Next came two hands with fingers extended-large hands were they, and strong-their hold once fixed, might not be loosed. Ben-Hur swerved from them appalled. Up rose the helmet and the head it encased-then two arms, which began to beat the water wildly-the head turned back, and gave the face to the light. The mouth gaping wide; the eyes open, but sightless, and the bloodless pallor of a drowning man—never anything more ghastly! Yet he gave a cry of joy at the sight, and as the face was going under again, he caught the sufferer by the chain which passed from the helmet beneath the chin, and drew him to the plank.

The man was Arrius, the tribune.

My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

He hath showed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek.

The Bible.

THE SLAYING OF HECTOR

BY HOMER

Translation of William Cullen Bryant

Echoes of the Revolution were still to be heard when in 1794, in Cummington, Massachusetts, William Cullen Bryant was born. His

family, like most New England people, believed strongly in religion, books, and a daily life of duty and industry. The busy mother kept a diary in which she jotted down briefly the day's doings, as "Spun four skeins of tow," "Taught Cullen his letters," this last when he was little more than sixteen months old. With something of rigor in its discipline this farm life had much also that was kindly and pleasant. The Bryants were esteemed by their neighbors, there were visits to a grandfather witty and kind if stern, and younger boys and girls to whom to play big brother. The fields about the house sloped steeply to a "brawling brook," so that the boy saw unbroken "the splendors of a winter daybreak, the glories of the autumnal woods, the gloomy approaches of the thunder-storm and its departure amid sunshine and rainbows, the return of spring with its flowers." At twelve he wrote veises on the eclipse of the sun. But the event of Bryant's boyhood was the arrival in the house of Pope's translation of The Iliad, read in the evenings in the glow of the birchwood fire. "I thought them," says Bryant, "the finest verses that ever were written. My brother and I made for ourselves wooden shields, swords and spears, and fashioned old hats in the shape of helmets, with plumes of tow, and in the barn we fought

the battles of the Greeks and Trojans over again." He little dreamed that one day his own translation of The Iliad would find place even above Pope's. When he was fifteen he went to Williams College where, he says, "I gave myself with my whole soul to the study of Greek. I was early at my task in the morning, and kept on until bed-time; at night I dreamed of Greek. At the end of two calendar months I knew the Greek New Testament from end to end almost as if it had been English." Bryant's most famous poem, Thanatopsis, was written at eighteen. He was for fifty years editor of The New York Evening Post. His place in American literature is peculiarly that of a nature poet. He died in 1878.

For ten years the Greeks and the Trojans warred bitterly against each other. Hector, the valiant son of the Trojan king, was the champion of his country's forces, while Achilles was the mighty warrior of the Greeks. The slaying of Hector occurs in the tenth year of the war. Many battles have been fought, Ajax, famous among the Greeks for strength and beauty, has several times engaged Hector in single combat and now at last, Achilles, more terrible even than Ajax, is to fight with him. Achilles has already slain the father and seven brothers of Andromache, Hector's wife. The Trojans have fled within the walls of their capital city, all except Hector, who does not heed his aged father's pleadings not to risk his life, but boldly remains alone outside the gate that he may meet his enemy fairly. In his parting from his wife Hector has tenderly taken his little son in his arms and asked the gods to make him noble of heart so that one day it might be said of him, "This man is greater than his father was." The Iliad, as the whole story is called, and its companion, The Odyssey, are among the oldest poems in literature, and the greatest.

The crested hero, Hector, thus began:

"No longer I avoid thee as of late, O son of Peleus! Thrice around the walls