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"He cried Mary, though a Calvinist, you have heard!" said Pani Yakimovich.

"Throw wood on the fire!" said Kharlamp to the terrified

pages.

He drew near to the corpse, closed the eyelids; then he took from his own armor a gilded image of the Mother of God which he wore on a chain, and placing the hands of Radzivill together on his breast, he put the image between the dead fingers.

The light of the fire was reflected from the golden ground of the image, and that reflection fell upon the face of the voevoda and made it cheerful, so that never had it seemed so calm. Kharlamp sat at the side of the body, and resting his elbows on his knees, hid his face in his hands.

The silence was broken only by the sound of shots.

All at once something terrible took place. First of all was a flash of awful brightness; the whole world seemed turned into fire, and at the same time there was given forth such a sound as if the earth had fallen from under the castle. The walls tottered; the ceilings cracked with a terrible noise; all the windows tumbled in on the floor, and the panes were broken into hundreds of fragments. Through the empty openings of the windows that moment clouds of snow drifted in, and the whirlwind began to howl gloomily in the corners of the chamber.

All the people present fell to the floor on their faces, speechless from terror.

Kharlamp rose first, and looked directly on the corpse of the voevoda; the corpse was lying in calmness, but the gilded image had slipped a little in the hands.

Kharlamp recovered his breath. At first he felt certain that that was an army of Satans who had broken into the chamber for the body of the prince.

"The word has become flesh!" said he. "The Swedes must have blown up the tower and themselves."

But from without there came no sound. Evidently the troops of Sapyeha were standing in dumb wonder, or perhaps in fear that the whole castle was mined, and that there would be explosion after explosion.

"Put wood on the fire!" said Kharlamp to the pages.

Again the room was gleaming with a bright, quivering light. Round about a deathlike stillness continued; but the fire hissed, the whirlwind howled, and the snow rolled each moment more densely through the window openings.

At last confused voices were heard, then the clatter of spurs and the tramp of many feet; the door of the chamber was opened wide, and soldiers rushed in.

It was bright from the naked sabers, and more and more figures of knights in helmets, caps, and kolpaks crowded through the door. Many were bearing lanterns in their hands, and they held them to the light, advancing carefully, though it was light in the room from the fire as well.

At last there sprang forth from the crowd a little knight all in enameled armor, and cried :

"Where is the voevoda of Vilna?"

"Here!" said Kharlamp, pointing to the body lying on the

sofa.

Volodyovski looked at him, and said:

"He is not living!"

"He is not living, he is not living!" went from mouth to mouth.

"The traitor, the betrayer, is not living!"

"So it is," said Kharlamp, gloomily. "But if you dishonor his body and bear it apart with sabers, you will do ill, for before his end he called on the Most Holy Lady, and he holds Her image in his hand."

These words made a deep impression. The shouts were hushed. Then the soldiers began to approach, to go around the sofa, and look at the dead man. Those who had lanterns turned the light of them on his eyes; and he lay there, gigantic, gloomy, on his face the majesty of a hetman and the cold dignity of death.

The soldiers came one after another, and among them the officers; therefore Stankyevich approached, the two Skshetuskis, Horotkyevich, Yakub Kmita, Oskyerko, and Pan Zagloba.

"It is true!" said Zagloba, in a low voice, as if he feared to rouse the prince. "He holds in his hands the Most Holy Lady, and the shining from Her falls on his face."

When he said this he removed his cap. That instant all the others bared their heads. A moment of silence filled with reverence followed, which was broken at last by Volodyovski.

"Ah!" said he, "he is before the judgment of God, and people have nothing to do with him." Here he turned to Kharlamp. "But you, unfortunate, why did you for his sake leave your country and king?"

"Give him this way!" called a number of voices at once.

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Then Kharlamp rose, and taking off his saber threw it with a clatter on the floor, and said:

"Here I am, cut me to pieces! I did not leave him with you, when he was powerful as a king, and afterward it was not proper to leave him when he was in misery and no one stayed with him. I have not grown fat in his service; for three days I have had nothing in my mouth, and the legs are bending under me. But here I am, cut me to pieces! for I confess furthermore [here Kharlamp's voice trembled] that I loved him."

When he had said this he tottered and would have fallen; but Zagloba opened his arms to him, caught him, supported him, and cried:

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By the living God! Give the man food and drink!"

That touched all to the heart; therefore they took Kharlamp by the arms and led him out of the chamber at once. Then the soldiers began to leave it one after another, making the sign of the cross with devotion.

On the road to their quarters Zagloba was meditating over something. He stopped, coughed, then pulled Volodyovski by the skirt. "Pan Michael," said he.

"Well, what?"

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My anger against Radzivill is passed; a dead man is a dead man! I forgive him from my heart for having made an attempt on my life."

"He is before the tribunal of heaven," said Volodyovski. "That's it, that's it! H'm, if it would help him I would even give for a Mass, since it seems to me that he has an awfully small chance up there."

"God is merciful!"

"As to being merciful, he is merciful; still the Lord cannot look without abhorrence on heretics. And Radzivill was not only a heretic, but a traitor. There is where the trouble is!" Here Zagloba shook his head and began to look upward. "I am afraid," said he, after a while, "that some of those Swedes who blew themselves up will fall on my head; that they will not be received there in heaven is certain."

"They were good men," said Pan Michael, with recognition; "they preferred death to surrender; there are few such soldiers in the world."

HYDRIOTAPHIA: OR, URN-BURIAL.

BY SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

(For biographical notice, see page 39.)

Now since these dead bones have already outlasted the living ones of Methuselah, and in a yard under ground, and thin walls of clay, outworn all the strong and spacious buildings above it, and quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three conquests: what prince can promise such diuturnity unto his relics, or might not gladly say,

Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim ?

Time, which antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these minor monuments.

In vain we hope to be known by open and visible conservatories, when to be unknown was the means of their continuation, and obscurity their protection. If they died by violent hands, and were thrust into their urns, these bones become considerable, and some old philosophers would honor them, whose souls they conceived most pure, which were thus snatched from their bodies, and to retain a stronger propension unto them; whereas they weariedly left a languishing corpse, and with faint desires of reunion. If they fell by long and aged decay, yet wrapt up in the bundle of time, they fall into indistinction, and make but one blot with infants. If we begin to die when we live, and long life be but a prolongation of death, our life is a sad composition; we live with death, and die not in a moment. How many pulses made up the life of Methuselah, were work for Archimedes: common counters sum up the life of Moses his man. Our days become considerable, like petty sums, by minute accumulations; where numerous fractions make up but small round numbers; and our days of a span long, make not one little finger.

If the nearness of our last necessity brought a nearer conformity into it, there were a happiness in hoary hairs, and no calamity in half senses. But the long habit of living indisposeth us for dying; when avarice makes us the sport of death, when even David grew politicly cruel, and Solomon could hardly be said to be the wisest of men. early old, and before the date of age.

But many are too Adversity stretcheth

our days, misery makes Alcmena's nights, and time hath no wings unto it. But the most tedious being is that which can unwish itself, content to be nothing, or never to have been, which was beyond the malcontent of Job, who cursed not the day of his life, but his nativity; content to have so far been as to have a title to future being, although he had lived here but in an hidden state of life, and as it were an abortion.

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons of

these ossuaries entered the famous nations of the dead, and slept with princes and counselors, might admit a wide solution. But who were the proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies these ashes made up, were a question above antiquarism; not to be resolved by man, nor easily perhaps by spirits, except we consult the provincial guardians, or tutelary observators. Had they made as good provision for their names as they have done for their relics, they had not so grossly erred in the art of perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, and be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in duration. Vain ashes which, in the oblivion of names, persons, times, and sexes, have found unto themselves a fruitless continuation, and only arise unto late posterity, as emblems of mortal vanities, antidotes against pride, vainglory, and madding vices. Pagan vainglories which thought the world might last forever, had encouragement for ambition; and, finding no Atropos unto the immortality of their names, were never dampt with the necessity of oblivion. Even old ambitions had the advantage of ours, in the attempts of their vainglories, who acting early, and before the probable meridian of time, have by this time found great accomplishment of their designs, whereby the ancient heroes have already outlasted their monuments and mechanical preservations. But in this latter scene of time, we cannot expect such mummies unto our memories, when ambition may fear the prophecy of Elias, and Charles the Fifth can never hope to live within two Methuselahs of Hector.

And therefore restless unquiet for the diuturnity of our memories unto present considerations seems a vanity almost out of date and superannuated piece of folly. We cannot hope to live so long in our names as some have done in their persons. One face of Janus holds no proportion unto the other. 'Tis too late to be ambitious. The great mutations of

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