To return to the subject of voluntary help, we cannot but think that this is an element which, if properly organized, might be turned to great account in national education.

In each town or country district there ought to be an Educational Association. The school inspectors of the district should be members of the association, and should assist in planning the work for volunteers, who would be responsible to them for all work done out of school. But the master or mistress should rule supreme over his or her school, and the volunteer workers be expected to fall in with the plans of the several teachers, though they might assist or even preside at examinations, recitations, or any other public exhibitions that might be instituted occasionally to give life and spirit to the daily routine of school, and to excite the interest of the parents.

This association should receive and register the names of those willing to give any aid. Volunteers should state what kind of work they would undertake, and the amount of time to be given to it; they should be content to work under authority in the matter of bringing up children to a certain standard, though the method need not be prescribed. They would also be expected to visit the parents, to induce them to send their children to school, and to take an interest in furthering their improvement. The school managers should have a voice in accepting or refusing the services of voluntary teachers, though they should not have the right of appointing them. Classes might be formed by these volunteers for children whose attendance at school was necessarily irregular. In all cases the aim should be to work up pupils to the appointed standard. Thus education would come within the reach

of many children who would otherwise be kept at home. Meetings for parents should be held, the fathers to come at night, the mothers in the day-time; and here would be explained the objects of the Educational Association. Every means would be taken to kindle in parents a desire for their children's improvement, and suggestions given as to how they could best assist in their education. Emulation might be excited by speaking of what is done in other countries, and how much they are before us in these matters.

Would not this be a noble cause, and a fitting opportunity for bringing together different classes? They could surely unite in the object of the education of the young, where on one side the ties are so tender, and on the other the responsibility of neglect so great.

We would enter further into the details of such an organization as this, but that we fear to be tedious; and these few hints, indicating the general plan, are as much as the general public can be expected to notice.

In conclusion we would draw attention to the fact, that it seems to be the tendency of the age to seek for cooperation and combination, thus saving power and utilizing it to the utmost. In the plan suggested we have, we believe, but caught the spirit of the age and applied it to education. Scattered over the country are many brave soldiers fighting, single-handed or in small bands, against crying and gigantic evils; these we ardently desire to see united into great armies of workers, well equipped with skill, perseverance and fortitude, and crowned with that true charity without which all our doings are nothing worth.

A. J. C.

CHAP. XXXI.

THE LAST DAYS OF THE SIEGE.

On the twelfth day began another great attack upon the southern and western quarters of the town.

A few words must here be given in explanation of the way in which Abibah had been built.

When the first settlers commenced driving their piles, there was, from some inequality in the nature of the ground at the bottom of the lake, a curved line about eighteen feet in breadth and about a thousand yards in length, in which the piles sank hopelessly into soft mud, finding no footing. This part therefore had been abandoned as foundation, and had been bridged over by flooring which could be easily removed. It divided the city in this way that two-fifths of the city were on the southern and western side of this sort of covered canal, and three-fifths on the other side. The canal itself was called "The Way of the Pescaras" (the largest kind of fish found in those waters). Unfortunately, there was a bit of the eastern quarter of the town which was in a similar way cut off from the main part of that eastern quarter by a canal. The enemy became aware of this fact. That island, if it may be so called, in the eastern quarter, was mainly occupied by a small fortress.

The attack, on the part of the besiegers, commenced at the rising of the sun. The number of assailants who were brought into immediate action was twice as great as that which had been brought into action on the previous occasion. And, moreover, they had this great advantage, that their people had gained and maintained a lodgment in the Street of the Ambassadors. From early morning till late evening the battle raged furiously in the southern and

FRIENDS IN COUNCIL."

western quarters, and also at that part of the eastern quarter which I have described.

All the barricades were forced by the evening. The women and children were hastily removed into the northern and eastern quarters of the town, where the poor creatures were huddled together in the open spaces.

Where the battle raged most furiously was in the great market-place, which, for the sake of convenience, as being nearer to the land whence they drew their supplies, was in the southern part of the town. Here Realmah himself was present, though not taking much part in the action. In his mind he compared the attack of the numerous enemy to a flood of molten lava. The comparison was a just one; for, as in the flow of a stream of lava it is at the edges of the torrent that there is least force, while at the middle part it boils up and overflows the edges, so it was with the attack of the enemy, who pressed over the prostrate bodies of their own men, and overwhelmed Realmah's now disheartened forces.

The shades of evening came on, and found the men of the North in possession of the two-fifths of the town, bounded by the Pescara Canal; and also, which was still more alarming, of the fortress in the eastern quarter of the town. The slaughter on both sides had been immense; and, alas! many women and children of the town of Abibah had been slain during this dreadful day. One remarkable incident must be commemorated. Litervi, that cautious and judicious counsellor, had returned from his mission, and had been placed in command of the eastern fortress. Like another great man whose fate is commemorated in the story of one of the greatest sieges that ever took place in the world, Litervi had found himself alone at the topmost part of the fortress, with

all his warriors slain around him; and, after hurling his massive club (for he was one of those old-fashioned warriors who could not abide the new weapons) upon the enemy beneath him, he threw himself down-being resolved to slay at least one of the enemy by that last missile. This was told to Realmah, who merely remarked that Litervi was a wise, happy, and good man.

Llama-mah, too, had shown his devotion in a very unexpected manner. According to the usual theory, Llamamah, who had been a flatterer in the days of prosperity, ought to have been a coward and betrayer in the days of adversity. But men are so strange in their ways that there is no accounting for them. Llama-mah, at the risk of his own life, and receiving a dangerous wound, had stepped in front of Realmah and saved his life in the great fight in the market-place; for Llama-mah really loved the man he had so often flattered and beguiled.

Realmah sat in the great Hall of Audience on the evening of this day's disastrous fight. A cordon of his guard kept off the crowd of persons who came for orders, admitting them one by one. Suddenly a head, which had been hurled over the canal by the enemy with loud triumphant shouts, was brought to Realmah. He recognised at once the noble features of Londardo, who, it appears, had fallen in some skirmish, while leading the scattered troops of the Phelatahs to the place of rendezvous.

Realmah was much affected by this sight, but did not show what he felt. He merely observed-" Preserve it for a noble burial when we have conquered."

All night long the King received his chieftains, and gave to each man the orders or the encouragement that he required. There was one thing that much astonished these chieftains, who were all men of high rank, namely, that sundry obscure persons, mere artisans, fishermen, and iron-workers, were admitted to Realmah's presence, and had long audiences of the King.

The first faint dawn of morning, with its cold grey light, began to appear. Realmah quitted the Hall of Audience

and went up to the topmost story of his uncle's palace, now his own. Realmah was fond of high places; and this topmost story, or watch tower, having an open gallery round it, was the only addition he had made to that palace.

What a scene was spread before him! Towards the north and west he could hardly discern any water for the innumerable rafts of the enemy, which now surrounded those parts of the town. To the extreme east, however, there was a sight to be seen which gladdened the King's heart. A large army of the Sheviri and their allies was posted on the eastern heights about three miles and a half distant; and, to attack them, numerous bodies of the enemy's troops were already beginning to march eastward, deserting their quarters on the southern shore of the town.

Realmah had ordered that, upon no account, whatever might happen, should he be disturbed while he remained in this watch-tower. Joyfully he observed the movement of the enemy's troops on shore, until the greater part of them had moved to a position within a mile's distance of Athlah's. He then raised a large green flag, and watched with satisfaction his little fleet, which he had kept far out of harm's way until the present moment (a fleet of arrant cowards, as the enemy called them), move in good order, round the eastern part of the town, and take up a position close to the southern quarter of the town, near that part of the shore which the enemy had abandoned.

Meanwhile he had raised a large red flag which he still kept in his hand. One half hour, a time of dreadful suspense, in which Realmah seemed to himself to live a life, passed away; and then, to his infinite joy, appeared in twenty or thirty different places in the southern and western parts of the town, on the further side of the Pescara Canal, light wreaths of smoke-the prelude to so many great fires.

Realmah's plan was simple. He had resolved to sacrifice two-fifths of his town, and by that means to secure victory. His own escape at the outbreak of the revolution had long given him

the groundwork of this plan. He had caused maps to be carefully made of what we may call the underground, or rather underfloor, part of his city, and knew to a nicety those devious paths upon the waters along which small boats could make their way amongst the piles. Thirty canoes, which had been moored under his palace, had been destined for this work of incendiarism: and their men had been furnished with the most inflammable materials.

Realmah had hardly time to descend from his watch-tower and place himself at the head of his troops before the flames had burst out furiously in many quarters of that part of the town occupied by the enemy. They were utterly dismayed by this new and unexpected form of attack, and before they had time to recover their presence of mind, Realmah had thrown planks across the Pescara Canal, forming temporary bridges, and was upon them.

His own people had not thoroughly known Realmah before that day. There are two lines of Byron's which well describe what had been, and what were now, Realmah's feelings and his mode of action:

"Then all was stern collectedness and art,

Now rose the unleavened hatred of his heart."

Thus it is ever with men in whose natures are combined great passion and great prudence. A hundred times, perhaps, they play with the hilt of their swords; and the bystander, or opponent, little knows how much they have longed to draw them, and what restraint they have exercised upon themselves. But when the time has come, and they do flash forth those swords, it is with a fury that contains in itself the long-accumulated passion hitherto oppressed and controlled, but never really annihilated, by the restraints of prudence.

The King's feelings were very bitter against the men of the North. To them he traced all the misfortunes of his life. By reason of them, he had been made a prisoner. For them he had lost his Ainah. To contend with them, he had No. 106.-VOL. XVIII.

left the peaceful paths of life so dear to him, and had become a king, with all the miseries (for to such a man miseries they were) of kingly state. Silently he had seen his choicest troops fall before these barbarians. Silently, and with no outward demonstration of sorrow, but with tears of the heart, he had seen the poor women and children of Abibah slaughtered before his eyes by them; and, at this moment, he saw a large part of the city he loved so well about to be consumed by fire, to get rid of these hateful invaders.

The King was that day as one possessed. Danger and Death, scared by such a madman, fled before him. His guards, the most active and energetic young men, toiled after their sickly, careworn, almost-deformed King, in vain.

The enemy in the city being 'attacked at once by fire, by the fierce. Realmah, and by the fleet of boats which prevented their escape, and cut off their retreat, perished nearly to a man. Those on the rafts made at once for the southern shore, where they joined the main body of the troops, who, discovering the stratagem that had been devised against them, quitted their position opposite to Athlah's camp, and returned to their old quarters.

There was mourning and lamentation in the enemy's camp that night. Three of their greatest chiefs (amongst them it was said the King of the North himself) had perished in the town.

All night the flames rose higher and higher, and affronted the placid skies. These flames did not invade that part of the town which lay to the north and east of the canal; but the rest of the town was completely consumed. There was not, however, a man amongst the Sheviri so base as to deplore publicly the loss of his own habitation.

Meanwhile Realmah joined Athlah. The next day a great attack was made upon the position of the men of the North; and their complete defeat ensued. Hardly a man escaped to tell the tale ; but Realmah, naturally merciful, gave orders for sparing the women and children who had accompanied the men of the North. These were incorporated

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