Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/239

 224 not sorry to be in motion again. Grasping my rifle, after seeing that the charges were right, I strode out by an aperture so narrow that I could scarcely discern a faint glimmer of light at the extremity, and went on, slowly feeling my way, for I knew not what awful pitfall might yawn before me till in the blessed sun shine once more. So, having taken a pull at my flask, I toiled on, and, after about an hour, found myself descending a mountain slope, not a vestige of the astounding vision I had seen being within sight: all lay behind me buried in silence and solitude, a vast and cavernous tomb, never again to be wended, perhaps, by the foot of man.

"Suddenly, however, I was brought up with a start, a cry of suppressed terror escaping my lips; for all of a moment I pulled up on the verge of a chasm some seven or eight feet wide, while it descended down, down below, as into a bottomless pit, lost in a darkness which the sun never lighted up.

"I had blindly, at sudden sight of this horrible chasm, cast my rifle across; and lo! a moment after, a mocking laugh greeted me: an olive-tinted scoundrel I had come into collision with before, and had no reason to love, stood on the opposite side, on a space somewhat lower than the one I occupied. By this he had caught up my rifle, and then put it butt down, leaning against the rock, and within reach of his hand.

"His laugh absolutely chilled me; but, besides his own rifle, he had also mine, and was doubly armed, and had a command of my life any moment he chose. I had no way of escape. Deliberately I saw him lift up his weapon, take aim at me, and I closed my eyes, feeling my knees double under me as I murmured a brief prayer.

"He fired. Why the bullet missed me, as it did, I know not; and attribute it to his having aimed at my head, which my momentary collapse removed out of his line. A moment, and I nerved myself to the worst.

"I sprang across the chasm like a panther, and found myself in his grasp, but my sword-shaped bayonet, which I had instinctively drawn, was driven through his breast, the force of the leap having given me this advantage, and we fell together on the platform."

"Ugh! how shocking! how lucky for you!" And once more every listener's heart experienced a delightfully horrible thrill.

"The impetus of my desperate leap cast us both at the moment from the extreme verge more upon the platform. I was faint with reaction, but this was speedily dissipated by feeling myself being drawn, by the last efforts of a dying determined man, to the edge of the cursed chasm. He intended no doubt that we should both go down together.

"His body was hanging over the ledge, and by an effort I managed to release myself from his relaxing grasp, and then I heard"

Here Steve slightly changed colour.

"I heard that horrid crash which succeeds the fall of a human being from some great height,—a sound that, I venture to say, has not its equivalent in nature: it carries a horror beyond words; and I fainted. * * *

"How I got back to Palermo safe and sound needs further details; but as I am here in good trim to tell you my story, why, my service to you. Lucy, my love, a glass of wine, and if there's another cigar about, I'll thank you to hand it over."

, long ago, I had an aunt,
 * Who took me to the Play,—

An act of kindness that I sha'n't
 * Forget for many a day.

I was a youngster at the time.
 * Just verging on my teens.

And fancied that it must be "prime"
 * To get behind the scenes!

I ventured to express the same,
 * In quite a candid way,

And shock'd my aunt—a proper dame,
 * Although she loved the Play.

'Twas just the moment when Macbeth
 * (Whose voice resembled Kean's)

Was perpetrating Duncan's death
 * O.P.—behind the scenes!

I recollect that evening yet,
 * And how my aunt was grieved;

And, oh! I never can forget
 * The lecture I received.

It threw a light upon the class
 * Of knowledge that one gleans,

Through being privileged to pass
 * His time behind the scenes!

The Columbine I worshipped then
 * Was forty, I should think;

My Count, the commonest of men;
 * My Villain, fond of drink;

The Fairies I believed so fair,
 * Were not by any means

The sort of people I should care
 * To know behind the scenes!

I cannot boast that I enjoy
 * Those stage-illusions still;

I'm getting far too old a boy
 * To laugh or cry at will.

And I can look with languid eye
 * On mimic kings and queens,

And boast that nothing makes me sigh
 * To go behind the scenes!

Ah, shallow boastings! false regrets!
 * The world is but a stage,

Where Man, poor player, struts and frets
 * From infancy to age;

And then leaps blindly, in a breath,
 * The space that intervenes

Between this stage-career and Death,
 * Who lurks behind the scenes!