Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 338: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HUMILITY. Half his bulk rolled into the cleft thus riven; his tail and one hind limb disap- peared. Slipping and spurring frantically, he managed -to support himself on his huge elbows, but lost ground with every rock of the shuddering earth. The cleft yawned, then half closed again. Thus as in a vise he was held, his leg and tail mangled in the nip of the fissure. He looked like some stu- pendous stoat caught in a gigantic gin. The bellow of his agony pierced even above the thunderous roll of the moun- tain. The blood spurted from his sides, bathing them in a darker tinge than the flame glow. His fore feet beat and thudded on the stones, sweeping them into ridges with the convulsions of his agony. He swung his neck across his shoulders, tearing rabidly at his wounds. The sight was almost too much for human eyes. Gwen had already buried hers against my coat. The breathing. of the sailors behind me grew stertor- ous, as their chests rose and fell in un- conscious sympathy. Speech was taken from us by a very paralysis of horror. But worse was to come. The fiery matter that fevered the vol- cano burst forth again. Again the 329 mountain shuddered, belching forth its flames. , Down the dead waves another living torrent rushed, roared in the deep chan- nel through the glacier, and foamed— yes, foamed—into the widening split. A scream, anguish born and like the crowded wails of ten thousand souls in torment, rose from the prisoned Beast. A pungent, choking smell of roasting flesh rose up to us. Then the red tide flowed on over the charred carrion, and burst asunder again, a gout of steaming gas shot up, sole remnant of the tissues of that enor- mous carcass. } The stream touched and laved lightly at our refuge. Then slowly it dimmed, and the vel- vet surface grew up on it again. The current halted and grew still. Its force was spent. The heat beat up to us scorchingly. We felt, but saw it not. Our faces were averted, and nausea had us by the throat. As the great Beast had died, so might we come to die, and that right soon. : The realization of the matter was more than we could see and not blench. For some half minute no one spoke, and dread hung over us thick as the cloud of cinder dust that filled the sky. (To be concluded.) HUMILITY. I ASK not a life for the dear ones, All radiant, as others have done, But that life may have just enough shadow To temper the glare of the sun. I would pray God would guard them from evil, But my prayer would bound back to myself; Ah! aseraph may pray for a sinner, But a sinner must pray for himself. Charles M. Dickinson, CO GOH GOOO