Almost every evening throughout the season there had been dancing in the great hall; there was dancing that night also. The population of the hotel had been augmented by the advent of families from other parts of the island, who found their summer cottages insecure places of shelter: there were nearly four hundred guests assembled. Perhaps it was for this reason that the entertainment had been prepared upon a grander plan than usual, that it assumed the form of a fashionable ball. And all those pleasure-seekers, representing the wealth and beauty of the Creole parishes, whether from Ascension or Assumption, St. Mary's or St. Landry's, Iberville or Terrebonne, whether inhabitants of the multi-colored and many-balconied Creole quarter of the quaint metropolis, or dwellers in the dreamy paradises of the Têche, — mingled joyously, knowing each other, feeling in some sort akin- whether affiliated by blood, connaturalized by caste, or simply interassociated by traditional sympathies of class sentiment and class interest. Perhaps in the more than ordinary merriment of that evening something of nervous exaltation might have been discerned,something like a feverish resolve to oppose apprehension with gayety, to combat uneasiness by diversion. But the hour passed in mirthfulness; the first general feeling of depression began to weigh less and less upon the guests: they had found reason to confide in the solidity of the massive building; there were no positive terrors, no outspoken fears; and the new conviction of all had found expression in the words of the host himself, — "Il n'y a rien de mieux à faire que de s'amuser!" Of what avail to lament the prospective devastation of cane-fields, - to discuss the possible ruin of crops? Better to seek solace in choregraphic harmonies, in the rhythm of gracious motion and of perfect melody, than harken to the discords of the wild. orchestra of storms; - wiser to admire the grace of Parisian toilets, the eddy of trailing robes with its fairy-foam of lace, the ivorine loveliness of glossy shoulders and jewelled throats, the glimmering of satin-slippered feet, than to watch the raging of the flood without, or the flying of the wrack. . . . -- So the music and the mirth went on: they made joy for themselves those elegant guests;- they jested and sipped rich. wines; they pledged, and hoped, and loved, and promised, with never a thought of the morrow, on the night of the tenth of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six. Observant parents were there, planning for the future bliss of their nearest and dearest; -mothers and fathers of handsome lads, lithe and elegant as young pines, and fresh from the polish of foreign university training; - mothers and fathers of splendid girls whose simplest attitudes were witcheries. Young cheeks flushed, young hearts fluttered with an emotion more puissant than the excitement of the dance; young eyes betrayed the happy secret discreeter lips would have preserved. Slave-servants circled through the aristocratic press, bearing dainties and wines, praying permission to pass in terms at once humble and officious, always in the excellent French which well-trained house-servants were taught to use on such occasions. Night wore on; still the shining floor palpitated to the feet of the dancers; still the piano-forte pealed, and still the violins sang, and the sound of their singing shrilled through the darkness, in gasps of the gale, to the ears of Captain Smith, as he strove to keep his footing on the spray-drenched deck of the "Star." "Christ!" he muttered," a dance! If that wind whips round south, there'll be another dance! . . . But I guess the "Star" will stay." Half an hour might have passed; still the lights flamed calmly, and the violins trilled, and the perfumed whirl went on. . . And suddenly the wind veered! Again the "Star" reeled, and shuddered, and turned, and began to drag all her anchors. But she now dragged away from the great building and its lights,-away from the voluptuous thunder of the grand piano, even at that moment outpouring the great joy of Weber's melody orchestrated by Berlioz: "l'Invitation à la Valse," with its marvellous musical swing! 66 --- Waltzing!" cried the captain. "God help them!- God help us all now! . The Wind waltzes to-night with the Sea for his partner!" ร O the stupendous Valse-Tourbillon! O the mighty Dancer! One-two-three! From northeast to east, from east to southeast, from southeast to south: then from the south he came, whirling the Sea in his arms. - some Some one shrieked in the midst of the revels; girl who found her pretty slippers wet. What could it be? Thin streams of water were spreading over the level planking, -curling about the feet of the dancers. What could it be? All the land had begun to quake, even as, but a moment . before, the polished floor was trembling to the pressure of circling steps; all the building shook now; every beam uttered What could it be? . . . its groan. There was a clamor, a panic, a rush to the windy night. Infinite darkness above and beyond; but the lantern-beams danced far out over an unbroken circle of heaving and swirling black water. Stealthily, swiftly, the measureless sea-flood was rising. "Messieurs mesdames, ce n'est rien. Nothing serious, ladies, I assure you. .. Mais nous en avons vu bien souvent, les inondations comme celle-ci; ça passe vite! The water will go down in a few hours, ladies; - it never rises higher than this; il n'y a pas le moindre danger, je vous dis! Allons! il n'y a My God! what is that?" For a moment there was a ghastly hush of voices. And through that hush there burst upon the ears of all a fearful and unfamiliar sound, as of a colossal cannonade- rolling up from the south, with volleying lightnings. Vastly and swiftly, nearer and nearer it came, a ponderous and unbroken thunder-roll, terrible as the long muttering of an earthquake. The nearest mainland, - across mad Caillou Bay to the sea-marshes,lay twelve miles north; west, by the Gulf, the nearest solid ground was twenty miles distant. There were boats, yes!—but the stoutest swimmer might never reach them now!... Then rose a frightful cry, the hoarse, hideous, indescribable cry of hopeless fear, the despairing animal-cry man utters when suddenly brought face to face with Nothingness, without preparation, without consolation, without possibility of respite. . . . Sauve qui peut! Some wrenched down the doors; some clung to the heavy banquet-tables, to the sofas, to the billiard-tables:- during one terrible instant, against fruitless heroisms, against futile generosities, raged all the frenzy of selfishness, all the brutalities of panic. And thenthen came, thundering through the blackness, the giant swells, boom on boom!... One crash!- the huge frame building rocks like a cradle, seesaws, crackles. What are human shrieks now?-the tornado is shrieking! Another!-chandeliers splinter; lights are dashed out; a sweeping cataract hurls in: the immense hall rises, oscillates, twirls as upon a pivot, crepitates, crumbles into ruin. Crash again!- the swirling wreck dissolves into the wallowing of another mon - ster billow; and a hundred cottages overturn, spin in sudden eddies, quiver, disjoint, and melt into the seething. So the hurricane passed, -tearing off the heads of the prodigious waves, to hurl them a hundred feet in air, heaping up the ocean against the land, — upturning the woods. Bays and passes were swollen to abysses; rivers regorged; the sea-marshes were changed to raging wastes of water. Before New Orleans the flood of the mile-broad Mississippi rose six feet above highest water-mark. One hundred and ten miles away, Donaldsonville trembled at the towering tide of the Lafourche. Lakes strove to burst their boundaries. Far-off river streamers tugged wildly at their cables, shivering like tethered creatures that hear by night the approaching howl of destroyers. Smoke-stacks were hurled overboard, pilot-houses torn away, cabins blown to fragments. And over roaring Kaimbuck Pass, over the agony of Caillou Bay, the billowing tide rushed unresisted from the Gulf, tearing and swallowing the land in its course, ploughing out deep-sea channels where sleek herds had been grazing but a few hours before, -rending islands in twain,and ever bearing with it, through the night, enormous vortex of wreck and vast wan drift of corpses. REGINALD HEBER. HEBER, REGINALD, an English clergyman and poet; born at Malpas, Cheshire, April 21, 1783; died at Trichinopoly, India, April 2, 1826. In 1800 he entered Brasenose College, Oxford. In 1803 he wrote his prize poem, "Palestine," which has been pronounced the best poem of the kind ever produced at Oxford. After taking his degree in 1804, he travelled in Germany, Russia, and the Crimea. In 1815 he preached the Bampton Lectures, his subject being "The Personality and Office of the Christian Comforter." In 1822 he wrote a "Life of Jeremy Taylor," with a critical examination of his writings, and in 1822 was appointed preacher at Lincoln's Inn. In 1823 he accepted the appointment of Bishop of Calcutta, this see then including all British India, Ceylon, Mauritius, and Australia. He wrote a "Narrative of a Journey Through the Upper Provinces of India," which was not published until after his death. His "Life and Unpublished Works," edited by his widow, appeared in 1830. His "Poems" were first published entire in 1841. JERUSALEM. (From "Palestine.") REFT of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn, Mourn, widowed Queen! forgotten Sion, mourn! And wayworn pilgrims seek the scanty spring? No suppliant nations in thy temple wait; No prophet-bards, the glittering courts among, |