His friendly expressions had been succeeded by the most insulting epithets. Nothing was of any use. The unfortunate animals, blinded by the lightning, terrified by the incessant peals of thunder, rattling like artillery among the rocks, threatened every instant to break their traces and escape.

2. At that moment, Michael Strogoff threw himself from the tarantass and rushed to his assistance. Endowed with more than common strength, he managed, though not without difficulty, to master the horses.

The storm now raged with redoubled fury. A perfect avalanche of stones and trunks of trees began to roll down the slope above them.

"We cannot stop here," said Michael.

"We cannot stop anywhere," returned the iemschik, all his energies apparently overcome with terror. “The storm will soon send us to the bottom of the mountain, and that by the shortest way."

"Take you that horse, coward," returned Michael. "I'll look after this one."

3. A fresh burst of the storm interrupted him. The driver and he were obliged to crouch upon the ground to avoid being blown down. But the carriage, notwithstanding their efforts and those of the horses, was gradually moving back; and had it not been stopped by the trunk of a tree, it would have been forced over the edge of the precipice.

2

"Do not be afraid, Nadia," cried Michael Strogoff. "I'm not afraid," replied the young Livonian, her voice not betraying the slightest emotion.

4. The rumbling of the thunder ceased for an instant; the terrible blast had swept past into the gorge below.

"Will you go back?" said the iemschik.

"No; we must go on. Once past this turning, we shall have the shelter of the slope."

"But the horses won't move."

"Do as I do, and drag them on.” "The storm will come back."

"Do you mean to obey?"

66 Do you order it?"

"The Father orders it," answered Michael, for the first time invoking the all-powerful name of the Emperor.

"Forward, my swallows!" cried the iemschik, seizing one horse, while Michael did the same to the other.

5. Thus urged, the horses began to struggle onward. They could no longer rear, and the middle horse, not being hampered by the others, could keep in the centre of the road. It was with the greatest difficulty that either men or beasts could stand against the wind, and for every three steps they took in advance they lost one, and even two, by being forced backwards. They slipped, they fell, they got up again. The vehicle ran a great risk of being smashed. If the hood had not been securely fastened, it would have been blown away long before this. Michael Strogoff and the iemschik took more than two hours in getting up this bit of road, only half a verst in length, so directly opposed was it to the lashing of the storm. There was danger, not only from the wind, which battered against the travellers, but from the avalanche of stones and broken trunks which were hurling through the air above their heads.

6. Suddenly, during a flash of lightning, one of these masses was seen crashing and rolling down the mountain towards the tarantass.

The iemschik uttered a cry.

Michael Strogoff in vain brought his whip down on the team; they refused to move.

But a few feet farther on, and the mass would pass behind them.

Michael saw the tarantass struck, his companion crushed; he saw there was no time to drag her from the vehicle.

7. Then, possessed in this hour of peril with superhuman strength, he threw himself behind it, and planting his feet on the ground, by main force placed it ont of danger.

The enormous mass as it passed grazed his chest, taking away his breath, as though it had been a cannonball, then, crushing to powder the flints on the road, it bounded into the abyss below.

"Oh, brother!” cried Nadia, who had seen it all by the light of the flashes.

66

Nadia," replied Michael, "fear nothing!"

"It is not on my own account that I fear."

"God is with us, sister."

"With me truly, brother, since He has sent thee in my way," murmured the young girl.

8. The impetus the tarantass had received was not to be lost, and the tired horses once more moved forward. Dragged, so to speak, by Michael and the iemschik, they toiled on towards a narrow pass, lying north and south, where they would be protected from the direct sweep of the tempest. At one end a huge rock jutted out, round the summit of which whirled an eddy. Behind the shelter of the rock there was a comparative calm; yet once within the circumference of the cyclone, neither man nor beast could resist its power.

SPELL AND GIVE THE MEANING

THE NATIONAL DEBT OF GREAT BRITAIN; MAINLY INCURRED BY OUR WARS.

The full National Debt (1870) is given at
The Interest on that Debt amounts to

During the SEVENTY YEARS of the present Century the
British people have paid the following enormous sums for
War:-
:-

Add to this the Interest of the War Debt (commonly called the National Debt) for the same

ON HEALTH.

I. THE WATER WE DRINK.

1. You may know how necessary water is to our existence when I tell you the quantity of it in the human body. There are 116 lbs. in that of a man weighing 154 lbs., or, according to one eminent physiologist, there are 100 lbs. of water in that of a person weighing 150 lbs. Thus, at the very least, two pounds in every three which our bodies weigh, are simply water.

2. Water is, besides, the vehicle in which a great part of the substances by which disease is caused, enter the system, and hence nothing is more necessary to health than to have our water supply as pure as possible.

3. To have enough at command for all purposes of personal and domestic cleanliness is, also, of vital importance; nor is it sufficient that the quantity be ample for use within doors alone: water should also be freely at command to cleanse the sewers, to lay the dust, and to cool the air all around. Showers are of unspeakable benefit in these ways, washing the air, and flooding off impurities from the ground, and from drains; but there are often lengthened seasons of drought, when they need to be supplemented, as far as may be, by artificial means.

4. The quantity of water which passes off daily through the skin, or otherwise, is, of itself, enough to show how much we depend on this vital necessity; for we thus lose not less than about 3 pints each day.

5. Water is, indeed, next to the air we breathe, in its importance to us, and it is equally necessary to all organized life, for it forms three-fourths of the weight of living animals and plants. Its abundance, as might have been expected, is proportionately great. In rivers, streams, inland seas, lakes, and the great oceans, it forms more than three-fourths of the surface of the world.