e's blood on 't--'tis
cursed, 'tis cursed." As Paul swung round with the knife in his hand,
Abel sprang from the door with a shrill cry, and Paul sank on the floor,
muttering to himself, "What said They?"

When he began to come to himself a little, he was still sitting on the
ground, his back against the wall. His senses were yet confused. He
thought he saw his wife near him, and a bloody knife by his side. After
sitting a little longer his mind gradually grew clearer, and at last he
felt for the first time that his hand held something. As his eye fell on
it and he saw distinctly what it was, he leaped upright with a savage
yell and dashed the knife from him as if it had been an asp stinging
him. He stood with his bloodshot eyes fastened on it, his hands spread,
and his body shrunk up with horror. "Forged in hell! and for me, for
me!" he screamed, as he sprang forward and seized it with a convulsive
grasp. "Damned pledge of the league that binds us!" he cried, holding it
up and glaring wildly on it. "And yet a voice did warn me--of what, I
know not. Which of ye put it in this hand? Speak--let me look on you?
D'ye hear me, and will not answer? Nay, nay, what needs it? This tells
me, though it speaks not. I know your promptings now," he said, folding
his arms deliberately; "your work must be done; and I am doomed to it."

RICHARD HENRY DANA, JUNIOR

(1815-1882)

[Illustration: R. H. DANA, JR.]

The literary fame of Richard Henry Dana the younger rests on a single
book, produced at the age of twenty-five. 'Two Years Before the Mast'
stands unique in English literature: it reports a man's actual
experiences at sea, yet touches the facts with a fine imagination. It is
a bit of Dana's own life while on a vacation away from college. The
manner in which he got his material was remarkable, but to the
literature he came as by birthright, through his father, Richard Henry
Dana the elder, then a well-known poet; novelist, and essayist. He was
born in Cambridge in 1815, growing up in the intellectual atmosphere of
that university town, and in due course of time entering Harvard
College, where his father and grandfather before him had been trained in
law and letters. An attack of the measles during his third year at
college left him with weakened eyes, and an active outdoor life was
prescribed as the only remedy. From boyhood up he had been passionately
fond of the sea; small wonder, then, that he now determined to take