aping up the masts. The sails were all
ablaze. The fire blew hot upon his cheek. It scorched his hair. It was
before him, behind him, all around him.

"O father!" he cried, "may I not go now? The men have all left the
ship. Is it not time that we too should leave it?"

He did not know that his father was lying in the burning cabin below,
that a cannon ball had struck him dead at the very be-gin-ning of the
fight. He listened to hear his answer.

"Speak louder, father!" he cried. "I cannot hear what you say."

Above the roaring of the flames, above the crashing of the falling
spars, above the booming of the guns, he fancied that his father's
voice came faintly to him through the scorching air.

"I am here, father! Speak once again!" he gasped.

But what is that?

A great flash of light fills the air; clouds of smoke shoot quickly
upward to the sky; and--

"Boom!"

Oh, what a ter-rif-ic sound! Louder than thunder, louder than the roar
of all the guns! The air quivers; the sea itself trembles; the sky is
black.

The blazing ship is seen no more.

There was powder in the hold!

* * * * *

A long time ago a lady, whose name was Mrs. Hemans, wrote a poem about
this brave boy Ca-sa-bi-an-ca. It is not a very well written poem, and
yet everybody has read it, and thousands of people have learned it by
heart. I doubt not but that some day you too will read it. It begins
in this way:--

"The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.

"Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm--
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud though childlike form."

ANTONIO CANOVA.

A good many years ago there lived in Italy a little boy whose name was
An-to'ni-o Ca-no'va. He lived with his grand-fa-ther, for his own
father was dead. His grand-fa-ther was a stone-cut-ter, and he was
very poor.

An-to-ni-o was a puny lad, and not strong enough to work. He did not
care to play with the other boys of the town. But he liked to go with
his grandfather to the stone-yard. While the old man was busy, cutting
and trimming the great blocks of stone, the lad would play among the
chips. Sometimes he would make a little statue of soft clay; sometimes
he would take hammer and chisel, and try to cut a statue from a piece
of rock. He showed so much skill that his gra