As, without sound or struggle, The stars unhurrying march, Where Allah's finger guides them, Through yonder purple arch, These Franks, sublimely silent, Without a quickened breath, Went in the strength of duty Straight to their goal of death. 'If I were now to ask you To name our bravest man, Ye all at once would answer, They called him Mehrab Khan. He sleeps among his fathers, Dear to our native land, With the bright mark he bled for Firm round his faithful hand. 'The songs they sing of Rustum Fill all the past with light; If truth be in their music, He was a noble knight. But were those heroes living And strong for battle still, Would Mehrab Khan or Rustum Have climbed, like these, the hill?' And they replied, 'Though Mehrab Khan was brave, As chief, he chose himself what risks to run; Prince Rustum lied, his forfeit life to save, Which these had never done.' 'Enough!' he shouted fiercely; 'Doomed though they be to hell, Bind fast the crimson trophy Round BOTH wrists--bind it well. Who knows but that great Allah May grudge such matchless men, With none so decked in heaven, To the fiends' flaming den?' Then all those gallant robbers Shouted a stern 'Amen!' They raised the slaughtered sergeant, They raised his mangled ten. And when we found their bodies Left bleaching in the wind, Around BOTH wrists in glory That crimson thread was twined. Then Napier's knightly heart, touched to the core, Rung, like an echo, to that knightly deed, He bade its memory live for evermore, That those who run may read. _Doyle._ XCVIII HOME THOUGHTS FROM THE SEA Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the North-west died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest North-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand and grey; 'Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?'--say, Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. _Browning._ XCIX HERV… RIEL On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, Did the English fight the French,--woe to France! And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue, Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance, With the English fleet in view.