Across the burning desert’s waste Where the path by skeletons is traced, And the bones of the caravan welter and bleach As thick as the shells on the ocean’s beach, Swift as the winged winds I fly, And my swollen lips are all cracked and dry, And I plead in vain to the rainless sky, While my bloodshot eyes from their sockets burst In the torrid agony of thirst; But the demons that follow laugh and yell As they breathe the native blasts of hell. The simoon’s blast, Oh joy! is past, And the ocean beach is reached at last! A storm is out and the wild winds mock The ship as she drives on a hidden rock, And the sea-gull screams its piercing dirge As the dead drift in on the landward surge. No pause! but quick as thought I lave My burning limbs in the boiling wave, Till I reach a cliff in my watery flight And breathless scale its dizzy height. The ocean’s roar comes faint and weak As I cling to the side of the slippery peak, Watching the wrath of the fearful night By the fitful flash of tempest’s light. Lo! how the eyes of the demons glow As they cleave the boiling waves below! Yelling at me, their helpless prey As bloodhounds yell when the stag’s at bay! They climb! they mount! the demons all, And the beetling cliff begins to fall-- And I wake with a groan and a smothered scream To find it all a fever dream [Illustration: MAJOR E. B. BASSETT Third Infantry, K. S. G.] MAJOR BASSETT’S CHASE. _Text_--“O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight? --Deuteronomy XXXII, 29, 30 Glenraven’s Night Riders, five hundred strong, Had finished their riot of outrage and wrong, They had burned Latham’s warehouse, robbed Italy’s King (What defense in the courts will the criminals bring? Who will dare to defend base ingratitude’s sting?); They have scourged a Kentuckian’s back like a slave, ’Twas the brute deed of cowards, not the just or the brave,[A] McCool on his shoulders plied an overseer’s lashes By the light of two warehouses sinking in ashes. They have dragged helpless maidens from innocent bed, They have shot through the bedrooms of widows--with lead These black-handed anarchists of murder and arson Fired four volleys at a silver haired Methodist parson, And yelled in derision as their shots rang on air, “Denounce us again, Sir Priest--if you dare! Neither for you, nor your Church, nor your God do we care! They have done all that arson and force could achieve, And quaking like cowards the outlaws take leave, Unlike valiant soldiers after manly affray But like thieves from a hen-roost sneak quickly away.