as it leaped and turned about. At last it caught sight of its prey. All its feline cunning and cruelty seemed to return and to conspire together in animating the cautious and treacherous movements of its velvet-clothed frame. The whole amphitheater was as silent as if it had been a hermit's cell, while every eye was intent, watching the stealthy approaches of the sleek brute to its victim. Pancratius was still standing in the same place, facing the emperor, apparently so absorbed in higher thoughts as not to heed the movements of his enemy. The panther had stolen round him, as if disdaining to attack him except in front. Crouching upon its breast, slowly advancing one paw before another, it had gained its measured distance, and there it lay for some moments of breathless suspense. A deep snarling growl, an elastic spring through the air, and it was seen gathered up with its hind feet on the chest and its fangs and fore claws on the throat of the martyr.

He stood erect for a moment, brought his right hand to his mouth, and looking up at Sebastian with a smile, directed to him, by a graceful wave of his arm, the last salutation of his lip-and fell. The arteries of the neck had been severed, and the slumber of martyrdom at once settled on his eyelids. His blood softened, brightened, enriched, and blended inseparably with that of his father. mother's sacrifice had been accepted.

The

ALFRED THE GREAT1

A

By CHARLES DICKENS

LFRED the Great was a young man, three and twenty years of age, when he became king." Twice in his childhood he had been taken to Rome, where the Saxon nobles were in the habit of going on journeys which they supposed to be religious; and once he had stayed for some time in Paris. Learning, however, was so little cared for then, that at twelve years old he had not been taught to read; although, of the four sons of King Ethelwulf, he, the youngest, was the favorite. But he had-as most men who grow up to be great and good are generally found to have had an excellent mother; and, one day, this lady, whose name was Osburgha, happened, as she was sitting among her sons, to read a book of Saxon poetry. The art of printing was not known until long and long after that period, and the book, which was written, was what is called "illuminated," with beautiful bright letters, richly painted. The brothers admiring it very much, their mother said, "I will give it to that one of you four princes who

1. This selection is taken from A Child's History of England. Much of the history of Alfred is traditional, and it is not at all probable that Dickens's picture is strictly true.

2. Alfred was a grandson of Egbert, the first king of England. Ethelwulf, son of Egbert, and his three older sons had been kings of England, when in 871 Alfred ascended the throne.

first learns to read." Alfred sought out a tutor that very day, applied himself to learn with great diligence, and soon won the book. He was proud of it all his life.

This great king, in the first year of his reign, fought nine battles with the Danes. He made some treaties with them too, by which the false Danes swore that they would quit the country. They pretended to consider that they had taken a very solemn oath in swearing this upon the holy bracelets that they wore, and which were always buried with them when they died; but they cared little for it, for they thought nothing of breaking oaths, and treaties too, as soon as it suited their purpose, and coming back again to fight, plunder, and burn, as usual. One fatal winter, in the fourth year of King Alfred's reign, they spread themselves in great numbers over the whole of England; and so dispersed and routed the king's soldiers that the king was left alone, and was obliged to disguise himself as a common peasant, and to take refuge in the cottage of one of his cowherds who did not know his face.

Here, King Alfred, while the Danes sought him far and wide, was left alone one day, by the cowherd's wife, to watch some cakes which she put to bake upon the hearth. But, being at work upon his bows and arrows, with which he hoped to punish the false Danes when a brighter time should come, and thinking deeply of his poor unhappy subjects whom the Danes chased through the land, his noble mind forgot the cakes, and they were burnt. "What!" said the cowherd's wife, who scolded him well when she came back, and little thought she was scolding the king, "you will be ready enough to eat

them by and by, and yet you cannot watch them, idle dog?"

At length, the Devonshire men made head against a new host of Danes who landed on their coast; killed their chief, and captured their flag, on which was represented the likeness of a Raven-a very fit bird for a thievish army like that, I think. The loss of their standard troubled the Danes greatly, for they believed it to be enchanted-woven by the three daughters of one father in a single afternoon— and they had a story among themselves that when they were victorious in battle, the Raven stretched his wings and seemed to fly; and that when they were defeated, he would droop. He had good reason to droop now, if he could have done anything half so sensible; for King Alfred joined the Devonshire men, made a camp with them on a piece of firm ground in the midst of a bog in Somersetshire, and prepared for a great attempt for vengeance on the Danes, and the deliverance of his oppressed people.

But first, as it was important to know how numerous those pestilent Danes were, and how they were fortified, King Alfred, being a good musician, disguised himself as a gleeman or minstrel, and went, with his harp, to the Danish camp. He played and sang in the very tent of Guthrum, the Danish leader, and entertained the Danes as they caroused. While he seemed to think of nothing but his music, he was watchful of their tents, their arms, their discipline, everything that he desired to know. And right soon did this great king entertain them to a different tune; for, summoning all his true followers to meet him at an appointed place, where they received him with joyful shouts and tears, as

the monarch whom many of them had given up for lost or dead, he put himself at their head, marched on the Danish camp, defeated the Danes with great slaughter, and besieged them for fourteen days to prevent their escape. But, being as merciful as he was good and brave, he then, instead of killing them, proposed peace, on condition that they should altogether depart from the western part of England and settle in the east, and that Guthrum should become a Christian in remembrance of the Divine religion which now taught his conqueror, the noble Alfred, to forgive the enemy who had so often injured him. This Guthrum did. At his baptism, King Alfred was his godfather. And Guthrum was an honorable chief who well deserved that clemency; for, ever afterwards, he was loyal and faithful to the king. The Danes under him were faithful too. They plundered and burned no more, but worked like honest men. They ploughed, and sowed, and reaped, and led good honest English lives. And I hope the children of those Danes played, many a time, with Saxon children in the sunny fields; and that Danish young men fell in love with Saxon girls, and married them; and that English travelers, benighted at the doors of Danish cottages, often went in for shelter until morning; and that Danes and Saxons sat by the red fire, friends, talking of King Alfred the Great.

All the Danes were not like these under Guthrum; for after some years, more of them came over, in the old plundering and burning way-among them a fierce pirate of the name of Hastings, who had the boldness to sail up the Thames to Gravesend with eighty ships. For three years there was