6. He hid it in a cave, and wrought 7. Heaven help us! 'twas a thing beyond 8. For ploughing in the salt sea-field, It would have made the boldest shudder; Untarred, uncompassed, and unkeeled, No sail-no rudder. 9. From neighbouring woods he interlaced 10. But Frenchmen caught him on the beach, 11. With folded arms Napoleon stood, Serene alike in peace and danger; And in his wonted attitude, Addressed the stranger: 12. 'Rash man, that wouldst yon channel pass On twigs and staves so rudely fashioned; Thy heart with some sweet British lass Must be impassioned.' 13. 'I have no sweetheart,' said the lad; 'But-absent long from one another— Great was the longing that I had To see my mother.' 14. 'And so thou shalt,' Napoleon said, So brave a son!' 15. He gave the tar a piece of gold, And with a flag of truce commanded He should be shipped to England Old, And safely landed. 16. Our sailor oft could scantly shift THE FOX WITHOUT A TAIL. [Spell and write] sensible, disgrace, inconvenient, appendage, experience, recovering, unnecessary. A fox being caught in a trap, was glad to compound for his neck by leaving his tail behind him; but, upon coming abroad into the world, he began to be so sensible of the disgrace such a defect would bring upon him, that he almost wished he had died rather than come away without it. However, resolving to make the best of a bad matter, he called a meeting of the rest of the foxes, and proposed that all should follow his example. You have no notion,' said he, 'of the ease and comfort with which I now move about: I could never have believed it if I had not tried it myself; but really, when one comes to reason upon it, a tail is such an ugly, inconvenient, unnecessary appendage, that the only wonder is that, as foxes, we could have put up with it so long. I propose, therefore, my worthy brethren, that you all profit by the experience that I am most willing to afford you, and that all foxes from this day forward cut off their tails.' Upon this one of the oldest stepped forward, and said: 'I rather think, my friend, that you would not have advised us to part with our tails, if there were any chance of recovering your own. [Write from dictation] The cunning old fox, sensible of his disgrace, and knowing that it was impossible to recover his tail, maintained that he found from experience that such an appendage was inconvenient, ugly, and unnecessary. detected, expectation, exclusively, claimants, eagerly, apparently, enterprise, levelled, superior, countenance, supercilious, nonchalance. The first time a man fires at a crocodile is an epoch in his life. We had only now arrived in the waters where they abound, for it is a curious fact that none are ever seen below Minieh, though Herodotus speaks of them as fighting with the dolphins at the mouth of the Nile. A prize had been offered to the man who first detected a crocodile, and the crew had now been two days on the alert in search of them. Buoyed up with the expectation of such game, we had latterly reserved our fire for them exclusively; and the wild duck and turtle, nay, even the D vulture and eagle, had swept past, or soared above us in security. At length the cry of 'Timseach! Timseach!' was heard from half-a-dozen claimants of the proffered prize, and half-a-dozen black fingers were eagerly pointed to a spit of sand on which were strewn apparently some logs of trees. It was a covey of crocodiles. Hastily but silently the boat was run in-shore. R. was ill, so I had the enterprise to myself, and I clambered up the steep bank with a quicker pulse than when I first levelled a rifle at a Highland deer. My intended victims might have prided themselves on their superior nonchalance; and, indeed, as I approached them, there seemed to be a sneer on their ghastly mouths and winking eyes. Slowly they rose one after the other and waddled to the water, all but one, the most gallant or the most gorged of the party. He lay still until I was within a hundred yards of him; then slowly rising on his finlike legs, he lumbered towards the river, looking askance at me with an expression of countenance that seemed to say: 'He can do me no harm; however, I may as well have a swim.' I took aim at the throat of the supercilious brute, and as soon as my hand steadied, the very pulsation of my finger pulled the trigger. Bang! went the gun, whiz flew the bullet, and my excited ear could catch the thud with which it plunged into the scaly leather of his neck. His waddle became a plunge, the waves closed over him, and the sun shone on the calm water as I reached the brink of the shore that was still indented by the waving of his gigantic tail. But there is blood upon the water, and he rises for a moment to the surface. A hundred piastres for the Timseach!' I exclaimed, and half-a-dozen Arabs plunged into the stream. There! he rises again, and the blacks |