In the spring and summer of 1844 rain began to fail, and the first things that perished for want of water died that year. But the moisture of the earth was still abundant, and the plants which took deep root found sustenance below; so that the forest trees showed an abundance of foliage, and the harvest in some kinds was plentiful. Towards the autumn rain returned again, and every thing appeared to be recovering its former order; but the dry winter, the dry spring, dry summer of the next year, told upon the face of creation. Many trees put forth small and scanty leaves, and many perished altogether; whole species were cut off; for instance, except where they were artificially preserved, one could not find a living ash or beech—few were kept alive by means of man; for water began to be hoarded for the necessaries of life. The wheat was watered, and, where such a thing was possible, the hay-fields also; but numbers of animals died, and numbers were killed this year—the first from thirst, and the last to reduce the consumers of the precious element. Still the rich commanded the necessaries, and many of the luxuries of life; and the arts which required a consumption of water were carried on as yet, and continued in practice even longer than prudence warranted: so strong was the force of habit, and the pressure of the artificial necessities which they supplied. The railroads were as yet in activity, and when water failed along the line, it was brought from the sea by the rich companies concerned in the traffic; only the fares were raised, and the trains which ran for pleasure merely, were suspended. But, in the midst of business and interest, there was a deep gloom. Projects which affected the fortunes of nations were in suspense, because there was no rain. Cares for the succession of crowns, and the formation of constitutions, might all be futile, if there should be no rain: and it seemed as if there never would be any; for this was now the third year, and the earth had not received a shower. And now, ceasing to be supplied from their usual sources, the springs and rivers withered and shrank. Water became in many places not dear, but unattainable. The greatest people of the land left it, and used their wealth in chasing the retreating element from place to place on the earth. In some cases, among these luxurious spirits there were scenes of extravagant revelry still; they had no employment except to live, and they endeavoured to make the act of living as exciting as their old amusements had been. But accounts of foreign countries came more and more rarely to England; for when the fourth rainless year arrived, drought and famine had slain three-fourths of its inhabitants, and commerce and agriculture were alike suspended. When a vessel came as far up in the mouth of a river as the sinking waters permitted, it brought tidings of desolation from whatever port it had left. Stories began to spread of dry land in parts of the ocean where it had never been seen before; marks which had stood in the deep of the sea might now be walked round at all times of the tide, and thick crusts of salt were beginning to spread upon tracts of the great deep. These tidings from foreign lands came at long intervals, and at long intervals was a ship sent from any English haven. The few dwellers of the coast knew not if there were still any dwellers of the interior: for England was become like the desert; and there were no beasts to carry one across it, and no water to be hoarded in skins for the passage. Traffic of every kind ceased; industry was gone; the secrets of science, and the cultivated mind of the philosopher, were all bent to the production of water; and many a precious object was resolved back into its elements, and afforded a scanty supply to a few parched mouths. The lingering inhabitants had the produce of past years only to live upon, which nothing replenished as it diminished, and to renew which the baked earth was wholly incompetent.

In the heart of this desert, there was a family which had hitherto survived the destruction of life around them. It consisted of a father and mother, and two young children, Charles and Alice; the last of whom, the girl, was but a few months old when the Great Drought began. They had lived in Derbyshire, near the range of low hills called the Peak; and they and other inhabitants of that region had found water longer than many others, from the sides of the hills, and from excavations which they had made in the rocks. The strong hope and expectation of rain had kept them lingering on as long as any supply lasted; and Paulett, who in the days when ranks existed, had been a great landlord, had used both his knowledge and his influence to supply the wants of the people, and to postpone their destruction. But those days were gone by; his possessions were so much dust: he wanted water, and nobody wanted any thing else. He was a mere man now, like those who are born naked and die naked, and had to struggle with the needs of nature, even as every one else. Meantime his education availed him; and the resources which it taught him prolonged the lives of his family and himself. But he was soon obliged to limit himself to this sole care; for the supply he obtained was scanty, and he knew how precarious it must be. He had explored the cavern of the Peak with great attention, and he bored the rock in various places, and used means suggested by his knowledge of natural causes, which had procured a slender flow of water into a basin which he had made. The fury of thirsty men for water was so great, that he was obliged to keep his secret with the utmost care; and towards the end of the fourth year, he removed his wife and children to the cavern itself, and blocked up the entrance, in such a manner that he could defend it against any chance survivor. There was no want of the luxuries of furniture in the cavern—all the splendours of the land were at the command of those who would take them; and Paulett brought there whatever had adorned his home when the earth was a fit dwelling-place for man. There was velvet and down to lie upon; there were carpets on which the little Alice could roll; there were warm dresses, and luxurious ornaments of the toilette; whatever could be used for comfort he had brought, and all other precious things he had left in his open house, locking himself and his family up with only water. At first there would come sometimes a miserable man or woman, tracing the presence of living creatures, and crying for water. Paulett or his wife supplied several, and when they had been refreshed, they revealed the secret to others; or, being strengthened themselves, felt the desperate desire of life revive, and attempted violence to get at the treasure. After this the inhabitants of the cavern fell back to mere self-preservation; and the father and mother were able to harden their hearts against others, by looking at the two creatures whom they had born into the world, and who depended upon them. But, indeed, life seemed to shrink rapidly to nothing over the face of the country. It was very rare to see a moving form of any kind—skeletons of beasts and men were in plenty, and their white bones lay on the arid soil; or even their withered shapes, dried by the air and the sun, were stretched out on the places where they had ceased to suffer: but life was most rare, and it became scarcely necessary to use any precaution against an invader of their store. The dreadful misery was, that this store diminished. The heart of the earth seemed drying, and was ceasing to be capable of yielding moisture, even to the utmost wrenching of science. There was so little one hot day, that Paulett and Ellen scarcely moistened their lips after their meal of baked corn, and warned their children that the draught they received was the only one that could be given them. Charles was now seven years old, and had learned to submit, but his longing eyes pleaded for more; little Alice was clamorous, and the mother felt tears overflow her eyes to think that there was no possibility of yielding to that childish peevishness, and that the absolute non-existence of water must punish her poor child’s wilfulness. When Paulett had set his instruments to work, to renew if possible the supply, and when Ellen had removed the silver cups and dishes which had held their corn and water, he and she sat down at the mouth of the cavern, and the little ones got their playthings, and placed them on piece of rock not far off. The mouth of the cave is lofty, and there is a sort of terrace running along one side, at the foot of which lay the channel of the stream, that was now dry. The view is down the first reach of a narrow valley, which turns presently afterwards, and so shuts out the world beyond from sight; and the hill on each side rises high, and from its perpendicularity seems even higher than it is. The shade of the cavern was deep and cool, but the sky glowed with the heat and light of the sun, and there was not a cloud to hinder him from burning up the earth. The hill-sides, the channel where the brook had flowed, the stones of the cave, were all equally bare; there was no sound of voice, or bird, or insect—no cool drop from the ceiling of the cave—no moisture even in the coolness of the shadow. Ellen leaned her head on her husband, and Paulett pressed his arm round her—both of them were thinking of the basin empty of water.

“Ellen,” said Paulett, “I think the time is come when the elements shall melt with fervent heat. It seems like the conflagration of the world; not indeed as we have always fancied it, with flames and visible fire, but not the less on that account the action of heat. It is perhaps the Last Day.”

“I hope it is,” said Ellen, “I hope it is; I wish those precious creatures may be among those that are alive and remain, and may be spared the torments of this thirsty death.”

“You and I could bear it, if they were gone,” said Paulett, glancing at them and withdrawing his eyes.

“Oh, yes!” said Ellen, pressing near to him, and taking his hand in both hers. They were silent, and they heard the children talking as they played.

“There is King Alexander,” said Charles, setting up a pebble—“he is going to dinner. Put the dinner, Alice.”

Alice set out several other pebbles before King Alexander.

“And he has got a great feast. There is plenty of water, more than he can drink; and he drinks, drinks, as much as he likes, and still there is plenty of water when he goes to bed.”

“Poor children! I can’t bear it,” said Ellen.

“Oh, Ellen, it would have been better never to have given them birth!” said Paulett.

“No—not that,” said Ellen, sitting down again; “though they must suffer, they are better to be; when this suffering has dissolved their bodies—on the other side of these mortal pains there is ease and happiness.”

“True, true, dear Ellen,” said Paulett; “it is only difficult to die.”

He held her hand; and while he did so, his eye fastened on a diamond ring which she wore. She observed his fixed look.

“You gave me that when we little thought how it was we should part—when I was a bride—and there was all the pleasure and business of the world round us. It hardly seems as if we were the same creatures.”

“No, we are not; for I am thinking, concerning that ring which you were never to part with, whether I could not convert the diamond into water.”

“How, Paulett?”

“I can’t explain it to you; but it has just crossed my mind that it is possible; and if so, there are still plenty of jewels in the world to keep us alive.”

He drew off the ring as he spoke, and went into the interior of the cave, whither Ellen followed him. There was a fire, and some apparatus belonging to Paulett, which he had used in experiments upon the decreasing water of the basin. He knocked the stone out of its setting, and applied himself to decompose it over the fire. He put forth all his skill and all his power, and was successful; the diamond disappeared, and there remained a few drops of water. He looked at his wife and smiled; she raised her eyes to his, astonished and pleased, took the cup from his hand, and looked at the precious metamorphosis.

“I’ll give it the children,” she said, and was going away; but he stopped her. “No, Ellen, there is not enough to do any good; you and I will drink each other’s health in it; and he put the cup first to her lips and then to his own. God bless you, my Ellen!” he said, “my wife—I pledge you again with that diamond. The first drop of water comes from the stone that plighted my faith to you, and may it bring you health and happiness yet.”

“God bless you, my husband! If we could but die now!”

Chapter II.

Paulett now exerted himself to collect all the diamonds that remained without owners in the neighbourhood. First he visited his own forsaken home, and took thence the jewels, which he had neglected in his retreat from it, but which were now as precious as water. He found no great store even after ransacking all the houses within reach, and determined to undertake a longer journey in search of more. The basin in the cavern continued to yield a scanty supply of water; and Paulett extracted a small quantity from his stones. He made what provision he could for his family before setting out; and for his own necessities took the smallest possible portion, in a silver vessel, which was most preciously secured, and concealed about his person. It was a strange parting between his wife and him, both of them feeling and saying, that alive they should probably not meet again: yet death was so near them constantly, and was so far better than life, that his presence had grown familiar; and it was only the mode in which he would come that made them anxious. Paulett perishing alone of thirst was the fearful image to Ellen, and Ellen and her children waiting for him in vain, and dying one after the other for want of his help, was the dread of Paulett. They stood in the cavern, and embraced each other silently, and blessed their children with the same prayer for the last time. The little ones received and returned his caress, and Paulett quitted the cavern and set out on his uncertain expedition.

The face of the country was so much changed that he had some difficulty in making his way. The vivid colours of the earth were all gone, and in place of them was the painful greyness of the dead trees, and the yellow of the parched soil. Nothing was overthrown in ruin, but all stood dead in its place. The shapes of men and animals only lay strewn upon the earth. The human beings were comparatively rare; they were the last survivors of the destroying drought whom there had been none to bury; but these at length had died by hundreds, and in places their bones were seen whiter than any other object; or if any where over the surface there hung a vapour, it came from some collection of dead bodies which had not yet been resolved into the elements. Those whom he found there were mostly in heaps—the beasts had died singly; near what had been water-courses he saw more than once signs of struggle, and the last battles of earth had been fought for possession of its waters. He traced out many a pathetic story among the dry bones and faded garments. Women’s dresses were there; and fallen into a shapeless heap on what had been their bosom, were little forms, and the raiment of children. Where the dry air and the sun had preserved the face, he beheld the fallen estate of those who had been men in the uncovered shame of death; the wide open lips, the sunken eyes, over which the eyelid was undrawn, the swollen tongue, the frame writhed into an expression of anguish, revealed all the pain and shame of death. But here and there, the hand of some one who had been a survivor, was visible in the attempt to conceal all this. In one place there was a shallow grave, into which a body had been rolled, and lay on its side; and close by, on a heap of clothes, out of which bones appeared, there was a spade with which the unfinished work had been attempted. In another, a female body was covered from sun and moon by a man ’s cloak; and a few paces off lay a man, whom nothing shielded. There was an infant’s skeleton wrapped in a woman’s shawl, under what had been a hawthorn hedge; the mother had either perished attempting to find water, or had laid her child down, and gone away, like Hagar in the desert, not to see it die. The poor innocent’s skull was turned on its shoulder; its cheek must have rested there while the face remained. It was too young to have struggled much. Paulett thought of his little Alice; of her unconsciousness to the fate around her; of what would be her and Charles’s and poor Ellen’s fate, if he failed in his search, or perished by the way. He roused himself from looking on all these sorrowful objects, and went on his dreary way. The second day after he left the cavern, he came to a stately pile of building, which he determined to explore for the life-giving stones he was in search of. It stood upon its terraces, surrounded by its colonnades and garden-steps, in all its old pride and beauty. Its forests were withered indeed, its gardens burned, its fountains dry; but the palace glanced back the sunlight, and was as steadfast and perfect as in the days of the living. Paulett drew near, and found, as he came close, signs of the last days of life in it. The doors were opened to the air; and a few marks of objects removed, remained in the outer rooms. There was scoring and dragging on the marble floor; and Paulett doubted for a moment what had left these marks, till he saw on one side of a gilded table, a barrel, lying there empty, from which the top, as it seemed, had been accidentally knocked, and the liquor had flowed out. The marble bore the stain of wine, and where it had flowed, the slabs were broken in two places, perhaps from the violence of the struggle of those who saw the liquid flow, to wet each one his own parched lips. Paulett thought the lord of the castle had probably deserted it before the worst crisis arrived, and had tried to remove what was most valuable in his possession. He went on through long galleries and magnificent rooms, all silent as death, statues, which represented man in his glory and his strength; books, which were the work of that high spirit, now extinguished under the pressure of bodily wants; luxurious superfluities, which were for better days of the world—all was valueless, all open; he might go where he would, till at length one door resisted his efforts, and seemed to have been barred with a certain care from within. Paulett’s heart beat high. Was there some one still living like himself; another human creature struggling for existence in this great world, and guarding, as he had done in his cavern, his treasure of water? Should he have another companion to speak with; another, with whom, perhaps, to get over the evil days; to whom to communicate his secret of producing water from diamonds? For the first time since he left the cavern, he spoke aloud—he called—he called in the great silence of the earth, but nothing answered him. If any one were still alive, he might be afraid of another living creature—had not he himself left pistols loaded for his poor Ellen, to defend her life and her children, if any human being should come near her? He gently shook the door; then proceeded to more violence, and forced it open. It was the door of a great dining-room, on whose lofty ceiling, as he entered it, wreaths of smoke rolled, which the air had put in motion, and a heavy smell, as of burned charcoal, struck him as he entered. There were no living creatures—the inhabitants were all dead in the last posture of life. The table was covered with silver and gold vessels, and among them were dead flowers and fruits, dried by the close chamber. It should seem they had drunk deeply before they died here—perhaps they had collected the last liquids, and resolved to perish when they had once more feasted: for there was wine still in some of the vessels, nay, in one there was water; and the ghostly shapes were adorned and fantastically covered with jewels and velvet, and all sort of rare and exquisite ornaments. Some were still on chairs, some fallen forward on the table, some prostrate, as if they had lain down to sleep. There were fragments of shivered glass on the floor; there was a statue broken to pieces on the table, on the pedestal of which was written “Patience;” there were pieces of torn paper in the hands of one, which seemed a letter; all these faint shadowings of long stories, and of a scene of which there remained no witness, struck Paulett’s eye. One had sunk down by the silver tripod in which the charcoal had burned, and the match that fired it was amongst his garments. One face was there, resting on a sofa, still perfect enough to show it had been a beautiful woman; and roses, artfully made close to nature, crowned the long hair which fell upon arms from which the flesh had withered. On the neck were diamonds, on the hands diamonds—diamonds had confined the ringlets—diamonds sparkled on the feet. Paulett shuddered as he took them away. The spirit, indeed, was gone; but here was the last act of the spirit before it plunged into an unknown region, it knew not where. Paulett asked himself where. “A little longer,” said he, “and they must have died; could not they wait their time, and take patience with death? Must they die in drunkenness, in madness; worse than beasts?” Then his own thirsty eyes fixed on the table, where, in the light of the sun, the water sparkled, and gave rainbow rays. He forgot all beside, in the impulse which urged him to seize and drink—to drink the first draught—to satiate his throat with water. He drank and revived; and then blamed himself for yielding so passionately to the impulse which was now passed away; and as it passed, the horror of the scene around him acquired greater force, and he longed to be out of its influence. He made haste to collect all the jewels around him, and when he had done, found that his burden was as much as he could safely carry. He went hastily out of the room, as if any of these figures could rise and follow him, and fastened the door again, where the crime had been wrought. He hastily crossed the marble halls and gilded rooms, and came out in the sunlight—the splendid, solemn sunlight that looked upon a burnt-up world!

Chapter III.

Meantime, poor Ellen waited anxiously in the cavern, and as soon as the first possible moment for Paulett’s return was passed, her fears grew strong. There was so much danger for him in the bare desert, with his scanty supply of water, that she might well listen to fear as soon as it had any reason to make itself heard; and with this dread, when she next drew water from her scanty supply, came the horrible torment of the anticipated death by thirst, which seemed descending upon her children and her. The day she had thought he would return rose and set, and so did another and another; and from fearing, she had begun to believe, indeed, that Paulett’s earthly hours were passed. Yet hope would not be subdued entirely; and then she felt that perhaps by prolonging their lives another day only, she should save them to welcome him, and to profit by his hard-earned treasure. The store of water was sacredly precious. She dealt it out in the smallest portions to her children, and she herself scarcely wetted her lips; she hardened her heart to see her boy’s pale face, her girl’s feverish eye; she checked even the motherly tenderness of her habits, lest the softening of her heart should overcome her resolution; and so she laid them in their beds the third night of her dread, when indeed there was scarce another day’s supply. She herself lay on hers, but deadly anxiety kept her from sleeping, and her ears ached with the silence which ought to have been broken by a step. And at last, oh joy! there was a foot—yes, a few moments made that certain, which from the first indeed she believed, but which was so faint that it wanted confirmation to her bodily sense. Up sprang Ellen, and darted to meet him. She held forward the candle into the air, and, lo! it was a woman. Ellen screamed aloud; the woman had seen her before and said nothing, only pressed forward. “Who are you?” cried Ellen; “are you alive?” “Yes, just alive; and see here,” said the woman, uncovering the face of her young child—“my child is just alive too; give me water before it dies.” “Then my children will perish,” said Ellen. “No, no,” said the woman; “how are you alive now unless you have plenty? All mine are gone but this one; my husband died yesterday; ours has been gone for days.” “My husband is dead, too,” said Ellen, “and I have only one draught left.” “Then I will take it,” said the mother, rushing forward. Ellen caught her and struggled with her; the poor child moaned in its mother’s arms, and a pang shot through the heart of Ellen. “For God’s sake, miserable woman,” she said, “do not go near that basin! You are mad with want; you will leave none for my children. Stay here, and I will bring your child water. You and I can want, and yours and mine shall drink.” But the desperate woman pressed on; her eyes fixed on the water, and dilated with intense desire; her lips wide open, dying almost for the draught. Ellen’s soul was concentred in the fear, that the last hope of her boy and girl’s life was about to be lost; she struggled with the woman with all her might; she screamed aloud; she lost her hold; she seized a pistol from the table, and close as she was to her adversary, fired it full at her. The mother fell, with a shriek. Ellen started forward and broke her fall, and laid hold on the child to free it from her dying grasp. “Give him me, give him me!” said the mother, struggling to lift herself up, and stretching her hands out for the boy. The trembling Ellen stooped to give him to her, but the child’s head dropped on one side as she held him out; he made no effort to get into his mother’s arms. Ellen wildly raised his face, and he was dead too. The shot had gone through his breast to his mother’s, and a little blood began to steal from his lips. “He’s dead!” said the mother, who was herself passing away. “Oh, my boy!” and then feebly, with her fast-failing strength, she raised him, after more than one effort, in her arms, and pressed her lips to his twice, with all the passion that death left in her. The wasted form of the child lay there, all pale and withered, the straight brown hair was parted on his thin forehead; the mother’s uncovered breast, where his head rested, was white, and the hands delicate; the raiment was luxurious; that head had not been reared in the expectation of dying on a bed of rock. Ellen burst into floods of tears, and wrung her hands as she stood by, looking on what she had done. The woman lifted her eyes, and tried to form her lips into a smile; she no longer felt any vehement passion, and the torment of thirst was now only one of the pangs of death. Her eyes wandered to the water, but when Ellen moved to fetch some, she stopped her.

“No; it was for him. He is at ease now. You did right. Don’t grieve.”

“Forgive me,” said Ellen, kneeling down at her side.

“Oh yes! the poor precious babe suffers no more. I was mad; you said truly in that. I nursed him at my breast till his lips grew dry even there; we lived not far from your cavern, and I have seen you, and been glad you had water. We had some. We? Yes, is not my husband dead; and my boy is dead too! See, there is blood on his face; wipe it away; he will die else.” Ellen’s sobs caught her wandering attention. “I remember now, you killed him; oh, good angel, guardian angel! you have killed him, and there is only I to suffer. He is gone from this dear, dear body; I wish it did not look so like him still—and it looks in pain too—it looks thirsty.”

Ellen hid her own face on the mother’s shoulder for an instant.—Her children had awakened at the noise of the pistol, and they were out of bed and clinging around her; her sorrow roused theirs, and the sound of their lamentation reached the dying woman’s ear.

“There are my children crying. Alas! I thought they had all been dead.”

“They are mine,” said Ellen. “Yours are at rest, yours are all dead.”

“Thank God!” said the mother; and though the words were earnest, the voice was faint; all the effort of nature was in them, but they came feebly from her lips. After that, indistinct sounds and murmured names only were heard; her breath came in gasps, and at longer and longer intervals; till the faint shuddering of her limbs ceased by degrees, and after it had been insensible to the world for a while, the spirit quitted it for ever. Ellen’s heart died within her; her senses were troubled, and she pressed herself in Paulett’s arms without knowing when he came, or being surprised that he was there. “Oh, Paulett!” she said at last, “I have not done wrong, but it is so dreadful!” Paulett soon gathered from her all that had happened; and gazed with pity on what had once been a beautiful form, but rejoiced that it suffered no longer. Ellen, shuddering, arranged the dress, composed the limbs, and, with a thousand tears, placed the infant on that breast which had been so faithfully its mother to the last. And there they slept, mother and child—the day of trouble ended for both.

“My poor Ellen,” said Paulett, “I wish it were thou and my children who were there at rest!” and Ellen pressed her Charles and her Alice to her heart, and would have been glad if they had indeed been dead.

Chapter IV.

In that time of trouble and of unexampled events, the mind received impressions in a different manner from what it had ever done before. The stern gloom that hung over the future, the hazard upon which life was suspended, the close contact with universal death, and the desperate struggle by which it was staved off, gave to all things a new character; and the scene of the last chapter was but one of the series of deadly and dreadful excitements which were now the habit of every day. The solemn frame of mind which it induced in Ellen, was of a piece with the solemn nature of their existence; and she could talk of it with her husband at any time, and not disturb the natural bent which their conversation took. They searched the immediate neighbourhood for the habitation of the unhappy mother and her family; and the marks of her footsteps on the dust of the soil enabled them to trace her to Hope, a village in the plain, two miles, or rather more, from the Peak. She and her husband had used the church for their habitation, and it seemed had employed the same kind of precaution as Paulett to defend it and conceal that it was their dwelling. One entrance only was left, and the other apertures blocked up; but all care was useless now, for death had set them free from pain and fear. On a bed beside the altar lay the body of a man, over which as spread a cloak of fur and velvet, which in the lifetime of the world would have been most precious. His eyes were decently closed, the curtains of the bed drawn round him, and the pillow which supported his head was marked with the pressure of another head, and with moisture which could have been only the tears of his wife. The floor of the church was in confusion, like the dwelling of one too much distracted with trouble to attend to what did not relate to it; but there was corn which had served for food, and fuel heaped on the stone which had been a hearth—there was the drawing of a lovely woman and of a beautiful place: but these were cast into a corner, probably by the irritable hand of despair. On a table stood empty cups, which had long, perhaps, been dry—the glass of one had been shivered, and the fragments lay on the floor; there were also a few books, neglected and covered with dust. In the churchyard were the marks of three recent graves—one of them had a stone at its head, on which was carved with care the name of Alfred, and the soil was fenced and supported with sticks, so as to preserve its shape over the body—probably it was that of the first child whom the parents had committed to dust. Another was more hastily prepared, and no superfluous labour had been bestowed on it. This must be the last, when heart and health were both failing. Paulett and Ellen kneeled and prayed beside them, and rejoiced that the mother, too, was at rest after the long misery of this scene. They returned to their cave, and, under the shadow of the rock near the old course of the brook, laid both mother and child, covering their bodies with stones, and thinking more of the probable reunion, in some unknown scene, of the spirits of that family, than of the distance which separated their graves on this earth.

And now, with good store of diamonds, and with increasing skill and success in the resolution of them into water, both Paulett and Ellen looked upon the lives of all as safe for the present, and their thoughts were at liberty to wander to some other subject. They believed that they and their children were alone in the world, for every sign of life from other countries, as well as their own, had ceased. It was very long since any human tidings had come, and though, after men had done with each other, birds continued their migrations, these had now long been over, and the years passed away without bringing or sending a single wing. The course of the seasons, too, was strange and unnatural. It seemed as if the earth performed its usual course in the heavens, and kept its place and functions in the movements of the planets; days and nights varied in their length according to the season, and the heat of the sun was at one time of the year great and at another weak: but much that depended hitherto upon the constitution of the globe was suspended. There were no clouds in the sky, no dews dropping from the air, no reproduction in the earth. It seemed decayed and dying of old age. Yet Paulett said, a new existence would, perhaps, arise on this same scene, and from these same elements. Once before, the earth had been reduced to eight persons by the action of water; and now the absence of the same element had brought it to four. Charles and Alice might be the destined parents of a new race, and those names that were so familiar now, might become the venerable appellations of the founders of the third race of man. Ellen smiled and shook her head, looking at the boy and girl, who were building a house of pebbles; and both parents listened for a while to what they were saying. Charles recollected the house he had dwelt in before the great shipwreck of human life drove then to the cavern; and he was teaching Alice that there were rooms below and rooms above, and that he had heard how people like their father had carried great stones, and put them one on another to make these rooms. Alice persisted in making her house one hollow cavern; and the other she called Charles’s house, and did not understand his recommendation.

“Charles is taking the part already of a teacher, in whom remains the traditionary knowledge of an old world,” said Paulett; “and Alice represents the new inhabitants, who have their own rude copies of natural objects, but who will be open to the training of the learned man.”

“The learned man will be their father,” said Ellen; “they will gladly take their notions from him.”

“Yes; but if it should be so destined, the first generation must work hard merely to live—they must be very long ignorant of every thing except a paternal government, and such habitations as can be raised or appropriated most easily. They will be children in comparison to Charles all their lives, if we can but succeed in giving him the ideas of the age we have lived in. Fancy them, Ellen, increased to perhaps fifty inhabitants before he dies, a very old man, coming round his chair to hear of the wonderful steam-engine, and the use of the telescope, and to learn the art of printing, and the list of different languages which Romans, Frenchmen, Germans, Greeks, used; and what lions were, and horses.”

“Or tell them how he and Alice escaped from the great drought,” said Ellen. “But, alas! it is far more likely he and she will perish in it, and then of what use is this knowledge to him?”

“Why—his soul. ‘It is a thing immortal like thyself;’ and if what he knows is of no use here, it will be useful elsewhere.”

“What!” said Ellen, smiling—“are there railroads and telescopes in another world?”

“For aught I can tell. At all events, the powers that contrive them here may contrive something from the same principles hereafter.”

“But we can tell nothing about the other world,” said Ellen.

“Nay, this is another world to the stars; and, if we know nothing about our destiny, the only way we have to judge is by what we actually are, and tend to be, now. So, while life remains, I will teach my boy all I know, and go on as a man of this world ought to do; then we shall be ready for every thing.”

Accordingly, Paulett every day carried on his son’s education, as far as the boy’s age permitted, and instructed him in all that he would have learned had the world been as it was formerly. Only, like a man in a shipwreck looking forward to a desert island as his best hope, he dwelt most upon what would be usefullest, supposing Charles (being preserved) to have to provide for the physical necessities of a new race of man. Next in order came science and arts; and it was easier to make him feel the merits of these than of the exploits of men, especially when they consisted of valour, and of the deeds of conquerors; for the heroic virtues seemed to take a new character in the present circumstances of the world; and whereas they used to kindle and blaze in personal danger, and at the sound of the applause of men, they now burned brightly in the endurance of a world’s dissolution, which, with all its terrors and prolonged impressions, must be met by the calm, self-sustaining spirit, rising superior to the greatest excess of physical injury. The boy’s soul replied to the call upon it. He learned to look on the dangers before him, and to consider the possibility of escape with quiet calculation of chances. He inured himself to privation readily, and eagerly tried to spare his mother and Alice from it. He and his father, hand in hand, walked over the desolate land, realizing the idea that they were in fact spirits, superior to all physical things, and divided from spirits and their sphere only by their frail connexion with a body. They talked of virtue and duty, and how good it was to dwell in these painful bodies, since they were the place wherein virtue was practised and duty learned; and the father taught the son that the opportunities occurred, not only in enduring the dissolution of the frame of present things, and in the untiring exertion to aid and support life in those who were of weaker sex than they, but in abiding with even and cheerful temper the vexations of every day, and in adorning as far as possible, as well as preserving, life. The mother was heroic, good, and patient, too. She brought her children, night and morning, to the mouth of the cavern, and there they all kneeled by Paulett, who prayed aloud with them and for them. Then Ellen made ready their meal, which must all be prepared without water, and which consisted of the stores from former harvests, of which there was abundance laid up in various houses; and the little Alice, who could run at her mother’s side, learned to be useful in some matters, and patient and obedient. Charles played with her and taught her; and he himself, mere child as he was, grew merry in his play, and earnest; and many a time the profound silence of the earth was broken by the hearty laugh of children, which would ring out through the cavern, and reverberate against its walls. They grew, and were perfect and beautiful in shape; their minds developed, and talents and virtues filled them. They were types of man and woman—the one bold and protecting, the other seeking for affection and defence. They flourished when means appeared inadequate to their support; and, amid a paralysed world, it was in them only that body and spirit seemed to unfold.

Chapter V.

Time passed on, and there was no change in the state of things. Still an unclouded sun—still the deep, intense blue sky—winds on the earth but no moisture; and the whole frame of nature seemed crumbling into chaos. Paulett felt the strife with fate to be unequal indeed, and could scarcely comprehend that he and his family were truly survivors amid such destruction; but he resolved not to give in, while the means remained to him, but to fight the fight out till overpowered by the material universe. He told Ellen that they must move to some place where they might hope to find more diamonds, and Ellen agreed—wishing with Paulett that the strife were over and the last agony suffered, and that they were among the free and disembodied spirits. London was their object; for there they might hope to find most of the materials of what was now the most precious of all things, water; and providing as well as they could for their necessities by the way, they quitted the cavern, and set off on their journey.

First came the father, carrying the little Alice in his arms; the boy held his mother by the hand; and they followed Paulett on his path. There was the delicate woman, the mother of all that remained alive of the human race, setting out on the desert, which she remembered, but a few years before, the scene of luxury and abundance. On her shoulder she carried a burthen containing corn for their sustenance; and the brave boy took his share by bearing the jar of water which had been provided for their support on the journey; and thus the last family of mankind set out on their pilgrimage over the desolated earth. The unmitigated sun had made great rents in the sides of the hills, and, together with the wind, had broken up the roads, between which and the parched fields there was scarcely now any difference. Where there had been inclosures and hedges, the withered sticks had in most places yielded to the winds, and were scattered about the spot where they had stood. Here and there were the marks of fire, which had run along the country till some interval of previous desolation had stopped it; and where this had been the case, the black unsightly remains lay strewn over the surface, one further step advanced in dissolution than the dead world around. There was no want of habitations for their nightly shelter. Palaces and cottages, all alike, were open; all alike were silent and tenantless habitations. They might choose where they would. And the first day they did not go far, for Ellen and her children, with stout hearts, had not bodily strength for great fatigue, and were unused to the strong exertion they were now compelled to make. Towards evening, therefore, when they reached a house with which Paulett and Ellen had once been familiar, they determined to rest there for the night. They pushed open the gates, which still swung on their hinges, and which admitted them to what had been a park, filled once with trees, and bathed with waters. A large wood covered the hill which rose on one side, and which now, under a summer sun, stood perfectly bare, and all of one uniform grey colour as far as the view extended. On the other side, the eye looked over a tract of country varied with hill and dale, but desolate of every colour that used to shine forth in light and shade. The setting sun shone among the leafless branches, casting long brilliant rays of light. The unclouded sky met the sparkling earth, and both glittered with unnatural brilliancy. To Paulett and Ellen, every thing spoke of desolation and death; and an exclamation escaped Ellen, in a low tone, that it was a piteous and horrible spectacle. But Charles, standing still at their side as they looked on the scene, cried it was beautiful; the colours of the sun were so splendid on the fine white trees, and one could see so far, and every thing was so white and shining on the earth. The parents felt that ideas were ceasing to be in common between the last and the first members of the old and the new generation; and far from contradicting their boy, they tried to partake his pleasure and enter into his impressions. They moved on up to the old familiar door and entered the open silent hall, where they remembered the ceremonies and the courtesies of life. They chose among the rooms which had been those of friends, and recognised familiar objects of their everyday existence. It was a conceit of Paulett’s, for which he smiled at himself, to wind up the clock in the hall, and set it to tell out the time again for another week. There were musical instruments in a room adjoining, and over one of these Ellen timidly passed her fingers. It was out of tune, and the sounds, though sweet in themselves, all jarred with one another.

“That’s the last music of the world, perhaps,” said Ellen; “and all discord too.”

They found some small store of corn in one of the rooms; they prepared and ate it, and lay down to sleep; forgetting in fatigue all their dismal feelings, and in their dreams seeing the old state of things and dead persons—nay, a dead world—without wondering that they were come to life again. All the days of their journey wore an uniform character; and they kept on and on through waste and ruin, glad to leave the country behind them, and expecting, as some relief, the aspect of streets and a town. They halted, at length, within a few miles of London, and lay down to rest, thankful to be so near their bourne; for they had suffered as much fatigue as they could well bear, and their stock of diamonds was waxing very low and needed replenishment. Paulett continued busy preparing water from part of those that remained, after his wife and children were asleep. His own frame scarcely felt the exertion of the journey, and he was full of the thoughts with which the approaching sight of what had been once the great metropolis filled him. The vast untenanted dwelling-place, the solitude of the habitation of crowds, the absence of mind and talent from the scene they had so filled; all these things excited his feelings, and gaining ground in the solitude of the night he felt at last that he could not willingly delay his first meeting with the bereaved city, and that he should be pleased to have an opportunity of indulging alone the highly-wrought emotion with which he expected the sight of it. Accordingly, when the light began to break, he wrote word to Ellen that she should wait for him a few hours, and that he would be back again in that time to lead her and the children to their journey’s end; and then, softly leaving the house, set forward eagerly on his way.

It was evening before he returned. He came in pale and excited; he took his children in his arms as usual, and seemed like one upon whom a thing which he has seen has made a deep impression, but who either doubts the power of words to convey the same impression, or thinks that he himself is over-excited by it.

“Ellen,” he said at last, “London is burned to the ground.”

The sudden flush on her face, and her clasped hands, while she spoke not, showed that the event touched her, too, as deeply as him; and then he went on freely—

“Oh, Ellen! if you had seen it! It stands there, all in ruins—the whole city in ruins! It has been the work of some great storm which fired it when all were gone or dead; for there has been no pulling down, no pillage, no aid, no attempt to stop the fire! All the palaces, all the museums, all the stores of learning and art, the streets, the crowded houses; they are gone, Ellen—they are all gone!”

His wife had never before in all their misery seen him so deeply moved—so nearly overpowered by any thing that had occurred. His excitement communicated itself to her, and she caught the full bearing of his narration. She felt for the long ages of story, and the monuments of human skill, buried in the great city. Irretrievable ruin! The work which men, and years, and glowing knowledge, had slowly raised up, all dead, all annihilated so suddenly. They sat talking of it very long before Ellen said,

“And what must we do now, Paulett?”

“We must go on, Ellen; we must travel further. The rest we hoped for is destroyed with the city, and we must press forward if we are to save our lives.”

“That seems less and less possible,” said Ellen; “and in all this destruction why should we be preserved?”

“Perhaps because we have as yet avoided the stroke, by using all our human skill; perhaps because a new race is to spring from us, who shall reign in another mighty London! Alas, London!—alas, the great city!”

Several times during the night Ellen heard Paulett murmur to himself words of lament over the fallen city; and when he slept, his rest was agitated, and his frame seemed trembling under the emotions of the day.

It was resolved that Ellen should rest a little while in their present habitation, before undertaking the toils of further travel. They intended to make for the coast, sure of a dry channel to the opposite shore, and hoping to reach some of the great continental towns before their store of diamonds should be utterly exhausted. In the meantime, Paulett was bent upon taking his boy through the ruins of London, and impressing upon him the memory of the place, and its great events. So the next day, leaving Ellen and the little Alice together, he and Charles began their pilgrimage through the mighty ruins. The event must have occurred very many months ago, for the ruins were perfectly cold, and the winds had toppled down the walls of all the more fragile buildings; so that the streets lay in confusion over one another, and it was impossible, except by other marks, to recognise the localities. Paulett and Charles clambered over the fallen walls, and would have been bewildered among heaps of masonry, and houses shaken from their base and blackened by fire—only that over the desolate prospect they saw, and Paulett marked the bearings of St Paul’s, the chief part of whose dome rose high in the air, though a huge rent let the daylight through it, and threatened a speedy fall. There was here and there a spire, rising perfect over the ruins; there were remains of Whitehall, strong though blackened, seen over a long view of prostrate streets; and in the distance beyond, fragments of Westminster Abbey showed themselves in the sunlight, though defaced and crumbled, as if the frame had been too ancient to resist the fire. Guided by these landmarks, Paulett traced out the plan of the city, and by degrees recognised where the great streets had run, where the palaces had stood, where the river had flowed. And all was silent, all an absolute stillness, where there had been such ceaseless voices, and sounds of life; the libraries were burned, the statues calcined, the museums in ashes; the mind of man, which triumphs over the body, had here been subdued by matter, and left no trace of itself.

“Oh! London, London! So much talent, so much glory and beauty; such mighty hearts, such mighty works; such ages of story—all buried in one black mass! Piteous spectacle!” cried Paulett, striking his breast, and stretching forth his arms over the skeleton of what was once a sovereign in the world.

He took his son by the hand, and led him over the confused masses, telling him as they went along what were the ruins by which they passed.

“This great heap of building which has fallen into a square, must be the palace of our kings. It is that St James’s, where they dwelt till nobler buildings rose with the improving times. See here, Charles—there is less ruin here. This opener space was park and garden; and time has been that I have heard the buzz of men filling all this place, when the sovereigns came to hold their courts in that building. I think that this dreadful fire must have taken place before life was quite extinct; for see, there are heaps of bones here, as though men had fled together to avoid it; and it either overtook them with long tongues of fire, such as a burning city would send forth, or smothered them before they could escape, with its smoke. Ha! I see almost a palace there—a wonder of modern art. It is the house I once saw, and only once, for it was built during the years of the great drought.”

“Who could build in those days, father?” said Charles; “I thought no one had any heart for doing more than we do, and that is but just keeping ourselves alive.”

“Nay, it was very long before the persuasion came that those were the last days. We all believed that rain would come again and restore the earth to its old order, and whoever possessed the means, builded and projected still. You may see this magnificent place suffered violence before the fire; for its ornaments are torn from the walls, and its statues mutilated by other means than the bare fall. It was the property of a man called Jephcot, who, when the water began to fail, contrived means to bring it into London from great distances, and thus to secure a supply when the ordinary means were useless. He kept his contrivance secret, and supplied the city when other men’s resources were exhausted; and he grew exceedingly rich by this exercise of his ingenuity, and built himself the palace which you see there. But when the failure of water amounted to absolute famine, the rich people naturally were the last who wanted; they gave his price, and he supplied them before he would supply others who had no money to bring. This was endured with murmurs, which might have gone on a little longer, had not Jephcot, in the midst of this distress, given a banquet to the great people of London.

“It was in the second year of the drought, when little thinking what the end was to be, we all continued to live, as far as possible, as we had done before. I was in London where the parliament was then sitting, and among others I was invited to this house, and still remember the scene of luxury and profusion of these bare rooms. In the midst of the noise of a crowded assembly, some of us heard sounds outside, which were such as you will never hear, even if you live—sounds of the feet and voices of thousands of human beings. Among this tumult, we began to distinguish individual voices, chiefly those of women, crying out, “water!” We paid little attention, and those who did, said the police and soldiers were called out and would prevent violence; but before long it was whispered that these forces, pressed by extreme want, and seeing their families perishing, had joined the mob, and were exciting violence. There fell a silence over all the assembly; every one left the tables, and gathered together to hear and to consult: and while we did so, there came an assault on the front of the house, and the voices of the populace all broke out at once into shouting. They were irresistible; they forced their way in, and came pouring up the staircase; they uttered cries of vengeance for imaginary wrongs, saying that the waters of London had been kept for the rich, and that there was abundance for both rich and poor, and threatened the lives of Jephcot and his family, even more eagerly than they demanded water. He tried to address them, but they caught him down from the head of the staircase where he stood, and flung him at once over the marble banisters. This was the signal for attack on all sides. We rushed forward to rescue his body and revenge him, they to possess themselves of the treasure they so much coveted. Of course we were overpowered, for we were one to fifty; and that night there fell a hundred of the nobles of England. The women were respected by the mob, and except one lady who was shot accidentally, and another who saw her son fall, and stood over him till he ceased to breathe, then fell wounded and dying herself, all escaped. Your mother was not there. When our party was quite vanquished, I found myself in the midst of the mob, bleeding to death as I thought; but they flung me on one side, and I recovered. They pulled the house to the ground, after they had satiated themselves with drinking. And that was the first great calamity which overthrew the government of the country.”

“And how did that come about, father?” said Charles, eagerly holding him by the hand, and sharing his excitement.

Paulett led him on, telling him, at one ruined monument after another, what steps had been taken at each, in the destruction of the order of things. They came to the dry channel of the Thames, a deep and wide trench, whose bottom showed objects that had lain there when the waters flowed above, and which would once have been as precious as now they were unregarded. Here as a bridge from side to side; and a little way above, stood part of the walls of a noble building, partly black with smoke, partly white with the polish and beauty of stones newly built together.

“These are the Houses of Parliament,” said Paulett, “the work of many years, which were to replace those burned in 1834. See how beautiful they were, what excellent design, what exquisite finish; how strong and stable, to last for a thousand ages, and to crown the river which then flowed in this dusty channel. When matters were come almost to the worst, and there were convulsions all over the country in consequence of the famine, the queen, for the first time, came to these houses to open the last parliament that ever assembled. There were no beasts of burthen left alive in the country; it had been found impossible to appropriate water enough to those which had been reserved in the royal stables; and the queen, surrounded by a certain number of the court, walked along yonder street to the House. The sight of so young a woman, and so great a sovereign, thus leveled by physical necessity with the meanest, excited some of the old enthusiasm with which she used to be greeted: the populace themselves, with their squalid faces, and in their extreme misery, greeted her; but the greatest feeling was aroused among the nobles and gentry who surrounded her, and who seemed to make a point of offering more homage, the less outer circumstances commanded it. There was assembled in the House all that remained alive of the nobles of England, and the sovereign; and they proposed to deliberate upon the possibility of any means remaining to provide water. But a demagogue of the people, Matthison by name, roused their fury and their madness, and they burst in, accusing their superiors of their calamities. The queen’s life was in danger;—and then occurred a gallant action, which is worthy to live if man lives. A Churchill, a descendant of that Marlborough who fought Blenheim, came to the hall whither they had broken in, and required in the queen’s name to know what they wanted. He meant to gain time; for other nobles had effected an exit at a private door for her, and were hurrying her away to a place of security, till she could escape from England. They answered Churchill, that water was monopolized; that Matthison must be minister; that they must speak to the queen face to face, and have her hostage for the accomplishment of what they wished. Churchill pretended to deliberate for an instant with some one in the adjoining chamber; and then returning, said, ‘If the queen do not speak with you in ten minutes, you may tear me in pieces.’ Some of the mob cried that he was saying this to give her time to escape. Others said, if it were so, he should assuredly suffer the penalty. Churchill answered nothing, only smiled; and then the majority said he could not be so foolhardy, and they would grant the queen ten minutes.

“The time passed, and Matthison eagerly cried, ‘The time is gone, yet we don’t see the queen.’

“‘Then tear me in pieces,’ said Churchill; and the mob, finding their prey had escaped, did so indeed; the gallant man falling where he stood, and not another word came from his lips.”

“The brave man!” cried Charles; “the good man! Were there many such brave, good men in the old world, father?”

“Ay, that there were,” said Paulett; “many a glorious one; some known and some unknown, who did things which made one know one’s-self a glorious, an immortal creature. See there that ruined abbey—there lie the ashes of brave and good; these are their crumbled monuments—‘that fane where fame is A spectral resident!’ Alas, there is no fame, no name left!”

Paulett and Charles went down among the ruins of the abbey, and there, amidst the fallen stones and broken aisles, saw monumental marbles, old known names, and funeral inscriptions, contrasting strongly by their quiet character with the confusion around.

“Never forget them, Charles,” said Paulett. “These are names which the world has trembled at, and which are now like to be such as those before the Flood, barbarous to those who are building up a new order of things, and known merely as a barren catalogue of names. Yet, if you live, remember Edward the king here; remember the Black Prince; remember the days and heroes of Elizabeth; remember the poetry and the romance of the old world.”

“Ay, father, and I’ll remember the great name of him who taught you to print, and of Wicliffe the reformer, and of the man who gave you the steam-engine.”

Paulett smiled and sighed; he felt that his own ideas of things heroic were as much contrasted with those of Charles, as their notions of the beautiful. But he thought not to stem the stream.

“See here,” he said, pointing to some new monuments, which, like the old, were cracked by fire; “there were many brave and good actions done, and one of those who did best was laid here. He was a clergyman, his name Host, and during the pestilence which came on in the fourth year, he was more like an inspired messenger of good than any mortal creature. You must know, Charles, that the teachers of religion at this time were greatly divided among themselves, and they had led a great portion of the lay world into their disputes. One party, in an age of reasoning, and when nothing in science was taken upon trust, gave up their reason altogether, and followed authority as blindly as they could—still, however, feeling the influence of the age; for they would argue upon the existence or non-existence of authority, and would fit it unconsciously each man to his own conceit. Indeed, superstition was the disease of the age, and while the healthy part of the community employed and enjoyed the freest use of their reason, this same infirmity appeared among other people in other forms; so that some men took up the notion that the human mind might act independently of sense, and see without eyes, and know intuitively what existed at a distance. Other parties, among professors of religion, allowed nothing in religion that they allowed daily in the evidence of other matters. They gave no weight to research, and thought, about religious facts; and dreamed that each one among themselves gained a kind of spiritual knowledge by inspiration. It was a time of conceits and quackery; but there was a better spirit abroad, of which this good man Host was the representative. He began in the pestilence, and went to all houses indifferently, whether they were princes or peasants; and there was a common-sense in what he did and said, a universal character in his religion, which struck men in these evil days. They drew nearer to each other under his influence; and I recollect this great building thronged in one of the last months that men continued here, with a congregation of all orders and all divisions of opinion, who met to pray together, and listen to Host. He stood yonder, Charles, as nearly there, I think, as I can tell from the ruins; he was rapt by his own discourse, and his face was as the face of an angel. And truly three days after, he was dead; and here they buried him—the last sound of the organ, the last service of this church, being for him. Here is his name still on the tombstone—

‘Host.
Pio. dilecto. beato.
Populus miserrimus.’”

Charles’s memory was deeply impressed with this history, and he followed his father, much engrossed and animated by what he had heard. Not so Paulett; for the ruins of London occupied his mind, and filled him with deep pity and regret for the fair world destroyed: and so they returned to their temporary habitation, the father sorrowful, the son exulting; one full of the old world, one dreaming great actions for the new.

After another day’s rest, the sole surviving family of mankind set forth again on their pilgrimage. Paulett again carried his Alice, and Ellen and Charles walked hand in hand with such a basket of necessaries as they could support. Paulett secured about his person a large packet of diamonds, collected in palaces and noble dwellings near London, and the apparatus he required for transmuting them into water; and searching for and finding the remains of the railroad to the coast, at Dover, they kept on in that track, which, from its evenness, offered facility to their journey. But in several places it had been purposely broken up, during the commotions which preceded the final triumph of the drought, and the tunnel near Folkestone had fallen in the middle from want of the necessary attention to the masonry. These difficulties seemed harder to bear than those which they had met with in the beginning of their pilgrimage, when their hopes of reaching a certain bourne were more secure. The destruction of London had thrown a deep gloom over all their expectations; and besides that help was removed to a much greater distance, they could not but feel it very probable that a similar fate might have befallen the other places they looked to. Nevertheless, none of them murmured. They went steadfastly though sadly on; and the two children, with less knowledge of what was to be feared, were encouraged by their parents whenever they broke into a merrier strain. Alice was the happiest of the party, for she knew least. She was the one who suffered least also; for every one spared her suffering, and contrived that what remained on earth of luxury should be hers. She had the first draught of water; she was carried on her father’s shoulder; she ran to find pebbles, and whatever shone and glittered on their path; and when the others were silent, they heard with joy her infant voice singing, without words like a bird, in a covered tone, as they got wearily over mile by mile of their way. Ellen suffered most, though Paulett tried, by all means that remained, to lighten her fatigue and cheer her spirit. She bore up steadfastly; but her frame was slight, and her feelings were oppressed by the fearful aspect of things around her. They made a deep and deeper impression, and she was fain to look steadfastly on the faces of the few living, to recover from the effects of such universal death.

Paulett himself was shaken more than he knew, though he was as energetic as ever; but Charles was vigorous and advanced beyond his years, and took more than his share in aiding and in comforting. They came at last to what had been sea-coast, and to that part of the road which ran along the face of the cliff overlooking the sea; and here they paused, and gazed upon the wild and strange view before them. Where the sea had stretched all glorious in motion, expanse, and colour, there was now a deep valley, the bottom of which was rough with rocks, black for the most part, but in places glittering with the white salt from which the water had evaporated, and which the winds had rolled together. Further out from the coast, where the sea had been deepest, there seemed tracks of sand; and far away over this newly exposed desert, rose other hills, clearly seen through the unclouded atmosphere, and which they knew to be the rocks of France. And if they should arrive there, what was the hope they offered? Scarce any. Nothing but more pilgrimage, further wandering. Paulett and Ellen sat apart, while the children lay sleeping side by side, for an hour or two, at this point of their journey, and talked over the desolation before them.

“Yet,” said Paulett, “the more terrible is the appearance which material things put on, the greater I feel the triumph of the spirit to be. The worse it looks, the more immortal I feel; and when a perishing world shows itself most perishable, I exult most that you and I, Ellen, have borne it so far.”

“Yes, I am glad too,” said Ellen; “your strength strengthens me. In the midst of this desolation the mind rises, for an hour at least, higher perhaps than it would have ever done if we had been prosperous.”

“Yet we might have used our prosperity to the same good end,” said Paulett. “It is not necessary to be miserable in order to be noble. Millions have died before us, some in agony, some before the struggle began; some hardly, some at ease: they had all their chances; all had their occasions of virtue, if they used them; and some used them, some failed: ours is not over yet; we have to struggle on still; and let us do it, dear Ellen, and be ready for the good day when we too may be allowed to die.” And thus talking for a while, they rested themselves in sight of the desert they had to traverse; then with renewed strength and steadfast resolution, when the children woke, descended the cliffs, and prepared to trace out a path through what had been the bottom of the sea. The first part of the journey was infinitely difficult: the rocks over which foot of man had never passed; the abrupt precipices over which had flowed the even surface of the ocean, and then the height to climb again, again to find themselves on ledges and shelves of rocks—all these seemed at times hardly passable impediments. And when they got to a distance from what had been the shore, the unnatural place where they found themselves pressed upon the imagination. There was a plain of sand, about which at irregular distances rose rocks, which, north and south, stretched out beyond the reach of the eye; and this sand, which had been at such a depth that it never felt the influence of the waves, was covered in places with shells, the inhabitants of which had perished when the waters gradually dried away. There lay mixed with these some skeletons of fishes; here a huge heap, and there small bones which looked less terrible; and masses of sea-weed, dried and colourless, under which, as it seemed, the creeping things of the ocean had sheltered for a while, and some had crawled to the surface when about to perish. But it was not only the brute creation which had died here: there was in the middle a pile of rocks, on one side of which they came suddenly to a pit, so deep and dark that they perceived no bottom; and here probably there had been seawater longer than elsewhere, for there were human bones about it, and skulls of men, and human garbs, which the sun had faded, but which were not disturbed by waves. There was a cord and a metal jar attached to it, for lowering into the pit; but Paulett, as he looked at the attitudes of the remaining skeletons, and observed how they seemed distorted in death, fancied that they must have brought up either poisoned water, or waters so intensely salt as to drive them mad with the additional thirst; and that some had died on the instant, some had lingered, some had sought to succour others, and yielded sooner or later to the same influence. Ellen and he would not dwell on the sight after the first contemplation of it; they passed on, shuddering, and made toward the great wall of rock which they saw rising to the south, and which must be their way to the land of France. But before they reached it the sun began to decline, and without light it was in vain to attempt to seek a path. There was a wind keener than they had felt of late, which came from the west, and the little Alice pressed on her father’s bosom to shield her from it. He wrapped her closer in a cloak, and they resolved to put themselves under the shelter of the first rock they reached, and pass the night in the channel of the sea. They pressed on, and found at last the place they sought; a cliff which must once have raised its head above the waves, and which now stood like some vast palace wall, bare and huge, upon the ocean sand. Screened from the wind, they collected an abundance of the dried vegetation of the sea, partly for warmth and to roast their corn, partly for Paulett to dissolve some of the diamonds into water; and here they rested, here they slept, many fathoms below that level over which navies used to sail. At times during the night Paulett fancied, when the wind abated, that he heard a sound like thunder, or like what used to be the rushing of a distant torrent; and occasionally he thought he felt a vibration in the earth as if it were shaken by some moving body. The region he was in was so strange that he knew not what might be here, or what about to happen; the sounds so imperfect that he tormented himself to be sure of them, or to be sure they were not; and when the time for action came he was beginning to disbelieve them altogether; but Alice brought all back again by saying, “My rock” (for her cradle was a rock) “shook my head, father.” The child could explain herself no further; but the vibration he had fancied seemed to be what she had felt. And now they climbed again, and again descended weary rock after rock; it was a strange chaos, which the tides had swept and moulded, and which had in places risen to the surface, and caused the wreck of many a vessel. Fragments of these lay under the rocks they had split upon, but the wandering family had no thoughts for them; wonder and pity had been exhausted among exciting and terrific scenes. They thought only of forcing their way over the rocks, and feared to think how much of this they had to traverse before they should come to what had been the shore, and to towns.

Suddenly, as they toiled forward, Paulett said in a low voice to Ellen, “Don’t you hear it?”

“I have heard it a long time,” said Ellen in the same tone; and Charles stopping as well as they, said, “Father, what is that?”

“I can’t tell, my boy,” said Paulett, listening.

“Water?” asked Ellen.

Paulett shook his head, yet they all pressed forward, and there grew a thundering sullen sound. There was a valley and a ridge of rock before them, and they had to clamber first down the rugged precipice they were upon, then to cross the valley, and then to struggle up the opposite side, a trembling motion growing perceptible as they advanced, before they stood on a sort of broad ledge, which they perceived at the angles that jutted out, went down straight into a depth, and opposite which was another broad table-land of rock, between which and that they were upon was a rent, wider and narrower in various parts, and running along as far as they could see to right and left. Paulett rushed on to the brink, and stood looking. He put his hand out to keep Ellen back when he heard her close behind; but she also sprang to the edge, and when she had seen turned to catch Charles in her arms. Rushing past was a torrent, but not water. It was dark, thick, pitchy; it sent up hot steams to the edge: it was one of the secrets of nature, laid bare when the ocean was taken away. Fire seemed to be at work below, for occasionally it would boil with more violence, and rush on with an increased, increasing noise, then sullenly fall back to the first gloomy sound. It bewildered the sense; and though it could threaten no more than death, yet it was death with so many horrors around it, that the body and mind both shrank from it. How was it possible, too, to cross it? Yet their way lay over it; for behind was certain destruction, and before it was not yet proved impossible that they might find the element of water. Paulett felt that it would not do to linger on the brink; he drew his family away from the sight, and he himself went up and down to find some narrower place, and some means by which to make a bridge over the abyss; and it was not till their assistance could avail him that he returned for them, and brought them to the place where he hoped to get over. It was a fearful point, for in order to reach a space narrow enough to have a chance of throwing a plank over, it was necessary to go down the broken side of the precipice some twenty feet, and there, high above the seething lava, to cross on such a piece of wood as could be got to span the abyss, and then clamber up the rugged opposite side. Paulett had been down to the point he selected, and had got timber, which a wrecked vessel had supplied, to the edge, so that Ellen and Charles might push a plank down to him, and he might try, at least, to cast it to the opposite bank. His head was steady, his hand strong; no one of them spoke a word while he stood below, steadying himself to receive the plank. Ellen’s weak arm grew powerful; her wit was ready with expedients, to aid him in this necessity. Her frame and spirit were strung to the very uttermost, and she was brave and silent, doing all that could be done. No word was spoken till Paulett said, “I have done it;” and Ellen and Charles had seen him place the plank, and secure it on his own side of the abyss with stones. Then they held their breath, beholding him cross it; but his firm foot carried him safely, and he heaped stones on the other side also. He came over again, sprang up the side, and now smiled and spoke.

“After all it is but a mountain torrent, Ellen,” he said, “and the water would have destroyed us like yonder seething flood; yet we have crossed many a one and feared nothing. Now Charles shall go over; then Alice, and he shall take care of her; and then my Ellen. The ground beyond is better; we shall get on well after this.”

Ellen took the girl in her arms, and stood, not trembling, not weeping; seeing and feeling every motion; all was safe that time again, Charles was on the opposite bank, and his father waved his hand to Ellen. He came back for Alice, whom her mother tied on his shoulders, for hands as well as feet were wanted to scramble down and up the banks. And now Ellen followed to the brink, and forgot, in watching her husband and child pass over, that the black torrent was seething beneath her eyes. When they were quite safe, she felt again that it was there, and that her eyes were growing dizzy, and her hands involuntarily grasping about for support. She did not take time to feel more, but sprang upon the plank, and over it, and found Paulett’s hand seizing hers, and drawing her up the opposite bank.

And once there, with all the three round her, she burst into tears—tears which had not overcome her through many miseries—and embracing them alternately, blessed them that they were all so far safe. Paulett suffered this emotion to spend itself before he said that he must cross the plank again. To be more at liberty to assist them, he had left the diamonds on the other side, till they should be over. Ellen offered no remonstrance. The times had so schooled them all, that selfish or unreasonable thoughts either did not come at all, or were suppressed at once; and she did not oppose, even with a word, this necessary step. But the renewal of fear, after the excited energy had subsided, did her more harm than all that had gone before; and she stood on the brink exhausted, yet palpitating again, while Paulett made the passage. He himself was wearied; but he had reached the plank, and was upon it on his way back to safety, when one of those ebullitions which stirred the dark fluid began roaring down the cleft rock, and with stunning noise sent up dark and clouding vapour. Paulett seemed suffocating—he could not be heard—he could but just be seen—he reeled! Has he fallen? Oh, he has fallen! No—no! he has got his footing again; he forces himself up the bank; he is safe—but the diamonds are in the bottom of the pit.

Chapter VI.

The exhausted family toiled with difficulty over the remaining passage to what had been the mainland, and reached a village on the former coast, under a roof of which they entered, and lay down on the floor of the first room they came to. Their supply of water was almost out; the materials for producing more were gone; and there seemed little chance of finding any in the neighbourhood. “Death was here;” and yet the exhaustion of their frames led them to sleep before they died, and to seek and enjoy a taste of that oblivion which was soon to fall upon them with an impenetrable shroud. All but Ellen were soon asleep; but she, the most wearied of all, could not close her eyes and admit rest to her overwrought frame. There was a burning thirst in her throat, which the small portion of water she and the rest had shared—being all that remained for them—had failed to slake. She had not complained of it; but she rejoiced when she heard them asleep, that she could rise and move restlessly about. The night was hot, and yet the west wind continued to blow strongly; the moon shone, but scarcely with so bright a light as usual—there was a film upon it, or perhaps, Ellen thought, it was the dimness of her own weary eyes. She came softly up to Paulett, and watched his frame, half naked in the unconsciousness of sleep, and upon which none of the ravages of want and exertion were now concealed. The flesh was wasted; the strong chest showed the bones of the skeleton; the arms which had so strained their powers were thin, and lay in an attitude of extreme exhaustion. His sleep was deep; his lips open; his eyelids blue; he would wake in want; and soon he would be able to sleep no more, till the last sleep of all came in torment and anguish. Poor Charles lay by him, his head on his father’s body for a pillow, his limbs drawn somewhat together, his clusters of brown hair parted off his pale thin cheek; and Alice, the darling Alice, with more colour in her face than any of them, slept in deep repose, destined, perhaps, to live last, and to call in vain on those whose cares had hitherto kept her healthier and happier than themselves. The mother groaned with anguish; she measured what these were about to suffer, by all she began to suffer herself; and the sight of them seemed to sear the burning eyes which could no longer weep. She sat down on the floor by Alice; her head fell against the wall; she caught at a little rosary which hung near her, and pressed it in her mouth, the comparative coolness of the beads giving her a little ease; her face fell on her bosom.

When Paulett woke out of his deep sleep, and as soon as he stirred, the little Alice came on tiptoe across the floor to him, and said, “Hush, father! my mother is asleep at last.”

“At last, my Alice! What! Could not she sleep?”

“I think she could not sleep. I woke up, and there was my mother; and Charles woke presently, and she said Charles should go out and try to bring back some cold stones in a cup, and then presently she sat down again, and went to sleep.”

He rose softly, and taking the little girl by the hand, came up to Ellen’s side, and looked upon her. She was lying at full length on the floor; her head was toward him, but her face was turned upon the ground, and her hair further hid it; her right arm was fallen forward, and the back of that hand lay in the palm of the other. He did not hear nor see her breathe. “Is it so, my Ellen?” he said. “Art thou at rest? Is there no farewell for me?” He kneeled and stooped lower and lower. His lip did not venture to feel hers; he longed that she might be free, yet shrank from knowing that she was gone. But no; she had not ceased to suffer; a low sigh came at last, and her parched mouth opened.

“Water!” she said; then lifted her eyes and saw Paulett, and remembered all by degrees. “Is not there a little? Oh, no—none! Nay, I shall not want it soon!” She turned her face on Paulett’s breast, and soon after tried to rise and push herself from him. “Leave me, dear husband; kiss me once, and leave me; try to save them!”

But Paulett folded his arms round her. “Not so, my Ellen; the chances of life are so little, that it is lawful for me to give them up, unless we can all seek them together. Alas! all I can do is but to see thee die! Oh, if I could give thee one minute’s ease!”

“Alas! you must all die like this,” said Ellen, who was perishing like one of the flowers that had died in the drought for want of rain. Water would have saved that life, spared those sufferings. That burning hand, those gasping lips, those anxious eyes, revealed what the spirit passing away in that torment would fain have concealed. “Alice, come near me; hold my hand, Alice. Are you thirsty, poor child? Oh, do not grieve your father! It will be but a short time, my little girl—be patient.” Ellen tried to kiss her; her husband kneeled and raised her head on his shoulder, bending his face on her forehead, and murmuring the last farewell—the last thanks—the agony of his pity for her suffering. The poor child threw herself on her mother, gazing upward in want, and grief, and bewilderment, in her face. “My Charles,” said the mother, feeling about with the other hand, but she did not find his head to bless it. “My Charles,” she repeated in a fainter tone, and her eyelids drooped over the hot eyes.

Paulett saw nothing but his suffering wife, heard nothing except her painful breath. At that moment the door opened, and Charles stood there, paler than ever, with glittering eyes. He held the cup towards his father. “Father,” he said, “there is water coming down from heaven!”

Paulett looked up and cried, “O God, it rains!”