more.

He pinned Mivens with a piercing glance Jackerry and Mivens were in dispute of late in connection with a set of Raatauan stamps, the promise of which Mivens had bartered for a set of Rarotongans, but had been unable to complete delivery because the mission to the Raatauan Islands had only been established a year, and had not yet got as far as stamps. He frowned sternly on Beswick, who was known as the Hindu, and was popularly credited with Eastern habits of mind regarding the little niceties of schoolboy honor which make for grace and uprightness. He threatened Gerson-who had given him a quite uncalled-for licking a short time before, though Gerson would probably have had something strenuous to say on the subject-with expulsion if he did not mend his ways and stop bullying fellows smaller than himself.

He did his very best to amuse himself, and did, in fact, succeed for a day or two in keeping the blues at bay by doing every single thing he could think of which in the ordinary course of things he would not have been allowed to do. But on a boy of active mind and body make-believe soon begins to pall. After a day or two he labelled it "rot," and began to look down upon himself for having descended so low as to find amusement in it.

The library was thrown open to him, and he dipped into it discursively, but found difficulty in selection through simple embarrassment of riches.

He was given the freedom of the countryside, with no bounds or limits save meal-times; he took some long walks and enjoyed the first exceeding ly, found the second very much longer though he did not cover half the distance, and found himself so dull a com

And then he hated coddling in theory at all events. Meals in the matron's cosy sitting-room were not half bad, it is true, and the small bedroom he occupied not far from hers was a distinct improvement on the big fifteen-bed dormitory-that is, in the mere matter of bodily comfort; but it lacked the companionship of kindred souls, and reminded him unpleasantly of his six weeks' imprisonment with the rheumatic fever. And as sure as he started out to do anything, Mrs. Matron's kindly voice was heard reminding him of the doctor's orders, and warning him against undue exertion or excitement.

Verily, Jackerry, though not by any means given to introspection, wondered vaguely at times what good there was in a boy being alive when he had had rheumatic fever and was saddled with a heart that wouldn't let him do anything.

Mrs. Matron did her very best for him according to her lights. She tried to amuse him in the evenings with draughts and so on; but Jackerry could work up no enthusiasm for draughts, though he dutifully shoved the pieces about and lost every game with courtier-like equanimity. She tried to get him to read aloud to her while she sat sewing; but Jackerry hated reading aloud, and boggled at it till she laughed and said that she saw that he did not like it. She took him out to a concert, which he would have appreciated more if it had been entirely composed of comic songs. She bought him a tiny camera, and for a day or two he enjoyed snapping everything he came across to the extent of his films; but when the developing of them resulted only in highly colored fingers and mysterious little black squares of curly paper with unrecognizable white gleams and smudges on them, his in

terest in photography also suffered check. She took him up to London one day on a shopping expedition, and he enjoyed that exceedingly, and proved himself a pleasant and helpful little cavalier.

But Mrs. Matron's time was not exclusively her own, even in the holidays. There were extensive cleaning operations to be carried out, and she had friends of her own to see; and Jackerry found the time heavy on his hands. He turned some of his ample leisure to good account by writing long letters to his father and mother in Rarotonga, and even printing special pages in big capitals for the benefit of Baby Barbara, though she could not possibly read them, because she was only nine months old. That did not matter. Writing to her made him feel more like having a sister. And he kept out of his letters every possible sign of mopiness, and painted his visit to London, and even the other little enjoyments which had ceased to please, in the most glowing colors. They must have been truly pathetic letters; and I do not think it likely they would have deceived any father or mother heart. The words told one story and the facts told another, and facts are facts; and, no matter what veil of words you hang before them, the mother-heart will see through it and understand.

Nothing to do, and overmuch time for it, generally leads to mischief, and the rule was not to be broken in Jackerry's case.

At the far end of the playground was a brick wall, originally round and smooth on top, but now ragged and broken by the scrambling of many feet. Beyond the wall was a strip of ground and a ditch of green mud. It took a jump of ten feet to clear the ditch, and that jump was one of the school tests. A fellow might pass the College of Preceptors and the Oxford and Cambridge Locals, and as many

other exams. as he chose to swot for; but until he could manage the leap he had not attained his full stature in the school, and the ditch was rarely clear of victims.

It was only in the nature of things that whenever Jackerry found himself moping about the deserted playground his thoughts should run towards the wall and the leap as inevitably as water to a fall. Ordinarily one fell into the ditch amid the jeers of delighted onlookers. He had been in it himself dozens of times before his illness. Here was a rare chance to practise the troublesome leap unseen. And as to the doctor's orders-he would leap as lightly as possible, and how could a single jump like that hurt any one?

He scrambled up the wall. As he stood poised for the leap he saw Mrs. Matron coming swiftly towards him across the playground.

As Mrs. Matron glanced over her daily paper that morning her kindly face had stiffened suddenly and gone gray for a moment, and her breath stopped short. Then she went on quietly with her breakfast. But there was an inflection in her voice that had not been there before as she asked Jackerry if he would have some more coffee, and Jackerry looked up at her for a moment and thought to himself how very kind she was, and he did not notice how her hand shook as she poured it out.

After breakfast she went down into the village to the telegraph-office and sent off a telegram, and then she went home to wait for the answer, and found herself quite unable to work till it came. And when it came she bowed her head over it and wept, and then braced herself up and went out to do what had to be done, with fear in her heart as to the consequences.

For the paragraph she had read at

breakfast-time was a telegram from Sydney, and it said: "Latest advices from Rarotonga give particulars of the hurricane which devastated the islands on 1st December. Among the lives lost we regret to see the names of Rev. John Carey and Mrs. Carey and their infant daughter. They were crossing between Atiu and Takutea when the hurricane burst upon them and overwhelmed their frail craft. The bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Carey came ashore two days later on Atiu."

The telegram was from the secretary of the Society in London, and said briefly: "Regret to have to confirm sad news."

Out of the corner of his eye Jackerry saw Mrs. Matron coming, and fathomed her intention in half a glance. She would scold him, doubtless; but he would have this one try whatever she said.

Chambers's Journal.

He leaped, and fell into the ditchand beyond it.

The matron gave a cry as she saw him spurn the wall. She scrambled up it somehow-how she never knew -slipped down the other side, struggled through the ditch, and drew the limp little figure out.

There was a determined smile on the bright face, and Mrs. Matron sat down on the ground with it in her lap and wept over it again. But at last she dried her tears, and said to herself, "God knew best. Perhaps it is better

so."

For Jackerry had jumped farther than any boy ever jumped off that wall before, and he was alone no longer, but in the best of all good company. He had stayed behind, but he had gone on in front of all his fellows.

John Oxenham.

1

CHAPTER I.

Notwithstanding that very honorable mention hath been made in several quarters of the plain relation which I have lately given of my voyage into the Antipacific Ocean, yet I have continued hitherto in the opinion that we are at present overstocked with books of travel, and the publick appetite well glutted on the narratives of the adventurous. And in particular I have foreborne to publish any account of the second visit which I made to the island of Laputa, thinking this to be a journey rather than a discovery, and not worthy to be reckoned among my Voyages, upon which I was ever wont to encounter something new as well as marvellous.

But now, by the advice of two or three worthy persons to whom I have privily communicated the remainder of my papers, I venture to send into the world these inconsiderable passages, hoping that they may be, at least for some moments, a better entertainment to our young noblemen than the common scribbles of politics and party.

I am, therefore, to inform the reader that after my return from that which I have named my Last Voyage, I stayed but three months with my wife and children; for my active and restless life had bred in me a lust of wandering, which I was moved to satisfy, if possible, before my strength should leave me. I desired, however, in this my riper age not so much danger as diversion, and therefore resolved to

shape my course for Laputa and Balnibarbi, in which places I remembered to have suffered little or no apprehension for the safety of my person.

I took shipping then at Bristol on the 5th day of August, 1717, in the Little Mary, an old tub of good capacity but somewhat uncomfortable in rough weather. She carried a full cargo of Bristol milk, and was so deep loaded with it as to be half seas over during the most part of the voyage. I left her at Alaska, and chartered a halfdeck fishing-boat in which to pursue the more private end of my adventure. Having stored this with victuals, I procured it to be taken in tow by the Suni-jim, a Japanese man-of-war homeward bound and commanded by a very obliging gentlemanlike officer. In his company I passed my time agreeably enough until he informed me that we were now by his lieutenant's observations in the latitude of 46° N. and of longitude 183°, this being the point at which I had told him I should be in the necessity of parting from him. We took leave of each other accordingly with many honorable expressions, and going on board my boat I cut the painter in fine weather a little before moonrise.

I shall not at this time trouble the reader with a particular account of my voyage to the main or continent of Balnibarbi, which lasted five days, and brought me in the dead of night upon the same coast whereon I had made my landing eleven years before. For the rest, I was now in a very different case, having a stout boat under me and no manner of disquiet in my mind. I had no need or inclination to seek out a cave for shelter, but lay aboard at my moorings till daybreak, when I landed, and began to look about with my perspective for some sign of the Flying Island. I discovered nothing all that morning, but about two in the afternoon, when I had taken some re

freshment and was much inclined to sleep, I perceived all on a sudden the vast body of the island descending towards the elevation upon which I chanced to be lying. But at the same

time the reader can hardly conceive my astonishment to behold around it in every direction a number of opaque bodies of similar movement and appearance, but smaller in size by many degrees; and to hear proceeding from all of them a noise which for emptiness and monotony resembled the cawing of rooks or the bleating of sheep. The principal island had now become stationary at a distance of about two English miles, but the others advanced nearer, and, as though animated by some feeling of emulation, descended upon me altogether. This gave me, I confess, some inward motions of alarm, but I soon perceived that their approach was in no way hostile to me. Upon each of them stood a crowd of people surrounding a single individual, who appeared to be in a position of authority, for on looking circumspectly I could see that when he shouted those about him shouted more loudly, and when he raised or lowered his arm they all with one consent waved their hats and handkerchiefs. I found by their gestures that I was plainly visible to all of them, and it soon appeared that it was the determination of each of the leaders that I should join that particular band by which he was surrounded, in order, as I afterwards discovered, that I might add my voice to swell his own peculiar cry; for I could now distinguish several different noises or notes among them, but mainly two, which I have already described.

I conjectured, however, by the energy which they displayed in their ges tures that in proportion as I made myself acceptable to one or other of these parties, so I should be an object of hatred to the rest. I decided, therefore,

to attach myself at first to none of them, but to procure a footing, as I had formerly done, upon the principal island itself. I had acquired during my stay there a tolerable proficiency in the language and manners of Laputa, and I now made bold to proclaim in the loudest voice I could command, that my business was with his Majesty the King.

At this the several crowds turned again to their various leaders, and the whole of the smaller islands retired until the vociferations proceeding from them became once more as insignificant as the clamor of birds. The Flying Island, however, for so I shall continue to call the main bulk of this aerial system, now descended somewhat and moved to a position directly over me, those upon it having perceived my intention or being apprised of it by signals; a chain was let down from the verge, with a seat fastened to the bottom, to which I fixed myself and was drawn up by pulleys into the royal city of Laputa.

CHAPTER II.

At my alighting my first concern was to inquire of those nearest to me what might be the meaning of the concourse of islands which I had witnessed from below.

A civil person of the better quality answered me that these platforms, as he called them, were indeed new-fangled and illegitimate in their nature, being an entrenchment upon the royal prerogative; for, according to the ancient government of that kingdom, the people had no leader but the King himself, and it was not tolerated that his lieutenants or deputies should make for themselves platforms, except it were each in his own garden or park, where he was at home among his proper friends. But of late, as I now heard, it had come to this, so many Ministers, so many plat

forms, and each of them moving from place to place more rapidly and incessantly than the others, with danger to the State and much injury to private persons. For whereas at my first coming among this people I observed that their heads were all inclined either to the right or the left, with one of their eyes turned downward and the other directly up to the zenith, I was now shown how that the most part were no longer so, but carried their heads at all manner of strange angles, and some even twisted once and twice round upon their necks. And this, as it appeared, had arisen from the efforts which they made to follow the movements, counter-movements and revolutions of the several platforms in their aerial flight.

I then demanded of my informant whether these platforms were indeed as like to the principal island in their nature and working as they were in their outward appearance. He said no, that there was in truth a vast difference; for in the first place the royal island had its foundation upon a base of adamant many hundred feet thick and in all probability everlasting, while these were but ephemeral structures, some of rubble and pasteboard, some of laths painted to resemble iron; and in the second place the great island is sustained by the magnetic force of the loadstone embedded in it and past the power of man to remove. Whereas, on the other hand, the little platforms are wholly supported by a kind of gas, which must be continually supplied to them by their makers or directors; and this skill being almost entirely a gift of nature and dying with each possessor, every such platform in its turn must one day come to the ground and be broken. And I afterwards found that in what he told me of the frailty of these little islands my informant was within the mark; for in that country leaders will abandon their platforms