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His voice ceased, and his chin sank wearily upon his breast My ear caught the heavy breathing of Cairnes, and I turned to th upon the stone floor sound asleep Ads, I was yet so deeply engrossed in this tale of the old priest as to be ue

"You are indeed of an old race," I said, hoping to make him talk further, "if the traditions of your people extend to those first Frenchreat river"

The old eyes, now scanning leae out of our history I have related," he exclaimed hastily, evidently aroused by reatest people of the earth Ay, o, when our fathers were true to their faith and their God, there were none who could contend against us We had our great altars on every hilltop, and our villages were in every valley Our kings ruled froreat fresh water down to where the salt sea kisses the white sand; our slaves toiled in the fields to produce us food, and in the rocks to give us store of metal for the chase and war It was then the Sun shone war men who dared to face our warriors in battle We were masters of all the land we trod; we feared no people, for ere blessed of the Sun"

"How came the end?"

"It was a curse upon us--curse because we made mock of the Sun The sacred fire died out on our altars, while recreant priests slept, and so there came upon the nation a breath of pestilence from the sky which swept away the people as if by fire It has been told to es were destroyed in a single night; that those who survived wandered in the woods foodless, until only a pitiful remnant of those ere once so powerful lived in that tainted air, poisoned by decaying bodies Then the surviving slaves banded the and killing, until the feere left drew together on the banks of the great river Here, by lighting the sacred fire again, they made peace and were saved It was there I was born"

I fail utterly to picture the true soleed priest, white-haired and evil-eyed, slowlywith his back against the rough stones of the great altar, on the summit of which fla 'T was like a voice speaking frootten past, which looked forth frorave yawned to give rave contained--the hopes, the struggles, the death of a once powerful tribe Yet it all stands forth perfectly clear toin shadow and flaure of the bulky Puritan outstretched upon the stones at our feet; the ghastly, corpse-like face of the savage old priest, whose eyes glealories of his race