slice of bread and a fig.

"Do you see? They had given him his food just before,--just before. They
cared for him like a pink at the ear."

The mother gazed upon the little shirt, all soiled and torn, over which
her tears fell rapidly, and said, "Must I put that shirt on him?"

The other woman promptly raised her voice to some one of her family,
above on the bluff:--"Quick, bring one of Nufrillo's new shirts!" The
new shirt was brought. The mother flung herself down beside him.

"Get up, Riccangela, get up!" solicited the women around her.

She did not heed them. "Is my son to stay like that on the stones, and I
not stay there too?--like that, on the stones, my own son?"

"Get up, Riccangela, come away."

She arose. She gazed once more with terrible intensity upon the little
livid face of the dead. Once again she called with all the power of her
voice, "My son! My son! My son!"

Then with her own hands she covered up with the sheet the unheeding
remains.

And the women gathered around her, drew her a little to one side, under
shadow of a bowlder; they forced her to sit down, they lamented
with her.

Little by little the spectators melted away. There remained only a few
of the women comforters; there remained the man clad in linen, the
impassive custodian, who was awaiting the inquest.

The dog-day sun poured down upon the strand, and lent to the funeral
sheet a dazzling whiteness. Amidst the heat the promontory raised its
desolate aridity straight upward from the tortuous chain of rocks. The
sea, immense and green, pursued its constant, even breathing. And it
seemed as if the languid hour was destined never to come to an end.

Under shadow of the bowlder, opposite the white sheet, which was raised
up by the rigid form of the corpse beneath, the mother continued her
monody in the rhythm rendered sacred by all the sorrows, past and
present, of her race. And it seemed as if her lamentation was destined
never to come to an end.

TO AN IMPROMPTU OF CHOPIN

When thou upon my breast art sleeping,
I hear across the midnight gray--
I hear the muffled note of weeping,
So near--so sad--so far away!

All night I hear the teardrops falling--
Each drop by drop--my heart must weep;
I hear the falling blood-drops--lonely,
Whilst thou dost sleep--whilst thou dost sleep.

From 'The Triumph of Death.'

INDIA

India--wh