g their errand, their only
hope now was to save themselves, but in vain they tried to reach the
shore: the current was whirling them to their doom. Cries and death-songs
mingled with the deepening roar of the waters, the light barks reached
the cataract and leaped into the air. Then the night was still again,
save for the booming of the flood. Not one of the Indians who had set out
on this errand of death survived the hermit's stratagem.

THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL

At times the fisher-folk of Maine are startled to see the form of a ship,
with gaunt timbers showing through the planks, like lean limbs through
rents in a pauper's garb, float shoreward in the sunset. She is a ship of
ancient build, with tall masts and sails of majestic spread, all torn;
but what is her name, her port, her flag, what harbor she is trying to
make, no man can tell, for on her deck no sailor has ever been seen to
run up colors or heard to answer a hail. Be it in calm or storm, in-come
or ebb of tide, the ship holds her way until she almost touches shore.

There is no creak of spars or whine of cordage, no spray at the bow, no
ripple at the stern--no voice, and no figure to utter one. As she nears
the rocks she pauses, then, as if impelled by a contrary current, floats
rudder foremost off to sea, and vanishes in twilight. Harpswell is her
favorite cruising-ground, and her appearance there sets many heads to
shaking, for while it is not inevitable that ill luck follows her visits,
it has been seen that burial-boats have sometimes had occasion to cross
the harbor soon after them, and that they were obliged by wind or tide or
current to follow her course on leaving the wharf.

THE SCHOOLMASTER HAD NOT REACHED ORRINGTON.

The quiet town of Orrington, in Maine, was founded by Jesse Atwood, of
Wellfleet, Cape Cod, in 1778, and has become known, since then, as a
place where skilful farmers and brave sailors could always be found. It
also kept Maine supplied for years with oldest inhabitants. It is said
that the name was an accident of illiteracy, and that it is the only
place in the world that owes its title to bad spelling. The settlers who
followed Atwood there were numerous enough to form a township after ten
years, and the name they decided on for their commonwealth was
Orangetown, so called for a village in Maryland where some of the people
had associations, but the clerk of the town meeting was not a college
graduate and his spel