QUEEN VASHTI’S LAMENT.
THE SKELETON’S STORY.
It will require all the dramatic power of which you are capable to recite this selection and do it full justice. Be wide-awake, quick in tone and gesture, shouting at one time, whispering at another, speaking with your whole body. The emotions of fear and horror are especially prominent.
It is two miles ahead to the foot-hills—two miles of parched turf and rocky space. To the right—the left—behind, is the rolling prairie. This broad valley strikes the Sierra Nevadas and stops as if a wall had been built across it.
Ride closer! What is this on the grass? A skull here—a rib there—bones scattered about as the wild beasts left them after the horrible feast. The clean-picked skull grins and stares—every bone and scattered lock of hair has its story of a tragedy. And what besides these relics? More bones—not scattered, but lying in heaps—a vertebra with ribs attached—a fleshless skull bleaching under the summer sun. Wolves! Yes. Count the heaps of bones and you will find nearly a score. Open boats are picked up at sea with neither life nor sign to betray their secret. Skeletons are found upon the prairie, but they tell a plain story to those who halt beside them. Let us listen:
Away off to the right you can see treetops. Away off to the left you can see the same sight. The skeleton is in line between the two points. He left one grove to ride to the other. To ride! Certainly; a mile away is the skeleton of a horse or mule. The beast fell and was left there.
It is months since that ride, and the trail has been obliterated. Were it otherwise, and you took it up from the spot where the skeleton horse now lies, you would find the last three or four miles made at a tremendous pace.
“Step! step! step!”
What is it? Darkness has gathered over mountain and prairie as the hunter jogs along over the broken ground. Overhead the countless stars look down upon him—around him is the pall of night. There was a patter of footsteps on the dry grass. He halts and peers around him, but the darkness is too deep for him to discover any cause for alarm.
“Patter! patter! patter!”
There it is again! It is not fifty yards from where he last halted. The steps are too light for those of an Indian.
“Wolves!” whispers the hunter, as a howl suddenly breaks upon his ear.
Wolves! The gaunt, grizzly wolves of the foot-hills—thin and poor and hungry and savage—the legs tireless—the mouth full of teeth which can crack the shoulder-bone of a buffalo. He can see their dark forms flitting from point to point—the patter of their feet upon the parched grass proves that he is surrounded.
Now the race begins. A line of wolves spread out to the right and left, and gallops after—tongues out—eyes flashing—great flakes of foam flying back to blotch stone and grass and leave a trail to be followed by the cowardly coyotes.
Men ride thus only when life is the stake. A horse puts forth such speed only when terror follows close behind and causes every nerve to tighten like a wire drawn until the scratch of a finger makes it chord with a wail of despair. The line is there—aye! it is gaining! Inch by inch it creeps up, and the red eye takes on a more savage gleam as the hunter cries out to his horse and opens fire from his revolvers. A wolf falls on the right—a second on the left. Does the wind cease blowing because it meets a forest! The fall of one man in a mad mob increases the determination of the rest.
With a cry so full of the despair that wells up from the heart of the strong man when he gives up his struggle for life that the hunter almost believes a companion rides beside him, the horse staggers—recovers—plunges forward—falls to the earth. It was a glorious struggle; but he has lost.
There is a confused heap of snarling, fighting, maddened beasts, and the line rushes forward again. Saddle, bridle, and blanket are in shreds—the horse a skeleton. And now the chase is after the hunter. He has half a mile the start, and as he runs the veins stand out, the muscles tighten, and he wonders at his own speed. Behind him are the gaunt bodies and the tireless legs. Closer, closer, and now he is going to face fate like a brave man should. He has halted. In an instant a circle is formed about him—a circle of red eyes, foaming mouths, and yellow fangs which are to meet in his flesh.
There is an interval—a breathing spell. He looks up at the stars—out upon the night. It is his last hour, but there is no quaking—no crying out to the night to send him aid. As the wolves rest, a flash blinds their eyes—a second—a third—and a fourth, and they give before the man they had looked upon as their certain prey. But it is only for a moment. He sees them gathering for the rush, and firing his remaining bullets among them he seizes his long rifle by the barrel and braces to meet the shock. Even a savage would have admired the heroic fight he made for life. He sounds the war-cry and whirls his weapon around him, and wolf after wolf falls disabled. He feels a strange exultation over the desperate combat, and as the pack give way before his mighty blows a gleam of hope springs up in his heart.
It is only for a moment; then the circle narrows. Each disabled beast is replaced by three which hunger for blood. There is a rush—a swirl—and the cry of despair is drowned in the chorus of snarls as the pack fight over the feast.
The gray of morning—the sunlight of noonday—the stars of evening will look down upon grinning skull and whitening bones, and the wolf will return to crunch them again. Men will not bury them. They will look down upon them as we look, and ride away with a feeling that ’tis but another dark secret of the wonderful prairie.
THE LADY AND THE EARL.
The figures in the text of this piece indicate the gestures to be made, as shown in Typical Gestures, at the beginning of Part II. of this volume.
MY VESPER SONG.
THE VOLUNTEER ORGANIST.
With distinct enunciation give the dialect in this piece, and assume the character of a countryman who is telling this story. Guard against being vulgar or too commonplace.
COMIN’ THRO’ THE RYE.
JOAN OF ARC.
THE VULTURE OF THE ALPS.
This selection is narrative, yet it is narrative intensely dramatic. Imagine the feelings of a parent who sees the “youngest of his babes” torn away from his embrace by a vulture and carried away in mid-air. Let your tones, attitudes and gestures all be strong. Picture the flight of a mountain eagle with uplifted arm, and depict with an expression of agony the grief of the parent.
THE OLD-FASHIONED GIRL.
NATHAN HALE, THE MARTYR SPY.
After the disastrous defeat of the Americans on Long Island, Washington desired information respecting the British position and movements. Captain Nathan Hale, but twenty-one years old, volunteered to procure the information. He was taken and hanged as a spy the day after his capture, September 22, 1776. His patriotic devotion, and the brutal treatment he received at the hands of his captors, have suggested the following. Put your whole soul into this piece, especially Hale’s last speech. It rises to the sublime.