The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-03-12

In the hope to exhibit O balance clear
When the reckoning day is nigh.
--O--
THE BIOGRAPHY OF SHILLING.
BY S. d.
"Alice bore up bravey for two years; at
the end of that time her fathers health be-
gan to fail, and before another anniversary
OF that bitter parting, he was laid in the
village churcbyard. Sweet girl, she was
all alone now; and she used to take me, or
a part of me, from her bosom, where hung
suspended by ribbon, and with many tears
and kisses wonder when the adventurer
would return. Even my hard healt often
melted ut sight of her grief One day, how
ever, in the midst of her sorrow, stranger
arrived in the village coach, and soon pre-
sented himself ut the cottage door. With
one cry, Alice lay fainting in his arms
sit was indeed Robert retuIned-not
with great riches, but with tales of sweet
little forest home, bright with tho sunshine
and redolent of flowers, only waiting the
blessing of fair presence to make it an
earthly paradise.
cat IN early day the village bells rang
out their merry chimes, and when Alice left
the church, she wore on her slender finger
o ring that only a wife may wear.
"Robert had me joined to my old friend
If 1 may so call my other half, and we, a
happy party, left for the new world
'The good ship Severn held bravely on
her way, her snowy sails filed with aus
picious gales, until the hoped for haven was
almost in sight; then q terrible storm arose,
and the long rolling waves soon carried her
out of her course.
''For two dreadful days and nights she
was tossed about at the mercy of the stormy
waters, her very timbers groaning like a
thing of life in mortal agony. In the YES
sci, fear and CONSERVATION sat on every
face; passengers, who had never before
been on the broad and treacherous bosom
OF the mighty ocean, and sailors, who had
never known any other cradle or lullaby
than the rolling and roar of its pillows, we're
alike powerless and terror stricken, as they
saw death hoverlng, with outspread wings,
over that wild waste of seething waters.
"On :he third night, the ship was driven
on the breakers off the coast of Georgia,
and all night long the minute guns doomed
out over that boiling whirlpool of destruc-
tion, with no ear to hear, and no hand to
succor, save His, whose ear is ever open to
the cry of Distress and who holds the
storms in the hollow of His hand. Just as
the grey dawn looked forth from the misty
East, the Severn went to pieces on the
rocks, and every soul on board was launched
ont on the bosom of that mighticr sen, tho
eternity of Jehovah.
climbed high up in the blue heavens, and
was looking serenely down on the wreck
strewn shore, old Tom, lineal descendant
OF Africa's dusky royalty, was engaged in
collecting the spars and beams of drift
wood that the receding tido had left on the
. wide, low coast. Something that the blue
waters. in their turbulent play, turned
Whitley to the sun at last caught his eye;
and approaching cautiously, he saw-what?
A woman's form, lying just within the ut
most touch OF old oceans deadly clasp; the
golden hair drifting out in the waving sen
weed, the rigid features, beautiful IN their
. white purity, and the brown eyes, sealed
with the awful signet of death, turned
straight upward to where the angels do
always behold the unveiled face of the God
head.
with dstended eyes and we-struck
face, old Tom slowly returned to his cubin,
and calling to his assistance some of his
fellow slaves, dug lowly grave; in it they
rsyerenty laid the beautiful, unconscious
form, where 1t shall lie, with the billows
forever singing their sublime monotone
above it, until the archangel's trump shall
cieave the sea and land, aud the voice of
the Saviour shall again say to the dead,
Come forthp
"Old Tom claimed me from the white
bosom, and plain gold ring from the slen-
der finger, as his perquisites. Had any one
Deen there to whom letters were not a mys-
terry, he might have read q mournful legend
IN the simple words engraved in that little
circlet of gold:
Robert to Alice
CHAPTER III.
"Again was consigned to the silence of
an old chest; for though old Toms nyarice
tuaQ n ~