Connecticut western news., 1889-08-07

time hysterical with horror, for the emotions have recapitulated did pass through my brain, even as l have detailed them. *@r.
 "But as I now became calm in thought, summoned up again some resolution of action.
 "I will begin at that corner (said I), and swim around the whole enclos- ure. I will swim slowly and again feel the side of the tank with my feet. If die must, let me perish at least from well-directed though exhausting effort, rot sink from mere bootless wcariness in sustaining myself till the morning shall bring relief.
 1.-The sides of the place seemed to grow higher as now kept my watery course beneath them. It was not aL together dead pull. I had some variety of emotion in making my cir cult. When I swan in the shadow, it looked to me more cheerful beyond in the moonlight. When I swan in the moonlight, I had the hope of making some discovery when I should again reach the shadow. I turned several times on my back to rest just where those wavy lines woold meet. The stars looked viciously light to me from the bottom or that well: there was such company of them; they were so glad in their lustrous revelry; and they had such a space to move in! l was alone, sad to despair in a strange element, prisoned, and solitary gazer upon their chorus. And yet there was nothing else with which could hold communion!
 "I turned upon my breast and struck out almost frantically once more. The stars were forgotten; the moon, the very world of which I as yet formed part, my poor Mary herself, were forgotten. I thought only of the strong man there perishing; of me, in my lusty manhood, in the sharp vigor of my dawning prime, with faculties illimitable. with senses all alert battling there with physical obstac- les which men like myself had brought together for my undoing. The Etern- al could have willed this thing! l could not and I would not perish thus. And grew strong in insolence of self trust; and laughed aloud as dashed the sluggish water aside. % "
 "Then came an emotion of pity for myself, of wild, wild regret; of sor row, oh, infinite, for a fate so desolate, a doom so dreary, so heart-sickening You may laugh at the contradiction if you will sir, but 1 felt that I could sac ritice my own life on the instant, to redeem another fellow creature from such place of horror, from an end so piteous. My soul and my vital spirit seemed in tha, desperate moment to be separating; while one in parting grievcd over the deplorable fate of the other.
 "And then I prayed! I prayed, why or wherefore 1 know not. It was not fear. It could not have been in hope. The days of miracles are passed, and there was no natural law by whose interposition could be saved. did not pray; it prayed of itself, my soul within me.
 "Was the calmness that I now felt
 torpidity? the torpidity that precedes dissolution, to the strong swimmer
 who sinking from exhaustion, must al
 last add bubble to the wave as he
 suffocates beneath the element whicf
 now denied his mastery? If it were
 so, how fortunate was it that my float
 ing rod at that moment attracted my
 attention as it dashed through tht
 water by me. I saw on the instan
 that fish had entangled himself il
 the wire moose. The rod quivered
 plunged, came again to the surface
 and rippled the water as it shot il
 arrowy flight from side to side of th'
 tank. At last driven toward tn,
 southeast corner of the Reservoir, tn,
 small end seemed to have got fou
 somewhere. The brazen butt, which
 every time the fish sounded, wa
 thrown to the moon, now sank by it
 own weight, showing that the othe
 end must be fast. But the cornere,
 fish, evidently anchored somewhere b. that short wire, ioundered severa
 times to the surface, before I though
 of striking out to the spot.
 "The water is low now, and toler
 ably clear. You may see the very ledg there, sir, in yonder corner, on whic the small end of my rod rested whe I secured that pike with my hands. did not take him from the slip-noose
 however; but standing upon the ledge handled the rod in a workmanlike mar ner, as 1 flung that pound pickert , over the iron railing upon the top o , the parapet. The rod, as I have tol , you, barely reached from the railin
 to the water. It was heavy, stron l bass>rod, and when I discovered tn; the fish at the end of the wire made strong enough knot to prevent me frol ) drawing my tackle away from tn l railing around which it twined itsel s as threw, why, as you can at ono