earth, he had been accompanied by his favourite camel,” so, on this occasion, he had taken up with him the Schah's daughter and her faithful waiting-woman. Among the doubters, indeed, there was a story current, which professed to be the true history of the transaction, and according to which, the pretended Ali was no other than the Princess's cousin, young Kaled, who, having lately, as it was known, returned from the wars, on the Caspian, had taken advantage of the expectation of Ali's coming, to possess himself of a treasure which both heaven and nature seemed to have destined for him. It was even added, that the retreat of the young fugitives was known, and that they were then living, secluded, in a small fairy mansion which they had built on the shores of the blue Lake of Shahee,† after the model of the Schah's summer palace among the mountains. * When Mortis Ali died, there came a Holy Prophet, who gave them warning that shortly there would come a white camel, upon which he charged them to lay the body and sword of Mortis Ali, and to suffer the camel to carry it whither he would. The which being performed, the said camel carried the sword and body of Mortis Ali unto the sea-side, and the camel going a good way into the sea, was with the body and sword of Mortis Ali, taken up into heaven; for whose return they have long looked in Persia.-Geffrey Ducket's Observation in Hakluyt. + The delightful lake of Shabee....its western extremities, terminated by a stupendous chain of mountains, whose snowy summits, softened by the haze, contrasted admirably with the light azure of the lake.Morier's Travels. "Murder may pass unpunished for a time, The hue and cry of heaven pursues him at his heels." THE wild and singular story, upon which this ballad is founded, was first related to the author by his friend Sir Walter Scott, to whom the author was also indebted for the following particulars :— "In spring, 1801, Mr. William C- —, advocate, while travelling to London in the mail coach, had for his companion the person, by whom the following story was originally told. He was a seafaring man, and a native of Liverpool, but had been lately settled at Hamburgh, whence he had been driven by the threatened rupture betwixt Britain and the Northern Powers. A magpie having appeared by the side of the road, the seaman made some superstitious observations, exactly to the purpose of the first verses, except that the evil which befel him of the second ill-omened conjunction of three of those birds, was, I believe, a fall from a horse. This led to the story called Bill Jones,' which the seaman (who had been mate a-board the vessel in which the event happened) told under the evident feelings of the strongest conviction. He mentioned the date of the event, the name of the vessel, and its owner, with those of the captain and murdered man, and gave so circumstan tial a detail, as to leave no doubt on the mind of the hearers, that the events, so far as natural, were certainly true, and that the marvellous had been supplied by the superstitious imagination of the sailors. The narrative is literally versi fied, excepting in the following particulars. The captain shot the sailor with a blunderbus, and had gone indeed down to the cabin to provide himself with that weapon after the quarrel commenced. The man was on the yard-arın when he received the mortal wound, and was handed down by his companions. While he lay dying on the deck, the dialogue passed betwixt him and his murderer, precisely as in the following tale. It may also be mentioned, that the spectre was only affirmed by the mate to be visible to the crew during the night. He had often seen him, he said, himself, on the yard-arm. He had interfered to prevent the murder, or rather after it was over, for which the captain put him in irons, and he was not released till he had made a submissive apology. The captain communicated, or rather hinted, his resolution of suicide to the narrator, when they were together in the cabin. He said he could not stay-that he must leave the ship-that the spectre, whom they saw but occasionally, was constantly before his eyes, and that he could bear it no longer. At this moment something obliged the mate to go on deck, when he heard a heavy plunge into the sea, and saw the captain floating astern of the vessel-the drowning man gave a wild cry, exclaiming,' Bill has me now!' "The sailor left the audience to make their own inference; he himself seemed rather to insinuate, that the apparition had some immediate share in the captain's death. "After this strange story was finished, Mr. C. asked the seaman whether he did not think the captain mad? He paused, as if the idea had never occurred to him, and answered after some deliberation, he did not think he was; for, unless in the frantic fits of passion, into which he was thrown by the least opposition, he conversationed well enough. "These circumstances have been very often told me by my friend Mr. C., and the difference here noticed occurred to us both on reading the poem.-W. SCOTT." "Now well-a-day !" the sailor said, "And what have the ravens with us to do? "I've known full threescore years go by, I've seen three ravens near me fly; "The first time, I was wrecked at sea; I lost my wife and children three "Still do I hear their screams for aid, Which to give was past man's power! I saw in earth their coffins laid Well! my heart of marble must be made, "Poor soul, your tale of many woes But think you then such ills arose, "No doubt, since this fantastic fear Has thus possess'd your head, You firmly believe that ghosts appear, And that men rise from the blood-stained bier "Believe it, master? well I may! Now mark what I'll relate: For gospel-true are the words I say, When I swear, that during three weeks and a day, “My cash ran low: no beef, no flip, "Oh! it's a sad, sad thing to hear And far, far away from their own. "But soon the sailor found his part Scarce better than the slave's; For our captain had a tiger's heart, And he plagued his crew with such barbarous art, We all wished us in our graves. "We scarce were two days sail from port, Ere many a back was flayed: He flogged us oft in wanton sport,— His heart was of stone, not flesh-in short, |