they could by no means procure the needful medicine, except at a price
far beyond their means, and heard that an English traveler had offered a
large price for a pair of eaglets. The only eyrie was on a crag supposed
to be so inacessible, that no one ventured to attempt it, till these
boys, in their intense anxiety for their father, dared the fearful
danger, scaled the precipice, captured the birds, and safely conveyed
them to the traveler. Truly this was a deed of gold.

Such was the action of the Russian servant whose master's carriage was
pursued by wolves, and who sprang out among the beasts, sacrificing his
own life willingly to slake their fury for a few minutes in order that
the horses might be untouched, and convey his master to a place of
safety. But his act of self-devotion has been so beautifully expanded in
the story of 'Eric's Grave', in 'Tales of Christian Heroism', that we
can only hint at it, as at that of the 'Helmsman of Lake Erie', who,
with the steamer on fire around him, held fast by the wheel in the very
jaws of the flame, so as to guide the vessel into harbour, and save the
many lives within her, at the cost of his own fearful agony, while
slowly scorched by the flames.

Memorable, too, was the compassion that kept Dr. Thompson upon the
battlefield of the Alma, all alone throughout the night, striving to
alleviate the sufferings and attend to the wants, not of our own
wounded, but of the enemy, some of whom, if they were not sorely belied,
had been known to requite a friendly act of assistance with a pistol
shot. Thus to remain in the darkness, on a battlefield in an enemy's
country, among the enemy themselves, all for pity and mercy's sake, was
one of the noblest acts that history can show. Yet, it was paralleled in
the time of the Indian Mutiny, when every English man and woman was
flying from the rage of the Sepoys at Benares, and Dr. Hay alone