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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Last Galley Impressions and Tales
+by Arthur Conan Doyle
+
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+Title: The Last Galley Impressions and Tales
+       Impressions and Tales
+
+Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8727]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 4, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST GALLEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Lionel G. Sear of Truro, Cornwall, England.
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST GALLEY.
+
+IMPRESSIONS AND TALES
+
+Arthur Conan Doyle.
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+
+I have written "Impressions and Tales" upon the title-page of this
+volume, because I have included within the same cover two styles of work
+which present an essential difference.
+
+The second half of the collection consists of eight stories, which
+explain themselves.
+
+The first half is made up of a series of pictures of the past which
+maybe regarded as trial flights towards a larger ideal which I have long
+had in my mind.  It has seemed to me that there is a region between
+actual story and actual history which has never been adequately
+exploited.  I could imagine, for example, a work dealing with some great
+historical epoch, and finding its interest not in the happenings to
+particular individuals, their adventures and their loves, but in the
+fascination of the actual facts of history themselves.  These facts
+might be coloured with the glamour which the writer of fiction can give,
+and fictitious characters and conversations might illustrate them; but
+none the less the actual drama of history and not the drama of invention
+should claim the attention of the reader.  I have been tempted sometimes
+to try the effect upon a larger scale; but meanwhile these short
+sketches, portraying various crises in the story of the human race, are
+to be judged as experiments in that direction.
+
+ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+WINDLESHAM,
+CROWBOROUGH,
+April, 1911.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE LAST GALLEY
+THE CONTEST
+THROUGH THE VEIL
+AN ICONOCLAST
+GIANT MAXIMIN
+THE COMING OF THE HUNS
+THE LAST OF THE LEGIONS
+THE FIRST CARGO
+THE HOME-COMING
+THE RED STAR
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+THE SILVER MIRROR
+THE BLIGHTING OF SHARKEY
+THE MARRIAGE OF THE BRIGADIER
+THE LORD OF FALCONBRIDGE
+OUT OF THE RUNNING
+"DE PROFUNDIS"
+THE GREAT BROWN-PERICORD MOTOR
+THE TERROR OF BLUE JOHN GAP
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST GALLEY
+
+
+"Mutato nomine, de te, Britannia, fabula narratur."
+
+It was a spring morning, one hundred and forty-six years before the
+coming of Christ.  The North African Coast, with its broad hem of golden
+sand, its green belt of feathery palm trees, and its background of
+barren, red-scarped hills, shimmered like a dream country in the opal
+light.  Save for a narrow edge of snow-white surf, the Mediterranean
+lay blue and serene as far as the eye could reach.  In all its vast
+expanse there was no break but for a single galley, which was slowly
+making its way from the direction of Sicily and heading for the distant
+harbour of Carthage.
+
+Seen from afar it was a stately and beautiful vessel, deep red in
+colour, double-banked with scarlet oars, its broad, flapping sail
+stained with Tyrian purple, its bulwarks gleaming with brass work.
+A brazen, three-pronged ram projected in front, and a high golden figure
+of Baal, the God of the Phoenicians, children of Canaan, shone upon the
+after deck.  From the single high mast above the huge sail streamed the
+tiger-striped flag of Carthage.  So, like some stately scarlet bird,
+with golden beak and wings of purple, she swam upon the face of the
+waters--a thing of might and of beauty as seen from the distant shore.
+
+But approach and look at her now!  What are these dark streaks which
+foul her white decks and dapple her brazen shields?  Why do the long red
+oars move out of time, irregular, convulsive?  Why are some missing from
+the staring portholes, some snapped with jagged, yellow edges, some
+trailing inert against the side?  Why are two prongs of the brazen ram
+twisted and broken?  See, even the high image of Baal is battered and
+disfigured!  By every sign this ship has passed through some grievous
+trial, some day of terror, which has left its heavy marks upon her.
+
+And now stand upon the deck itself, and see more closely the men who man
+her!  There are two decks forward and aft, while in the open waist are
+the double banks of seats, above and below, where the rowers, two to an
+oar, tug and bend at their endless task.  Down the centre is a narrow
+platform, along which pace a line of warders, lash in hand, who cut
+cruelly at the slave who pauses, be it only for an instant, to sweep the
+sweat from his dripping brow.  But these slaves--look at them!  Some are
+captured Romans, some Sicilians, many black Libyans, but all are in the
+last exhaustion, their weary eyelids drooped over their eyes, their lips
+thick with black crusts, and pink with bloody froth, their arms and
+backs moving mechanically to the hoarse chant of the overseer.  Their
+bodies of all tints from ivory to jet, are stripped to the waist, and
+every glistening back shows the angry stripes of the warders.  But it is
+not from these that the blood comes which reddens the seats and tints
+the salt water washing beneath their manacled feet.  Great gaping
+wounds, the marks of sword slash and spear stab, show crimson upon their
+naked chests and shoulders, while many lie huddled and senseless athwart
+the benches, careless for ever of the whips which still hiss above them.
+Now we can understand those empty portholes and those trailing oars.
+
+Nor were the crew in better case than their slaves.  The decks were
+littered with wounded and dying men.  It was but a remnant who still
+remained upon their feet.  The most lay exhausted upon the fore-deck,
+while a few of the more zealous were mending their shattered armour,
+restringing their bows, or cleaning the deck from the marks of combat.
+Upon a raised platform at the base of the mast stood the sailing-master
+who conned the ship, his eyes fixed upon the distant point of Megara
+which screened the eastern side of the Bay of Carthage.  On the
+after-deck were gathered a number of officers, silent and brooding,
+glancing from time to time at two of their own class who stood apart
+deep in conversation.  The one, tall, dark, and wiry, with pure, Semitic
+features, and the limbs of a giant, was Magro, the famous Carthaginian
+captain, whose name was still a terror on every shore, from Gaul to the
+Euxine.  The other, a white-bearded, swarthy man, with indomitable
+courage and energy stamped upon every eager line of his keen, aquiline
+face, was Gisco the politician, a man of the highest Punic blood, a
+Suffete of the purple robe, and the leader of that party in the State
+which had watched and striven amid the selfishness and slothfulness of
+his fellow-countrymen to rouse the public spirit and waken the public
+conscience to the ever-increasing danger from Rome.  As they talked, the
+two men glanced continually, with earnest anxious faces, towards the
+northern skyline.
+
+"It is certain," said the older man, with gloom in his voice and
+bearing, "none have escaped save ourselves."
+
+"I did not leave the press of the battle whilst I saw one ship which I
+could succour," Magro answered.  "As it was, we came away, as you saw,
+like a wolf which has a hound hanging on to either haunch.  The Roman
+dogs can show the wolf-bites which prove it.  Had any other galley won
+clear, they would surely be with us by now, since they have no place of
+safety save Carthage."
+
+The younger warrior glanced keenly ahead to the distant point which
+marked his native city.  Already the low, leafy hill could be seen,
+dotted with the white villas of the wealthy Phoenician merchants.
+Above them, a gleaming dot against the pale blue morning sky, shone the
+brazen roof of the citadel of Byrsa, which capped the sloping town.
+
+"Already they can see us from the watch-towers," he remarked.  "Even
+from afar they may know the galley of Black Magro.  But which of all of
+them will guess that we alone remain of all that goodly fleet which
+sailed out with blare of trumpet and roll of drum but one short month
+ago?"
+
+The patrician smiled bitterly.  "If it were not for our great ancestors
+and for our beloved country, the Queen of the Waters," said he,
+"I could find it in my heart to be glad at this destruction which has
+come upon this vain and feeble generation.  You have spent your life
+upon the seas, Magro.  You do not know of know how it has been with us
+on the land.  But I have seen this canker grow upon us which now leads
+us to our death.  I and others have gone down into the market-place to
+plead with the people, and been pelted with mud for our pains.  Many a
+time have I pointed to Rome, and said, 'Behold these people, who bear
+arms themselves, each man for his own duty and pride.  How can you who
+hide behind mercenaries hope to stand against them?'--a hundred times I
+have said it."
+
+"And had they no answer?" asked the Rover.
+
+"Rome was far off and they could not see it, so to them it was nothing,"
+the old man answered.  "Some thought of trade, and some of votes, and
+some of profits from the State, but none would see that the State
+itself, the mother of all things, was sinking to her end.  So might the
+bees debate who should have wax or honey when the torch was blazing
+which would bring to ashes the hive and all therein.  'Are we not rulers
+of the sea?'  'Was not Hannibal a great man?'  Such were their cries,
+living ever in the past and blind to the future.  Before that sun sets
+there will be tearing of hair and rending of garments; what will that
+now avail us?"
+
+"It is some sad comfort," said Magro, "to know that what Rome holds she
+cannot keep."
+
+"Why say you that?  When we go down, she is supreme in all the world."
+
+"For a time, and only for a time," Magro answered, gravely.  "Yet you
+will smile, perchance, when I tell you how it is that I know it.
+There was a wise woman who lived in that part of the Tin Islands which
+juts forth into the sea, and from her lips I have heard many things, but
+not one which has not come aright.  Of the fall of our own country,
+and even of this battle, from which we now return, she told me clearly.
+There is much strange lore amongst these savage peoples in the west of
+the land of Tin."
+
+"What said she of Rome?"
+
+"That she also would fall, even as we, weakened by her riches and her
+factions."
+
+Gisco rubbed his hands.  "That at least makes our own fall less bitter,"
+said he.  "But since we have fallen, and Rome will fall, who in turn may
+hope to be Queen of the Waters?"
+
+"That also I asked her," said Magro, "and gave her my Tyrian belt with
+the golden buckle as a guerdon for her answer.  But, indeed, it was too
+high payment for the tale she told, which must be false if all else she
+said was true.  She would have it that in coining days it was her own
+land, this fog-girt isle where painted savages can scarce row a wicker
+coracle from point to point, which shall at last take the trident which
+Carthage and Rome have dropped."
+
+The smile which flickered upon the old patrician's keen features died
+away suddenly, and his fingers closed upon his companion's wrist.
+The other had set rigid, his head advanced, his hawk eyes upon the
+northern skyline.  Its straight, blue horizon was broken by two low
+black dots.
+
+"Galleys!" whispered Gisco.
+
+The whole crew had seen them.  They clustered along the starboard
+bulwarks, pointing and chattering.  For a moment the gloom of defeat was
+lifted, and a buzz of joy ran from group to group at the thought that
+they were not alone--that some one had escaped the great carnage as well
+as themselves.
+
+"By the spirit of Baal," said Black Magro, "I could not have believed
+that any could have fought clear from such a welter.  Could it be young
+Hamilcar in the _Africa_, or is it Beneva in the blue Syrian ship?
+We three with others may form a squadron and make head against them yet.
+If we hold our course, they will join us ere we round the harbour mole."
+
+Slowly the injured galley toiled on her way, and more swiftly the two
+newcomers swept down from the north.  Only a few miles off lay the green
+point and the white houses which flanked the great African city.
+Already, upon the headland, could be seen a dark group of waiting
+townsmen.  Gisco and Magro were still watching with puckered gaze the
+approaching galleys, when the brown Libyan boatswain, with flashing
+teeth and gleaming eyes, rushed upon the poop, his long thin arm
+stabbing to the north.
+
+"Romans!" he cried.  "Romans!"
+
+A hush had fallen over the great vessel.  Only the wash of the water and
+the measured rattle and beat of the oars broke in upon the silence.
+
+"By the horns of God's altar, I believe the fellow is right!" cried old
+Gisco.  "See how they swoop upon us like falcons.  They are full-manned
+and full-oared."
+
+"Plain wood, unpainted," said Magro.  "See how it gleams yellow where
+the sun strikes it."
+
+"And yonder thing beneath the mast.  Is it not the cursed bridge they
+use for boarding?"
+
+"So they grudge us even one," said Magro with a bitter laugh.  "Not even
+one galley shall return to the old sea-mother.  Well, for my part, I
+would as soon have it so.  I am of a mind to stop the oars and await
+them."
+
+"It is a man's thought," answered old Gisco; "but the city will need us
+in the days to come.  What shall it profit us to make the Roman victory
+complete?  Nay, Magro, let the slaves row as they never rowed before,
+not for our own safety, but for the profit of the State."
+
+So the great red ship laboured and lurched onwards, like a weary panting
+stag which seeks shelter from his pursuers, while ever swifter and ever
+nearer sped the two lean fierce galleys from the north.  Already the
+morning sun shone upon the lines of low Roman helmets above the
+bulwarks, and glistened on the silver wave where each sharp prow shot
+through the still blue water.  Every moment the ships drew nearer, and
+the long thin scream of the Roman trumpets grew louder upon the ear.
+
+Upon the high bluff of Megara there stood a great concourse of the
+people of Carthage who had hurried forth from the city upon the news
+that the galleys were in sight.  They stood now, rich and poor, effete
+and plebeian, white Phoenician and dark Kabyle, gazing with breathless
+interest at the spectacle before them.  Some hundreds of feet beneath
+them the Punic galley had drawn so close that with their naked eyes they
+could see those stains of battle which told their dismal tale.
+The Romans, too, were heading in such a way that it was before their
+very faces that their ship was about to be cut off; and yet of all this
+multitude not one could raise a hand in its defence.  Some wept in
+impotent grief, some cursed with flashing eyes and knotted fists, some
+on their knees held up appealing hands to Baal; but neither prayer,
+tears, nor curses could undo the past nor mend the present.  That
+broken, crawling galley meant that their fleet was gone.  Those two
+fierce darting ships meant that the hands of Rome were already at their
+throat.  Behind them would come others and others, the innumerable
+trained hosts of the great Republic, long mistress of the land, now
+dominant also upon the waters.  In a month, two months, three at the
+most, their armies would be there, and what could all the untrained
+multitudes of Carthage do to stop them?
+
+"Nay!" cried one, more hopeful than the rest, "at least we are brave men
+with arms in our hands."
+
+"Fool!" said another, "is it not such talk which has brought us to our
+ruin?  What is the brave man untrained to the brave man trained?  When
+you stand before the sweep and rush of a Roman legion you may learn the
+difference."
+
+"Then let us train!"
+
+"Too late!  A full year is needful to turn a man to a soldier.  Where
+will you--where will your city be within the year?  Nay, there is but
+one chance for us.  If we give up our commerce and our colonies, if we
+strip ourselves of all that made us great, then perchance the Roman
+conqueror may hold his hand."
+
+And already the last sea-fight of Carthage was coming swiftly to an end
+before them.  Under their very eyes the two Roman galleys had shot in,
+one on either side of the vessel of Black Magro.  They had grappled with
+him, and he, desperate in his despair, had cast the crooked flukes of
+his anchors over their gunwales, and bound them to him in an iron grip,
+whilst with hammer and crowbar he burst great holes in his own
+sheathing.  The last Punic galley should never be rowed into Ostia, a
+sight for the holiday-makers of Rome.  She would lie in her own waters.
+And the fierce, dark soul of her rover captain glowed as he thought that
+not alone should she sink into the depths of the mother sea.
+
+Too late did the Romans understand the man with whom they had to deal.
+Their boarders who had flooded the Punic decks felt the planking sink
+and sway beneath them.  They rushed to gain their own vessels; but they,
+too, were being drawn downwards, held in the dying grip of the great red
+galley.  Over they went and ever over.  Now the deck of Magro's ship is
+flush with the water, and the Romans, drawn towards it by the iron bonds
+which held them, are tilted downwards, one bulwark upon the waves,
+one reared high in the air.  Madly they strain to cast off the death
+grip of the galley.  She is under the surface now, and ever swifter,
+with the greater weight, the Roman ships heel after her.  There is a
+rending crash.  The wooden side is torn out of one, and mutilated,
+dismembered, she rights herself, and lies a helpless thing upon the
+water.  But a last yellow gleam in the blue water shows where her
+consort has been dragged to her end in the iron death-grapple of her
+foemen.  The tiger-striped flag of Carthage has sunk beneath the
+swirling surface, never more to be seen upon the face of the sea.
+
+For in that year a great cloud hung for seventeen days over the African
+coast, a deep black cloud which was the dark shroud of the burning city.
+And when the seventeen days were over, Roman ploughs were driven from
+end to end of the charred ashes, and salt was scattered there as a sign
+that Carthage should be no more.  And far off a huddle of naked,
+starving folk stood upon the distant mountains, and looked down upon the
+desolate plain which had once been the fairest and richest upon earth.
+And they understood too late that it is the law of heaven that the world
+is given to the hardy and to the self-denying, whilst he who would
+escape the duties of manhood will soon be stripped of the pride, the
+wealth, and the power, which are the prizes which manhood brings.
+
+
+
+THE CONTEST.
+
+
+In the year of our Lord 66, the Emperor Nero, being at that time in the
+twenty-ninth year of his life and the thirteenth of his reign, set sail
+for Greece with the strangest company and the most singular design
+that any monarch has ever entertained.  With ten galleys he went forth
+from Puteoli, carrying with him great stores of painted scenery and
+theatrical properties, together with a number of knights and senators,
+whom he feared to leave behind him at Rome, and who were all marked for
+death in the course of his wanderings.  In his train he took Natus,
+his singing coach; Cluvius, a man with a monstrous voice, who should
+bawl out his titles; and a thousand trained youths who had learned to
+applaud in unison whenever their master sang or played in public.
+So deftly had they been taught that each had his own role to play.
+Some did no more than give forth a low deep hum of speechless
+appreciation.  Some clapped with enthusiasm.  Some, rising from
+approbation into absolute frenzy, shrieked, stamped, and beat sticks
+upon the benches.  Some--and they were the most effective--had learned
+from an Alexandrian a long droning musical note which they all uttered
+together, so that it boomed over the assembly.  With the aid of these
+mercenary admirers, Nero had every hope, in spite of his indifferent
+voice and clumsy execution, to return to Rome, bearing with him the
+chaplets for song offered for free competition by the Greek cities.
+As his great gilded galley with two tiers of oars passed down the
+Mediterranean, the Emperor sat in his cabin all day, his teacher by his
+side, rehearsing from morning to night those compositions which he had
+selected, whilst every few hours a Nubian slave massaged the Imperial
+throat with oil and balsam, that it might be ready for the great ordeal
+which lay before it in the land of poetry and song.  His food, his
+drink, and his exercise were prescribed for him as for an athlete who
+trains for a contest, and the twanging of his lyre, with the strident
+notes of his voice, resounded continually from the Imperial quarters.
+
+Now it chanced that there lived in those days a Grecian goatherd named
+Policles, who tended and partly owned a great flock which grazed upon
+the long flanks of the hills near Heroea, which is five miles north of
+the river Alpheus, and no great distance from the famous Olympia.
+This person was noted all over the countryside as a man of strange gifts
+and singular character.  He was a poet who had twice been crowned for
+his verses, and he was a musician to whom the use and sound of an
+instrument were so natural that one would more easily meet him without
+his staff than his harp.  Even in his lonely vigils on the winter hills
+he would bear it always slung over his shoulder, and would pass the long
+hours by its aid, so that it had come to be part of his very self.
+He was beautiful also, swarthy and eager, with a head like Adonis, and
+in strength there was no one who could compete with him.  But all was
+ruined by his disposition, which was so masterful that he would brook no
+opposition nor contradiction.  For this reason he was continually at
+enmity with all his neighbours, and in his fits of temper he would spend
+months at a time in his stone hut among the mountains, hearing nothing
+from the world, and living only for his music and his goats.
+
+One spring morning, in the year of 67, Policles, with the aid of his boy
+Dorus, had driven his goats over to a new pasturage which overlooked
+from afar the town of Olympia.  Gazing down upon it from the mountain,
+the shepherd was surprised to see that a portion of the famous
+amphitheatre had been roofed in, as though some performance was being
+enacted.  Living far from the world and from all news, Policles could
+not imagine what was afoot, for he was well aware that the Grecian games
+were not due for two years to come.  Surely some poetic or musical
+contest must be proceeding of which he had heard nothing.  If so, there
+would perhaps be some chance of his gaining the votes of the judges; and
+in any case he loved to hear the compositions and admire the execution
+of the great minstrels who assembled on such an occasion.  Calling to
+Dorus, therefore, he left the goats to his charge, and strode swiftly
+away, his harp upon his back, to see what was going forward in the town.
+
+When Policles came into the suburbs, he found them deserted; but he was
+still more surprised when he reached the main street to see no single
+human being in the place.  He hastened his steps, therefore, and as he
+approached the theatre he was conscious of a low sustained hum which
+announced the concourse of a huge assembly.  Never in all his dreams
+had he imagined any musical competition upon so vast a scale as this.
+There were some soldiers clustering outside the door; but Policles
+pushed his way swiftly through them, and found himself upon the
+outskirts of the multitude who filled the great space formed by roofing
+over a portion of the national stadium.  Looking around him, Policles
+saw a great number of his neighbours, whom he knew by sight, tightly
+packed upon the benches, all with their eyes fixed upon the stage.
+He also observed that there were soldiers round the walls, and that a
+considerable part of the hall was filled by a body of youths of foreign
+aspect, with white gowns and long hair.  All this he perceived; but what
+it meant he could not imagine.  He bent over to a neighbour to ask him,
+but a soldier prodded him at once with the butt end of his spear, and
+commanded him fiercely to hold his peace.  The man whom he had
+addressed, thinking that Policles had demanded a seat, pressed closer to
+his neighbour, and so the shepherd found himself sitting at the end of
+the bench which was nearest to the door.  Thence he concentrated himself
+upon the stage, on which Metas, a well-known minstrel from Corinth and
+an old friend of Policles, was singing and playing without much
+encouragement from the audience.  To Policles it seemed that Metas was
+having less than his due, so he applauded loudly, but he was surprised
+to observe that the soldiers frowned at him, and that all his neighbours
+regarded him with some surprise.  Being a man of strong and obstinate
+character, he was the more inclined to persevere in his clapping when he
+perceived that the general sentiment was against him.
+
+But what followed filled the shepherd poet with absolute amazement.
+When Metas of Corinth had made his bow and withdrawn to half-hearted and
+perfunctory applause, there appeared upon the stage, amid the wildest
+enthusiasm upon the part of the audience, a most extraordinary figure.
+He was a short fat man, neither old nor young, with a bull neck and a
+round, heavy face, which hung in creases in front like the dewlap of an
+ox.  He was absurdly clad in a short blue tunic, braced at the waist
+with a golden belt.  His neck and part of his chest were exposed, and
+his short, fat legs were bare from the buskins below to the middle of
+his thighs, which was as far as his tunic extended.  In his hair were
+two golden wings, and the same upon his heels, after the fashion of the
+god Mercury.  Behind him walked a negro bearing a harp, and beside him a
+richly dressed officer who bore rolls of music.  This strange creature
+took the harp from the hands of the attendant, and advanced to the front
+of the stage, whence he bowed and smiled to the cheering audience."
+This is some foppish singer from Athens," thought Policles to himself,
+but at the same time he understood that only a great master of song
+could receive such a reception from a Greek audience.  This was
+evidently some wonderful performer whose reputation had preceded him.
+Policles settled down, therefore, and prepared to give his soul up to
+the music.
+
+The blue-clad player struck several chords upon his lyre, and then burst
+suddenly out into the "Ode of Niobe."  Policles sat straight up on his
+bench and gazed at the stage in amazement.  The tune demanded a rapid
+transition from a low note to a high, and had been purposely chosen for
+this reason.  The low note was a grunting, a rumble, the deep discordant
+growling of an ill-conditioned dog.  Then suddenly the singer threw up
+his face, straightened his tubby figure, rose upon his tiptoes, and with
+wagging head and scarlet cheeks emitted such a howl as the same dog
+might have given had his growl been checked by a kick from his master.
+All the while the lyre twanged and thrummed, sometimes in front of and
+sometimes behind the voice of the singer.  But what amazed Policles most
+of all was the effect of this performance upon the audience.  Every
+Greek was a trained critic, and as unsparing in his hisses as he was
+lavish in his applause.  Many a singer far better than this absurd fop
+had been driven amid execration and abuse from the platform.  But now,
+as the man stopped and wiped the abundant sweat from his fat face, the
+whole assembly burst into a delirium of appreciation.  The shepherd held
+his hands to his bursting head, and felt that his reason must be leaving
+him.  It was surely a dreadful musical nightmare, and he would wake soon
+and laugh at the remembrance.  But no; the figures were real, the faces
+were those of his neighbours, the cheers which resounded in his ears
+were indeed from an audience which filled the theatre of Olympia.
+The whole chorus was in full blast, the hummers humming, the shouters
+bellowing, the tappers hard at work upon the benches, while every now
+and then came a musical cyclone of "Incomparable! Divine!" from the
+trained phalanx who intoned their applause, their united voices sweeping
+over the tumult as the drone of the wind dominates the roar of the sea.
+It was madness--insufferable madness! If this were allowed to pass,
+there was an end of all musical justice in Greece.  Policles' conscience
+would not permit him to be still.  Standing upon his bench with waving
+hands and upraised voice, he protested with all the strength of his
+lungs against the mad judgment of the audience.
+
+At first, amid the tumult, his action was hardly noticed.  His voice was
+drowned in the universal roar which broke out afresh at each bow and
+smirk from the fatuous musician.  But gradually the folk round Policles
+ceased clapping, and stared at him in astonishment.  The silence grew in
+ever widening circles, until the whole great assembly sat mute, staring
+at this wild and magnificent creature who was storming at them from his
+perch near the door.
+
+"Fools!" he cried.  "What are you clapping at?  What are you cheering?
+Is this what you call music?  Is this cat-calling to earn an Olympian
+prize?  The fellow has not a note in his voice.  You are either deaf or
+mad, and I for one cry shame upon you for your folly."
+
+Soldiers ran to pull him down, and the whole audience was in confusion,
+some of the bolder cheering the sentiments of the shepherd, and others
+crying that he should be cast out of the building.  Meanwhile the
+successful singer having handed his lyre to his negro attendant, was
+inquiring from those around him on the stage as to the cause of the
+uproar.  Finally a herald with an enormously powerful voice stepped
+forward to the front and proclaimed that if the foolish person at the
+back of the hall, who appeared to differ from the opinion of the rest of
+the audience, would come forward upon the platform, he might, if he
+dared, exhibit his own powers, and see if he could outdo the admirable
+and wonderful exhibition which they had just had the privilege of
+hearing.
+
+Policles sprang readily to his feet at the challenge, and the great
+company making way for him to pass, he found himself a minute later
+standing in his unkempt garb, with his frayed and weather-beaten harp
+in his hand, before the expectant crowd.  He stood for a moment
+tightening a string here and slackening another there until his chords
+rang true.  Then, amid a murmur of laughter and jeers from the Roman
+benches immediately before him, he began to sing.
+
+He had prepared no composition, but he had trained himself to improvise,
+singing out of his heart for the joy of the music.  He told of the land
+of Elis, beloved of Jupiter, in which they were gathered that day, of
+the great bare mountain slopes, of the swift shadows of the clouds, of
+the winding blue river, of the keen air of the uplands, of the chill of
+the evenings, and the beauties of earth and sky.  It was all simple and
+childlike, but it went to the hearts of the Olympians, for it spoke of
+the land which they knew and loved.  Yet when he at last dropped his
+hand, few of them dared to applaud, and their feeble voices were drowned
+by a storm of hisses and groans from his opponents.  He shrank back in
+horror from so unusual a reception, and in an instant his blue-clad
+rival was in his place.  If he had sung badly before, his performance
+now was inconceivable.  His screams, his grunts, his discords, and harsh
+jarring cacophanies were an outrage to the very name of music.
+And yet every time that he paused for breath or to wipe his streaming
+forehead a fresh thunder of applause came rolling back from the
+audience.  Policles sank his face in his hands and prayed that he might
+not be insane.  Then, when the dreadful performance ceased, and the
+uproar of admiration showed that the crown was certainly awarded to this
+impostor, a horror of the audience, a hatred of this race of fools, and
+a craving for the peace and silence of the pastures mastered every
+feeling in his mind.  He dashed through the mass of people waiting at
+the wings, and emerged in the open air.  His old rival and friend Metas
+of Corinth was waiting there with an anxious face.
+
+"Quick, Policles, quick!" he cried.  "My pony is tethered behind yonder
+grove.  A grey he is, with red trappings.  Get you gone as hard as hoof
+will bear you, for if you are taken you will have no easy death."
+
+"No easy death!  What mean you, Metas?  Who is the fellow?"
+
+"Great Jupiter! did you not know?  Where have you lived?  It is Nero the
+Emperor!  Never would he pardon what you have said about his voice.
+Quick, man, quick, or the guards will be at your heels!"
+
+An hour later the shepherd was well on his way to his mountain home, and
+about the same time the Emperor, having received the Chaplet of Olympia
+for the incomparable excellence of his performance, was making inquiries
+with a frowning brow as to who the insolent person might be who had
+dared to utter such contemptuous criticisms.
+
+"Bring him to me here this instant," said he, "and let Marcus with his
+knife and branding-iron be in attendance."
+
+"If it please you, great Caesar," said Arsenius Platus, the officer of
+attendance, "the man cannot be found, and there are some very strange
+rumours flying about."
+
+"Rumours!" cried the angry Nero.  "What do you mean, Arsenius?  I tell
+you that the fellow was an ignorant upstart, with the bearing of a boor
+and the voice of a peacock.  I tell you also that there are a good many
+who are as guilty as he among the people, for I heard them with my own
+ears raise cheers for him when he had sung his ridiculous ode.  I have
+half a mind to burn their town about their ears so that they may
+remember my visit."
+
+"It is not to be wondered at if he won their votes, Caesar," said the
+soldier, "for from what I hear it would have been no disgrace had you,
+even you, been conquered in this conquest."
+
+"I conquered!  You are mad, Arsenius.  What do you mean?"
+
+"None know him, great Caesar!  He came from the mountains, and he
+disappeared into the mountains.  You marked the wildness and strange
+beauty of his face.  It is whispered that for once the great god Pan has
+condescended to measure himself against a mortal."
+
+The cloud cleared from Nero's brow.  "Of course, Arsenius! You are
+right!  No man would have dared to brave me so.  What a story for Rome!
+Let the messenger leave this very night, Arsenius, to tell them how
+their Emperor has upheld their honour in Olympia this day."
+
+
+
+THROUGH THE VEIL.
+
+
+He was a great shock-headed, freckle-faced Borderer, the lineal
+descendant of a cattle-thieving clan in Liddesdale.  In spite of his
+ancestry he was as solid and sober a citizen as one would wish to see,
+a town councillor of Melrose, an elder of the Church, and the chairman
+of the local branch of the Young Men's Christian Association.  Brown was
+his name--and you saw it printed up as "Brown and Handiside" over the
+great grocery stores in the High Street.  His wife, Maggie Brown, was an
+Armstrong before her marriage, and came from an old farming stock in the
+wilds of Teviothead.  She was small, swarthy, and dark-eyed, with a
+strangely nervous temperament for a Scotch woman.  No greater contrast
+could be found than the big tawny man and the dark little woman; but
+both were of the soil as far back as any memory could extend.
+
+One day--it was the first anniversary of their wedding--they had driven
+over together to see the excavations of the Roman Fort at Newstead.
+It was not a particularly picturesque spot.  From the northern bank of
+the Tweed, just where the river forms a loop, there extends a gentle
+slope of arable land.  Across it run the trenches of the excavators,
+with here and there an exposure of old stonework to show the foundations
+of the ancient walls.  It had been a huge place, for the camp was fifty
+acres in extent, and the fort fifteen.  However, it was all made easy
+for them since Mr. Brown knew the farmer to whom the land belonged.
+Under his guidance they spent a long summer evening inspecting the
+trenches, the pits, the ramparts, and all the strange variety of objects
+which were waiting to be transported to the Edinburgh Museum of
+Antiquities.  The buckle of a woman's belt had been dug up that very
+day, and the farmer was discoursing upon it when his eyes fell upon Mrs.
+Brown's face.
+
+"Your good leddy's tired," said he.  "Maybe you'd best rest a wee before
+we gang further."
+
+Brown looked at his wife.  She was certainly very pale, and her dark
+eyes were bright and wild.
+
+"What is it, Maggie?  I've wearied you.  I'm thinkin' it's time we went
+back."
+
+"No, no, John, let us go on.  It's wonderful!  It's like a dreamland
+place.  It all seems so close and so near to me.  How long were the
+Romans here, Mr. Cunningham?"
+
+"A fair time, mam.  If you saw the kitchen midden-pits you would guess
+it took a long time to fill them."
+
+"And why did they leave?"
+
+"Well, mam, by all accounts they left because they had to.  The folk
+round could thole them no longer, so they just up and burned the fort
+aboot their lugs.  You can see the fire marks on the stanes."
+
+The woman gave a quick little shudder.  "A wild night--a fearsome
+night," said she.  "The sky must have been red that night--and these
+grey stones, they may have been red also."
+
+"Aye, I think they were red," said her husband.  "It's a queer thing,
+Maggie, and it may be your words that have done it; but I seem to see
+that business aboot as clear as ever I saw anything in my life.
+The light shone on the water."
+
+"Aye, the light shone on the water.  And the smoke gripped you by the
+throat.  And all the savages were yelling."
+
+The old farmer began to laugh.  "The leddy will be writin' a story aboot
+the old fort," said he.  "I've shown many a one over it, but I never
+heard it put so clear afore.  Some folk have the gift."
+
+They had strolled along the edge of the foss, and a pit yawned upon the
+right of them.
+
+"That pit was fourteen foot deep," said the farmer.  "What d'ye think we
+dug oot from the bottom o't?  Weel, it was just the skeleton of a man
+wi' a spear by his side.  I'm thinkin' he was grippin' it when he died.
+Now, how cam' a man wi' a spear doon a hole fourteen foot deep?
+He wasna' buried there, for they aye burned their dead.  What make ye o'
+that, mam?"
+
+"He sprang doon to get clear of the savages," said the woman.
+
+"Weel, it's likely enough, and a' the professors from Edinburgh couldna
+gie a better reason.  I wish you were aye here, mam, to answer a' oor
+difficulties sae readily.  Now, here's the altar that we foond last
+week.  There's an inscreeption.  They tell me it's Latin, and it means
+that the men o' this fort give thanks to God for their safety."
+
+They examined the old worn stone.  There was a large deeply-cut "VV"
+upon the top of it. "What does 'VV' stand for?" asked Brown.
+
+"Naebody kens," the guide answered.
+
+"_Valeria Victrix_," said the lady softly.  Her face was paler than
+ever, her eyes far away, as one who peers down the dim aisles of
+overarching centuries.
+
+"What's that?" asked her husband sharply.
+
+She started as one who wakes from sleep. "What were we talking about?"
+she asked.
+
+"About this 'VV' upon the stone."
+
+"No doubt it was just the name of the Legion which put the altar up."
+
+"Aye, but you gave some special name."
+
+"Did I?  How absurd!  How should I ken what the name was?"
+
+"You said something--'_Victrix_,' I think."
+
+"I suppose I was guessing.  It gives me the queerest feeling, this
+place, as if I were not myself, but someone else."
+
+"Aye, it's an uncanny place," said her husband, looking round with an
+expression almost of fear in his bold grey eyes.  "I feel it mysel'.
+I think we'll just be wishin' you good evenin', Mr. Cunningham,
+and get back to Melrose before the dark sets in."
+
+Neither of them could shake off the strange impression which had been
+left upon them by their visit to the excavations.  It was as if some
+miasma had risen from those damp trenches and passed into their blood.
+All the evening they were silent and thoughtful, but such remarks as
+they did make showed that the same subject was in the minds of each.
+Brown had a restless night, in which he dreamed a strange connected
+dream, so vivid that he woke sweating and shivering like a frightened
+horse.  He tried to convey it all to his wife as they sat together at
+breakfast in the morning.
+
+"It was the clearest thing, Maggie," said he.  "Nothing that has ever
+come to me in my waking life has been more clear than that.  I feel as
+if these hands were sticky with blood."
+
+"Tell me of it--tell me slow," said she.
+
+"When it began, I was oot on a braeside.  I was laying flat on the
+ground.  It was rough, and there were clumps of heather.  All round me
+was just darkness, but I could hear the rustle and the breathin' of men.
+There seemed a great multitude on every side of me, but I could see no
+one.  There was a low chink of steel sometimes, and then a number of
+voices would whisper 'Hush!'  I had a ragged club in my hand, and it had
+spikes o' iron near the end of it.  My heart was beatin' quickly, and I
+felt that a moment of great danger and excitement was at hand.
+Once I dropped my club, and again from all round me the voices in the
+darkness cried, 'Hush!'  I put oot my hand, and it touched the foot of
+another man lying in front of me.  There was some one at my very elbow
+on either side.  But they said nothin'.
+
+"Then we all began to move.  The whole braeside seemed to be crawlin'
+downwards.  There was a river at the bottom and a high-arched wooden
+bridge.  Beyond the bridge were many lights--torches on a wall.
+The creepin' men all flowed towards the bridge.  There had been no sound
+of any kind, just a velvet stillness.  And then there was a cry in the
+darkness, the cry of a man who has been stabbed suddenly to the hairt.
+That one cry swelled out for a moment, and then the roar of a thoosand
+furious voices.  I was runnin'.  Every one was runnin'.  A bright red
+light shone out, and the river was a scarlet streak.  I could see my
+companions now.  They were more like devils than men, wild figures clad
+in skins, with their hair and beards streamin'.  They were all mad
+with rage, jumpin' as they ran, their mouths open, their arms wavin',
+the red light beatin' on their faces.  I ran, too, and yelled out curses
+like the rest.  Then I heard a great cracklin' of wood, and I knew that
+the palisades were doon.  There was a loud whistlin' in my ears, and I
+was aware that arrows were flyin' past me.  I got to the bottom of a
+dyke, and I saw a hand stretched doon from above.  I took it, and was
+dragged to the top.  We looked doon, and there were silver men beneath
+us holdin' up their spears.  Some of our folk sprang on to the spears.
+Then we others followed, and we killed the soldiers before they
+could draw the spears oot again.  They shouted loud in some foreign
+tongue, but no mercy was shown them.  We went ower them like a wave, and
+trampled them doon into the mud, for they were few, and there was no end
+to our numbers.
+
+"I found myself among buildings, and one of them was on fire.  I saw the
+flames spoutin' through the roof.  I ran on, and then I was alone among
+the buildings.  Some one ran across in front o' me.  It was a woman.
+I caught her by the arm, and I took her chin and turned her face so as
+the light of the fire would strike it.  Whom think you that it was,
+Maggie?"
+
+His wife moistened her dry lips.  "It was I," she said.
+
+He looked at her in surprise.  "That's a good guess," said he.  "Yes, it
+was just you.  Not merely like you, you understand.  It was you--you
+yourself.  I saw the same soul in your frightened eyes.  You looked
+white and bonny and wonderful in the firelight.  I had just one thought
+in my head--to get you awa' with me; to keep you all to mysel' in my own
+home somewhere beyond the hills.  You clawed at my face with your nails.
+I heaved you over my shoulder, and I tried to find a way oot of the
+light of the burning hoose and back into the darkness.
+
+"Then came the thing that I mind best of all.  You're ill, Maggie.
+Shall I stop?  My God! You nave the very look on your face that you had
+last night in my dream.  You screamed.  He came runnin' in the
+firelight.  His head was bare; his hair was black and curled; he had a
+naked sword in his hand, short and broad, little more than a dagger.
+He stabbed at me, but he tripped and fell.  I held you with one hand,
+and with the other--"
+
+His wife had sprung to her feet with writhing features.
+
+"Marcus!" she cried.  "My beautiful Marcus!  Oh, you brute! you brute!
+you brute!"  There was a clatter of tea-cups as she fell forward
+senseless upon the table.
+
+They never talk about that strange isolated incident in their married
+life.  For an instant the curtain of the past had swung aside, and some
+strange glimpse of a forgotten life had come to them.  But it closed
+down, never to open again.  They live their narrow round--he in his
+shop, she in her household--and yet new and wider horizons have vaguely
+formed themselves around them since that summer evening by the crumbling
+Roman fort.
+
+
+
+AN ICONOCLAST.
+
+
+It was daybreak of a March morning in the year of Christ 92.  Outside
+the long Semita Alta was already thronged with people, with buyers and
+sellers, callers and strollers, for the Romans were so early-rising a
+people that many a Patrician preferred to see his clients at six in the
+morning.  Such was the good republican tradition, still upheld by the
+more conservative; but with more modern habits of luxury, a night of
+pleasure and banqueting was no uncommon thing.  Thus one, who had
+learned the new and yet adhered to the old, might find his hours
+overlap, and without so much as a pretence of sleep come straight from
+his night of debauch into his day of business, turning with heavy wits
+and an aching head to that round of formal duties which consumed the
+life of a Roman gentleman.
+
+So it was with Emilius Flaccus that March morning.  He and his fellow
+senator, Caius Balbus, had passed the night in one of those gloomy
+drinking bouts to which the Emperor Domitian summoned his chosen friends
+at the high palace on the Palatine.  Now, having reached the portals of
+the house of Flaccus, they stood together under the pomegranate-fringed
+portico which fronted the peristyle and, confident in each other's tried
+discretion, made up by the freedom of their criticism for their long
+self-suppression of that melancholy feast.
+
+"If he would but feed his guests," said Balbus, a little red-faced,
+choleric nobleman with yellow-shot angry eyes.  "What had we? Upon my
+life, I have forgotten.  Plovers' eggs, a mess of fish, some bird or
+other, and then his eternal apples."
+
+"Of which," said Flaccus, "he ate only the apples.  Do him the justice
+to confess that he takes even less than he gives.  At least they cannot
+say of him as of Vitellius, that his teeth beggared the empire."
+
+"No, nor his thirst either, great as it is.  That fiery Sabine wine of
+his could be had for a few sesterces the amphora.  It is the common
+drink of the carters at every wine-house on the country roads.  I longed
+for a glass of my own rich Falernian or the mellow Coan that was bottled
+in the year that Titus took Jerusalem.  Is it even now too late?
+Could we not wash this rasping stuff from our palates?"
+
+"Nay, better come in with me now and take a bitter draught ere you go
+upon your way.  My Greek physician Stephanos has a rare prescription
+for a morning head.  What!  Your clients await you?  Well, I will see
+you later at the Senate house."
+
+The Patrician had entered his atrium, bright with rare flowers, and
+melodious with strange singing birds.  At the jaws of the hall, true to
+his morning duties, stood Lebs, the little Nubian slave, with snow-white
+tunic and turban, a salver of glasses in one hand, whilst in the other
+he held a flask of a thin lemon-tinted liquid.  The master of the house
+filled up a bitter aromatic bumper, and was about to drink it off, when
+his hand was arrested by a sudden perception that something was much
+amiss in his household.  It was to be read all around him--in the
+frightened eyes of the black boy, in the agitated face of the keeper of
+the atrium, in the gloom and silence of the little knot of ordinarii,
+the procurator or major-domo at their head, who had assembled to greet
+their master.  Stephanos the physician, Cleios the Alexandrine reader,
+Promus the steward each turned his head away to avoid his master's
+questioning gaze.
+
+"What in the name of Pluto is the matter with you all?" cried the amazed
+senator, whose night of potations had left him in no mood for patience.
+"Why do you stand moping there?  Stephanos, Vacculus--is anything amiss?
+Here, Promus, you are the head of my household.  What is it, then?
+Why do you turn your eyes away from me?"
+
+The burly steward, whose fat face was haggard and mottled with anxiety,
+laid his hand upon the sleeve of the domestic beside him.
+
+"Sergius is responsible for the atrium, my lord.  It is for him to tell
+you the terrible thing that has befallen in your absence."
+
+"Nay, it was Datus who did it.  Bring him in, and let him explain it
+himself," said Sergius in a sulky voice.
+
+The patience of the Patrician was at an end.  "Speak this instant, you
+rascal!" he shouted angrily.  "Another minute, and I will have you
+dragged to the ergastulum, where, with your feet in the stocks and the
+gyves round your wrists, you may learn quicker obedience.  Speak, I say,
+and without delay."
+
+"It is the Venus," the man stammered; "the Greek Venus of Praxiteles."
+
+The senator gave a cry of apprehension and rushed to the corner of the
+atrium, where a little shrine, curtained off by silken drapery, held the
+precious statue, the greatest art treasure of his collection--perhaps of
+the whole world.  He tore the hangings aside and stood in speechless
+anger before the outraged goddess.  The red perfumed lamp which always
+burned before her had been spilled and broken; her altar fire had been
+quenched, her chaplet had been dashed aside.  But worst of all--
+insufferable sacrilege!--her own beautiful nude body of glistening
+Pantelic marble, as white and fair as when the inspired Greek had hewed
+it out five hundred years before, had been most brutally mishandled.
+Three fingers of the gracious outstretched hand had been struck off, and
+lay upon the pedestal beside her.  Above her delicate breast a dark mark
+showed, where a blow had disfigured the marble.  Emilius Flaccus,
+the most delicate and judicious connoisseur in Rome, stood gasping and
+croaking, his hand to his throat, as he gazed at his disfigured
+masterpiece.  Then he turned upon his slaves, his fury in his convulsed
+face; but, to his amazement, they were not looking at him, but had all
+turned in attitudes of deep respect towards the opening of the
+peristyle.  As he faced round and saw who had just entered his house,
+his own rage fell away from him in an instant, and his manner became as
+humble as that of his servants.
+
+The newcomer was a man forty-three years of age, clean shaven, with a
+massive head, large engorged eyes, a small clear-cut nose, and the full
+bull neck which was the especial mark of his breed.  He had entered
+through the peristyle with a swaggering, rolling gait, as one who walks
+upon his own ground, and now he stood, his hands upon his hips, looking
+round him at the bowing slaves, and finally at their master, with a
+half-humorous expression upon his flushed and brutal face.
+
+"Why, Emilius," said he, "I had understood that your household was the
+best-ordered in Rome.  What is amiss with you this morning?"
+
+"Nothing could be amiss with us now that Caesar has deigned to come
+under my roof," said the courtier.  "This is indeed a most glad surprise
+which you have prepared for me."
+
+"It was an afterthought," said Domitian.  "When you and the others had
+left me, I was in no mood for sleep, and so it came into my mind that I
+would have a breath of morning air by coming down to you, and seeing
+this Grecian Venus of yours, about which you discoursed so eloquently
+between the cups.  But, indeed, by your appearance and that of your
+servants, I should judge that my visit was an ill-timed one."
+
+"Nay, dear master; say not so.  But, indeed, it is truth that I was in
+trouble at the moment of your welcome entrance, and this trouble was, as
+the Fates have willed it, brought forth by that very statue in which you
+have been graciously pleased to show your interest.  There it stands,
+and you can see for yourself how rudely it has been mishandled."
+
+"By Pluto and all the nether gods, if it were mine some of you should
+feed the lampreys," said the Emperor, looking round with his fierce eyes
+at the shrinking slaves.  "You were always overmerciful, Emilius.
+It is the common talk that your catenoe are rusted for want of use.
+But surely this is beyond all bounds.  Let me see how you handle the
+matter.  Whom do you hold responsible?"
+
+"The slave Sergius is responsible, since it is his place to tend the
+atrium," said Flaccus.  "Stand forward, Sergius.  What have you to say?"
+
+The trembling slave advanced to his master.  "If it please you, sir, the
+mischief has been done by Datus the Christian."
+
+"Datus!  Who is he?"
+
+"The matulator, the scavenger, my lord.  I did not know that he belonged
+to these horrible people, or I should not have admitted him.  He came
+with his broom to brush out the litter of the birds.  His eyes fell upon
+the Venus, and in an instant he had rushed upon her and struck her two
+blows with his wooden besom.  Then we fell upon him and dragged him
+away.  But alas! alas! it was too late, for already the wretch had
+dashed off the fingers of the goddess."
+
+The Emperor smiled grimly, while the Patrician's thin face grew pale
+with anger.
+
+"Where is the fellow?" he asked.
+
+"In the ergastulum, your honour, with the furca on his neck."
+
+"Bring him hither and summon the household."
+
+A few minutes later the whole back of the atrium was thronged by the
+motley crowd who ministered to the household needs of a great Roman
+nobleman.  There was the arcarius, or account keeper, with his stylum
+behind his ear; the sleek praegustator, who sampled all foods, so as to
+stand between his master and poison, and beside him his predecessor, now
+a half-witted idiot through the interception twenty years before of a
+datura draught from Canidia; the cellarman, summoned from amongst his
+amphorae; the cook, with his basting-ladle in his hand; the pompous
+nomenclator, who ushered the guests; the cubicularius, who saw to their
+accommodation; the silentiarius, who kept order in the house; the
+structor, who set forth the tables; the carptor, who carved the food;
+the cinerarius, who lit the fires--these and many more, half-curious,
+half-terrified, came to the judging of Datus.  Behind them a chattering,
+giggling swarm of Lalages, Marias, Cerusas, and Amaryllides, from the
+laundries and the spinning-rooms, stood upon their tiptoes and extended
+their pretty wondering faces over the shoulders of the men.  Through
+this crowd came two stout varlets leading the culprit between them.
+He was a small, dark, rough-headed man, with an unkempt beard and wild
+eyes which shone, brightly with strong inward emotion.  His hands were
+bound behind him, and over his neck was the heavy wooden collar or furca
+which was placed upon refractory slaves.  A smear of blood across his
+cheek showed that he had not come uninjured from the preceding scuffle.
+
+"Are you Datus the scavenger?" asked the Patrician.
+
+The man drew himself up proudly. "Yes," said he, "I am Datus."
+
+"Did you do this injury to my statue?"
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+There was an uncompromising boldness in the man's reply which compelled
+respect.  The wrath of his master became tinged with interest.
+
+"Why did you do this?" he asked.
+
+"Because it was my duty."
+
+"Why, then, was it your duty to destroy your master's property?"
+
+"Because I am a Christian."  His eyes blazed suddenly out of his dark
+face.  "Because there is no God but the one eternal, and all else are
+sticks and stones.  What has this naked harlot to do with Him to whom
+the great firmament is but a garment and the earth a footstool?
+It was in His service that I have broken your statue."
+
+Domitian looked with a smile at the Patrician.  "You will make nothing
+of him," said he.  "They speak even so when they stand before the lions
+in the arena.  As to argument, not all the philosophers of Rome can
+break them down.  Before my very face they refuse to sacrifice in my
+honour.  Never were such impossible people to deal with.  I should take
+a short way with him if I were you."
+
+"What would Caesar advise?"
+
+"There are the games this afternoon.  I am showing the new
+hunting-leopard which King Juba has sent from Numidia.  This slave may
+give us some sport when he finds the hungry beast sniffing at his
+heels."
+
+The Patrician considered for a moment.  He had always been a father to
+his servants.  It was hateful to him to think of any injury befalling
+them.  Perhaps even now, if this strange fanatic would show his sorrow
+for what he had done, it might be possible to spare him.  At least it
+was worth trying.
+
+"Your offence deserves death," he said.  "What reasons can you give why
+it should not befall you, since you have injured this statue, which is
+worth your own price a hundred times over?"
+
+The slave looked steadfastly at his master.  "I do not fear death," he
+said.  "My sister Candida died in the arena, and I am ready to do the
+same.  It is true that I have injured your statue, but I am able to find
+you something of far greater value in exchange.  I will give you the
+truth and the gospel in exchange for your broken idol."
+
+The Emperor laughed.  "You will do nothing with him, Emilius," he said.
+"I know his breed of old.  He is ready to die; he says so himself.
+Why save him, then?"
+
+But the Patrician still hesitated.  He would make a last effort.
+
+"Throw off his bonds," he said to the guards.  "Now take the furca off
+his neck.  So!  Now, Datus, I have released you to show you that I trust
+you.  I have no wish to do you any hurt if you will but acknowledge your
+error, and so set a better example to my household here assembled."
+
+"How, then, shall I acknowledge my error?" the slave asked.
+
+"Bow your head before the goddess, and entreat her forgiveness for the
+violence you have done her.  Then perhaps you may gain my pardon as
+well."
+
+"Put me, then, before her," said the Christian.
+
+Emilius Flaccus looked triumphantly at Domitian.  By kindness and tact
+he was effecting that which the Emperor had failed to do by violence.
+Datus walked in front of the mutilated Venus.  Then with a sudden spring
+he tore the baton out of the hand of one of his guardians, leaped upon
+the pedestal, and showered his blows upon the lovely marble woman.
+With a crack and a dull thud her right arm dropped to the ground.
+Another fierce blow and the left had followed.  Flaccus danced and
+screamed with horror, while his servants dragged the raving iconoclast
+from his impassive victim.  Domitian's brutal laughter echoed through
+the hall.
+
+"Well, friend, what think you now?" he cried. "Are you wiser than your
+Emperor?  Can you indeed tame your Christian with kindness?"
+
+Emilius Flaccus wiped the sweat from his brow.  "He is yours, great
+Caesar.  Do with him as you will."
+
+"Let him be at the gladiators' entrance of the circus an hour before the
+games begin," said the Emperor.  "Now, Emilius, the night has been a
+merry one.  My Ligurian galley waits by the river quay.  Come, cool your
+head with a spin to Ostia ere the business of State calls you to the
+Senate."
+
+
+
+GIANT MAXIMIN.
+
+
+
+I     THE COMING OF MAXIMIN
+
+
+Many are the strange vicissitudes of history.  Greatness has often sunk
+to the dust, and has tempered itself to its new surrounding.
+Smallness has risen aloft, has flourished for a time, and then has sunk
+once more.  Rich monarchs have become poor monks, brave conquerors have
+lost their manhood, eunuchs and women have overthrown armies and
+kingdoms.  Surely there is no situation which the mind of man can invent
+which has not taken shape and been played out upon the world stage.
+But of all the strange careers and of all the wondrous happenings,
+stranger than Charles in his monastery, or Justin on his throne, there
+stands the case of Giant Maximin, what he attained, and how he attained
+it.  Let me tell the sober facts of history, tinged only by that
+colouring to which the more austere historians could not condescend.
+It is a record as well as a story.
+
+In the heart of Thrace some ten miles north of the Rhodope mountains,
+there is a valley which is named Harpessus, after the stream which runs
+down it.  Through this valley lies the main road from the east to the
+west, and along the road, returning from an expedition against the
+Alani, there marched, upon the fifth day of the month of June in the
+year 210, a small but compact Roman army.  It consisted of three
+legions--the Jovian, the Cappadocian, and the men of Hercules.
+Ten turmae of Gallic cavalry led the van, whilst the rear was covered by
+a regiment of Batavian Horse Guards, the immediate attendants of the
+Emperor Septimus Severus who had conducted the campaign in person.
+The peasants who lined the low hills which fringed the valley looked
+with indifference upon the long files of dusty, heavily-burdened
+infantry, but they broke into murmurs of delight at the gold-faced
+cuirasses and high brazen horse-hair helmets of the guardsmen,
+applauding their stalwart figures, their martial bearing, and the
+stately black chargers which they rode.  A soldier might know that it
+was the little weary men with their short swords, their heavy pikes over
+their shoulders, and their square shields slung upon their backs, who
+were the real terror of the enemies of the Empire, but to the eyes of
+the wondering Thracians it was this troop of glittering Apollos who bore
+Rome's victory upon their banners, and upheld the throne of the
+purple-togaed prince who rode before them.
+
+Among the scattered groups of peasants who looked on from a respectful
+distance at this military pageant, there were two men who attracted much
+attention from those who stood immediately around them.  The one was
+commonplace enough--a little grey-headed man, with uncouth dress and a
+frame which was bent and warped by a long life of arduous toil,
+goat-driving and wood-chopping among the mountains.  It was the
+appearance of his youthful companion which had drawn the amazed
+observation of the bystanders.  In stature he was such a giant as is
+seen but once or twice in each generation of mankind.  Eight feet and
+two inches was his measure from his sandalled sole to the topmost curls
+of his tangled hair.  Yet for all his mighty stature there was nothing
+heavy or clumsy in the man.  His huge shoulders bore no redundant flesh,
+and his figure was straight and hard and supple as a young pine tree.
+A frayed suit of brown leather clung close to his giant body, and a
+cloak of undressed sheep-skin was slung from his shoulder.  His bold
+blue eyes, shock of yellow hair and fair skin showed that he was of
+Gothic or northern blood, and the amazed expression upon his broad frank
+face as he stared at the passing troops told of a simple and uneventful
+life in some back valley of the Macedonian mountains.
+
+"I fear your mother was right when she advised that we keep you at
+home," said the old man anxiously.  "Tree-cutting and wood-carrying will
+seem but dull work after such a sight as this."
+
+"When I see mother next it will be to put a golden torque round her
+neck," said the young giant.  "And you, daddy; I will fill your leather
+pouch with gold pieces before I have done."
+
+The old man looked at his son with startled eyes.  "You would not leave
+us, Theckla! What could we do without you?"
+
+"My place is down among yonder men," said the young man.  "I was not
+born to drive goats and carry logs, but to sell this manhood of mine in
+the best market.  There is my market in the Emperor's own Guard.
+Say nothing, daddy, for my mind is set, and if you weep now it will be
+to laugh hereafter.  I will to great Rome with the soldiers."
+
+The daily march of the heavily laden Roman legionary was fixed at twenty
+miles; but on this afternoon, though only half the distance had been
+accomplished, the silver trumpets blared out their welcome news that a
+camp was to be formed.  As the men broke their ranks, the reason of
+their light march was announced by the decurions.  It was the birthday
+of Geta, the younger son of the Emperor, and in his honour there would
+be games and a double ration of wine.  But the iron discipline of the
+Roman army required that under all circumstances certain duties should
+be performed, and foremost among them that the camp should be made
+secure.  Laying down their arms in the order of their ranks, the
+soldiers seized their spades and axes, and worked rapidly and joyously
+until sloping vallum and gaping fossa girdled them round, and gave them
+safe refuge against a night attack.  Then in noisy, laughing,
+gesticulating crowds they gathered in their thousands round the grassy
+arena where the sports were to be held.  A long green hillside sloped
+down to a level plain, and on this gentle incline the army lay watching
+the strife of the chosen athletes who contended before them.  They
+stretched themselves in the glare of the sunshine, their heavy tunics
+thrown off, and their naked limbs sprawling, wine-cups an baskets of
+fruit and cakes circling amongst them, enjoying rest and peace as only
+those can to whom it comes so rarely.
+
+The five-mile race was over, and had been won as usual by Decurion
+Brennus, the crack long-distance champion of the Herculians.  Amid the
+yells of the Jovians, Capellus of the corps had carried off both the
+long and the high jump.  Big Brebix the Gaul had out-thrown the long
+guardsman Serenus with the fifty pound stone.  Now, as the sun sank
+towards the western ridge, and turned the Harpessus to a riband of gold,
+they had come to the final of the wrestling, where the pliant Greek,
+whose name is lost in the nickname of "Python," was tried out against
+the bull-necked Lictor of the military police, a hairy Hercules, whose
+heavy hand had in the way of duty oppressed many of the spectators.
+
+As the two men, stripped save for their loin-cloths, approached the
+wrestling-ring, cheers and counter-cheers burst from their adherents,
+some favouring the Lictor for his Roman blood, some the Greek from
+their own private grudge.  And then, of a sudden, the cheering died,
+heads were turned towards the slope away from the arena, men stood up
+and peered and pointed, until finally, in a strange hush, the whole
+great assembly had forgotten the athletes, and were watching a single
+man walking swiftly towards them down the green curve of the hill.
+This huge solitary figure, with the oaken club in his hand, the
+shaggy fleece flapping from his great shoulders, and the setting sun
+gleaming upon a halo of golden hair, might have been the tutelary god of
+the fierce and barren mountains from which he had issued.  Even the
+Emperor rose from his chair and gazed with open-eyed amazement at the
+extraordinary being who approached him.
+
+The man, whom we already know as Theckla the Thracian, paid no heed to
+the attention which he had aroused, but strode onwards, stepping as
+lightly as a deer, until he reached the fringe of the soldiers.
+Amid their open ranks he picked his way, sprang over the ropes which
+guarded the arena, and advanced towards the Emperor, until a spear at
+his breast warned him that he must go no nearer.  Then he sunk upon his
+right knee and called out some words in the Gothic speech.
+
+"Great Jupiter! Whoever saw such a body of a man!" cried the Emperor.
+"What says he?  What is amiss with the fellow?  Whence comes he, and
+what is his name?"
+
+An interpreter translated the Barbarian's answer.  "He says, great
+Caesar, that he is of good blood, and sprung by a Gothic father from a
+woman of the Alani.  He says that his name is Theckla, and that he would
+fain carry a sword in Caesar's service."
+
+The Emperor smiled.  "Some post could surely be found for such a man,
+were it but as janitor at the Palatine Palace," said he to one of the
+Prefects.  "I would fain see him walk even as he is through the forum.
+He would turn the heads of half the women in Rome.  Talk to him,
+Crassus.  You know his speech."
+
+The Roman officer turned to the giant.  "Caesar says that you are to
+come with him, and he will make you the servant at his door."
+
+The Barbarian rose, and his fair cheeks flushed with resentment.
+
+"I will serve Caesar as a soldier," said he, "but I will be
+house-servant to no man-not even to him.  If Caesar would see what
+manner of man I am, let him put one of his guardsmen up against me."
+
+"By the shade of Milo this is a bold fellow!" cried the Emperor.
+"How say you, Crassus?  Shall he make good his words?"
+
+"By your leave, Caesar," said the blunt soldier, "good swordsmen are too
+rare in these days that we should let them slay each other for sport.
+Perhaps if the Barbarian would wrestle a fall--"
+
+"Excellent!" cried the Emperor.  "Here is the Python, and here Varus the
+Lictor, each stripped for the bout.  Have a look at them, Barbarian, and
+see which you would choose.  What does he say?  He would take them both?
+Nay then he is either the king of wrestlers or the king of boasters, and
+we shall soon see which.  Let him have his way, and he has himself to
+thank if he comes out with a broken neck."
+
+There was some laughter when the peasant tossed his sheep-skin mantle to
+the ground and, without troubling to remove his leathern tunic, advanced
+towards the two wrestlers; but it became uproarious when with a quick
+spring he seized the Greek under one arm and the Roman under the other,
+holding them as in a vice.  Then with a terrific effort he tore them
+both from the ground, carried them writhing and kicking round the arena,
+and finally walking up to the Emperor's throne, threw his two athletes
+down in front of him.  Then, bowing to Caesar, the huge Barbarian
+withdrew, and laid his great bulk down among the ranks of the applauding
+soldiers, whence he watched with stolid unconcern the conclusion of the
+sports.
+
+It was still daylight, when the last event had been decided, and the
+soldiers returned to the camp.  The Emperor Severus had ordered his
+horse, and in the company of Crassus, his favourite prefect, rode down
+the winding pathway which skirts the Harpessus, chatting over the future
+dispersal of the army.  They had ridden for some miles when Severus,
+glancing behind him, was surprised to see a huge figure which trotted
+lightly along at the very heels of his horse.
+
+"Surely this is Mercury as well as Hercules that we have found among the
+Thracian mountains," said he with a smile.  "Let us see how soon our
+Syrian horses can out-distance him."
+
+The two Romans broke into a gallop, and did not draw rein until a good
+mile had been covered at the full pace of their splendid chargers.
+Then they turned and looked back; but there, some distance off, still
+running with a lightness and a spring which spoke of iron muscles and
+inexhaustible endurance, came the great Barbarian.  The Roman Emperor
+waited until the athlete had come up to them.
+
+"Why do you follow me?" he asked.  "It is my hope, Caesar, that I may
+always follow you."  His flushed face as he spoke was almost level with
+that of the mounted Roman.
+
+"By the god of war, I do not know where in all the world I could find
+such a servant!" cried the Emperor.  "You shall be my own body-guard,
+the one nearest to me of all."
+
+The giant fell upon his knee.  "My life and strength are yours," he
+said.  "I ask no more than to spend them for Caesar."
+
+Crassus had interpreted this short dialogue.  He now turned to the
+Emperor.
+
+"If he is indeed to be always at your call, Caesar, it would be well to
+give the poor Barbarian some name which your lips can frame.  Theckla is
+as uncouth and craggy a word as one of his native rocks."
+
+The Emperor pondered for a moment.  "If I am to have the naming of him,"
+said he, "then surely I shall call him Maximus, for there is not such a
+giant upon earth."
+
+"Hark you," said the Prefect.  "The Emperor has deigned to give you a
+Roman name, since you have come into his service.  Henceforth you are
+no longer Theckla, but you are Maximus.  Can you say it after me?"
+
+"Maximin," repeated the Barbarian, trying to catch the Roman word.
+
+The Emperor laughed at the mincing accent.  "Yes, yes, Maximin let it
+be.  To all the world you are Maximin, the body-guard of Severus.
+When we have reached Rome, we will soon see that your dress shall
+correspond with your office.  Meanwhile march with the guard until you
+have my further orders."
+
+So it came about that as the Roman army resumed its march next day, and
+left behind it the fair valley of the Harpessus, a huge recruit, clad in
+brown leather, with a rude sheep-skin floating from his shoulders,
+marched beside the Imperial troop.  But far away in the wooden farmhouse
+of a distant Macedonian valley two old country folk wept salt tears, and
+prayed to the gods for the safety of their boy who had turned his face
+to Rome.
+
+
+
+II     THE RISE OF GIANT MAXIMIN
+
+
+Exactly twenty-five years had passed since the day that Theckla the huge
+Thracian peasant had turned into Maximin the Roman guardsman.  They had
+not been good years for Rome.  Gone for ever were the great Imperial
+days of the Hadrians and the Trajans.  Gone also the golden age of the
+two Antonines, when the highest were for once the most worthy and most
+wise.  It had been an epoch of weak and cruel men.  Severus, the swarthy
+African, a stark grim man, had died in far away York, after fighting all
+the winter with the Caledonian Highlanders--a race who have ever since
+worn the martial garb of the Romans.  His son, known only by his
+slighting nick-name of Caracalla, had reigned during six years of insane
+lust and cruelty, before the knife of an angry soldier avenged the
+dignity of the Roman name.  The nonentity Macrinus had filled the
+dangerous throne for a single year before he also met a bloody end, and
+made room for the most grotesque of all monarchs, the unspeakable
+Heliogabalus with his foul mind and his painted face.  He in turn was
+cut to pieces by the soldiers, and Severus Alexander, a gentle youth,
+scarce seventeen years of age, had been thrust into his place.
+For thirteen years now he had ruled, striving with some success to put
+some virtue and stability into the rotting Empire, but raising many
+fierce enemies as he did so-enemies whom he had not the strength nor the
+wit to hold in check.
+
+And Giant Maximin--what of him?  He had carried his eight feet of
+manhood through the lowlands of Scotland, and the passes of the
+Grampians.  He had seen Severus pass away, and had soldiered with his
+son.  He had fought in Armenia, in Dacia, and in Germany.  They had made
+him a centurion upon the field when with his hands he plucked out one by
+one the stockades of a northern village, and so cleared a path for the
+stormers.  His strength had been the jest and the admiration of the
+soldiers.  Legends about him had spread through the army and were the
+common gossip round the camp fires--of his duel with the German axeman
+on the Island of the Rhine, and of the blow with his fist which broke
+the leg of a Scythian's horse.  Gradually he had won his way upwards,
+until now, after quarter of a century's service he was tribune of the
+fourth legion and superintendent of recruits for the whole army.
+The young soldier who had come under the glare of Maximin's eyes, or had
+been lifted up with one huge hand while he was cuffed by the other,
+had his first lesson from him in the discipline of the service.
+
+It was nightfall in the camp of the fourth legion upon the Gallic shore
+of the Rhine.  Across the moonlit water, amid the thick forests which
+stretched away to the dim horizon, lay the wild untamed German tribes.
+Down on the river bank the light gleamed upon the helmets of the Roman
+sentinels who kept guard along the river.  Far away a red point rose and
+fell in the darkness--a watch-fire of the enemy upon the further shore.
+
+Outside his tent, beside some smouldering logs, Giant Maximin was
+seated, a dozen of his officers around him.  He had changed much since
+the day when we first met him in the Valley of the Harpessus.  His huge
+frame was as erect as ever, and there was no sign of diminution of his
+strength.  But he had aged none the less.  The yellow tangle of hair was
+gone, worn down by the ever-pressing helmet.   The fresh young face was
+drawn and hardened, with austere lines wrought by trouble and privation.
+The nose was more hawk-like, the eyes more cunning, the expression more
+cynical and more sinister.  In his youth, a child would have run to his
+arms.  Now it would shrink screaming from his gaze.  That was what
+twenty-five years with the eagles had done for Theckla the Thracian
+peasant.
+
+He was listening now--for he was a man of few words--to the chatter of
+his centurions.  One of them, Balbus the Sicilian, had been to the main
+camp at Mainz, only four miles away, and had seen the Emperor Alexander
+arrive that very day from Rome.  The rest were eager at the news, for it
+was a time of unrest, and the rumour of great changes was in the air.
+
+"How many had he with him?" asked Labienus, a black-browed veteran from
+the south of Gaul.  "I'll wager a month's pay that he was not so
+trustful as to come alone among his faithful legions."
+
+"He had no great force," replied Balbus.  "Ten or twelve cohorts of the
+Praetorians and a handful of horse."
+
+"Then indeed his head is in the lion's mouth," cried Sulpicius, a
+hot-headed youth from the African Pentapolis.  "How was he received?"
+
+"Coldly enough.  There was scarce a shout as he came down the line."
+
+"They are ripe for mischief," said Labienus.  "And who can wonder, when
+it is we soldiers who uphold the Empire upon our spears, while the lazy
+citizens at Rome reap all of our sowing.  Why cannot a soldier have what
+a soldier gains?  So long as they throw us our denarius a day, they
+think that they have done with us."
+
+"Aye," croaked a grumbling old greybeard.  "Our limbs, our blood, our
+lives--what do they care so long as the Barbarians are held off, and
+they are left in peace to their feastings and their circus?  Free bread,
+free wine, free games--everything for the loafer at Rome.  For us the
+frontier guard and a soldier's fare."
+
+Maximin gave a deep laugh.  "Old Plancus talks like that," said he; "but
+we know that for all the world he would not change his steel plate for a
+citizen's gown.  You've earned the kennel, old hound, if you wish it.
+Go and gnaw your bone and growl in peace."
+
+"Nay, I am too old for change.  I will follow the eagle till I die.
+And yet I had rather die in serving a soldier master than a long-gowned
+Syrian who comes of a stock where the women are men and the men are
+women."
+
+There was a laugh from the circle of soldiers, for sedition and mutiny
+were rife in the camp, and even the old centurion's outbreak could not
+draw a protest.  Maximin raised his great mastiff head and looked at
+Balbus.
+
+"Was any name in the mouths of the soldiers?" he asked in a meaning
+voice.
+
+There was a hush for the answer.  The sigh of the wind among the pines
+and the low lapping of the river swelled out louder in the silence.
+Balbus looked hard at his commander.
+
+"Two names were whispered from rank to rank," said he.  "One was
+Ascenius Pollio, the General.  The other was--"
+
+The fiery Sulpicius sprang to his feet waving a glowing brand above his
+head.
+
+"Maximinus!" he yelled, "Imperator Maximinus Augustus!"
+
+Who could tell how it came about?  No one had thought of it an hour
+before.  And now it sprang in an instant to full accomplishment.
+The shout of the frenzied young African had scarcely rung through the
+darkness when from the tents, from the watch-fires, from the sentries,
+the answer came pealing back:  "Ave, Maximinus! Ave Maximinus Augustus!"
+From all sides men came rushing, half-clad, wild-eyed, their eyes
+staring, their mouths agape, flaming wisps of straw or flaring torches
+above their heads.  The giant was caught up by scores of hands, and sat
+enthroned upon the bull-necks of the legionaries.  "To the camp!" they
+yelled.  "To the camp!  Hail!  Hail to the soldier Caesar!"
+
+That same night Severus Alexander, the young Syrian Emperor, walked
+outside his Praetorian camp, accompanied by his friend Licinius Probus,
+the Captain of the Guard.  They were talking gravely of the gloomy faces
+and seditious bearing of the soldiers.  A great foreboding of evil
+weighed heavily upon the Emperor's heart, and it was reflected upon
+the stern bearded face of his companion.
+
+"I like it not," said he.  "It is my counsel, Caesar, that with the
+first light of morning we make our way south once more."
+
+"But surely," the Emperor answered, "I could not for shame turn my back
+upon the danger.  What have they against me?  How have I harmed them
+that they should forget their vows and rise upon me?"
+
+"They are like children who ask always for something new.  You heard the
+murmur as you rode along the ranks.  Nay, Caesar, fly tomorrow, and
+your Praetorians will see that you are not pursued.  There may be some
+loyal cohorts among the legions, and if we join forces--"
+
+A distant shout broke in upon their conversation--a low continued roar,
+like the swelling tumult of a sweeping wave.  Far down the road upon
+which they stood there twinkled many moving lights, tossing and sinking
+as they rapidly advanced, whilst the hoarse tumultuous bellowing broke
+into articulate words, the same tremendous words, a thousand-fold
+repeated.  Licinius seized the Emperor by the wrist and dragged him
+under the cover of some bushes.
+
+"Be still, Caesar!  For your life be still!" he whispered.  "One word
+and we are lost!"
+
+Crouching in the darkness, they saw that wild procession pass, the
+rushing screaming figures, the tossing arms, the bearded, distorted
+faces, now scarlet and now grey, as the brandished torches waxed or
+waned.  They heard the rush of many feet, the clamour of hoarse voices,
+the clang of metal upon metal.  And then suddenly, above them all, they
+saw a vision of a monstrous man, a huge bowed back, a savage face, grim
+hawk eyes, that looked out over the swaying shields.  It was seen for an
+instant in a smoke-fringed circle of fire, and then it had swept on into
+the night.
+
+"Who is he?" stammered the Emperor, clutching at his guardsman's sleeve.
+"They call him Caesar."
+
+"It is surely Maximin the Thracian peasant."  In the darkness the
+Praetorian officer looked with strange eyes at his master.
+
+"It is all over, Caesar.  Let us fly your tent."
+
+But even as they went a second shout had broken forth tenfold louder
+than the first.  If the one had been the roar of the oncoming wave, the
+other was the full turmoil of the tempest.  Twenty thousand voices from
+the camp had broken into one wild shout which echoed through the night,
+until the distant Germans round their watch-fires listened in wonder
+and alarm.
+
+"Ave!" cried the voices.  "Ave Maximinus Augustus!"
+
+High upon their bucklers stood the giant, and looked round him at the
+great floor of upturned faces below.  His own savage soul was stirred by
+the clamour, but only his gleaming eyes spoke of the fire within.
+He waved his hand to the shouting soldiers as the huntsman waves to the
+leaping pack.  They passed him up a coronet of oak leaves, and clashed
+their swords in homage as he placed it on his head.  And then there came
+a swirl in the crowd before him, a little space was cleared, and there
+knelt an officer in the Praetorian garb, blood upon his face, blood upon
+his bared forearm, blood upon his naked sword.  Licinius too had gone
+with the tide.
+
+"Hail, Caesar, hail!" he cried, as he bowed his head before the giant.
+"I come from Alexander.  He will trouble you no more."
+
+
+
+III     THE FALL OF MAXIMIN
+
+
+For three years the soldier Emperor had been upon the throne.
+His palace had been his tent, and his people had been the legionaries.
+With them he was supreme; away from them he was nothing.  He had
+gone with them from one frontier to the other.  He had fought against
+Dacians, Sarmatians, and once again against the Germans.  But Rome knew
+nothing of him, and all her turbulence rose against a master who cared
+so little for her or her opinion that he never deigned to set foot
+within her walls.  There were cabals and conspiracies against the absent
+Caesar.  Then his heavy hand fell upon them, and they were cuffed, even
+as the young soldiers had been who passed under his discipline.  He knew
+nothing, and cared as much for consuls, senates, and civil laws.
+His own will and the power of the sword were the only forces which he
+could understand.  Of commerce and the arts he was as ignorant as when
+he left his Thracian home.  The whole vast Empire was to him a huge
+machine for producing the money by which the legions were to be
+rewarded.  Should he fail to get that money, his fellow soldiers
+would bear him a grudge.  To watch their interests they had raised him
+upon their shields that night.  If city funds had to be plundered or
+temples desecrated, still the money must be got.     Such was the point
+of view of Giant Maximin.
+
+But there came resistance, and all the fierce energy of the man, all the
+hardness which had given him the leadership of hard men, sprang forth to
+quell it.  From his youth he had lived amidst slaughter.  Life and death
+were cheap things to him.  He struck savagely at all who stood up to
+him, and when they hit back, he struck more savagely still.  His giant
+shadow lay black across the Empire from Britain to Syria.  A strange
+subtle vindictiveness became also apparent in him.  Omnipotence ripened
+every fault and swelled it into crime.  In the old days he had been
+rebuked for his roughness.  Now a sullen dangerous anger arose against
+those who had rebuked him.  He sat by the hour with his craggy chin
+between his hands, and his elbows resting on his knees, while he
+recalled all the misadventures, all the vexations of his early youth,
+when Roman wits had shot their little satires upon his bulk and his
+ignorance.  He could not write, but his son Verus placed the names upon
+his tablets, and they were sent to the Governor of Rome.  Men who had
+long forgotten their offence were called suddenly to make most bloody
+reparation.
+
+A rebellion broke out in Africa, but was quelled by his lieutenant.
+But the mere rumour of it set Rome in a turmoil.  The Senate found
+something of its ancient spirit.  So did the Italian people.
+They would not be for ever bullied by the legions.  As Maximin
+approached from the frontier, with the sack of rebellious Rome in his
+mind, he was faced with every sign of a national resistance.  The
+countryside was deserted, the farms abandoned, the fields cleared of
+crops and cattle.  Before him lay the walled town of Aquileia.  He flung
+himself fiercely upon it, but was met by as fierce a resistance.
+The walls could not be forced, and yet there was no food in the country
+round for his legions.  The men were starving and dissatisfied.
+What did it matter to them who was Emperor?  Maximin was no better than
+themselves.  Why should they call down the curse of the whole Empire
+upon their heads by upholding him?  He saw their sullen faces and their
+averted eyes, and he knew that the end had come.
+
+That night he sat with his son Verus in his tent, and he spoke softly
+and gently as the youth had never heard him speak before.  He had spoken
+thus in old days with Paullina, the boy's mother; but she had been dead
+these many years, and all that was soft and gentle in the big man had
+passed away with her.  Now her spirit seemed very near him, and his own
+was tempered by its presence.
+
+"I would have you go back to the Thracian mountains," he said.  "I have
+tried both, boy, and I can tell you that there is no pleasure which
+power can bring which can equal the breath of the wind and the smell of
+the kine upon a summer morning.  Against you they have no quarrel.
+Why should they mishandle you?  Keep far from Rome and the Romans.
+Old Eudoxus has money, and to spare.  He awaits you with two horses
+outside the camp.  Make for the valley of the Harpessus, lad.  It was
+thence that your father came, and there you will find his kin.  Buy and
+stock a homestead, and keep yourself far from the paths of greatness and
+of danger.  God keep you, Verus, and send you safe to Thrace."
+
+When his son had kissed his hand and had left him, the Emperor drew his
+robe around him and sat long in thought.  In his slow brain he revolved
+the past--his early peaceful days, his years with Severus, his memories
+of Britain, his long campaigns, his strivings and battlings, all leading
+to that mad night by the Rhine.  His fellow soldiers had loved him then.
+And now he had read death in their eyes.  How had he failed them?
+Others he might have wronged, but they at least had no complaint against
+him.  If he had his time again, he would think less of them and more of
+his people, he would try to win love instead of fear, he would live for
+peace and not for war.  If he had his time again!  But there were
+shuffling Steps, furtive whispers, and the low rattle of arms outside
+his tent.  A bearded face looked in at him, a swarthy African face that
+he knew well.  He laughed, and, bearing his arm, he took his sword
+from the table beside him.
+
+"It is you, Sulpicius," said he.  "You have not come to cry 'Ave
+Imperator Maximin!' as once by the camp fire.  You are tired of me, and
+by the gods I am tired of you, and glad to be at the end of it.
+Come and have done with it, for I am minded to see how many of you I can
+take with me when I go."
+
+They clustered at the door of the tent, peeping over each other's
+shoulders, and none wishing to be the first to close with that laughing,
+mocking giant.  But something was pushed forward upon a spear point, and
+as he saw it, Maximin groaned and his sword sank to the earth.
+
+"You might have spared the boy," he sobbed.  "He would not have hurt
+you.  Have done with it then, for I will gladly follow him."
+
+So they closed upon him and cut and stabbed and thrust, until his knees
+gave way beneath him and he dropped upon the floor.
+
+"The tyrant is dead!" they cried.  "The tyrant is dead," and from all
+the camp beneath them and from the walls of the beleaguered city the
+joyous cry came echoing back, "He is dead, Maximin is dead!"
+
+I sit in my study, and upon the table before me lies a denarius of
+Maximin, as fresh as when the triumvir of the Temple of Juno Moneta sent
+it from the mint.  Around it are recorded his resounding titles--
+Imperator Maximinus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribunitia potestate, and the
+rest.  In the centre is the impress of a great craggy head, a massive
+jaw, a rude fighting face, a contracted forehead.  For all the pompous
+roll of titles it is a peasant's face, and I see him not as the Emperor
+of Rome, but as the great Thracian boor who strode down the hillside on
+that far-distant summer day when first the eagles beckoned him to Rome.
+
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE HUNS
+
+
+In the middle of the fourth century the state of the Christian religion
+was a scandal and a disgrace.  Patient, humble, and long-suffering in
+adversity, it had become positive, aggressive, and unreasonable with
+success.  Paganism was not yet dead, but it was rapidly sinking, finding
+its most faithful supporters among the conservative aristocrats of the
+best families on the one hand, and among those benighted villagers on
+the other who gave their name to the expiring creed.  Between these two
+extremes the great majority of reasonable men had turned from the
+conception of many gods to that of one, and had rejected for ever the
+beliefs of their forefathers.  But with the vices of polytheism they
+had also abandoned its virtues, among which toleration and religious
+good humour had been conspicuous.  The strenuous earnestness of the
+Christians had compelled them to examine and define every point of their
+own theology; but as they had no central authority by which such
+definitions could be checked, it was not long before a hundred heresies
+had put forward their rival views, while the same earnestness of
+conviction led the stronger bands of schismatics to endeavour, for
+conscience sake, to force their views upon the weaker, and thus to cover
+the Eastern world with confusion and strife.
+
+Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople were centres of theological
+warfare.  The whole north of Africa, too, was rent by the strife of the
+Donatists, who upheld their particular schism by iron flails and the
+war-cry of "Praise to the Lord!"  But minor local controversies sank to
+nothing when compared with the huge argument of the Catholic and the
+Arian, which rent every village in twain, and divided every household
+from the cottage to the palace.  The rival doctrines of the Homoousian
+and of the Homoiousian, containing metaphysical differences so
+attenuated that they could hardly be stated, turned bishop against
+bishop and congregation against congregation.  The ink of the
+theologians and the blood of the fanatics were spilled in floods on
+either side, and gentle followers of Christ were horrified to find that
+their faith was responsible for such a state of riot and bloodshed as
+had never yet disgraced the religious history of the world.  Many of the
+more earnest among them, shocked and scandalized, slipped away to the
+Libyan Desert, or to the solitude of Pontus, there to await in
+self-denial and prayer that second coming which was supposed to be at
+hand.  Even in the deserts they could not escape the echo of the distant
+strife, and the hermits themselves scowled fiercely from their dens at
+passing travellers who might be contaminated by the doctrines of
+Athanasius or of Arius.
+
+Such a hermit was Simon Melas, of whom I write.  A Trinitarian and a
+Catholic, he was shocked by the excesses of the persecution of the
+Arians, which could be only matched by the similar outrages with which
+these same Arians in the day of their power avenged their treatment on
+their brother Christians.  Weary of the whole strife, and convinced that
+the end of the world was indeed at hand, he left his home in
+Constantinople and travelled as far as the Gothic settlements in Dacia,
+beyond the Danube, in search of some spot where he might be free from
+the never-ending disputes.  Still journeying to the north and east, he
+crossed the river which we now call the Dneister, and there, finding a
+rocky hill rising from an immense plain, he formed a cell near its
+summit, and settled himself down to end his life in self-denial and
+meditation.  There were fish in the stream, the country teemed with
+game, and there was an abundance of wild fruits, so that his spiritual
+exercises were not unduly interrupted by the search of sustenance for
+his mortal frame.
+
+In this distant retreat he expected to find absolute solitude, but the
+hope was in vain.  Within a week of his arrival, in an hour of worldly
+curiosity, he explored the edges of the high rocky hill upon which he
+lived.  Making his way up to a cleft, which was hung with olives and
+myrtles, he came upon a cave in the opening of which sat an aged man,
+white-bearded, white-haired, and infirm--a hermit like himself.
+So long had this stranger been alone that he had almost forgotten the
+use of his tongue; but at last, words coming more freely, he was able to
+convey the information that his name was Paul of Nicopolis, that he was
+a Greek citizen, and that he also had come out into the desert for the
+saving of his soul, and to escape from the contamination of heresy.
+
+"Little I thought, brother Simon," said he, "that I should ever find any
+one else who had come so far upon the same holy errand.  In all these
+years, and they are so many that I have lost count of them, I have never
+seen a man, save indeed one or two wandering shepherds far out upon
+yonder plain."
+
+From where they sat, the huge steppe, covered with waving grass and
+gleaming with a vivid green in the sun, stretched away as level and as
+unbroken as the sea, to the eastern horizon.  Simon Melas stared across
+it with curiosity.
+
+"Tell me, brother Paul," said he, "you who have lived here so long--what
+lies at the further side of that plain?"
+
+The old man shook his head.  "There is no further side to the plain,"
+said he.  "It is the earth's boundary, and stretches away to eternity.
+For all these years I have sat beside it, but never once have I seen
+anything come across it.  It is manifest that if there had been a
+further side there would certainly at some time have come some
+traveller from that direction.  Over the great river yonder is the Roman
+post of Tyras; but that is a long day's journey from here, and they have
+never disturbed my meditations."
+
+"On what do you meditate, brother Paul?"
+
+"At first I meditated on many sacred mysteries; but now, for twenty
+years, I have brooded continually on the nature of the Logos.  What is
+your view upon that vital matter, brother Simon?"
+
+"Surely," said the younger man, "there can be no question as to that.
+The Logos is assuredly but a name used by St. John to signify the
+Deity."
+
+The old hermit gave a hoarse cry of fury, and his brown, withered face
+was convulsed with anger.  Seizing the huge cudgel which he kept to beat
+off the wolves, he shook it murderously at his companion.
+
+"Out with you!  Out of my cell!" he cried.  "Have I lived here so long
+to have it polluted by a vile Trinitarian--a follower of the rascal
+Athanasius?  Wretched idolater, learn once for all, that the Logos
+is in truth an emanation from the Deity, and in no sense equal or
+co-eternal with Him!  Out with you, I say, or I will dash out your
+brains with my staff!"
+
+It was useless to reason with the furious Arian, and Simon withdrew in
+sadness and wonder, that at this extreme verge of the known earth the
+spirit of religious strife should still break upon the peaceful
+solitude of the wilderness.  With hanging head and heavy heart he made
+his way down the valley, and climbed up once more to his own cell, which
+lay at the crown of the hill, with the intention of never again
+exchanging visits with his Arian neighbour.
+
+Here, for a year, dwelt Simon Melas, leading a life of solitude and
+prayer.  There was no reason why any one should ever come to this
+outermost point of human habitation.  Once a young Roman officer--
+Caius Crassus--rode out a day's journey from Tyras, and climbed the hill
+to have speech with the anchorite.  He was of an equestrian family, and
+still held his belief in the old dispensation.  He looked with interest
+and surprise, but also with some disgust, at the ascetic arrangements of
+that humble abode.
+
+"Whom do you please by living in such a fashion?" he asked.
+
+"We show that our spirit is superior to our flesh," Simon answered.
+"If we fare badly in this world, we believe that we shall reap an
+advantage in the world to come."
+
+The centurion shrugged his shoulders.  "There are philosophers among our
+people, Stoics and others, who have the same idea.  When I was in the
+Herulian Cohort of the Fourth Legion we were quartered in Rome itself,
+and I saw much of the Christians, but I could never learn anything from
+them which I had not heard from my own father, whom you, in your
+arrogance, would call a Pagan.  It is true that we talk of numerous
+gods; but for many years we have not taken them very seriously.
+Our thoughts upon virtue and duty and a noble life are the same as your
+own."
+
+Simon Melas shook his head.
+
+"If you have not the holy books," said he, "then what guide have you to
+direct your steps?"
+
+"If you will read our philosophers, and above all the divine Plato, you
+will find that there are other guides who may take you to the same end.
+Have you by chance read the book which was written by our Emperor Marcus
+Aurelius?  Do you not discover there every virtue which man could have,
+although he knew nothing of your creed?  Have you considered, also, the
+words and actions of our late Emperor Julian, with whom I served my
+first campaign when he went out against the Persians?  Where could you
+find a more perfect man than he?"
+
+"Such talk is unprofitable, and I will have no more of it," said Simon,
+sternly.  "Take heed while there is time, and embrace the true faith;
+for the end of the world is at hand, and when it comes there will be no
+mercy for those who have shut their eyes to the light."  So saying, he
+turned back once more to his praying-stool and to his crucifix, while
+the young Roman walked in deep thought down the hill, and mounting his
+horse, rode off to his distant post.  Simon watched him until his
+brazen helmet was but a bead of light on the western edge of the great
+plain; for this was the first human face that he had seen in all this
+long year, and there were times when his heart yearned for the voices
+and the faces of his kind.
+
+So another year passed, and save for the chance of weather and the slow
+change of the seasons, one day was as another.  Every morning, when
+Simon opened his eyes, he saw the same grey line ripening into red in
+the furthest east, until the bright rim pushed itself above that far-off
+horizon across which no living creature had ever been known to come.
+Slowly the sun swept across the huge arch of the heavens, and as the
+shadows shifted from the black rocks which jutted upward from above his
+cell, so did the hermit regulate his terms of prayer and meditation.
+There was nothing on earth to draw his eye, or to distract his mind, for
+the grassy plain below was as void from month to month as the heaven
+above.  So the long hours passed, until the red rim slipped down on the
+further side, and the day ended in the same pearl-grey shimmer with
+which it had begun.  Once two ravens circled for some days round the
+lonely hill, and once a white fish-eagle came from the Dneister and
+screamed above the hermit's head.  Sometimes red dots were seen on the
+green plain where the antelopes grazed, and often a wolf howled in the
+darkness from the base of the rocks.  Such was the uneventful life of
+Simon Melas the anchorite, until there came the day of wrath.
+
+It was in the late spring of the year 375 that Simon came out from his
+cell, his gourd in his hand, to draw water from the spring.  Darkness
+had closed in, the sun had set, but one last glimmer of rosy light
+rested upon a rocky peak, which jutted forth from the hill, on the
+further side from the hermit's dwelling.  As Simon came forth from under
+his ledge, the gourd dropped from his hand, and he stood gazing in
+amazement.
+
+On the opposite peak a man was standing, his outline black in the fading
+light.  He was a strange almost a deformed figure, short-statured,
+round-backed, with a large head, no neck, and a long rod jutting out
+from between his shoulders.  He stood with his face advanced, and his
+body bent, peering very intently over the plain to the westward.
+In a moment he was gone, and the lonely black peak showed up hard and
+naked against the faint eastern glimmer.  Then the night closed down,
+and all was black once more.
+
+Simon Melas stood long in bewilderment, wondering who this stranger
+could be.  He had heard, as had every Christian, of those evil spirits
+which were wont to haunt the hermits in the Thebaid and on the skirts of
+the Ethiopian waste.  The strange shape of this solitary creature, its
+dark outline and prowling, intent attitude, suggestive rather of a
+fierce, rapacious beast than of a man, all helped him to believe that he
+had at last encountered one of those wanderers from the pit, of whose
+existence, in those days of robust faith, he had no more doubt than of
+his own.  Much of the night he spent in prayer, his eyes glancing
+continually at the low arch of his cell door, with its curtain of deep
+purple wrought with stars.  At any instant some crouching monster, some
+homed abomination, might peer in upon him; and he clung with frenzied
+appeal to his crucifix, as his human weakness quailed at the thought.
+But at last his fatigue overcame his fears, and falling upon his couch
+of dried grass, he slept until the bright daylight brought him to his
+senses.
+
+It was later than was his wont, and the sun was far above the horizon.
+As he came forth from his cell, he looked across at the peak of rock,
+but it stood there bare and silent.  Already it seemed to him that that
+strange dark figure which had startled him so was some dream, some
+vision of the twilight.  His gourd lay where it had fallen, and he
+picked it up with the intention of going to the spring.  But suddenly he
+was aware of something new.  The whole air was throbbing with sound.
+From all sides it came, rumbling, indefinite, an inarticulate mutter,
+low, but thick and strong, rising, falling, reverberating among the
+rocks, dying away into vague whispers, but always there.  He looked
+round at the blue, cloudless sky in bewilderment.  Then he scrambled up
+the rocky pinnacle above him, and sheltering himself in its shadow, he
+stared out over the plain.  In his wildest dream he had never imagined
+such a sight.
+
+The whole vast expanse was covered with horse-men, hundreds and
+thousands and tens of thousands, all riding slowly and in silence, out
+of the unknown east.  It was the multitudinous beat of their horses'
+hoofs which caused that low throbbing in his ears.  Some were so close
+to him as he looked down upon them that he could see clearly their thin
+wiry horses, and the strange humped figures of the swarthy riders,
+sitting forward on the withers, shapeless bundles, their short legs
+hanging stirrupless, their bodies balanced as firmly as though they were
+part of the beast.  In those nearest he could see the bow and the
+quiver, the long spear and the short sword, with the coiled lasso behind
+the rider, which told that this was no helpless horde of wanderers, but
+a formidable army upon the march.  His eyes passed on from them and
+swept further and further, but still to the very horizon, which quivered
+with movement, there was no end to this monstrous cavalry.  Already the
+vanguard was far past the island of rock upon which he dwelt, and he
+could now understand that in front of this vanguard were single scouts
+who guided the course of the army, and that it was one of these whom he
+had seen the evening before.
+
+All day, held spell-bound by this wonderful sight, the hermit crouched
+in the shadow of the rocks, and all day the sea of horsemen rolled
+onward over the plain beneath.  Simon had seen the swarming quays of
+Alexandria, he had watched the mob which blocked the hippodrome of
+Constantinople, yet never had he imagined such a multitude as now
+defiled beneath his eyes, coming from that eastern skyline which had
+been the end of his world.  Sometimes the dense streams of horsemen were
+broken by droves of brood-mares and foals, driven along by mounted
+guards; sometimes there were herds of cattle; sometimes there were lines
+of waggons with skin canopies above them; but then once more, after
+every break, came the horsemen, the horsemen, the hundreds and the
+thousands and the tens of thousands, slowly, ceaselessly, silently
+drifting from the east to the west.  The long day passed, the light
+waned, and the shadows fell; but still the great broad stream was
+flowing by.
+
+But the night brought a new and even stranger sight.  Simon had marked
+bundles of faggots upon the backs of many of the led horses, and now he
+saw their use.  All over the great plain, red pin-points gleamed through
+the darkness, which grew and brightened into flickering columns of
+flame.  So far as he could see both to east and west the fires extended,
+until they were but points of light in the furthest distance.  White
+stars shone in the vast heavens above, red ones in the great plain
+below.  And from every side rose the low, confused murmur of voices,
+with the lowing of oxen and the neighing of horses.
+
+Simon had been a soldier and a man of affairs before ever he forsook the
+world, and the meaning of all that he had seen was clear to him.
+History told him how the Roman world had ever been assailed by fresh
+swarms of Barbarians, coming from the outer darkness, and that the
+Eastern Empire had already, in its fifty years of existence since
+Constantine had moved the capital of the world to the shores of the
+Bosphorus, been tormented in the same way.  Gepidae and Heruli,
+Ostrogoths and Sarmatians, he was familiar with them all.  What the
+advanced sentinel of Europe had seen from this lonely outlying hill, was
+a fresh swarm breaking in upon the Empire, distinguished only from the
+others by its enormous, incredible size and by the strange aspect of the
+warriors who composed it.  He alone of all civilized men knew of the
+approach of this dreadful shadow, sweeping like a heavy storm-cloud
+from the unknown depths of the east.  He thought of the little Roman
+posts along the Dneister, of the ruined Dacian wall of Trajan behind
+them, and then of the scattered, defenceless villages which lay with
+no thought of danger over all the open country which stretched down to
+the Danube.  Could he but give them the alarm!  Was it not, perhaps, for
+that very end that God had guided him to the wilderness?
+
+Then suddenly he remembered his Arian neighbour, who dwelt in the cave
+beneath him.  Once or twice during the last year he had caught a glimpse
+of his tall, bent figure hobbling round to examine the traps which he
+laid for quails and partridges.  On one occasion they had met at the
+brook; but the old theologian waved him away, as if he were a leper.
+What did he think now of this strange happening?  Surely their
+differences might be forgotten at such a moment.  He stole down the side
+of the hill, and made his way to his fellow-hermit's cave.
+
+But there was a terrible silence as he approached it.  His heart sank at
+that deadly stillness in the little valley.  No glimmer of light came
+from the cleft in the rocks.  He entered and called, but no answer came
+back.  Then, with flint, steel, and the dry grass which he used for
+tinder, he struck a spark, and blew it into a blaze.  The old hermit,
+his white hair dabbled with crimson, lay sprawling across the floor.
+The broken crucifix, with which his head had been beaten in, lay in
+splinters across him.  Simon had dropped on his knees beside him,
+straightening his contorted limbs, and muttering the office for the
+dead, when the thud of a horse's hoofs was heard ascending the little
+valley which led to the hermit's cell.  The dry grass had burned down,
+and Simon crouched trembling in the darkness, pattering prayers to the
+Virgin that his strength might be upheld.
+
+It may have been that the newcomer had seen the gleam of the light, or
+it may have been that he had heard from his comrades of the old man whom
+they had murdered, and that his curiosity had led him to the spot.
+He stopped his horse outside the cave, and Simon, lurking in the shadows
+within, had a fair view of him in the moonlight.  He slipped from his
+saddle, fastened the bridle to a root, and then stood peering through
+the opening of the cell.  He was a very short, thick man, with a dark
+face, which was gashed with three cuts upon either side.  His small eyes
+were sunk deep in his head, showing like black holes in the heavy, flat,
+hairless face.  His legs were short and very bandy, so that he waddled
+uncouthly as he walked.
+
+Simon crouched in the darkest angle, and he gripped in his hand that
+same knotted cudgel which the dead theologian had once raised against
+him.  As that hideous stooping head advanced into the darkness of the
+cell, he brought the staff down upon it with all the strength of his
+right arm, and then, as the stricken savage fell forward upon his face,
+he struck madly again and again, until the shapeless figure lay limp and
+still.  One roof covered the first slain of Europe and of Asia.
+
+Simon's veins were throbbing and quivering with the unwonted joy of
+action.  All the energy stored up in those years of repose came in a
+flood at this moment of need.  Standing in the darkness of the cell, he
+saw, as in a map of fire, the outlines of the great Barbaric host, the
+line of the river, the position of the settlements, the means by which
+they might be warned.  Silently he waited in the shadow until the moon
+had sunk.  Then he flung himself upon the dead man's horse, guided it
+down the gorge, and set forth at a gallop across the plain.
+
+There were fires on every side of him, but he kept clear of the rings of
+light.  Round each he could see, as he passed, the circle of sleeping
+warriors, with the long lines of picketed horses.  Mile after mile and
+league after league stretched that huge encampment.  And then, at last,
+he had reached the open plain which led to the river, and the fires of
+the invaders were but a dull smoulder against the black eastern sky.
+Ever faster and faster he sped across the steppe, like a single
+fluttered leaf which whirls before the storm.  Even as the dawn whitened
+the sky behind him, it gleamed also upon the broad river in front, and
+he flogged his weary horse through the shallows, until he plunged into
+its full yellow tide.
+
+So it was that, as the young Roman centurion--Caius Crassus--made his
+morning round in the fort of Tyras he saw a single horseman, who rode
+towards him from the river.  Weary and spent, drenched with water and
+caked with dirt and sweat, both horse and man were at the last stage of
+their endurance.  With amazement the Roman watched their progress, and
+recognized in the ragged, swaying figure, with flying hair and staring
+eyes, the hermit of the eastern desert.  He ran to meet him, and caught
+him in his arms as he reeled from the saddle.
+
+"What is it, then?" he asked.  "What is your news?"
+
+But the hermit could only point at the rising sun.  "To arms!" he
+croaked.  "To arms!  The day of wrath is come!"  And as he looked, the
+Roman saw--far across the river--a great dark shadow, which moved slowly
+over the distant plain.
+
+
+
+THE LAST OF THE LEGIONS
+
+
+Pontus, the Roman viceroy, sat in the atrium of his palatial villa by
+the Thames, and he looked with perplexity at the scroll of papyrus which
+he had just unrolled.  Before him stood the messenger who had brought
+it, a swarthy little Italian, whose black eyes were glazed with want of
+sleep, and his olive features darker still from dust and sweat.
+The viceroy was looking fixedly at him, yet he saw him not, so full was
+his mind of this sudden and most unexpected order.  To him it seemed as
+if the solid earth had given way beneath his feet.  His life and the
+work of his life had come to irremediable ruin.
+
+"Very good," he said at last in a hard dry voice, "you can go."
+
+The man saluted and staggered out of the hall.
+
+A yellow-haired British major-domo came forward for orders.
+
+"Is the General there?"
+
+"He is waiting, your excellency."
+
+"Then show him in, and leave us together."
+
+A few minutes later Licinius Crassus, the head of the British military
+establishment, had joined his chief.  He was a large bearded man in a
+white civilian toga, hemmed with the Patrician purple.  His rough, bold
+features, burned and seamed and lined with the long African wars, were
+shadowed with anxiety as he looked with questioning eyes at the drawn,
+haggard face of the viceroy.
+
+"I fear, your excellency, that you have had bad news from Rome."
+
+"The worst, Crassus.  It is all over with Britain.  It is a question
+whether even Gaul will be held."
+
+"Saint Albus save us!  Are the orders precise?"
+
+"Here they are, with the Emperor's own seal."
+
+"But why?  I had heard a rumour, but it had seemed too incredible."
+
+"So had I only last week, and had the fellow scourged for having spread
+it.  But here it is as clear as words can make it: 'Bring every man of
+the Legions by forced marches to the help of the Empire.  Leave not a
+cohort in Britain.'  These are my orders."
+
+"But the cause?"
+
+"They will let the limbs wither so that the heart be stronger.  The old
+German hive is about to swarm once more.  There are fresh crowds of
+Barbarians from Dacia and Scythia.  Every sword is needed to hold the
+Alpine passes.  They cannot let three legions lie idle in Britain."
+
+The soldier shrugged his shoulder's.
+
+"When the legions go no Roman would feel that his life was safe here.
+For all that we have done, it is none the less the truth that it is no
+country of ours, and that we hold it as we won it by the sword."
+
+"Yes, every man, woman, and child of Latin blood must come with us to
+Gaul.  The galleys are already waiting at Portus Dubris.  Get the orders
+out, Crassus, at once.  As the Valerian legion falls back from the Wall
+of Hadrian it can take the northern colonists with it.  The Jovians can
+bring in the people from the west, and the Batavians can escort the
+easterns if they will muster at Camboricum.  You will see to it."
+He sank his face for a moment in his hands.  "It is a fearsome thing,"
+said he, "to tear up the roots of so goodly a tree."
+
+"To make more space for such a crop of weeds," said the soldier
+bitterly.  "My God, what will be the end of these poor Britons!
+From ocean to ocean there is not a tribe which will not be at the
+throat of its neighbour when the last Roman Lictor has turned his back.
+With these hot-headed Silures it is hard enough now to keep the swords
+in their sheaths."
+
+"The kennel might fight as they chose among themselves until the best
+hound won," said the Roman Governor.  "At least the victor would keep
+the arts and the religion which we have brought them, and Britain would
+be one land.  No, it is the bear from the north and the wolves from
+oversea, the painted savage from beyond the walls and the Saxon pirate
+from over the water, who will succeed to our rule.  Where we saved, they
+will slay; where we built, they will burn; where we planted, they will
+ravage.  But the die is cast, Crassus.  You will carry out the orders."
+
+"I will send out the messengers within an hour.  This very morning there
+has come news that the Barbarians are through the old gap in the wall,
+and their outriders as far south as Vinovia."  The Governor shrugged his
+shoulders.  "These things concern us no longer," said he.  Then a bitter
+smile broke upon his aquiline clean-shaven face.  "Whom think you that I
+see in audience this morning?"
+
+"Nay, I know not."
+
+"Caradoc and Regnus, and Celticus the Icenian, who, like so many of the
+richer Britons, have been educated at Rome, and who would lay before me
+their plans as to the ruling of this country."
+
+"And what is their plan?"
+
+"That they themselves should do it."  The Roman soldier laughed.
+"Well, they will have their will," said he, as he saluted and turned
+upon his heel.  "Farewell, your excellency.  There are hard days coming
+for you and for me."
+
+An hour later the British deputation was ushered into the presence of
+the Governor.  They were good steadfast men, men who with a whole heart,
+and at some risk to themselves, had taken up their country's cause, so
+far as they could see it.  At the same time, they well knew that under
+the mild and beneficent rule of Rome it was only when they passed from
+words to deeds that their backs or their necks would be in danger.
+They stood now, earnest and a little abashed, before the throne of the
+viceroy.  Celticus was a swarthy black-bearded little Iberian.  Caradoc
+and Regnus were tall middle-aged men of the fair flaxen British type.
+All three were dressed in the draped yellow toga after the Latin
+fashion, instead of in the bracae and tunic which distinguished their
+more insular fellow-countrymen.
+
+"Well?" asked the Governor.
+
+"We are here," said Celticus boldly, "as the spokesmen of a great number
+of our fellow-countrymen, for the purpose of sending our petition
+through you to the Emperor and to the Roman Senate, that we may urge
+upon them the policy of allowing us to govern this country after our own
+ancient fashion."  He paused, as if awaiting some outburst as an answer
+to his own temerity; but the Governor merely nodded his head as a sign
+that he should proceed.  "We had laws of our own before ever Caesar set
+foot in Britain, which have served their purpose since first our
+forefathers came from the land of Ham.  We are not a child among the
+nations, but our history goes back in our own traditions--further even
+than that of Rome, and we are galled by this yoke which you have laid
+upon us."
+
+"Are not our laws just?" asked the Governor.
+
+"The code of Caesar is just, but it is always the code of Caesar.
+Our own laws were made for our own uses and our own circumstances, and
+we would fain have them again."
+
+"You speak Roman as if you had been bred in the Forum; you wear a Roman
+toga; your hair is filleted in Roman fashion--are not these the gifts
+of Rome?"
+
+"We would take all the learning and all the arts that Rome or Greece
+could give, but we would still be Britain, and ruled by Britons."
+
+The viceroy smiled.  "By the rood of Saint Helena," said he, "had you
+spoken thus to some of my heathen ancestors, there would have been an
+end to your politics.  That you have dared to stand before my face and
+say as much is a proof for ever of the gentleness of our rule.  But I
+would reason with you for a moment upon this your request.  You know
+well that this land has never been one kingdom, but was always under
+many chiefs and many tribes, who have made war upon each other.
+Would you in very truth have it so again?"
+
+"Those were in the evil pagan days, the days of the Druid and the
+oak-grove, your excellency.  But now we are held together by a gospel of
+peace."
+
+The viceroy shook his head.  "If all the world were of the same way of
+thinking, then it would be easier," said he.  "It may be that this
+blessed doctrine of peace will be little help to you when you are face
+to face with strong men who still worship the god of war.  What would
+you do against the Picts of the north?"
+
+"Your excellency knows that many of the bravest legionaries are of
+British blood.  These are our defence."
+
+"But discipline, man, the power to command, the knowledge of war, the
+strength to act--it is in these things that you would fail.  Too long
+have you leaned upon the crutch."
+
+"The times may be hard, but when we have gone through them, Britain will
+be herself again."
+
+"Nay, she will be under a different and a harsher master," said the
+Roman.  "Already the pirates swarm upon the eastern coast.  Were it not
+for our Roman Count of the Saxon shore they would land tomorrow.  I see
+the day when Britain may, indeed, be one; but that will be because you
+and your fellows are either dead or are driven into the mountains of
+the west.  All goes into the melting-pot, and if a better Albion should
+come forth from it, it will be after ages of strife, and neither you nor
+your people will have part or lot in it."
+
+Regnus, the tall young Celt, smiled.  "With the help of God and our own
+right arms we should hope for a better end," said he.  "Give us but the
+chance, and we will bear the brunt."
+
+"You are as men that are lost," said the viceroy sadly.  "I see this
+broad land, with its gardens and orchards, its fair villas and its
+walled towns, its bridges and its roads, all the work of Rome.
+Surely it will pass even as a dream, and these three hundred years of
+settled order will leave no trace behind.  For learn that it will indeed
+be as you wish, and that this very day the orders have come to me that
+the legions are to go."
+
+The three Britons looked at each other in amazement.  Their first
+impulse was towards a wild exultation, but reflection and doubt followed
+close upon its heels.
+
+"This is indeed wondrous news," said Celticus.  "This is a day of days
+to the motherland.  When do the legions go, your excellency, and what
+troops will remain behind for our protection?"
+
+"The legions go at once," said the viceroy.  "You will doubtless rejoice
+to hear that within a month there will be no Roman soldier in the
+island, nor, indeed, a Roman of any sort, age, or sex, if I can take
+them with me."
+
+The faces of the Britons were shadowed, and Caradoc, a grave and
+thoughtful man, spoke for the first time.
+
+"But this is over sudden, your excellency," said he.  "There is much
+truth in what you have said about the pirates.  From my villa near the
+fort of Anderida I saw eighty of their galleys only last week, and I
+know well that they would be on us like ravens on a dying ox.  For many
+years to come it would not be possible for us to hold them off."
+
+The viceroy shrugged his shoulders.  "It is your affair now," said he.
+"Rome must look to herself."
+
+The last traces of joy had passed from the faces of the Britons.
+Suddenly the future had started up clearly before them, and they quailed
+at the prospect.
+
+"There is a rumour in the market-place," said Celticus, "that the
+northern Barbarians are through the gap in the wall.  Who is to stop
+their progress?"
+
+"You and your fellows," said the Roman.
+
+Clearer still grew the future, and there was terror in the eyes of the
+spokesmen as they faced it.
+
+"But, your excellency, if the legions should go at once, we should have
+the wild Scots at York, and the Northmen in the Thames within the month.
+We can build ourselves up under your shield, and in a few years it would
+be easier for us; but not now, your excellency, not now."
+
+"Tut, man; for years you have been clamouring in our ears and raising
+the people.  Now you have got what you asked.  What more would you have?
+Within the month you will be as free as were your ancestors before
+Caesar set foot upon your shore."
+
+"For God's sake, your excellency, put our words out of your head.
+The matter had not been well considered.  We will send to Rome.  We will
+ride post-haste ourselves.  We will fall at the Emperor's feet.  We will
+kneel before the Senate and beg that the legions remain."
+
+The Roman proconsul rose from his chair and motioned that the audience
+was at an end.
+
+"You will do what you please," said he.  "I and my men are for Italy."
+
+And even as he said, so was it, for before the spring had ripened into
+summer, the troops were clanking down the via Aurelia on their way to
+the Ligurian passes, whilst every road in Gaul was dotted with the carts
+and the waggons which bore the Brito-Roman refugees on their weary
+journey to their distant country.  But ere another summer had passed
+Celticus was dead, for he was flayed alive by the pirates and his skin
+nailed upon the door of a church near Caistor.  Regnus, too, was dead,
+for he was tied to a tree and shot with arrows when the painted men came
+to the sacking of Isca.  Caradoc only was alive, but he was a slave to
+Elda the red Caledonian, and his wife was mistress to Mordred the wild
+chief of the western Cymri.  From the ruined wall in the north to Vectis
+in the south blood and ruin and ashes covered the fair land of Britain.
+And after many days it came out fairer than ever, but, even as the
+Roman had said, neither the Britons nor any men of their blood came into
+the heritage of that which had been their own.
+
+
+
+THE FIRST CARGO
+
+
+"Ex ovo omnia"
+
+When you left Briton with your legion, my dear Crassus, I promised that
+I would write to you from time to time when a messenger chanced to be
+going to Rome, and keep you informed as to anything of interest which
+might occur in this country.  Personally, I am very glad that I remained
+behind when the troops and so many of our citizens left, for though the
+living is rough and the climate is infernal, still by dint of the three
+voyages which I have made for amber to the Baltic, and the excellent
+prices which I obtained for it here, I shall soon be in a position to
+retire, and to spend my old age under my own fig tree, or even perhaps
+to buy a small villa at Baiae or Posuoli, where I could get a good
+sun-bath after the continued fogs of this accursed island.  I picture
+myself on a little farm, and I read the Georgics as a preparation; but
+when I hear the rain falling and the wind howling, Italy seems very far
+away.
+
+In my previous letter, I let you know how things were going in this
+country.  The poor folk, who had given up all soldiering during the
+centuries that we guarded them, are now perfectly helpless before these
+Picts and Scots, tattoed Barbarians from the north, who overrun the
+whole country and do exactly what they please.  So long as they kept to
+the north, the people in the south, who are the most numerous, and
+also the most civilized of the Britons, took no heed of them; but now
+the rascals have come as far as London, and the lazy folk in these parts
+have had to wake up.  Vortigern, the king, is useless for anything but
+drink or women, so he sent across to the Baltic to get over some of the
+North Germans, in the hope that they would come and help him.  It is
+bad enough to have a bear in your house, but it does not seem to me to
+mend matters if you call in a pack of ferocious wolves as well.
+However, nothing better could be devised, so an invitation was sent and
+very promptly accepted.  And it is here that your humble friend appears
+upon the scene.  In the course of my amber trading I had learned the
+Saxon speech, and so I was sent down in all haste to the Kentish shore
+that I might be there when our new allies came.  I arrived there on the
+very day when their first vessel appeared, and it is of my adventures
+that I wish to tell you.  It is perfectly clear to me that the landing
+of these warlike Germans in England will prove to be an event of
+historical importance, and so your inquisitive mind will not feel
+wearied if I treat the matter in some detail.
+
+It was, then, upon the day of Mercury, immediately following the Feast
+of Our Blessed Lord's Ascension, that I found myself upon the south bank
+of the river Thames, at the point where it opens into a wide estuary.
+There is an island there named Thanet, which was the spot chosen for the
+landfall of our visitors.  Sure enough, I had no sooner ridden up than
+there was a great red ship, the first as it seems of three, coming in
+under full sail.  The white horse, which is the ensign of these rovers,
+was hanging from her topmast, and she appeared to be crowded with men.
+The sun was shining brightly, and the great scarlet ship, with
+snow-white sails and a line of gleaming shields slung over her side,
+made as fair a picture on that blue expanse as one would wish to see.
+
+I pushed off at once in a boat, because it had been arranged that none
+of the Saxons should land until the king had come down to speak with
+their leaders.  Presently I was under the ship, which had a gilded
+dragon in the bows, and a tier of oars along either side.  As I looked
+up, there was a row of helmeted heads looking down at me, and among them
+I saw, to my great surprise and pleasure, that of Eric the Swart, with
+whom I do business at Venta every year.  He greeted me heartily when I
+reached the deck, and became at once my guide, friend, and counsellor.
+This helped me greatly with these Barbarians, for it is their nature
+that they are very cold and aloof unless one of their own number can
+vouch for you, after which they are very hearty and hospitable.
+Try as they will, they find it hard, however, to avoid a certain
+suggestion of condescension, and in the baser sort, of contempt, when
+they are dealing with a foreigner.
+
+It was a great stroke of luck meeting Eric, for he was able to give me
+some idea of how things stood before I was shown into the presence of
+Kenna, the leader of this particular ship.  The crew, as I learned
+from him, was entirely made up of three tribes or families--those of
+Kenna, of Lanc, and of Hasta.  Each of these tribes gets its name by
+putting the letters "ing" after the name of the chief, so that the
+people on board would describe themselves as Kennings, Lancings, and
+Hastings.  I observed in the Baltic that the villages were named after
+the family who lived in them, each keeping to itself, so that I have no
+doubt if these fellows get a footing on shore, we shall see settlements
+with names like these rising up among the British towns.
+
+The greater part of the men were sturdy fellows with red, yellow, or
+brown hair, mostly the latter.  To my surprise, I saw several women
+among them.  Eric, in answer to my question, explained that they always
+take their women with them so far as they can, and that instead of
+finding them an incumbrance as our Roman dames would be, they look upon
+them as helpmates and advisers.  Of course, I remembered afterwards that
+our excellent and accurate Tacitus has remarked upon this characteristic
+of the Germans.  All laws in the tribes are decided by votes, and a vote
+has not yet been given to the women, but many are in favour of it, and
+it is thought that woman and man may soon have the same power in the
+State, though many of the women themselves are opposed to such an
+innovation.  I observed to Eric that it was fortunate there were several
+women on board, as they could keep each other company; but he answered
+that the wives of chiefs had no desire to know the wives of the inferior
+officers, and that both of them combined against the more common women,
+so that any companionship was out of the question.  He pointed as he
+spoke to Editha, the wife of Kenna, a red-faced, elderly woman, who
+walked among the others, her chin in the air, taking no more notice than
+if they did not exist.
+
+Whilst I was talking to my friend Eric, a sudden altercation broke out
+upon the deck, and a great number of the men paused in their work, and
+flocked towards the spot with faces which showed that they were deeply
+interested in the matter.  Eric and I pushed our way among the others,
+for I was very anxious to see as much as I could of the ways and manners
+of these Barbarians.  A quarrel had broken out about a child, a little
+blue-eyed fellow with curly yellow hair, who appeared to be greatly
+amused by the hubbub of which he was the cause.  On one side of him
+stood a white-bearded old man, of very majestic aspect, who signified by
+his gestures that he claimed the lad for himself, while on the other was
+a thin, earnest, anxious person, who strongly objected to the boy being
+taken from him.  Eric whispered in my ear that the old man was the
+tribal high priest, who was the official sacrificer to their great god
+Woden, whilst the other was a man who took somewhat different views, not
+upon Woden, but upon the means by which he should be worshipped.
+The majority of the crew were on the side of the old priest; but a
+certain number, who liked greater liberty of worship, and to invent
+their own prayers instead of always repeating the official ones,
+followed the lead of the younger man.  The difference was too deep and
+too old to be healed among the grown men, but each had a great desire to
+impress their view upon the children.  This was the reason why these two
+were now so furious with each other, and the argument between them ran
+so high that several of their followers on either side had drawn the
+short saxes, or knives from which their name of Saxon is derived, when a
+burly, red-headed man pushed his way through the throng, and in a voice
+of thunder brought the controversy to an end.
+
+"You priests, who argue about the things which no man can know, are more
+trouble aboard this ship than all the dangers of the sea," he cried.
+"Can you not be content with worshipping Woden, over which we are all
+agreed, and not make so much of those small points upon which we may
+differ?  If there is all this fuss about the teaching of the children,
+then I shall forbid either of you to teach them, and they must be
+content with as much as they can learn from their mothers."
+
+The two angry teachers walked away with discontented faces; and
+Kenna--for it was he who spoke--ordered that a whistle should be
+sounded, and that the crew should assemble.  I was pleased with the free
+bearing of these people, for though this was their greatest chief, they
+showed none of the exaggerated respect which soldiers of a legion might
+show to the Praetor, but met him on a respectful equality, which showed
+how highly they rated their own manhood.
+
+From our Roman standard, his remarks to his men would seem very wanting
+in eloquence, for there were no graces nor metaphors to be found in
+them, and yet they were short, strong and to the point.  At any rate it
+was very clear that they were to the minds of his hearers.  He began by
+reminding them that they had left their own country because the land was
+all taken up, and that there was no use returning there, since there was
+no place where they could dwell as free and independent men.
+This island of Britain was but sparsely inhabited, and there was a
+chance that every one of them would be able to found a home of his own.
+
+"You, Whitta," he said, addressing some of them by name, "you will found
+a Whitting hame, and you, Bucka, we shall see you in a Bucking hame,
+where your children, and your children's children will bless you for the
+broad acres which your valour will have gained for them."  There was no
+word of glory or of honour in his speech, but he said that he was aware
+that they would do their duty, on which they all struck their swords
+upon their shields so that the Britons on the beach could hear the
+clang.  Then, his eyes falling upon me, he asked me whether I was the
+messenger from Vortigern, and on my answering, he bid me follow him into
+his cabin, where Lanc and Hasta the other chiefs were waiting for a
+council.
+
+Picture me, then, my dear Crassus, in a very low-roofed cabin, with
+these three huge Barbarians seated round me.  Each was clad in some
+sort of saffron tunic, with chain-mail shirts over it, and helmets
+with the horns of oxen on either side, laid upon the table before them.
+Like most of the Saxon chiefs, their beards were shaved, but they wore
+their hair long and their huge light-coloured moustaches drooped down on
+to their shoulders.  They are gentle, slow, and somewhat heavy in their
+bearing, but I can well fancy that their fury is the more terrible when
+it does arise.
+
+Their minds seem to be of a very practical and positive nature, for they
+at once began to ask me a series of questions upon the numbers of the
+Britons, the resources of the kingdom, the conditions of its trade, and
+other such subjects.  They then set to work arguing over the information
+which I had given, and became so absorbed in their own contention that I
+believe there were times when they forgot my presence.  Everything,
+after due discussion, was decided between them by vote, the one who
+found himself in the minority always submitting, though sometimes with a
+very bad grace.  Indeed, on one occasion Lanc, who usually differed from
+the others, threatened to refer the matter to the general vote of the
+whole crew.  There was a constant conflict in the point of view; for
+whereas Kenna and Hasta were anxious to extend the Saxon power, and to
+make it greater in the eyes of the world, Lanc was of opinion that they
+should give less thought to conquest and more to the comfort and
+advancement of their followers.  At the same time it seemed to me that
+really Lanc was the more combative of the three; so much so that, even
+in time of peace, he could not forego this contest with his own
+brethren.  Neither of the others seemed very fond of him, for they were
+each, as was easy to see, proud of their chieftainship, and anxious to
+use their authority, referring continually to those noble ancestors from
+whom it was derived; while Lanc, though he was equally well born, took
+the view of the common men upon every occasion, claiming that the
+interests of the many were superior to the privileges of the few.
+In a word, Crassus, if you could imagine a free-booting Gracchus on one
+side, and two piratical Patricians upon the other, you would understand
+the effect which my companions produced upon me.
+
+There was one peculiarity which I observed in their conversation which
+soothed me very much.  I am fond of these Britons, among whom I have
+spent so much of my life, and I wish them well.  It was very pleasing,
+therefore, to notice that these men insisted upon it in their
+conversation that the whole object of their visit was the good of the
+Islanders.  Any prospect of advantage to themselves was pushed into the
+background.  I was not clear that these professions could be made to
+agree with the speech in which Kenna had promised a hundred hides of
+land to every man on the ship; but on my making this remark, the three
+chiefs seemed very surprised and hurt by my suspicions, and explained
+very plausibly that, as the Britons needed them as a guard, they could
+not aid them better than by settling on the soil, and so being
+continually at hand in order to help them.  In time, they said, they
+hoped to raise and train the natives to such a point that they would be
+able to look after themselves.  Lanc spoke with some degree of eloquence
+upon the nobleness of the mission which they had undertaken, and the
+others clattered their cups of mead (a jar of that unpleasant drink was
+on the table) in token of their agreement.
+
+I observed also how much interested, and how very earnest and intolerant
+these Barbarians were in the matter of religion.  Of Christianity they
+knew nothing, so that although they were aware that the Britons were
+Christians, they had not a notion of what their creed really was.
+Yet without examination they started by taking it for granted that their
+own worship of Woden was absolutely right, and that therefore this other
+creed must be absolutely wrong.  "This vile religion," "This sad
+superstition," and "This grievous error," were among the phrases which
+they used towards it.  Instead of expressing pity for any one who had
+been misinformed upon so serious a question, their feelings were those
+of anger, and they declared most earnestly that they would spare no
+pains to set the matter right, fingering the hilts of their long
+broad-swords as they said so.
+
+Well, my dear Crassus, you will have had enough of me and of my Saxons.
+I have given you a short sketch of these people and their ways.  Since I
+began this letter, I have visited the two other ships which have come
+in, and as I find the same characteristics among the people on board
+them, I cannot doubt that they lie deeply in the race.  For the rest,
+they are brave, hardy, and very pertinacious in all that
+they undertake; whereas the Britons, though a great deal more spirited,
+have not the same steadiness of purpose, their quicker imaginations
+suggesting always some other course, and their more fiery passions being
+succeeded by reaction.  When I looked from the deck of the first Saxon
+ship, and saw the swaying excited multitude of Britons on the beach,
+contrasting them with the intent, silent men who stood beside me, it
+seemed to me more than ever dangerous to call in such allies.
+So strongly did I feel it that I turned to Kenna, who was also looking
+towards the beach.
+
+"You will own this island before you have finished," said I.
+
+His eyes sparkled as he gazed. "Perhaps," he cried; and then suddenly
+collecting himself and thinking that he had said too much, he added--
+
+"A temporary occupation--nothing more."
+
+
+
+THE HOME-COMING
+
+
+In the spring of the year 528, a small brig used to run as a passenger
+boat between Chalcedon on the Asiatic shore and Constantinople.  On the
+morning in question, which was that of the feast of Saint George,
+the vessel was crowded with excursionists who were bound for the great
+city in order to take part in the religious and festive celebrations
+which marked the festival of the Megalo-martyr, one of the most choice
+occasions in the whole vast hagiology of the Eastern Church.  The day
+was fine and the breeze light, so that the passengers in their holiday
+mood were able to enjoy without a qualm the many objects of interest
+which marked the approach to the greatest and most beautiful capital in
+the world.
+
+On the right, as they sped up the narrow strait, there stretched the
+Asiatic shore, sprinkled with white villages and with numerous villas
+peeping out from the woods which adorned it.  In front of them, the
+Prince's Islands, rising as green as emeralds out of the deep sapphire
+blue of the Sea of Marmora, obscured for the moment the view of the
+capital.  As the brig rounded these, the great city burst suddenly upon
+their sight, and a murmur of admiration and wonder rose from the crowded
+deck.  Tier above tier it rose, white and glittering, a hundred brazen
+roofs and gilded statues gleaming in the sun, with high over all the
+magnificent shining cupola of Saint Sophia.  Seen against a cloudless
+sky, it was the city of a dream-too delicate, too airily lovely for
+earth.
+
+In the prow of the small vessel were two travellers of singular
+appearance.  The one was a very beautiful boy, ten or twelve years of
+age, swarthy, clear-cut, with dark, curling hair and vivacious black
+eyes, full of intelligence and of the joy of living.  The other was an
+elderly man, gaunt-faced and grey-bearded, whose stern features were lit
+up by a smile as he observed the excitement and interest with which his
+young companion viewed the beautiful distant city and the many vessels
+which thronged the narrow strait.
+
+"See! see!" cried the lad.  "Look at the great red ships which sail out
+from yonder harbour.  Surely, your holiness, they are the greatest of
+all ships in the world."
+
+The old man, who was the abbot of the monastery of Saint Nicephorus in
+Antioch, laid his hand upon the boy's shoulder.
+
+"Be wary, Leon, and speak less loudly, for until we have seen your
+mother we should keep ourselves secret.  As to the red galleys they are
+indeed as large as any, for they are the Imperial ships of war, which
+come forth from the harbour of Theodosius.  Round yonder green point is
+the Golden Horn, where the merchant ships are moored.  But now, Leon, if
+you follow the line of buildings past the great church, you will see a
+long row of pillars fronting the sea.  It marks the Palace of the
+Caesars."
+
+The boy looked at it with fixed attention.  "And my mother is there," he
+whispered.
+
+"Yes, Leon, your mother the Empress Theodora and her husband the great
+Justinian dwell in yonder palace."
+
+The boy looked wistfully up into the old man's face.
+
+"Are you sure, Father Luke, that my mother will indeed be glad to see
+me?"
+
+The abbot turned away his face to avoid those questioning eyes.
+
+"We cannot tell, Leon.  We can only try.  If it should prove that there
+is no place for you, then there is always a welcome among the brethren
+of Saint Nicephorus."
+
+"Why did you not tell my mother that we were coming, Father Luke?
+Why did you not wait until you had her command?"
+
+"At a distance, Leon, it would be easy to refuse you.  An Imperial
+messenger would have stopped us.  But when she sees you, Leon--your
+eyes, so like her own, your face, which carries memories of one whom she
+loved--then, if there be a woman's heart within her bosom, she will take
+you into it.  They say that the Emperor can refuse her nothing.
+They have no child of their own.  There is a great future before you,
+Leon.  When it comes, do not forget the poor brethren of Saint
+Nicephorus, who took you in when you had no friend in the world."
+
+The old abbot spoke cheerily, but it was easy to see from his anxious
+countenance that the nearer he came to the capital the more doubtful did
+his errand appear.  What had seemed easy and natural from the quiet
+cloisters of Antioch became dubious and dark now that the golden domes
+of Constantinople glittered so close at hand.  Ten years before, a
+wretched woman, whose very name was an offence throughout the eastern
+world where she was as infamous for her dishonour as famous for her
+beauty, had come to the monastery gate, and had persuaded the monks to
+take charge of her infant son, the child of her shame.  There he had
+been ever since.  But she, Theodora, the harlot, returning to the
+capital, had by the strangest turn of Fortune's wheel caught the fancy
+and finally the enduring love of Justinian the heir to the throne.
+Then on the death of his uncle Justin, the young man had become the
+greatest monarch upon the earth, and had raised Theodora to be not only
+his wife and Empress, but to be absolute ruler with powers equal to and
+independent of his own.  And she, the polluted one, had risen to the
+dignity, had cut herself sternly away from all that related to her past
+life, and had shown signs already of being a great Queen, stronger and
+wiser than her husband, but fierce, vindictive, and unbending, a firm
+support to her friends, but a terror to her foes.  This was the woman to
+whom the Abbot Luke of Antioch was bringing Leon, her forgotten son.
+If ever her mind strayed back to the days when, abandoned by her lover
+Ecebolus, the Governor of the African Pentapolis, she had made her way
+on foot through Asia Minor, and left her infant with the monks, it was
+only to persuade herself that the brethren cloistered far from the world
+would never identify Theodora the Empress with Theodora the dissolute
+wanderer, and that the fruits of her sin would be for ever concealed
+from her Imperial husband.
+
+The little brig had now rounded the point of the Acropolis, and the long
+blue stretch of the Golden Horn lay before it.  The high wall of
+Theodosius lined the whole harbour, but a narrow verge of land had been
+left between it and the water's edge to serve as a quay.  The vessel ran
+alongside near the Neorion Gate, and the passengers, after a short
+scrutiny from the group of helmeted guards who lounged beside it, were
+allowed to pass through into the great city.
+
+The abbot, who had made several visits to Constantinople upon the
+business of his monastery, walked with the assured step of one who knows
+his ground; while the boy, alarmed and yet pleased by the rush of
+people, the roar and glitter of passing chariots, and the vista of
+magnificent buildings, held tightly to the loose gown of his guide,
+while staring eagerly about him in every direction.  Passing through the
+steep and narrow streets which led up from the water, they emerged into
+the open space which surrounds the magnificent pile of Saint Sophia, the
+great church begun by Constantine, hallowed by Saint Chrysostom, and now
+the seat of the Patriarch, and the very centre of the Eastern Church.
+Only with many crossings and genuflections did the pious abbot succeed
+in passing the revered shrine of his religion, and hurried on to his
+difficult task.
+
+Having passed Saint Sophia, the two travellers crossed the marble-paved
+Augusteum, and saw upon their right the gilded gates of the hippodrome
+through which a vast crowd of people was pressing, for though the
+morning had been devoted to the religious ceremony, the afternoon was
+given over to secular festivities.  So great was the rush of the
+populace that the two strangers had some difficulty in disengaging
+themselves from the stream and reaching the huge arch of black marble
+which formed the outer gate of the palace.  Within they were fiercely
+ordered to halt by a gold-crested and magnificent sentinel who laid his
+shining spear across their breasts until his superior officer should
+give them permission to pass.  The abbot had been warned, however,
+that all obstacles would give way if he mentioned the name of Basil the
+eunuch, who acted as chamberlain of the palace and also as Parakimomen--
+a high office which meant that he slept at the door of the Imperial
+bed-chamber.  The charm worked wonderfully, for at the mention of that
+potent name the Protosphathaire, or Head of the Palace Guards, who
+chanced to be upon the spot, immediately detached one of his soldiers
+with instructions to convoy the two strangers into the presence of the
+chamberlain.
+
+Passing in succession a middle guard and an inner guard, the travellers
+came at last into the palace proper, and followed their majestic guide
+from chamber to chamber, each more wonderful than the last.  Marbles and
+gold, velvet and silver, glittering mosaics, wonderful carvings, ivory
+screens, curtains of Armenian tissue and of Indian silk, damask from
+Arabia, and amber from the Baltic--all these things merged themselves in
+the minds of the two simple provincials, until their eyes ached and
+their senses reeled before the blaze and the glory of this, the most
+magnificent of the dwellings of man.  Finally, a pair of curtains,
+crusted with gold, were parted, and their guide handed them over to a
+negro mute who stood within.  A heavy, fat, brown-skinned man, with a
+large, flabby, hairless face was pacing up and down the small apartment,
+and he turned upon them as they entered with an abominable and
+threatening smile.  His loose lips and pendulous cheeks were those of a
+gross old woman, but above them there shone a pair of dark malignant
+eyes, full of fierce intensity of observation and judgment.
+
+"You have entered the palace by using my name," he said.  "It is one of
+my boasts that any of the populace can approach me in this way.  But it
+is not fortunate for those who take advantage of it without due cause."
+Again he smiled a smile which made the frightened boy cling tightly to
+the loose serge skirts of the abbot.
+
+But the ecclesiastic was a man of courage.  Undaunted by the sinister
+appearance of the great chamberlain, or by the threat which lay in his
+words, he laid his hand upon his young companion's shoulder and faced
+the eunuch with a confidential smile.
+
+"I have no doubt, your excellency," said he, "that the importance of my
+mission has given me the right to enter the palace.  The only thing
+which troubles me is whether it may not be so important as to forbid me
+from broaching it to you, or indeed, to anybody save the Empress
+Theodora, since it is she only whom it concerns."
+
+The eunuch's thick eyebrows bunched together over his vicious eyes.
+
+"You must make good those words," he said.  "If my gracious master--the
+ever-glorious Emperor Justinian--does not disdain to take me into his
+most intimate confidence in all things, it would be strange if there
+were any subject within your knowledge which I might not hear.  You are,
+as I gather from your garb and bearing, the abbot of some Asiatic
+monastery?"
+
+"You are right, your excellency, I am the abbot of the Monastery of St.
+Nicephorus in Antioch.  But I repeat that I am assured that what I have
+to say is for the ear of the Empress Theodora only."
+
+The eunuch was evidently puzzled, and his curiosity aroused by the old
+man's persistence.  He came nearer, his heavy face thrust forward, his
+flabby brown hands, like two sponges, resting upon the table of yellow
+jasper before him.
+
+"Old man," said he, "there is no secret which concerns the Empress
+which may not be told to me.  But if you refuse to speak, it is certain
+that you will never see her.  Why should I admit you, unless I know your
+errand?  How should I know that you are not a Manichean heretic with a
+poniard in your bosom, longing for the blood of the mother of the
+Church?"
+
+The abbot hesitated no longer.  "If there be a mistake in the matter,
+then on your head be it," said he.  "Know then that this lad Leon is the
+son of Theodora the Empress, left by her in our monastery within a month
+of his birth ten years ago.  This papyrus which I hand you will show you
+that what I say is beyond all question or doubt."
+
+The eunuch Basil took the paper, but his eyes were fixed upon the boy,
+and his features showed a mixture of amazement at the news that he had
+received, and of cunning speculation as to how he could turn it to
+profit.
+
+"Indeed, he is the very image of the Empress," he muttered; and then,
+with sudden suspicion, "Is it not the chance of this likeness which has
+put the scheme into your head, old man?"
+
+"There is but one way to answer that," said the abbot.  "It is to ask
+the Empress herself whether what I say is not true, and to give her the
+glad tidings that her boy is alive and well."
+
+The tone of confidence, together with the testimony of the papyrus, and
+the boy's beautiful face, removed the last shadow of doubt from the
+eunuch's mind.  Here was a great fact; but what use could he make of it?
+Above all, what advantage could he draw from it?  He stood with his fat
+chin in his hand, turning it over in his cunning brain.
+
+"Old man," said he at last, "to how many have you told this secret?"
+
+"To no one in the whole world," the other answered.  "There is Deacon
+Bardas at the monastery and myself.  No one else knows anything."
+
+"You are sure of this?"
+
+"Absolutely certain."
+
+The eunuch had made up his mind.  If he alone of all men in the palace
+knew of this event, he would have a powerful hold over his masterful
+mistress.  He was certain that Justinian the Emperor knew nothing of
+this.  It would be a shock to him.  It might even alienate his
+affections from his wife.  She might care to take precautions to prevent
+him from knowing.  And if he, Basil the eunuch, was her confederate in
+those precautions, then how very close it must draw him to her.
+All this flashed through his mind as he stood, the papyrus in his hand,
+looking at the old man and the boy.
+
+"Stay here," said he.  "I will be with you again."  With a swift rustle
+of his silken robes he swept from the chamber.
+
+A few minutes had elapsed when a curtain at the end of the room was
+pushed aside, and the eunuch, reappearing, held it back, doubling his
+unwieldy body into a profound obeisance as he did so.  Through the gap
+came a small alert woman, clad in golden tissue, with a loose outer
+mantle and shoes of the Imperial purple.  That colour alone showed that
+she could be none other than the Empress; but the dignity of her
+carriage, the fierce authority of her magnificent dark eyes, and the
+perfect beauty of her haughty face, all proclaimed that it could only be
+that Theodora who, in spite of her lowly origin, was the most majestic
+as well as the most maturely lovely of all the women in her kingdom.
+Gone now were the buffoon tricks which the daughter of Acacius the
+bearward had learned in the amphitheatre; gone too was the light charm
+of the wanton, and what was left was the worthy mate of a great king,
+the measured dignity of one who was every inch an empress.
+
+Disregarding the two men, Theodora walked up to the boy, placed her two
+white hands upon his shoulders, and looked with a long questioning gaze,
+a gaze which began with hard suspicion and ended with tender
+recognition, into those large lustrous eyes which were the very
+reflection of her own.  At first the sensitive lad was chilled by the
+cold intent question of the look; but as it softened, his own spirit
+responded, until suddenly, with a cry of "Mother! mother!" he cast
+himself into her arms, his hands locked round her neck, his face buried
+in her bosom.  Carried away by the sudden natural outburst of emotion,
+her own arms tightened round the lad's figure, and she strained him for
+an instant to her heart.  Then, the strength of the Empress gaining
+instant command over the temporary weakness of the mother, she pushed
+him back from her, and waved that they should leave her to herself.
+The slaves in attendance hurried the two visitors from the room.  Basil
+the eunuch lingered, looking down at his mistress, who had thrown
+herself upon a damask couch, her lips white and her bosom heaving with
+the tumult of her emotion.  She glanced up and met the chancellor's
+crafty gaze, her woman's instinct reading the threat that lurked within
+it.
+
+"I am in your power," she said.  "The Emperor must never know of this."
+
+"I am your slave," said the eunuch, with his ambiguous smile.  "I am an
+instrument in your hand.  If it is your will that the Emperor should
+know nothing, then who is to tell him?"
+
+"But the monk, the boy?  What are we to do?"
+
+"There is only one way for safety," said the eunuch.
+
+She looked at him with horrified eyes.  His spongy hands were pointing
+down to the floor.  There was an underground world to this beautiful
+palace, a shadow that was ever close to the light, a region of dimly-lit
+passages, of shadowed corners, of noiseless, tongueless slaves, of
+sudden, sharp screams in the darkness.  To this the eunuch was pointing.
+
+A terrible struggle rent her breast.  The beautiful boy was hers, flesh
+of her flesh, bone of her bone.  She knew it beyond all question or
+doubt.  It was her one child, and her whole heart went out to him.
+But Justinian!  She knew the Emperor's strange limitations.  Her career
+in the past was forgotten.  He had swept it all aside by special
+Imperial decree published throughout the Empire, as if she were new-born
+through the power of his will, and her association with his person.
+But they were childless, and this sight of one which was not his own
+would cut him to the quick.  He could dismiss her infamous past from his
+mind, but if it took the concrete shape of this beautiful child, then
+how could he wave it aside as if it had never been?  All her instincts
+and her intimate knowledge of the man told her that even her charm, and
+her influence might fail under such circumstances to save her from ruin.
+Her divorce would be as easy to him as her elevation had been.  She was
+balanced upon a giddy pinnacle, the highest in the world, and yet the
+higher the deeper the fall.  Everything that earth could give was now at
+her feet.  Was she to risk the losing of it all--for what?  For a
+weakness which was unworthy of an Empress, for a foolish new-born spasm
+of love, for that which had no existence within her in the morning?
+How could she be so foolish as to risk losing such a substance for such
+a shadow?
+
+"Leave it to me," said the brown watchful face above her.
+
+"Must it be--death?"
+
+"There is no real safety outside.  But if your heart is too merciful,
+then by the loss of sight and speech--"
+
+She saw in her mind the white-hot iron approaching those glorious eyes,
+and she shuddered at the thought.
+
+"No, no!  Better death than that!"
+
+"Let it be death then.  You are wise, great Empress, for there only is
+real safety and assurance of silence."
+
+"And the monk?"
+
+"Him also."
+
+"But the Holy Synod?  He is a tonsured priest.  What would the Patriarch
+do?"
+
+"Silence his babbling tongue.  Then let them do what they will.  How are
+we of the palace to know that this conspirator, taken with a dagger in
+his sleeve, is really what he says?"
+
+Again she shuddered and shrank down among the cushions.
+
+"Speak not of it, think not of it," said the eunuch.  "Say only that you
+leave it in my hands.  Nay, then, if you cannot say it, do but nod your
+head, and I take it as your signal."
+
+In that moment there flashed before Theodora's mind a vision of all her
+enemies, of all those who envied her rise, of all whose hatred and
+contempt would rise into a clamour of delight could they see the
+daughter of the bearward hurled down again into that abyss from which
+she had been dragged.  Her face hardened, her lips tightened, her little
+hands clenched in the agony of her thought.  "Do it!" she said.
+
+In an instant, with a terrible smile, the messenger of death hurried
+from the room.  She groaned aloud, and buried herself yet deeper amid
+the silken cushions, clutching them frantically with convulsed and
+twitching hands.
+
+The eunuch wasted no time, for this deed, once done, he became--save for
+some insignificant monk in Asia Minor, whose fate would soon be sealed--
+the only sharer of Theodora's secret, and therefore the only person who
+could curb and bend that most imperious nature.  Hurrying into the
+chamber where the visitors were waiting, he gave a sinister signal,
+only too well known in those iron days.  In an instant the black mutes
+in attendance seized the old man and the boy, pushing them swiftly down
+a passage and into a meaner portion of the palace, where the heavy smell
+of luscious cooking proclaimed the neighbourhood of the kitchens.
+A side corridor led to a heavily-barred iron door, and this in turn
+opened upon a steep flight of stone steps, feebly illuminated by the
+glimmer of wall lamps.  At the head and foot stood a mute sentinel like
+an ebony statue, and below, along the dusky and forbidding passages from
+which the cells opened, a succession of niches in the wall were each
+occupied by a similar guardian.  The unfortunate visitors were dragged
+brutally down a number of stone-flagged and dismal corridors until they
+descended another long stair which led so deeply into the earth that the
+damp feeling in the heavy air and the drip of water all round showed
+that they had come down to the level of the sea.  Groans and cries, like
+those of sick animals, from the various grated doors which they passed
+showed how many there were who spent their whole lives in this humid and
+poisonous atmosphere.
+
+At the end of this lowest passage was a door which opened into a single
+large vaulted room.  It was devoid of furniture, but in the centre was a
+large and heavy wooden board clamped with iron.  This lay upon a rude
+stone parapet, engraved with inscriptions beyond the wit of the eastern
+scholars, for this old well dated from a time before the Greeks founded
+Byzantium, when men of Chaldea and Phoenicia built with huge unmortared
+blocks, far below the level of the town of Constantine.  The door was
+closed, and the eunuch beckoned to the slaves that they should remove
+the slab which covered the well of death.  The frightened boy screamed
+and clung to the abbot, who, ashy-pale and trembling, was pleading hard
+to melt the heart of the ferocious eunuch.
+
+"Surely, surely, you would not slay the innocent boy!" he cried.  "What
+has he done?  Was it his fault that he came here?  I alone--I and Deacon
+Bardas--are to blame.  Punish us, if some one must indeed be punished.
+We are old.  It is today or tomorrow with us.  But he is so young and
+so beautiful, with all his life before him.  Oh, sir! oh, your
+excellency, you would not have the heart to hurt him!"
+
+He threw himself down and clutched at the eunuch's knees, while the boy
+sobbed piteously and cast horror-stricken eyes at the black slaves who
+were tearing the wooden slab from the ancient parapet beneath.  The only
+answer which the chamberlain gave to the frantic pleadings of the abbot
+was to take a stone which lay on the coping of the well and toss it in.
+It could be heard clattering against the old, damp, mildewed walls,
+until it fell with a hollow boom into some far distant subterranean
+pool.  Then he again motioned with his hands, and the black slaves threw
+themselves upon the boy and dragged him away from his guardian.
+So shrill was his clamour that no one heard the approach of the Empress.
+With a swift rush she had entered the room, and her arms were round her
+son.
+
+"It shall not be! It cannot be!" she cried.  "No, no, my darling! my
+darling! they shall do you no hurt.  I was mad to think of it--mad and
+wicked to dream of it.  Oh, my sweet boy!  To think that your mother
+might have had your blood upon her head!"
+
+The eunuch's brows were gathered together at this failure of his plans,
+at this fresh example of feminine caprice.
+
+"Why kill them, great lady, if it pains your gracious heart?" said he."
+With a knife and a branding iron they can be disarmed for ever."
+
+She paid no attention to his words.  "Kiss me, Leon!" she cried. "Just
+once let me feel my own child's soft lips rest upon mine.  Now again!
+No, no more, or I shall weaken for what I have still to say and still to
+do.  Old man, you are very near a natural grave, and I cannot think from
+your venerable aspect that words of falsehood would come
+readily to your lips.  You have indeed kept my secret all these years,
+have you not?"
+
+"I have in very truth, great Empress.  I swear to you by Saint
+Nicephorus, patron of our house, that, save old Deacon Bardas, there is
+none who knows."
+
+"Then let your lips still be sealed.  If you have kept faith in the
+past, I see no reason why you should be a babbler in the future.  And
+you, Leon"--she bent her wonderful eyes with a strange mixture of
+sternness and of love upon the boy, "can I trust you?  Will you keep a
+secret which could never help you, but would be the ruin and downfall of
+your mother?"
+
+"Oh, mother, I would not hurt you! I swear that I will be silent."
+
+"Then I trust you both.  Such provision will be made for your monastery
+and for your own personal comforts as will make you bless the day you
+came to my palace.  Now you may go.  I wish never to see you again.
+If I did, you might find me in a softer mood, or in a harder, and the
+one would lead to my undoing, the other to yours.  But if by whisper or
+rumour I have reason to think that you have failed me, then you and your
+monks and your monastery will have such an end as will be a lesson for
+ever to those who would break faith with their Empress."
+
+"I will never speak," said the old abbot; "neither will Deacon Bardas;
+neither will Leon.  For all three I can answer.  But there are others--
+these slaves, the chancellor.  We may be punished for another's fault."
+
+"Not so," said the Empress, and her eyes were like flints.  "These
+slaves are voiceless; nor have they any means to tell those secrets
+which they know.  As to you, Basil--"  She raised her white hand
+with the same deadly gesture which he had himself used so short a time
+before.  The black slaves were on him like hounds on a stag.
+
+"Oh, my gracious mistress, dear lady, what is this?  What is this?
+You cannot mean it!" he screamed, in his high, cracked voice.  "Oh, what
+have I done?  Why should I die?"
+
+"You have turned me against my own.  You have goaded me to slay my own
+son.  You have intended to use my secret against me.  I read it in your
+eyes from the first.  Cruel, murderous villain, taste the fate which you
+have yourself given to so many others.  This is your doom.  I have
+spoken."
+
+The old man and the boy hurried in horror from the vault.  As they
+glanced back they saw the erect inflexible, shimmering, gold-clad figure
+of the Empress.  Beyond they had a glimpse of the green-scummed lining
+of the well, and of the great red open mouth of the eunuch, as he
+screamed and prayed while every tug of the straining slaves brought him
+one step nearer to the brink.  With their hands over their ears they
+rushed away, but even so they heard that last woman-like shriek, and
+then the heavy plunge far down in the dark abysses of the earth.
+
+
+
+THE RED STAR
+
+
+The house of Theodosius, the famous eastern merchant, was in the best
+part of Constantinople at the Sea Point which is near the Church of
+Saint Demetrius.  Here he would entertain in so princely a fashion that
+even the Emperor Maurice had been known to come privately from the
+neighbouring Bucoleon palace in order to join in the revelry.  On the
+night in question, however, which was the fourth of November in the year
+of our Lord 630, his numerous guests had retired early, and there
+remained only two intimates, both of them successful merchants like
+himself, who sat with him over their wine on the marble verandah of his
+house, whence on the one side they could see the lights of the shipping
+in the Sea of Marmora, and on the other the beacons which marked out the
+course of the Bosphorus.  Immediately at their feet lay a narrow strait
+of water, with the low, dark loom of the Asiatic hills beyond.  A thin
+haze hid the heavens, but away to the south a single great red star
+burned sullenly in the darkness.
+
+The night was cool, the light was soothing, and the three men talked
+freely, letting their minds drift back into the earlier days when they
+had staked their capital, and often their lives, on the ventures which
+had built up their present fortunes.  The host spoke of his long
+journeys in North Africa, the land of the Moors; how he had travelled,
+keeping the blue sea ever upon his right, until he had passed the
+ruins of Carthage, and so on and ever on until a great tidal ocean beat
+upon a yellow strand before him, while on the right he could see the
+high rock across the waves which marked the Pillars of Hercules.
+His talk was of dark-skinned bearded men, of lions, and of monstrous
+serpents.  Then Demetrius, the Cilician, an austere man of sixty, told
+how he also had built up his mighty wealth.  He spoke of a journey over
+the Danube and through the country of the fierce Huns, until he and his
+friends had found themselves in the mighty forest of Germany, on the
+shores of the great river which is called the Elbe.  His stories were of
+huge men, sluggish of mind, but murderous in their cups, of sudden
+midnight broils and nocturnal flights, of villages buried in dense
+woods, of bloody heathen sacrifices, and of the bears and wolves who
+haunted the forest paths.  So the two elder men capped each other's
+stories and awoke each other's memories, while Manuel Ducas, the young
+merchant of gold and ostrich feathers, whose name was already known all
+over the Levant, sat in silence and listened to their talk.  At last,
+however, they called upon him also for an anecdote, and leaning his
+cheek upon his elbow, with his eyes fixed upon the great red star which
+burned in the south, the younger man began to speak.
+
+"It is the sight of that star which brings a story into my mind," said
+he.  "I do not know its name.  Old Lascaris the astronomer would tell me
+if I asked, but I have no desire to know.  Yet at this time of the year
+I always look out for it, and I never fail to see it burning in the same
+place.  But it seems to me that it is redder and larger than it was.
+
+"It was some ten years ago that I made an expedition into Abyssinia,
+where I traded to such good effect that I set forth on my return with
+more than a hundred camel-loads of skins, ivory, gold, spices, and other
+African produce.  I brought them to the sea-coast at Arsinoe, and
+carried them up the Arabian Gulf in five of the small boats of the
+country.  Finally, I landed near Saba, which is a starting-point for
+caravans, and, having assembled my camels and hired a guard of forty men
+from the wandering Arabs, I set forth for Macoraba.  From this point,
+which is the sacred city of the idolaters of those parts, one can always
+join the large caravans which go north twice a year to Jerusalem and
+the sea-coast of Syria.
+
+"Our route was a long and weary one.  On our left hand was the Arabian
+Gulf, lying like a pool of molten metal under the glare of day, but
+changing to blood-red as the sun sank each evening behind the distant
+African coast.  On our right was a monstrous desert which extends, so
+far as I know, across the whole of Arabia and away to the distant
+kingdom of the Persians.  For many days we saw no sign of life save our
+own long, straggling line of laden camels with their tattered, swarthy
+guardians.  In these deserts the soft sand deadens the footfall of the
+animals, so that their silent progress day after day through a scene
+which never changes, and which is itself noiseless, becomes at last like
+a strange dream.  Often as I rode behind my caravan, and gazed at the
+grotesque figures which bore my wares in front of me, I found it hard to
+believe that it was indeed reality, and that it was I, I, Manuel Ducas,
+who lived near the Theodosian Gate of Constantinople, and shouted for
+the Green at the hippodrome every Sunday afternoon, who was there in so
+strange a land and with such singular comrades.
+
+"Now and then, far out at sea, we caught sight of the white triangular
+sails of the boats which these people use, but as they are all pirates,
+we were very glad to be safely upon shore.  Once or twice, too, by the
+water's edge we saw dwarfish creatures-one could scarcely say if they
+were men or monkeys--who burrow for homes among the seaweed, drink the
+pools of brackish water, and eat what they can catch.  These are the
+fish-eaters, the Ichthyophagi, of whom old Herodotus talks--surely the
+lowest of all the human race.  Our Arabs shrank from them with horror,
+for it is well known that, should you die in the desert, these little
+people will settle on you like carrion crows, and leave not a bone
+unpicked.  They gibbered and croaked and waved their skinny arms at us
+as we passed, knowing well that they could swim far out to sea if we
+attempted to pursue them; for it is said that even the sharks turn with
+disgust from their foul bodies.
+
+"We had travelled in this way for ten days, camping every evening at the
+vile wells which offered a small quantity of abominable water.  It was
+our habit to rise very early and to travel very late, but to halt during
+the intolerable heat of the afternoon, when, for want of trees, we would
+crouch in the shadow of a sandhill, or, if that were wanting, behind
+our own camels and merchandise, in order to escape from the insufferable
+glare of the sun.  On the seventh day we were near the point where one
+leaves the coast in order to strike inland to Macoraba.  We had
+concluded our midday halt, and were just starting once more, the sun
+still being so hot that we could hardly bear it, when, looking up, I saw
+a remarkable sight.  Standing on a hillock to our right there was a man
+about forty feet high, holding in his hand a spear which was the size of
+the mast of a large ship.  You look surprised, my friends, and you can
+therefore imagine my feelings when I saw such a sight.  But my reason
+soon told me that the object in front of me was really a wandering Arab,
+whose form had been enormously magnified by the strange distorting
+effects which the hot air of the desert is able to cause.
+
+"However, the actual apparition caused more alarm to my companions than
+the imagined one had to me, for with a howl of dismay they shrank
+together into a frightened group, all pointing and gesticulating as they
+gazed at the distant figure.  I then observed that the man was not
+alone, but that from all the sandhills a line of turbaned heads was
+gazing down upon us.  The chief of the escort came running to me, and
+informed me of the cause of their terror, which was that they
+recognized, by some peculiarity of their headgear, that these men
+belonged to the tribe of the Dilwas, the most ferocious and unscrupulous
+of the Bedouin, who had evidently laid an ambuscade for us at this point
+with the intention of seizing our caravan.  When I thought of all my
+efforts in Abyssinia, of the length of my journey and of the dangers and
+fatigues which I had endured, I could not bear to think of this total
+disaster coming upon me at the last instant and robbing me not only of
+my profits, but also of my original outlay.  It was evident, however,
+that the robbers were too numerous for us to attempt to defend
+ourselves, and that we should be very fortunate if we escaped with our
+lives.  Sitting upon a packet, therefore, I commended my soul to our
+blessed Saint Helena, while I watched with despairing eyes the stealthy
+and menacing approach of the Arab robbers.
+
+"It may have been our own good fortune, or it may have been the handsome
+offering of beeswax candles--four to the pound--which I had mentally
+vowed to the blessed Helena, but at that instant I heard a great outcry
+of joy from among my own followers.  Standing up on the packet that I
+might have a better view, I was overjoyed to see a long caravan--five
+hundred camels at least-with a numerous armed guard coming along the
+route from Macoraba.  It is, I need not tell you, the custom of all
+caravans to combine their forces against the robbers of the desert, and
+with the aid of these newcomers we had become the stronger party.
+The marauders recognized it at once, for they vanished as if their
+native sands had swallowed them.  Running up to the summit of a
+sandhill, I was just able to catch a glimpse of a dust-cloud whirling
+away across the yellow plain, with the long necks of their camels,
+the flutter of their loose garments, and the gleam of their spears
+breaking out from the heart of it.  So vanished the marauders.
+
+"Presently I found, however, that I had only exchanged one danger for
+another.  At first I had hoped that this new caravan might belong to
+some Roman citizen, or at least to some Syrian Christian, but I found
+that it was entirely Arab.  The trading Arabs who are settled in the
+numerous towns of Arabia are, of course, very much more peaceable than
+the Bedouin of the wilderness, those sons of Ishmael of whom we read in
+Holy Writ.  But the Arab blood is covetous and lawless, so that when
+I saw several hundred of them formed in a semi-circle round our camels,
+looking with greedy eyes at my boxes of precious metals and my packets
+of ostrich feathers, I feared the worst.
+
+"The leader of the new caravan was a man of dignified bearing and
+remarkable appearance.  His age I would judge to be about forty.  He had
+aquiline features, a noble black beard, and eyes so luminous, so
+searching, and so intense that I cannot remember in all my wanderings to
+have seen any which could be compared with them.  To my thanks and
+salutations he returned a formal bow, and stood stroking his beard and
+looking in silence at the wealth which had suddenly fallen into his
+power.  A murmur from his followers showed the eagerness with which they
+awaited the order to tall upon the plunder, and a young ruffian, who
+seemed to be on intimate terms with the leader, came to his elbow and
+put the desires of his companions into words.
+
+"'Surely, oh Revered One,' said he, 'these people and their treasure
+have been delivered into our hands.  When we return with it to the holy
+place, who of all the Koraish will fail to see the finger of God which
+has led us?'
+
+"But the leader shook his head.  'Nay, Ali, it may not be,' he answered.
+'This man is, as I judge, a citizen of Rome, and we may not treat him as
+though he were an idolater.'
+
+"'But he is an unbeliever,' cried the youth, fingering a great knife
+which hung in his belt.  'Were I to be the judge, he would lose not only
+his merchandise, but his life also, if he did not accept the faith.'
+
+"The older man smiled and shook his head.  'Nay, Ali; you are too
+hot-headed,' said he, 'seeing that there are not as yet three hundred
+faithful in the world, our hands would indeed be full if we were to take
+the lives and property of all who are not with us.  Forget not, dear
+lad, that charity and honesty are the very nose-ring and halter of the
+true faith.'
+
+"'Among the faithful,' said the ferocious youth.
+
+"'Nay, towards every one.  It is the law of Allah.  And yet'--here his
+countenance darkened, and his eyes shone with a most sinister light--
+'the day may soon come when the hour of grace is past, and woe, then, to
+those who have not hearkened!  Then shall the sword of Allah be drawn,
+and it shall not be sheathed until the harvest is reaped.  First it
+shall strike the idolaters on the day when my own people and kinsmen,
+the unbelieving Koraish, shall be scattered, and the three hundred and
+sixty idols of the Caaba thrust out upon the dungheaps of the town.
+Then shall the Caaba be the home and temple of one God only who brooks
+no rival on earth or in heaven.'
+
+"The man's followers had gathered round him, their spears in their
+hands, their ardent eyes fixed upon his face, and their dark features
+convulsed with such fanatic enthusiasm as showed the hold which he
+had upon their love and respect.
+
+"'We shall be patient,' said he; 'but some time next year, the year
+after, the day may come when the great angel Gabriel shall bear me the
+message that the time of words has gone by, and that the hour of the
+sword has come.  We are few and weak, but if it is His will, who can
+stand against us?  Are you of Jewish faith, stranger?' he asked.
+
+"I answered that I was not.
+
+"'The better for you,' he answered, with the same furious anger in his
+swarthy face.  'First shall the idolaters fall, and then the Jews, in
+that they have not known those very prophets whom they had themselves
+foretold.  Then last will come the turn of the Christians, who follow
+indeed a true Prophet, greater than Moses or Abraham, but who have
+sinned in that they have confounded a creature with the Creator.
+To each in turn--idolater, Jew, and Christian--the day of reckoning will
+come.'
+
+"The ragamuffins behind him all shook their spears as he spoke.  There
+was no doubt about their earnestness, but when I looked at their
+tattered dresses and simple arms, I could not help smiling to think of
+their ambitious threats, and to picture what their fate would be upon
+the day of battle before the battle-axes of our Imperial Guards, or the
+spears of the heavy cavalry of the Armenian Themes.  However, I need not
+say that I was discreet enough to keep my thoughts to myself, as I had
+no desire to be the first martyr in this fresh attack upon our blessed
+faith.
+
+"It was now evening, and it was decided that the two caravans should
+camp together--an arrangement which was the more welcome as we were by
+no means sure that we had seen the last of the marauders.  I had invited
+the leader of the Arabs to have supper with me, and after a long
+exercise of prayer with his followers he came to join me, but my attempt
+at hospitality was thrown away, for he would not touch the excellent
+wine which I had unpacked for him, nor would he eat any of my dainties,
+contenting himself with stale bread, dried dates, and water.  After this
+meal we sat alone by the smouldering fire, the magnificent arch of the
+heavens above us of that deep, rich blue with those gleaming, clear-cut
+stars which can only be seen in that dry desert air.  Our camp lay
+before us, and no sound reached our ears save the dull murmur of the
+voices of our companions and the occasional shrill cry of a jackal among
+the sandhills around us.  Face to face I sat with this strange man, the
+glow of the fire beating upon his eager and imperious features and
+reflecting from his passionate eyes.  It was the strangest vigil, and
+one which will never pass from my recollection.  I have spoken with many
+wise and famous men upon my travels, but never with one who left the
+impression of this one.
+
+"And yet much of his talk was unintelligible to me, though, as you are
+aware, I speak Arabian like an Arab.  It rose and fell in the strangest
+way.  Sometimes it was the babble of a child, sometimes the incoherent
+raving of a fanatic, sometimes the lofty dreams of a prophet and
+philosopher.  There were times when his stories of demons, of miracles,
+of dreams, and of omens, were such as an old woman might tell to please
+the children of an evening.  There were others when, as he talked with
+shining face of his converse with angels, of the intentions of the
+Creator, and the end of the universe, I felt as if I were in the company
+of some one more than mortal, some one who was indeed the direct
+messenger of the Most High.
+
+"There were good reasons why he should treat me with such confidence.
+He saw in me a messenger to Constantinople and to the Roman Empire.
+Even as Saint Paul had brought Christianity to Europe, so he hoped that
+I might carry his doctrines to my native city.  Alas! be the doctrines
+what they may, I fear that I am not the stuff of which Pauls are made.
+Yet he strove with all his heart during that long Arabian night to bring
+me over to his belief.  He had with him a holy book, written, as he
+said, from the dictation of an angel, which he carried in tablets of
+bone in the nose-bag of a camel.  Some chapters of this he read me; but,
+though the precepts were usually good, the language seemed wild and
+fanciful.  There were times when I could scarce keep my countenance as I
+listened to him.  He planned out his future movements, and indeed, as
+he spoke, it was hard to remember that he was only the wandering leader
+of an Arab caravan, and not one of the great ones of the earth.
+
+"'When God has given me sufficient power, which will be within a few
+years,' said he, 'I will unite all Arabia under my banner.  Then I will
+spread my doctrine over Syria and Egypt.  When this has been done, I
+will turn to Persia, and give them the choice of the true faith or the
+sword.  Having taken Persia, it will be easy then to overrun Asia Minor,
+and so to make our way to Constantinople.'
+
+"I bit my lip to keep from laughing.  'And how long will it be before
+your victorious troops have reached the Bosphorus?' I asked.
+
+"'Such things are in the hands of God, whose servants we are,' said he.
+'It may be that I shall myself have passed away before these things are
+accomplished, but before the days of our children are completed, all
+that I have now told you will come to pass.  Look at that star,' he
+added, pointing to a beautiful clear planet above our heads.
+'That is the symbol of Christ.  See how serene and peaceful it shines,
+like His own teaching and the memory of His life.  Now,' he added,
+turning his outstretched hand to a dusky red star upon the horizon--the
+very one on which we are gazing now--'that is my star, which tells of
+wrath, of war, of a scourge upon sinners.  And yet both are indeed
+stars, and each does as Allah may ordain.'
+
+"Well, that was the experience which was called to my mind by the sight
+of this star tonight.  Red and angry, it still broods over the south,
+even as I saw it that night in the desert.  Somewhere down yonder that
+man is working and striving.  He may be stabbed by some brother fanatic
+or slain in a tribal skirmish.  If so, that is the end.  But if he
+lives, there was that in his eyes and in his presence which tells me
+that Mahomet the son of Abdallah--for that was his name--will testify in
+some noteworthy fashion to the faith that is in him."
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+
+THE SILVER MIRROR
+
+
+Jan. 3.--This affair of White and Wotherspoon's accounts proves to be a
+gigantic task.  There are twenty thick ledgers to be examined and
+checked.  Who would be a junior partner?  However, it is the first big
+bit of business which has been left entirely in my hands.  I must
+justify it.  But it has to be finished so that the lawyers may have the
+result in time for the trial.  Johnson said this morning that I should
+have to get the last figure out before the twentieth of the month.
+Good Lord!  Well, have at it, and if human brain and nerve can stand the
+strain, I'll win out at the other side.  It means office-work from ten
+to five, and then a second sitting from about eight to one in the
+morning.  There's drama in an accountant's life.  When I find myself
+in the still early hours, while all the world sleeps, hunting through
+column after column for those missing figures which will turn a
+respected alderman into a felon, I understand that it is not such a
+prosaic profession after all.
+
+On Monday I came on the first trace of defalcation.  No heavy game
+hunter ever got a finer thrill when first he caught sight of the trail
+of his quarry.  But I look at the twenty ledgers and think of the jungle
+through which I have to follow him before I get my kill.  Hard work--but
+rare sport, too, in a way!  I saw the fat fellow once at a City dinner,
+his red face glowing above a white napkin.  He looked at the little pale
+man at the end of the table.  He would have been pale too if he could
+have seen the task that would be mine.
+
+Jan. 6.--What perfect nonsense it is for doctors to prescribe rest when
+rest is out of the question!  Asses!  They might as well shout to a man
+who has a pack of wolves at his heels that what he wants is absolute
+quiet.  My figures must be out by a certain date; unless they are so, I
+shall lose the chance of my lifetime, so how on earth am I to rest?
+I'll take a week or so after the trial.
+
+Perhaps I was myself a fool to go to the doctor at all.  But I get
+nervous and highly-strung when I sit alone at my work at night.  It's
+not a pain--only a sort of fullness of the head with an occasional mist
+over the eyes.  I thought perhaps some bromide, or chloral, or something
+of the kind might do me good.  But stop work?  It's absurd to ask such a
+thing.  It's like a long-distance race.  You feel queer at first and
+your heart thumps and your lungs pant, but if you have only the pluck to
+keep on, you get your second wind.  I'll stick to my work and wait for
+my second wind.  If it never comes--all the same, I'll stick to my work.
+Two ledgers are done, and I am well on in the third.  The rascal has
+covered his tracks well, but I pick them up for all that.
+
+Jan. 9.--I had not meant to go to the doctor again.  And yet I have had
+to.  "Straining my nerves, risking a complete breakdown, even
+endangering my sanity."  That's a nice sentence to have fired off at
+one.  Well, I'll stand the strain and I'll take the risk, and so long as
+I can sit in my chair and move a pen I'll follow the old sinner's slot.
+
+By the way, I may as well set down here the queer experience which drove
+me this second time to the doctor.  I'll keep an exact record of my
+symptoms and sensations, because they are interesting in themselves--
+"a curious psycho-physiological study," says the doctor--and also
+because I am perfectly certain that when I am through with them they
+will all seem blurred and unreal, like some queer dream betwixt sleeping
+and waking.  So now, while they are fresh, I will just make a note of
+them, if only as a change of thought after the endless figures.
+
+There's an old silver-framed mirror in my room.  It was given me by a
+friend who had a taste for antiquities, and he, as I happen to know,
+picked it up at a sale and had no notion where it came from.  It's a
+large thing--three feet across and two feet high--and it leans at the
+back of a side-table on my left as I write.  The frame is flat, about
+three inches across, and very old; far too old for hall-marks or other
+methods of determining its age.  The glass part projects, with a
+bevelled edge, and has the magnificent reflecting power which is only,
+as it seems to me, to be found in very old mirrors.  There's a feeling
+of perspective when you look into it such as no modern glass can ever
+give.
+
+The mirror is so situated that as I sit at the table I can usually see
+nothing in it but the reflection of the red window curtains.  But a
+queer thing happened last night.  I had been working for some hours,
+very much against the grain, with continual bouts of that mistiness of
+which I had complained.  Again and again I had to stop and clear my
+eyes.  Well, on one of these occasions I chanced to look at the mirror.
+It had the oddest appearance.  The red curtains which should have been
+reflected in it were no longer there, but the glass seemed to be clouded
+and steamy, not on the surface, which glittered like steel, but deep
+down in the very grain of it.  This opacity, when I stared hard at it,
+appeared to slowly rotate this way and that, until it was a thick white
+cloud swirling in heavy wreaths.  So real and solid was it, and so
+reasonable was I, that I remember turning, with the idea that the
+curtains were on fire.  But everything was deadly still in the room--no
+sound save the ticking of the clock, no movement save the slow gyration
+of that strange woolly cloud deep in the heart of the old mirror.
+
+Then, as I looked, the mist, or smoke, or cloud, or whatever one may
+call it, seemed to coalesce and solidify at two points quite close
+together, and I was aware, with a thrill of interest rather than of
+fear, that these were two eyes looking out into the room.  A vague
+outline of a head I could see--a woman's by the hair, but this was very
+shadowy.  Only the eyes were quite distinct; such eyes--dark, luminous,
+filled with some passionate emotion, fury or horror, I could not say
+which.  Never have I seen eyes which were so full of intense, vivid
+life.  They were not fixed upon me, but stared out into the room.
+Then as I sat erect, passed my hand over my brow, and made a strong
+conscious effort to pull myself together, the dim head faded into the
+general opacity, the mirror slowly cleared, and there were the red
+curtains once again.
+
+A sceptic would say, no doubt, that I had dropped asleep over my
+figures, and that my experience was a dream.  As a matter of fact, I was
+never more vividly awake in my life.  I was able to argue about it even
+as I looked at it, and to tell myself that it was a subjective
+impression--a chimera of the nerves--begotten by worry and insomnia.
+But why this particular shape?  And who is the woman, and what is the
+dreadful emotion which I read in those wonderful brown eyes? They come
+between me and my work.  For the first time I have done less than the
+daily tally which I had marked out.  Perhaps that is why I have had no
+abnormal sensations tonight.  Tomorrow I must wake up, come what may.
+
+Jan. 11.--All well, and good progress with my work.  I wind the net,
+coil after coil, round that bulky body.  But the last smile may remain
+with him if my own nerves break over it.  The mirror would seem to be a
+sort of barometer which marks my brain-pressure.  Each night I have
+observed that it had clouded before I reached the end of my task.
+
+Dr. Sinclair (who is, it seems, a bit of a psychologist) was so
+interested in my account that he came round this evening to have a look
+at the mirror.  I had observed that something was scribbled in crabbed
+old characters upon the metal-work at the back.  He examined this with a
+lens, but could make nothing of it.  "Sanc. X. Pal." was his final
+reading of it, but that did not bring us any farther.  He advised me to
+put it away into another room; but, after all, whatever I may see in it
+is, by his own account only a symptom.  It is in the cause that the
+danger lies.  The twenty ledgers--not the silver mirror--should be
+packed away if I could only do it.  I'm at the eighth now, so I
+progress.
+
+Jan. 13.-Perhaps it would have been wiser after all if I had packed away
+the mirror.  I had an extraordinary experience with it last night.
+And yet I find it so interesting, so fascinating, that even now I will
+keep it in its place.  What on earth is the meaning of it all?
+
+I suppose it was about one in the morning, and I was closing my books
+preparatory to staggering off to bed, when I saw her there in front of
+me.  The stage of mistiness and development must have passed unobserved,
+and there she was in all her beauty and passion and distress, as
+clear-cut as if she were really in the flesh before me.  The figure was
+small, but very distinct--so much so that every feature, and every
+detail of dress, are stamped in my memory.  She is seated on the extreme
+left of the mirror.  A sort of shadowy figure crouches down beside her--
+I can dimly discern that it is a man--and then behind them is cloud, in
+which I see figures--figures which move.  It is not a mere picture upon
+which I look.  It is a scene in life, an actual episode.  She crouches
+and quivers.  The man beside her cowers down.  The vague figures make
+abrupt movements and gestures.  All my fears were swallowed up in my
+interest.  It was maddening to see so much and not to see more.
+
+But I can at least describe the woman to the smallest point.  She is
+very beautiful and quite young--not more than five-and-twenty, I should
+judge.  Her hair is of a very rich brown, with a warm chestnut shade
+fining into gold at the edges.  A little flat-pointed cap comes to an
+angle in front, and is made of lace edged with pearls.  The forehead
+is high, too high perhaps for perfect beauty; but one would not have it
+otherwise, as it gives a touch of power and strength to what would
+otherwise be a softly feminine face.  The brows are most delicately
+curved over heavy eyelids, and then come those wonderful eyes--so large,
+so dark, so full of over-mastering emotion, of rage and horror,
+contending with a pride of self-control which holds her from sheer
+frenzy!  The cheeks are pale, the lips white with agony, the chin and
+throat most exquisitely rounded.  The figure sits and leans forward in
+the chair, straining and rigid, cataleptic with horror.  The dress is
+black velvet, a jewel gleams like a flame in the breast, and a golden
+crucifix smoulders in the shadow of a fold.  This is the lady whose
+image still lives in the old silver mirror.  What dire deed could it be
+which has left its impress there, so that now, in another age, if the
+spirit of a man be but worn down to it, he may be conscious of its
+presence?
+
+One other detail: On the left side of the skirt of the black dress was,
+as I thought at first, a shapeless bunch of white ribbon.  Then, as I
+looked more intently or as the vision defined itself more clearly,
+I perceived what it was.  It was the hand of a man, clenched and knotted
+in agony, which held on with a convulsive grasp to the fold of the
+dress.  The rest of the crouching figure was a mere vague outline,
+but that strenuous hand shone clear on the dark background, with a
+sinister suggestion of tragedy in its frantic clutch.  The man is
+frightened-horribly frightened.  That I can clearly discern.  What has
+terrified him so?  Why does he grip the woman's dress?  The answer lies
+amongst those moving figures in the background.  They have brought
+danger both to him and to her.  The interest of the thing fascinated me.
+I thought no more of its relation to my own nerves.  I stared and stared
+as if in a theatre.  But I could get no farther.  The mist thinned.
+There were tumultuous movements in which all the figures were vaguely
+concerned.  Then the mirror was clear once more.
+
+The doctor says I must drop work for a day, and I can afford to do so,
+for I have made good progress lately.  It is quite evident that the
+visions depend entirely upon my own nervous state, for I sat in front of
+the mirror for an hour tonight, with no result whatever.  My soothing
+day has chased them away.  I wonder whether I shall ever penetrate what
+they all mean?  I examined the mirror this evening under a good light,
+and besides the mysterious inscription "Sanc. X. Pal.," I was able to
+discern some signs of heraldic marks, very faintly visible upon the
+silver.  They must be very ancient, as they are almost obliterated.
+So far as I could make out, they were three spear-heads, two above and
+one below.  I will show them to the doctor when he calls tomorrow.
+
+Jan. 14.--Feel perfectly well again, and I intend that nothing else
+shall stop me until my task is finished.  The doctor was shown the marks
+on the mirror and agreed that they were armorial bearings.  He is deeply
+interested in all that I have told him, and cross-questioned me closely
+on the details.  It amuses me to notice how he is torn in two by
+conflicting desires--the one that his patient should lose his symptoms,
+the other that the medium--for so he regards me--should solve this
+mystery of the past.  He advised continued rest, but did not oppose me
+too violently when I declared that such a thing was out of the question
+until the ten remaining ledgers have been checked.
+
+Jan. 17.--For three nights I have had no experiences--my day of rest has
+borne fruit.  Only a quarter of my task is left, but I must make a
+forced march, for the lawyers are clamouring for their material.  I will
+give them enough and to spare.  I have him fast on a hundred counts.
+When they realize what a slippery, cunning rascal he is, I should gain
+some credit from the case.  False trading accounts, false
+balance-sheets, dividends drawn from capital, losses written down as
+profits, suppression of working expenses, manipulation of petty cash--
+it is a fine record!
+
+Jan. 18.--Headaches, nervous twitches, mistiness, fullness of the
+temples--all the premonitions of trouble, and the trouble came sure
+enough.  And yet my real sorrow is not so much that the vision should
+come as that it should cease before all is revealed.
+
+But I saw more tonight.  The crouching man was as visible as the lady
+whose gown he clutched.  He is a little swarthy fellow, with a
+black-pointed beard.  He has a loose gown of damask trimmed with fur.
+The prevailing tints of his dress are red.  What a fright the fellow is
+in, to be sure!  He cowers and shivers and glares back over his
+shoulder.  There is a small knife in his other hand, but he is far too
+tremulous and cowed to use it.  Dimly now I begin to see the figures in
+the background.  Fierce faces, bearded and dark, shape themselves out of
+the mist.  There is one terrible creature, a skeleton of a man, with
+hollow cheeks and eyes sunk in his head.  He also has a knife in his
+hand.  On the right of the woman stands a tall man, very young, with
+flaxen hair, his face sullen and dour.  The beautiful woman looks up at
+him in appeal.  So does the man on the ground.  This youth seems to be
+the arbiter of their fate.  The crouching man draws closer and hides
+himself in the woman's skirts.  The tall youth bends and tries to drag
+her away from him.  So much I saw last night before the mirror cleared.
+Shall I never know what it leads to and whence it comes?  It is not a
+mere imagination, of that I am very sure.  Somewhere, some time, this
+scene has been acted, and this old mirror has reflected it.  But
+when--where?
+
+Jan. 20.--My work draws to a close, and it is time.  I feel a tenseness
+within my brain, a sense of intolerable strain, which warns me that
+something must give.  I have worked myself to the limit.  But tonight
+should be the last night.  With a supreme effort I should finish the
+final ledger and complete the case before I rise from my chair.  I will
+do it.  I will.
+
+Feb. 7.--I did.  My God, what an experience!  I hardly know if I am
+strong enough yet to set it down.
+
+Let me explain in the first instance that I am writing this in Dr.
+Sinclair's private hospital some three weeks after the last entry in my
+diary.  On the night of January 20 my nervous system finally gave
+way, and I remembered nothing afterwards until I found myself three days
+ago in this home of rest.  And I can rest with a good conscience.
+My work was done before I went under.  My figures are in the solicitors'
+hands.  The hunt is over.
+
+And now I must describe that last night.  I had sworn to finish my work,
+and so intently did I stick to it, though my head was bursting, that I
+would never look up until the last column had been added.  And yet it
+was fine self-restraint, for all the time I knew that wonderful things
+were happening in the mirror.  Every nerve in my body told me so.  If I
+looked up there was an end of my work.  So I did not look up till all
+was finished.  Then, when at last with throbbing temples I threw down my
+pen and raised my eyes, what a sight was there!
+
+The mirror in its silver frame was like a stage, brilliantly lit, in
+which a drama was in progress.  There was no mist now.  The oppression
+of my nerves had wrought this amazing clarity.  Every feature, every
+movement, was as clear-cut as in life.  To think that I, a tired
+accountant, the most prosaic of mankind, with the account-books of a
+swindling bankrupt before me, should be chosen of all the human race to
+look upon such a scene!
+
+It was the same scene and the same figures, but the drama had advanced a
+stage.  The tall young man was holding the woman in his arms.
+She strained away from him and looked up at him with loathing in her
+face.  They had torn the crouching man away from his hold upon the skirt
+of her dress.  A dozen of them were round him--savage men, bearded men.
+They hacked at him with knives.  All seemed to strike him together.
+Their arms rose and fell.  The blood did not flow from him-it squirted.
+His red dress was dabbled in it.  He threw himself this way and that,
+purple upon crimson, like an over-ripe plum.  Still they hacked, and
+still the jets shot from him.  It was horrible--horrible!  They dragged
+him kicking to the door.  The woman looked over her shoulder at him and
+her mouth gaped.  I heard nothing, but I knew that she was screaming.
+And then, whether it was this nerve-racking vision before me, or
+whether, my task finished, all the overwork of the past weeks came in
+one crushing weight upon me, the room danced round me, the floor seemed
+to sink away beneath my feet, and I remembered no more.  In the early
+morning my landlady found me stretched senseless before the silver
+mirror, but I knew nothing myself until three days ago I awoke in the
+deep peace of the doctor's nursing home.
+
+Feb. 9.--Only today have I told Dr. Sinclair my full experience.  He had
+not allowed me to speak of such matters before.  He listened with an
+absorbed interest.  "You don't identify this with any well-known scene
+in history?" he asked, with suspicion in his eyes.  I assured him that I
+knew nothing of history.  "Have you no idea whence that mirror came and
+to whom it once belonged?" he continued.  "Have you?" I asked, for he
+spoke with meaning.  "It's incredible," said he, "and yet how else can
+one explain it?  The scenes which you described before suggested it, but
+now it has gone beyond all range of coincidence.  I will bring you some
+notes in the evening."
+
+Later.--He has just left me.  Let me set down his words as closely as I
+can recall them.  He began by laying several musty volumes upon my
+bed.
+
+"These you can consult at your leisure," said he.  "I have some notes
+here which you can confirm.  There is not a doubt that what you have
+seen is the murder of Rizzio by the Scottish nobles in the presence of
+Mary, which occurred in March, 1566.  Your description of the woman is
+accurate.  The high forehead and heavy eyelids combined with great
+beauty could hardly apply to two women.  The tall young man was her
+husband, Darnley.  Rizzio, says the chronicle, 'was dressed in a loose
+dressing-gown of furred damask, with hose of russet velvet.'  With one
+hand he clutched Mary's gown, with the other he held a dagger.
+Your fierce, hollow-eyed man was Ruthven, who was new-risen from a bed
+of sickness.  Every detail is exact."
+
+"But why to me?" I asked, in bewilderment.  "Why of all the human race
+to me?"
+
+"Because you were in the fit mental state to receive the impression.
+Because you chanced to own the mirror which gave the impression."
+
+"The mirror! You think, then, that it was Mary's mirror--that it stood
+in the room where the deed was done?"
+
+"I am convinced that it was Mary's mirror.  She had been Queen of
+France.  Her personal property would be stamped with the Royal arms.
+What you took to be three spear-heads were really the lilies of France."
+
+"And the inscription?"
+
+"'Sanc. X. Pal.'  You can expand it into Sanctae Crucis Palatium.
+Some one has made a note upon the mirror as to whence it came.  It was
+the Palace of the Holy Cross."
+
+"Holyrood!" I cried.
+
+"Exactly.  Your mirror came from Holyrood.  You have had one very
+singular experience, and have escaped.  I trust that you will never put
+yourself into the way of having such another."
+
+
+
+THE BLIGHTING OF SHARKEY
+
+
+Sharkey, the abominable Sharkey, was out again.  After two years of the
+Coromandel coast, his black barque of death, _The Happy Delivery_, was
+prowling off the Spanish Main, while trader and fisher flew for dear
+life at the menace of that patched fore-topsail, rising slowly over the
+violet rim of the tropical sea.
+
+As the birds cower when the shadow of the hawk falls athwart the field,
+or as the jungle folk crouch and shiver when the coughing cry of the
+tiger is heard in the night-time, so through all the busy world of
+ships, from the whalers of Nantucket to the tobacco ships of Charleston,
+and from the Spanish supply ships of Cadiz to the sugar merchants of the
+Main, there spread the rumour of the black curse of the ocean.
+
+Some hugged the shore, ready to make for the nearest port, while others
+struck far out beyond the known lines of commerce, but none were so
+stout-hearted that they did not breathe more freely when their
+passengers and cargoes were safe under the guns of some mothering fort.
+
+Through all the islands there ran tales of charred derelicts at sea, of
+sudden glares seen afar in the night-time, and of withered bodies
+stretched upon the sand of waterless Bahama Keys.  All the old signs
+were there to show that Sharkey was at his bloody game once more.
+
+These fair waters and yellow-rimmed, palm-nodding islands are the
+traditional home of the sea rover.  First it was the gentleman
+adventurer, the man of family and honour, who fought as a patriot,
+though he was ready to take his payment in Spanish plunder.
+
+Then, within a century, his debonnaire figure had passed to make room
+for the buccaneers, robbers pure and simple, yet with some organized
+code of their own, commanded by notable chieftains, and taking in hand
+great concerted enterprises.
+
+They, too, passed with their fleets and their sacking of cities, to make
+room for the worst of all, the lonely outcast pirate, the bloody Ishmael
+of the seas, at war with the whole human race.  This was the vile brood
+which the early eighteenth century had spawned forth, and of them all
+there was none who could compare in audacity, wickedness, and evil
+repute with the unutterable Sharkey.
+
+It was early in May, in the year 1720, that _The Happy Delivery_ lay
+with her fore-yard aback some five leagues west of the Windward Passage,
+waiting to see what rich, helpless craft the trade-wind might bring down
+to her.
+
+Three days she had lain there, a sinister black speck, in the centre of
+the great sapphire circle of the ocean.  Far to the south-east the low
+blue hills of Hispaniola showed up on the skyline.
+
+Hour by hour as he waited without avail, Sharkey's savage temper had
+risen, for his arrogant spirit chafed against any contradiction, even
+from Fate itself.  To his quartermaster, Ned Galloway, he had said that
+night, with his odious neighing laugh, that the crew of the next
+captured vessel should answer to him for having kept him waiting so
+long.
+
+The cabin of the pirate barque was a good-sized room, hung with much
+tarnished finery, and presenting a strange medley of luxury and
+disorder.  The panelling of carved and polished sandal-wood was blotched
+with foul smudges and chipped with bullet-marks fired in some drunken
+revelry.
+
+Rich velvets and laces were heaped upon the brocaded settees, while
+metal-work and pictures of great price filled every niche and corner,
+for anything which caught the pirate's fancy in the sack of a hundred
+vessels was thrown haphazard into his chamber.  A rich, soft carpet
+covered the floor, but it was mottled with wine-stains and charred with
+burned tobacco.
+
+Above, a great brass hanging-lamp threw a brilliant yellow light upon
+this singular apartment, and upon the two men who sat in their
+shirt-sleeves with the wine between them, and the cards in their
+hands, deep in a game of piquet.  Both were smoking long pipes, and the
+thin blue reek filled the cabin and floated through the skylight above
+them, which, half opened, disclosed a slip of deep violet sky spangled
+with great silver stars.
+
+Ned Galloway, the quartermaster, was a huge New England wastrel, the one
+rotten branch upon a goodly Puritan family tree.  His robust limbs and
+giant frame were the heritage of a long line of God-fearing ancestors,
+while his black savage heart was all his own.  Bearded to the temples,
+with fierce blue eyes, a tangled lion's mane of coarse, dark hair, and
+huge gold rings in his ears, he was the idol of the women in every
+waterside hell from the Tortugas to Maracaibo on the Main.  A red cap, a
+blue silken shirt, brown velvet breeches with gaudy knee-ribbons, and
+high sea-boots made up the costume of the rover Hercules.
+
+A very different figure was Captain John Sharkey.  His thin, drawn,
+clean-shaven face was corpse-like in its pallor, and all the suns of the
+Indies could but turn it to a more deathly parchment tint.  He was part
+bald, with a few lank locks of tow-like hair, and a steep, narrow
+forehead.  His thin nose jutted sharply forth, and near-set on either
+side of it were those filmy blue eyes, red-rimmed like those of a white
+bull-terrier, from which strong men winced away in fear and loathing.
+His bony hands, with long, thin fingers which quivered ceaselessly like
+the antennae of an insect, were toying constantly with the cards and the
+heap of gold moidores which lay before him.  His dress was of some
+sombre drab material, but, indeed, the men who looked upon that fearsome
+face had little thought for the costume of its owner.
+
+The game was brought to a sudden interruption, for the cabin door was
+swung rudely open, and two rough fellows--Israel Martin, the boatswain,
+and Red Foley, the gunner--rushed into the cabin.  In an instant Sharkey
+was on his feet with a pistol in either hand and murder in his eyes.
+
+"Sink you for villains!" he cried.  "I see well that if I do not shoot
+one of you from time to time you will forget the man I am.  What mean
+you by entering my cabin as though it were a Wapping alehouse?"
+
+"Nay, Captain Sharkey," said Martin, with a sullen frown upon his
+brick-red face, "it is even such talk as this which has set us by the
+ears.  We have had enough of it."
+
+"And more than enough," said Red Foley, the gunner.  "There be no mates
+aboard a pirate craft, and so the boatswain, the gunner, and the
+quarter-master are the officers."
+
+"Did I gainsay it ?" asked Sharkey with an oath.
+
+"You have miscalled us and mishandled us before the men, and we scarce
+know at this moment why we should risk our lives in fighting for the
+cabin and against the foc'sle."
+
+Sharkey saw that something serious was in the wind.  He laid down his
+pistols and leaned back in his chair with a flash of his yellow fangs.
+
+"Nay, this is sad talk," said he, "that two stout fellows who have
+emptied many a bottle and cut many a throat with me, should now fall out
+over nothing.  I know you to be roaring boys who would go with me
+against the devil himself if I bid you.  Let the steward bring cups and
+drown all unkindness between us."
+
+"It is no time for drinking, Captain Sharkey," said Martin.  "The men
+are holding council round the mainmast, and may be aft at any minute.
+They mean mischief, Captain Sharkey, and we have come to warn you."
+
+Sharkey sprang for the brass-handled sword which hung from the wall.
+
+"Sink them for rascals!" he cried.  "When I have gutted one or two of
+them they may hear reason."
+
+But the others barred his frantic way to the door.
+
+"There are forty of them under the lead of Sweetlocks, the master," said
+Martin, "and on the open deck they would surely cut you to pieces.
+Here within the cabin it may be that we can hold them off at the points
+of our pistols."
+
+He had hardly spoken when there came the tread of many heavy feet upon
+the deck.  Then there was a pause with no sound but the gentle lipping
+of the water against the sides of the pirate vessel.  Finally, a
+crashing blow as from a pistol-butt fell upon the door, and an instant
+afterwards Sweetlocks himself, a tall, dark man, with a deep red
+birthmark blazing upon his cheek, strode into the cabin.  His swaggering
+air sank somewhat as he looked into those pale and filmy eyes.
+
+"Captain Sharkey," said he, "I come as spokesman of the crew."
+
+"So I have heard, Sweetlocks," said the captain, softly.  "I may live to
+rip you the length of your vest for this night's work."
+
+"That is as it may be, Captain Sharkey," the master answered, "but if
+you will look up you will see that I have those at my back who will not
+see me mishandled."
+
+"Cursed if we do!" growled a deep voice from above, and glancing upwards
+the officers in the cabin were aware of a line of fierce, bearded,
+sun-blackened faces looking down at them through the open skylight.
+
+"Well, what would you have?" asked Sharkey.  "Put it in words, man, and
+let us have an end of it."
+
+"The men think," said Sweetlocks, "that you are the devil himself, and
+that there will be no luck for them whilst they sail the sea in such
+company.  Time was when we did our two or three craft a day, and every
+man had women and dollars to his liking, but now for a long week we have
+not raised a sail, and save for three beggarly sloops, have taken never
+a vessel since we passed the Bahama Bank.  Also, they know that you
+killed Jack Bartholomew, the carpenter, by beating his head in with a
+bucket, so that each of us goes in fear of his life.  Also, the rum
+has given out, and we are hard put to it for liquor.  Also, you sit in
+your cabin whilst it is in the articles that you should drink and roar
+with the crew.  For all these reasons it has been this day in general
+meeting decreed--"
+
+Sharkey had stealthily cocked a pistol under the table, so it may have
+been as well for the mutinous master that he never reached the end of
+his discourse, for even as he came to it there was a swift patter of
+feet upon the deck, and a ship lad, wild with his tidings, rushed into
+the room.
+
+"A craft!" he yelled.  "A great craft, and close aboard us!"
+
+In a flash the quarrel was forgotten, and the pirates were rushing to
+quarters.  Sure enough, surging slowly down before the gentle
+trade-wind, a great full-rigged ship, with all sail set, was close
+beside them.
+
+It was clear that she had come from afar and knew nothing of the ways of
+the Caribbean Sea, for she made no effort to avoid the low, dark craft
+which lay so close upon her bow, but blundered on as if her mere size
+would avail her.
+
+So daring was she, that for an instant the Rovers, as they flew to loose
+the tackles of their guns, and hoisted their battle-lanterns, believed
+that a man-of-war had caught them napping.
+
+But at the sight of her bulging, portless sides and merchant rig a shout
+of exultation broke from amongst them, and in an instant they had swung
+round their fore-yard, and darting alongside they had grappled with her
+and flung a spray of shrieking, cursing ruffians upon her deck.
+
+Half a dozen seamen of the night-watch were cut down where they stood,
+the mate was felled by Sharkey and tossed overboard by Ned Galloway,
+and before the sleepers had time to sit up in their berths, the vessel
+was in the hands of the pirates.
+
+The prize proved to be the full-rigged ship _Portobello_--Captain Hardy,
+master--bound from London to Kingston in Jamaica, with a cargo of cotton
+goods and hoop-iron.
+
+Having secured their prisoners, all huddled together in a dazed,
+distracted group, the pirates spread over the vessel in search of
+plunder, handing all that was found to the giant quartermaster, who in
+turn passed it over the side of _The Happy Delivery_ and laid it under
+guard at the foot of her mainmast.
+
+The cargo was useless, but there were a thousand guineas in the ship's
+strong-box, and there were some eight or ten passengers, three of them
+wealthy Jamaica merchants, all bringing home well-filled boxes from
+their London visit.
+
+When all the plunder was gathered, the passengers and crew were dragged
+to the waist, and under the cold smile of Sharkey each in turn was
+thrown over the side--Sweetlocks standing by the rail and
+ham-stringing them with his cutlass as they passed over, lest some
+strong swimmer should rise in judgment against them.  A portly,
+grey-haired woman, the wife of one of the planters, was among the
+captives, but she also was thrust screaming and clutching over
+the side.
+
+"Mercy, you hussy!" neighed Sharkey, "you are surely a good twenty years
+too old for that."
+
+The captain of the _Portobello_, a hale, blue-eyed grey-beard, was the
+last upon the deck.  He stood, a thick-set resolute figure, in the glare
+of the lanterns, while Sharkey bowed and smirked before him.
+
+"One skipper should show courtesy to another," said he, "and sink me if
+Captain Sharkey would be behind in good manners!  I have held you to the
+last, as you see, where a brave man should be; so now, my bully, you
+have seen the end of them, and may step over with an easy mind."
+
+"So I shall, Captain Sharkey," said the old seaman, "for I have done my
+duty so far as my power lay.  But before I go over I would say a word in
+your ear."
+
+"If it be to soften me, you may save your breath.  You have kept us
+waiting here for three days, and curse me if one of you shall live!"
+
+"Nay, it is to tell you what you should know.  You have not yet found
+what is the true treasure aboard of this ship."
+
+"Not found it?  Sink me, but I will slice your liver, Captain Hardy, if
+you do not make good your words!  Where is this treasure you speak of?"
+"It is not a treasure of gold, but it is a fair maid, which may be no
+less welcome."
+
+"Where is she, then?  And why is she not with the others?"
+
+"I will tell you why she is not with the others.  She is the only
+daughter of the Count and Countess Ramirez, who are amongst those whom
+you have murdered.  Her name is Inez Ramirez, and she is of the best
+blood of Spain, her father being Governor of Chagre, to which he was now
+bound.  It chanced that she was found to have formed an attachment,
+as maids will, to one far beneath her in rank aboard this ship; so her
+parents, being people of great power, whose word is not to be gainsaid,
+constrained me to confine her close in a special cabin aft of my own.
+Here she was held straitly, all food being carried to her, and she
+allowed to see no one.  This I tell you as a last gift, though why I
+should make it to you I do not know, for indeed you are a most bloody
+rascal, and it comforts me in dying to think that you will surely be
+gallow's-meat in this world, and hell's-meat in the next."
+
+At the words he ran to the rail, and vaulted over into the darkness,
+praying as he sank into the depths of the sea, that the betrayal of this
+maid might not be counted too heavily against his soul.
+
+The body of Captain Hardy had not yet settled upon the sand forty
+fathoms deep before the pirates had rushed along the cabin gangway.
+There, sure enough, at the further end, was a barred door, overlooked in
+their previous search.  There was no key, but they beat it in with their
+gunstocks, whilst shriek after shriek came from within.  In the light
+of their outstretched lanterns they saw a young woman, in the very prime
+and fullness of her youth, crouching in a corner, her unkempt hair
+hanging to the ground, her dark eyes glaring with fear, her lovely form
+straining away in horror from this inrush of savage blood-stained men.
+Rough hands seized her, she was jerked to her feet, and dragged with
+scream on scream to where John Sharkey awaited her.  He held the light
+long and fondly to her face, then, laughing loudly, he bent forward and
+left his red hand-print upon her cheek.
+
+"'Tis the Rover's brand, lass, that he marks his ewes.  Take her to the
+cabin and use her well.  Now, hearties, get her under water, and out to
+our luck once more."
+
+Within an hour the good ship _Portobello_ had settled down to her doom,
+till she lay beside her murdered passengers upon the Caribbean sand,
+while the pirate barque, her deck littered with plunder, was heading
+northward in search of another victim.
+
+There was a carouse that night in the cabin of _The Happy Delivery_, at
+which three men drank deep.  They were the captain, the quartermaster,
+and Baldy Stable, the surgeon, a man who had held the first practice in
+Charleston, until, misusing a patient, he fled from justice, and took
+his skill over to the pirates.  A bloated fat man he was, with a creased
+neck and a great shining scalp, which gave him his name.  Sharkey had
+put for the moment all thought of the mutiny out of his head, knowing
+that no animal is fierce when it is over-fed, and that whilst the
+plunder of the great ship was new to them he need fear no trouble from
+his crew.  He gave himself up, therefore, to the wine and the riot,
+shouting and roaring with his boon companions.  All three were flushed
+and mad, ripe for any devilment, when the thought of the woman crossed
+the pirate's evil mind.  He yelled to the negro steward that he should
+bring her on the instant.
+
+Inez Ramirez had now realized it all--the death of her father and
+mother, and her own position in the hands of their murderers.
+Yet calmness had come with the knowledge, and there was no sign of
+terror in her proud, dark face as she was led into the cabin, but rather
+a strange, firm set of the mouth and an exultant gleam of the eyes, like
+one who sees great hopes in the future.  She smiled at the pirate
+captain as he rose and seized her by the waist.
+
+"'Fore God! this is a lass of spirit," cried Sharkey, passing his arm
+round her.  "She was born to be a Rover's bride.  Come, my bird, and
+drink to our better friendship."
+
+"Article Six!" hiccoughed the doctor.  "All _bona robas_ in common."
+
+"Aye! we hold you to that, Captain Sharkey," said Galloway.  "It is so
+writ in Article Six."
+
+"I will cut the man into ounces who comes betwixt us!" cried Sharkey, as
+he turned his fish-like eyes from one to the other.  "Nay, lass, the man
+is not born that will take you from John Sharkey.  Sit here upon my
+knee, and place your arm round me so.  Sink me, if she has not learned
+to love me at sight! Tell me, my pretty, why you were so mishandled and
+laid in the bilboes aboard yonder craft?"
+
+The woman shook her head and smiled.  "No Inglese--no Inglese," she
+lisped.  She had drunk off the bumper of wine which Sharkey held to her,
+and her dark eyes gleamed more brightly than before.  Sitting on
+Sharkey's knee, her arm encircled his neck, and her hand toyed with his
+hair, his ear, his cheek.  Even the strange quartermaster and the
+hardened surgeon felt a horror as they watched her, but Sharkey laughed
+in his joy.  "Curse me, if she is not a lass of metal!" he cried,
+as he pressed her to him and kissed her unresisting lips.
+
+But a strange intent look of interest had come into the surgeon's eyes
+as he watched her, and his face set rigidly, as if a fearsome thought
+had entered his mind.  There stole a grey pallor over his bull face,
+mottling all the red of the tropics and the flush of the wine.
+
+"Look at her hand, Captain Sharkey!" he cried.  "For the Lord's sake,
+look at her hand!"
+
+Sharkey stared down at the hand which had fondled him.  It was of a
+strange dead pallor, with a yellow shiny web betwixt the fingers.
+All over it was a white fluffy dust, like the flour of a new-baked loaf.
+It lay thick on Sharkey's neck and cheek.  With a cry of disgust he
+flung the woman from his lap; but in an instant, with a wild-cat bound,
+and a scream of triumphant malice, she had sprung at the surgeon, who
+vanished yelling under the table.  One of her clawing hands grasped
+Galloway by the beard, but he tore himself away, and snatching a pike,
+held her off from him as she gibbered and mowed with the blazing eyes of
+a maniac.
+
+The black steward had run in on the sudden turmoil, and among them they
+forced the mad creature back into a cabin and turned the key upon her.
+Then the three sank panting into their chairs, and looked with eyes of
+horror upon each other.  The same word was in the mind of each, but
+Galloway was the first to speak it.
+
+"A leper!" he cried.  "She has us all, curse her!"
+
+"Not me," said the surgeon; "she never laid her finger on me."
+
+"For that matter," cried Galloway,  "it was but my beard that she
+touched.  I will have every hair of it off before morning."
+
+"Dolts that we were!" the surgeon shouted, beating his head with his
+hand.  "Tainted or no, we shall never know a moment's peace till the
+year is up and the time of danger past.  'Fore God, that merchant
+skipper has left his mark on us, and pretty fools we were to think that
+such a maid would be quarantined for the cause he gave.  It is easy to
+see now that her corruption broke forth in the journey, and that save
+throwing her over they had no choice but to board her up until they
+should come to some port with a lazarette."
+
+Sharkey had sat leaning back in his chair with a ghastly face while he
+listened to the surgeon's words.  He mopped himself with his red
+handkerchief, and wiped away the fatal dust with which he was smeared.
+
+"What of me?" he croaked.  "What say you, Baldy Stable?  Is there a
+chance for me?  Curse you for a villain! speak out, or I will drub you
+within an inch of your life, and that inch also!  Is there a chance for
+me, I say?"
+
+But the surgeon shook his head.  "Captain Sharkey," said he, "it would
+be an ill deed to speak you false.  The taint is on you.  No man on
+whom the leper scales have rested is ever clean again."
+
+Sharkey's head fell forward on his chest, and he sat motionless,
+stricken by this great and sudden horror, looking with his smouldering
+eyes into his fearsome future.  Softly the mate and the surgeon rose
+from their places, and stealing out from the poisoned air of the cabin,
+came forth into the freshness of the early dawn, with the soft,
+scent-laden breeze in their faces and the first red feathers of cloud
+catching the earliest gleam of the rising sun as it shot its golden rays
+over the palm-clad ridges of distant Hispaniola.
+
+That morning a second council of the Rovers was held at the base of the
+mainmast, and a deputation chosen to see the captain.  They were
+approaching the after-cabins when Sharkey came forth, the old devil in
+his eyes, and his bandolier with a pair of pistols over his shoulder.
+
+"Sink you all for villains!" he cried, "Would you dare to cross my
+hawse?  Stand out, Sweetlocks, and I will lay you open!  Here, Galloway,
+Martin, Foley, stand by me and lash the dogs to their kennel!"
+
+But his officers had deserted him, and there was none to come to his
+aid.  There was a rush of the pirates.  One was shot through the body,
+but an instant afterwards Sharkey had been seized and was triced to his
+own mainmast.  His filmy eyes looked round from face to face, and there
+was none who felt the happier for having met them.
+
+"Captain Sharkey," said Sweetlocks, "you have mishandled many of us, and
+you have now pistolled John Masters, besides killing Bartholomew, the
+carpenter, by braining him with a bucket.  All this might have been
+forgiven you, in that you have been our leader for years, and that we
+have signed articles to serve under you while the voyage lasts.  But now
+we have heard of this bona roba on board, and we know that you are
+poisoned to the marrow, and that while you rot there will be no safety
+for any of us, but that we shall all be turned into filth and
+corruption.  Therefore, John Sharkey, we Rovers of _The Happy Delivery_,
+in council assembled, have decreed that while there be yet time, before
+the plague spreads, you shall be set adrift in a boat to find such
+a fate as Fortune may be pleased to send you."
+
+John Sharkey said nothing, but slowly circling his head, he cursed them
+all with his baleful gaze.  The ship's dinghy had been lowered, and he
+with his hands still tied, was dropped into it on the bight of a rope.
+
+"Cast her off!" cried Sweetlocks.
+
+"Nay, hold hard a moment, Master Sweetlocks!" shouted one of the crew.
+"What of the wench?  Is she to bide aboard and poison us all?"
+
+"Send her off with her mate!" cried another, and the Rovers roared their
+approval.  Driven forth at the end of pikes, the girl was pushed towards
+the boat.  With all the spirit of Spain in her rotting body she flashed
+triumphant glances on her captors.  "Perros! Perros Ingleses! Lepero,
+Lepero!" she cried in exultation, as they thrust her over into the
+boat.
+
+"Good luck, captain!  God speed you on your honeymoon!" cried a chorus
+of mocking voices, as the painter was unloosed, and _The Happy
+Delivery_, running full before the trade-wind, left the little boat
+astern, a tiny dot upon the vast expanse of the lonely sea.
+
+
+Extract from the log of H.M. fifty-gun ship _Hecate_ in her cruise off
+the American Main.
+
+"Jan. 26, 1721.--This day, the junk having become unfit for food, and
+five of the crew down with scurvy, I ordered that we send two boats
+ashore at the nor'-western point of Hispaniola, to seek for fresh
+fruit, and perchance shoot some of the wild oxen with which the island
+abounds.
+
+"7 p.m.--The boats have returned with good store of green stuff and two
+bullocks.  Mr. Woodruff, the master, reports that near the landing-place
+at the edge of the forest was found the skeleton of a woman, clad in
+European dress, of such sort as to show that she may have been a person
+of quality.  Her head had been crushed by a great stone which lay beside
+her.  Hard by was a grass hut, and signs that a man had dwelt therein
+for some time, as was shown by charred wood, bones and other traces.
+There is a rumour upon the coast that Sharkey, the bloody pirate, was
+marooned in these parts last year, but whether he has made his way into
+the interior, or whether he has been picked up by some craft, there is
+no means of knowing.  If he be once again afloat, then I pray that God
+send him under our guns."
+
+
+
+THE MARRIAGE OF THE BRIGADIER
+
+
+I am speaking, my friends, of days which are long gone by, when I had
+scarcely begun to build up that fame which has made my name so familiar.
+Among the thirty officers of the Hussars of Conflans there was nothing
+to indicate that I was superior in any way to the others.  I can well
+imagine how surprised they would all have been had they realized that
+young Lieutenant Etienne Gerard was destined for so glorious a career,
+and would live to command a brigade and to receive from the Emperor's
+own hands that cross which I can show you any time that you do me the
+honour to visit me in my little cottage.  You know, do you not, the
+little white-washed cottage with the vine in front, in the field beside
+the Garonne?
+
+People have said of me that I have never known what fear was.  No doubt
+you have heard them say it.  For many years, out of a foolish pride, I
+have let the saying pass.  And yet now, in my old age, I can afford to
+be honest.  The brave man dares to be frank.  It is only the coward who
+is afraid to make admissions.  So I tell you now that I also am human;
+that I also have felt my skin grow cold, and my hair rise; that I have
+even known what it was to run away until my limbs could scarce support
+me.  It shocks you to hear it?  Well, some day it may comfort you, when
+your own courage has reached its limits, to know that even Etienne
+Gerard has known what it was to be afraid.  I will tell you now how this
+experience befell me, and also how it brought me a wife.
+
+For the moment France was at peace, and we, the Hussars of Conflans,
+were in camp all that summer a few miles from the town of Les Andelys in
+Normandy.  It is not a very gay place by itself, but we of the Light
+Cavalry make all places gay which we visit, and so we passed our time
+very pleasantly.  Many years and many scenes have dulled my remembrance,
+but still the name Les Andelys brings back to me a huge ruined castle,
+great orchards of apple trees, and above all, a vision of the lovely
+maidens of Normandy.  They were the very finest of their sex, as we may
+be said to have been of ours, and so we were well met in that sweet
+sunlit summer.  Ah, the youth, the beauty, the valour, and then the
+dull, dead years that blurr them all!  There are times when the glorious
+past weighs on my heart like lead.  No, sir, no wine can wash away such
+thoughts, for they are of the spirit and the soul.  It is only the
+gross body which responds to wine, but if you offer it for that, then I
+will not refuse it.
+
+Now of all the maidens who dwelt in those parts there was one who was so
+superior in beauty and in charm that she seemed to be very specially
+marked out for me.  Her name was Marie Ravon, and her people, the
+Ravons, were of yeoman stock who had farmed their own land in those
+parts since the days when Duke William went to England.  If I close my
+eyes now, I see her as she then was, her cheeks, dusky like moss roses;
+her hazel eyes, so gentle and yet so full of spirit; her hair of that
+deepest black which goes most fitly with poetry and with passion; her
+finger as supple as a young birch tree in the wind.  Ah! how she swayed
+away from me when first I laid my arm round it, for she was full of fire
+and pride, ever evading, ever resisting, fighting to the last that her
+surrender might be the more sweet.  Out of a hundred and forty women--
+But who can compare where all are so near perfection!
+
+You will wonder why it should be, if this maiden was so beautiful, that
+I should be left without a rival.  There was a very good reason, my
+friends, for I so arranged it that my rivals were in the hospital.
+There was Hippolyte Lesoeur, he visited them for two Sundays; but if he
+lives, I dare swear that he still limps from the bullet which lodges in
+his knee.  Poor Victor also--up to his death at Austerlitz he wore my
+mark.  Soon it was understood that if I could not win Marie, I should at
+least have a fair field in which to try.  It was said in our camp that
+it was safer to charge a square of unbroken infantry than to be seen too
+often at the farmhouse of the Ravons.
+
+Now let me be precise for a moment.  Did I wish to marry Marie?  Ah! my
+friends, marriage is not for a Hussar.  Today he is in Normandy;
+tomorrow he is in the hills of Spain or in the bogs of Poland.
+What shall he do with a wife?  Would it be fair to either of them?
+Can it be right that his courage should be blunted by the thought of the
+despair which his death would bring, or is it reasonable that she should
+be left fearing lest every post should bring her the news of irreparable
+misfortune?  A Hussar can but warm himself at the fire, and then hurry
+onwards, too happy if he can but pass another fire from which some
+comfort may come.  And Marie, did she wish to marry me?  She knew well
+that when our silver trumpets blew the march it would be over the grave
+of our married life.  Better far to hold fast to her own people and
+her own soil, where she and her husband could dwell for ever amid the
+rich orchards and within sight of the great Castle of Le Galliard.
+Let her remember her Hussar in her dreams, but let her waking days be
+spent in the world as she finds it.  Meanwhile we pushed such thoughts
+from our minds, and gave ourselves up to a sweet companionship, each day
+complete in itself with never a thought of the morrow.  It is true that
+there were times when her father, a stout old gentleman with a face like
+one of his own apples, and her mother, a thin anxious woman of the
+country, gave me hints that they would wish to be clearer as to my
+intentions; but in their hearts they each knew well that Etienne Gerard
+was a man of honour, and that their daughter was very safe as well as
+very happy in his keeping.  So the matter stood until the night of which
+I speak.
+
+It was the Sunday evening, and I had ridden over from the camp.
+There were several of our fellows who were visiting the village, and we
+all left our horses at the inn.  Thence I had to walk to the Ravons,
+which was only separated by a single very large field extending to the
+very door.  I was about to start when the landlord ran after me.
+"Excuse me, lieutenant," said he, "it is farther by the road, and yet I
+should advise you to take it."
+
+"It is a mile or more out of my way."
+
+"I know it.  But I think that it would be wiser," and he smiled as he
+spoke.
+
+"And why?" I asked.
+
+"Because," said he, "the English bull is loose in the field."
+
+If it were not for that odious smile, I might have considered it.
+But to hold a danger over me and then to smile in such a fashion was
+more than my proud temper could bear.  I indicated by a gesture
+what I thought of the English bull.
+
+"I will go by the shortest way," said I.
+
+I had no sooner set my foot in the field than I felt that my spirit had
+betrayed me into rashness.  It was a very large square field, and as I
+came further out into it I felt like the cockle-shell which ventures
+out from land and sees no port save that from which it has issued.
+There was a wall on every side of the field save that from which I had
+come.  In front of me was the farmhouse of the Ravons, with wall
+extending to right and left.  A back door opened upon the field, and
+there were several windows, but all were barred, as is usual in the
+Norman farms.  I pushed on rapidly to the door, as being the only
+harbour of safety, walking with dignity as befits a soldier, and yet
+with such speed as I could summon.  From the waist upwards I was
+unconcerned and even debonnaire.  Below, I was swift and alert.
+
+I had nearly reached the middle of the field when I perceived the
+creature.  He was rooting about with his fore feet under a large beech
+tree which lay upon my right hand.  I did not turn my head, nor would
+the bystander have detected that I took notice of him, but my eye was
+watching him with anxiety.  It may have been that he was in a contented
+mood, or it may have been that he was arrested by the nonchalance of my
+bearing, but he made no movement in my direction.  Reassured, I fixed my
+eyes upon the open window of Marie's bed-chamber, which was immediately
+over the back door, in the hope that those dear, tender, dark eyes, were
+surveying me from behind the curtains.  I flourished my little cane,
+loitered to pick a primrose, and sang one of our devil-may-care choruses
+in order to insult this English beast, and to show my love how little
+I cared for danger when it stood between her and me.  The creature was
+abashed by my fearlessness, and so, pushing open the back door, I was
+able to enter the farmhouse in safety and in honour.
+
+And was it not worth the danger?  Had all the bulls of Castile guarded
+the entrance, would it not still have been worth it?  Ah, the hours, the
+sunny hours, which can never come back, when our youthful feet seemed
+scarce to touch the ground, and we lived in a sweet dreamland of our own
+creation! She honoured my courage, and she loved me for it.  As she lay
+with her flushed cheek pillowed against the silk of my dolman, looking
+up at me with her wondering eyes, shining with love and admiration,
+she marvelled at the stories in which I gave her some pictures of the
+true character of her lover.
+
+"Has your heart never failed you?  Have you never known the feeling of
+fear?" she asked.  I laughed at such a thought.  What place could fear
+have in the mind of a Hussar?  Young as I was, I had given my proofs.
+I told her how I had led my squadron into a square of Hungarian
+Grenadiers.  She shuddered as she embraced me.  I told her also how I
+had swum my horse over the Danube at night with a message for Davoust.
+To be frank, it was not the Danube, nor was it so deep that I was
+compelled to swim, but when one is twenty and in love, one tells a story
+as best one can.  Many such stories I told her, while her dear eyes grew
+more and more amazed.
+
+"Never in my dreams, Etienne," said she, "did I believe that so brave a
+man existed.  Lucky France that has such a soldier, lucky Marie that has
+such a lover!"
+
+You can think how I flung myself at her feet as I murmured that I was
+the luckiest of all--I who had found some one who could appreciate and
+understand.
+
+It was a charming relationship, too infinitely sweet and delicate for
+the interference of coarser minds.  But you can understand that the
+parents imagined that they also had their duty to do.  I played dominoes
+with the old man, and I wound wool for his wife, and yet they could not
+be led to believe that it was from love of them that I came thrice a
+week to their farm.  For some time an explanation was inevitable, and
+that night it came.  Marie, in delightful mutiny, was packed off to her
+room, and I faced the old people in the parlour as they plied me with
+questions upon my prospects and my intentions.
+
+"One way or the other," they said, in their blunt country fashion.
+"Let us hear that you are betrothed to Marie, or let us never see your
+face again."
+
+I spoke of my honour, my hopes, and my future, but they remained
+immovable upon the present.  I pleaded my career, but they in their
+selfish way would think of nothing but their daughter.  It was indeed
+a difficult position in which I found myself.  On the one hand, I could
+not forsake my Marie; on the other, what would a young Hussar do with
+marriage?  At last, hard pressed, I begged them to leave the matter, if
+it were only for a day.
+
+"I will see Marie," said I, "I will see her without delay.  It is her
+heart and her happiness which come before all else."
+
+They were not satisfied, these grumbling old people, but they could say
+no more.  They bade me a short good night and I departed, full of
+perplexity, for the inn.  I came out by the same door which I had
+entered, and I heard them lock and bar it behind me.
+
+I walked across the field lost in thought, with my mind entirely filled
+with the arguments of the old people and the skilful replies which I had
+made to them.  What should I do?  I had promised to see Marie without
+delay.  What should I say to her when I did see her?  Would I surrender
+to her beauty and turn my back upon my profession?  If Etienne Gerard's
+sword were turned to a scythe, then indeed it was a bad day for the
+Emperor and France.  Or should I harden my heart and turn away from
+Marie?  Or was it not possible that all might be reconciled; that I
+might be a happy husband in Normandy but a brave soldier elsewhere?
+All these thoughts were buzzing in my head, when a sudden noise made me
+look up.  The moon had come from behind a cloud, and there was the bull
+before me.
+
+He had seemed a large animal beneath the beech tree, but now he appeared
+enormous.  He was black in colour.  His head was held down, and the moon
+shone upon two menacing and bloodshot eyes.  His tail switched swiftly
+from side to side, and his fore feet dug into the earth.  A more
+horrible-looking monster was never seen in a nightmare.  He was
+moving slowly and stealthily in my direction.
+
+I glanced behind me, and I found that in my distraction I had come a
+very long way from the edge of the field.  I was more than half-way
+across it.  My nearest refuge was the inn, but the bull was between me
+and it.  Perhaps if the creature understood how little I feared him, he
+would make way for me.  I shrugged my shoulders and made a gesture of
+contempt.  I even whistled.  The creature thought I called it, for he
+approached with alacrity.  I kept my face boldly towards him, but I
+walked swiftly backwards.  When one is young and active, one can almost
+run backwards and yet keep a brave and smiling face to the enemy.  As I
+ran I menaced the animal with my cane.  Perhaps it would have been wiser
+had I restrained my spirit.  He regarded it as a challenge--which,
+indeed, was the last thing in my mind.  It was a misunderstanding, but a
+fatal one.  With a snort he raised his tail and charged.
+
+Have you ever seen a bull charge, my friends?  It is a strange sight.
+You think, perhaps, that he trots, or even that he gallops.  No, it is
+worse than this.  It is a succession of bounds by which he advances,
+each more menacing than the last.  I have no fear of anything which man
+can do.  When I deal with man, I feel that the nobility of my own
+attitude, the gallant ease with which I face him, will in itself go far
+to disarm him.  What he can do, I can do, so why should I fear him?
+But when it is a ton of enraged beef with which you contend, it is
+another matter.  You cannot hope to argue, to soften, to conciliate.
+There is no resistance possible.  My proud assurance was all wasted upon
+the creature.  In an instant my ready wit had weighed every possible
+course, and had determined that no one, not the Emperor himself, could
+hold his ground.  There was but one course--to fly.
+
+But one may fly in many ways.  One may fly with dignity or one may fly
+in panic.  I fled, I trust, like a soldier.  My bearing was superb
+though my legs moved rapidly.  My whole appearance was a protest against
+the position in which I was placed.  I smiled as I ran--the bitter smile
+of the brave man who mocks his own fate.  Had all my comrades surrounded
+the field, they could not have thought the less of me when they saw the
+disdain with which I avoided the bull.
+
+But here it is that I must make my confession.  When once flight
+commences, though it be ever so soldierly, panic follows hard upon it.
+Was it not so with the Guard at Waterloo?  So it was that night with
+Etienne Gerard.  After all, there was no one to note my bearing--no one
+save this accursed bull.  If for a minute I forgot my dignity, who would
+be the wiser?  Every moment the thunder of the hoofs and the horrible
+snorts of the monster drew nearer to my heels.  Horror filled me at the
+thought of so ignoble a death.  The brutal rage of the creature sent a
+chill to my heart.  In an instant everything was forgotten.  There were
+in the world but two creatures, the bull and I--he trying to kill
+me, I striving to escape.  I put down my head and I ran--I ran for my
+life.
+
+It was for the house of the Ravons that I raced.  But even as I reached
+it, it flashed into my mind that there was no refuge for me there.
+The door was locked.  The lower windows were barred.  The wall was high
+upon either side.  And the bull was nearer me with every stride.
+But oh, my friends, it is at that supreme moment of danger that Etienne
+Gerard has ever risen to his height.  There was one path to safety, and
+in an instant I had chosen it.
+
+I have said that the window of Marie's bedroom was above the door.
+The curtains were closed, but the folding sides were thrown open, and a
+lamp burned in the room.  Young and active, I felt that I could spring
+high enough to reach the edge of the window sill and to draw myself out
+of danger.  The monster was within touch of me as I sprang.  Had I been
+unaided, I should have done what I had planned.  But even as in a superb
+effort I rose from the earth he butted me into the air.  I shot through
+the curtains as if I had been fired from a gun, and I dropped upon my
+hands and knees in the centre of the room.
+
+There was, as it appears, a bed in the window, but I had passed over it
+in safety.  As I staggered to my feet I turned towards it in
+consternation, but it was empty.  My Marie sat in a low chair in the
+corner of the room, and her flushed cheeks showed that she had been
+weeping.  No doubt her parents had given her some account of what had
+passed between us.  She was too amazed to move, and could only sit
+looking at me with her mouth open.
+
+"Etienne!" she gasped.  "Etienne!"
+
+In an instant I was as full of resource as ever.  There was but one
+course for a gentleman, and I took it.
+
+"Marie," I cried, "forgive, oh forgive the abruptness of my return!
+Marie, I have seen your parents tonight.  I could not return to the camp
+without asking you whether you will make me for ever happy by promising
+to be my wife?"
+
+It was long before she could speak, so great was her amazement.
+Then every emotion was swept away in the one great flood of her
+admiration.
+
+"Oh, Etienne! my wonderful Etienne!" she cried, her arms round my neck.
+"Was ever such love!  Was ever such a man!  As you stand there, white
+and trembling with passion, you seem to me the very hero of my dreams.
+How hard you breathe, my love, and what a spring it must have been which
+brought you to my arms!  At the instant that you came, I heard the tramp
+of your war-horse without."
+
+There was nothing more to explain, and when one is newly betrothed, one
+finds other uses for one's lips.  But there was a scurry in the passage
+and a pounding at the panels.  At the crash of my arrival the old folk
+had rushed to the cellar to see if the great cider cask had toppled off
+the trestles, but now they were back and eager for admittance.  I flung
+open the door, and stood with Marie's hand in mine.
+
+"Behold your son!" I said.
+
+Ah, the joy which I had brought to that humble household!  It warms my
+heart still when I think of it.  It did not seem too strange to them
+that I should fly in through the window, for who should be a hot-headed
+suitor if it is not a gallant Hussar?  And if the door be locked, then
+what way is there but the window?  Once more we assembled all four in
+the parlour, while the cobwebbed bottle was brought up and the ancient
+glories of the House of Ravon were unrolled before me.  Once more I see
+the heavy-raftered room, the two old smiling faces, the golden circle of
+the lamp-light, and she, my Marie, the bride of my youth, won so
+strangely, and kept for so short a time.
+
+It was late when we parted.  The old man came with me into the hall.
+
+"You can go by the front door or the back," said he.  "The back way is
+the shorter."
+
+"I think that I will take the front way," I answered.  "It may be a bit
+longer, but it will give me the more time to think of Marie."
+
+
+
+THE LORD OF FALCONBRIDGE
+
+
+A LEGEND OF THE RING
+
+Tom Cribb, Champion of England, having finished his active career by his
+two famous battles with the terrible Molineux, had settled down into the
+public house which was known as the Union Arms, at the corner of Panton
+Street in the Haymarket.  Behind the bar of this hostelry there was a
+green baize door which opened into a large, red-papered parlour, adorned
+by many sporting prints and by the numerous cups and belts which were
+the treasured trophies of the famous prize-fighter's victorious career.
+In this snuggery it was the custom of the Corinthians of the day to
+assemble in order to discuss, over Tom Cribb's excellent wines, the
+matches of the past, to await the news of the present, and to arrange
+new ones for the future.  Hither also came his brother pugilists,
+especially such as were in poverty or distress, for the Champion's
+generosity was proverbial, and no man of his own trade was ever turned
+from his door if cheering words or a full meal could mend his condition.
+
+On the morning in question--August 25, 1818--there were but two men in
+this famous snuggery.  One was Cribb himself--all run to flesh since the
+time seven years before, when, training for his last fight, he had done
+his forty miles a day with Captain Barclay over the Highland roads.
+Broad and deep, as well as tall, he was a little short of twenty stone
+in weight, but his heavy, strong face and lion eyes showed that the
+spirit of the prize-fighter was not yet altogether overgrown by the fat
+of the publican.  Though it was not eleven o'clock, a great tankard of
+bitter ale stood upon the table before him, and he was busy cutting up a
+plug of black tobacco and rubbing the slices into powder between his
+horny fingers.  For all his record of desperate battles, he looked what
+he was--a good-hearted, respectable householder, law-abiding and kindly,
+a happy and prosperous man.
+
+His companion, however, was by no means in the same easy circumstances,
+and his countenance wore a very different expression.  He was a tall and
+well-formed man, some fifteen years younger than the Champion, and
+recalling in the masterful pose of his face and in the fine spread of
+his shoulders something of the manly beauty which had distinguished
+Cribb at his prime.  No one looking at his countenance could fail to see
+that he was a fighting man by profession, and any judge of the fancy,
+considering his six feet in height, his thirteen stone solid muscle,
+and his beautifully graceful build, would admit that he had started his
+career with advantages which, if they were only backed by the driving
+power of a stout heart, must carry him far.  Tom  Winter, or Spring--as
+he chose to call himself--had indeed come up from his Herefordshire home
+with a fine country record of local successes, which had been enhanced
+by two victories gained over formidable London heavy-weights.
+Three weeks before, however, he had been defeated by the famous Painter,
+and the set-back weighed heavily upon the young man's spirit.
+
+"Cheer up, lad," said the Champion, glancing across from under his
+tufted eyebrows at the disconsolate face of his companion.  "Indeed,
+Tom, you take it overhard."
+
+The young man groaned, but made no reply.  "Others have been beat before
+you and lived to be Champions of England.  Here I sit with that very
+title.  Was I not beat down Broadwater way by George Nicholls in 1805?
+What then?  I fought on, and here I am.  When the big Black came from
+America it was not George Nicholls they sent for.  I say to you--fight
+on, and by George, I'll see you in my own shoes yet!"
+
+Tom Spring shook his head.  "Never, if I have to fight you to get there,
+Daddy."
+
+"I can't keep it for ever, Tom.  It's beyond all reason.  I'm going to
+lay it down before all London at the Fives Courts next year, and it's to
+you that I want to hand it.  I couldn't train down to it now, lad.
+My day's done."
+
+"Well, Dad, I'll never bid for it till you choose to stand aside.
+After that, it is as it may be."
+
+"Well, have a rest, Tom; wait for your chance, and, meantime, there's
+always a bed and crust for you here."
+
+Spring struck his clenched fist on his knee.  "I know, Daddy! Ever since
+I came up from Fownthorpe you've been as good as a father to me."
+
+"I've an eye for a winner."
+
+"A pretty winner!  Beat in forty rounds by Ned Painter."
+
+"You had beat him first."
+
+"And by the Lord, I will again!"
+
+"So you will, lad.  George Nicholls would never give me another shy.
+Knew too much, he did.  Bought a butcher's shop in Bristol with the
+money, and there he is to this day."
+
+"Yes, I'll come back on Painter, but I haven't a shilling left.
+My backers have lost faith in me.  If it wasn't for you, Daddy, I'd be
+in the kennel."
+
+"Have you nothing left, Tom?"
+
+"Not the price of a meal.  I left every penny I had, and my good name as
+well, in the ring at Kingston.  I'm hard put to it to live unless I can
+get another fight, and who's going to back me now?"
+
+"Tut, man! the knowing ones will back you.  You're the top of the list,
+for all Ned Painter.  But there are other ways a man may earn a bit.
+There was a lady in here this morning--nothing flash, boy, a real
+tip-top out-and-outer with a coronet on her coach--asking after you."
+
+"Asking after me!  A lady!"  The young pugilist stood up with surprise
+and a certain horror rising in his eyes. "You don't mean, Daddy--"
+
+"I mean nothing but what is honest, my lad.  You can lay to that!"
+
+"You said I could earn a bit."
+
+"So, perhaps, you can.  Enough, anyhow, to tide you over your bad time.
+There's something in the wind there.  It's to do with fightin'.
+She asked questions about your height, weight, and my opinion of your
+prospect.  You can lay that my answers did you no harm."
+
+"She ain't making a match, surely?"
+
+"Well, she seemed to know a tidy bit about it.  She asked about George
+Cooper, and Richmond the Black, and Tom Oliver, always comin' back to
+you, and wantin' to know if you were not the pick of the bunch.
+_And_ trustworthy.  That was the other point.  Could she trust you?
+Lord, Tom, if you was a fightin' archangel you could hardly live up to
+the character that I've given you."
+
+A drawer looked in from the bar.  "If you please, Mr. Cribb, the lady's
+carriage is back again."
+
+The Champion laid down his long clay pipe.  "This way, lad," said he,
+plucking his young friend by the sleeve towards the side window.
+"Look there, now!  Saw you ever a more slap-up carriage?  See, too, the
+pair of bays--two hundred guineas apiece.  Coachman, too, and footman--
+you'd find 'em hard to beat.  There she is now, stepping out of it.
+Wait here, lad, till I do the honours of my house."
+
+Tom Cribb slipped off, and young Spring remained by the window, tapping
+the glass nervously with his fingers, for he was a simple-minded country
+lad with no knowledge of women, and many fears of the traps which await
+the unwary in a great city.  Many stories were afloat of pugilists who
+had been taken up and cast aside again by wealthy ladies, even as the
+gladiators were in decadent Rome.  It was with some suspicion therefore,
+and considerable inward trepidation, that he faced round as a tall
+veiled figure swept into the room.  He was much consoled, however, to
+observe the bulky form of Tom Cribb immediately behind her as a proof
+that the interview was not to be a private one.  When the door was
+closed, the lady very deliberately removed her gloves.  Then with
+fingers which glittered with diamonds she slowly rolled up and adjusted
+her heavy veil.  Finally, she turned her face upon Spring.
+
+"Is this the man?" said she.
+
+They stood looking at each other with mutual interest, which warmed in
+both their faces into mutual admiration.  What she saw was as fine a
+figure of a young man as England could show, none the less attractive
+for the restrained shyness of his manner and the blush which flushed his
+cheeks.  What he saw was a woman of thirty, tall, dark, queen-like, and
+imperious, with a lovely face, every line and feature of which told of
+pride and breed, a woman born to Courts, with the instinct of command
+strong within her, and yet with all the softer woman's graces to temper
+and conceal the firmness of her soul.  Tom Spring felt as he looked at
+her that he had never seen nor ever dreamed of any one so beautiful, and
+yet he could not shake off the instinct which warned him to be upon his
+guard.  Yes, it was beautiful, this face--beautiful beyond belief.
+But was it good, was it kind, was it true?  There was some strange
+subconscious repulsion which mingled with his admiration for her
+loveliness.  As to the lady's thoughts, she had already put away all
+idea of the young pugilist as a man, and regarded him now with critical
+eyes as a machine designed for a definite purpose.
+
+"I am glad to meet you, Mr.--Mr. Spring," said she, looking him over
+with as much deliberation as a dealer who is purchasing a horse.
+"He is hardly as tall as I was given to understand, Mr. Cribb.
+You said six feet, I believe?"
+
+"So he is, ma'am, but he carries it so easy.  It's only the beanstalk
+that looks tall.  See here, I'm six foot myself, and our heads are
+level, except I've lost my fluff."
+
+"What is the chest measurement?"
+
+"Forty-three inches, ma'am."
+
+"You certainly seem to be a very strong young man.  And a game one, too,
+I hope?"
+
+Young Spring shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It's not for me to say, ma'am."
+
+"I can speak for that, ma'am," said Cribb.  "You read the _Sporting
+Chronicle_ for three weeks ago, ma'am.  You'll see how he stood up to
+Ned Painter until his senses were beat out of him.  I waited on him,
+ma'am, and I know.  I could show you my waistcoat now--that would let
+you guess what punishment he can take."
+
+The lady waved aside the illustration.  "But he was beat," said she,
+coldly.  "The man who beat him must be the better man."
+
+"Saving your presence, ma'am, I think not, and outside Gentleman Jackson
+my judgment would stand against any in the ring.  My lad here has beat
+Painter once, and will again, if your ladyship could see your way to
+find the battle-money."
+
+The lady started and looked angrily at the Champion.
+
+"Why do you call me that?"
+
+"I beg pardon.  It was just my way of speaking."
+
+"I order you not to do it again."
+
+"Very good, ma'am."
+
+"I am here incognito.  I bind you both upon your honours to make no
+inquiry as to who I am.  If I do not get your firm promise, the matter
+ends here."
+
+"Very good, ma'am.  I'll promise for my own part, and so, I am sure,
+will Spring.  But if I may be so bold, I can't help my drawers and
+potmen talking with your servants."
+
+"The coachman and footman know just as much about me as you do.  But my
+time is limited, so I must get to business.  I think, Mr. Spring, that
+you are in want of something to do at present?"
+
+"That is so, ma'am."
+
+"I understand from Mr. Cribb that you are prepared to fight any one at
+any weight?"
+
+"Anything on two legs," cried the Champion.  "Who did you wish me to
+fight?" asked the young pugilist.
+
+"That cannot concern you.  If you are really ready to fight any one,
+then the particular name can be of no importance.  I have my reasons for
+withholding it."
+
+"Very good, ma'am."
+
+"You have been only a few weeks out of training.  How long would it take
+you to get back to your best?"
+
+"Three weeks or a month."
+
+"Well, then, I will pay your training expenses and two pounds a week
+over.  Here are five pounds as a guarantee.  You will fight when I
+consider that you are ready, and that the circumstances are favourable.
+If you win your fight, you shall have fifty pounds.  Are you satisfied
+with the terms?"
+
+"Very handsome, ma'am, I'm sure."
+
+"And remember, Mr. Spring, I choose you, not because you are the best
+man--for there are two opinions about that--but because I am given to
+understand that you are a decent man whom I can trust.  The terms of
+this match are to be secret."
+
+"I understand that.  I'll say nothing."
+
+"It is a private match.  Nothing more.  You will begin your training
+tomorrow."
+
+"Very good, ma'am."
+
+"I will ask Mr. Cribb to train you."
+
+"I'll do that, ma'am, with pleasure.  But, by your leave, does he have
+anything if he loses?"
+
+A spasm of emotion passed over the woman's face and her hands clenched
+white with passion.
+
+"If he loses, not a penny, not a penny!" she cried.  "He must not, shall
+not lose!"
+
+"Well, ma'am," said Spring, "I've never heard of any such match.
+But it's true that I am down at heel, and beggars can't be choosers.
+I'll do just what you say.  I'll train till you give the word, and then
+I'll fight where you tell me.  I hope you'll make it a large ring."
+
+"Yes," said she; "it will be a large ring."
+
+"And how far from London?"
+
+"Within a hundred miles.  Have you anything else to say?  My time is
+up."
+
+"I'd like to ask, ma'am," said the Champion, earnestly, "whether I can
+act as the lad's second when the time comes.  I've waited on him the
+last two fights.  Can I give him a knee?"
+
+"No," said the woman, sharply.  Without another word she turned and was
+gone, shutting the door behind her.  A few moments later the trim
+carriage flashed past the window, turned down the crowded Haymarket, and
+was engulfed in the traffic.
+
+The two men looked at each other in silence.
+
+"Well, blow my dicky, if this don't beat cockfightin'!" cried Tom Cribb
+at last. "Anyhow, there's the fiver, lad.  But it's a rum go, and no
+mistake about it."
+
+After due consultation, it was agreed that Tom Spring should go into
+training at the Castle Inn on Hampstead Heath, so that Cribb could drive
+over and watch him.  Thither Spring went on the day after the interview
+with his patroness, and he set to work at once with drugs, dumb-bells,
+and breathers on the common to get himself into condition.  It was hard,
+however, to take the matter seriously, and his good-natured trainer
+found the same difficulty.
+
+"It's the baccy I miss, Daddy," said the young pugilist, as they sat
+together on the afternoon of the third day.  "Surely there can't be any
+harm in my havin' a pipe?"
+
+"Well, well, lad, it's against my conscience, but here's my box and
+there's a yard o' clay," said the Champion.  "My word, I don't know what
+Captain Barclay of Ury would have said if he had seen a man smoke when
+he was in trainin'!  He was the man to work you!  He had me down from
+sixteen to thirteen the second time I fought the Black."
+
+Spring had lit his pipe and was leaning back amid a haze of blue smoke.
+
+"It was easy for you, Daddy, to keep strict trainin' when you knew what
+was before you.  You had your date and your place and your man.
+You knew that in a month you would jump the ropes with ten thousand folk
+round you, and carrying maybe a hundred thousand in bets.  You knew also
+the man you had to meet, and you wouldn't give him the better of you.
+But it's all different with me.  For all I know, this is just a woman's
+whim, and will end in nothing.  If I was sure it was serious, I'd break
+this pipe before I would smoke it."
+
+Tom Cribb scratched his head in puzzlement.
+
+"I can make nothing of it, lad, 'cept that her money is good.  Come to
+think of it, how many men on the list could stand up to you for half an
+hour?  It can't be Stringer, 'cause you've beat him.  Then there's
+Cooper; but he's up Newcastle way.  It can't be him.  There's Richmond;
+but you wouldn't need to take your coat off to beat him.  There's the
+Gasman; but he's not twelve stone.  And there's Bill Neat of Bristol.
+That's it, lad.  The lady has taken into her head to put you up against
+either the Gasman or Bill Neat."
+
+"But why not say so?  I'd train hard for the Gasman and harder for Bill
+Neat, but I'm blowed if I can train, with any heart when I'm fightin'
+nobody in particular and everybody in general, same as now."
+
+There was a sudden interruption to the speculations of the two
+prize-fighters.  The door opened and the lady entered.  As her eyes fell
+upon the two men her dark, handsome face flushed with anger, and
+she gazed at them silently with an expression of contempt which brought
+them both to their feet with hangdog faces.  There they stood, their
+long, reeking pipes in their hands, shuffling and downcast, like two
+great rough mastiffs before an angry mistress.
+
+"So!" said she, stamping her foot furiously.  "And this is training!"
+
+"I'm sure we're very sorry, ma'am," said the abashed Champion.
+"I didn't think--I never for one moment supposed--"
+
+"That I would come myself to see if you were taking my money on false
+pretences?  No, I dare say not.  You fool!" she blazed, turning suddenly
+upon Tom Spring.  "You'll be beat.  That will be the end of it."
+
+The young man looked up with an angry face.
+
+"I'll trouble you not to call me names, ma'am.  I've my self-respect,
+the same as you.  I'll allow that I shouldn't have smoked when I was in
+trainin'.  But I was saying to Tom Cribb here, just before you came in,
+that if you would give over treatin' us as if we were children, and if
+you would tell us just who it is you want me to fight, and when, and
+where, it would be a deal easier for me to take myself in hand."
+
+"It's true, ma'am," said the Champion.  "I know it must be either the
+Gasman or Bill Neat.  There's no one else.  So give me the office, and
+I'll promise to have him as fit as a trout on the day."
+
+The lady laughed contemptuously.
+
+"Do you think," said she, "that no one can fight save those who make a
+living by it?"
+
+"By George, it's an amateur!" cried Cribb, in amazement.  "But you don't
+surely ask Tom Spring to train for three weeks to meet a Corinthian?"
+
+"I will say nothing more of who it is.  It is no business of yours," the
+lady answered fiercely.  "All I _do_ say is, that if you do not train I
+will cast you aside and take some one who will.  Do not think you can
+fool me because I am a woman.  I have learned the points of the game as
+well as any man."
+
+"I saw that the very first word you spoke," said Cribb.
+
+"Then don't forget it.  I will not warn you again.  If I have occasion
+to find fault I shall choose another man."
+
+"And you won't tell me who I am to fight?"
+
+"Not a word.  But you can take it from me that at your very best it will
+take you, or any man in England, all your time to master him.  Now, get
+back this instant to your work, and never let me find you shirking it
+again."  With imperious eyes she looked the two strong men down, and
+then, turning on her heel, she swept out of the room.
+
+The Champion whistled as the door closed behind her, and mopped his brow
+with his red bandanna handkerchief as he looked across at his abashed
+companion.  "My word, lad," said he, "it's earnest from this day on."
+
+"Yes," said Tom Spring, solemnly, "it's earnest from this day on."
+
+In the course of the next fortnight the lady made several surprise
+visits to see that her champion was being properly prepared for the
+contest which lay before him.  At the most unexpected moments she would
+burst into the training quarters, but never again had she to complain of
+any slackness upon his part or that of his trainer.  With long bouts of
+the gloves, with thirty-mile walks, with mile runs at the back of a
+mailcart with a bit of blood between the shafts, with interminable
+series of jumps with a  skipping-rope, he was sweated down until his
+trainer was able to proudly proclaim that "the last ounce of tallow is
+off him and he is ready to fight for his life."  Only once was the lady
+accompanied by any one upon these visits of inspection.  Upon this
+occasion a tall young man was her companion.  He was graceful in
+figure, aristocratic in his bearing, and would have been strikingly
+handsome had it not been for some accident which had shattered his nose
+and broken all the symmetry of his features.  He stood in silence with
+moody eyes and folded arms, looking at the splendid torso of the
+prize-fighter as, stripped to the waist, he worked with his dumbbells.
+
+"Don't you think he will do?" said the lady.
+
+The young swell shrugged his shoulders.  "I don't like it, _cara mia_.
+I can't pretend that I like it."
+
+"You must like it, George.  I have set my very heart on it."
+
+"It is not English, you know.  Lucrezia Borgia and Mediaeval Italy.
+Woman's love and woman's hatred are always the same, but this particular
+manifestation of it seems to me out of place in nineteenth-century
+London."
+
+"Is not a lesson needed?"
+
+"Yes, yes; but one would think there were other ways."
+
+"You tried another way.  What did you get out of that?"
+
+The young man smiled rather grimly, as he turned up his cuff and looked
+at a puckered hole in his wrist.
+
+"Not much, certainly," said he.
+
+"You've tried and failed."
+
+"Yes, I must admit it."
+
+"What else is there?  The law?"
+
+"Good gracious, no!"
+
+"Then it is my turn, George, and I won't be balked."
+
+"I don't think any one is capable of balking you, _cara mia_.  Certainly
+I, for one, should never dream of trying.  But I don't feel as if I
+could co-operate,"
+
+"I never asked you to."
+
+"No, you certainly never did.  You are perfectly capable of doing it
+alone.  I think, with your leave, if you have quite done with your
+prize-fighter, we will drive back to London.  I would not for the
+world miss Goldoni in the Opera."
+
+So they drifted away; he, frivolous and dilettante, she with her face as
+set as Fate, leaving the fighting men to their business.
+
+And now the day came when Cribb was able to announce to his employer
+that his man was as fit as science could make him.
+
+"I can do no more, ma'am.  He's fit to fight for a kingdom.  Another
+week would see him stale."
+
+The lady looked Spring over with the eye of a connoisseur.
+
+"I think he does you credit," she said at last.  "Today is Tuesday.
+He will fight the day after tomorrow."
+
+"Very good, ma'am.  Where shall he go?"
+
+"I will tell you exactly, and you will please take careful note of all
+that I say.  You, Mr. Cribb, will take your man down to the Golden Cross
+Inn at Charing Cross by nine o'clock on Wednesday morning.  He will take
+the Brighton coach as far as Tunbridge Wells, where he will alight at
+the Royal Oak Arms.  There he will take such refreshment as you advise
+before a fight.  He will wait at the Royal Oak Arms until he receives a
+message by word, or by letter, brought him by a groom in a mulberry
+livery.  This message will give him his final instructions."
+
+"And I am not to come?"
+
+"No," said the lady.
+
+"But surely, ma'am," he pleaded, "I may come as far as Tunbridge Wells?
+It's hard on a man to train a cove for a fight and then to leave him."
+
+"It can't be helped.  You are too well known.  Your arrival would spread
+all over the town, and my plans might suffer.  It is quite out of the
+question that you should come."
+
+"Well, I'll do what you tell me, but it's main hard."
+
+"I suppose," said Spring, "you would have me bring my fightin' shorts
+and my spiked shoes?"
+
+"No; you will kindly bring nothing whatever which may point to your
+trade.  I would have you wear just those clothes in which I saw you
+first, such clothes as any mechanic or artisan might be expected to
+wear."
+
+Tom Cribb's blank face had assumed an expression of absolute despair.
+
+"No second, no clothes, no shoes--it don't seem regular.  I give you my
+word, ma'am, I feel ashamed to be mixed up in such a fight.  I don't
+know as you can call the thing a fight where there is no second.
+It's just a scramble--nothing more.  I've gone too far to wash my hands
+of it now, but I wish I had never touched it."
+
+In spite of all professional misgivings on the part of the Champion and
+his pupil, the imperious will of the woman prevailed, and everything was
+carried out exactly as she had directed.  At nine o'clock Tom Spring
+found himself upon the box-seat of the Brighton coach, and waved his
+hand in goodbye to burly Tom Cribb, who stood, the admired of a ring
+of waiters and ostlers, upon the doorstep of the Golden Cross.  It was
+in the pleasant season when summer is mellowing into autumn, and the
+first golden patches are seen amid the beeches and the ferns.  The young
+country-bred lad breathed more freely when he had left the weary streets
+of Southwark and Lewisham behind him, and he watched with delight the
+glorious prospect as the coach, whirled along by six dapple greys,
+passed by the classic grounds of Knowle, or after crossing Riverside
+Hill skirted the vast expanse of the Weald of Kent.  Past Tonbridge
+School went the coach, and on through Southborough, until it wound down
+a steep, curving road with strange outcrops of sandstone beside it, and
+halted before a great hostelry, bearing the name which had been given
+him in his directions.  He descended, entered the coffee-room, and
+ordered the underdone steak which his trainer had recommended.
+Hardly had he finished it when a servant with a mulberry coat and a
+peculiarly expressionless face entered the apartment.
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir, are you Mr. Spring--Mr. Thomas Spring, of
+London?"
+
+"That is my name, young man."
+
+"Then the instructions which I had to give you are that you wait for one
+hour after your meal.  After that time you will find me in a phaeton
+at the door, and I will drive you in the right direction."
+
+The young pugilist had never been daunted by any experience which had
+befallen him in the ring.  The rough encouragement of his backers, the
+surge and shouting of the multitude, and the sight of his opponent had
+always cheered his stout heart and excited him to prove himself worthy
+of being the centre of such a scene.  But his loneliness and uncertainty
+were deadly.  He flung himself down on the horse-hair couch and tried to
+doze, but his mind was too restless and excited.  Finally he rose, and
+paced up and down the empty room.  Suddenly he was aware of a great
+rubicund face which surveyed him from round the angle of the door.
+Its owner, seeing that he was observed, pushed forward into the room.
+
+"I beg pardon, sir," said he, "but surely I have the honour of talking
+to Mr. Thomas Spring?"
+
+"At your service," said the young man.
+
+"Bless me! I am vastly honoured to have you under my roof! Cordery is my
+name, sir, landlord of this old-fashioned inn.  I thought that my eyes
+could not deceive me.  I am a patron of the ring, sir, in my own humble
+way, and was present at Moulsey in September last, when you beat Jack
+Stringer of Rawcliffe.  A very fine fight, sir, and very handsomely
+fought, if I may make bold to say so.  I have a right to an opinion,
+sir, for there's never been a fight for many a year in Kent or Sussex
+that you wouldn't find Joe Cordery at the ring-side.  Ask Mr. Gregson at
+the Chop-house in Holborn and he'll tell you about old Joe Cordery.
+By the way, Mr. Spring, I suppose it is not business that has brought
+you down into these parts?  Any one can see with half an eye that you
+are trained to a hair.  I'd take it very kindly if you would give me the
+office."
+
+It crossed Spring's mind that if he were frank with the landlord it was
+more than likely that he would receive more information than he could
+give.  He was a man of his word, however, and he remembered his promise
+to his employer.
+
+"Just a quiet day in the country, Mr. Cordery.  That's all."
+
+"Dear me! I had hoped there was a mill in the wind.  I've a nose for
+these things, Mr. Spring, and I thought I had a whiff of it.  But, of
+course, you should know best.  Perhaps you will drive round with me this
+afternoon and view the hop-gardens--just the right time of year, sir."
+
+Tom Spring was not very skilful in deception, and his stammering excuses
+may not have been very convincing to the landlord, or finally persuaded
+him that his original supposition was wrong.  In the midst of the
+conversation, however, the waiter entered with the news that a phaeton
+was waiting at the door.  The innkeeper's eyes shone with suspicion and
+eagerness.
+
+"I thought you said you knew no one in these parts, Mr. Spring?"
+
+"Just one kind friend, Mr. Cordery, and he has sent his gig for me.
+It's likely that I will take the night coach to town.  But I'll look in
+after an hour or two and have a dish of tea with you."
+
+Outside the mulberry servant was sitting behind a fine black horse in a
+phaeton, which had two seats in front and two behind.  Tom Spring was
+about to climb up beside him, when the servant whispered that his
+directions were that he should sit behind.  Then the phaeton whirled
+away, while the excited landlord, more convinced than ever that there
+was something in the wind, rushed into his stable-yard with shrieks to
+his ostlers, and in a very few minutes was in hot pursuit, waiting at
+every cross-road until he could hear tidings of a black horse and a
+mulberry livery.
+
+The phaeton meanwhile drove in the direction of Crowborough.  Some miles
+out it turned from the high-road into a narrow lane spanned by a tawny
+arch of beech trees.  Through this golden tunnel a lady was walking,
+tall and graceful, her back to the phaeton.  As it came abreast of her
+she stood aside and looked up, while the coachman pulled up the horse.
+
+"I trust that you are at your best," said she, looking very earnestly at
+the prize-fighter.  "How do you feel?"
+
+"Pretty tidy, ma'am, I thank you."
+
+"I will get up beside you, Johnson.  We have some way to go.  You will
+drive through the Lower Warren, and then take the lane which skirts the
+Gravel Hanger.  I will tell you where to stop.  Go slowly, for we are
+not due for twenty minutes."
+
+Feeling as if the whole business was some extraordinary dream, the young
+pugilist passed through a network of secluded lanes, until the phaeton
+drew up at a wicket gate which led into a plantation of firs, choked
+with a thick undergrowth.  Here the lady descended and beckoned Spring
+to alight.
+
+"Wait down the lane," said she to the coachman.  "We shall be some
+little time.  Now, Mr. Spring, will you kindly follow me? I have written
+a letter which makes an appointment."
+
+She passed swiftly through the plantation by a tortuous path, then over
+a stile, and past another wood, loud with the deep chuckling of
+pheasants.  At the farther side was a fine rolling park, studded with
+oak trees, and stretching away to a splendid Elizabethan mansion, with
+balustraded terraces athwart its front.  Across the park, and making for
+the wood, a solitary figure was walking.
+
+The lady gripped the prize-fighter by the wrist.  "That is your man,"
+said she.
+
+They were standing under the shadow of the trees, so that he was very
+visible to them, while they were out of his sight.  Tom Spring looked
+hard at the man, who was still some hundreds of yards away.  He was a
+tall, powerful fellow, clad in a blue coat with gilt buttons, which
+gleamed in the sun.  He had white corded breeches and riding-boots.
+He walked with a vigorous step, and with every few strides he struck his
+leg with a dog-whip which hung from his wrist.  There was a great
+suggestion of purpose and of energy in the man's appearance and bearing.
+
+"Why, he's a gentleman!" said Spring.  "Look 'ere, ma'am, this is all a
+bit out of my line.  I've nothing against the man, and he can mean me no
+harm.  What am I to do with him?"
+
+"Fight him!  Smash him!  That is what you are here for."
+
+Tom Spring turned on his heel with disgust.  "I'm here to fight, ma'am,
+but not to smash a man who has no thought of fighting.  It's off."
+
+"You don't like the look of him," hissed the woman.  "You have met your
+master."
+
+"That is as may be.  It is no job for me."
+
+The woman's face was white with vexation and anger.
+
+"You fool!" she cried.  "Is all to go wrong at the last minute?
+There are fifty pounds here they are in this paper--would you refuse
+them?"
+
+"It's a cowardly business.  I won't do it."
+
+"Cowardly?  You are giving the man two stone, and he can beat any
+amateur in England."
+
+The young pugilist felt relieved.  After all, if he could fairly earn
+that fifty pounds, a good deal depended upon his winning it.  If he
+could only be sure that this was a worthy and willing antagonist!
+
+"How do you know he is so good?" he asked.
+
+"I ought to know.  I am his wife."
+
+As she spoke she turned, and was gone like a flash among the bushes.
+The man was quite close now, and Tom Spring's scruples weakened as he
+looked at him.  He was a powerful, broad-chested fellow, about thirty,
+with a heavy, brutal face, great thatched eyebrows, and a hard-set
+mouth.  He could not be less than fifteen stone in weight, and he
+carried himself like a trained athlete.  As he swung along he suddenly
+caught a glimpse of Spring among the trees, and he at once quickened his
+pace and sprang over the stile which separated them.
+
+"Halloa!" said he, halting a few yards from him, and staring him up and
+down.  "Who the devil are you, and where the devil did you come from,
+and what the devil are you doing on my property?"
+
+His manner was even more offensive than his words.  It brought a flush
+of anger to Spring's cheeks.
+
+"See here, mister," said he, "civil words is cheap.  You've no call to
+speak to me like that."
+
+"You infernal rascal!" cried the other.  "I'll show you the way out of
+that plantation with the toe of my boot.  Do you dare to stand there on
+my land and talk back at me?"  He advanced with a menacing face and his
+dog-whip half raised.  "Well, are you going?" he cried, as he swung it
+into the air.
+
+Tom Spring jumped back to avoid the threatened blow.
+
+"Go slow, mister," said he.  "It's only fair that you should know where
+you are.  I'm Spring, the prize-fighter.  Maybe you have heard my name."
+
+"I thought you were a rascal of that breed," said the man.  "I've had
+the handling of one or two of you gentry before, and I never found one
+that could stand up to me for five minutes.  Maybe you would like to
+try?"
+
+"If you hit me with that dog-whip, mister----"
+
+"There, then!"  He gave the young man a vicious cut across the shoulder.
+"Will that help you to fight?"
+
+"I came here to fight" said Tom Spring, licking his dry lips. "You can
+drop that whip, mister, for I _will_ fight.  I'm a trained man and
+ready.  But you would have it.  Don't blame me."
+
+The man was stripping the blue coat from his broad shoulders.  There was
+a sprigged satin vest beneath it, and they were hung together on an
+alder branch.
+
+"Trained are you?" he muttered.  "By the Lord, I'll train you before I
+am through!"
+
+Any fears that Tom Spring may have had lest he should be taking some
+unfair advantage were set at rest by the man's assured manner and by the
+splendid physique, which became more apparent as he discarded a black
+satin tie, with a great ruby glowing in its centre, and threw aside the
+white collar which cramped his thick muscular neck.  He then, very
+deliberately, undid a pair of gold sleeve-links, and, rolling up his
+shirt-sleeves, disclosed two hairy and muscular arms, which would have
+served as a model for a sculptor.
+
+"Come nearer the stile," said he, when he had finished.  "There is more
+room."
+
+The prize-fighter had kept pace with the preparations of his formidable
+antagonist.  His own hat, coat, and vest hung suspended upon a bush.
+He advanced now into the open space which the other had indicated.
+
+"Ruffianing or fighting?" asked the amateur, coolly.
+
+"Fighting."
+
+"Very good," said the other.  "Put up your hands, Spring.  Try it out."
+
+They were standing facing one another in a grassy ring intersected by
+the path at the outlet of the wood.  The insolent and overbearing look
+had passed away from the amateur's face, but a grim half-smile was
+on his lips and his eyes shone fiercely from under his tufted brows.
+From the way in which he stood it was very clear that he was a
+past-master at the game.  Tom Spring, as he paced lightly to right
+and left, looking for an opening, became suddenly aware that neither
+with Stringer nor with the redoubtable Painter himself had he ever faced
+a more business-like opponent.  The amateur's left was well forward, his
+guard low, his body leaning back from the haunches, and his head well
+out of danger.  Spring tried a light lead at the mark, and another
+at the face, but in an instant his adversary was on to him with a shower
+of sledge-hammer blows which it took him all his time to avoid.
+He sprang back, but there was no getting away from that whirlwind of
+muscle and bone.  A heavy blow beat down his guard, a second landed on
+his shoulder, and over went the prize-fighter with the other on the top
+of him.  Both sprang to their feet, glared at each other, and fell into
+position once more.
+
+There could be no doubt that the amateur was not only heavier, but also
+the harder and stronger man.  Twice again he rushed Spring down, once by
+the weight of his blows, and once by closing and hurling him on to his
+back.  Such falls might have shaken the fight out of a less game man,
+but to Tom Spring they were but incidents in his daily trade.  Though
+bruised and winded he was always up again in an instant.  Blood was
+trickling from his mouth, but his steadfast blue eyes told of the
+unshaken spirit within.
+
+He was accustomed now to his opponent's rushing tactics, and he was
+ready for them.  The fourth round was the same as to attack, but it was
+very different in defence.  Up to now the young man had given way and
+been fought down.  This time he stood his ground.  As his opponent
+rushed in he met him with a tremendous straight hit from his left hand,
+delivered with the full force of his body,  and doubled in effect by the
+momentum of the charge.  So stunning was the concussion that the
+pugilist himself recoiled from it across the grassy ring.  The amateur
+staggered back and leaned his shoulder on a tree-trunk, his hand up to
+his face.
+
+"You'd best drop it," said Spring.  "You'll get pepper if you don't."
+
+The other gave an inarticulate curse, and spat out a mouthful of blood.
+
+"Come on!" said he.
+
+Even now the pugilist found that he had no light task before him.
+Warned by his misadventure, the heavier man no longer tried to win the
+battle at a rush, nor to beat down an accomplished boxer as he would a
+country hawbuck at a village fair.  He fought with his head and his feet
+as well as with his hands.  Spring had to admit in his heart that,
+trained to the ring, this man must have been a match for the best.
+His guard was strong, his counter was like lightning, he took punishment
+like a man of iron, and when he could safely close he always brought his
+lighter antagonist to the ground with a shattering fall.  But the one
+stunning blow which he had courted before he was taught respect for his
+adversary weighed heavily on him all the time.  His senses had lost
+something of their quickness and his blows of their sting.  He was
+fighting, too, against a man who, of all the boxers who have made their
+names great, was the safest, the coolest, the least likely to give
+anything away, or lose an advantage gained.  Slowly, gradually, round by
+round, he was worn down by his cool, quick-stepping, sharp-hitting
+antagonist.  At last he stood exhausted, breathing hoarsely, his face,
+what could be seen of it, purple with his exertions.  He had reached the
+limit of human endurance.  His opponent stood waiting for him, bruised
+and beaten, but as cool, as ready, as dangerous as ever.
+
+"You'd best drop it, I tell you," said he.  "You're done."
+
+But the other's manhood would not have it so.  With a snarl of fury he
+cast his science to the winds, and rushed madly to slogging with both
+hands.  For a moment Spring was overborne.  Then he side-stepped
+swiftly; there was the crash of his blow, and the amateur tossed up his
+arms and fell all asprawl, his great limbs outstretched, his disfigured
+face to the sky.
+
+For a moment Tom Spring stood looking down at his unconscious opponent.
+The next he felt a soft, warm hand upon his bare arm.  The woman was at
+his elbow.
+
+"Now is your time!" she cried, her dark eyes aflame.  "Go in!  Smash
+him!"
+
+Spring shook her off with a cry of disgust, but she was back in an
+instant.
+
+"I'll make it seventy-five pounds--"
+
+"The fight's over, ma'am.  I can't touch him."
+
+"A hundred pounds--a clear hundred!  I have it here in my bodice.
+Would you refuse a hundred?"
+
+He turned on his heel.  She darted past him and tried to kick at the
+face of the prostrate man.  Spring dragged her roughly away, before she
+could do him a mischief.
+
+"Stand clear!" he cried, giving her a shake.  "You should take shame to
+hit a fallen man."
+
+With a groan the injured man turned on his side.  Then he slowly sat up
+and passed his wet hand over his face.  Finally, he staggered to his
+feet.
+
+"Well," he said, shrugging his broad shoulders, "it was a fair fight.
+I've no complaint to make.  I was Jackson's favourite pupil, but I give
+you best."  Suddenly his eyes lit upon the furious face of the woman."
+Hulloa, Betty!" he cried.  "So I have you to thank.  I might have
+guessed it when I had your letter."
+
+"Yes, my lord," said she, with a mock curtsey.  "You have me to thank.
+Your little wife managed it all.  I lay behind those bushes, and I saw
+you beaten like a hound.  You haven't had all that I had planned for
+you, but I think it will be some little time before any woman loves you
+for the sake of your appearance.  Do you remember the words, my lord?
+Do you remember the words?"
+
+He stood stunned for a moment.  Then he snatched his whip from the
+ground, and looked at her from under his heavy brows.
+
+"I believe you're the devil!" he cried.
+
+"I wonder what the governess will think?" said she.
+
+He flared into furious rage and rushed at her with his whip.  Tom Spring
+threw himself before him with his arms out.
+
+"It won't do, sir; I can't stand by."
+
+The man glared at his wife over the prize-fighter's shoulder.
+
+"So it's for dear George's sake!" he said, with a bitter laugh.
+"But poor, broken-nosed George seems to have gone to the wall.  Taken up
+with a prize-fighter, eh?  Found a fancy man for yourself!"
+
+"You liar!" she gasped.
+
+"Ha, my lady, that stings your pride, does it?  Well, you shall stand
+together in the dock for trespass and assault.  What a picture--great
+Lord, what a picture!"
+
+"You wouldn't, John!"
+
+"Wouldn't I, by--!  you stay there three minutes and see if I wouldn't."
+He seized his clothes from the bush, and staggered off as swiftly as he
+could across the field, blowing a whistle as he ran.
+
+"Quick! quick!" cried the woman.  "There's not an instant to lose."
+Her face was livid, and she was shivering and panting with apprehension.
+"He'll raise the country.  It would be awful--awful!"
+
+She ran swiftly down the tortuous path, Spring following after her and
+dressing as he went.  In a field to the right a gamekeeper, his gun in
+his hand, was hurrying towards the whistling.  Two labourers, loading
+hay, had stopped their work and were looking about them, their
+pitchforks in their hands.
+
+But the path was empty, and the phaeton awaited them, the horse cropping
+the grass by the lane-side, the driver half asleep on his perch.  The
+woman sprang swiftly in and motioned Spring to stand by the wheel.
+
+"There is your fifty pounds," she said, handing him a paper.  "You were
+a fool not to turn it into a hundred when you had the chance.  I've done
+with you now."
+
+"But where am I to go?" asked the prize-fighter, gazing around him at
+the winding lanes.
+
+"To the devil!" said she. "Drive on, Johnson!"
+
+The phaeton whirled down the road and vanished round a curve.
+Tom Spring was alone.
+
+Everywhere over the countryside he heard shoutings and whistlings.
+It was clear that so long as she escaped the indignity of sharing his
+fate his employer was perfectly indifferent as to whether he got into
+trouble or not.  Tom Spring began to feel indifferent himself.  He was
+weary to death, his head was aching from the blows and falls which he
+had received, and his feelings were raw from the treatment which he had
+undergone.  He walked slowly some few yards down the lane, but had no
+idea which way to turn to reach Tunbridge Wells.  In the distance he
+heard the baying of dogs, and he guessed that they were being set upon
+his track.  In that case he could not hope to escape them, and might
+just as well await them where he was.  He picked out a heavy stake from
+the hedge, and he sat down moodily waiting, in a very dangerous temper,
+for what might befall him.
+
+But it was a friend and not a foe who came first into sight.  Round the
+corner of the lane flew a small dog-cart, with a fast-trotting chestnut
+cob between the shafts.  In it was seated the rubicund landlord of the
+Royal Oak, his whip going, his face continually flying round to glance
+behind him.
+
+"Jump in, Mr. Spring jump in!" he cried, as he reined up. "They're all
+coming, dogs and men!  Come on!  Now, hud up, Ginger!"  Not another
+word did he say until two miles of lanes had been left behind them at
+racing speed and they were back in safety upon the Brighton road.
+Then he let the reins hang loose on the pony's back, and he slapped
+Tom Spring with his fat hand upon the shoulder.
+
+"Splendid!" he cried, his great red face shining with ecstasy.
+"Oh, Lord! but it was beautiful!"
+
+"What!" cried Spring.  "You saw the fight?"
+
+"Every round of it!  By George! to think that I should have lived to
+have had such a fight all to myself!  Oh, but it was grand," he cried,
+in a frenzy of delight, "to see his lordship go down like a pithed ox
+and her ladyship clapping her hands behind the bush!  I guessed there
+was something in the wind, and I followed you all the way.  When you
+stopped, I tethered little Ginger in a grove, and I crept after you
+through the wood.  It's as well I did, for the whole parish was up!"
+
+But Tom Spring was sitting gazing at him in blank amazement.
+
+"His lordship!" he gasped.
+
+"No less, my boy.  Lord Falconbridge, Chairman of the Bench, Deputy
+Lieutenant of the County, Peer of the Realm--that's your man."
+
+"Good Lord!"
+
+"And you didn't know?  It's as well, for maybe you wouldn't have whacked
+it in as hard if you had; and, mind you, if you hadn't, he'd have beat
+you.  There's not a man in this county could stand up to him.  He takes
+the poachers and gipsies two and three at a time.  He's the terror of
+the place.  But you did him--did him fair.  Oh, man, it was fine!"
+
+Tom Spring was too much dazed by what he heard to do more than sit and
+wonder.  It was not until he had got back to the comforts of the inn,
+and after a bath had partaken of a solid meal, that he sent for
+Mr. Cordery the landlord.  To him he confided the whole train of events
+which had led up to his remarkable experience, and he begged him to
+throw such light as he could upon it.  Cordery listened with keen
+interest and many chuckles to the story.  Finally he left the room and
+returned with a frayed newspaper in his hand, which he smoothed out upon
+his knee.
+
+"It's the _Pantiles Gazette_, Mr. Spring, as gossiping a rag as ever was
+printed.  I expect there will be a fine column in it if ever it gets its
+prying nose into this day's doings.  However, we are mum and her
+ladyship is mum, and, my word! his lordship is mum, though he did, in
+his passion, raise the hue and cry on you.  Here it is, Mr. Spring, and
+I'll read it to you while you smoke your pipe.  It's dated July of last
+year, and it goes like this--
+
+"'FRACAS IN HIGH LIFE.--It is an open secret that the differences which
+have for some years been known to exist between Lord F---- and his
+beautiful wife have come to a head during the last few days.
+His lordship's devotion to sport, and also, as it is whispered, some
+attentions which he has shown to a humbler member of his household,
+have, it is said, long alienated Lady F----'s affection.  Of late she
+has sought consolation and friendship with a gentleman whom we will
+designate as Sir George W----n.  Sir George, who is a famous ladykiller,
+and as well-proportioned a man as any in England, took kindly to the
+task of consoling the disconsolate fair.  The upshot, however, was
+vastly unfortunate, both for the lady's feelings and for the gentleman's
+beauty.  The two friends were surprised in a rendezvous near the house
+by Lord F--- himself at the head of a party of his servants.  Lord F--
+then and there, in spite of the shrieks of the lady, availed himself of
+his strength and skill to administer such punishment to the unfortunate
+Lothario as would, in his own parting words, prevent any woman from
+loving him again for the sake of his appearance.  Lady F---- has left
+his lordship and betaken herself to London, where, no doubt, she is now
+engaged in nursing the damaged Apollo.  It is confidently expected that
+a duel will result from the affair, but no particulars have reached us
+up to the hour of going to press.'"
+
+The landlord laid down the paper.  "You've been moving in high life, Mr.
+Thomas Spring," said he.
+
+The pugilist passed his hand over his battered face.  "Well, Mr.
+Cordery," said he, "low life is good enough for me."
+
+
+
+OUT OF THE RUNNING
+
+
+It was on the North Side of Butser on the long swell of the Hampshire
+Downs.  Beneath, some two miles away, the grey roofs and red houses of
+Petersfield peeped out from amid the trees which surrounded it.
+From the crest of the low hills downwards the country ran in low,
+sweeping curves, as though some green primeval sea had congealed in the
+midst of a ground swell and set for ever into long verdant rollers.
+At the bottom, just where the slope borders upon the plain, there stood
+a comfortable square brick farmhouse, with a grey plume of smoke
+floating up from the chimney.  Two cowhouses, a cluster of hayricks, and
+a broad stretch of fields, yellow with the ripening wheat, formed a
+fitting setting to the dwelling of a prosperous farmer.
+
+The green slopes were dotted every here and there with dark clumps of
+gorse bushes, all alight with the flaming yellow blossoms.  To the left
+lay the broad Portsmouth Road curving over the hill, with a line of
+gaunt telegraph posts marking its course.  Beyond a huge white chasm
+opened in the grass, where the great Butser chalk quarry had been sunk.
+From its depths rose the distant murmur of voices, and the clinking of
+hammers.  Just above it, between two curves of green hill, might be seen
+a little triangle of leaden-coloured sea, flecked with a single white
+sail.
+
+Down the Portsmouth Road two women were walking, one elderly, florid
+and stout, with a yellow-brown Paisley shawl and a coarse serge dress,
+the other young and fair, with large grey eyes, and a face which was
+freckled like a plover's egg.  Her neat white blouse with its trim black
+belt, and plain, close-cut skirt, gave her an air of refinement which
+was wanting in her companion, but there was sufficient resemblance
+between them to show that they were mother and daughter.  The one was
+gnarled and hardened and wrinkled by rough country work, .the other
+fresh and pliant from the benign influence of the Board School; but
+their step, their slope of the shoulders, and the movement of their hips
+as they walked, all marked them as of one blood.
+
+"Mother, I can see father in the five-acre field," cried the younger,
+pointing down in the direction of the farm.
+
+The older woman screwed up her eyes, and shaded them with her hand.
+
+"Who's that with him?" she asked.
+
+"There's Bill."
+
+"Oh, he's nobody.  He's a-talkin' to some one."
+
+"I don't know, mother.  It's some one in a straw hat.  Adam Wilson of
+the Quarry wears a straw hat."
+
+"Aye, of course, it's Adam sure enough.  Well, I'm glad we're back home
+time enough to see him.  He'd have been disappointed if he had come over
+and you'd been away.  Drat this dust!  It makes one not fit to be seen."
+
+The same idea seemed to have occurred to her daughter, for she had taken
+out her handkerchief, and was flicking her sleeves and the front of her
+dress.
+
+"That's right, Dolly.  There's some on your flounces.  But, Lor' bless
+you, Dolly, it don't matter to him.  It's not your dress he looks at,
+but your face.  Now I shouldn't be very surprised if he hadn't come over
+to ask you from father."
+
+"I think he'd best begin by asking me from myself," remarked the girl.
+
+"Ah, but you'll have him, Dolly, when he does."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that, mother."  The older woman threw up her hands.
+"There! I don't know what the gals are coming to.  I don't indeed.
+It's the Board Schools as does it.  When I was a gal, if a decent young
+man came a-courtin', we gave him a 'Yes' or a 'No.'  We didn't keep him
+hanging on like a half-clipped sheep.  Now, here are you with two of
+them at your beck, and you can't give an answer to either of them."
+
+"Why, mother, that's it," cried the daughter, with something between a
+laugh and a sob.  "May be if they came one at a time I'd know what to
+say."
+
+"What have you agin Adam Wilson?"
+
+"Nothing.  But I have nothing against Elias Mason."
+
+"Nor I, either.  But I know which is the most proper-looking young man."
+
+"Looks isn't everything, mother.  You should hear Elias Mason talk.
+You should hear him repeat poetry."
+
+"Well, then, have Elias."
+
+"Ah, but I haven't the heart to turn against Adam."
+
+"There, now!  I never saw such a gal.  You're like a calf betwixt two
+hayricks; you have a nibble at the one and a nibble at the other.
+There's not one in a hundred as lucky as you.  Here's Adam with three
+pound ten a week, foreman already at the Chalk Works, and likely enough
+to be manager if he's spared.  And there's Elias, head telegraph clerk
+at the Post Office, and earning good money too.  You can't keep 'em both
+on.  You've got to take one or t'other, and it's my belief you'll get
+neither if you don't stop this shilly-shally."
+
+"I don't care.  I don't want them.  What do they want to come bothering
+for?"
+
+"It's human natur', gal.  They must do it.  If they didn't, you'd be the
+first to cry out maybe.  It's in the Scriptures.  'Man is born for
+woman, as the sparks fly upwards.'"  She looked up out of the corner of
+her eyes as if not very sure of her quotation.  "Why, here be that
+dratted Bill.  The good book says as we are all made of clay, but Bill
+does show it more than any lad I ever saw."
+
+They had turned from the road into a narrow, deeply rutted lane, which
+led towards the farm.  A youth was running towards them, loose-jointed
+and long-limbed, with a boyish, lumbering haste, clumping fearlessly
+with his great yellow clogs through pool and mire.  He wore brown
+corduroys, a dingy shirt, and a red handkerchief tied loosely round his
+neck.  A tattered old straw hat was tilted back upon his shock of
+coarse, matted, brown hair.  His sleeves were turned up to the elbows,
+and his arms and face were both tanned and roughened until his skin
+looked like the bark of some young sapling.  As he looked up at the
+sound of the steps, his face with its blue eyes, brown skin, and first
+slight down of a tawny moustache, was not an uncomely one, were it not
+marred by the heavy, stolid, somewhat sulky expression of the country
+yokel.
+
+"Please, mum," said he, touching the brim of his wreck of a hat,
+"measter seed ye coming.  He sent to say as 'ow 'e were in the five-acre
+lot."
+
+"Run back, Bill, and say that we are coming," answered the farmer's
+wife, and the awkward figure sped away upon its return journey.
+
+"I say, mother, what is Bill's other name?" asked the girl, with languid
+curiosity.
+
+"He's not got one."
+
+"No name?"
+
+"No, Dolly, he's a found child, and never had no father or mother that
+ever was heard of.  We had him from the work'us when he was seven, to
+chop mangel wurzel, and here he's been ever since, nigh twelve year.
+He was Bill there, and he's Bill here."
+
+"What fun!  Fancy having only one name.  I wonder what they'll call his
+wife?"
+
+"I don't know.  Time to talk of that when he can keep one.  But now,
+Dolly dear, here's your father and Adam Wilson comin' across the field.
+I want to see you settled, Dolly.  He's a steady young man.  He's blue
+ribbon, and has money in the Post Office."
+
+"I wish I knew which liked me best," said her daughter glancing from
+under her hat-brim at the approaching figures.  "That's the one I should
+like.  But it's all right, mother, and I know how to find out, so don't
+you fret yourself any more."
+
+The suitor was a well-grown young fellow in a grey suit, with a straw
+hat jauntily ribboned in red and black.  He was smoking, but as he
+approached he thrust his pipe into his breast-pocket, and came forward
+with one hand outstretched, and the other gripping nervously at his
+watch-chain.
+
+"Your servant, Mrs. Foster.  And how are you, Miss Dolly?  Another
+fortnight of this and you will be starting on your harvest, I suppose."
+
+"It's bad to say beforehand what you will do in this country," said
+Farmer Foster, with an apprehensive glance round the heavens.
+
+"It's all God's doing," remarked his wife piously.
+
+"And He does the best for us, of course.  Yet He does seem these last
+seasons to have kind of lost His grip over the weather.  Well, maybe it
+will be made up to us this year.  And what did you do at Horndean,
+mother?"
+
+The old couple walked in front, and the other dropped behind, the young
+man lingering, and taking short steps to increase the distance.
+
+"I say, Dolly," he murmured at last, flushing slightly as he glanced at
+her, "I've been speaking to your father about--you know what."
+
+But Dolly didn't know what.  She hadn't the slightest idea of what.
+She turned her pretty little freckled face up to him and was full of
+curiosity upon the point.
+
+Adam Wilson's face flushed to a deeper red.  "You know very well," said
+he, impatiently, "I spoke to him about marriage."
+
+"Oh, then it's him you want."
+
+"There, that's the way you always go on.  It's easy to make fun, but I
+tell you that I am in earnest, Dolly.  Your father says that he would
+have no objection to me in the family.  You know that I love you true."
+
+"How do I know that then?"
+
+"I tell you so.  What more can I do?"
+
+"Did you ever do anything to prove it?"
+
+"Set me something and see if I don't do it."
+
+"Then you haven't done anything yet?"
+
+"I don't know.  I've done what I could."
+
+"How about this?"  She pulled a little crumpled sprig of dog-rose, such
+as grows wild in the wayside hedges, out of her bosom.  "Do you know
+anything of that?"
+
+He smiled, and was about to answer, when his brows suddenly contracted,
+his mouth set, and his eyes flashed angrily as they focussed some
+distant object.  Following his gaze, she saw a slim, dark figure, some
+three fields off, walking swiftly in their direction.  "It's my friend,
+Mr. Elias Mason," said she.
+
+"Your friend!"  He had lost his diffidence in his anger.  "I know all
+about that.  What does he want here every second evening?"
+
+"Perhaps he wonders what you want."
+
+"Does he?  I wish he'd come and ask me.  I'd let him see what I wanted.
+Quick too."
+
+"He can see it now.  He has taken off his hat to me," Dolly said,
+laughing.
+
+Her laughter was the finishing touch.  He had meant to be impressive,
+and it seemed that he had only been ridiculous.  He swung round upon his
+heel.
+
+"Very well, Miss Foster," said he, in a choking voice, "that's all
+right.  We know where we are now.  I didn't come here to be made a fool
+of, so good day to you."  He plucked at his hat, and walked furiously
+off in the direction from which they had come.  She looked after him,
+half frightened, in the hope of seeing some sign that he had relented,
+but he strode onwards with a rigid neck, and vanished at a turn of the
+lane.
+
+When she turned again her other visitor was close upon her--a thin,
+wiry, sharp-featured man with a sallow face, and a quick, nervous
+manner.
+
+"Good evening, Miss Foster.  I thought that I would walk over as the
+weather was so beautiful, but I did not expect to have the good fortune
+to meet you in the fields."
+
+"I am sure that father will be very glad to see you, Mr. Mason.
+You must come in and have a glass of milk."
+
+"No, thank you, Miss Foster, I should very much prefer to stay out here
+with you.  But I am afraid that I have interrupted you in a chat.
+Was not that Mr. Adam Wilson who left you this moment?"  His manner was
+subdued, but his questioning eyes and compressed lips told of a deeper
+and more furious jealousy than that of his rival.
+
+"Yes.  It was Mr. Adam Wilson."  There was something about Mason, a
+certain concentration of manner, which made it impossible for the girl
+to treat him lightly as she had done the other.
+
+"I have noticed him here several times lately."
+
+"Yes.  He is head foreman, you know, at the big quarry."
+
+"Oh, indeed.  He is fond of your society, Miss Foster.  I can't blame
+him for that, can I, since I am equally so myself.  But I should like to
+come to some understanding with you.  You cannot have misunderstood what
+my feelings are to you?  I am in a position to offer you a comfortable
+home.  Will you be my wife, Miss Foster?"
+
+Dolly would have liked to make some jesting reply, but it was hard to be
+funny with those two eager, fiery eyes fixed so intently upon her own.
+She began to walk slowly towards the house, while he paced along beside
+her, still waiting for his answer.
+
+"You must give me a little time, Mr. Mason," she said at last.
+"'Marry in haste,' they say, 'and repent at leisure.'"
+
+"But you shall never have cause to repent."
+
+"I don't know.  One hears such things."
+
+"You shall be the happiest woman in England."
+
+"That sounds very nice.  You are a poet, Mr. Mason, are you not?"
+
+"I am a lover of poetry."
+
+"And poets are fond of flowers?"
+
+"I am very fond of flowers."
+
+"Then perhaps you know something of these?"  She took out the humble
+little sprig, and held it out to him with an arch questioning glance.
+He took it and pressed it to his lips.
+
+"I know that it has been near you, where I should wish to be," said he.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Mason!"  It was Mrs. Foster who had come out to meet
+them.  "Where's Mr.----?  Oh--ah!  Yes, of course.  The teapot's on the
+table, and you'd best come in afore it's over-drawn."
+
+When Elias Mason left the farmhouse that evening, he drew Dolly aside at
+the door.
+
+"I won't be able to come before Saturday," said he.
+
+"We shall be glad to see you, Mr. Mason."
+
+"I shall want my answer then."
+
+"Oh, I cannot give any promise, you know."
+
+"But I shall live in hope."
+
+"Well, no one can prevent you from doing that."  As she came to realize
+her power over him she had lost something of her fear, and could answer
+him now nearly as freely as if he were simple Adam Wilson.
+
+She stood at the door, leaning against the wooden porch, with the long
+trailers of the honeysuckle framing her tall, slight figure.  The great
+red sun was low in the west, its upper rim peeping over the low hills,
+shooting long, dark shadows from the beech-tree in the field, from the
+little group of tawny cows, and from the man who walked away from her.
+She smiled to see how immense the legs were, and how tiny the body in
+the great flat giant which kept pace beside him.  In front of her in the
+little garden the bees droned, a belated butterfly or an early moth
+fluttered slowly over the flower-beds, a thousand little creatures
+buzzed and hummed, all busy working out their tiny destinies, as she,
+too, was working out hers, and each doubtless looking upon their own
+as the central point of the universe.  A few months for the gnat, a few
+years for the girl, but each was happy now in the heavy summer air.
+A beetle scuttled out upon the gravel path and bored onwards, its six
+legs all working hard, butting up against stones, upsetting itself on
+ridges, but still gathering itself up and rushing onwards to some
+all-important appointment somewhere in the grass plot.  A bat fluttered
+up from behind the beech-tree.  A breath of night air sighed softly over
+the hillside with a little tinge of the chill sea spray in its coolness.
+Dolly Foster shivered, and had turned to go in when her mother came out
+from the passage.
+
+"Whatever is that Bill doing there?" she cried.
+
+Dolly looked, and saw for the first time that the nameless farm-labourer
+was crouching under the beech, his browns and yellows blending with the
+bark behind him.
+
+"You go out o' that, Bill!" screamed the farmer's wife.
+
+"What be I to do?" he asked humbly, slouching forward.
+
+"Go, cut chaff in the barn."  He nodded and strolled away, a comical
+figure in his mud-crusted boots, his strap-tied corduroys and his
+almond-coloured skin.
+
+"Well, then, you've taken Elias," said the mother, passing her hand
+round her daughter's waist.  "I seed him a-kissing your flower.
+Well, I'm sorry for Adam, for he is a well-grown young man, a proper
+young man, blue ribbon, with money in the Post Office.  Still some one
+must suffer, else how could we be purified.  If the milk's left alone it
+won't ever turn into butter.  It wants troubling and stirring and
+churning.  That's what we want, too, before we can turn angels.  It's
+just the same as butter."
+
+Dolly laughed.  "I have not taken Elias yet," said she.
+
+"No?  What about Adam then?"
+
+"Nor him either."
+
+"Oh, Dolly girl, can you not take advice from them that is older.
+I tell you again that you'll lose them both."
+
+"No, no, mother.  Don't you fret yourself.  It's all right.  But you can
+see how hard it is.  I like Elias, for he can speak so well, and is so
+sure and masterful.  And I like Adam because--well, because I know very
+well that Adam loves me."
+
+"Well, bless my heart, you can't marry them both.  You'd like all the
+pears in the basket."
+
+"No, mother, but I know how to choose.  You see this bit of a flower,
+dear."
+
+"It's a common dog-rose."
+
+"Well, where d'you think I found it?"
+
+"In the hedge likely."
+
+"No, but on my window-ledge."
+
+"Oh, but when?"
+
+"This morning.  It was six when I got up, and there it lay fresh and
+sweet, and new-plucked.  'Twas the same yesterday and the day before.
+Every morning there it lies.  It's a common flower, as you say, mother,
+but it is not so common to find a man who'll break short his sleep day
+after day just to show a girl that the thought of her is in his heart."
+
+"And which was it?"
+
+"Ah, if I knew!  I think it's Elias.  He's a poet, you know, and poets
+do nice things like that."
+
+"And how will you be sure?"
+
+"I'll know before morning.  He will come again, whichever it is.
+And whichever it is he's the man for me.  Did father ever do that for
+you before you married?"
+
+"I can't say he did, dear.  But father was always a powerful heavy
+sleeper."
+
+"Well then, mother, you needn't fret any more about me, for as sure as I
+stand here, I'll tell you to-morrow which of them it is to be."
+
+That evening the farmer's daughter set herself to clearing off all those
+odd jobs which accumulate in a large household.  She polished the dark,
+old-fashioned furniture in the sitting-room.  She cleared out the
+cellar, re-arranged the bins, counted up the cider, made a great
+cauldron full of raspberry jam, potted, papered, and labelled it.
+Long after the whole household was in bed she pushed on with her
+self-imposed tasks until the night was far gone and she very spent and
+weary.  Then she stirred up the smouldering kitchen fire and made
+herself a cup of tea, and, carrying it up to her own room, she sat
+sipping it and glancing over an old bound volume of the _Leisure Hour_.
+Her seat was behind the little dimity window curtains, whence she could
+see without being seen.
+
+The morning had broken, and a brisk wind had sprung up with the dawn.
+The sky was of the lightest, palest blue, with a scud of flying white
+clouds shredded out over the face of it, dividing, coalescing,
+overtaking one another, but sweeping ever from the pink of the east to
+the still shadowy west.  The high, eager voice of the wind whistled and
+sang outside, rising from moan to shriek, and then sinking again to a
+dull mutter and grumble.  Dolly rose to wrap her shawl around her, and
+as she sat down again in an instant her doubts were resolved, and she
+had seen that for which she had waited.
+
+Her window faced the inner yard, and was some eight feet from the
+ground.  A man standing beneath it could not be seen from above.
+But she saw enough to tell her all that she wished to know.  Silently,
+suddenly, a hand had appeared from below, had laid a sprig of flower
+upon her ledge, and had disappeared.  It did not take two seconds; she
+saw no face, she heard no sound, but she had seen the hand and she
+wanted nothing more.  With a smile she threw herself upon the bed, drew
+a rug over her, and dropped into a heavy slumber.
+
+She was awakened by her mother plucking at her shoulder.
+
+"It's breakfast time, Dolly, but I thought you would be weary, so I
+brought you lip some bread and coffee.  Sit up, like a dearie, and take
+it."
+
+"All right, mother.  Thank you.  I'm all dressed, so I'll be ready to
+come down soon."
+
+"Bless the gal, she's never had her things off!  And, dearie me, here's
+the flower outside the window, sure enough!  Well, and did you see who
+put it there?"
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+"Who was it then?"
+
+"It was Adam."
+
+"Was it now?  Well, I shouldn't have thought that he had it in him.
+Then Adam it's to be.  Well, he's steady, and that's better than being
+clever, yea, seven-and-seventy fold.  Did he come across the yard?"
+
+"No, along by the wall."
+
+"How did you see him then?"
+
+"I didn't see him."
+
+"Then how can you tell?"
+
+"I saw his hand."
+
+"But d'you tell me you know Adam's hand?"
+
+"It would be a blind man that couldn't tell it from Elias' hand.
+Why, the one is as brown as that coffee, and the other as white as the
+cup, with great blue veins all over it."
+
+"Well, now I shouldn't have thought of it, but so it is.  Well, it'll be
+a busy day, Dolly.  Just hark to the wind!"
+
+It had, indeed, increased during the few hours since dawn to a very
+violent tempest.  The panes of the window rattled and shook.  Glancing
+out, Dolly saw cabbage leaves and straw whirling up past the casement.
+
+"The great hayrick is giving.  They're all out trying to prop it up.
+My, but it do blow!"
+
+It did indeed!  When Dolly came downstairs it was all that she could do
+to push her way through the porch.  All along the horizon the sky was
+brassy-yellow, but above the wind screamed and stormed, and the torn,
+hurrying clouds were now huddled together, and now frayed off into
+countless tattered streamers.  In the field near the house her father
+and three or four labourers were working with poles and ropes, hatless,
+their hair and beards flying, staving up a great bulging hayrick.
+Dolly watched them for a moment, and then, stooping her head and
+rounding her shoulders, with one hand up to her little black straw hat,
+she staggered off across the fields.
+
+Adam Wilson was at work always on a particular part of the hillside, and
+hither it was that she bent her steps.  He saw the trim, dapper figure,
+with its flying skirts and hat-ribbons, and he came forward to meet her
+with a great white crowbar in his hand.  He walked slowly, however, and
+his eyes were downcast, with the air of a man who still treasures a
+grievance.
+
+"Good mornin', Miss Foster."
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Wilson.  Oh, if you are going to be cross with me,
+I'd best go home again."
+
+"I'm not cross, Miss Foster.  I take it very kindly that you should come
+out this way on such a day."
+
+"I wanted to say to you--I wanted to say that I was sorry if I made you
+angry yesterday.  I didn't mean to make fun.  I didn't, indeed.  It is
+only my way of talking.  It was so good of you, so noble of you, to let
+it make no difference."
+
+"None at all, Dolly."  He was quite radiant again.  "If I didn't love
+you so, I wouldn't mind what that other chap said or did.  And if I
+could only think that you cared more for me than for him--"
+
+"I do, Adam."
+
+"God bless you for saying so!  You've lightened my heart, Dolly.  I have
+to go to Portsmouth for the firm today.  To-morrow night I'll come and
+see you."
+
+"Very well, Adam, I--Oh, my God, what's that!"
+
+A rending breaking noise in the distance, a dull rumble, and a burst of
+shouts and cries.
+
+"The rick's down!  There's been an accident!"  They both started running
+down the hill.
+
+"Father!" panted the girl, "father!"
+
+"He's all right!" shouted her companion, "I can see him.  But there's
+some one down.  They're lifting him now.  And here's one running like
+mad for the doctor."
+
+A farm-labourer came rushing wildly up the lane.  "Don't you go,
+Missey," he cried.  "A man's hurt."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"It's Bill.  The rick came down and the ridge-pole caught him across the
+back.  He's dead, I think.  Leastwise, there's not much life in him.
+I'm off for Doctor Strong!"  He bent his shoulder to the wind, and
+lumbered off down the road.
+
+"Poor Bill!  Thank God it wasn't father!"  They were at the edge of the
+field now in which the accident had taken place.  The rick lay, a
+shapeless mound upon the earth, with a long thick pole protruding from
+it, which had formerly supported the tarpaulin drawn across it in case
+of rain.  Four men were walking slowly away, one shoulder humped, one
+hanging, and betwixt them they bore a formless clay-coloured bundle.
+He might have been a clod of the earth that he tilled, so passive, so
+silent, still brown, for death itself could not have taken the burn from
+his skin, but with patient, bovine eyes looking out heavily from under
+half-closed lids.  He breathed jerkily, but he neither cried out nor
+groaned.  There was something almost brutal and inhuman in his absolute
+stolidity.  He asked no sympathy, for his life had been without it.
+It was a broken tool rather than an injured man.
+
+"Can I do anything, father?"
+
+"No, lass, no.  This is no place for you.  I've sent for the doctor.
+He'll be here soon."
+
+"But where are they taking him?"
+
+"To the loft where be sleeps."
+
+"I'm sure he's welcome to my room, father."
+
+"No, no, lass.  Better leave it alone."
+
+But the little group were passing as they spoke, and the injured lad had
+heard the girl's words.
+
+"Thank ye kindly, Missey," he murmured, with a little flicker of life,
+and then sank back again into his stolidity and his silence.
+
+Well, a farm hand is a useful thing, but what is a man to do with one
+who has an injured spine and half his ribs smashed.  Farmer Foster shook
+his head and scratched his chin as he listened to the doctor's report.
+
+"He can't get better?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then we had better move him."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"To the work'us hospital.  He came from there just this time eleven
+years.  It'll be like going home to him."
+
+"I fear that he is going home," said the doctor gravely.  "But it's out
+of the question to move him now.  He must lie where he is for better or
+for worse."
+
+And it certainly looked for worse rather than for better.  In a little
+loft above the stable he was stretched upon a tiny blue pallet which lay
+upon the planks.  Above were the gaunt rafters, hung with saddles,
+harness, old scythe blades--the hundred things which droop, like bats,
+from inside such buildings.  Beneath them upon two pegs hung his own
+pitiable wardrobe, the blue shirt and the grey, the stained trousers,
+and the muddy coat.  A gaunt chaff-cutting machine stood at his head,
+and a great bin of the chaff behind it.  He lay very quiet, still dumb,
+still uncomplaining, his eyes fixed upon the small square window looking
+out at the drifting sky, and at this strange world which God has made so
+queerly--so very queerly.
+
+An old woman, the wife of a labourer, had been set to nurse him, for the
+doctor had said that he was not to be left.  She moved about the room,
+arranging and ordering, grumbling to herself from time to time at this
+lonely task which had been assigned to her.  There were some flowers in
+broken jars upon a cross-beam, and these, with a touch of tenderness,
+she carried over and arranged upon a deal packing-case beside the
+patient's head.  He lay motionless, and as he breathed there came a
+gritty rubbing sound from somewhere in his side, but he followed his
+companion about with his eyes and even smiled once as she grouped the
+flowers round him.
+
+He smiled again when he heard that Mrs. Foster and her daughter had been
+to ask after him that evening.  They had been down to the Post Office
+together, where Dolly had sent off a letter which she had very carefully
+drawn up, addressed to Elias Mason, Esq., and explaining to that
+gentleman that she had formed her plans for life, and that he need
+spare himself the pain of coming for his answer on the Saturday.
+As they came back they stopped in the stable and inquired through the
+loft door as to the sufferer.  From where they stood they could hear
+that horrible grating sound in his breathing.  Dolly hurried away with
+her face quite pale under her freckles.  She was too young to face the
+horrid details of suffering, and yet she was a year older than this poor
+waif, who lay in silence, facing death itself.
+
+All night he lay very quiet--so quiet that were it not for that one
+sinister sound his nurse might have doubted whether life was still in
+him.  She had watched him and tended him as well as she might, but she
+was herself feeble and old, and just as the morning light began to steal
+palely through the small loft window, she sank back in her chair in a
+dreamless sleep.  Two hours passed, and the first voices of the men as
+they gathered for their work aroused her.  She sprang to her feet.
+Great heaven! the pallet was empty.  She rushed down into the stables,
+distracted, wringing her hands.  There was no sign of him.  But the
+stable door was open.  He must have walked-but how could he walk?--he
+must have crawled--have writhed that way.  Out she rushed, and as they
+heard her tale, the newly risen labourers ran with her, until the farmer
+with his wife and daughter were called from their breakfast by the
+bustle, and joined also in this strange chase.  A whoop, a cry, and they
+were drawn round to the corner of the yard on which Miss Dolly's window
+opened.  There he lay within a few yards of the window, his face upon
+the stones, his feet thrusting out from his tattered night-gown, and
+his track marked by the blood from his wounded knees.  One hand was
+thrown out before him, and in it he held a little sprig of the pink
+dog-rose.
+
+They carried him back, cold and stiff, to the pallet in the loft, and
+the old nurse drew the sheet over him and left him, for there was no
+need to watch him now.  The girl had gone to her room, and her mother
+followed her thither, all unnerved by this glimpse of death.
+
+"And to think," said she, "that it was only _him_, after all."
+
+But Dolly sat at the side of her bed, and sobbed bitterly in her apron.
+
+
+
+"DE PROFUNDIS"
+
+
+So long as the oceans are the ligaments which bind together the great
+broad-cast British Empire, so long will there be a dash of romance in
+our minds.  For the soul is swayed by the waters, as the waters are
+by the moon, and when the great highways of an empire are along such
+roads as these, so full of strange sights and sounds, with danger ever
+running like a hedge on either side of the course, it is a dull mind
+indeed which does not bear away with it some trace of such a passage.
+And now, Britain lies far beyond herself, for the three-mile limit of
+every seaboard is her frontier, which has been won by hammer and loom
+and pick rather than by arts of war.  For it is written in history that
+neither king nor army can bar the path to the man who having twopence in
+his strong box, and knowing well where he can turn it to threepence,
+sets his mind to that one end.  And as the frontier has broadened, the
+mind of Britain has broadened too, spreading out until all men can see
+that the ways of the island are continental, even as those of the
+Continent are insular.
+
+But for this a price must be paid, and the price is a grievous one.
+As the beast of old must have one young human life as a tribute every
+year, so to our Empire we throw from day to day the pick and flower of
+our youth.  The engine is world-wide and strong, but the only fuel that
+will drive it is the lives of British men.  Thus it is that in the grey
+old cathedrals, as we look round upon the brasses on the walls, we see
+strange names, such names as they who reared those walls had never
+heard, for it is in Peshawar, and Umballah, and Korti and Fort Pearson
+that the youngsters die, leaving only a precedent and a brass behind
+them.  But if every man had his obelisk, even where he lay, then no
+frontier line need be drawn, for a cordon of British graves would ever
+show how high the Anglo-Celtic tide had lapped.
+
+This, then, as well as the waters which join us to the world, has done
+something to tinge us with romance.  For when so many have their loved
+ones over the seas, walking amid hillmen's bullets, or swamp malaria,
+where death is sudden and distance great, then mind communes with mind,
+and strange stories arise of dream, presentiment or vision, where
+the mother sees her dying son, and is past the first bitterness of her
+grief ere the message comes which should have broken the news.
+The learned have of late looked into the matter and have even labelled
+it with a name; but what can we know more of it save that a poor
+stricken soul, when hard-pressed and driven, can shoot across the earth
+some ten-thousand-mile-distant picture of its trouble to the mind which
+is most akin to it.  Far be it from me to say that there lies no such
+power within us, for of all things which the brain will grasp the last
+will be itself; but yet it is well to be very cautious over such
+matters, for once at least I have known that which was within the laws
+of nature seem to be far upon the further side of them.
+
+John Vansittart was the younger partner of the firm of Hudson and
+Vansittart, coffee exporters of the Island of Ceylon, three-quarters
+Dutchman by descent, but wholly English in his sympathies.  For years I
+had been his agent in London, and when in '72 he came over to England
+for a three months' holiday, he turned to me for the introductions which
+would enable him to see something of town and country life.  Armed with
+seven letters he left my offices, and for many weeks scrappy notes from
+different parts of the country let me know that he had found favour in
+the eyes of my friends.  Then came word of his engagement to Emily
+Lawson, of a cadet branch of the Hereford Lawsons, and at the very tail
+of the first flying rumour the news of his absolute marriage, for the
+wooing of a wanderer must be short, and the days were already crowding
+on towards the date when he must be upon his homeward journey.  They
+were to return together to Colombo in one of the firm's own thousand-ton
+barque-rigged sailing ships, and this was to be their princely
+honeymoon, at once a necessity and a delight.
+
+Those were the royal days of coffee-planting in Ceylon, before a single
+season and a rotten fungus drove a whole community through years of
+despair to one of the greatest commercial victories which pluck and
+ingenuity ever won.  Not often is it that men have the heart when their
+one great industry is withered to rear up in a few years another as rich
+to take its place, and the tea-fields of Ceylon are as true a monument
+to courage as is the lion at Waterloo.  But in '72 there was no cloud
+yet above the skyline, and the hopes of the planters were as high and as
+bright as the hillsides on which they reared their crops.  Vansittart
+came down to London with his young and beautiful wife.  I was
+introduced, dined with them, and it was finally arranged that I, since
+business called me also to Ceylon, should be a fellow-passenger with
+them on the _Eastern Star_, which was timed to sail on the following
+Monday.
+
+It was on the Sunday evening that I saw him again.  He was shown up into
+my rooms about nine o'clock at night, with the air of a man who is
+bothered and out of sorts.  His hand, as I shook it, was hot and dry.
+
+"I wish, Atkinson," said he, "that you could give me a little lime juice
+and water.  I have a beastly thirst upon me, and the more I take the
+more I seem to want."
+
+I rang and ordered a carafe and glasses.  "You are flushed," said I.
+"You don't look the thing."
+
+"No, I'm clean off colour.  Got a touch of rheumatism in my back, and
+don't seem to taste my food.  It is this vile London that is choking me.
+I'm not used to breathing air which has been used up by four million
+lungs all sucking away on every side of you." He flapped his crooked
+hands before his face, like a man who really struggles for his breath.
+
+"A touch of the sea will soon set you right."
+
+"Yes, I'm of one mind with you there.  That's the thing for me.  I want
+no other doctor.  If I don't get to sea to-morrow I'll have an illness.
+There are no two ways about it." He drank off a tumbler of lime juice,
+and clapped his two hands with his knuckles doubled up into the small of
+his back.
+
+"That seems to ease me," said he, looking at me with a filmy eye.
+"Now I want your help, Atkinson, for I am rather awkwardly placed."
+
+"As how?"
+
+"This way.  My wife's mother got ill and wired for her.  I couldn't
+go--you know best yourself how tied I have been--so she had to go alone.
+Now I've had another wire to say that she can't come to-morrow, but that
+she will pick up the ship at Falmouth on Wednesday.  We put in there,
+you know, and in, though I count it hard, Atkinson, that a man should be
+asked to believe in a mystery, and cursed if he can't do it.  Cursed,
+mind you, no less." He leaned forward and began to draw a catchy breath
+like a man who is poised on the very edge of a sob.
+
+Then first it came to my mind that I had heard much of the hard-drinking
+life of the island, and that from brandy came those wild words and
+fevered hands.  The flushed cheek and the glazing eye were those of one
+whose drink is strong upon him.  Sad it was to see so noble a young man
+in the grip of that most bestial of all the devils.
+
+"You should lie down," I said, with some severity.
+
+He screwed up his eyes like a man who is striving to wake himself, and
+looked up with an air of surprise.
+
+"So I shall presently," said he, quite rationally.  "I felt quite swimmy
+just now, but I am my own man again now.  Let me see, what was I talking
+about?  Oh ah, of course, about the wife.  She joins the ship at
+Falmouth.  Now I want to go round by water.  I believe my health depends
+upon it.  I just want a little clean first-lung air to set me on my feet
+again.  I ask you, like a good fellow, to go to Falmouth by rail, so
+that in case we should be late you may be there to look after the wife.
+Put up at the Royal Hotel, and I will wire her that you are there.
+Her sister will bring her down, so that it will be all plain sailing."
+
+"I'll do it with pleasure," said I.  "In fact, I would rather go by
+rail, for we shall have enough and to spare of the sea before we reach
+Colombo.  I believe too that you badly need a change.  Now, I should go
+and turn in, if I were you."
+
+"Yes, I will.  I sleep aboard tonight.  You know," he continued, as the
+film settled down again over his eyes, "I've not slept well the last few
+nights.  I've been troubled with theolololog--that is to say,
+theolological--hang it," with a desperate effort, "with the doubts of
+theolologicians.  Wondering why the Almighty made us, you know, and why
+He made our heads swimmy, and fixed little pains into the small of our
+backs.  Maybe I'll do better tonight."  He rose and steadied himself with
+an effort against the corner of the chair back.
+
+"Look here, Vansittart," said I, gravely, stepping up to him, and laying
+my hand upon his sleeve, "I can give you a shakedown here.  You are not
+fit to go out.  You are all over the place.  You've been mixing your
+drinks."
+
+"Drinks!" He stared at me stupidly.
+
+"You used to carry your liquor better than this."
+
+"I give you my word, Atkinson, that I have not had a drain for two days.
+It's not drink.  I don't know what it is.  I suppose you think this is
+drink."  He took up my hand in his burning grasp, and passed it over his
+own forehead.
+
+"Great Lord!" said I.
+
+His skin felt like a thin sheet of velvet beneath which lies a
+close-packed layer of small shot.  It was smooth to the touch at any one
+place, but to a finger passed along it, rough as a nutmeg grater.
+
+"It's all right," said he, smiling at my startled face.  "I've had the
+prickly heat nearly as bad."
+
+"But this is never prickly heat."
+
+"No, it's London.  It's breathing bad air.  But tomorrow it'll be all
+right.  There's a surgeon aboard, so I shall be in safe hands.  I must
+be off now."
+
+"Not you," said I, pushing him back into a chair.  "This is past a joke.
+You don't move from here until a doctor sees you.  Just stay where you
+are."
+
+I caught up my hat, and rushing round to the house of a neighbouring
+physician, I brought him back with me.  The room was empty and
+Vansittart gone.  I rang the bell.  The servant said that the gentleman
+had ordered a cab the instant that I had left, and had gone off in it.
+He had told the cabman to drive to the docks.
+
+"Did the gentleman seem ill?" I asked.
+
+"Ill!"  The man smiled.  "No, sir, he was singin' his 'ardest all the
+time."
+
+The information was not as reassuring as my servant seemed to think, but
+I reflected that he was going straight back to the _Eastern Star_, and
+that there was a doctor aboard of her, so that there was nothing which I
+could do in the matter.  None the less, when I thought of his thirst,
+his burning hands, his heavy eye, his tripping speech, and lastly, of
+that leprous forehead, I carried with me to bed an unpleasant memory of
+my visitor and his visit.
+
+At eleven o'clock next day I was at the docks, but the _Eastern Star_
+had already moved down the river, and was nearly at Gravesend.
+To Gravesend I went by train, but only to see her topmasts far off,
+with a plume of smoke from a tug in front of her.  I would hear no more
+of my friend until I rejoined him at Falmouth.  When I got back to my
+offices, a telegram was awaiting me from Mrs. Vansittart, asking me to
+meet her; and next evening found us both at the Royal Hotel, Falmouth,
+where we were to wait for the _Eastern Star_.  Ten days passed, and
+there came no news of her.
+
+They were ten days which I am not likely to forget.  On the very day
+that the _Eastern Star_ had cleared from the Thames, a furious easterly
+gale had sprung up, and blew on from day to day for the greater part
+of a week without the sign of a lull.  Such a screaming, raving,
+long-drawn storm has never been known on the southern coast.  From our
+hotel windows the sea view was all banked in haze, with a little
+rain-swept half-circle under our very eyes, churned and lashed into one
+tossing stretch of foam.  So heavy was the wind upon the waves that
+little sea could rise, for the crest of each billow was torn shrieking
+from it, and lashed broadcast over the bay.  Clouds, wind, sea, all were
+rushing to the west, and there, looking down at this mad jumble of
+elements, I waited on day after day, my sole companion a white, silent
+woman, with terror in her eyes, her forehead pressed ever against the
+window, her gaze from early morning to the fall of night fixed upon
+that wall of grey haze through which the loom of a vessel might come.
+She said nothing, but that face of hers was one long wail of fear.
+
+On the fifth day I took counsel with an old seaman.  I should have
+preferred to have done so alone, but she saw me speak with him, and was
+at our side in an instant, with parted lips and a prayer in her eyes.
+
+"Seven days out from London," said he, "and five in the gale.  Well, the
+Channel's swept clear by this wind.  There's three things for it.
+She may have popped into port on the French side.  That's like enough."
+
+"No, no; he knew we were here.  He would have telegraphed."
+
+"Ah, yes, so he would.  Well, then, he might have run for it, and if he
+did that he won't be very far from Madeira by now.  That'll be it, marm,
+you may depend."
+
+"Or else?  You said there was a third chance."
+
+"Did I, marm?  No, only two, I think.  I don't think I said anything of
+a third.  Your ship's out there, depend upon it, away out in the
+Atlantic, and you'll hear of it time enough, for the weather is
+breaking.  Now don't you fret, marm, and wait quiet, and you'll find a
+real blue Cornish sky tomorrow."
+
+The old seaman was right in his surmise, for the next day broke calm and
+bright, with only a low dwindling cloud in the west to mark the last
+trailing wreaths of the storm-wrack.  But still there came no word from
+the sea, and no sign of the ship.  Three more weary days had passed, the
+weariest that I have ever spent, when there came a seafaring man to the
+hotel with a letter.  I gave a shout of joy.  It was from the captain of
+the _Eastern Star_.  As I read the first lines of it I whisked my hand
+over it, but she laid her own upon it and drew it away.  "I have seen
+it," said she, in a cold, quiet voice.  "I may as well see the rest,
+too."
+
+
+"DEAR SIR," said the letter,
+
+"Mr. Vansittart is down with the small-pox, and we are blown so far on
+our course that we don't know what to do, he being off his head and
+unfit to tell us.  By dead reckoning we are but three hundred miles from
+Funchal, so I take it that it is best that we should push on there, get
+Mr. V. into hospital, and wait in the Bay until you come.  There's a
+sailing-ship due from Falmouth to Funchal in a few days' time, as I
+understand.  This goes by the brig _Marian_ of Falmouth, and five pounds
+is due to the master,
+Yours respectfully,
+
+"JNO. HINES."
+
+
+She was a wonderful woman that, only a chit of a girl fresh from school,
+but as quiet and strong as a man.  She said nothing--only pressed her
+lips together tight, and put on her bonnet.
+
+"You are going out?" I asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can I be of use?"
+
+"No; I am going to the doctor's."
+
+"To the doctor's?"
+
+"Yes.  To learn how to nurse a small-pox case."
+
+She was busy at that all the evening, and next morning we were off with
+a fine ten-knot breeze in the barque _Rose of Sharon_ for Madeira.
+For five days we made good time, and were no great way from the island;
+but on the sixth there fell a calm, and we lay without motion on a sea
+of oil, heaving slowly, but making not a foot of way.
+
+At ten o'clock that night Emily Vansittart and I stood leaning on the
+starboard railing of the poop, with a full moon shining at our backs,
+and casting a black shadow of the barque, and of our own two heads upon
+the shining water.  From the shadow a broadening path of moonshine
+stretched away to the lonely sky-line, flickering and shimmering in the
+gentle heave of the swell.  We were talking with bent heads, chatting of
+the calm, of the chances of wind, of the look of the sky, when there
+came a sudden plop, like a rising salmon, and there, in the clear light,
+John Vansittart sprang out of the water and looked up at us.
+
+I never saw anything clearer in my life than I saw that man.  The moon
+shone full upon him, and he was but three oars' lengths away.  His face
+was more puffed than when I had seen him last, mottled here and there
+with dark scabs, his mouth and eyes open as one who is struck with some
+overpowering surprise.  He had some white stuff streaming from his
+shoulders, and one hand was raised to his ear, the other crooked across
+his breast.  I saw him leap from the water into the air, and in the
+dead calm the waves of his coming lapped up against the sides of the
+vessel.  Then his figure sank back into the water again, and I heard a
+rending, crackling sound like a bundle of brushwood snapping in the fire
+on a frosty night.  There were no signs of him when I looked again, but
+a swift swirl and eddy on the still sea still marked the spot where he
+had been.  How long I stood there, tingling to my finger-tips, holding
+up an unconscious woman with one hand, clutching at the rail of the
+vessel with the other, was more than I could afterwards tell.  I had
+been noted as a man of-slow and unresponsive emotions, but this time at
+least I was shaken to the core.  Once and twice I struck my foot upon
+the deck to be certain that I was indeed the master of my own senses,
+and that this was not some mad prank of an unruly brain.  As I stood,
+still marvelling, the woman shivered, opened her eyes, gasped, and then
+standing erect with her hands upon the rail, looked out over the moonlit
+sea with a face which had aged ten years in a summer night.
+
+"You saw his vision?" she murmured.
+
+"I saw something."
+
+"It was he!  It was John!  He is dead!"
+
+I muttered some lame words of doubt.
+
+"Doubtless he died at this hour," she whispered.  "In hospital at
+Madeira.  I have read of such things.  His thoughts were with me.
+His vision came to me.  Oh, my John, my dear, dear, lost John!"
+
+She broke out suddenly into a storm of weeping, and I led her down into
+her cabin, where I left her with her sorrow.  That night a brisk breeze
+blew up from the east, and in the evening of the next day we passed the
+two islets of Los Desertos, and dropped anchor at sundown in the Bay of
+Funchal.  The _Eastern Star_ lay no great distance from us, with the
+quarantine flag flying from her main, and her Jack half-way up her peak.
+
+"You see," said Mrs. Vansittart, quickly.  She was dry-eyed now, for she
+had known how it would be.
+
+That night we received permission from the authorities to move on board
+the _Eastern Star_.  The captain, Hines, was waiting upon deck with
+confusion and grief contending upon his bluff face as he sought for
+words with which to break this heavy tidings, but she took the story
+from his lips.
+
+"I know that my husband is dead," she said.  "He died yesterday night,
+about ten o'clock, in hospital at Madeira, did he not?"
+
+The seaman stared aghast.  "No, marm, he died eight days ago at sea, and
+we had to bury him out there, for we lay in a belt of calm, and could
+not say when we might make the land."
+
+Well, those are the main facts about the death of John Vansittart, and
+his appearance to his wife somewhere about lat. 35 N. and long. 15 W.
+A clearer case of a wraith has seldom been made out, and since then it
+has been told as such, and put into print as such, and endorsed by a
+learned society as such, and so floated off with many others to support
+the recent theory of telepathy.  For myself, I hold telepathy to be
+proved, but I would snatch this one case from amid the evidence, and say
+that I do not think that it was the wraith of John Vansittart, but
+John Vansittart himself whom we saw that night leaping into the
+moonlight out of the depths of the Atlantic.  It has ever been my belief
+that some strange chance--one of those chances which seem so improbable
+and yet so constantly occur--had becalmed us over the very spot where
+the man had been buried a week before.  For the rest, the surgeon
+tells me that the leaden weight was not too firmly fixed, and that seven
+days bring about changes which fetch a body to the surface.  Coming from
+the depth to which the weight would have sunk it, he explains that it
+might well attain such a velocity as to carry it clear of the water.
+Such is my own explanation of the matter, and if you ask me what then
+became of the body, I must recall to you that snapping, crackling sound,
+with the swirl in the water.  The shark is a surface feeder and is
+plentiful in those parts.
+
+
+
+THE GREAT BROWN-PERICORD MOTOR
+
+
+It was a cold, foggy, dreary evening in May.  Along the Strand blurred
+patches of light marked the position of the lamps.  The flaring shop
+windows flickered vaguely with steamy brightness through the thick and
+heavy atmosphere.
+
+The high lines of houses which lead down to the Embankment were all dark
+and deserted, or illuminated only by the glimmering lamp of the
+caretaker.  At one point, however, there shone out from three windows
+upon the second floor a rich flood of light, which broke the sombre
+monotony of the terrace.  Passers-by glanced up curiously, and drew each
+other's attention to the ruddy glare, for it marked the chambers of
+Francis Pericord, the inventor and electrical engineer.  Long into the
+watches of the night the gleam of his lamps bore witness to the untiring
+energy and restless industry which was rapidly carrying him to the first
+rank in his profession.
+
+Within the chamber sat two men.  The one was Pericord himself--
+hawk-faced and angular, with the black hair and brisk bearing which
+spoke of his Celtic origin.  The other--thick, sturdy, and blue-eyed--
+was Jeremy Brown, the well-known mechanician.  They had been partners in
+many an invention, in which the creative genius of the one had been
+aided by the practical abilities of the other.  It was a question among
+their friends as to which was the better man.
+
+It was no chance visit which had brought Brown into Pericord's workshop
+at so late an hour.  Business was to be done--business which was to
+decide the failure or success of months of work, and which might affect
+their whole careers.  Between them lay a long brown table, stained and
+corroded by strong acids, and littered with giant carboys, Faure's
+accumulators, voltaic piles, coils of wire, and great blocks of
+non-conducting porcelain.  In the midst of all this lumber there stood a
+singular whizzing, whirring machine, upon which the eyes of both
+partners were riveted.
+
+A small square metal receptacle was connected by numerous wires to a
+broad steel girdle, furnished on either side with two powerful
+projecting joints.  The girdle was motionless, but the joints with the
+short arms attached to them flashed round every few seconds, with a
+pause between each rhythmic turn.  The power which moved them came
+evidently from the metal box.  A subtle odour of ozone was in the air.
+
+"How about the flanges, Brown?" asked the inventor.
+
+"They were too large to bring.  They are seven foot by three.  There is
+power enough there to work them, however.  I will answer for that."
+
+"Aluminium with an alloy of copper?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"See how beautifully it works."  Pericord stretched out a thin, nervous
+hand, and pressed a button upon the machine.  The joints revolved more
+slowly, and came presently to a dead stop.  Again he touched a spring
+and the arms shivered and woke up again into their crisp metallic life.
+"The experimenter need not exert his muscular powers," he remarked.
+"He has only to be passive, and use his intelligence."
+
+"Thanks to my motor," said Brown.
+
+"_Our_ motor," the other broke in sharply.
+
+"Oh, of course," said his colleague impatiently.
+
+"The motor which you thought of, and which I reduced to practice--call
+it what you like."
+
+"I call it the Brown-Pericord Motor," cried the inventor with an angry
+flash of his dark eyes.  "You worked out the details, but the abstract
+thought is mine, and mine alone."
+
+"An abstract thought won't turn an engine," said Brown, doggedly.
+
+"That was why I took you into partnership," the other retorted, drumming
+nervously with his fingers upon the table.  "I invent, you build.  It is
+a fair division of labour."
+
+Brown pursed up his lips, as though by no means satisfied upon the
+point.  Seeing, however, that further argument was useless, he turned
+his attention to the machine, which was shivering and rocking with each
+swing of its arms, as though a very little more would send it skimming
+from the table.
+
+"Is it not splendid?" cried Pericord.
+
+"It is satisfactory," said the more phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon.
+
+"There's immortality in it!"
+
+"There's money in it!"
+
+"Our names will go down with Montgolfier's."
+
+"With Rothschild's, I hope."
+
+"No, no, Brown; you take too material a view," cried the inventor,
+raising his gleaming eyes from the machine to his companion.
+"Our fortunes are a mere detail.  Money is a thing which every
+heavy-witted plutocrat in the country shares with us.  My hopes rise to
+something higher than that.  Our true reward will come in the gratitude
+and goodwill of the human race."
+
+Brown shrugged his shoulders.  "You may have my share of that," he said.
+"I am a practical man.  We must test our invention."
+
+"Where can we do it?"
+
+"That is what I wanted to speak about.  It must be absolutely secret.
+If we had private grounds of our own it would be an easy matter, but
+there is no privacy in London."
+
+"We must take it into the country."
+
+"I have a suggestion to offer," said Brown.  "My brother has a place in
+Sussex on the high land near Beachy Head.  There is, I remember, a large
+and lofty barn near the house.  Will is in Scotland, but the key is
+always at my disposal.  Why not take the machine down tomorrow and test
+it in the barn?"
+
+"Nothing could be better."
+
+"There is a train to Eastbourne at one."
+
+"I shall be at the station."
+
+"Bring the gear with you, and I will bring the flanges," said the
+mechanician, rising.  "Tomorrow will prove whether we have been
+following a shadow, or whether fortune is at our feet.  One o'clock at
+Victoria."  He walked swiftly down the stair and was quickly reabsorbed
+into the flood of comfortless clammy humanity which ebbed and flowed
+along the Strand.
+
+The morning was bright and spring-like.  A pale blue sky arched over
+London, with a few gauzy white clouds drifting lazily across it.
+At eleven o'clock Brown might have been seen entering the Patent Office
+with a great roll of parchment, diagrams, and plans under his arm.
+At twelve he emerged again smiling, and, opening his pocket-book, he
+packed away very carefully a small slip of official blue paper.  At five
+minutes to one his cab rolled into Victoria Station.  Two giant
+canvas-covered parcels, like enormous kites, were handed down by the
+cabman from the top, and consigned to the care of a guard.  On the
+platform Pericord was pacing up and down, with long eager step and
+swinging arms, a tinge of pink upon his sunken and sallow cheeks.
+
+"All right?" he asked.
+
+Brown pointed in answer to his baggage.
+
+"I have the motor and the girdle already packed away in the guard's van.
+Be careful, guard, for it is delicate machinery of great value.
+So!  Now we can start with an easy conscience."
+
+At Eastbourne the precious motor was carried to a four-wheeler, and the
+great flanges hoisted on the top.  A long drive took them to the house
+where the keys were kept, whence they set off across the barren Downs.
+The building which was their destination was a commonplace white-washed
+structure, with straggling stables and out-houses, standing in a grassy
+hollow which sloped down from the edge of the chalk cliffs.  It was a
+cheerless house even when in use, but now with its smokeless chimneys
+and shuttered windows it looked doubly dreary.  The owner had planted a
+grove of young larches and firs around it, but the sweeping spray had
+blighted them, and they hung their withered heads in melancholy groups.
+It was a gloomy and forbidding spot.
+
+But the inventors were in no mood to be moved by such trifles.
+The lonelier the place, the more fitted for their purpose.  With the
+help of the cabman they carried their packages down the footpath, and
+laid them in the darkened dining-room.  The sun was setting as the
+distant murmur of wheels told them that they were finally alone.
+
+Pericord had thrown open the shutters and the mellow evening light
+streamed in through the discoloured windows.  Brown drew a knife from
+his pocket and cut the pack-thread with which the canvas was secured.
+As the brown covering fell away it disclosed two great yellow metal
+fans.  These he leaned carefully against the wall.  The girdle, the
+connecting-bands, and the motor were then in turn unpacked.  It was dark
+before all was set out in order.  A lamp was lit, and by its light the
+two men continued to tighten screws, clinch rivets, and make the last
+preparations for their experiment.
+
+"That finishes it," said Brown at last, stepping back and surveying the
+machine.
+
+Pericord said nothing, but his face glowed with pride and expectation.
+
+"We must have something to eat," Brown remarked, laying out some
+provisions which he had brought with him.
+
+"Afterwards."
+
+"No, now," said the stolid mechanician.  "I am half starved."  He pulled
+up to the table and made a hearty meal, while his Celtic companion
+strode impatiently up and down, with twitching fingers and restless
+eyes.
+
+"Now then," said Brown, facing round, and brushing the crumbs from his
+lap, "who is to put it on?"
+
+"I shall," cried his companion eagerly.  "What we do to-night is likely
+to be historic."
+
+"But there is some danger," suggested Brown.  "We cannot quite tell how
+it may act."
+
+"That is nothing," said Pericord, with a wave of his hand.
+
+"But there is no use our going out of our way to incur danger."
+
+"What then?  One of us must do it."
+
+"Not at all.  The motor would act equally well if attached to any
+inanimate object."
+
+"That is true," said Pericord, thoughtfully.
+
+"There are bricks by the barn.  I have a sack here.  Why should not a
+bagful of them take your place?"
+
+"It is a good idea.  I see no objection."
+
+"Come on then," and the two sallied out, bearing with them the various
+sections of their machine.  The moon was shining cold and clear though
+an occasional ragged cloud drifted across her face.  All was still and
+silent upon the Downs.  They stood and listened before they entered the
+barn, but not a sound came to their ears, save the dull murmur of the
+sea and the distant barking of a dog.  Pericord journeyed backwards and
+forwards with all that they might need, while Brown filled a long narrow
+sack with bricks.
+
+When all was ready, the door of the barn was closed, and the lamp
+balanced upon an empty packing-case.  The bag of bricks was laid upon
+two trestles, and the broad steel girdle was buckled round it.  Then the
+great flanges, the wires, and the metal box containing the motor were in
+turn attached to the girdle.  Last of all a flat steel rudder, shaped
+like a fish's tail, was secured to the bottom of the sack.
+
+"We must make it travel in a small circle," said Pericord, glancing
+round at the bare high walls.
+
+"Tie the rudder down at one side," suggested Brown.  "Now it is ready.
+Press the connection and off she goes!"
+
+Pericord leaned forward, his long sallow face quivering with excitement.
+His white nervous hands darted here and there among the wires.
+Brown stood impassive with critical eyes.  There was a sharp burr from
+the machine.  The huge yellow wings gave a convulsive flap.  Then
+another.  Then a third, slower and stronger, with a fuller sweep.
+Then a fourth which filled the barn with a blast of driven air.  At the
+fifth the bag of bricks began to dance upon the trestles.  At the sixth
+it sprang into the air, and would have fallen to the ground, but the
+seventh came to save it, and fluttered it forward through the air.
+Slowly rising, it flapped heavily round in a circle, like some great
+clumsy bird, filling the barn with its buzzing and whirring.  In the
+uncertain yellow light of the single lamp it was strange to see the loom
+of the ungainly thing, flapping off into the shadows, and then circling
+back into the narrow zone of light.
+
+The two men stood for a while in silence.  Then Pericord threw his long
+arms up into the air.
+
+"It acts!" he cried.  "The Brown-Pericord Motor acts!"  He danced about
+like a madman in his delight.  Brown's eyes twinkled, and he began
+to whistle.
+
+"See how smoothly it goes, Brown!" cried the inventor.  "And the
+rudder--how well it acts!  We must register it tomorrow."
+
+His comrade's face darkened and set.  "It _is_ registered," he said,
+with a forced laugh.
+
+"Registered?" said Pericord.  "Registered?"  He repeated the word first
+in a whisper, and then in a kind of scream.  "Who has dared to register
+my invention?"
+
+"I did it this morning.  There is nothing to be excited about.  It is
+all right."
+
+"You registered the motor!  Under whose name?"
+
+"Under my own," said Brown, sullenly.  "I consider that I have the best
+right to it."
+
+"And my name does not appear?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"You villain!" screamed Pericord.  "You thief and villain!  You would
+steal my work!  You would filch my credit!  I will have that patent back
+if I have to tear your throat out!"  A sombre fire burned in his black
+eyes, and his hands writhed themselves together with passion.  Brown was
+no coward, but he shrank back as the other advanced upon him.
+
+"Keep your hands off!" he said, drawing a knife from his pocket.
+"I will defend myself if you attack me."
+
+"You threaten me?" cried Pericord, whose face was livid with anger.
+"You are a bully as well as a cheat.  Will you give up the patent?"
+
+"No, I will not."
+
+"Brown, I say, give it up!"
+
+"I will not.  I did the work."
+
+Pericord sprang madly forward with blazing eyes and clutching fingers.
+His companion writhed out of his grasp, but was dashed against the
+packing-case, over which he fell.  The lamp was extinguished, and the
+whole barn plunged into darkness.  A single ray of moonlight shining
+through a narrow chink flickered over the great waving fans as they
+came and went.
+
+"Will you give up the patent, Brown?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Will you give it up?"
+
+Again no answer.  Not a sound save the humming and creaking overhead.
+A cold pang of fear and doubt struck through Pericord's heart.  He felt
+aimlessly about in the dark and his fingers closed upon a hand.  It was
+cold and unresponsive.  With all his anger turned to icy horror he
+struck a match, set the lamp up, and lit it.
+
+Brown lay huddled up on the other side of the packing-case.  Pericord
+seized him in his arms, and with convulsive strength lifted him across.
+Then the mystery of his silence was explained.  He had fallen with his
+right arms doubled up under him, and his own weight had driven the knife
+deeply into his body.  He had died without a groan.  The tragedy had
+been sudden, horrible, and complete.
+
+Pericord sat silently on the edge of the case, staring blankly down, and
+shivering like one with the ague, while the great Brown-Pericord Motor
+boomed and hurtled above him.  How long he sat there can never be known.
+It might have been minutes or it might have been hours.  A thousand mad
+schemes flashed through his dazed brain.  It was true that he had been
+only the indirect cause.  But who would believe that?  He glanced down
+at his blood-spattered clothing.  Everything was against him.  It would
+be better to fly than to give himself up, relying upon his innocence.
+No one in London knew where they were.  If he could dispose of the body
+he might have a few days clear before any suspicion would be aroused.
+
+Suddenly a loud crash recalled him to himself.  The flying sack had
+gradually risen with each successive circle until it had struck against
+the rafters.  The blow displaced the connecting-gear, and the machine
+fell heavily to the ground.  Pericord undid the girdle.  The motor was
+uninjured.  A sudden strange thought flashed upon him as he looked at
+it.  The machine had become hateful to him.  He might dispose both of it
+and the body in a way that would baffle all human search.
+
+He threw open the barn door, and carried his companion out into the
+moonlight.  There was a hillock outside, and on the summit of this he
+laid him reverently down.  Then he brought from the barn the motor, the
+girdle and the flanges.  With trembling fingers he fastened the broad
+steel belt round the dead man's waist.  Then he screwed the wings into
+the sockets.  Beneath he slung the motor-box, fastened the wires, and
+switched on the connection.  For a minute or two the huge yellow fans
+flapped and flickered.  Then the body began to move in little jumps down
+the side of the hillock, gathering a gradual momentum, until at last it
+heaved up into the air and soared off in the moonlight.  He had not used
+the rudder, but had turned the head for the south.  Gradually the weird
+thing rose higher, and sped faster, until it had passed over the line of
+cliff, and was sweeping over the silent sea.  Pericord watched it with a
+white drawn face, until it looked like a black bird with golden wings
+half shrouded in the mist which lay over the waters.
+
+In the New York State Lunatic Asylum there is a wild-eyed man whose name
+and birth-place are alike unknown.  His reason has been unseated by some
+sudden shock, the doctors say, though of what nature they are unable to
+determine.  "It is the most delicate machine which is most readily put
+out of gear," they remark, and point, in proof of their axiom, to the
+complicated electric engines, and remarkable aeronautic machines which
+the patient is fond of devising in his more lucid moments.
+
+
+
+THE TERROR OF BLUE JOHN GAP
+
+
+The following narrative was found among the papers of Dr. James
+Hardcastle, who died of phthisis on February 4th, 1908, at 36,
+Upper Coventry Flats, South Kensington.  Those who knew him best,
+while refusing to express an opinion upon this particular
+statement, are unanimous in asserting that he was a man of a sober
+and scientific turn of mind, absolutely devoid of imagination, and
+most unlikely to invent any abnormal series of events.  The paper
+was contained in an envelope, which was docketed, "A Short Account
+of the Circumstances which occurred near Miss Allerton's Farm in
+North-West Derbyshire in the Spring of Last Year."  The envelope
+was sealed, and on the other side was written in pencil--
+
+DEAR SEATON,--
+
+"It may interest, and perhaps pain you, to know that the
+incredulity with which you met my story has prevented me from ever
+opening my mouth upon the subject again.  I leave this record after
+my death, and perhaps strangers may be found to have more
+confidence in me than my friend."
+
+
+Inquiry has failed to elicit who this Seaton may have been.  I
+may add that the visit of the deceased to Allerton's Farm, and the
+general nature of the alarm there, apart from his particular
+explanation, have been absolutely established.  With this foreword
+I append his account exactly as he left it.  It is in the form of
+a diary, some entries in which have been expanded, while a few have
+been erased.
+
+
+April 17.--Already I feel the benefit of this wonderful
+upland air.  The farm of the Allertons lies fourteen hundred and
+twenty feet above sea-level, so it may well be a bracing climate.
+Beyond the usual morning cough I have very little discomfort, and,
+what with the fresh milk and the home-grown mutton, I have
+every chance of putting on weight.  I think Saunderson will be
+pleased.
+
+The two Miss Allertons are charmingly quaint and kind, two dear
+little hard-working old maids, who are ready to lavish all the
+heart which might have gone out to husband and to children upon an
+invalid stranger.  Truly, the old maid is a most useful person, one
+of the reserve forces of the community.  They talk of the
+superfluous woman, but what would the poor superfluous man do
+without her kindly presence?  By the way, in their simplicity they
+very quickly let out the reason why Saunderson recommended their
+farm.  The Professor rose from the ranks himself, and I believe
+that in his youth he was not above scaring crows in these very
+fields.
+
+It is a most lonely spot, and the walks are picturesque in the
+extreme.  The farm consists of grazing land lying at the bottom of
+an irregular valley.  On each side are the fantastic limestone
+hills, formed of rock so soft that you can break it away with your
+hands.  All this country is hollow.  Could you strike it with some
+gigantic hammer it would boom like a drum, or possibly cave in
+altogether and expose some huge subterranean sea.  A great sea
+there must surely be, for on all sides the streams run into the
+mountain itself, never to reappear.  There are gaps everywhere amid
+the rocks, and when you pass through them you find yourself in
+great caverns, which wind down into the bowels of the earth.  I
+have a small bicycle lamp, and it is a perpetual joy to me to carry
+it into these weird solitudes, and to see the wonderful silver and
+black effect when I throw its light upon the stalactites which
+drape the lofty roofs.  Shut off the lamp, and you are in the
+blackest darkness.  Turn it on, and it is a scene from the Arabian
+Nights.
+
+But there is one of these strange openings in the earth which
+has a special interest, for it is the handiwork, not of nature, but
+of man.  I had never heard of Blue John when I came to these parts.
+It is the name given to a peculiar mineral of a beautiful purple
+shade, which is only found at one or two places in the world.  It
+is so rare that an ordinary vase of Blue John would be valued at a
+great price.  The Romans, with that extraordinary instinct of
+theirs, discovered that it was to be found in this valley, and sank
+a horizontal shaft deep into the mountain side.  The opening of
+their mine has been called Blue John Gap, a clean-cut arch in
+the rock, the mouth all overgrown with bushes.  It is a goodly
+passage which the Roman miners have cut, and it intersects some of
+the great water-worn caves, so that if you enter Blue John Gap you
+would do well to mark your steps and to have a good store of
+candles, or you may never make your way back to the daylight again.
+I have not yet gone deeply into it, but this very day I stood at
+the mouth of the arched tunnel, and peering down into the black
+recesses beyond, I vowed that when my health returned I would
+devote some holiday to exploring those mysterious depths and
+finding out for myself how far the Roman had penetrated into the
+Derbyshire hills.
+
+Strange how superstitious these countrymen are!  I should have
+thought better of young Armitage, for he is a man of some education
+and character, and a very fine fellow for his station in life.  I
+was standing at the Blue John Gap when he came across the field to
+me.
+
+"Well, doctor," said he, "you're not afraid, anyhow."
+
+"Afraid!" I answered.  "Afraid of what?"
+
+"Of it," said he, with a jerk of his thumb towards the black
+vault, "of the Terror that lives in the Blue John Cave."
+
+How absurdly easy it is for a legend to arise in a lonely
+countryside!  I examined him as to the reasons for his weird
+belief.  It seems that from time to time sheep have been missing
+from the fields, carried bodily away, according to Armitage.  That
+they could have wandered away of their own accord and disappeared
+among the mountains was an explanation to which he would not
+listen.  On one occasion a pool of blood had been found, and some
+tufts of wool.  That also, I pointed out, could be explained in a
+perfectly natural way.  Further, the nights upon which sheep
+disappeared were invariably very dark, cloudy nights with no moon.
+This I met with the obvious retort that those were the nights which
+a commonplace sheep-stealer would naturally choose for his work.
+On one occasion a gap had been made in a wall, and some of
+the stones scattered for a considerable distance.  Human agency
+again, in my opinion.  Finally, Armitage clinched all his arguments
+by telling me that he had actually heard the Creature--indeed, that
+anyone could hear it who remained long enough at the Gap.  It was
+a distant roaring of an immense volume.  I could not but smile
+at this, knowing, as I do, the strange reverberations which come
+out of an underground water system running amid the chasms of a
+limestone formation.  My incredulity annoyed Armitage, so that he
+turned and left me with some abruptness.
+
+And now comes the queer point about the whole business.  I was
+still standing near the mouth of the cave turning over in my mind
+the various statements of Armitage, and reflecting how readily they
+could be explained away, when suddenly, from the depth of the
+tunnel beside me, there issued a most extraordinary sound.  How
+shall I describe it?  First of all it seemed to be a great
+distance away, far down in the bowels of the earth.  Secondly, in
+spite of this suggestion of distance, it was very loud.  Lastly, it
+was not a boom, nor a crash, such as one would associate with
+falling water or tumbling rock, but it was a high whine, tremulous
+and vibrating, almost like the whinnying of a horse.  It was
+certainly a most remarkable experience, and one which for a moment,
+I must admit, gave a new significance to Armitage's words.  I
+waited by the Blue John Gap for half an hour or more, but there was
+no return of the sound, so at last I wandered back to the
+farmhouse, rather mystified by what had occurred.  Decidedly I
+shall explore that cavern when my strength is restored.  Of course,
+Armitage's explanation is too absurd for discussion, and yet that
+sound was certainly very strange.  It still rings in my ears as I
+write.
+
+April 20.--In the last three days I have made several
+expeditions to the Blue John Gap, and have even penetrated some
+short distance, but my bicycle lantern is so small and weak that I
+dare not trust myself very far.  I shall do the thing more
+systematically.  I have heard no sound at all, and could almost
+believe that I had been the victim of some hallucination, suggested,
+perhaps, by Armitage's conversation.  Of course, the whole idea is
+absurd, and yet I must confess that those bushes at the entrance of
+the cave do present an appearance as if some heavy creature had
+forced its way through them.  I begin to be keenly interested.  I
+have said nothing to the Miss Allertons, for they are quite
+superstitious enough already, but I have bought some candles, and
+mean to investigate for myself.
+
+I observed this morning that among the numerous tufts of
+sheep's wool which lay among the bushes near the cavern there
+was one which was smeared with blood.  Of course, my reason tells
+me that if sheep wander into such rocky places they are likely to
+injure themselves, and yet somehow that splash of crimson gave me
+a sudden shock, and for a moment I found myself shrinking back in
+horror from the old Roman arch.  A fetid breath seemed to ooze from
+the black depths into which I peered.  Could it indeed be possible
+that some nameless thing, some dreadful presence, was lurking down
+yonder?  I should have been incapable of such feelings in the days
+of my strength, but one grows more nervous and fanciful when one's
+health is shaken.
+
+For the moment I weakened in my resolution, and was ready to
+leave the secret of the old mine, if one exists, for ever unsolved.
+But tonight my interest has returned and my nerves grown more
+steady.  Tomorrow I trust that I shall have gone more deeply into
+this matter.
+
+April 22.--Let me try and set down as accurately as I can
+my extraordinary experience of yesterday.  I started in the
+afternoon, and made my way to the Blue John Gap.  I confess that my
+misgivings returned as I gazed into its depths, and I wished that
+I had brought a companion to share my exploration.  Finally, with
+a return of resolution, I lit my candle, pushed my way through the
+briars, and descended into the rocky shaft.
+
+It went down at an acute angle for some fifty feet, the floor
+being covered with broken stone.  Thence there extended a long,
+straight passage cut in the solid rock.  I am no geologist, but the
+lining of this corridor was certainly of some harder material than
+limestone, for there were points where I could actually see the
+tool-marks which the old miners had left in their excavation, as
+fresh as if they had been done yesterday.  Down this strange,
+old-world corridor I stumbled, my feeble flame throwing a dim circle of
+light around me, which made the shadows beyond the more threatening
+and obscure.  Finally, I came to a spot where the Roman tunnel
+opened into a water-worn cavern--a huge hall, hung with long white
+icicles of lime deposit.  From this central chamber I could dimly
+perceive that a number of passages worn by the subterranean streams
+wound away into the depths of the earth.  I was standing there
+wondering whether I had better return, or whether I dare venture
+farther into this dangerous labyrinth, when my eyes fell upon
+something at my feet which strongly arrested my attention.
+
+The greater part of the floor of the cavern was covered with
+boulders of rock or with hard incrustations of lime, but at this
+particular point there had been a drip from the distant roof, which
+had left a patch of soft mud.  In the very centre of this there was
+a huge mark--an ill-defined blotch, deep, broad and irregular, as
+if a great boulder had fallen upon it.  No loose stone lay near,
+however, nor was there anything to account for the impression.  It
+was far too large to be caused by any possible animal, and besides,
+there was only the one, and the patch of mud was of such a size
+that no reasonable stride could have covered it.  As I rose from
+the examination of that singular mark and then looked round into
+the black shadows which hemmed me in, I must confess that I felt
+for a moment a most unpleasant sinking of my heart, and that, do
+what I could, the candle trembled in my outstretched hand.
+
+I soon recovered my nerve, however, when I reflected how absurd
+it was to associate so huge and shapeless a mark with the track of
+any known animal.  Even an elephant could not have produced it.  I
+determined, therefore, that I would not be scared by vague and
+senseless fears from carrying out my exploration.  Before
+proceeding, I took good note of a curious rock formation in the
+wall by which I could recognize the entrance of the Roman tunnel.
+The precaution was very necessary, for the great cave, so far as I
+could see it, was intersected by passages.  Having made sure of my
+position, and reassured myself by examining my spare candles and my
+matches, I advanced slowly over the rocky and uneven surface of the
+cavern.
+
+And now I come to the point where I met with such sudden and
+desperate disaster.  A stream, some twenty feet broad, ran across
+my path, and I walked for some little distance along the bank to
+find a spot where I could cross dry-shod.  Finally, I came to a
+place where a single flat boulder lay near the centre, which I
+could reach in a stride.  As it chanced, however, the rock had been
+cut away and made top-heavy by the rush of the stream, so that
+it tilted over as I landed on it and shot me into the ice-cold
+water.  My candle went out, and I found myself floundering about in
+utter and absolute darkness.
+
+I staggered to my feet again, more amused than alarmed by my
+adventure.  The candle had fallen from my hand, and was lost in the
+stream, but I had two others in my pocket, so that it was of no
+importance.  I got one of them ready, and drew out my box of
+matches to light it.  Only then did I realize my position.  The box
+had been soaked in my fall into the river.  It was impossible to
+strike the matches.
+
+A cold hand seemed to close round my heart as I realized my
+position.  The darkness was opaque and horrible.  It was so utter
+that one put one's hand up to one's face as if to press off something
+solid.  I stood still, and by an effort I steadied myself.  I tried
+to reconstruct in my mind a map of the floor of the cavern as I had
+last seen it.  Alas! the bearings which had impressed themselves
+upon my mind were high on the wall, and not to be found by touch.
+Still, I remembered in a general way how the sides were situated,
+and I hoped that by groping my way along them I should at last come
+to the opening of the Roman tunnel.  Moving very slowly, and
+continually striking against the rocks, I set out on this desperate
+quest.
+
+But I very soon realized how impossible it was.  In that black,
+velvety darkness one lost all one's bearings in an instant.  Before
+I had made a dozen paces, I was utterly bewildered as to my
+whereabouts.  The rippling of the stream, which was the one sound
+audible, showed me where it lay, but the moment that I left its
+bank I was utterly lost.  The idea of finding my way back in
+absolute darkness through that limestone labyrinth was clearly an
+impossible one.
+
+I sat down upon a boulder and reflected upon my unfortunate
+plight.  I had not told anyone that I proposed to come to the Blue
+John mine, and it was unlikely that a search party would come after
+me.  Therefore I must trust to my own resources to get clear of the
+danger.  There was only one hope, and that was that the matches
+might dry.  When I fell into the river, only half of me had got
+thoroughly wet.  My left shoulder had remained above the water.  I
+took the box of matches, therefore, and put it into my left armpit.
+The moist air of the cavern might possibly be counteracted by
+the heat of my body, but even so, I knew that I could not hope to
+get a light for many hours.  Meanwhile there was nothing for it but
+to wait.
+
+By good luck I had slipped several biscuits into my pocket
+before I left the farm-house.  These I now devoured, and washed
+them down with a draught from that wretched stream which had been
+the cause of all my misfortunes.  Then I felt about for a
+comfortable seat among the rocks, and, having discovered a place
+where I could get a support for my back, I stretched out my legs
+and settled myself down to wait.  I was wretchedly damp and cold,
+but I tried to cheer myself with the reflection that modern science
+prescribed open windows and walks in all weather for my disease.
+Gradually, lulled by the monotonous gurgle of the stream, and by
+the absolute darkness, I sank into an uneasy slumber.
+
+How long this lasted I cannot say.  It may have been for an
+hour, it may have been for several.  Suddenly I sat up on my rock
+couch, with every nerve thrilling and every sense acutely on the
+alert.  Beyond all doubt I had heard a sound--some sound very
+distinct from the gurgling of the waters.  It had passed, but the
+reverberation of it still lingered in my ear.  Was it a search
+party?  They would most certainly have shouted, and vague as this
+sound was which had wakened me, it was very distinct from the human
+voice.  I sat palpitating and hardly daring to breathe.  There it
+was again!  And again!  Now it had become continuous.  It was a
+tread--yes, surely it was the tread of some living creature.
+But what a tread it was!  It gave one the impression of enormous
+weight carried upon sponge-like feet, which gave forth a muffled
+but ear-filling sound.  The darkness was as complete as ever, but
+the tread was regular and decisive.  And it was coming beyond all
+question in my direction.
+
+My skin grew cold, and my hair stood on end as I listened to
+that steady and ponderous footfall.  There was some creature there,
+and surely by the speed of its advance, it was one which could see
+in the dark.  I crouched low on my rock and tried to blend myself
+into it.  The steps grew nearer still, then stopped, and presently
+I was aware of a loud lapping and gurgling.  The creature was
+drinking at the stream.  Then again there was silence, broken by a
+succession of long sniffs and snorts of tremendous volume and
+energy.  Had it caught the scent of me?  My own nostrils were
+filled by a low fetid odour, mephitic and abominable.  Then I heard
+the steps again.  They were on my side of the stream now.  The
+stones rattled within a few yards of where I lay.  Hardly daring to
+breathe, I crouched upon my rock.  Then the steps drew away.  I
+heard the splash as it returned across the river, and the sound
+died away into the distance in the direction from which it had
+come.
+
+For a long time I lay upon the rock, too much horrified to
+move.  I thought of the sound which I had heard coming from the
+depths of the cave, of Armitage's fears, of the strange impression
+in the mud, and now came this final and absolute proof that there
+was indeed some inconceivable monster, something utterly unearthly
+and dreadful, which lurked in the hollow of the mountain.  Of its
+nature or form I could frame no conception, save that it was both
+light-footed and gigantic.  The combat between my reason, which
+told me that such things could not be, and my senses, which told me
+that they were, raged within me as I lay.  Finally, I was almost
+ready to persuade myself that this experience had been part of some
+evil dream, and that my abnormal condition might have conjured up
+an hallucination.  But there remained one final experience which
+removed the last possibility of doubt from my mind.
+
+I had taken my matches from my armpit and felt them.  They
+seemed perfectly hard and dry.  Stooping down into a crevice of the
+rocks, I tried one of them.  To my delight it took fire at once.
+I lit the candle, and, with a terrified backward glance into the
+obscure depths of the cavern, I hurried in the direction of the
+Roman passage.  As I did so I passed the patch of mud on which I
+had seen the huge imprint.  Now I stood astonished before it, for
+there were three similar imprints upon its surface, enormous in
+size, irregular in outline, of a depth which indicated the
+ponderous weight which had left them.  Then a great terror surged
+over me.  Stooping and shading my candle with my hand, I ran in a
+frenzy of fear to the rocky archway, hastened up it, and never
+stopped until, with weary feet and panting lungs, I rushed up the
+final slope of stones, broke through the tangle of briars, and
+flung myself exhausted upon the soft grass under the peaceful light
+of the stars.  It was three in the morning when I reached the
+farm-house, and today I am all unstrung and quivering after my
+terrific adventure.  As yet I have told no one.  I must move warily
+in the matter.  What would the poor lonely women, or the uneducated
+yokels here think of it if I were to tell them my experience?  Let
+me go to someone who can understand and advise.
+
+April 25.--I was laid up in bed for two days after my
+incredible adventure in the cavern.  I use the adjective with a
+very definite meaning, for I have had an experience since which has
+shocked me almost as much as the other.  I have said that I was
+looking round for someone who could advise me.  There is a Dr. Mark
+Johnson who practices some few miles away, to whom I had a note of
+recommendation from Professor Saunderson.  To him I drove,
+when I was strong enough to get about, and I recounted to him my
+whole strange experience.  He listened intently, and then carefully
+examined me, paying special attention to my reflexes and to the
+pupils of my eyes.  When he had finished, he refused to discuss my
+adventure, saying that it was entirely beyond him, but he gave me
+the card of a Mr. Picton at Castleton, with the advice that I
+should instantly go to him and tell him the story exactly as I had
+done to himself.  He was, according to my adviser, the very man who
+was pre-eminently suited to help me.  I went on to the station,
+therefore, and made my way to the little town, which is some ten
+miles away.  Mr. Picton appeared to be a man of importance, as his
+brass plate was displayed upon the door of a considerable building
+on the outskirts of the town.  I was about to ring his bell, when
+some misgiving came into my mind, and, crossing to a neighbouring
+shop, I asked the man behind the counter if he could tell me
+anything of Mr. Picton.  "Why," said he, "he is the best mad doctor
+in Derbyshire, and yonder is his asylum."  You can imagine that it
+was not long before I had shaken the dust of Castleton from my feet
+and returned to the farm, cursing all unimaginative pedants who
+cannot conceive that there may be things in creation which have
+never yet chanced to come across their mole's vision.  After all,
+now that I am cooler, I can afford to admit that I have been no
+more sympathetic to Armitage than Dr. Johnson has been to me.
+
+April 27.  When I was a student I had the reputation of
+being a man of courage and enterprise.  I remember that when there
+was a ghost-hunt at Coltbridge it was I who sat up in the
+haunted house.  Is it advancing years (after all, I am only
+thirty-five), or is it this physical malady which has caused
+degeneration?  Certainly my heart quails when I think of that horrible
+cavern in the hill, and the certainty that it has some monstrous
+occupant.  What shall I do?  There is not an hour in the day that I do
+not debate the question.  If I say nothing, then the mystery remains
+unsolved.  If I do say anything, then I have the alternative of mad
+alarm over the whole countryside, or of absolute incredulity which
+may end in consigning me to an asylum.  On the whole, I think that
+my best course is to wait, and to prepare for some expedition which
+shall be more deliberate and better thought out than the last.  As
+a first step I have been to Castleton and obtained a few
+essentials--a large acetylene lantern for one thing, and a good
+double-barrelled sporting rifle for another.  The latter I have
+hired, but I have bought a dozen heavy game cartridges, which would
+bring down a rhinoceros.  Now I am ready for my troglodyte friend.
+Give me better health and a little spate of energy, and I shall try
+conclusions with him yet.  But who and what is he?  Ah!  there is
+the question which stands between me and my sleep.  How many
+theories do I form, only to discard each in turn!  It is all so
+utterly unthinkable.  And yet the cry, the footmark, the tread in
+the cavern--no reasoning can get past these.  I think of the
+old-world legends of dragons and of other monsters.  Were they,
+perhaps, not such fairy-tales as we have thought?  Can it be that
+there is some fact which underlies them, and am I, of all mortals,
+the one who is chosen to expose it?
+
+May 3.--For several days I have been laid up by the
+vagaries of an English spring, and during those days there have
+been developments, the true and sinister meaning of which no one
+can appreciate save myself.  I may say that we have had cloudy and
+moonless nights of late, which according to my information were the
+seasons upon which sheep disappeared.  Well, sheep _have_
+disappeared.  Two of Miss Allerton's, one of old Pearson's of the
+Cat Walk, and one of Mrs. Moulton's.  Four in all during three
+nights.  No trace is left of them at all, and the countryside is
+buzzing with rumours of gipsies and of sheep-stealers.
+
+But there is something more serious than that.  Young Armitage
+has disappeared also.  He left his moorland cottage early on
+Wednesday night and has never been heard of since.  He was an
+unattached man, so there is less sensation than would otherwise be
+the case.  The popular explanation is that he owes money, and has
+found a situation in some other part of the country, whence he will
+presently write for his belongings.  But I have grave misgivings.
+Is it not much more likely that the recent tragedy of the sheep has
+caused him to take some steps which may have ended in his own
+destruction?  He may, for example, have lain in wait for the
+creature and been carried off by it into the recesses of the
+mountains.  What an inconceivable fate for a civilized Englishman
+of the twentieth century!  And yet I feel that it is possible and
+even probable.  But in that case, how far am I answerable both for
+his death and for any other mishap which may occur?  Surely with
+the knowledge I already possess it must be my duty to see that
+something is done, or if necessary to do it myself.  It must be the
+latter, for this morning I went down to the local police-station
+and told my story.  The inspector entered it all in a large book
+and bowed me out with commendable gravity, but I heard a burst of
+laughter before I had got down his garden path.  No doubt he was
+recounting my adventure to his family.
+
+June 10.--I am writing this, propped up in bed, six weeks
+after my last entry in this journal.  I have gone through a
+terrible shock both to mind and body, arising from such an
+experience as has seldom befallen a human being before.  But I have
+attained my end.  The danger from the Terror which dwells in the
+Blue John Gap has passed never to return.  Thus much at least I, a
+broken invalid, have done for the common good.  Let me now recount
+what occurred as clearly as I may.
+
+The night of Friday, May 3rd, was dark and cloudy--the very
+night for the monster to walk.  About eleven o'clock I went from
+the farm-house with my lantern and my rifle, having first left a
+note upon the table of my bedroom in which I said that, if I were
+missing, search should be made for me in the direction of the Gap.
+I made my way to the mouth of the Roman shaft, and, having perched
+myself among the rocks close to the opening, I shut off my lantern
+and waited patiently with my loaded rifle ready to my hand.
+
+It was a melancholy vigil.  All down the winding valley I could
+see the scattered lights of the farm-houses, and the church clock
+of Chapel-le-Dale tolling the hours came faintly to my ears.
+These tokens of my fellow-men served only to make my own position
+seem the more lonely, and to call for a greater effort to overcome
+the terror which tempted me continually to get back to the farm,
+and abandon for ever this dangerous quest.  And yet there lies deep
+in every man a rooted self-respect which makes it hard for him to
+turn back from that which he has once undertaken.  This feeling of
+personal pride was my salvation now, and it was that alone which
+held me fast when every instinct of my nature was dragging me away.
+I am glad now that I had the strength.  In spite of all that is has
+cost me, my manhood is at least above reproach.
+
+Twelve o'clock struck in the distant church, then one, then
+two.  It was the darkest hour of the night.  The clouds were
+drifting low, and there was not a star in the sky.  An owl was
+hooting somewhere among the rocks, but no other sound, save the
+gentle sough of the wind, came to my ears.  And then suddenly I
+heard it!  From far away down the tunnel came those muffled steps,
+so soft and yet so ponderous.  I heard also the rattle of stones as
+they gave way under that giant tread.  They drew nearer.  They were
+close upon me.  I heard the crashing of the bushes round the
+entrance, and then dimly through the darkness I was conscious of
+the loom of some enormous shape, some monstrous inchoate creature,
+passing swiftly and very silently out from the tunnel.  I was
+paralysed with fear and amazement.  Long as I had waited, now that
+it had actually come I was unprepared for the shock.  I lay
+motionless and breathless, whilst the great dark mass whisked by me
+and was swallowed up in the night.
+
+But now I nerved myself for its return.  No sound came from the
+sleeping countryside to tell of the horror which was loose.  In no
+way could I judge how far off it was, what it was doing, or when it
+might be back.  But not a second time should my nerve fail me, not
+a second time should it pass unchallenged.  I swore it between my
+clenched teeth as I laid my cocked rifle across the rock.
+
+And yet it nearly happened.  There was no warning of approach
+now as the creature passed over the grass.  Suddenly, like a dark,
+drifting shadow, the huge bulk loomed up once more before me,
+making for the entrance of the cave.  Again came that paralysis of
+volition which held my crooked forefinger impotent upon the
+trigger.  But with a desperate effort I shook it off.  Even as the
+brushwood rustled, and the monstrous beast blended with the shadow
+of the Gap, I fired at the retreating form.  In the blaze of the
+gun I caught a glimpse of a great shaggy mass, something with rough
+and bristling hair of a withered grey colour, fading away to white
+in its lower parts, the huge body supported upon short, thick,
+curving legs.  I had just that glance, and then I heard the rattle
+of the stones as the creature tore down into its burrow.  In an
+instant, with a triumphant revulsion of feeling, I had cast my
+fears to the wind, and uncovering my powerful lantern, with my
+rifle in my hand, I sprang down from my rock and rushed after the
+monster down the old Roman shaft.
+
+My splendid lamp cast a brilliant flood of vivid light in front
+of me, very different from the yellow glimmer which had aided me
+down the same passage only twelve days before.  As I ran, I saw the
+great beast lurching along before me, its huge bulk filling up the
+whole space from wall to wall.  Its hair looked like coarse faded
+oakum, and hung down in long, dense masses which swayed as it
+moved.  It was like an enormous unclipped sheep in its fleece, but
+in size it was far larger than the largest elephant, and its
+breadth seemed to be nearly as great as its height.  It fills me
+with amazement now to think that I should have dared to follow such
+a horror into the bowels of the earth, but when one's blood is up,
+and when one's quarry seems to be flying, the old primeval
+hunting-spirit awakes and prudence is cast to the wind.  Rifle in hand,
+I ran at the top of my speed upon the trail of the monster.
+
+I had seen that the creature was swift.  Now I was to find out
+to my cost that it was also very cunning.  I had imagined that it
+was in panic flight, and that I had only to pursue it.  The idea
+that it might turn upon me never entered my excited brain.  I have
+already explained that the passage down which I was racing opened
+into a great central cave.  Into this I rushed, fearful lest I
+should lose all trace of the beast.  But he had turned upon his own
+traces, and in a moment we were face to face.
+
+That picture, seen in the brilliant white light of the lantern,
+is etched for ever upon my brain.  He had reared up on his hind
+legs as a bear would do, and stood above me, enormous, menacing--
+such a creature as no nightmare had ever brought to my imagination.
+I have said that he reared like a bear, and there was something
+bear-like--if one could conceive a bear which was ten-fold the bulk
+of any bear seen upon earth--in his whole pose and attitude, in his
+great crooked forelegs with their ivory-white claws, in his rugged
+skin, and in his red, gaping mouth, fringed with monstrous fangs.
+Only in one point did he differ from the bear, or from any other
+creature which walks the earth, and even at that supreme moment a
+shudder of horror passed over me as I observed that the eyes which
+glistened in the glow of my lantern were huge, projecting bulbs,
+white and sightless.  For a moment his great paws swung over my
+head.  The next he fell forward upon me, I and my broken lantern
+crashed to the earth, and I remember no more.
+
+
+When I came to myself I was back in the farm-house of the
+Allertons.  Two days had passed since my terrible adventure in the
+Blue John Gap.  It seems that I had lain all night in the cave
+insensible from concussion of the brain, with my left arm and two
+ribs badly fractured.  In the morning my note had been found, a
+search party of a dozen farmers assembled, and I had been tracked
+down and carried back to my bedroom, where I had lain in high
+delirium ever since.  There was, it seems, no sign of the creature,
+and no bloodstain which would show that my bullet had found him as
+he passed.  Save for my own plight and the marks upon the mud,
+there was nothing to prove that what I said was true.
+
+Six weeks have now elapsed, and I am able to sit out once more
+in the sunshine.  Just opposite me is the steep hillside, grey with
+shaly rock, and yonder on its flank is the dark cleft which marks
+the opening of the Blue John Gap.  But it is no longer a source of
+terror.  Never again through that ill-omened tunnel shall any
+strange shape flit out into the world of men.  The educated and the
+scientific, the Dr. Johnsons and the like, may smile at my
+narrative, but the poorer folk of the countryside had never a doubt
+as to its truth.  On the day after my recovering consciousness
+they assembled in their hundreds round the Blue John Gap.  As the
+_Castleton Courier_ said:
+
+
+"It was useless for our correspondent, or for any of the
+adventurous gentlemen who had come from Matlock, Buxton, and other
+parts, to offer to descend, to explore the cave to the end, and to
+finally test the extraordinary narrative of Dr. James Hardcastle.
+The country people had taken the matter into their own hands, and
+from an early hour of the morning they had worked hard in stopping
+up the entrance of the tunnel.  There is a sharp slope where the
+shaft begins, and great boulders, rolled along by many willing
+hands, were thrust down it until the Gap was absolutely sealed.  So
+ends the episode which has caused such excitement throughout the
+country.  Local opinion is fiercely divided upon the subject.  On
+the one hand are those who point to Dr. Hardcastle's impaired
+health, and to the possibility of cerebral lesions of tubercular
+origin giving rise to strange hallucinations.  Some _idee fixe_,
+according to these gentlemen, caused the doctor to wander down the
+tunnel, and a fall among the rocks was sufficient to account for
+his injuries.  On the other hand, a legend of a strange creature in
+the Gap has existed for some months back, and the farmers look upon
+Dr. Hardcastle's narrative and his personal injuries as a final
+corroboration.  So the matter stands, and so the matter will
+continue to stand, for no definite solution seems to us to be now
+possible.  It transcends human wit to give any scientific
+explanation which could cover the alleged facts."
+
+
+Perhaps before the _Courier_ published these words they would
+have been wise to send their representative to me.  I have thought
+the matter out, as no one else has occasion to do, and it is
+possible that I might have removed some of the more obvious
+difficulties of the narrative and brought it one degree nearer to
+scientific acceptance.  Let me then write down the only explanation
+which seems to me to elucidate what I know to my cost to have been
+a series of facts.  My theory may seem to be wildly improbable, but
+at least no one can venture to say that it is impossible.
+
+My view is--and it was formed, as is shown by my diary, before
+my personal adventure--that in this part of England there is a
+vast subterranean lake or sea, which is fed by the great number of
+streams which pass down through the limestone.  Where there is a
+large collection of water there must also be some evaporation,
+mists or rain, and a possibility of vegetation.  This in turn
+suggests that there may be animal life, arising, as the vegetable
+life would also do, from those seeds and types which had been
+introduced at an early period of the world's history, when
+communication with the outer air was more easy.  This place had
+then developed a fauna and flora of its own, including such
+monsters as the one which I had seen, which may well have been the
+old cave-bear, enormously enlarged and modified by its new
+environment.  For countless aeons the internal and the external
+creation had kept apart, growing steadily away from each other.
+Then there had come some rift in the depths of the mountain which
+had enabled one creature to wander up and, by means of the Roman
+tunnel, to reach the open air.  Like all subterranean life, it had
+lost the power of sight, but this had no doubt been compensated for
+by nature in other directions.  Certainly it had some means of
+finding its way about, and of hunting down the sheep upon the
+hillside.  As to its choice of dark nights, it is part of my theory
+that light was painful to those great white eyeballs, and that it
+was only a pitch-black world which it could tolerate.  Perhaps,
+indeed, it was the glare of my lantern which saved my life at that
+awful moment when we were face to face.  So I read the riddle.  I
+leave these facts behind me, and if you can explain them, do so; or
+if you choose to doubt them, do so.  Neither your belief nor your
+incredulity can alter them, nor affect one whose task is nearly over.
+
+
+So ended the strange narrative of Dr. James Hardcastle.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Last Galley Impressions and Tales
+by Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST GALLEY ***
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