* THE
LAST
GALLEY
A.CONAN DOYLE


21473.36,140

SVERI
US
HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY


Eliot.
Brookline











THE LAST GALLEY






62
Hea
BALSS
Drawn by N.C. Wyeth
ALL DAY HELD SPELL BOUND BY THIS WONDERFUL SIGHT, THE HERMIT
CROUCHED IN THE SHADOW OF THE ROCKS.
[See The Coming of the Hans


THE LAST GALLEY
IMPRESSIONS AND TALES
BY
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

Garden City New YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1911


21473.36.140
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1905, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, BY A. CONAN DOYLE
COLLEGE
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
COPYRIGHT, III, BY ASSOCIATED SUNDAY MAGAZINES, INC.


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 may be regarded as trial flights
toward 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 his-
torical epoch, and finding its interest not in the
happenings to particular individuals, their adven-
tures 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


PREFACE
drama of invention should claim the attention of
the reader. I have been tempted sometimes to try
the effect on 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
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I. THE LAST GALLEY . .
II. Tax Contest . . .
III. THROUGH THE Veil . .
IV. An ICONOCLAST . . .
V. Giant MAXIMIN . . .
VI. The Coming OF THE HUNS
VII. THE LAST OF THE LEGIONS
VIII. Tau First Cargo . .
IX. THE HOME-COMING . .
X. TAE RED STAR . . .
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1. Tax SILVER MIRROR . . . .
II. Taz BLIGHTING OF SHARKEY . .
III. THE MARRIAGE OF THE BRIGADIER .
IV. THE LORD OF FALCONBRIDGE . .
V. OUT OF THE RUNNING · · ·
VI. “DE PROFUNDIS” . . . . .
VII. THE GREAT BROWN-Pericord Motor
VIII. THE TERROR OF Blue John GAP .
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ILLUSTRATIONS
“All day, held spell-bound by this wonderful
sight, the hermit crouched in the shadow
of the rocks.” . . . Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
"He had reared up on his hind legs as a bear
would do, and stood above me, enormous,
menacing.” .
. . . : 316
THE LAST GALLEY











THE LAST GALLEY
“Mutato nomine, de te, Brittannia, 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 Med-
iterranean 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 LAST GALLEY
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 plat-
form, 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,


THE LAST GALLEY
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 foredeck, 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
ra


THE LAST GALLEY
was
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, toward 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 an-
swered. “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 LAST GALLEY
the distant point which marked his native city.
Already the low, leafy hill could be seen, dotted
with the white villas of the wealthy Phænician
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 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.
rce


THE LAST GALLEY
СО
“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 coming 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
sat 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 chatter-
ing. 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


THE LAST GALLEY
II
“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 onward,
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 glis-
tened 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


I2
THE LAST GALLEY
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
nV


THE LAST GALLEY
sink and sway beneath them. They rusneu to
gain their own vessels; but they, too, were being
drawn downward, 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 toward it by the
iron bonds which held them, are tilted downward,
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


THE LAST GALLEY
15
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.


II
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 wan-
derings. 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 rôle 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
16


THE LAST GALLEY
17
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 in-
different 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 Hercea, which is five
miles north of the river Alpheus, and no great dis-
tance from the famous Olympia. This person was
noted over all the countryside as a man of strange
gifts and singular character. He was a poet who


18
THE LAST GALLEY
had twice been crowned for his verses, and he was
a musician to whom the use and sound of an instru-
ment 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 mas-
terful that he would brook no opposition nor con-
tradiction. 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


THE LAST GALLEY
19
or musical contest must be proceeding of which
he had heard nothing. If so, here 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, there-
fore, and as he approached the theatre he was con-
scious 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


20
THE LAST GALLEY
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 com-
manded 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 obsti-
nate character, he was the more inclined to per-
severe 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


THE LAST GALLEY
21
in front like a 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 de-
manded 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 dis-
cordant growling of an ill-conditioned dog. Then
La


22
THE LAST GALLEY
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, some-
times 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 ab-
surd 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 hum-
ming, 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


THE LAST GALLEY
23
applause, their united voices sweeping over the
tumult as the drone of the wind dominates the roar
of the sea. It was madness — insufferable mad-
ness! If this were allowed to pass, there was an
end of all musical justice in Greece. Policles' con-
science 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


24
THE LAST GALLEY
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 chal-
lenge, 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


THE LAST GALLEY
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 recep-
tion, and in an instant his blue-clad rival was in
his place. If he had sung badly before, his per-
formance now was inconceivable. His screams,
his grunts, his discords, and harsh jarring cacopho-
nies 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 gray he is,
with red trappings. Get you gone as hard as hoof


26
THE LAST GALLEY
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!”
on
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 Cæsar,” 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 were as guilty as he among


THE LAST GALLEY
27
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,
Cæsar," said the soldier, “for from what I hear it
would have been no disgrace had you, even you,
been conquered in this contest.”
"I conquered! You are mad, Arsenius. What
do you mean?”
“None know him, great Cæsar! He came from
the mountains, and he disappeared into the moun-
tains. 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.”


III
THROUGH THE VEIL
TE 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 Mel-
rose, 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 mar-
riage, 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
S
28


THE LAST GALLEY
29
ro
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 ex-
cavators, with here and there an exposure of old
stone work 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. How-
ever, 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 in-
specting the trenches, the pits, the ramparts, and
all the strange variety of objects which were waiting
to be transported to the Edinburgh Museum of An-
tiquities. 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, ma'am. If you saw the kitchen
middenpits you would guess it took a long time to
fill them.”


32
THE LAST GALLEY
“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 some one else.”
"Aye, it's an uncanny place,” said her husband,
looking round with an expression almost of fear in
his bold gray eyes. "I feel it mysel. I think
we'll just be wishin' you good evenin', Mr. Cun-
ningham, and get back to Melrose before the dark
sets in.”
Neither of them could shake off the strange im-
pression 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


THE LAST GALLEY
33
were clumps of heather. All round me was just
darkness, but I could hear the rustle and the breath-
in' 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 brae-
side seemed to be crawlin' downward. 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
toward 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 thousand 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


34
THE LAST GALLEY
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 ſº
she said.


THE LAST GALLEY
35
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
have 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 teacups as she fell forward senseless
upon the table.


36
THE LAST GALLEY
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 hori-
zons have vaguely formed themselves around them
since that summer evening by the crumbling
Roman fort.


IV
AN ICONOCLAST
IT WAS daybreak of a March morning in
I 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 with-
out so much as a pretence of sleep come straight
from his night of debauch into this 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 morn-
ing. 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.
37


THE LAST GALLEY
39
The patrician had entered his atrium, bright
with rare flowers, and melodious with strange sing-
ing 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 or-
dinarii, 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.


40
THE LAST GALLEY
“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


THE LAST GALLEY
41
mishandled. Three fingers of the gracious out-
stretched 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 toward 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 new comer was a man forty-three years of
age, clean shaven, with a massive head, large en-
gorged 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 swagger-
ing, 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 ex-
pression 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 Cæsar


42
THE LAST GALLEY
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 after-thought,” 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 over-
merciful Emilius. It is the common talk that
your catence 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?”
mer
mon


THE LAST GALLEY
“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 house-
hold.”
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 prægustator,


44
THE LAST GALLEY
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 Can-
idia; the cellarman, summoned from amongst his
amphoræ; the cook, with his basting-ladle in his
hand; the pompous nomenclator, who ushered the
guests; the cubicularius, who saw to their accom-
modation; 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, Ma-
rias, 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 LAST GALLEY
45
lan
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 Cæsar advise?”
“There are the games this afternoon. I am show-
ing the new hunting leopard which King Juba has


46
THE LAST GALLEY
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
reason 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,


THE LAST GALLEY
47
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 Domi-
tian. 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


GIANT MAXIMIN
THE COMING OF MAXIMIN
ANY 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 could 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.
reers


50
THE LAST GALLEY
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
turmæ 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 per-
son. 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 stal-
wart 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


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51
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, gray-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 by-standers. 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 sheepskin 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.


52
THE LAST GALLEY
"I fear your mother was right when she advised
that we keep you at home,” said the old man anx-
iously. “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.”
acc
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 young son of the emperor,
and in his honour there would be games and a
OUT


THE LAST GALLEY
double ration of wine. But the iron discipline of
the Roman army required that under all circum-
stances 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 and
baskets of fruit and cakes circling amongst them,
enjoying rest and peace as only those can to whom
it comes só 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 guards-
man Serenus with the fifty-pound stone. Now,
as the sun sank toward the western ridge, and


54
THE LAST GALLEY
in
turned the Harpessus to a ribbon 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 toward 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 toward 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
naz


THE LAST GALLEY
55
had aroused, but strode onward, 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 toward the emperor, until
a spear at his breast warned him that he must go
no nearer. Then he sank 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 Cæsar, 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 Cæsar'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 gaint. “Cæsar
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.


56
THE LAST GALLEY
-
-
-
--
-
“I will serve Cæsar as a soldier," said he, “but
I will be house servant to no man— not even
to him. If Cæsar 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, Cæsar," said the blunt soldier,
“good swordsmen are too rare in these days that
we should let them slay each other for sport. Per-
haps 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 sheepskin mantle to the ground and, without
troubling to remove his leathern tunic, advanced
toward the two wrestlers; but it became uproar-
ious when with a quick spring he seized the Greek
under one arm and the Roman under the other,
holding them as in a vise. Then with a terrific
effort he tore them both from the ground, carried
-
-


THE LAST GALLEY
57
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 Cæsar, the huge barbarian withdrew, and laid
his great bulk down among the ranks of the applaud-
ing soldiers, whence he watched with stolid uncon-
cern 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.


58
THE LAST GALLEY
as
ne
“Why do you follow me?” he asked.
"It is my hope, Cæsar, 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 Cæsar.”
Crassus had interpreted this short dialogue.
He now turned to the emperor.
“If he is indeed to be always at your call, Cæsar,
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 LAST GALLEY
59
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. Mean-
while 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 sheepskin floating from his
shoulders, marched beside the Imperial troop.
But far away in the wooden farm house of a dis-
tant 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
forever were the great imperial days of the Had-
rians 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
ver


60
THE LAST GALLEY
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 nickname 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 Gram-
pians. He had seen Severus pass away, and had
soldiered with his son. He had fought in Arminia,
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


THE LAST GALLEY
61
mers.
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 upward,
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 moon-
lit 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 Har-
pessus. His huge frame was as erect as ever, and


62
THE LAST GALLEY
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 scream-
ing 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 prætorians and a handful
of horse.”
“Then indeed his head is in the lion's mouth,"


THE LAST GALLEY
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 the 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 graybeard. “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.”


64
THE LAST GALLEY
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 Max-
iminus Augustus!”
Who could tell how it come 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


THE LAST GALLEY
65
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 Cæsar!”
That same night Severus Alexander, the young
Syrian emperor, walked outside his prætorian 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,
Cæsar, 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, Cæsar, fly to-morrow,
and your prætorians 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 conversa-
tion, a low, continued roar, like the swelling


66
THE LAST GALLEY
tumult of a sweeping wave. Far down the road
upon which they stood there twinkled many moving
lights, tossing and sinking as they rapidly ad-
vanced, whilst the hoarse, tumultuous bellowing
broke into articulate words, the same tremendous
words a thousand-fuid repeated. Licinius seized
the emperor by the wrist and dragged him under
the cover of some bushes.
“Be still, Cæsar! 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 gray, 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 Cæsar."
“It is surely Maximin the Thracian peasant."
In the darkness the prætorian officer looked with
strange eyes at his master.
“It is all over, Cæsar. Let us fy together to
your tent.”


THE LAST GALLEY
67
.
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 on-coming 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 prætorian garb, blood
upon his face, blood upon his bared forearm, blood
upon his naked sword. Licinius too had gone
with the tide.
"Hail, Cæsar, hail!” he cried, as he bowed his
head before the giant. “I come from Alexander.
He will trouble you no more."


THE LAST GALLEY
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 tur-
bulence 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 Cæsar. 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


THE LAST GALLEY
69
ce
desccrated, 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 vindictive-
ness 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 rose 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 mis-
adventures, 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.


70
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They would not be forever 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


THE LAST GALLEY
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 cam-
paigns, 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,


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baring 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


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73
triumvir of the Temple of Juno Moneta sent it
from the mint. Around it are recorded his re-
sounding 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.


VI
THE COMING OF THE HUNS
reas
IN THE middle of the fourth century the state
of the Christian religion was a scandal and a
1 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. Be-
tween these two extremes the great majority of
reasonable men had turned from the conception of
many gods to that of one, and had rejected forever
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


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75
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 congre-
gation against congregation. The ink of the theo-
logians 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


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77
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


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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 contin-
ually 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 Athana-
sius? 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!


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79
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 peace-
ful 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.”


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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 dis-
cover 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


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81
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 change
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 gray 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 eyes, 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-gray shimmer with
ve


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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 unevent-
ful 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.


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83
Simon Melas stood long in bewilderment, won-
dering 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 horned 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


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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


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still to the very horizon, which quivered with move-
ment, 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 spellbound 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 de-
filed beneath his eyes, coming from that eastern
skyline which had been the end of his world. Some-
times 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 wagons
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 drift-
ing 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


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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 as-
sailed 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. Gepida 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


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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 neigh-
bour, 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.
One 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 hap-
pening? 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
cross


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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, straight-
ening 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 new comer 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


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89
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 posi-
tion 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 whit-
ened the sky behind him, it gleamed also upon the


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broad river in front, and he flogged his weary horse
through the shallows, until he plunged into its full
yellow tide.
nan
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
toward 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.


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93
“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 fear-
some 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


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them, and Britian would be one land. No, it is
the bear from the north and the wolves from over
sea, 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


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95
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
spokesman of a great number of our fellow country-
men, 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 fash-
ion.” 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
Cæsar set foot in Britian, which have served their
purpose since first our forefathers came from the
land of Ham. We are not a child among the


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nations, but our history goes back to our own tradi-
tions farther 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 Cæsar is just, but it is always the
code of Cæsar. 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 forever 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 king-
dom; 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.”


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99
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


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your ancestors before Cæsar 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 wagons which brought 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. Cara-
doc only was alive, but he was a slave to Elda, the
red Caledonian, and his wife was mistress to Mord-
red, the wild chief of the western Cymri. From the
ruined wall in the north to Vectis in the south, blood


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101
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.


VIII
THE FIRST CARGO
“Ex Ovo Omnia”
HEN you left Britain 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 cit zens 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 ob-
tained 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
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103
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
Britains, 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 trad-
ing 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


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inquisitive mind will not feel wearied if I treat the
matter in some detail.
It was, then, upon the day of Mercury, immedi-
ately following the Feast of Our Blessed Lord's As-
cension, 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 pleas-
ure, 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,


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Io5
re
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 sug-
gestion 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 it 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 settle-
ments 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


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es
they always take their women with them so far as
they can, and that, instead of finding them an in-
cumbrance, as our Roman dames would be, they
look upon them as helpmates and advisers. Of
course, I remembered afterward 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 an-
swered 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
toward 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


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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 dis-
contented 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 prætor, but met him on a res-
pectful 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
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109
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 indepen-
dent 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


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III
the others seemed very fond of him, for they were
each, as was easy to see, proud of their chieftain-
ship, 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 isl-
anders. 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 plausibily 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
W


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113
began this letter, I have visited the two other ships
which have come in, and as I find the same charac-
teristics 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 steadi-
ness of purpose, their quicker imaginations suggest-
ing 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 toward 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.”


IX
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 Con-
stantinople. 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 East-
ern 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
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115
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 St. 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 gray 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 St. Nicephorus in Antioch, laid his hand upon
the boy's shoulder.
“Be wary, Leon, and speak less loudly, for until


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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
Cæsars.”
The boy looked at it w th 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
St. 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


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117
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 St. 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 Constan-
tinople 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


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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
forever 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 passen-
gers, after a short scrutiny from the group of


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119
helmeted guards who lounged beside it, were allowed
to pass through into the great city.
The abbot, who had made several visits to Con-
stantinople 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 clatter 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 St. Sophia, the great church begun by Con-
stantine, hallowed by St. 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 difficut task.
Having passed St. Sophia, the two travellers
crossed the marble-paved augusteum, and saw
upon their right the gilded gates of the hippodrome
through which a cast 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


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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 protos-
phathaire, 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
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123
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 mon-
astery 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 testi-
mony 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?”
e


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“To no one in the whole world," the cther
answered. “There is Deacon Bardas at the mon-
astery 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


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125
OW
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 bear-ward 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 tight-
ened 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


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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 chan-
cellor'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 beauti-
ful boy was hers, flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone.
She knew it beyond all question or doubt. It was


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127
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 bal-
anced upon a giddy pinnacle, the highest in the
world, and yet the higher the deeper the fall.
Every thing 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?"


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no
“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 approach-
ing 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 bear-ward hurled down


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: 129
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
thoughts.
“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 forb’dding passages from


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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 ani-
mals, 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.


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131
“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 to-day or to-morrow 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 clatter-
ing 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


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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 forever."
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 ven-
erable 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 St. 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?”
re


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133
“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 forever 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 be-
fore. 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


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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 vil-
lain, 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 womanlike shriek,
and then the heavy plunge far down in the dark
abysses of the earth.


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OS
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,
or 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
OL
e
lame


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137
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 expedi-
tion 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 as-
sembled 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.


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“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 Theo-
dosian Gate of Constantinople, and shouted for
the Green at the hippodrome every Sunday after-
noon, 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


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139
- who burrow for homes among the sea-weed,
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 at-
tempted 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 sand hill, 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 Mac-
oraba. 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 hil-
lock to our right there was a man about forty feet


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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 sand hills 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 in 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,


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141
men
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 com-
mended my soul to our blessed St. 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 men-
tally 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 new comers 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 sand hill,
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.


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“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 fall
upon the plunder, and a young ruffian, who seemed to
be on intimate terms with the leader, came tohis elbow
and put the desires of his companion into words.


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“ 'Surely, O 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, toward 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 heark-
ened! Then shall the sword of Allah be drawn,


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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 un-
believing Koraish, shall be scattered, and the three
hundred and sixty idols of the Caaba thrust out
upon the dung heaps 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 sometime
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
ne


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145
eari
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 arrange-
ment 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
no


146
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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 sand hills
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


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147
me with such confidence. He saw in me a mes-
senger to Constantinople and to the Roman empire.
Even as St. Paul had brought Christianity to
Europe, so he hoped that I might carry his doctines
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


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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, point-
ing 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 to-night. 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."


II.





THE SILVER MIRROR
TAN. 3.— This affair of White and Wother-
spoon'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.
151


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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 cer-
tain 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.
i 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 fulness of the head with an occasional
mist over the eyes. I thought perhaps some bro-
mide, 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


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153
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 break-down, even endan-
gering 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 symp-
toms 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


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me
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 hap-
pened 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 every thing was deadly
still in the room - no sound save the ticking of


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0
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 skeptic 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


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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 to-night. To-morrow I must wake up,
come what may.
Jan. II.- 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.
Doctor Sinclair (who is, it seems, a bit of a psy-
chologist) 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


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155
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 — fig-
ures 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


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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
overmastering emotion, of rage and horror, con-
tending 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 cruci-
fix 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 shape-
less 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


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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 fright-
ened - 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 to-night, with no
result whatever. My soothing day has chased
them away. I wonder whether I shall ever pene-
trate what they all mean? I examined the mirror
this evening under a good light, and beside 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


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make out, they were three spear-heads, two above
and one below. I will show them to the doctor
when he calls to-morrow.
Jan. 14.— Feel perfectly well again, and I in-
tend 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 bear-
ings. 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 expe-
riences — 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, sup-
pression of working expenses, manipulation of petty
cash — it is a fine record!


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161
Jan. 18.– Headaches, nervous twitches, misti-
ness, fulness 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 to-night. 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


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163
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,


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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 to-day have I told Doctor 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.


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165
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


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took to be three spear-heads were really the lilies
of France."
“And the inscription?"
“Sanc. X. Pal.' You can expand it into Sancta
Crucis Phlatium. 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 your-
self into the way of having such another."


II
THE BLIGHTING OF SHARKEY
HARKEY, 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 men-
ace 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.
167


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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 debonair 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


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169
answe
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, Shar-
key'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 pre-
senting 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 any-
thing 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 brill-
iant yellow light upon this singular apartment,


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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 water-side 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 river Hercules.
. A very different figure was Capt. 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


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171
away in fear and loathing. His bony hands, with
long, thin fingers which quivered ceaselessly like
the antennæ of an insect, were toying constantly
with the cards and the heap of gold moidores which
lay before him. His dress was of some sober 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
quartermaster are the officers.”
“Did I gainsay it?" asked Sharkey with an oath.
“You have miscalled us and mishandled us


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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 main-mast, 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 Sweet-
locks, 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


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173
tread of many heavy feet upon the deck. Then
there was a pause with no sound but the gentle
lapping 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 afterward
Sweetlocks himself, a tall, dark man, with a deep
red birth-mark 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 spokes-
man 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 upward 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.


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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 dis-
course, 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


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175
an
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 Porto-
bello – Captain Hardy, master — bound from Lon-
don to Kingston in Jamaica, with a cargo of cotton
goods and hoop iron.
Having secured their prisoners, all huddled to-
gether 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 main-mast.
The cargo was useless, but there were a thousand
guineas in the ship's strong box, and there were


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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 passen-
gers 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 hamstringing them with his cutlass as they
passed over, lest some strong swimmer should rise
in judgment against them. A portly, gray-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
gray-beard, was the last upon the deck. He stood,
a thick-set, resolute figure, in the glare of the lan-
terns, 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 sea-
man, "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.”
a


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177
“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 was she not with
the others?”
"I will tell you why she was 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


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you will surely be gallows'-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 fulness 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 rovers’ 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


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179
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 overfed, 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 devil-
ment, 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


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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 en-
circled 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
ror


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181
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 gray 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 tur-
moil, 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


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We
d
III
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 hs 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 jour-
ney, 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
C.


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183
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 fresh-
ness 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 main-mast, 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, Sweet-
locks, 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


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none to come to his aid. There was a rush of the
pirates. One was shot through the body, but an
instant afterward Sharkey had been seized and was
triced to his own main-mast. 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, beside 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.


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185
“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 toward 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, 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. Wood-
ruff, the master, reports that near the landing-


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THE LAST GALLEY
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
sometime, 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.”


III
THE MARRIAGE OF THE BRIGADIER
TAM speaking, my friends, of days which
are long gone by, when I had scarcely be-
gun 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
Lieut. Etienne Gerard was destined for so glori-
ous 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
187


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Austerlitz he wore my mark. Soon it was under-
stood 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
farm house 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. To-day he is in Normandy;
to-morrow 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 mis-
fortune? A hussar can but warm himself at the
fire, and then hurry onward, 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
forever amid the rich orchards and within sight
of the great castle of Le Galliard. Let her remem-
ber her hussar in her dreams, but let her waking
days be spent in the world as she finds it. Mean-
while we pushed such thoughts from our mind, and


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191
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 know 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
ise


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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 betrayed me into rashness. It
was a very large square field, and as I came farther
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 wall on every side of the
field save that from which I had come. In front
of me was the farm house 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
the soldier, and yet with such speed as I could sum-
mon. From the waist upward I was unconcerned
and even debonair. 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 by-stander 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


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193
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 sur-
veying me from behind the curtains. I flourished
my little cane, loitered to pick a primrose, and sang
one of our devil-may-come 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 fearless-
ness, and so, pushing open the back door, I was
able to enter the farm house 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 youth-
ful 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.


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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,


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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 hus-
band 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 under-
stood 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 toward him, but I walked
swiftly backward. When one is young and active,


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197
one can almost run backward 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 bad 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


198
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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 bru-
tal 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


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199
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 toward 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.
en


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There was but one course for a gentleman, and I
took it.
“Marie,” I cried, "forgive, oh, forgive the ab-
ruptness of my return! Marie, I have seen your
parents to-night. 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


THE LAST GALLEY
201
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 lamplight, 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 an-
swered. “It may be a bit longer, but it will give
me the more time to think of Marie."


IV
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 pro-
verbial, and no man of his own trade was ever
turned from his door if cheering words or a full
meal could mend his condition.
202


THE LAST GALLEY
203
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 Cap-
tain 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 dis-
tinguished 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


204
THE LAST GALLEY
stone of 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 Here-
fordshire 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 spirits.
“Cheer up, lad," said the champion, glancing
across from under his tufted eyebrows at the dis-
consolate face of his companion. “Indeed, Tom,
you take it over-hard.”
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 forever, Tom. It's beyond all
reason. I'm going to lay it down before all London
CC
re


206
THE LAST GALLEY
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
Sash, 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


THE LAST GALLEY
207
way, lad,” said he, plucking his young friend by the
sleeve toward 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 re-
mained 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 pri-
vate 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
as


208
THE LAST GALLEY
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 sub-
conscious repulsion which mingled with his admira-
tion 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?”


THE LAST GALLEY
209
.“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,"


210
THE LAST GALLEY
“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 one particular name
can be of no importance. I have my reasons for
withho'ding it.”
“Very good, ma'am.”
“You have been only a few weeks out of train-
ing. How long would it take you to get back to
your best?"
“Three weeks or a month."
.


THE LAST GALLEY
211
“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 to-morrow.”
“Very good, ma'am.”
“I will ask Mr. Cr bb 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, sha'l 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.”
ev


212
THE LAST GALLEY
“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 an-
other 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 cock-
fightin'!” cried Tom Cribb, at last. “Anyhow,
there's the fiver, lad. But it's a rum go, and no
mistake about it.”
crd
OV
er
After due consultation, it was agreed tha. 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 con-
dition. It was hard, however, to take the matter
seriously, and his good-natured trainer found the
same difficulty.


THE LAST GALLEY
213
"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 carry-
ing 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
11


214
THE LAST GALLEY
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 specula-
tions 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 ex-
pression of contempt which brought them both to
their feet with hang-dog 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 "


THE LAST GALLEY
215
“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 my-
self 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


216
THE LAST GALLEY
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


THE LAST GALLEY
217
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 mail cart 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 dumb-bells.
“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 mediæval 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.”


218 THE LAST GALLEY
“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
coöperate."
“I never asked you to.”
“No, you certainly never did. You are per-
fectly 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


THE LAST GALLEY
219
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.
“To-day is Tuesday. He will fight the day after
to-morrow.”
“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 refresh-
ment 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,


220
THE LAST GALLEY
Your arrival would spread all over the town, and
my plans might suffer. It is quite out of the ques-
tion 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 spike 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 expres-
sion 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 every thing 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 good-bye to burly Tom Cribb, who stood, the
admired of a ring of waiters and hostlers, upon the


THE LAST GALLEY
221
door step 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 grays, passed
by the classic grounds of Knowle, or after crossing
Riverside Hill skirted the vast expanse of the Weald
of Kent. Past Tunbridge School went the coach,
and on through Southborough, until it wound down
a steep, curving road with strange outcrops of sand-
stone 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 pecu-
liarly 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


222
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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 this 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


THE LAST GALLEY
223
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 skilled in deception,
and his stammering excuses may not have been
very convincing to the landlord, or finally per-
suaded 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?”


224
THE LAST GALLEY
"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 hostlers, and in a very few min-
utes 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


THE LAST GALLEY
225
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 extra-
ordinary dream, the young pugilist passed through
a net-work of secluded lanes, until the phaeton
drew up at a wicket gate which led into a planta-
tion 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


226
THE LAST GALLEY
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 LAST GALLEY
227
The young pugilist felt relieved. After all, if he
could fairly earn that fifty pounds, a good deal de-
pended 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 quick-
ened 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


228
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toe of my boot. Do you dare to stand there on
my land and talk back to 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 threat-
ened 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!”


THE LAST GALLEY
229
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 ap-
parent 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 prep-
arations 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


230
THE LAST GALLEY
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 aga n 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,


THE LAST GALLEY
231
but his steadfast blue eyes told of the unshaken
spirit within.
He was accustomed now to his opponent's rush-
ing 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


THE LAST GALLEY
233
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. “Halloa, Betty!” he cried. “So


234
THE LAST GALLEY
I have you to thank. I might have guessed it
when I had your letter.”
“Yes, my lord,” said she, with a mock courtesy.
“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?


THE LAST GALLEY
235
Cros
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 game-keeper, his gun in his
hand, was hurrying toward 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.”


236
THE LAST GALLEY
“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 country side 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 Tun-
bridge 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 rubi-
cund landlord of the Royal Oak, his whip going,


THE LAST GALLEY
237
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 na
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


238
THE LAST GALLEY
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 gypsies
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 hands,
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
had got back partaken of landlord.


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 gray roofs and red houses
of Petersfield peeped out from amid the trees which
surrounded it. From the crest of the low hills
downward the country ran in low, sweeping curves
as though some green primeval sea had congealed
in the midst of a ground-swell and set forever into
long verdant rollers. At the bottom, just where
the slope borders upon the plain, there stood a
comfortable square brick farm house, with a gray
plume of smoke floating up from the chimney. Two
cow houses, a cluster of hay-ricks, 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
240


THE LAST GALLEY
241
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 mur-
mur 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 gray
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 move-
ment 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.


242
THE LAST GALLEY
“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 handker-
chief, and was flicking her sleeves and the front
of her dress.
"That's right, Dolly. There's some on your
flounces. But, Lord 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


THE LAST GALLEY
245
“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
gray suit, with a straw hat jauntily ribboned in
red and black. He was smoking, but as he


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approached he thrust his pipe into his breast
pocket, and came forward with one hand out-
stretched, 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 appre-
hensive 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 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.”


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247
“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 dogrose, such as grows wild in the way-side
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."


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“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 fright-
ened, in the hope of seeing some sign that he had
relented, but he strode onward 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?”


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249
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 toward 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.”


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251
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 onward, its six legs all working hard,
butting up against stones, upsetting itself in ridges,
but still gathering itself up and rushing onward 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 hill side 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.


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“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


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253
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 dogrose.”
“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 s'eep 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.”


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.
morrow
“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 wh ch 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, rearranged 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,


THE LAST GALLEY
255
were
seer.
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 up 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
Ta


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window, sure enough! Well, and did you sec 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's hand. Why, the one is as brown as
that coffee, and the other as white as the cup,
with the 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 hay-rick is giving. They're all out
trying to prop it up. My, but it do blow!”


THE LAST GALLEY
257
It did indeed! When Dolly came down stairs
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 count-
less 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 hay-rick. 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 hill side, 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 for-
ward to meet her with a great white crow-bar 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 kind
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


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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 to-day. 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


THE LAST GALLEY
259
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 shape-
less 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 some-
thing 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 he sleeps.”
“I'm sure he's welcome to my room, father.”


260
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“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


THE LAST GALLEY
261
such buildings. Beneath them upon two pegs
hung his own pitiable wardrobe, the blue shirt and
the gray, 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


262
THE LAST GALLEY
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


THE LAST GALLEY 1 263
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 dogrose.
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 ynnerved
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.


VI
“DE PROFUNDIS”
YO LONG as the oceans are the ligaments
which bind together the great, broadcast
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 conti-
nental, even as those of the Continent are insular.
264


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265
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 gray
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 Peshawur, 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


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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 dif-
ferent 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 toward the date when he must be upon his home-
ward journey. They were to return together to


THE LAST GALLEY 269
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 into my mind that I had heard
much of the hard drinking life of the island, and
that from brandy came these 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 striv-
ing 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


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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 to-night. 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 theolologi-
cians. 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 to-night.” 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 hands 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.”


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271
He took up my hands 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
to-morrow it'll be all right. There's a surgeon
aboard, and 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 gentle-
man 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 reassuri g as my
servant seemed to think, but I reflected that he


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273
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 gray 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 do 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.”
W


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ne
“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
to-morrow.”
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. Vánsittart 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 under-
stand. This goes by the brig Marian of Falmouth, and five
pounds is due to the master.
"Yours respectfully,
“JNO. Hines,"


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275
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 skyline, 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


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W
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 afterward 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


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“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 upward.'” 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 toward the farm. A
youth was running toward them, loose-jointed and
long-limbed, with a boyish, lumbering haste, clump-
ing 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 un-
comely 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.”


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247
Ore C
“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 dogrose, such as grows wild in the way-side
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."


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249
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 toward 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.”
Own.


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CC
“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 tea-
pot's on the table, and you'd best come in afore it's
overdrawn.”
When Elias Mason left the farm house 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.


THE LAST GALLEY
251
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 onward, its six legs all working hard,
butting up against stones, upsetting itself in ridges,
but still gathering itself up and rushing onward 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 hill side 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.


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“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


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253
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 dogrose.”
“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 s'eep 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.”


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was
“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 wh ch 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, rearranged 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 morn ng 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,
ar


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window, sure enough! Well, and did you sec 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's hand. Why, the one is as brown as
that coffee, and the other as white as the cup,
with the 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 hay-rick is giving. They're all out
trying to prop it up. My, but it do blow!”.


THE LAST GALLEY
257
was
It did indeed! When Dolly came down stairs
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 count-
less 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 hay-rick. 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 hill side, 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 for-
ward to meet her with a great white crow-bar 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 kind
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
cias.


THE LAST GALLEY
259
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 shape-
less 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 some-
thing 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 he sleeps.”
“I'm sure he's welcome to my room, father."


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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
m


THE LAST GALLEY
263
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 dogrose.
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.
TO


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265
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 gray
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 Peshawur, 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


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267
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 rotting 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 in-
dustry 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 hill sides 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


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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 into my mind that I had heard
much of the hard drinking life of the island, and
that from brandy came these 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 striv-
ing 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


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He took up my hands 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
to-morrow it'll be all right. There's a surgeon
aboard, and 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 gentle-
man 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 reassuri g as my
servant seemed to think, but I reflected that he
lal
was


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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-


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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 gray 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 do 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."
W
e
1


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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 a 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


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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 latitude 35 N. and longitude 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 con-
stantly 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


VII
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 illum-
inated only by the glimmering lamp of the care-
taker. 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 Peri-
cord, the inventor and electrical engineer. Long
into the watches of the night the gleam of his
lamps bore witness to the untiring energy and rest-
less 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,
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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 wh ch had brought Brown
into Pericord's workshop at so late an hour. Bus-
iness 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 evi-
dently from the metal box. A subtle odour of
ozone was in the air.


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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 highland 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 to-morrow 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. “To-
morrow 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, dia-
grams, and plans under his arm. At twelve he


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285
en
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, whitewashed
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
aro


290 THE LAST GALLEY
“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.


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“Will you give up the patent, Brown?”
There was no answer.
“Will you give it up?"
Again no answer. Not a sound save the hum-
ming 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 arm 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. Every thing was


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293
in the moonlight. He had not used the rudder, but
had turned the head for the south. Gradually
the wired thing rose higher, and sped faster, until
it had passed over the line of cliff, and was sweep-
ing 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 birthplace 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.


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It is a most lonely spot, and the walks are pic-
turesque 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 alto-
gether 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 effects 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 handi-
work, 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 beau-
tiful purple shade, which is only found at one or
two places in the world. It is so rare that an


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an
“Of it,” said he, with a jerk of his thumb toward
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 any one 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


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11
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 farm house, 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


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303
bocor
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 ani-
mal. 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,
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 bowlder 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.


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they were, raged within me as I lay. Finally, I
was almost ready to persuade myself that this ex-
perience 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
briers, 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 to-day I am all unstrung and quivering
US


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and sinister meaning of which no one can appre-
ciate save myself. I may say that we have had
cloudy and moonless nights of late, which accord-
ing 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 gypsies 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 destruc-
tion? 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 answer-
able both for his death and for any other mishap


THE LAST GALLEY
315
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 paralyzed 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



BES
3)
SA
SEN
HE HAD REARED UPON HIS HIND LEGS AS A BEAR WOULD DO,
AND STOOD ABOVE ME, ENORMOUS, MENACING.


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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.
nom
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 blood stain 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 hill side, gray 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 Doctor Johnsons and the like, may
smile at my narrative, but the poorer folk of the
SOUTC









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