THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES * amous Mutb-'>ri 1 AL: ! . \ND S> The Sunken Road at Waterloo Photogravure. From a Painting by Stanley Berkley Frejjkrjv ■-'■'-tt'' -— With a Gen : ROSSITER JoriN&( Claeeic tTalce b? jfamous Hutbors CONTAINING COMPLETE SELECTIONS FROM THE WORLD'S BEST AUTHORS WITH PREFATORY BIOGRAPHICAL AND SYNOPTICAL NOTES Edited and Arranged by Frederick B. De Berard . 4-S z^ With a General Introduction by Rossiter Johnson, LL.D. Published by 1 H E B O D L 1^: 1 A N S O C I E T Y New York IAN 1906 Columbia JE^itton The publishers guarantee that this edition is strictly limited to one thousand numbered and registered copies, of which this is copy ma Copyright 1902 Copyright 1905 BY The Bodleian Society MADE BY THE WERNER COMPANV AKRON, OHIO CONTENTS PAGE General Preface, iii General Introduction, .... xiii Critical Synopsis of Selections, . . xxxiii Biographical Dictionary of Authors, xli Waterloo Victor Hugo ii Balaklava . . . William Howard Russell 39 Drums of the Fore and Aft . Rudyard Kipling 49 Csesar at Alesia . . James Antfwny Froude 91 Service of Danger, A . . Amelia B. Edwards lOl Ivry Lord Macaulay 125 In the Land of the Masai . H. Rider Haggard 131 Battle of Beal' an Duine, The Sir Walter Scott 181 Revolt of Lucifer, The . . . John Milton 189 Picture of War, A . . . J. A. MacGahan 211 Downfall of the Moors, The Washington Irving 237 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Sunken Road at Waterloo . . Frontispiece Frederick B. De Berard iii Dr. Rossiter Johnson xiii Charge of the Cuirassiers at Waterloo ... 25 Heroes of Waterloo 31 Day After Waterloo 35 Balaklava .43 Death of Caesar 93 H. Rider Haggard . . . . . .131 Sir Walter Scott 181 John Milton 189 Oliver Cromwell Visiting Milton . . . 191 Milton Dictating to His Daughter . . .197 The Soldier's Dream 215 Gates of Justice, Alhambra, Granada . . . 251 GENERAL PREFACE Portrait of Frederick B. De Berard .8 >fDn9b9iT ^0 tiBitio*^ GENERAL PREFACE THE WORLD OF BOOKS SIR THOMAS BROWNE, in his "Hydriotaphia," muses quaintly upon the mutability of man and his works; how uncounted generations pass into nothingness and leave no trace; how mighty empires decay and vanish; how all that the hand of man has wrought crumbles under the touch of time and is hidden by the pall of oblivion. Man dies and is forgot; his corporeal form vanishes utterly; but the creations of his mind, the essence of his potency, live on and on through the ages. The physical being is transitory: the thought — intangible, without entity — is immortal and survives the assault of time, the tooth of decay, and the clash of empires. The noblest works of man's hands are but fleeting witnesses of vanished greatness — melancholy monuments to the shadow of a name, memorials which show forth naught of the actual man. Only in the world of thought may imperishable monuments be founded, only in the magic domain of books may the hidden past be unveiled, the spirits of those long dead be re-created in the semblance of living humanity — instinct with passion and feeling, vivid portraitures of past actualities. The spirit- ual part of Man departs, we know not whither; his bodily presence dissolves and vanishes ; but that which was potent in him, the creative force of Mind, survives in books, the mediums which bear living messages from GENERAL PREFACE the dead past, and transmit to the living present the mental impulses born of great minds in the long ago. Here is embalmed, secure against oblivion, aught that is worthy of remembrance ; here are the true memorials of the actual man, inscribed by by-gone chroniclers — his passions, his emotions, his heroic deeds, written in words of gold, or sung in tenderest accents by some great poet — his character and motives mercilessly dissected by some great mental anatomist, the noble crowned with the laurels of immortal fame, the ignoble damned to everlasting infamy. The nations of the dead are an innumerable host : "—All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom." The crude imaginings of all races have peopled earth and air with disembodied spirits, invisible to mortal eyes, who throng about us by day and night, bemoaning wasted lives, lamenting the crimes and follies of the past, and haunting the living with vague terrors. But these are the creations of superstition and ignorance — • the fearsome shapes assumed by evil beings animated by malevolence, the heralds of terror, injury and death. Not such are the spirits evoked from the past by the magic of letters, to inhabit this realm of books, the illimitable domain of Thought. Hither the centuries send throngs of stately shades, the spiritual embodiment of great minds, the reincarnation of all the golden thoughts and worthy deeds that Time has crowned with immortality. All that men deem noblest and deem of greatest worth — the profound thoughts of mighty intellects; the lofty ideals of spiritual minds; the beauty of holiness ; the inspiring recitals of heroic deeds, of abnegation and self-sacrifice, of charity, kindly acts and GENERAL PREFACE all good works ; the dainty fancy, graceful imagery, the beautiful thought, the poet's melody and the soaring imagination of the story-teller — these are the gracious oflferings brought by the glorious shades of the past to the treasure-house of Knowledge — their spiritual essence transmuted into books, through which the great minds of distant centuries shall forever hold communion with untold millions. Their corporeal lives are separated from ours by centuries of time ; their bodily abodes, mayhap, were far distant, across vast spaces of land and sea, beset with deadly perils and unimaginable fatigues, frightful with terrors and fearful portents. But lo ! a marvel ! Here is a book — a fragile thing at best, sensitive to many agencies of destruction. Ranged about the walls, row upon row, are many others — "infinite riches in a little room." A fleeting fancy, an idle hand stretched forth, a half-purposeless turning of the leaves, and behold! in a flash time and space are annihilated, we have sped forty centuries into the past, and raptly hearken to an old blind poet, a homeless stroller who chants to the low undertone of his harp the wondrous story of Troy. The blind old minstrel. Homer, rolls forth the tale of fierce combat and the deeds of heroes, in words sometimes stately and sonorous as the ocean's roar, sometimes racing with the speed and turbulence of a mountain torrent ; now soaring and flashing like raging fire, anon moving with the calm majesty of a great river. As he sings, the warring hosts of Hellas and Troy leap into being, the tumult of the battle is all about us, the din of arms, the death-shriek, the furious shout, resound ; the fierce chiefs, the madly-rushing chariots, the deadly struggle for the gate, the desperate defence of the ships — we are in the midst of these actualities, the undying progeny of the brain, the immortal children of the poet's GENERAL PREFACE lofty thought. The sun sinks low, the battle ceases, the tumult lessens to silence; darkness falls and the heavens are bright with the radiance of stars ; when lo ! a thou- sand camp fires gleam upon the plain ; and soon the warring hosts lie plunged in sleep. "As when in heav'n, around the glitt'ring moon The stars shine bright amid the breathless air; And ev'ry crag, and ev'ry jutting peak Stands boldly forth, and ev'ry forest glade ; Ev'n to the gates of Heav'n is open'd wide The boundless sky : shines each particular star Distinct; joy fills the gazing shepherd's heart. So bright, so thickly scatter'd o'er the plain. Before the walls of Troy, between the ships And Xanthus' stream, the Trojan watchfires blaz'd. A thousand fires burnt brightly ; and round each Sat fifty warriors in the ruddy glare ; Champing the provender before them laid. Barley and rye, the tether'd horses stood Beside the cars, and waited for the morn." Four thousand years ago the warrior bands of Greece and Troy sprang from the poet's brain : for forty cen- turies they have been battling on by day : and now, as I turn the leaves of Homer, I stand on the plain of Ilium, the tired warriors still peacefully slumber beside their watchfires after the toils of battle, and as of old the overarching heavens are brilliant with silver stars. "For books are not absolutely dead things," says Milton, "but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are ; nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. . . . Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, em- GENERAL PREFACE balmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life." Many have written lovingly of delightful intimacies, through books, with the noblest and best of past ages. Nearly six hundred years ago, "When all the land was filled with violence," and the light of knowledge had fallen very faint, Richard de Bury in his Philobiblon wrote in the Latin tongue these words in praise of books : "The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches; and nothing that can be wished for is worthy to be compared with it. Whosoever acknowl- edges himself to be a zealous follower of truth, of hap- piness, of wisdom, of science, or even of the faith, must of necessity make himself a Lover of Books." In later days Lowell descants in similar strain ; Dr. Holmes, the witty "Autocrat," tells of the cumulated wisdom of Nineteenth Century youth and their advan- tages over the sages of the past ; and a long line of reflective minds take up the theme. "Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library," says Emerson. "A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil coun- tries in a thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men them- selves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette ; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom friend is here written out in transparent words, to us, the strangers of another age." An eloquent divine thus voices the profound feelings which books inspire : "Let us thank God for books ! When I consider what some books have done for the world, and what they are doing; how they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and faith, soothe pain, give an ideal life to those whose homes are hard and cold, GENERAL PREFACE bind together distant ages and foreign lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down truths from heaven — I give eternal blessings for this gift, and pray that we may use it aright, and abuse it not." Still loftier is the strain, more intimate the apprecia- tion of Edwin Percy Whipple : "Precious and priceless are the blessings which books scatter around our daily paths. We walk, in imagination, with the noblest spirits, through the most sublime and enchanting regions — regions which, to all that is lovely in the forms and colors of earth, "Add the gleam, The light that never was on land or sea, The consecration and the poet's dream." "A motion of the hand brings all Arcadia to sight. The war of Troy can, at our bidding, rage in the nar- rowest chamber. Without stirring from our firesides, we may roam to the most remote regions of the earth, or soar into realms where Spenser's shapes of unearthly beauty flock to meet us, where Milton's angels peal in our ears the choral hymns of Paradise. Science, art, lit- erature, philosophy — all that man has thought, all that man has done — the experience that has been bought with the sufferings of a hundred generations — all are gar- nered up for us in the world of books. There, among realities, in a 'substantial world,' we move with the crowned kings of thought. There our minds have a free range, our hearts a free utterance. Reason is confined within none of the partitions that trammel it in life. In that world, no divinity hedges a king, no accident of rank or fashion ennobles a dunce or shields a knave. We can select our companions from among the most richly gifted of the sons of God; and they are com- panions who will not desert us in poverty, or sickness, or disgrace." viii GENERAL PREFACE In every age since the light of letters began to illumine the pathway of mankind, the praise of books has been heralded by men of finer mold, those attuned to the subtler harmonies of existence, responsive to the rarer and more spiritual of the forces which shape men's lives. But for long the class of book-lovers was a mere handful. Only in very recent times have the generality of men come into their delightful heritage in the world of books — the domain where the accidents of time and space are not, where the hard bondage of the physical senses is escaped, where the grossness of material things gives place to illimitable freedom and ethereal charm — to the noble potency of philosophy, the serenity of things spir- itual — to the joyonsness of lightly-flitting fancy, and the boundless marvels of imagination. In the Seventeenth Century a few great minds formu- lated the essential principles of knowledge. Thereby men speedily discovered the secrets of physical forces, whose command has gone far to create a general con- dition of material comfort. Bacon, Descartes and others taught men the right use of the understanding. Their mighty intellectual impulse fertilized all succeeding gen- erations of minds, created the world of science, and infinitely broadened the field of education. Thus, as the barriers of ignorance and poverty have been overthrown by the force of rightly directed intelli- gence, the portals of the world of books — once sacred to the scholar and inaccessible to the generality — have swung wide that all mankind may freely enter into the enchanted land, to hold delightful discourse with the living thoughts of noble minds. Here, at last, the true perspective of life appears, the material concerns which have filled all our horizon shrink to their real propor- tions, we stand amazed at their littleness, their barren- ness, their poverty in all that is graceful, beautiful, ennobling, uplifting. We gaze beyond them, and behold ! GENERAL PREFACE before us are endless vistas of enchantment, radiant with the elusive tints of fancy, glorious with the ethereal beauties of imagination — a new and entrancing world, impalpable to the deadened senses of those in bondage to material things, palpable and real to the finer spiritual senses. The "Classic Library" represents only the literature of imagination and fancy — the powerful imaginings of the great romancers and novelists, the beautiful fancies of great poets. It is the outcome of a chastening process of selection, not formal or premeditated, but possibly more drastic. It represents the "survival of the fittest," the consensus of many minds, and not merely the personal opinion of a single mind. Real book-lovers are always critical and usually discriminating. They have many friends among books to whom they are drawn by some positive literary quality — by intellectual strength, imagination, beauty of diction, dramatic power. Many book-lovers have suggested their favorite stories to the. Editor of the "Classic Library." Many others have critically discussed the merits or demerits of the selections. The critics include men-of-letters with whom literary criticism is a pursuit, and book-lovers of culti- vated tastes and wide acquaintance with literature. Hence this library is made up of what many capable judges deem to be strong and worthy literature, dis- tinctive because of dramatic force, imaginative quality or beautiful fancy. '<_■■ \^- m Portrait of Dr. Rossiter Johnson GENERAL INTRODUCTION THE EVOLUTION OF LITERATURE THE proverb that recognizes literature as the most durable of all human productions is almost as old as literature itself. Every individual that speaks the language in which it is written may perish from the earth, and the mould of centuries and the debris of for- gotten cities be heaped over the records; but in the fullness of time comes a Layard with his spade, and a Rawlinson with his skill, and somebody stumbles upon a Rosetta stone, and the long-buried story is trans- lated into a living language and multiplied in thou- sands of copies. "Which would you rather be," said the ancient phi- losopher to his pupil, "the winner at the Isthmian games or the herald who announces the name of the winner?" The immediate answer, regarding only im- mediate advantage, was obvious; but in the largest sense he who proclaims and pictures worthy deeds is often rewarded with quite as much of fame as the doer himself. Herodotus is more a living and breathing man to us than anyone that is named in his history; Homer is more a delight than his own Achilles; we want to know all about Cicero, but care very little about the men for or against whom his eloquence was employed; and Macaulay's wonderful style is almost more to us than his story. GENERAL INTRODUCTION The herald may be a mere herald, or he may be the inseparable companion of his hero; it all depends on his style. When we leave the wide realm of history, and enter into the wider realm of fiction, this phe- nomenon is increased a hundredfold, because here the hero himself is created by his herald, and his deeds are performed only in the imagination of the trump- eter. Yet here I speak too literally; for the imagina- tion that borrows not from possibility and probability, from experience and from the laws of nature, is of a lower and fantastic order. Charles Swain saw a won- derful procession of ghosts trailing through Dryburgh Abbey; but he whom they bewailed was more than all together, for he created them all. So, too, Dickens walks forever at the head of his procession, and Balzac leads his, and Hugo his, and Cooper his. And this, again, is even more intensely true of the sub- jective writers, like Byron and Lamb and George Eliot, whose literary families, for that very reason, are smaller. Byron, writing on the completion of his greatest poem, says: "It was in vain that I asserted, and imagined that I had drawn, a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in the compo- sition that I determined to abandon it altogether — and have done so." Written letters remain; but where they do not re- main, or never have been invented, oral tradition preserves the tale, and the story-teller is the hero of the fireside. In literature, an apparent crossing of the branches will sometimes produce not only the most pleasing, but the most lasting, effect. The historian who rises above a mere chronicler and presents, like the ro- mancer, a pictured page; the novelist who gives to his GENERAL INTRODUCTION fancied incidents and situations the appearance of verity; the poet who seems never to distort truth for the sake of rhyme; and the essayist who gives his discourse a rhythm of its own — all these receive a peculiar reward in the commendation of the critic and the fascination of the reader. If no such thing as a fictitious story ever had been told, one might make a very plausible argument to prove that fiction never would meet with popular ac- ceptance. Let us imagine that it had not yet ap- peared in any literature. A man with a large head, a remarkably fine face, and a slight limp walks into the office of a successful and intelligent publisher, and in- quires as to the disposition of a manuscript that he sub- mitted a few days before. "I am glad to see vou, Mr. Scott," says the publisher. "I read your manuscript my- self, and was intensely interested by it, and I am eager to publish it. But, pray, where did you find the story? I am pretty well read in history, and I remember noth- ing like it. What unknown chronicle have you dis- covered?" "None at all," answers Mr. Scott, "except in my imagination. I have drawn the whole narra- tive from my brain." "What!'' says the publisher, "do you mean to say that these things which you have told so vividly never happened — that this is not true?" "Literally speaking," answers the author, "it is not true. But I have tried to make it what might be called true to nature. Nothing is related that might not have happened — nothing that would not follow naturally and logically from the supposed conditions. And I hope it is not only interesting for its incidents, but instructive by suggestion." "Dear me!" says the publisher. "And so it is all fiction — a mere figment of the fancy — a relation of events that never occurred! What a pity! If it were history, even though told a little one-sidedly, I should be glad to bring it out; GENERAL INTRODUCTION but, as it is, I cannot think of it. The reviewers — sharp fellows that they are! — would discover the cheat and glory in exposing it, and the reputation of this publishing house would be ruined. In fact, we should not even make anything on the book itself; for when buyers discovered its true character they would re- turn it and demand their money." That no such conversation ever was heard, and no such rejection ever took place, is due perhaps to the fact that before the day of alphabets the romancer came into direct contact with his public, v/ithout the intervention of a publisher. The tales that were told in the twilight or about the camp-fire found eager lis- teners, who did not care to inquire into their histor- ical accuracy, and demonstrated that there was a good market for fiction. The young men of a tribe, when they went out for fish and game, were aware that he would be most welcome who brought back the heaviest string, but they knew also that he would be a good second who could tell the largest story. Hence the present character of those tales. The fables of ^sop and Pilpay come down to us from a remote antiquity as the earliest and simplest exarnples of what we now know as the moral tale, teaching an obvious and indisputable lesson. The Book of Job, which probably is of even higher an- tiquity, sets the earliest example of a didactic drama. The stories that are told only for the story's sake, as entertainment pure and simple, originated some- what later. We do not know the first date of the "Arabian Nights," or the romance of "Antar"; but v/e do know that they have long been a popular possession, and as they are repeated over and over again in the coffee-houses, every raconteur who has sufficient invention to add a new tale to the number feels at liberty to do so. Here we have the early GENERAL INTRODUCTION development of plot and incident, with hardly more in the way of character than broad outlines of two qualities — cunning and simplicity. When we come to the legends of the North Amer- ican Indians, which were first gathered by School- craft, and afterward were used so effectively by Long- fellow in his "Hiawatha," we have less of plot, but we find a portrayal of some of the finer lights and shades of human character such as the Arabian story- tellers either never thought of or never took the trouble to delineate. And these legends also make use of dumb animals as rational beings, not always so logical as in ^sop's pages, but often more picturesque. When we come to the folk-lore of our Southern ne- groes — much more recently put into print, though in- herited from remote African ancestors — we find that we have gone backward in the matter of narrative de- velopment here ; for here the dramatis personcB are ani- mals almost exclusively, exhibiting only the quali- ties of the human beings in the Arabian tales — cun- ning and simplicity — with hardly an indication that the stories have received any addition or modification as they have been repeated from generation to genera- tion through the centuries. A child likes to hear a fa- vorite story many times, but wishes it to be told in exactly the same way at each repetition. And that race is in its childhood, as is shown in many ways. The favorite tales of old Japan, though modern com- pared with the earliest Arabian, are yet several cen- turies old. They have fierceness and cunning at the core, but these are accompanied by love and fidelity and loyalty, and some of the softer graces that char- acterize the modern literature of most civilized na- tions. The island kingdom of Japan is geographically related to the continent of Asia almost exactly as the British kingdom is related to Europe, with an area GENERAL INTRODUCTION somewhat larger, but stretching north and south and having similar varieties of climate. And the Japanese, in their rapid development through the past forty years, have shown many traits similar to those of the British race. The earliest literature of a civilized people is almost always poetry — or, at least, the earliest that survives. This may be due to the fact that legends in the ordinary form of prose may be repeated from mouth to mouth by anyone who has heard them and remembers their substance — no exact form of words being necessar>'. But when some genius has put them into verse, the form becomes an essential feature, and then they are either learned so as to be repeated literally or are reduced to writing, and in either event they at once take their place as literature. Chaucer, the "morning star of English poetry," wrote his immortal "Canter- bury Tales" in verse near the end of the Fourteenth Century, and about a hundred years later Sir Thomas Malory collected from various sources the legends of King Arthur and gave them definite form as continuous narratives, making a story that Walter Scott pro- nounced "the best prose romance the language can boast." Sir Walter modestly left his own great works out of the account — and there most of us would dis- agree with him. In our own day Malory's legends have been worked up in blank verse by Tennyson. The first four — published in 1859, under the title, "Idyls of the King" — are among his finest productions; the others, which he appears to have written mainly for the purpose of exhausting the material, cannot be ranked so high. We have to pass over another hundred years in the history of our literature, with little to note, and then, at the close of the Sixteenth Century, we come upon Shakespeare in mid-career with his unequalled dramas. GENERAL INTRODUCTION To a boy, they are a delight merely for their stories, and it is probably a mistake to suppose that he must have these extracted and paraphrased by another hand. Charles Lamb did it as well as it could be done in his "Tales from Shakespeare," but his book never has had much success, and if it had been done by anyone less known than Lamb it probably would have had none at all. The boy loves better to think he is delv- ing in the original mine. When he is somewhat older he begins to discover other riches than the mere plot, and to revel in the poetry and comprehend the philos- ophy. Still later, if his bent is toward the creation of literature, and he feels the impulse of ambition, contemplation of the great dramatist produces a feel- ing of depression, perhaps of despair, when he con- siders that that mighty structure of wisdom, humor, pathos, poetry and dramatic power must forever tower above anything that any other literary genius can hope to raise. After a time, as his education proceeds and his reading widens, he comes upon the half-dozen thick volumes of "Shakespeare's Library," wherein the industrious Hazlitt, enlarging upon the work of Nich- ols and Collier, has gathered all the "plays, romances, novels, poems, and histories employed by Shakespeare in the composition of his works." Here he learns that there was a "Makbeth" before Shakespeare's "Mac- beth," and a "Romeus and luliet" and a "Historic of Hamblet" and a "Taming of a Shrew" and a "History of Leir and His Three Daughters" and a "True Trag- edy of Richard 3" and a "Troublesome Raigne of King John" and a story "Of a Jew who would for his debt have a pound of the flesh of a Christian." Then 'the young man, having the infirmity which all men suflfer, but none confess, takes heart again when it ap- pears that the greatest of all mortal creators built upon foundations laid down by others, and was not so GENERAL INTRODUCTION great after all. But still another revulsion awaits him; for when he has read the old plan's and stories, and compared them with Shakespeare's version, he finds how immeasurably superior the artist was to his mate- rials — what a vast difference there is between a dia- mond in the mine and the same stone as it leaves the hand of the lapidary. But this is a poor simile, when applied to a genius who not only brought out all that was good in the ancient tales, but put into them such wisdom, romance, moving power and secrets of human nature as the original narrators never dreamed of. Read this from the old poem of "Romeus and luliet," by Arthur Broke: " An Apothecary sate unbusied at his doore. Whom by his heavy countenaunce he gessed to be poore, And in his shop he saw his boxes were but fewe, And in his window (of his wares) there was so small a shew, Wherefore our Romeus assuredly hath thought, What by no frendship could be got, with money should be bought. For nedy lacke is like the poore man to compell, To sell that which the cities lawe forbiddeth him to sell. Then by the hand he drew the nedy man apart, And with the sight of glittring gold inflamed hath his hart. Take fiftie crownes of gold (quoth he) I geve them thee, So that before I part from hence thou straight deliver me Somme poyson strong, that may in lesse than halfe an howre, Kill him whose wretched hap shal be the potion to devowre. The wretch by covetise is wonne, and doth assent To sell the thing, whose sale, ere long, too late he doth repent. In hast he poyson sought, and closely he it bounde, GENERAL INTRODUCTION And then began with whispering voyce thus in his eare to rounde, Fayre syr (quoth he) be sure this is the speeding gere, And more there is then you shall nede, for halfe of that is there Will serve, I undertake, in lesse than halfe an howre. To kill the strongest man alive, such is the poysons power." And then read Shakespeare's famous description of the apothecary in the fifth act of "Romeo and Juliet." Epigrams and flashes of wit are not wanting in the older productions — as "loving in haste, repent thee at leisure," and "one bird in the hand is worth two in the wood" — but most of the great multitude that ap- pear in Shakespeare's work are his own. So when the mind of our ingenuous young man has passed through these phases and arrived at this knowledge, he tells himself that he would rather have this immortal poet for a life-long companion than that he should have left his works unwritten, to the improbable chance that another as great as he would ever arise, or that a dozen others would ever be able among them to ef- fect the same creations. The despair of literary aspi- ration is lost in the love of literature. When we are with Shakespeare, we have to think also of his generous friend, Ben Jonson, whose plays might have been considered great but for their greater contemporaries; and of Sir Philip Sydney, the per- petual model for young manhood, with his "Arcadia"; and of Sir Walter Raleigh, connected as an explorer and colonist with the early history of our own coun- try, and his unfinished "History of the World"; and of Francis Bacon, with his bright literary work and his pitiful personal record; and of Edmund Spenser, with his "Faerie Queene," which nobody now can read, but which nobody dares to omit from the list of GENERAL INTRODUCTION Standard poems; and of the Earl of Surrey, with his pretty lyrics. Dropping down the stream of time through the pleas- ant places of another century, we come to Milton in his old age, Dryden in his prime, and Pope in his boyhood. Milton's work for freedom, with his sturdy and powerful prose, was done in his earlier years, and at that time, too, his shorter poems were written, but his two long poems were the production of his old age. In spite of the sentiment that has gathered round "Paradise Lost," his finest work is the "Areopagitica," which he calls "a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing." Not the general power of argument alone, but a genius for epigrammatic expression of an in- disputable proposition, shines out in that immortal essay: "Who knows not that truth is strong, next to the Almighty?" "When the new light which we beg for shines in upon us, there be who envy and op- pose if it come not first in at their casements." "We boast our light, but if we look not wisely on the sun itself it smites us into darkness." "Paradise Lost" has met with the most diverse criticism, both in Milton's day and in our own. The poet Edmund Waller, a con- temporary of the author, wrote: "The old blind schoolmaster, John Milton, hath written a tedious poem on the fall of man; which, if its great length be not accounted for a merit, it hath no other." But Macaulay, at the age of twenty-five, began his brilliant series of essays with an elaborate eulogy on that work in which Waller could discover nothing but tedious- ness. Nearly half a century later, Taine, the historian of English literature, while highly appreciating Mil- ton's personal character, expends all his wit in dis- praise of "Paradise Lost" and some of the prose works. "This Adam," he says, "entered Paradise via England. There he learned respectability, and there GENERAL INTRODUCTION he Studied moral speechifying." Milton told Dryden that Spenser was his master; but his familiarity with the Greek and Latin classics led to an almost slavish imitation of them, which has produced the most notable fault in his style, for which he was condemned by Dr. Johnson. Dryden wrote plays in rhyme, which are long since forgotten, became poet-laureate, changed his politics and his religion to suit the court, produced absurd alle- gories and foolish satires, modernized some of Chaucer's tales, and finally made an imperishable trans- lation of Virgil's ".Eneid." His original work is little read now, but he holds a conventional place in our literature. The strangest character among the lettered men of that day, or perhaps of any day, was Jonathan Swift. His Gulliver is one of the famous figures in fiction, whose narrative was written as a satire on the incred- ible tales of travelers in distant lands; but it is doubtful if most of its readers now are not children who delight in the mere grotesquerie. Addison was but five years younger than Swift, and presents a striking contrast. His tragedy of "Cato" was produced on the stage with great success, which was largely owing to the fact that while the public assumed that it must have a political bearing, this, if it existed at all, was so ambiguous that both Whigs and Tories claimed it. His more last- ing work was his "Spectator," a periodical filled with short essays, sometimes serious and sometimes humor- ous, but for the most part written with a light and graceful touch. Johnson uttered the famous dictum that anyone who wished to acquire an elegant English style must spend his days and nights with Addison. Possibly there was some truth in the remark when it was made; but our literature has since been enriched by essayists who far surpass Addison both in style GENERAL INTRODUCTION and in matter. In truth, he had not much to say, though he always expressed himself pleasantly. He had many collaborators in the "Spectator," which is still kept regularly in print. His best essays, the Sir Roger de Coverley series, are often printed by them- selves, and Sir Roger walks in the procession of im- mortal characters. Dr. Young's "Night Thoughts," expressed in solemn alank verse, were a great advance on anything of the ;cind that had gone before. They seem a little heavy, in spite of their correctness and often stately move- ment, and would probably have gone to oblivion were it not for their many epigrammatic and striking pas- sages. Some of these have become classic as quota- tions, and they keep the long poem in print and are probably the chief cause of its being translated into many languages. There was another writer in the middle of the Sev- enteenth Century, who never is mentioned by any of these, and probably was hardly known to them, who produced a unique work that has far surpassed all theirs in popularity and is said to have been trans- lated into more languages than any book except the Bible. He was but moderately educated and was a tinker by trade, a preacher by choice, and a philan- thropist by habit. He spent twelve years in jail, put there by the authorities because he would not refrain from preaching as a non-conformist; and at the age of fifty he produced his "Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come." It is not sur- prising that when Bunyan showed the manuscript to his friends they were utterly unable to judge of it, had the most diverse opinions, and made the wildest criti- cisms. If it were offered to the publishing houses that are doing business now, it would probably be re- jected by most if not all of them. Indeed, it is one GENERAL INTRODUCTION of the unique things that occasionally appear in liter- ature, the fate of which cannot be predicted. When we arrive at Pope, who was sixteen years younger than Addison, we perceive a turn in the cur- rent of English. He puts his mind upon questions of casuistry, displays a perfect command of the art of versification, with great skill in the construction of antithetical passages, and produces moral essays in flowing verse, which have an immediate success and captivate the reader's ear at once, before his critical sense has time to act. When this comes into play, they lose their popularity, and after a time the question is seriously discussed whether Pope was a poet at all. It is only a case of the swing of the pendulum to opposite extremes. All his moral essays may be can- celled from his writings, and enough of noble poetry will be left to prove his claim. Yet the best service he rendered was in his translation of the "Iliad," which has shown a stronger hold on life than all his other work. It has been criticised for its lack of literalness; but, whether we call it Homer's "Iliad" or Pope's "Iliad," it remains the one readable English version of that great story. Samuel Richardson, who has been called "the in- ventor of the English novel," was contemporary with Pope. Perhaps the explanation of his inventing may be found in his own account of his boyhood. When he was thirteen years old he used to be called to read to a sewing-circle of young ladies. "Three of these young women," he says, "having a high opinion of mj- taciturnity, revealed to me their love secrets, in order to induce me to give them copies to write after, or correct, for answers to their lovers' letters; nor did any of them ever know that I was the secretary of the others. I have been directed to chide, and even repulse, when an offence was either taken or given, at GENERAL INTRODUCTION the very time that the heart of the chider or repulser was open before me, overflowing with esteem and af- fection, and the fair repulser, dreading to be taken at her word, directing this or that expression to be softened or changed." This experience, with the sug- gestion of a friend, was what led him to the idea of a long story told in familiar letters. Richardson was a printer and stationer in London and considered his novel-writing as a mere incident. His novels — "Pame- la," "Clarissa Harlowe" and "Sir Charles Grandison" — had an immediate and wonderful success, were praised from the pulpit and read by everybody. They passed through a time of violent and contradictory criticism, and finally they were driven out by the shorter, livelier and more artistic stories of his successors. They may still be found on the shelves of public libraries, where they are seldom reported as "out." If Richardson was the inventor of the English novel, Henry Fielding so far improved it (in all except moral tone) that he almost becomes the originator. He was born eighteen years later than Richardson, and died seventeen years earlier; but in his short life of forty-six years, wherein he was the very oppo- site of Richardson in morality and thrift, he produced novels that set the pattern for all romancers who have come after him, though they are marred by features that none would copy now. Even a careless read- ing of "Tom Jones" inevitably suggests that Field- ing was Dickens's master. Another contemporary of these writers was a man with a stranger and more varied career than either. He wrote scores of books, a few of which survive, and one of which appears to possess some principle of life that gives it an unwavering popularity like that of "Pilgrim's Progress," though in all other respects the two books are as different as a forest and a rainbow. GENERAL INTRODUCTION This was Daniel Defoe, author of "Robinson Cru- soe," a book that was abused in its day, not because of its literary character, but because of its author's politics. His severe satires offended the Tories, and some of them were condemned to be burned by the hangman. He was driven from his business, and was imprisoned for two years, and finally he could write of himself: " No man has tasted different fortunes more, And thirteen times I have been rich and poor." This was the author who invented the realistic novel, as distinguished from the romance. Two er- rors concerning "Robinson Crusoe" appear to be per- sistent, in spite of the fact that everybody reads it. One is that the book is intended as a juvenile; the other, that its scene is the island of Juan Fernandez, in the Pacific. It is plainly pointed out in the orig- inal title-page and in the book itself that the scene is on an imaginary island in the Caribbean Sea, near the mouth of the Orinoco. But Alexander Selkirk was left on Juan Fernandez, and the political opponents of Defoe accused him of stealing Selkirk's story: hence the error. The mid-portion of the Eighteenth Century pro- duced still a different author of light literature, whose work is apparently immortal. This was Oliver Gold- smith, poet, dramatist, essayist, and novelist. His "Vicar of Wakefield" is kept alive in many editions, his "Traveller" and "Deserted Village" are in all the anthologies, and "She Stoops to Conquer" has not left the stage. He, too, like Defoe, was unfortunate in the business conduct of life, and died heavily in debt. This appears to be the uniform penalty for versatility. Know one thing, know it well, and know GENERAL INTRODUCTION little else, looks like the surest prescription for suc- cess — if success means a bank account. As we pass over from the Eighteenth Century to the Nineteenth, we observe the rising of that brilliant galaxy which included Byron, Wordsworth, Moore, Shelley, Keats, Campbell and Lamb — a wonderful poetic revival, forming a new school wherein the lyric spirit pervaded all the verse. They delivered their burden and passed away, Moore and Wordsworth lin- gering in old age long after the others. And then arose a new group — Macaulay, the essayist and historian, at once ponderous and brilliant; Dickens, the humorist and depicter of humble life; Thackeray, humorist as well, but almost the antipodes of Dickens as a story- teller; Tennyson, the lyrist of exquisite touch, infinite pains, and apparent perfection; and Browning, cer- tainly the most enigmatical of all poets, but perhaps also the deepest of all philosophers. With these rises a star in the West, our own Irving, producing essays that never lose their simple charm, writing idyls in prose and inventing, or at least introducing, the short story — that species of lit- erature in which his successors among his country- men have surpassed all others. I do not forget Dickens's Christmas tales and the dog stories of Ouida and Dr. Brown; but the unique stories of Poe and Hawthorne, Hale's "Man Without a Country," Harte's "Outcasts" and "Luck of Roaring Camp," and the fine work of some of our later writers, must still stand at the head in this class. "All print is open to you," said Mr. Bofifin plaintively to Mr. Wegg, because Wegg could read, while Bofifin could not. But Boffin was able to buy books, and Wegg was not; so it required the resources of both to open a vista into the great world of literature. The suc- cessive improvements in paper and printing machinery xxvlii GENERAL INTRODUCTION. have brought Hterature nearer and nearer to the means of the poor, while the common school has been light- ing the way for the ignorant. We have now arrived at a time when every home wherein is reasonable thrift, however small its income, may have its own library, and thus invite the great men of ages past to make themselves familiar at its board. _ /\^^iuJ^Ze^ ^/c^ttcci^^fi^^ . CRITICAL SYNOPSIS OF SELECTIONS CRITICAL SYNOPSIS OF SELECTIONS Balaklava: By William Howard Russell. In the early 'fifties, fanatical Turks were in- censed by the toleration of the rites of the Greek Church in the holy places of Islam. The Pa- triarch appealed to the Czar of Russia, the head of the Greek Catholic Hierarchy. The Czar deter- mined to relight the Sacred Lamp that for cen- turies had burned unquenched before the Holy Sepulcher, and incidentally to secure future tolera- tion by annexing a large part of Turkey. The Crimean War resulted. France and England came to the Sultan's aid. The allies sent fleets into the Black Sea, invaded the Crimea, and made the port of Balaklava their base of operations. The Rus- sians attacked them in force, and the first great battle of the war followed. The combat was fierce but short. Those were still the days of short- range muskets, of hand-to-hand combats with bayonet, lance and saber, of brilliant charges and desperate personal valor. A series of magnificent charges by the English cavalry swept away the Russian lines almost instantly. One of these has been immortalized by Lord Tennyson in "The Charge of the Light Brigade." As a spectacle, the battle was one of the most brilliant and exciting in history. Seldom is so grand a sight described with such fire and anima- tion as imbue William Howard Russell's account of the battle of Balaklava, reprinted in this vol- ume. As war correspondent for the London Times, he was an eye-witness of the combat. Battle of Beal' an Duine, The: By Sir Waltet^ Scott. This is an episode from the poetic romance, CRITICAL SYNOPSIS OF SELECTIONS "The Lady of the Lake." Roderick Dhu, Chief of Clan Alpine, a turbulent Highland tribe, has refused obedience to the King and scorned his clemency. Roderick engages in single combat with a wandering knight, is wounded, disarmed and made captive. His clansmen rise in revolt, the King's forces are sent against them, they meet at Beal' an Duine, and Clan Alpine is utterly destroyed. Cmsar at Alesia: By J. A. Froude. Of all the numerous biographies of the great Roman, none is more lucid and interesting than that by Froude. Although a comprehensive and sym- metrical history, the author modestly entitles it "A Sketch." The capture of Alesia by Caesar was a won- derful military exploit. With 50,000 Roman soldiers he blockaded an army of 80.000 Gauls in the citj' of Alesia, annihilated a second army of more than 200,000 which sought to relieve the beleaguered city, and effected its capture, thereby breaking the barbarian power. Downfall of the Moors, The: By Washington Irving. Washington Irving's "Conquest of Granada" is sober history; but it is history in the guise of fascinating romance. It is the chronicle of chiv- alry and knighthood, of valor and prowess, of daring forays, hand-to-hand combats, of sieges and assaults, of hairbreadth escapes. From this delightful book, several episodes have been se- lected. They tell how Muley Abul Hassan, a fierce old Moorish warrior, broke the peace be- tween Moor and Christian; how in the darkness of night, amid a howling tempest, he and his band scaled the precipices of Zahara, the impregnable, captured the strongest fortress in Spain without struggle, cut down all who bore arms and carried all the inhabitants captive to Granada. How the Spanish chivalry were driven to fury by the in- sult, and how the valiant Marquis of Cadiz took vengeance upon the Moors by surprising their city of Alhama, far across the Sierra and nigh to Granada ; he took it by assault, made slaves of all CRITICAL SYNOPSIS OF SELECTIONS the people, secured vast plunder of great worth. How, having fought to get in, he fought to get out again and could not; how he was closely be- sieged and suffered greatly from thirst and famine, until relieved by the Duke of Medina Sidonia. The capture of Zahara, the reprisal of Alhama — these were the prologues that ushered in the war that drove the Moors from Spain Drums of the Fore and Aft, The: By Rudyard Kipling. This is one of the strongest of Kipling's stories. It is a graphic pen-picture of a border conflict iij India. England holds India by sleepless vigilance along the frontier. Along the northwest border are 1,200 miles of rugged mountain wall, pierced by a few passes. Within striking distance of each a miniature army of men with white skins and red coats awaits a call to service. Mimic wars are frequent. When the hillmen rise, they must be chastised, for to surrender the passes to the hill- men is to admit the Russians, who, beyond the mountain barriers, await an opportunity to de- scend upon India. This story tells how the distinguished "Fore and Fit" regiment of British infantry (holding a long string of other titles bestowed in honor of a German princeling) lost its veterans by lapse of time, and became mainly raw recruits; how they shrunk be- fore a wild Afghan "rush" — a torrent of fierce and fanatical tribesmen, reckless of death, and armed with "tulwars," resembling four-foot razors; how two "tough" little drummer boys marched steadily forward to their death beating the charge; how the shame of the sight stung the fleeing regiment to halt, face about and win the fight, and how the regiment was thereafter dubbed the "Fore-and- Aft." In the Land of the Masai: By H. Rider Haggard. In several of Haggard's lurid stories of Africa the same characters reappear — Sir Henry Curtis and Capt. John Good, seeking adventures and sport; Allan Quatermain, the great hunter, and "one Umslopogaas,'' a giant Zulu chief, driven from his land by the fortunes of war. CRITICAL SYNOPSIS OF SELECTIONS In the Story called "Allan Quatermain," these worthies journey in quest of fabled cities and strange peoples, and on the borders of the land of the Masai they rest at the fortress-home of a missionary-pioneer. They have been followed by the Masai, unseen. Flossie, the little daughter of the missionary, unknowing of danger, has gone to a distant plain for flowers, and, with her serv- ant, is made prisoner. The Masai demand the surrender of the travelers as the price of the child's life. Allan Quatermain himself tells the story of how the few white men and their followers as- saulted the kraal of the great Masai war-party in the dead of night, of the desperate fight, the mighty valor of Umslopogaas and Sir Henry, and the rescue of the little maid. Ivry: By Lord Macaulay. In 1590 there had been civil war in France for thirty years. The kingdom was torn by dis- sensions, intrigues, factions. Several great fam- ilies of the nobility contended for supremacy. Re- ligious rancor embittered political strife. The horror of St. Bartholomew was but the type of a period of cruelty, baseness and misery. One after another, the feeble, cruel and treacherous princes of Valois, Anjou and Lorraine fell by disease, assassination or violence. The nation longed for peace; all factions turned toward Henry, King of Navarre, a scion of the royal family of France, a strong man, a shrewd politician, and, above all, neither cruel nor capricious. Nominally a Hu- guenot, at heart tolerant of or indifferent to all creeds, Henry stood forth as the great champion of toleration. He led the Huguenot army against the Catholic Leaguers at Ivry-la-Battaille. inflicted a crushing defeat upon them and broke their power. Foreign aid enabled the League to pro- long the contest, but the victory of Ivry was the turning point; and it made Henry of Navarre Henry IV. of France. Lord Macaulay's stirring ballad is one of several famous battle-songs. Picture of War, A: By J. A. MacGahan. This is an episode from "Campaigning on CRITICAL SYNOPSIS OF SELECTIONS the Oxus." a graphic account of travel adven- ture and war in Central Asia. In the early seven- ties Russia began a campaign for the conquest of the vast plain lying to the east of the Caspian Sea and stretching from Siberia to Persia and Afghan- istan, peopled by fierce, independent tribes of nomad Turcomans. J. A. MacGahan was sent to Turkestan by the New York Herald to accompany the Russian army. When he reached the army rendezvous, on the northern border. General Kaufman's expedition had been three weeks gone and was far in the interior. MacGahan hastened forward, only to be stopped at the first Russian post and ordered to return. He evaded his guards, fled into the track- less desert, and started alone upon a desperate journey of a thousand miles, to intercept the Rus- sian advance and view the assault upon Khiva. He succeeded, after infinite danger and hard- ship. The capture of Khiva was followed by a campaign against the more southern tribes. How warfare is waged against barbarians is illustrated by "A Picture of War." Revolt of Lucifer, The: By John Milton. This is an episode or abstract from Milton's sublime epic, "Paradise Lost." Satan, the fallen, once Lucifer, the Angel of Light, having dis- covered Paradise and Adam and Eve therein, tempts them to sin, for despite of God, by whom he was cast from Heaven. The Arch- angel Raphael is despatched to warn thern against the wiles of the evil one; and he tells them of the rebellion of the angels, led by Lucifer, their war against the Almighty, their overthrow by the angelic hosts led by the Son, and the ter- rible punishment inflicted upon them. All the hosts of Heaven were summoned by the Father to do homage to the Son. Lucifer, first among the Archangels, moved with envy and pride, secretly inspired others, leaders of hosts, with disafifection, and a third part of all the angels followed his standard, raised in rebellion against the Lord. Myriads of the faithful were marshalled against the traitor angels. For two whole days a CRITICAL SYNOPSIS OF SELECTIONS mighty battle raged, to the end that on the third day all Heaven might see and know how far the single strength of the Almighty surpassed that of all his hosts. Utter ruin fell upon the revolted army at the stroke of the Divine wrath. They were driven in panic rout to the bounds of Heaven and thence hurled down to Hell. Service of Danger, A: By Amelia B. Edwards. This author has written many strong stories in which the supernatural is an element. The story bearing the title above is of that class. It is a tale of Moreau's Black Forest campaign and the battle of Hohenlinden, wherein the ablest of Na- poleon's generals inflicted a crushing defeat upon their Austrian foes. The young Graf von Lich- tenstein undertakes a service of danger — a recon- naissance to learn the movements of the enemy — and perishes, with all his troop. Waterloo: By Victor Hugo. One of the episodes of Victor Hugo's powerful romance. "Les Miserables," occurs on the battle- field of Waterloo. This supplies the author with the occasion for one of his characteristic discur- sions, which afford powerful side-lights, but which, with the exception of a few main incidents, are not vital parts of the story. Some of these discursions are complete creations in themselves, which may be wholly separated from the main plot, to which they are but slightly attached. Hugo's superb battle-piece has been thus dis- sociated from the context which obscures it. and in this volume is presented as a symmetrical whole. In "Les Miserables" the story of Waterloo is told in fragments, interpolated amidst other sub- jects and scattered through many chapters. In the present arrangement there are no gaps in the sequence; the dramatic interest is unbroken, and the famous battle is depicted with all the graphic force of one of the greatest of writers. The \yon- derfully vivid pictures of the charge of the cuiras- siers up the Heights of Mont St. Jean, the awful disaster at the Hollow Road, and the desperate defence of the Chateau of Hougomont are drawn with unsurpassable power. Editor. xxxviii BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS Edwards, Amelia Blandford: Born at London in 1831; died at Weston Super Mare, Somerset, in 1892. An English novelist, miscellaneous writer and Egyptologist. She showed talent for drawing and music in her early life and in 1853 began to write for periodicals. From 1880 until her death she devoted herself to archaeological studies. In 1883 she became the honorary secre- tary of the Egyptian exploration fund. She re- ceived the title of Doctor of Philosophy from Columbia College, New York, and lectured on the antiquities of Egypt, etc., in 1889 and in suc- ceeding years in the United States. "A Thousand Miles up the Nile" was illustrated by her own sketches. Among her novels are "Barbara's His- tory" (1864), "Lord Brackenbury" (1880), "Deb- enham's Vow" (1870), "Half a Million of Money," "Miss Carew" (1865), "Hand in Glove," etc. She also wrote "A Summary of English History" (1856), "An Abridgment of French History" and in 1865 published a volume of ballads. Froude, James Anthony: A noted English historian, essayist and polemical writer; born 1818, died 1894. Although Fronde's literary distinction rests mainly upon his historical writings, it is derived from the qualities of brilliant diction, dramatic construction and power of graphic narration, rather than from philosophic strength and pene- tration. His intellect was that of the advocate rather than of the judge. Few prose writers sur- pass him in lucidity, force, brilliance and graphic power. He has an unerring instinct for that which stirs the imagination, for that which is dra- matic, for the picturesque, the romantic, the un- usual or exciting. That is to say, he has the mental equipment of the great story-teller; he depicts episodes and incidents, passions, intrigues, xli BIOGRAnilCAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS plots, the drama and action of life; and, like a great master of narrative, he arranges the se- quence of his events with dramatic art and sus- tains the interest to the climax. These qualities made Froude one of the most fascinating of writers; but other qualities are es- sential to a great historian. He deals with epochs and social forces; episodes and individuals are mere incidents. Imagination and dramatic sense have no part in judicial estimates of causes and effects, or in critical analyses of social forces, Froude's rank as a historian has been hotly dis- puted. He certainly was minute rather than broad, picturesque rather than philosophic, effec- tive rather than accurate. His accuracy has been assailed, and his generalizations are brilliant rather than sound. Nevertheless, he is a great literary artist, without a rival in the vivid portrayal of historic episodes. Froude was educated for the church and was for many years in deacon's orders, and was promi- nent in the polemic controversies of the tractarian movement under Newman. He withdrew from the church in 1852, became Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, and devoted himself wholly to literature. His chief works are a "His- tory of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada," "The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," "Short Studies on Great Subjects," "Cccsar: A Sketch/' and va- rious essays. Haggard, H. Rider: English author. The various English colonies scattered over the world have recently developed a literature of their own, dis- tinctive in character, strong in action, and strik- ingly vivid in local color. For the most part, the new school deals with stirring tales of adventure and romance. H. Rider Haggard is one of these strong colonial tale-writers. He was born in South Africa, and his youth and early manhood were passed among the English pioneers who were winning Natal, Bechuanaland and Zululand from the brave and fierce Zulus and Masai. From the scenes of his early days he has drawn material for xlii BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS many exciting tales — stories of savages, hunting adventures, strange peoples, mysterious hidden cities, interwoven with the preternatural, the im- possible, and often with the absurd. Haggard's tales have small literary merit; but they have strong dramatic qualities, are often powerful iij action, and here and there show imagination of the highest quality. His most important stories are: "She," "Allan Quatermain" and "King Solomon's Mines." Hugo, Victor Marie: Born at Besangon (France), February 26, 1802; died at Paris, May 22, 1885. A celebrated French poet, dramatist and novelist, one of the foremost men-of-letters of the nine- teenth century and the great leader of the idealist- romantic school. Prolific in the several fields of poetry, drama and fiction, he is eminent in all. In his earlier years he won distinction by his poems, of which several successive volumes were pub- lished within a few years. During the same period he produced his first prose fictions and several plays of minor importance. In 1829-30 the dramas of "Marion Delorme" and "Hernani" appeared and won for him high distinction as a dramatist. He thereafter wrote many noted acting plays, in- cluding "Le Roi S'Amuse," "Lucrece Borgia," "Marie Tudor," "Esmeralda" and "Ruy Bias." In 1831 his powerful genius as a writer of prose romance was made manifest by "Notre Dame de I'aris." For thirty years thereafter he produced no prose fiction worthy of note, his fiery energy being almost wholly monopolized by journalism and political agitation. From 1830 to 1848 he was a prominent figure in the tumult of French politics and contributed not a little to the explosive forces of that period. When the coup d'etat of 1848 sub- verted the Republic and created the Second Empire, Victor Hugo was exiled. Being thus extinguished as a political factor, his ardent mind turned again to purely literary pursuits. In 1862 his great ro- mance, "Les Miserables," appeared, followed by "Les Travailleurs de la Mer" (1866); "L'Homme Qui Rit" C1869); "Quatrevingt-treize" (1874), and others. Some of these deservedly rank among the masterpieces of fiction. xliii BIOGRAI'IIICAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS No critical estimate of Hugo's work is here at- tempted. His intellectual greatness is conceded; but his limitations are no less evident. His style is always impressive, generally forcible; but, though usually clear and lucid, it often becomes pompous and even bombastic. To English taste the words sometimes seem much too large for the thought. In a word, Hugo is over-emotional; a master of imagination and feeling, but a poor reasoner; a great poet and novelist, but an absurd philosopher. Irving, Washington: Born at New York, April 3, 1783; died at Sunnyside, his home near Tarrytown, Nov. 28. 1859. Irving is distinguished not only as one of the foremost American men-of-letters, but also as the first American author to gain a world- wide audience. A prolific and versatile writer. Irving's fame rests in large measure upon his essays and literary sketches, in which his delicacy of sentiment, grace of style, sunny humor and felicity of thought are at their best. Among these are such literary masterpieces as "Rip Van Winkle" and "A Legend of Sleepy Hollow," which were included in the "Sketch Book," published 1819- 1820. His earliest volume (1806) was "Salma- gundi," a series of semi-literary squibs on passing events, written in collaboration with James K. Paulding. In 1809 his delightful travesty, "The History of New York, by Diedrich Knicker- bocker," made its appearance. It was a great success and gave Irving a secure literary standing. After five years as a merchant, in partnership with his two brothers, Irving went abroad in 1815, and remained in Europe until 1832. He was for three years attache of the United States Legation at Madrid and three years secretary of the Legation at London. Many of his best works were written and published during his long foreign residence, in which period his writings comprised "The Sketch Book," "Bracebridge Hall," "Tales of a Traveler," "Life and Voyages of Columbus," "Conquest of Granada" and "The Alhambra." He returned tq America in 1832, and in 1842 was appointed United States Minister to Spain, which post he filled until xliv BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS 1846. After his final return he resided at Sunny- side until his death, in 1859. In the middle period of his life he wrote "Crayon Miscellany" and "Adventures of Captain Bonneville." His later works were "Oliver Goldsmith" (1849), "Ma- homet" (1850), "Wolfert's Roost" (1855), and "Life of George Washington" (1855-59). Kipling, Rudyard: Born at Bombay, India, in 1865. An English writer. Kipling was educated in Eng- land, but returned to India in 1880 to become sub- editor of the Lahore Civil and Military Gazette. This position he held for seven years, during which time he published many short stories and poems of Anglo-Indian military and civil life. After leaving India in 1889, he went to England thence to America, where he resided temporarily. As an author, Kipling is extremely versatile, creating alike vivid pictures of sea and army life, character studies, ballads and schoolboy tales. In his East Indian stories there is the mingled charm of a true knowledge of the subject and of how to tell a story well. Mr. Kipling has many critics who question the literary value of his work, but there are many, too, who believe him to be a very great author. Through all his stories and poems runs an intimacy with the people and things of which he writes that speaks of a wide experience along many lines. His fishing story of the Grand Banks, his engineer tales, and "The Ship that Found Herself" leaves one convinced that he has known the sea. It is hard to believe that the Jungle Folk are but dumb beasts, and harder that Mulvaney. Ortheris and Learoyd were not his personal friends, introduced by him to the world at large in "Soldiers Three" and "Military Tales." His principal works are: "Departmental Dit- ties," "Plain Tales from the Hills," "Mine Own People," "Soldiers Three," "Barrack-Room Bal- lads," "Many Inventions," "The Jungle Books" and "Captains Courageous." Macaulay, Lord (Thomas Babington) : One of the most famous of modern historians, a brilliant essayist and man-of-letters, and an able states- 4 xlv BIOGRAnilCAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS man. He was born at Rothley Temple, Leicester- shire, October 25, 1800, and died at London De- cember 28, 1859. His literary career began in 1825, when his essay on Milton appeared in the Edin- burgh Reviezv and won for him instant fame throughout the world of letters. The Edinburgh Reviciv was one of the most important literary powers of the time, the mouthpiece of a coterie of brilliant and able minds. Macaulay quickly be- came one of the foremost of this group, and his successive articles securely established his position as an essayist and reviewer of uncommon power. In 1830 Macaulay entered Parliament. His great ability as a publicist and jurist was at once dis- played, and in 1834 his talent for public afifairs was formally recognized by delegating to him one of the most arduous and complex tasks then before Parliament — the preparation of a code of laws for the government of India. He was appointed a member of the Supreme Council in India, and be- tween 1834 and 1838 he performed the great and difficult duty with which he was charged with such signal efficiency as to give him a high place among jurisconsults. Macaulay remained a member of Parliament until 1847, twice becoming a cabinet minister, serving as War Secretary, 1839 to 1841, and as Paymaster-General 1846-7. In 1848 appeared the first volumes of his most important work, "A History of England from the Accession of James II." The third and fourth vol- umes were published in 1855, and the great work was completed in 1861. Few, if any, historical works have had a greater or more interested audi- ence; nor has any been at once so highly praised and severely condemned. That it fairly ranks as a great masterpiece of historical word-painting is conceded. In 1852 Macaulay re-entered Parliament, and in 1857 was raised to the peerage, as Baron Macaulay. Among his productions are a number of ballads, most of which are included in every collection of English poems. In 1842 the "Lays of Ancient Rome" were printed; and the heroic ballad, "Hora- tius at the Bridge," has since become an English classic. xlvi BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS MacGahan, Januarius Aloysius : In the long roll of noted war-correspondents MacGahan's name stands first, not alone for daring, persistence, and brilliant descriptive powers, but for the momentous results that followed his horrifying revelation of the "Bulgarian Atrocities" of 1876. His daring journey across a trackless desert to witness the capture of Khiva by the Russian army is outlined in the critical synopsis of "A Picture of War." When he reached Constantinople, on his return from Turkestan, war between Russia and Turkey was imminent. The Bulgarians, subjects of Tur- key, but Christians and Slavs, had implored the Czar to defend them from massacre by the fanatic Bashi-bazouks. D'Israeli, the English Premier, derided the tales of fearful outrages, and threat- ened to resist Russian aggression upon Turkey. None knew the truth. MacGahan and Consul- General Eugene Schuyler, braving constant peril of death, journeyed at speed throughout the tor- tured province. Civilization was appalled at the hideous revelations of massacre, outrage, lust and rapine, of the murder of women and children by thousands, of awful mutilations, of towns depop- ulated, pillaged and burned. Gladstone flamed into fury, D'Israeli was driven from power; and Russian vengeance fell upon the unspeakable Turk. Later, near the close of the war, MacGahan, in the hos- pital at Constantinople, nursed Captain (since Gen- eral) Francis V. Greene through an attack of ty- phoid fever. He was himself stricken with black typhus, and quickly died, lamented as few have been. An American, born in Ohio, he was sent by the New York Herald to report the Franco-Prus- sian war, made a most brilliant record, and re- mained in Paris during the Commune. Later he served both the Herald and the London Daily News. Milton, John: Poet and Political Writer. By virtue of his great epic poem of "Paradise Lost," John Milton holds a place among the greatest poets. His lyric poems, "L'AUegro," "II Penseroso" and others reach the serenest heights of imagination and poetic beauty. Some of his odes and sonnets are masterpieces of their class. Some of his po- xlvii BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS litical pamphlets are full of stern power, and, though marred in part by turgid and sometimes bombastic diction, they now and again flame with fiery eloquence, burning with indignation against wrong. This great poet was born at London in Decem- ber, 1608. A natural scholar, he gained a great fund of classical learning, first as a boy at St. Paul's School, later as a student at Cambridge, which he entered when sixteen years of age. By his classical studies he acquired a ponderous and involved style, due to the fact that many of his works, and especially his controversial tracts, were first written in Latin. His English, therefore, smacks of Latinity; and at times it becomes grandiose. His earlier poems were written whil^ still a youth at school and college, and during the years immediately following. They include the "Ode on the Nativity," the sonnets "To Shakespeare," "To the Nightingale," etc., "Ad Patrem," "L' Allegro," "II Penseroso," "Comus" and "Lycidas." In the troubled times preceding and during the Civil War and Commonwealth he wrote many pamphlets on political and ecclesiastical affairs. The most notable of these was the "Areopagitica," a noble argument for a free press. Under the Commonwealth he was Latin Secretary. On the restoration of the Monarchy he was proscribed because of his political writings. He was soon pardoned, and resumed his interrupted literarY labors, burdened down by blindness, penury and domestic unhappiness. In 1658 he began his great work, "Paradise Lost;" it was finished in 1665 and published in 1667. This was followed by the inferior "Paradise Regained," "Samson Agonistes," etc. Milton died November 8, 1674. Russell, William Howard: A noted British jour- nalist and war correspondent; born near Dublin, 1821. In the 'fifties of the century just closed a new form of literary activity came into being. The newspaper was in process of transformation from xlviii BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS an organ of opinion to a current record of events; and brilliant literary talent was then first directed to exact observation and vivid description of the world's great happenings. In 1854-55 there were printed in the London Tmtes a series of remark- able reports from the seat of war in the Crimea. They were powerful, glowing, trenchant; never before had the actualities of war been so vividly depicted day by day to a nation feverishly anxious for news. Never before had the stories of great battles been told by the press almost upon the instant, in English so terse and lucid, with diction so powerful, with such dramatic force, with such clarity and fullness. William Howard Russell was the first of the great war correspondents. His first letters thrilled all England with their wonderful descriptive power. There is no stronger battle-piece in the language than his report of the battle of,Balaklava, written on the field and under extreme pressure of time. Later the nation was stirred to burning in- dignation by his unsparing exposure of the blun- dering incapacity which almost destroyed the British army in the Crimea. Russell's fiery in- vective drove out lords and generals in disgrace and forced a reorganization. Russell's newspaper letters descriptive of the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58 were equally notable. He served as war correspondent for the London Times in the American Civil war, the Austro- Prussian war of 1866, and the Franco-German war of 1870-71. Scott, Sir Walter: Poet, Historian, and Writer of Romantic Fiction: Born at Edinburgh, 1771; died at Abbotsford, Scotland, in 1832. It is impracticable, in this limited space, to at- tempt any critical estimate of a writer so prolific and versatile as Scott. Only the salient facts of his career can be stated, with a list of his more important works. Walter Scott was the son of an Edinburgh at- torney and was trained for the bar. As a child, his health was feeble, and he was therefore fitful and irregular in his attendance at school. In his xWk BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS formal studies he was defective; but he had an in- satiable thirst for knowledge and devoured books with avidity. As he grew stronger he developed industry and application in his reading. He de- lighted in romantic history, ballad poetry, the folk lore and wild legends of the turbulent Scottish tribesmen. At fifteen he knew little Latin, but was saturated with romantic lore, with the literature of history, and with the traditions and legends eagerly gleaned from the thousands of old tales current among the common people. Young Scott read law as a duty but without zest. Delving into the past was far more congenial, and the severe Scotch precision of the elder Scott was scandalized by young Walter's frequent roamings, during which he scoured the country to gather its ballads and legends — a pursuit which moved the severe old gentleman to declare that he was fit for nothing but a "gangrel scrape-gut." In 1792 Walter Scott was admitted to the bar and became an advocate. His aim was to obtain an appointment in the Courts, whose income would permit him to follow literary pursuits. In 1799 he was made a sheriff-depute of Selkirkshire, with a comfortable salary and nominal duties. A fewr years later he obtained the additional office of clerk-of-the-session, the combined salaries amounting to £1,600 a year. During these early years his taste for romance, tradition and ballad led him into the wider fields of the early romantic literature of France and Italy. By an accident he was led to learn German, while still in his teens. The ballad poetry of Germany struck a congenial note and incited his first published literary work, a translation of Biirger's ballads, which appeared in 1796, followed in 1799 by a translation o; Goethe's "Gotz von Berlichingen." In 1802-3 he published "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," and in 1805 appeared his first im- portant poem — "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." This poem was not only a great popular success, but earned a handsome profit for its publishers and author. Coincident with this prosperity, Scott re- ceived a moderate bequest, which he was persuaded to secretly invest in a printing plant, for which he 1 BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS secured large patronage from Constable, his Lon- don publisher, then the autocrat of the literary world. "Marmion" was published in 1808. Its success was dazzling, and the large profits from it were indirectly the undoing of the author. The printing firm, of which he was a secret partner, quarrelled with his publisher. A breach ensued, Scott withdrew his works from Constable's control and the printing concern became his publishers. Scott's popularity continued unabated. "The Lady of the Lake" (1810), "Vision of Don Rod- erick" (1811), and "Rokeby" (1813) gave him the first place among the authors of the day. Their sale was immense, and Scott was seemingly on the full tide of prosperity. He bought a great estate on the Tweed and spent immense sums in building the fine manor of Abbotsford. Then came the shadow of disaster. Against the great profits earned by his own creations were scored still greater losses from other ventures. At the request of his partners he had edited th^ works of Dryden, of Swift, the Somers Tracts, the Sadler State Papers and other works. They were wholly unsalable, and bankruptcy was imminent, It was averted by the aid of Constable, who again became Scott's publisher. The first of Scott's great prose works was given to the world in 1814, under the title of "Waverley; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since." This novel was pub- lished anonymously; and for thirteen years the identity of the "Author of Waverley" was a mys- tery. Other novels "By the Author of Waverley" followed in astoundingly rapid succession, and simultaneously Walter Scott was publishing in his proper name poetical romances, history, reviews, was editing the works of other authors, and per- forming his duties as a court officer. His health gave way under the strain; he re- fused to relax, and produced the greatest of his works while enduring physical agony. His earn- ings were princely, but his outlays were great, his building operations making heavy demands upon him. In 1825 he was appalled by the failure of Constable, his publisher, and the discovery that the printing firm of which he was a member had BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS hopelessly involved him in the failure and that he was liable for ^130,000. He devoted the remaining few years of his life to gigantic toil to pay this debt. For two years he wrote at tremendous speed, paid £40,000 to his creditors, and then came intimations of collapse in the form of a slight stroke of paralysis. He refused to heed. He toiled ceaselessly, wrote more novels whose feebleness showed his waning powers, wrote the Life of Napoleon, the History of Scotland, the Tales of a Grandfather, wrote various other works — anything that might coin his dying brain into money to wipe disgrace from his name. He paid his debts. Then he rested from his toil and died. Editoh- lii WATERLOO WATERLOO Victor Hugo: An Abstract from "Les Miserables" CHE sun was charming ; the branches had that soft shivering of May, which seemed to proceed rather from the nests than from the wind. A brave little bird, probably a lover, was carolling in a distracted manner in a large tree. The wayfarer bent over and examined a rather large circular excavation, resembling the hollow of a sphere, in the stone on the left, at the foot of the pier of the door. At this moment the leaves of the door parted, and a peasant woman emerged. She saw the wayfarer, and perceived what he was looking at. "It was a French cannon-ball which made that," she said to him. And she added : "That which you see there, higher up in the door, near a nail, is the hole of a big iron bullet as large as an egg. The bullet did not pierce the wood." "What is the name of this place?" inquired the way- farer. "Hugomont," said the peasant woman. The traveler straightened himself up. He walked on a few paces, and went off to look over the tops of the hedges. On the horizon, through the trees, he perceived a sort of little elevation, and on this elevation something which, at that distance, resembled a lion. He was on the battle-field of Waterloo. FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. If it had not rained in the night between the 17th and the i8th of June, 1815, the fate of Europe would have been dififerent. A few drops of water, more or less, decided the downfall of Napoleon. All that Providence required in order to make Waterloo the end of Auster- !itz was a little more rain, and a cloud traversing the sky out of season sufficed to make a world crumble. The battle of Waterloo could not be begun until half-past eleven o'clock; that gave Blucher time to come up. Why? Because the ground was wet. The artillery had to wait until it became a little firmer be- fore they could maneuver. Napoleon was an artillery officer, and felt the efifects of this. The foundation of this wonderful captain was the man who, in the report to the Directory on Abou- kir, said: "Such a one of our balls killed six men." All his plans of battle were arranged for projectiles. The key to his victory was to make the artillery converge on one point. He treated the strategy of the hostile general like a citadel, and made a breach in it. He overwhelmed the weak point with grape-shot; he joined and dissolved battles with cannon. There was some- thing of the sharpshooter in his genius. To beat in squares, to pulverize regiments, to break lines, to crush and disperse masses — for him everything lay in this, to strike, strike, strike incessantly — and he entrusted this task to the cannon-ball. A redoubtable method, and one which, united with genius, rendered this gloomy athlete of the pugilism of war invincible for the space of fifteen years. On the i8th of June, 1815, he relied all the more on his artillery, because he had numbers on his side. Wel- lington had only one hundred and fifty-nine mouths of fire; Napoleon had two hundred and forty. Suppose the soil dry, and the artillery capable of mov- ing, the action would have begun at six o'clock in the 12 WATERLOO. morning. The battle would have been won and ended at two o'clock, three hours before the change of for- tune in favor of the Prussians. What amount of blame attaches to Napoleon for the loss of this battle? Is the shipwreck due to the pilot? His plan of battle was, by the confession of all, a masterpiece. To go straight to the centre of the Allies' line, to make a breach in the enemy, to cut them in two, to drive the British half back on Hal, and the Prussian half on Tongres, to make two shattered frag- ments of Wellington and Blucher, to carry Mont-Saint- Jean, to seize Brussels, to hurl the German into the Rhine, and the Englishman into the sea. All this was contained in that battle, according to Napoleon. Those persons who wish to gain a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo have only to place, mentally, on the ground, a capital A. The left limb of the A is the road to Nivelles, the right limb is the road to Genappe, the tie of the A is the hollow road to Ohain from Braine I'Alleud. The top of the A is Mont-Saint-Jean, where Wellington is; the lower left tip is Hougomont, where Reille is stationed with Jerome Bonaparte; the right tip is the Belle-Alliance, where Napoleon was. At the center of this chord is the precise point where the final word of the battle was pronounced. It was there that the lion has been placed, the involuntary symbol of the supreme heroism of the Imperial Guard. The triangle included in the top of the A, between the two limbs and the tie, is the plateau of Mont-Saint- Jean. The dispute over this plateau constituted the whole battle. The wings of the two armies extended to the right and left of the two roads to Genappe and Nivelles; d'Erlon facing Picton, Reille facing Hill. Two hostile troops on a field of battle are two wrest- lers. It is a question of seizing the opponent around the waist. The one seeks to trip up the other. They 13 FAMOUS TALES OF RATTLE. CAMP AND SIEGE. clutch at everything; a bush is a point of support; an angle of the wall oflfers them a rest to the shoulder; for the lack of a hovel under whose cover they can draw up, a regiment yields its ground; an unevenness in the ground, a chance turn in the landscape, a cross-path en- countered at the right moment, a grove, a ravine, can stay the heel of that colossus which is called an army, and prevent its retreat. He who quits the field is beaten, hence the necessity devolving on the responsible leader of examining the most insignificant clump of trees and of studying deeply the slightest relief in the ground. The two generals had attentively studied the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean, now called the plain of Waterloo. In the preceding year, Wellington, with the sagacity of foresight, had examined it as the possible seat of a great battle. Upon this spot, and for this duel, on the i8th of June, Wellington had the good post, Napoleon the bad post. The English army was stationed above, the French army below. It is almost superfluous here to sketch the appearance of Napoleon on horseback, glass in hand, upon the heights of Rossomme, at daybreak, on June i8, 1815. All the world has seen him before we can show him. That calm profile under the little three-cornered hat of the school of Brienne, that green uniform, the white revers concealing the star of the Legion of Honor, his great coat hiding his epaulettes, the corner of red rib- bon peeping from beneath his vest, his leather trousers, the white horse with the saddle-cloth of purple velvet bearing on the corners crowned N's and eagles, Hes- sian boots over silk stockings, silver spurs, the sword of Marengo — that whole figure of the last of the Caesars is present to all imaginations, saluted with acclamations by some, severely regarded by others. Everyone is acquainted with the first phase of this battle; a beginning which was troubled, uncertain, 14 WATERLOO. hesitating, menacing to both armies, but still more so for the English than for the French. It had rained all night, the earth had been cut up by the downpour, the water had accumulated here and there in the hollows of the plain as if in casks; at some points the gear of the artillery carriages was buried up to the axles, the circingles of the horses were dripping with liquid mud. If the wheat and rye trampled down by this cohort of transports on the march had not filled in the ruts and strewn a litter beneath the wheels, all movement, particularly in the valleys, in the direction of Papelotte would have been impossible. The aflfair began late. Napoleon, as we have already explained, was in the habit of keeping all his artillery well in hand, like a pistol, aiming it now at one point, now at another, of the battle; and it had been his wish to wait until the horse batteries could move and gallop freely. In order to do that it was necessary that the sun should come out and dry the soil. But the sun did not make its appearance. It was no longer the ren- dezvous of Austerlitz. When the first cannon was fired, the English general, Colville, looked at his watch, and noted that it was thirty-five minutes past eleven. There is in this day an obscure interval, from mid-day to four o'clock; the middle portion of this battle is almost indistinct, and participates in the sombreness of the hand-to-hand conflict. Twilight reigns over it. We perceive vast fluctuations in that fog, a dizzy mir- age, paraphernalia of war almost unknown to-day, pendant colbacks, floating sabre-taches, cross-belts, car- tridge-boxes for grenades, hussar dolmans, red boots with a thousand wrinkles, heavy shakos garlanded with torsades, the almost black infantry of Brunswick min- gled with the scarlet infantry of England, the English soldiers with great white circular pads on the slopes of their shoulders for epaulets, the Hanoverian light- 15 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. horse with their oblong casques of leather, with brass hands and red horse-tails, the Scotch with their bare knees and plaids, the great white gaiters of our grena- diers, pictures, not strategic lines — what Salvator Rosa requires, not what is suited to the needs of Gribeauval. A certain amount of tempest is always mingled with a battle. Quid obscurum, quid divinum. Each histori- an traces, to some extent, the peculiar feature which pleases him amid this pell-mell. Whatever may be the combinations of the generals, the shock of armed masses has an incalculable ebb. During the action the plans of the two leaders enter into each other and be- come mutually thrown out of shape. Such a point of the field of battle devours more combatants than such another, just as more or less spongy soils soak up more or less quickly the water which is poured on them. It becomes necessary to pour out more soldiers than one would like; a series of expenditures which were unfore- seen. The line of battle waves and undulates like a thread, the trails of blood gush illogically, the fronts of the armies waver, the regiments form capes and gulfs as they enter and withdraw; all these reefs are contin- ually moving in front of each other. Where the infan- try stood the artillery arrives, the cavalry rushes in where the artillery was, the battalions are like smoke. There was something there; seek it. It has disap- peared; the open spots change place, the sombre folds advance and retreat, a sort of wind from the sepulchre pushes forward, hurls back, distends and disperses these tragic multitudes. The historian cannot do more than seize the principal outlines of the struggle, and it is not given to any one narrator, however conscientious he may be, to fix, absolutely, the form of that horrible cloud which is called a battle. This, which is true of all great armed encounters, is particularly applicable to Waterloo. i6 WATERLOO. Nevertheless, at a certain moment in the afternoon the battle came to a point. Towards four o'clock the condition of the English army was serious. The battle had, for Wellington, two bases of action, Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte; Hou- gomont still held out, but was on fire; La Haie-Sainte was taken. Of the German battalion which defended it, only forty-two men survived; all the officers, except five, were either dead or captured. Three thousand combatants had been massacred in that barn. The Scotch Grays no longer existed; Ponsonby's great dra- goons had been hacked to pieces. That valiant cavalry had bent beneath the lancers of Bro and beneath the cuirassiers of Travers; out of twelve hundred horses, six hundred remained; out of three lieutenant-colonels, two lay on the earth — Hamilton wounded, Mater slain. Ponsonby had fallen, riddled by seven lance-thrusts. Gordon was dead. Marsh was dead. Two divisions, the fifth and sixth, had been annihilated. Hougomont injured, La Haie-Sainte taken, there now existed but one rallying point, the centre. That point still held firm. Wellington reinforced it. He summoned thither Hill, who was at Merle-Braine* he summoned Chasse, who was at Braine I'Alleud. The centre of the English army, rather concave, very dense, and very compact, was strongly posted. It oc- cupied the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, having behind it the village, and in front of it the slope, which was tolerably steep then. It rested on that stout stone dwelling which at that time belonged to the domain of Nivelles, and which marks the intersection of the roads — a pile o£ the sixteenth century, and so robust that the cannon-balls rebounded from it without injuring it. All about the plateau the English had cut the hedges here and there, made embrasures in the hawthorn trees, thrust the throat of a cannon between two branches, 17 FAMOL'S TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. embattled the shrubs. Their artillery was ambushed in the brushwood. This punic labor, incontestably au- thorized by war, which permits traps, was so well done that Haxo, who had been despatched by the Emperor at nine o'clock in the morning to reconnoitre the enemy's batteries, had discovered nothing of it, and had returned and reported to Napoleon that there were no obstacles except the two barricades which barred the road to Nivelles and to Genappe. It was at the season when the grain is tall; on the edge of the plateau a battalion of Kempt's brigade, the 95th, armed with car- bines, was concealed in the tall wheat. Wellington, uneasy but impassive, was on horseback, and there remained the whole day in the same attitude, a little in advance of the old mill of Mont-Saint-Jean, which is still in existence, beneath an elm, which an Englishman, an enthusiastic vandal, purchased later on for two hundred francs, cut down, and carried of¥. Wellington was coldly heroic. The bullets rained about him. His aide-de-camp, Gordon, fell at his side. Lord Hill, pointing to a shell which had burst, said to him: "My lord, what are your orders in case you are killed?" "To do like me," replied Wellington. To Clinton he said laconically, "To hold this spot to the last man." The dfiy was evidently turning out ill. Wellington shouted to his old companions of Talavera, of Vittoria, of Salamanca: "Boys, can retreat be thought of? Think of old England!" Towards four o'clock, the English line drew back. .Suddenly nothing was visible on the crest of the plateau except the artillery and the sharpshooters; the rest had disappeared; the regiments, dislodged by the shells and the French bullets, retreated into the bottom, now in- tersected by the back road of the farm of Mont-Saint- Jean; a retrograde movement took place, the English t8 WATERLOO. front hid itself, Wellington drew back. "The begin- ning of retreat!" cried Napoleon. The plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean is now accessible by an easy slope. On the day of battle, particularly on the side of La Haie-Sainte, it was abrupt and difficult of approach. The slope there is so steep that the Eng- lish cannon could not see the farm, situated in the bot- tom of the valley, which was the centre of the com- bat. On the i8th of June, 1815, the rains had still fur- ther increased this acclivity, the mud complicated the problem of the ascent, and the men not only slipped back, but stuck fast in the mire. Along the crest of the plateau ran a sort of trench whose presence it was im- possible for the distant observer to divine. What was this trench? Let us explain. Braine I'Al- leud is a Belgian village; Ohain is another. These vil- lages, both of them concealed in curves of the land- scape, are connected by a road about a league and a half in length, which traversoe the plain along its undulat- ing level, and often enters and buries itself in the hills like a furrow, which makes a ravine of this road in some places. In 1815 this road cut the crest of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean between the two highways from Genappe and Nivelles. It was then a hollow way. This road was, and still is, a trench throughout the greater portion of its course; a hollow trench, some- times a dozen feet in depth, and whose banks, being too steep, crumbled away here and there, particularly in winter, under driving rains. On the day of battle, this hollow road, whose exist- ence was in no way indicated, bordering the crest of Mont-Saint-Jean, a trench at the summit of the escarp- ment, a rut concealed in the soil, was invisible; that is to say, terrible. So, on the morning of Waterloo, Napoleon was con- tent. 19 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. He was right; the plan of battle conceived by him was, as we have seen, really admirable. The battle once begun, its very various changes — the resistance of Hougomont; the tenacity of La Haie- Sainte; the killing of Baudin; the disabling of Foy; the unexpected wall against which Soye's brigade was shattered; Guilleminot's fatal heedlessness when he had neither petard nor powder sacks; the miring of the batteries; the fifteen unescorted pieces overwhelmed in a hollow way by Uxbridge; the small effect of the bombs falling in the English lines, and there embed- ding themselves in the rain-soaked soil, and only suc- ceeding in producing volcanoes of mud, so that the canister was turned into a splash. . . . Marcog- net's division, caught between the infantry and the cav- alry, shot down at the very muzzle of the guns amid the grain by Best and Pack, put to the sword by Pon- sonby; his battery of seven pieces spiked; . . . Grouchy's delay; fifteen hundred men killed in the orchard of Hougomont in less than an hour; eighteen hundred men overthrown in a still shorter time about La Haie-Sainte — all these stormy incidents passing like the clouds of battle before Napoleon, had hardly troubled his gaze and had not overshadowed that face of imperial certainty. Napoleon was accustomed to gaze steadily at war; he never added up the heart- rending details, cipher by cipher; ciphers mattered little to him, provided that they furnished the total — victory; he was not alarmed if the beginnings did go astray, since he thought himself the master and the possessor at the end; he knew how to wait, supposing himself to be out of the question, and he treated destiny as his equal; he seemed to say to fate. Thou wilt not dare! At the moment when Wellington retreated. Napo- leon shuddered. He suddenly beheld the table-land of Mont-Saint-Jean cleared, and the van of the English 20 WATERLOO. army disappeared. It was rallying, but hiding itself. The Emperor half-rose in his stirrups. The lightning of victory flashed from his eyes. Wellingttn, driven into a corner at the forest of Soignes and destroyed — that was the definitive con- quest of England by France; it was Crecy, Poitiers, Malplaquet, and Ramillies avenged. The man of Ma- rengo was wiping out Agincourt. So the Emperor, meditating upon this terrible turn of fortune, swept his glass for the last time over all the points of the field of battle. His guard, standing behind him with grounded arms, watched him from below with a sort of religion. He pondered; he ex- amined the slopes, noted the declivities, scrutinized the clumps of trees, the square of rye, the path; he seemed to be counting each bush. The Emperor straightened himself up and fell to thinking. Wellington had drawn back. All that remained to do was to complete this retreat by crushing him. Napoleon turning round abruptly, despatched an ex- press at full speed to Paris to announce that the battle was won. He gave orders to Milhaud's cuirassiers to carry the table-land of Mont-Saint-Jean. There were three thousand five hundred of them. They formed a front a quarter of a league in extent. They were giant men, on colossal horses. There were six and twenty squadrons of them; and they had be- hind them to support them Lefebvre-Desnouette's Di- vision — the one hundred and six picked gendarmes, the light cavalry of the Guard, eleven hundred and ninety- seven men, and the lancers of the guard of eight hundred and eighty lances. They wore casques without horse- tails, and cuirasses, of beaten iron, with horse-pistols in 21 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLi:, CAMP AND SIEGE. their holsters, and long sabre-swords. That morning the whole army had admired them, when, at nine o'clock, with braying of trumpets and all the music playing, "Let Us Watch O'er the Safety of the Em- pire," they had come in a solid column, with one of their batteries on their flank, another in their centre, and deployed in two ranks between the roads to Ge- nappe and Frischemont, and taken up their position for battle in that powerful second line, so cleverly ar- ranged by Napoleon, which, having on its extreme left Kellermann's cuirassiers and on its extreme right Milhaud's cuirassiers, had, so to speak, two wings of iron. Aide-de-Camp Bernard carried them the Emperor's orders. Ney drew his sword and placed himself at their head. The enormous squadrons were set in mo- tion. Then a formidable spectacle was seen. All their cavalry, with upraised swords, standards and trumpets flung to the breeze, formed in columns by divisions, descended, by a simultaneous movement and like one man, with the precision of a brazen bat- tering-ram, which is effecting a breach, the hill of La Belle Alliance, plunged into the terrible depths in which so many men had already fallen, disappeared there in the smoke, then emerging from that shadow, reappeared on the other side of the valley, still com- pact and in close ranks, mounting at a full trot, through a storm of grape-shot which burst upon them, the terrible muddy slope of the table-land of Mont-Saint- Jean. They ascended, grave, threatening, imperturb- able; in the intervals between the musketry and the artillery, their colossal trampling was audible. Being two divisions, there were two columns of them; Wa- thier's division held the right, Delort's division was on the left. It seemed as though two immense adders WATERLOO. of steel were to be seen crawling towards the crest of the tabla-land. It traversed the battle like a prodigy. Nothing like it had been seen since the taking of the great redoubt of the Moskowa by the heavy cavalry; Murat was lacking here, but Ney was again present. It seemed as though that mass had become a monster and had but one soul. Each column undulated and swelled like the ring of a polyp. They could be seen through a vast cloud of smoke, which was rent here and there. A confusion of helmets, of cries, of sabres, a stormy heaving of the cruppers of horses amid the cannons and the flourish of trumpets, a terrible and disciplined tumult; over all, the cuirasses like the scales on the hydra. Odd numerical coincidence — twenty-six battalions rode to meet twenty-six battalions. Behind the crest of the plateau, in the shadow of the masked battery, the English infantry, formed into thirteen squares, two battalions to the square, in two lines, with seven in the first line, six in the second, the stocks of their guns to their shoulders, taking aim at that which was on the point of appearing, waited, calm, mute, motionless. They did not see the cuirassiers, and the cuirassiers did not see them. They listened to the rise of this flood of men. They heard the swelling noise of three thousand horse, the alternate and symmetrical tramp of their hoofs at full trot, the jingling of the cuirasses, the clang of the sabres, and a sort of grand and savage breathing. There ensued a most terrible silence; then, all at once, a long file of uplifted arms, brandishing sabres, appeared above the crest, and casques, trum- pets and standards, and three thousand heads with gray mustaches, shouting, "Vive I'Empereur!" All this cav- alry debouched on the plateau, and it was like the ap- pearance of an earthquake. All at once a tragic incident; on the English left, on 23 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. our right, the head of the column of cuirassiers reared up with a frightful clamor. On arriving at the cul- minating point of the crest, ungovernable, utterly given over to fury and their course of extermination of the squares and cannon, the cuirassiers had just caught sight of a trench — a trench between them and the En- glish. It was the hollow road of Ohain. It was a terrible moment. The ravine was there, un- expected, yawning, directly under the horses' feet, two fathoms deep between its double slopes; the second file pushed the first into it, and the third pushed on the second; the horses reared and fell backward, landed on their haunches, slid down, all four feet in the air, crushing and overwhelming the riders; and there being no means of retreat — the whole column being no longer anything mere than a projectile — the force which had been acquired to crush the English crushed the French; the inexorable ravine could only yield when filled; horses and riders rolled there pell-mell, grinding each other, forming but one mass of flesh in this gulf; when this trench was full of living men, the rest marched over them and passed on. Almost a third of Dubois's brigade fell into that abyss. This began the loss of the battle. The battery was unmasked at the same moment with the ravine. Sixty cannons and the thirteen squares darted light- ning point-blank on the cuirassiers. The intrepid Gen- eral Delort made the military salute to the English battery. The whole of the flying artillery of the English had re-entered the squares at a gallop. The cuirassiers had not had even the time for a halt. The disaster of the hollow road had decimated, but not discouraged them. They belonged to that class of men who, when dimin- ished in number, increase in courage. 24 i j ' Charge of the Cuirassiers — Waterloo 1 riving at th- >vas there, un- rses' feet, two >; the second pushed on the .ifd, landed on et in the air, ■' ' 'here being ro longer . Liiem. n dimin- WATERLOO Wathier's column alone had suffered in the disaster; Delort's column, which Ney had deflected to the left, as though he had a presentiment of an ambush, had arrived whole. The cuirassiers hurled themselves on the English squares. At full speed, with bridles loose, swords in their teeth, pistols in fist — such was the attack. There are moments in battles in which the soul hard- ens the man until the soldier is changed into a statue, and when all this flesh turns into granite. The Eng- lish battalions, desperately assaulted, did not stir. Then it was terrible. All the faces of the English squares were attacked at once. A frenzied whirl enveloped them. That cold infantry remained impassive. The first rank knelt and received the cuirassiers on their bayonets, the second ranks shot them down; behind the second rank the can- noneers charged their guns, the. front of the square parted, permitted the passage of an eruption of grape- shot, and closed again. The cuirassiers replied by crushing them. Their great horses reared, strode across the ranks, leaped over the bayonets and fell, gigantic, in the midst of these four living walls. The cannon- balls ploughed furrows in these cuirassiers; the cuiras- siers made breaches in the squares. Files of men dis- appeared, ground to dust under the horses. The bay- onets plunged into the bellies of these centaurs; hence a hideousness of wounds which has probably never been seen anywhere else. The squares, wasted by this mad cavalry, closed up their ranks without flinching. Inexhaustible in the matter of grape-shot, they created explosions in their assailants' midst. The form of this combat was monstrous. These squares were no longer battalions, they were craters; those cuirassiers were no longer cavalry, they were a tempest. Each square was 25 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AiND SIEGE. a volcano attacked by a cloud; lava contended with lightning. The square on the extreme right, the most exposed of all, being in the air, was almost annihilated at the very first shock. It was formed of the 75th regiment of Highlanders. The bagpipe-player in the centre dropped his melancholy eyes, filled with the reflections of the forests and the lakes, in profound inattention, while men were being exterminated around him, and seated on a drum, with his pibroch under his arm, played the Highland airs. These Scotchmen died thinking of Ben Lomond as did the Greeks recalling Argos. The sword of a cuirassier, which hewed down the bagpipes and the arm which bore it, put an end to the song by killing the singer. The cuirassiers, relatively few in number, and still further diminished by the catastrophe of the ravine, had almost the whole English army against them, but they multiplied themselves so that each man of them was equal to ten. Nevertheless, some Hanoverian bat- talions yielded. Wellington perceived it, and thought of his cavalry. Had Napoleon at that same moment thought of his infantry, he would have won the battle. This forgetfulncss was his great and fatal mistake. All at once, the cuirassiers, who had been the assail- ants, found themselves assailed. The English cavalry was at their back. Before them two squares, behind them Somerset; Somerset meant fourteen hundred dragoons of the guard. On the right Somerset had Dornberg with the German light-horse, and on his left Trip with the Belgian carabineers; the cuirassiers, at- tacked on the flank and in front, before and in the rear, by infantry and cavalry, had to face all sides. What mattered it to them? They were a whirlwind. Their valor was something iiulescribable. For such Frenchmen nothing less than such English- 26 WATERLOO. men was needed. It was no longer a hand-to-hand con- flict; it was a shadow, a fury, a dizzy transport of souls and courage, a hurricane of lightning swords. In an in- stant the fourteen hundred dragoon guards numbered only eight hundred. Fuller, their lieutenant-colonel, fell dead. Ney rushed up with the lancers and Lefe- bvre-Desnouettes's light-horse. The plateau of Mont- Saint-Jean was captured, recaptured, captured again. The cuirassiers quitted the cavalry to return to the infantry; or, to put it more exactly, the whole of that formidable rout collared each other without releasing the other. The squares still held firm. There were a dozen assaults. Ney had four horses killed under him. Half the cuirassiers remained on the plateau. This conflict lasted two hours. The English army was profoundly shaken. There is no doubt that, had they not been enfeebled in their first shock by the disaster of the hollow road, the cuirassiers would have overwhelmed the centre and decided the victory. This extraordinary cavalry petrified Clinton, who had seen Talavera and Badajoz. Wellington, three-quarters vanquished, admired heroically. He said in an undertone, "Sublime!" The cuirassiers annihilated seven squares out of thir- teen, took or spiked sixty pieces of ordnance, and cap- tured from the English regiments six flags, which three cuirassiers and three chasseurs of the Guard bore to the Emperor, in front of the farm of La Belle Alliance. Wellington's situation had grown worse. This strange battle was like a duel between two raging, wounded men, each of whom, still fighting and still resisting, is expending all his blood. Which of the two will be the first to fall? The conflict on the plateau continued. Wellington felt that he was yielding. The crisis was at hand. 27 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. The cuirassiers had not succeeded, since the centre was not broken through. As every one was in posses- sion of the plateau, no one held it, and, in fact, it re- mained, to a great extent, with the English. Welling- ton held the village and the culminating plain; Ney had only the crest and the slope. They seemed rooted in that fatal soil on both sides. But the weakening of the English seemed irremedi- able. The bleeding of that army was horrible. Kempt, on the left wing, demanded reinforcements. "There are none," replied Wellington; "he must let himself be killed!" Almost at that same moment, a singular coincidence which paints the exhaustion of the two armies. Ney demanded infantry from Napoleon, and Napoleon exclaimed, "Infantry! Where does he ex- pect me to get it? Does he think I can make it?" Nevertheless, the English army was in the worse case of the two. The furious onsets of those great squad- rons with cuirasses of iron and breasts of steel had ground the infantry to nothing. A few men clustered round a flag marked the post of a regiment; such and such a battalion w^as commanded only by a captain or a lieutenant; Alten's division, already so roughly handled at La Haie-Sainte, was almost destroyed; the intrepid Belgians of Van Kluze's brigade strewed the rye fields all along the Nivilles road; hardly anything was left of those Dutch grenadiers, who, intermingled with Spaniards in our ranks in 1811, fought against Welling- ton; and who, in 1815, rallied to the English standard, fought against Napoleon. The second regiment of foot-guards had lost five lieutenant-colonels, four captains, and three ensigns; the first battalion of the 30th infantry had lost 24 offi- cers and 1,200 soldiers; the 79th Highlanders had lost 24 officers wounded, 18 officers killed, 450 soldiers killed. 28 WATERLOO. With the exception of the feeble reserve echelonned behind the ambulance established at the farm of Mont- Saint-Jean, and of Vivian's and Vandeleur's brigades, which flanked the left wing, Wellington had no cavalry- left. A number of batteries lay unhorsed. These facts are attested by Siborne; and Pringle, exaggerating the disaster, goes so far as to say that the Anglo-Dutch army was reduced to thirty-four thousand men. The Iron Duke remained calm, but his lips blanched. Vin- cent, the Austrian commissioner, Alava, the Spanish commissioner, who were present at the battle on the English stafif. thought the Duke lost. At five o'clock Wellington drew out his watch, and he was heard to murmur these sinister words, "BUicher, or night!" It was about that moment that a distant line of bayo- nets gleamed on the heights in the direction of Frische- mont. Here comes the change of face in this giant drama. The painful surprise of Napoleon is well known. Grouchy hoped for, Bliicher arriving. Death instead of life. Fate has these turns; the throne of the world was expected; it was Saint Helena that was seen. If the little shepherd who served as guide to Biilow, Bliicher's lieutenant, had advised him to debouch from the forest above Frischemont, instead of below Plance- noit, the form of the nineteenth century might, per- haps, have been different. Napoleon would have won the battle of Waterloo. By any other route than that below Plancenoit, the Prussian army would have come out upon a ravine impassable for artillery, and Biilow would not have arrived. Now the Prussian general, Muffling, declares that one hour's delay, and Bliicher would not have found Well- ington on his feet. "The battle was lost." It was time that Biilow should arrive, as will be seen. 29 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMl' AND SIEGE. He had, moreover, been very much delayed. He had bivouacked at Dion-le-Mont, and had set out at day- break; but the roads were impassable, and his divisions stuck fast in the mire. The ruts were up to the hubs of the cannons. Moreover, he had been obliged to pass the Dyle on the narrow bridge of Wavre; the street leading to the bridge had been fired by the French, so the caissons and ammunition wagons could not pass between two rows of burning houses, and had been obliged to wait until the conflagration was extin- guished. It was mid-day before Billow's vanguard had been able to reach Chapelle-Saint-Lambert. Had the action been begun two hours earlier, it would have been over at four o'clock, and Bli'icher would have fallen on the battle won by Napoleon. Such are these immense risks proportioned to an infinite which we cannot comprehend. Billow had not moved, in fact. His vanguard was very feeble, and could accomplish nothing. He was obliged to wait for the body of the army corps, and he had received orders to concentrate his forces before en- tering into line; but at five o'clock, perceiving Well- ington's peril, Bliicher ordered Billow to attack, and uttered these remarkable words: "We must give air to the English army." A little later, the divisions of Losthin, Hiller, Hacke and Ryssel deployed before Lobau's corps, the cavalry of Prince William of Prussia debouched from the forest of Paris, Plancenoit was in flames, and the Prussian cannon balls began to rain even upon the ranks of the guard in reserve behind Napoleon. Every one knows the rest — the irruption of a third army; the battle broken to pieces; eighty-six mouths of fire thundering simultaneously; Pirch the first com- ing up with Billow; Zieten's cavalry led by Bliicher in person, the French driven bick; Marcognet swept from 30 fe-^ Heroes of Waterloo 1 was e.xiiii- ;uard had . it would lyuld have arc these ;rd ths WATERLOO. the plateau of Ohain; Duruette dislodged from Pape- lotte; Donzelot and Quiot retreating; Lobau caught on the flank; a fresh battle precipitating itself on our dis- mantled regiments at nightfall; the whole English line resuming the offensive and thrust forward; the gigantic breach made in the French army; the English grape- shot and the Prussian grape-shot aiding each other; the extermination; disaster in front; disaster on the flank; the Guard entering the line in the midst of this terrible crumbling of all things. Conscious that they were about to die, they shouted, "Vive I'Empereur!" History records nothing more touching than that agony bursting forth in acclama- tions. The sky had been overcast all day long. All of a sudden, at that very moment, — it was eight o'clock in the evening — the clouds on the horizon parted, and allowed the grand and sinister glow of the setting sun to pass through, athwart the elms on the Nivelles road. They had seen it rise at Austerlitz. Each battalion of the Guard was commanded by a general for this final catastrophe. Friant, Michel, Roguet, Harlet, Mallet. Poret de Morvan were there. When the tall caps of the grenadiers of the Guard, with their large plaques bearing the eagle, appeared, sym- metrical, in line, tranquil, in the midst of that combat, the enemy felt a respect for France; they thought they beheld twenty victories entering the field of battle, with wings outspread, and those who were the conquerors, believing themselves to be vanquished, retreated; but Wellington shouted, "Up, Guards, and aim straight!" The red regiment of English guards, lying flat behind the hedges, sprang up, a cloud of grape-shot riddled the tricolor flag and whistled round our eagles; all hurled themselves forward, and the final carnage began. In the darkness the Imperial Guard felt the army losing 31 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. ground around it, and in the vast shock of the rout it heard the desperate flight which had taken the place of the "Vive rEmpereur!" and, with flight behind it, it continued to advance, more crushed, losing more men at every step that it took. There were none who hesi- tated, no timid men in its ranks. The soldier in that troop was as much of a hero as the general. Not a man was missing in that suicide. Ney. bewildered, great with all the grandeur of ac- cepted death, offered himself to all blows in that tem- pest. He had his fifth horse killed under him there. Perspiring, his eyes aflame, foaming at the mouth, with uniform unbuttoned, one of his epaulets half cut ofi by a sword-stroke from a horse-guard, his plaque with the great eagle dented by a bullet; bleeding, bemired, mag- nificent, a broken sword in his hand, he said, "Come and see how a Marshal of France dies on the field of battle!" But in vain; he did not die. He was haggard and angry. At Drouet d'Erlon he hurled this question, "Are you not going to get yourself killed?" In the midst of all that artillery engaged in crushing a handful of men, he shouted: "So there is nothing for me! Oh! I should like to have all these English bullets enter my bowels!" Unhappy man, thou wert reserved for French bullets! The rout behind the Guard was melancholy. The army yielded suddenly on all sides at once — Hou- gomont. La Haie-Sante, Papelotte, Plancenoit. The cry, "Treachery!" was followed by a cry of "Save your- selves who can!" An army which is disbanding is like a thaw. All yields, splits, cracks, floats, rolls, falls, jostles, hastens, is precipitated. The disintegration is unprecedented. Ney borrows a horse, leaps upon it, and without hat, cravat, or sword, places himself across the Brussels road, stopping both English and French. He strives to detain the army, he recalls it to its duty, 32 WATERLOO. he insults it, he clings to the rout. He is overwhelmed. The soldiers fly from him, shouting, "Long live Mar- shal Ney!" Two of Burette's regiments go and come in affright as though tossed back and forth between the swords of the Uhlans and the fusillade of the brigades of Kempt, Best, Pack and Rylandt; the worst of hand-to- hand-conflicts is the defeat; friends kill each other in or- der to escape; squadrons and battalions break and dis- perse against each other, like the tremendous foam of battle. Lobau at one extremity, and Reille at the other, are drawn into the tide. In vain does Napoleon erect walls from what is left to hirrr of his Guard; in vain does he expend in a last effort his last serviceable squadrons. Quiot retreats before Vivian, Kellermann before Van- deleur, Lobau before Biilow, Morand before Pirch, Domon and Subervic before Prince William of Prussia; Guyot, who led the Emperor's squadrons to the charge, falls beneath the feet of the English dragoons. Na- poleon gallops past the line of fugitives, harangues, urges, threatens, entreats them. All the mouths which in the morning had shouted, "Long live the Emperor!" remain gaping; they hardly recognize him. The Prus- sian cavalry, newly arrived, dashes forward, flies, hews, slashes, kills, exterminates. Horses lash out, the can- nons flee; the soldiers of the artillery-train unharness the caissons and use the horses to make their escape; transports overturned, with all four wheels in the air, clog the road and occasion massacres. Men are crushed, trampled down; others walk over the dead and the living. Arms are lost. A dizzy multitude fills the roads, the paths, the bridges, the plains, the hills, the valleys, the woods, encumbered by this invasion of forty thousand men. Shouts, despair, knapsacks and guns flung among the rye, passages forced at the point of the sword, no more comrades, no more ofificers, no more generals, an inexpressible terror. Zieten putting 33 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. France to the sword at its leisure. Lions converted into goats. Such was the flight. At Genappe an effort was made to wheel about, to present a battle front, to draw up in line. Lobau rallied three hundred men. The entrance to the village was barricaded, but at the first volley of Prussiaji canister all took to flight again, and Lobau was taken. That volley of grape-shot can be seen to-day imprinted on the an- cient gable of a brick building on the right of the road at a few minutes' distance before you enter Genappe. The Prussians threw themselves into Genappe, furious, no doubt, that they were not more entirely the con- querors. The pursuit was stupendous. Bliicher ordered extermination. Roguet had set the lugubrious example of threatening with death any French grenadier who should bring him a Prussian prisoner. Bliicher outdid Roguet. Duhesme, the general of the Young Guard, hemmed in at the doorway of an inn at Genappe. surrendered his sword to a hussar of death, who took the sword and slew the prisoner. The victory was completed by the assassination of the vanquished. Let us inflict punish- ment, since we are history: old Bliicher disgraced him- self. This ferocity put the finishing touch to the disas- ter. The desperate rout traversed Genappe, traversed Quatre-Bras, traversed Gosselies, traversed Frasnes, traversed Charleroi, traversed Thuin and only halted at the frontier. Alas! and who, then, was fleeing in that manner? The Grand Army. Several squares of the Guard, motionless amid this stream of the defeat, as rocks in running water, held their own until night. Night came, death also; they awaited that double shadow, and, invincible, allowed themselves to be enveloped therein. Each regiment, isolated from the rest, and having no bond with the army, now shattered in every part, died alone. They had taken up position for this final action, some on the 34 The Day after Waterloo •S&3 w^-aor ;w ■;; . -^ ■'.. .jr wr*--:t ^.^vr^. j dered WATERLOO. heights of Rossomme, others on the plain of Mont- Saint-Jean. There, abandoned, vanquished, terrible, those gloomy squares endured their death-throes in formidable fashion. Ulm, Wagram, Jena, Friedland died with them. At twilight, toward nine o'clock in the evening, one of them was left at the foot of the plateau of Mont- Saint-Jean. In that valley, at the foot of that declivity which the cuirassiers had ascended, now inundated by the masses of the English, under the converging fires of the victorious hostile cavalry, under a frightful dens- ity of projectiles, this square fought on. It was com- manded by an obscure officer named Cambronne. At each discharge the square diminished and replied. It replied to the grape-shot with a fusillade, continually contracting its four walls. The fugitives pausing, breathless for a moment in the distance, listened in the darkness to the gloomy and ever-decreasing thunder. When this legion had been reduced to a handful, when nothing was left of their flag but a rag, when their guns, the bullets all gone, were no longer anything but clubs, when the heap of corpses was larger than the group of survivors, there reigned among the con- querors, around those men dying so sublimely, a sort of sacred terror, and the English artillery, taking breath, became silent. This furnished a sort of respite. These combatants had around them something in the nature of a swarm of spectres, silhouettes of men on horseback, the black profiles of cannon, the white sky viewed through wheels and gun-carriages, the colossal death's-head, which the heroes saw constantly through the smoke, in the depths of the battle, advanced upon them and gazed at them. Through the shades of twilight they could hear the pieces being loaded; the matches all lighted, like the eyes of tigers at night, formed a circle round their heads; all the lintstocks 35 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. of the English batteries approached the cannons, and then, with emotion, holding the supreme moment sus- pended above these men, an English general, Colville, according to some, Maitland according to others, shouted to them, "Surrender, brave Frenchmen!" Cambronne replied, " ." At that word from Cambronne. the English voice responded, "Fire!" The batteries flamed, the hill trem- bled, from all those brazen mouths belched a last terri- ble gush of grape-shot; a vast volume of smoke, vaguely white in the light of the rising moon, rolled out, and when the smoke dispersed there was no longer anything there. That formidable remnant had been annihilated; the Guard was dead. The four walls of the living re- doubt lay prone, and hardly was there discernible, here and there, even a quiver in the bodies; it was thus that the French legions, greater than the Roman legions, expired on Mont-Saint-Jean, on the soil watered with rain and blood, amid the gloomy grain, on the spot where nowadays Joseph, who drives the post-wagon from Nivelles, passes whistling, and cheerfully whip- ping up his horse at four o'clock in the morning. And these things took place, and the kings resumed their thrones, and the master of Europe was put in a cage, and the old regime became the new regime, and all the shadows and all the light of the earth changed place, because, on an afternoon of a certain summer's day, a shepherd said to a Prussian in the forest, "Go this way, and not that !" 36 BALAKLAVA BALAKLAVA William Hoiuard Russell nEVER did the painter's eye rest on a more beautiful scene that I beheld from the ridge. ^ The fleecy vapors still hung around the mountain tops, and mingled with the ascending volumes of smoke; the speck of sea sparkled freshly in the rays of the morn- ing sun, but its light was eclipsed by the flashes which gleamed from the masses of armed men below. Looking to the left towards the gorge, we beheld six compact masses of Russian infantry, which had just debouched from the mountain passes near the Tcher- naya,^ and were slowly advancing with solemn stateli- ness up the valley. Immediately in their front was a regular line of artillery, of at least twenty pieces strong. Two batteries of light guns were already a mile in ad- vance of them, and were playing with energy on the redoubts, from which feeble puff's of smoke came at long intervals. Behind these guns, in front of the infantry, were enormous bodies of cavalry. They were in six compact squares, three on each flank, moving down en echelon towards us, and the valley was lit up with the blaze of their sabres and lance points and gay accoutrements. In their front, and extending along the intervals between each battery of guns, were clouds ' Above the plain of Ralaklava. ' The stream which passed through the vr.lley of Balaklava. 39 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE. CAMP AND SIEG^ of mounted skirmishers, wheeling and wnirling in the front of their march like autumn leaves tossed by the wind. The Zouaves* close to us were lying like tigers at the spring, with ready rifles in hand, hidden chin- deep by the earthworks which run along the line of these ridges on our rear, but the quick-eyed Russians were maneuvering on the other side of the valley and did not expose their columns to attack. Below the Zouaves we could see the Turkish gunners in the re- doubts;^ all is confusion as the shells burst over them. Just as I came up the Russians had carried No. i redoubt, the farthest and most elevated of all, and their horsemen were chasing the Turks across the interval which lay between it and redoubt No. 2. At that moment the cavalry, under Lord Lucan, were formed in glittering masses — the Light Brigade, under Lord Cardigan, in advance; the Heavy Brigade, under Brig- adier-General Scarlett, in reserve. They were drawn up just in front of their encampment, and were con- cealed from the view of the enemy by a slight "wave" in the plain. Considerably to the rear of their right, the 93d Highlanders were drawn up in line, in front of the approach to Balaklava. Above and behind them, on the heights, the marines were visible through the glass, drawn up under arms, and the gunners could be seen ready in the earthworks, in which were placed the heavy ship's guns. The 93d had originally been ad- vanced somewhat more into the plain, but the instant the Russians got possession of the first redoubt they opened fire on them from our own guns, which in- flicted some injury, and Sir Colin CampbelP "retired" his men to a better position. Meanwhile the enemy * French troops from Algeria. ' The plain was defended by redoubts manned by Turkish Troops. ^ Commander of the Highlanders in the Valley; afterwards Lord Clyde. 40 BALAKLAVA. advanced his cavalry rapidly. To our inexpressible disgust we saw the Turks in redoubt No. 2 fly at their approach. They ran in scattered groups across towards redoubt No. 3, and towards Balaklava, but the horse hoo<^ of the Cossack was too quick for them, and sword and lance were busily plied among the retreating herd. The yells of the pursuers and pursued were plainly audible. As the lancers and light cavalry of the Rus- sians advanced they gathered up their skirmishers with great speed and in excellent order — the shifting trails of men, which played all over the valley like moon- light on the water, contracted, gathered up. and the little peleton in a few moments became a solid column. Then up came their guns, in rushed their gunners to the abandoned redoubt, and the guns of No. 2 redoubt soon played with deadly efifect upon the dispirited de- fenders of No. 3 redoubt. Two or three shots in return from the earthworks, and all is silent. The Turks swarm over the earthworks and run in confusion towards the town, firing their muskets at the enemy as they run. Again the solid column of cavalry opens like a fan, and resolves itself into a long spray of skirmishers. It laps the flying Turk, steel flashes in the air, and down go the poor Moslem quivering on the plain, split through fez and musket-guard to the chin and breast-belt. There is no support for them. It is evident the Rus- sians have been too quick for us. The Turks have been too quick also, for they have not held their re- doubts long enough to enable us to bring them help. In vain the naval guns on the heights fire on the Russian cavalry; the distance is too great for shot or shell to reach. In vain the Turkish gunners in the earthen batteries which are placed along the French entrenchments strive to protect their flying country- men; their shot fly wide and short of the swarming 41 FAMOUS TALES OI' BATTLE, CAMI' AND SIEGE. masses. The Turks betake themselves towards the Highlanders, where they check their flight, and form into companies on the flanks of the Highlanders. As the Russian cavalry on the left of their line crown the hill across the valley, they perceive the Highlanders drawn up at a distance of some half mile, calmly waiting their approach. They halt, and squadron after squadron flies up from the rear, till they have a body of some 1,500 m.en along the ridge — lancers and dragoons and hussars. Then they move in two bodies with another in reserve. The cavalry who have been pursuing the Turks on the right are coming up to the ridge beneath us, which conceals our cavalry from view. The heavy brigade in advance is drawn up in two lines. The first line consists of the Scots Greys, and of their old companions in glory, the Enniskillens; the second of the 4th Royal Irish, of the 5th Dragoon Guards, and of the ist Royal Dra- goons. The Light Cavalry Brigade is on their left, in two lines also. The silence is oppressive; between the cannon bursts one can hear the champing of bits and the clink of sabres in the valley below. The Russians on their left drew breath for a moment, and then in one grand line dashed at the Highlanders. The ground flies beneath their horses' feet; gathering speed at every stride, they dash on towards that thin red streak topped with a line of steel. The Turks fire a volley at eight hundred yards and run. As the Russians come within six hundred yards, down goes that line of steel in front, and out rings a rolling volley of Minie mus- ketry. The distance is too great; the Russians are not checked, but still sweep onward through the smoke, with the whole force of horse and man, here and there knocked over by the shot of our batteries above. With breathless suspense every one awaits the bursting of the wave upon the line of Gaelic rock; but ere they come m Balaklava, 1854 BALAKLAVA. within one hunJred and fifty yards, another deadly volley flashes from the leveled rifle, and carries death and terror into the Russians. They wheel about, open files right and left, and fly back faster than they came. "Bravo, Highlanders! well done!" shout the excited spectators; but events thicken. The Highlanders and their splendid front are soon forgotten, men scarcely have a moment to think of this fact, that the 93d never altered their formation to receive that tide of horse- men. "No," said Sir Colin Campbell, "I did not think it worth while to form them even four deep!" The ordinary British line, two deep, was quite sufficient to repel the attack of these Muscovite cavaliers. Our eyes were, however, turned in a moment on our own cavalry. We saw Brigadier-General Scarlett ride along in front of his massive squadron. The Russians — evidently corps d'elite — their light blue jackets em- broidered with silver lace, were advancing on their left, at an easy gallop, towards the brow of the hill. A forest of lances glistened in their rear, and several squadrons of grey-coated dragoons moved up quickly to support them as they reached the summit. The in- stant they came in sight the trumpets of our cavalry gave out the warning blast which told us all that in another moment we should see the shock of battle beneath our very eyes. Lord Raglan,^ all his stafif and escort, and groups of officers. Zouaves, French generals and officers, and bodies of French infantry on the height, were spectators of the scene as though they were looking on the stage from the boxes of a theatre. Nearly every one dismounted and sat down, and not a word was said. The Russians advanced down the hill at a slow canter, which they changed to a trot, and at last nearly halted. Their first line was at least double the length of ours — it was three times as deep. Behind • Commander-in-chief of the British army. 43 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE them was a similar line, equally strong and compact. They evidently despised their insignificant-looking enemy, but their time was come. The trumpets rang out again through the valley, and the Greys and Ennis- killeners went right at the centre of the Russian cavalry. The space between them was only a few hundred yards; it was scarce enough to let the horses "gather away," nor had the men quite space sufficient for the full play of their sword arms. The Russian line brings forward each wing as our cavalry advance, and threatens to annihilate them as they pass on. Turning a little to their left, so as to meet the Russian right, the Greys rush on with a cheer that thrills to every heart — the wild shout of the Enniskilleners rises through the air at the same instant. As lightning flashes through a cloud, the Greys and Enniskilleners pierced through the dark masses of Russians. The shock was but for a moment. There was a clash of steel and a light play of sword-blades in the air, and then the Greys and the redcoats disappear in the midst of the shaken and quiv- ering columns. In another moment we see them emerging and dashing on with diminished numbers, and in broken order, against the second line which is advancing against them as fast as it can to retrieve the fortune of the charge. It was a terrible moment. "God help them! they are lost!" was the exclamation of more than one man and the thought of many. With unabated fire the noble hearts dashed at their enemy. It was a fight of heroes. The first line of Russians, which had been smashed utterly by our charge, and had fled off at one flank and towards the centre, were com- ing back to swallow up our handful of men. By sheer steel and sheer courage Enniskillener and Scot were winning their desperate way right through the enemy's squadrons, and already grey horses and red coats had appeared right at the rear of the second mass, when. 44 BALAKI.AVA. with irresistible force, like one bolt from a bow, the 1st Royals, the 4th Dragoon Guards, and the 5th Dragoon Guards, rushed at the remnants of the first line of the enemy, went through it as though it were made of paste-board, and dashing on the second body of Russians as they were still disordered by the terrible assault of the Greys and their companions, put them to utter rout. This Russian horse in less than five min- utes after it met our dragoons was frying with all its speed before a force certainly not half its strength. A cheer burst from every lip — in the enthusiasm, officers and men took oflf their caps and shouted with delight, and thus keeping up the scenic character of their posi- tion, they clapped their hands again and again. 45 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT . THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT Rudyard Kipling "And a little child shall lead them." TN the Army List they will stand as "The Fore and Fit Princess Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen-Auspach's Merther-Tydfilshire Own Royal Loyal Light Infantry, Regimental District 329A," but the Army through all its barracks and canteens knows them now as the "Fore and Aft." They may in time do something that shall make their new title honorable, but at present they are bitterly ashamed, and the man who calls them "Fore and Aft" does so at the risk of the head which is on his shoulders. Two words breathed into the stables of a certain Cavalry Regiment will bring the men out into the streets with belts and mops and bad language; but a whisper of "Fore and Aft" will bring out this regi- ment with rifles. Their one excuse is that they came again and did their best to finish the job in style. But for a time all their world knows that they were openly beaten, whipped, dumb-cowed, shaking and afraid. The men know it; their officers know it; the Horse Guards know it, and when the next war comes the enemy will know it also. There arc two or three regiments of the 49 FAiMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. Line that have a black mark against their names which they will then wipe out, and it will be excessively in- convenient for the troops upon whom they do their wiping. The courage of the British soldier is officially sup- posed to be above proof, and, as a general rule, it is so. The exceptions are decently shoveled out of sight, only to be referred to in the freshet of unguarded talk that occasionally swamps a mess-table at midnight. Then one hears strange and horrible stories of men not fol- lowing their officers, or orders being given by those who had no right to give them, and of disgrace that, but for the standing luck of the British Army, might have ended in brilliant disaster. These are unpleasant stories to listen to, and the messes tell them under their breath, sitting by the big wood fires, and the young officer bows his head and thinks to himself, please God, his men shall never behave unhandily. The British soldier is not altogether blamed for oc- casional lapses; but this verdict he should not know. A moderately intelligent general will waste six months in mastering the craft of the particular war that he may be waging; a colonel may utterly misunderstand the capacity of his regiment for three months after it has taken the field; and even a company commander may err and be deceived as to the temper and tempera- ment of his own handful; wherefore the soldier, and the soldier of to-day more particularly, should not be blamed for falling back. He should be shot or hanged afterwards — pour encourager les autres; but he should not be vilified in newspapers, for that is want of tact and waste of space. He has, let us say, been in the service of the Empress for, perhaps, four years. He will leave in another two years. He has no inherited morals, and four years are not sufficient to drive toughness into his fibre, or to THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. teach him how holy a thing is his regiment. He wants to drink, he wants to enjoy himself — in India he wants to save money — and he does not in the least like getting hurt. He has received just sufficient education to make him understand half the purport of the orders he receives, and to speculate on the nature of clean, in- cised, and shattering wounds. 'Thus, if he is told to deploy under fire preparatory to an attack, he knows that he runs a very great risk of being killed while he is deploying, and suspects that he is being thrown away to gain ten minutes' time. He may either deploy with desperate swiftness, or he may shuffle, or bunch, or break, according to the discipline under which he has lain for four years. Armed with imperfect knowledge, cursed with the rudiments of an imagination, hampered by the intense selfishness of the lower classes, and unsupported by any regimental associations, this young man is sud- denly introduced to an enemy who in eastern lands is always ugly, generally tall and hairy, and frequently noisy. If he looks to the right and the left and sees old soldiers — men of twelve years' service, who, he knows, know what they are about — taking a charge, rush, or demonstration without embarrassment, he is consoled and applies his shoulder to the butt of his rifle with a stout heart. His peace is the greater if he hears a senior, who has taught him his soldiering and broken his head on occasion, whispering: — "They'll shout and carry on like this for five minutes. Then they'll rush in, and then we've got 'em by the short hairs!" But, on the other hand, if he sees only men of his own term of service, turning white and playing with their triggers and saying: — "What the hell's up now?" while the company commanders are sweating into their sword-hilts and shouting: — "Front-rank, fix bayonets. 51 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. Steady there — steady! Sight for three hundred — no, for five! Lie down, all! Steady! Front-rank, kneel!" and so forth, he becomes unhappy; and grows acutely miserable when he hears a comrade turn over with the rattle of fire-irons falling into the fender, and the grunt of a pole-axed ox. If he can be moved about a little and allowed to watch the effect of his own fire on the enemy he feels merrier, and may be then worked up to the blind passion of fighting, which is. contrary to general belief, controlled by a chilly devil and shakes men like ague. If he is not moved about, and begins to feel cold at the pit of the stomach, and in that crisis is badly mauled and hears orders that were never given, he will break, and he will break badly; and of all things under the sight of the sun there is nothing more terrible than a broken British regiment. When the worst comes to the worst and the panic is really epidemic, the men must be e'en let go, and the company commanders had better escape to the enemy and stay there for safety's sake. If they can be made to come again they are not pleasant men to meet, because they will not break twice. About thirty years from this date, when we have succeeded in half-educating everything that wears trousers, our army will be a beautifully unreliable ma- chine. It will know too much and it will do too little. Later still, when all men are at the mental level of the officer of to-day it will sweep the earth. Speaking roughly, you must employ either blackguards or gen- tlemen to do butcher's work with efficiency and des- patch. The ideal soldier should, of course, think for himself — the Pockef-book says so. Unfortunately, to attain this virtue, he has to pass through the phase of thinking of himself, and that is misdirected genius. A blackguard may be slow to think for himself, but he is genuinely anxious to kill, and a little punishment 52 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. teaches him how to guard his own skin and perforate another's. A powerfully prayerful Highland regiment, ofificered by rank Presbyterians, is, perhaps, one degree more terrible in action than a hard-bitten thousand of irresponsible Irish ruffians led by most improper young unbelievers. But these things prove the rule — which is that the midway men are not to be trusted alone. They have ideas about the value of life and an up-bringing that has not taught them to go on and take the chances. They are carefully unprovided with a backing of comrades who have been shot over, and until that backing is re-introduced, as a great many regimental commanders intend it shall be, they are more liable to disgrace themselves than the size of the Empire or the dignity of the army allows. Their of- ficers are as good as good can be, because their train- ing begins early, and God has arranged that a clean- run youth of the British middle classes shall, in the matter of backbone, brains, and bowels, surpass all other youths. For this reason a child of eighteen will stand up, doing nothing, with a tin sword in his hand and joy in his heart until he is dropped. If he dies, he dies like a gentleman. If he lives, he writes home that he has been "potted," "sniped," "chipped" or "cut over," and sits down to besiege Government for a wound-gratuity until the next little war breaks out, when he perjures himself before a medical board, blarneys his colonel, burns incense round his adjutant, and is allowed to go to the front once more. Which homily brings me directly to a brace of the most finished little fiends that ever banged drum or tootled fife in the band of a British regiment. They ended their sinful career by open and flagrant mutiny and were shot for it. Their names were Jakin and Lew — Piggy Lew — and they were bold, bad drummer- 53 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. boys, both of them frequently birched by the drum- major of the Fore and Aft. Jakin was a stunted child of fourteen, and Lew was about the same age. When not looked after, they smoked and drank. They swore habitually after the manner of the barrack-room, which is cold-swearing and comes from between clinched teeth; and they fought religiously once a week. Jakin had sprung from some London gutter and may or may not have passed through Dr. Barnado's hands ere he arrived at the dignity of drummer-boy. Lew could remember nothing except the regiment and the delight of listen- ing to the band from his earliest years. He hid some- where in his grimy little soul a genuine love for music, and was most mistakenly furnished with the head of a cherub: insomuch that beautiful ladies who watched the regiment in church were wont to speak of him as a "darling." They never heard his vitriolic comments on their manners and morals, as he walked back to barracks with the band and matured fresh causes of ofifence against Jakin. The other drummer-boys hated both lads on account of their illogical conduct. Jakin might be pounding Lew, or Lew might be rubbing Jakin's head in the dirt, but any attempt at aggression on the part of an outsider was met by the combined forces of Lew and Jakin; and the consequences were painful. The boys were the Ishmiels of the corps, but wealthy Ishmaels, for they sold battles in alternate weeks for the sport of the barracks when they were not pitted against other boys; and thus amassed money. On this particular day there was dissension in the camp. They had just been convicted afresh of smok- ing, which is bad for little boys who use plug-tobacco, and Lew's contention was that Jakin had "stunk so 'orrid bad from keepin' the pipe in pocket," that he 54 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. and he alone was responsible for the birching they were both tingling under. "I tell you I 'id the pipe back o' barricks," said Jakin pacifically. "You're a bloomin' liar," said Lew without heat. "You're a bloomin' little bastard," said Jakin, strong in the knowledge that his own ancestry was unknown. Now there is one word in the extended vocabulary of barrack-room abuse that cannot pass without com- ment. You may call a man a thief and risk nothing. You may even call him a coward without finding more than a boot whiz past your ear, but you must not call a man a bastard unless you are prepared to prove it on his front teeth. "You might ha' kep' that till I wasn't so sore," said Lew, sorrowfull}% dodging round Jakin's guard. "I'll make you sorer," said Jakin genially, and got home on Lew's alabaster forehead. All would have gone well and this story, as the books say, would never have been written, had not his evil fate prompted the bazar-sergeant's son, a long, employless man of five and twenty, to put in an appearance after the first round. He was eternally in need of money, and knew that the boys had silver. "Fighting again," said he. "I'll report you to my father, and he'll report you to the color-sergeant." "What's that to you?" said Jakin with an unpleasant dilation of the nostrils. "Oh! nothing to me. You'll get into trouble, and you've been up too often to afiford that." "What the hell do you know about what we've done?" asked Lew the Seraph. "You aren't in the army, you lousy, cadging civilian." He closed in on the man's left flank. "Jes' 'cause you find two gentlemen settlin' their diff'rences with their fists you stick in your ugly nose FAMOUS TALES OF ISATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. where you aren't wanted. Run 'ome to your 'arf-caste slut of a ma — or we'll give you what-for," said Jakin. The man attempted reprisals by knocking the boys' heads together. The scheme would have succeeded had not Jakin punched him vehemently in the stomach, or had Lew refrained from kicking his shins. They fought together, bleeding and breathless, for half an hour, and, after heavy punishment, triumphantly pulled down their opponent as terriers pull down a jackal. "Now," gasped Jakin, "I'll give you what-for." He proceeded to pound the man's features while Lew stamped on the outlying portions of his anatomy. Chivalry is not a strong point in the composition of the average drummer-boy. He fights, as do his betters, to make his mark. Ghastly was the ruin that escaped, and awful was the wrath of the bazar-sergeant. Awful too was the scene in orderly-room when the two reprobates ap- peared to answer the charge of half-murdering a "civilian." The bazar-sergeant thirsted for a criminal action, and his son lied. The boys stood to attention while the black clouds of evidence accumulated. "You little devils are more trouble than the rest of the regiment put together," said the colonel angrily. "One might as well admonish thistledown, and I can't well put you in cells or under stoppages. You must be flogged again." "Beg y' pardon, sir. Can't we say nothin' in our own defence, sir?" shrilled Jakin. "Hay! What? Are you going to argue with me?" said the colonel. "No, sir," said Lew. "But if a man come to you, sir, and said he was going to report you, sir, for 'aving a bit of a turn-up with a friend, sir, an' wanted to get money out o' you, sir " 56 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. The orderly-room exploded in a roar of laughter. "Well?" said the colonel. "That was what that measly jarnwar there did, sir, and 'e'd 'a' done it, sir, if we 'adn't prevented 'im. We didn't 'it 'im much, sir. 'E 'adn't no manner o' right to interfere with us, sir. I don't mind bein' flogged by the drum-major, sir. nor yet reported by any corp'ral, but I'm — but I don't think it's fair, sir, for a civilian to come an' talk over a man in the army." A second shout of laughter shook the orderly-room, but the colonel was grave. "What sort of characters have these boys?" he asked of the regimental sergeant-major. "Accordin' to the bandmaster, sir," returned that re- vered official — the only soul in the regiment whom the boys feared — "they do everything but lie, sir." "Is it like we'd go for that man for fun, sir?" said Lew, pointing to the plaintiff. "Oh, admonished, — admonished!" said the colonel testily, and when the boys had gone he read the bazar-sergeant's son a lecture on the sin of unprofitable meddling, and gave orders that the bandmaster should keep the drums in better discipline. "If either of you come to practice again with so much as a scratch on your two ugly little faces," thundered the bandmaster, "I'll tell the drum-major to take the skin ofif your backs. Understand that, you young devils." Then he repented of his speech for just the length of time that Lew, looking like a Seraph in red worsted embellishments, took the place of one of the trumpets — in hospital — and rendered the echo of a bat- tle-piece. Lew certainly was a musician, and had often in his more exalted moments expressed a yearning to master every instrument of the band. "There's nothing to prevent your becoming a band- 57 FAMOUS TALKS OF ItATiLE, CAMP AND SIFGE. master, Lew," said the bandmaster, who had composed waltzes of his own, and worked day and night in the interests of the band. "What did he say?" demanded Jakin after practice. " 'Said I might be a bloomin' bandmaster, an' be asked in to 'ave a glass o' sherry wine on mess-nights." "Ho! 'Said you might be a bloomin' non-combat- ant, did 'e! That's just about wot 'e would say. When I've put in my boy's service — it's a bloomin' shame that doesn't count for pension — I'll take on a privit. Then I'll be a lance in a year — knowin' what I know about the ins an' outs o' things. In three years I'll be a bloomin' sergeant. I won't marry then, not I! I'll 'old on and learn the orf'cers' ways an' apply for ex- change into a regiment that doesn't know all about me. Then I'll be a bloomin' orf'cer. Then I'll ask you to 'ave a glass o' sherry wine. Mister Lew, an' you'll bloomin' well 'ave to stay in the hanty-room while the mess-sergeant brings it to your dirty hands." " 'Spose I'm going to be a bandmaster? Not I, quite. I'll be a orf'cer too. There's nothin' like taking to a thing an' stickin' to it, the schoolmaster says. The regiment don't go 'ome for another seven years. I'll be a lance then or near to." Thus the boys discussed their futures, and con- ducted themselves with exemplary piety for a week. That is to say, Lew started a flirtation with the color- sergeant's daughter, aged thirteen — "not," as he ex- plained to Jakin, "with any intention o' matrimony, but by way o' keepin' my 'and in." And the black- haired Cris Delighan enjoyed that flirtation more than previous ones, and the other drummer-boys raged furiously together, and Jakin preached sermons on the dangers of "bein' tangled along o' petticoats." But neither love nor virtue would have held Lew long in the paths of propriety had not the rumor gone THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. abroad that the regiment was to be sent on active service, to take part in a war which, for the sake of brevity, we will call "The War of the Lost Tribes." The barracks had the rumor almost before the mess- room, and of all the nine hundred men in barracks not ten had seen a shot fired in anger. The colonel had, twenty years ago, assisted at a frontier expedi- tion; one of the majors had seen service at the Cape; a confirmed deserter in E Company had helped to clear streets in Ireland; but that was all. The regi- ment had been put by for many years. The overwhelm- ing mass of its rank and file had from three to four years' service; the non-commissioned officers were un- der thirty years old; and men and sergeants alike had forgotten to speak of the stories written in brief upon the colors— the new colors that had been formally blessed by an archbishop in England ere the regiment came away. They wanted to go to the front — they were enthu- siastically anxious to go — but they had no knowledge of what war meant, and there was none to tell them. They were an educated regiment, the percentage of school-certificates in their ranks was high, and most of the men could do more than read and write. They had been recruited in loyal observance of the territorial idea; but they themselves had no notion of that idea. They were made up of drafts from an over-populated manufacturing district. The system had put flesh and muscle upon their small bones, but it could not put heart into the sons of those who for generations had done overmuch work for overscanty pay, had sweated in drying-rooms, stooped over looms, coughed among white-lead and shivered on lime-barges. The men had found food and rest in the army, and now they were going to fight "niggers" — people who ran away if you shook a stick at them. Wherefore they cheered lustily 59 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. when the rumor ran, and the shrewd, clerkly non-com- missioned officers speculated on the chances of batta and of saving their pay. At headquarters, men said: — "The Fore and Fit have never been under fire within the last generation. Let us, therefore, break them in easily by setting them to guard lines of communica- tion." And this would have been done but for the fact that British regiments were wanted — badly wanted — at the front, and there were doubtful native regiments that could fill the minor duties. "Brigade 'em with two strong regiments," said headquarters. "They may be knocked about a bit, but they'll learn their business before they come through. Nothing like a night-alarm and a little cutting-up of stragglers to make a regiment smart in the field. Wait till they've had half a dozen sentries' throats cut." The colonel wrote with delight that the temper of his men was excellent, that the regiment was all that could be wished and as sound as a bell. The majors smiled with a sober joy, and the subalterns waltzed in pairs down the mess-room after dinner and nearly shot themselves at revolver practice. But there was conster- nation in the hearts of Jakin and Lew. What was to be done with the drums? Would the band go to the front? How many of the drums would accompany the regiment? They took council together, sitting in a tree and smoking. "It's more than a bloomin' toss-up they'll leave us be'ind at the depot with the women. You'll like that," said Jakin sarcastically. "'Cause o' Cris, y' mean? Wot's a woman, or a 'ole bloomin' depot o' women, 'longside o' the chanst of field service? You know I'm as keen on goin' as you," said Lew. " 'Wish I was a bloomin' bugler," said Jakin sadly. 60 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. "They'll take Tom Kidd along, that I can plaster a wall with, an' like as not they won't take us." "Then let's go an' make Tom Kidd so bloomin' sick 'e can't bugle no more. You 'old 'is 'ands an' I'll kick him," said Lew, wriggling on the branch. "That ain't no good neither. We ain't the sort o' characters to presoom on our rep'tations — they're bad. If they have the band at the depot we don't go, and no error there. If they take the band we may get cast for medical unfitness. Are you medical fit. Piggy?'' said Jakin, digging Lew in the ribs with force. "Yus." said Lew with an oath. "The doctor says your mart's weak through smokin' on an empty stummick. "hrow a chest an' I'll try yer." Jakin threw out his chest, which Lew smote with all his might. Jakin turned very pale, gasped, crowed, screwed up his eyes, and said, "That's all right." "You'll do," said Lew. "I've 'card o' men dyin' when you 'it 'em fair on the breastbone." "Don't bring us no nearer goin', though," said Jakin. "Do you know where we're ordered?" "Gawd knows, an' 'e won't split on a pal. Some- wheres up to the Front to kill Paythans — hairy, big beggars that turn you inside out if they get 'old o' you. They say their women are good-looking, too." "Any loot?"' asked the abandoned Jakin. "Not a bloomin' anna, they say, unless you dig up the ground an' see what the niggers 'ave 'id. They're a poor lot." Jakin stood upright on the branch and gazed across the plain. "Lew," said he, "there's the colonel coming. Colonel's a good old beggar. Let's go an' talk to 'im." Lew nearly fell out of the tree at the audacity of the suggestion. Like Jakin, he feared not God, neither regarded he man, but there are limits even to the au- 6i FAMOUS TAI.ES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. dacity of a drummer-boy, and to speak to a colonel was . . . But Jakin had slid down the trunk and doubled in the direction of the colonel. That officer was walking wrapped in thought and visions of a C. B. — yes, even a K. C. B., for had he not at command one of the best regiments of the line — the Fore and Fit? And he was aware of two small boys charging down upon him. Once before it had been solemnly reported to him that "the Drums were in a state of mutiny;" Jakin and Lew being the ringleaders. This looked like an organized conspiracy. The boys halted at twenty yards, and walked to the regulation four paces, and saluted together, each as well set-up as a ramrod and little taller. The colonel was in a genial mood; the boys appeared very forlorn and unprotected on the desolate plain, and one of them was handsome. "Well!" said the colonel, recognizing them; "are you going to pull me down in the open? I'm sure I never interfere with you, even though — " he sniffed suspiciously — "you have been smoking." It was time to strike while the iron was hot. Their hearts beat tumultuously. "Beg y' pardon, sir," began Jakin. "The reg'ment's ordered on active service, sir." "So I believe," said the colonel courteously. "Is the band goin', sir?" said both together. Then, without pause, "We're goin', sir, ain't we?" "You!" said the colonel, stepping back the more fully to take in the two small figures. "You! You'd die in the first march." "No, we wouldn't, sir. We can march with the regi- ment anywheres — p'rade an' anywhere else," said Jakin. 'Tf Tom Kidd goes, 'e'll shut up like a clasp-knife," 62 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. said Lew. "Tom 'as very close veins in both 'is legs, sir." "Very how much?" "Very close veins, sir. That's why they swells after long p'rade, sir. If 'e can go, we can go, sir." Again the colonel looked at them long and intently. "Yes; the band is going," he said, as gravely as though he had been addressing a brother officer. "Have you any parents, either of you two?" "No, sir," rejoicingly from Lew and Jakin. "We're both orphans, sir. There's no one to be considered of on our account, sir." "You poor little sprats! And you want to go up to the front with the regiment, do you? Why?" "I've wore the Queen's uniform for two years," said Jakin. "It's very 'ard, sir, that a man don't get no recompense for doin' 'is dooty, sir." "An' — an' if I don't go, sir," interrupted Lew, "the bandmaster 'e says 'e'U catch an' make a bloo— a blessed musician o' me, sir. Before I've seen any ser- vice, sir." The colonel made tio answer for a long time. Then he said, quietly: "If you're passed by the doctor, I dare say you can go. I shouldn't smoke, if I were you." The boys saluted and disappeared. The colonel walked home and told the story to his wife, who nearly cried over it. The colonel was well pleased. If that was the temper of the children, what would not the men do? Jakin and Lew entered the boys' barrack-room with great stateliness, and refused to hold any conversation with their comrades for at least ten minutes. Then, bursting with pride, Jakin drawled: "I've bin inter- vooin' the colonel. Good old beggar is the colonel. Says I to 'im, 'Colonel,' says I, 'let me go to the 63 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. front, along o' the reg'ment.' 'To the front you shall go,' says 'e; 'an' I only wish there was more like you among the dirty little devils that bang the bloomin' drums!' Kidd, if you throw your 'coutrements at me for tellin' you the truth to your own advantage, your legs 'II swell." None the less, there was a battle royal in the bar- rack-room, for the boys were consumed with envy and hate, and neither Jakin nor Lew behaved in con- ciliatory wise. "I'm goin' out to say adoo to my girl," said Lew, to cap the climax. "Don't none o' you touch my kit, be- cause it's wanted for active service, me bein' specially invited to go by the colonel." He strolled forth and whistled in the clump of trees at the back of the married quarters till Cris came to him, and, the preliminary kisses being given and taken, Lew began to explain the situation. "I'm goin' to the front with the reg'ment." he said, valiantly. "Piggy, you're a little liar," said Cris; but her heart misgave her, for Lew was not in the habit of lying. "Liar yourself, Cris," said Lew, slipping an arm round her. "I'm goin'. When the reg'ment marches out you'll see me with 'em, all galHant and gay. Give us another kiss, Cris, on the strength of it." "If you'd on'y a-stayed at the depot — ^where you ought to ha' bin — you could get as many of 'em as — as you dam please," whimpered Cris, putting up her mouth. "It's 'ard, Cris. I grant you it's 'ard. But what's a man to do? If I'd a-stayed at the depot, you wouldn't think anything of me." "Like as not; but I'd 'ave you with me. Piggy. An' all the thinkin' in the world isn't like kissin'." 64 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. "An' all the kissin' in the world isn't like 'avin' a medal to wear on the front o' your coat." "You won't get no medal." "Oh, yus; I shall, though! Me an' Jakin are the only acting-drummers that'll be took along. All the rest is full men, an' we'll get our medals with them." "They might ha' taken anybody but you. Piggy. "You'll get killed — you're so venturesome. Stay with me. Piggy, darlin', down at the depot, an' I'll love you true forever." "Ain't you goin' to do that now, Cris? You said you was." "O' course, I am, but th' other's more comfortable. Wait till you've growed a bit, Piggy. You aren't no taller than me now." "I've bin in the army for two years, an' I'm not goin' to get out of a chanst o' seein' service, an' don't you try to make me do so. I'll come back, Cris, an' when I take on as a man I'll marry you — marry you when I'm a Lance." "Promise, Piggy?" Lew reflected on the future as arranged by Jakin a short time previously, but Cris's mouth was very near to his own. "I promise, s' 'elp me. Gawd!" said he. Cris slid an arm round his neck. "I won't 'old you back no more. Piggy. Go away an' get your medal, an' I'll make you a new button- bag as nice as I know how," she whispered. "Put some o' your 'air into it, Cris, an' I'll keep it in my pocket so long's I'm alive." Then Cris wept anew, and the interview ended. Public feeling among the drummer-boys rose to fever pitch, and the lives of Jakin and Lew became unen- viable. Not only had they been permitted to enlist two years before the regulation boy's age — fourteen — 65 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE but, by virtue, it seemed, of their extreme youth, they were allowed to go to the front — which thinj^ had not happened to acting drummers within the knowledge of boy. The band which was to accompany the regi- ment had been cut down to the regulation twenty men, the surplus returning to the ranks. Jakin and Lew- were attached to the band as supernumeraries, though they would much have preferred being company buglers. "Don't matter much," said Jakin after the medical inspection. "Be thankful that we're 'lowed to go at all. The doctor 'e said that if we could stand what we took from the bazar-sergeant's son we'd stand pretty nigh anything." "Which we will," said Lew, looking tenderly at the ragged and ill-made housewife that Cris had given him, with a lock of her hair worked into a sprawling "L" upon the cover. "It was the best I could," she sobbed. "I wouldn't let mother nor the sergeant's tailor 'elp me. Keep it always. Piggy, an' remember I love you true." They marched to the railway station, nine hundred and sixty strong; and every soul in cantonments turned out to see them go. The drummers gnashed their teeth at Jakin and Lew marching with the band, the married women wept upon the platform, and the regi- ment cheered its noble self black in the face. "A nice level lot," said the colonel to the second-in- command as they watched the first four companies entraining. "Fit to do anything," said the second-in-command enthusiastically. "But it seems to me they're a thought too young and tender for the work in hand. It's bitter cold up at the front now." "They're sound enough," said the colonel. "We must take our chance of sick casualties." 66 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. So they went northward, ever northward, past droves and droves of cameis, armies of camp followers, and legions of laden mules, the throng thickening day by day, till with a shriek the train pulled up at a hope- lessly congested junction, where six lines of temporary track accommodated six forty-wagon trains; where whistles blew, Babus sweated and commissariat officers swore from dawn till far into the night amid the wind- driven chaff of the fodder-bales and the lowing of a thousand steers. "Hurry up — you're badly wanted at the front," was the message that greeted the Fore and Aft, and the occupants of the Red Cross carriages told the same tale. " 'Tisn't so much tlie bloomin' fighting," gasped a head-bound trooper of Hussars to a knot of admiring Fore and Afts. " 'Tisn't so much the bloomin' fightin', though there's enough o' that. It's the bloomin' food an' the bloomin' climate. Frost all night, 'cept when it hails, and biling sun all day, and the water stinks fit to knock you down. I got my 'ead chipped like a egg; I've got pneumonia, too; an' my guts is all out o' order. 'Tain't no bloomin' picnic in those parts, I can tell you." "Wot are the niggers like?" demanded a private. "There's some prisoners in that train yonder. Go an' look at 'em. They're the aristocracy o' the coun- try. The common folk are a dashed sight uglier. If you want to know what they fight with, reach under my seat an' pull out the long knife that's there." They dragged out and beheld for the first time the grim, bone-handled, triangular Afghan knife. It was almost as long as Lew. "That's the thing to jint ye," said the trooper /eebly. "It can take off a man's arm at the shoulder as easy 67. fAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. as slicing butter. I halved the beggar that used that 'un, but there's more of his likes up above. They don't understand thrustin', but they're devil's to slice." The men strolled across the tracks to inspect the Afghan prisoners. They were unlike any "niggers" that the Fore and Aft had ever met — these huge, black- haired, scowling sons of the Beni-Israel. As the men stared the Afghans spat freely, and muttered one to another with lowered eyes. "My eyes! What awful swine!" said Jakin, who was in the rear of the procession. "Say, old man, how you got puckrowed, eh? Kiswasti you wasn't hanged for your ugly face, hey?" The tallest of the company turned, his leg-irons clanking at the movement, and stared at the boy. "See!" he cried to his fellows in Pushto. "They send children against us. What a people, and what fools!" "Hya!' said Jakin, nodding his head cheerily. "You go down-country. Khana get, peenikapanee get — live like a bloomin' Raja ke marfik. That's a better bando- bust than baynit get it in your innards. Good-by, ole man. Take care o' your beautiful figure-'ed, an' try to look kushy." The men laughed and fell in for their first march when they began to realize that a soldier's life was not all beer and skittles. They were much impressed with the size and bestial ferocity of the niggers whom they had now learned to call "Paythans," and more with the exceeding discomfort of their own surroundings. Twenty old soldiers in the corps would have taught them how to make themselves moderately snug at night, but they had no old soldiers, and, as the troops on the line of march said, "they lived like pigs." They learned the heart-breaking cussedness of camp-kitchens and camels and the depravity of an E. P. tent and a wither-wrung mule. They studied animalculae in 68 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. water, and developed a few cases of dysentery in their study. At the end of their third march they were disa- greeably surprised by the arrival in their camp of a hammered iron slug, which, fired from a steadyrest at seven hundred yards, flicked out the brains of a private seated by the fire. This robbed them of their peace for a night, and was the beginning of a long-range fire carefully calculated to that end. In the daytime they saw nothing except an occasional pufif of smoke from a crag above the line of march. At night there were distant spurts of flame and occasional casualties, which set the whole camp blazing into the gloom, and, occasionally, into opposite tents. Then they swore vehemently, and vowed that this was magnifi- cent, but not war. Indeed, it was not. The regiment could not halt for reprisals against the franctireurs of the country- side. Its duty was to go forward and make connec- tion with the Scotch and Gurkha troops with which it was brigaded. The Afghans knew this, and knew, too, after their first tentative shots, that they were deal- ing with a raw regiment. Thereafter they devoted themselves to the task of keeping the Fore and Aft on the strain. Not for anything would they have taken equal liberties with a seasoned corps — with the wicked little Gurkhas, whose delight it was to lie out in the open on a dark night and stalk their stalk- ers — with the terrible, big men dressed in women's clothes, who could be heard praying to their God in the night-watches, and whose peace of mind no amount of "sniping" could shake — or with those vile Sikhs, who march so ostentatiously unprepared and who dealt out such grim reward to those who tried to profit by that unpreparedness. This white regiment was dif- ferent — quite different. It slept like a hog, and, like , 69 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. a hog. charged in every direction when it was roused. Its sentries walked with a footfall that could be heard for a quarter of a mile; would fire at anything that moved —even a driven donkey — and when they had once fired, could be scientifically "rushed" and laid out a horror and an ofYence against the morning sun. Then there were camp-followers who straggled and could be cut up without fear. Their shrieks would disturb the white boys, and the loss of their services would inconvenience them sorely. Thus, at every march, the hidden enemy became bolder, and the regiment writhed and twisted under attacks it could not avenge. The crowning triumph was a sudden night-rush ending in the cutting of many tent-ropes, the collapse of the sodden canvas, and a glorious knifing of the men who struggled and kicked below. It was a great deed, neatly carried out, and it shook the already shaken nerves of the Fore and Aft. All the courage that they had been required to exercise up to this point was the "two o'clock in the morning courage;" and they, so far, had only suc- ceeded in shooting their comrades and losing their sleep. Sullen, discontented, cold, savage, sick, with their uniforms dulled and unclean, the "Fore and Aft" joined the brigade. "I hear you had a tough time of it coming up," said the brigadier. But when he saw the hospital sheets his face fell. "This is bad," said he to himself. "They're as rotten as sheep." And aloud to the colonel: "I'm afraid we can't spare you just yet. We want all we have, else I should have given you ten days to recruit in." The colonel winced. "On my honor, sir," he re- turned, "there is not the least necessity to think of sparing us. My men have been rather mauled and 70 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. upset without a fair return. They only want to go in somewhere where they can see what's before them." "Can't say I think much of the Fore and Fit," saicl the brigadier in confidence to his brigade-major. "They've lost all their soldiering; and, by the trim of them, might have marched through the country from the other side. A more fagged-out set of men I never put eyes on." "Oh, they'll improve as the work goes on. The parade gloss has been rubbed ofif a little, but they'll put on field polish before long," said the brigade- major, "They've been mauled, and they don't quite understand it." They did not. All the hitting was on one side, and it was cruelly hard hitting, with accessories that made them sick. There was also the real sickness that laid hold of a strong man and dragged him howling to the grave. Worst of all, their officers knew just as little of the country as the men themselves, and looked as if they did. The Fore and Aft were in a thoroughly unsatisfactory condition, but they believed thr.t all would be well if they could once get a fair go-in at the enemy. Pot-shots up and down the valleys were unsatisfactory, and the bayonet never seemed to get a chance. Perhaps it was as well, for a long-limbed Afghan with a knife had a reach of eight feet, and could carry away enough lead to disable three Englishmen. The Fore and Fit would like some rifle-practice at the enemy — all seven hundred rifles blazing together. That wish showed the mood of the men. The Gurkhas walked into their camp, and in broken, barrack-room English, strove to fraternize with them; offered them pipes of tobacco, and stood them treat at the canteen. But the Fore and Aft, not knowing much of the nature of the Gurkhas, treated them as 71 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. they would treat any other "niggers," and the httle men in green trotted back to their firm friends the Highlanders, and with many grins confided to them: '"That dam white regiment no dam use. Sulky — ugh! Dirty — ugh! Hya, any tot for Johnny?" Whereat the Highlanders smote the Gurkhas as to the head, and told them not to vilify a British regiment, and the Gurkhas grinned cavernously, for the Highland- ers were their elder brothers and entitled to the priv- ileges of kinship. The common soldier who touches a Gurkha is more than likely to have his head sliced open. Three days later the brigadier arranged a battle according to the rules of war and the peculiarity of the Afghan temperament. The enemy were massing in inconvenient strength among the hills, and the moving of many green standards warned him that the tribes were "up" in aid of the Afghan regular troops. A squadron and a half of Bengal Lancers represented the available cavalry, and two screw-guns, borrowed from a column thirty miles away, the ar- tillery at the general's disposal. "If they stand, as I've a very strong notion that they will, I fancy we shall see an infantry fight that will be worth watching," said the brigadier. "We'll do it in style. Each regiment shall be played into action by its band, and we'll hold the cavalry in re- serve." "For all the reserve?" somebody asked. "For all the reserve; because we're going to crumple them up," said the brigadier, who was an extraor- dinary brigadier, and did not believe in the value of a reserve when dealing wth Asiatics. And, indeed, when you come to think of it, had the British army consistently waited for reserves in all its little affairs, 72 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. the boundaries of our Empire would have stopped at Brighton Beach. That battle was to be a glorious battle. The three regiments debouching from three separate gorges, after duly crowning the heights above, were to converge from the centre, left, and right upon what we will call the Afghan army, then stationed towards the lower extremity of a flat-bottomed valley. Thus it will be seen that three sides of the valley practically belonged to the English, while the fourth was strictly Afghan property. In the event of defeat the Afghans had the rocky hills to fly to, where the fire from the guerilla tribes in aid would cover their retreat. In the event of victory, these same tribes would rush down and lend their weight to the rout of the British. The screw-guns were to shell the head of each Afghan rush that was made in close formation, and the cavalry, held in reserve in the right valley, were to gently stimulate the break-up which would follow on the combined attack. The brigadier, sitting upon a rock overlooking the valley, would watch the battle unrolled at his feet. The Fore and Aft would de- bouch from the central gorge, the Gurkhas from the left, and the Highlanders from the right, for the rea- son that the left flank of the enemy seemed as though it required the most hammering. It was not every day that an Afghan force would take ground in the open, and the brigadier was resolved to make the most of it. "If we only had a few more men," he said, plaintive- ly, "we could surround the creatures and crumble 'em up thoroughly. As it is, I'm afraid we can only cut them up as they run. It's a great pity." The Fore and Aft had enjoyed unbroken peace for five days, and were beginning, in spite of dysentery, to recover their nerve. But they were not happy, for 73 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. they did not know the work in hand, and, had they known, would not have known how to do it. Through- out those five days, in which old soldiers might have taught them the craft of the game, they discussed to- gether their misadventures in the past — how such an one was alive at dawn and dead ere the dusk, and with what shrieks and struggles such another had given up his soul under the Afghan knife. Death was a new and horrible thing to the sons of mechanics who were used to die decently of zymotic disease; and their careful conservation in barracks had done nothing to make them look upon it with less dread. Very early in the dawn the bugles began to blow, and the Fore and Aft, filled with a misguided enthus- iasm, turned out without waiting for a cup of coffee and a biscuit; and were rewarded by being kept under arms in the cold, while the other regiments leisurely prepared for the fray. All the world knows that it is ill taking the breeks of? a Highlander. It is much iller to try to make him stir unless he is con- vinced of the necessity for haste. The Fore and Aft waited, leaning upon their rifles and listening to the protests of their empty stomachs. The colonel did his best to remedy the default of lining as soon as it was borne in upon him that the afifair would not begin at once, and so well did he succeed that the cofTee was just ready when — the men moved ofT, their band leading. Even then there had been a mistake in time, and the Fore and Aft came out into the valley ten minutes before the proper hour. Their band wheeled to the right after reaching the open, and retired behind a little roclcy knoll, still play- ing while the regiment went past. It was not a pleasant sight that opened on the un- obstructed view, for the lower end of the valley ap- peared to be filled by an army in position — real and 74 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. actual regiments, attired in red coats, and — of this there was no doubt — tiring Martini-Henri bullets, which cut up the ground a hundred yards in front of the leading company. Over that pock-marked ground the regiment had to pass, and it opened the ball with a general and profound courtesy to the piping pickets; ducking in perfect time, as though it had been brazed on a rod. Being half-capable of thinking for itself, it fired a volley by the simple process of pitching its rifle into its shoulder and pulling the trigger. The bullets may have accounted for some of the watchers on the hillside, but they certainly did not affect the mass of enemy in front, while the noise of the rifles drowned any orders that might have been given. "Good God!" said the brigadier, sitting on the rock high above all; "that regiment has spoilt the whole show. Hurry up the others, and let the screw-guns get off!" But the screw-guns, in working round the heights, had stumbled upon a wasp's nest of a small mud fort, which they incontinently shelled at eight hundred yards, to the huge discomfort of the occupants, who were unaccustomed to weapons of such devilish pre- cision. The Fore and Aft continued to go forward, but with shortened stride. Where were the other regiments, and why did these niggers use Martinis? They took open order instinctively, lying down and firing at random, rushing a few paces forward and lying down again, according to the regulations. Once in this formation, each man felt himself desperately alone, and edged in towards his fellow for comfort's sake. Then the crack of his neighbor's rifle at his ear led him to fire as rapidly as he could — again for the sake of comfort of the noise. The reward was not long delayed. Five volleys plunged the files in banked 75 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. smoke, impenetrable to the eye, and the bullets began to take ground twenty or thirty yards in front of the firers, as the weight of the bayonet dragged down, and to the right arms wearied with holding the kick of the leaping Martini. The company commanders peered helplessly through the smoke, the more nerv- ous mechanically trying to fan it away with their hel- mets. "High and to the left!" bawled a captain till he was hoarse. "No good! Cease firing, and let it drift away a bit!" Three and four times the bugles shrieked the order, and when it was obeyed the Fore and Aft looked that their foe should be lying before them in mown swaths of men. A light wind drove the smoke to leeward, and showed the enemy still in position and apparently unafifected. A quarter of a ton of lead had been buried a furlong in front of them, as the ragged earth attested. That was not demoralizing. They were waiting for the mad riot to die down, and were firing quietly into the heart of the smoke. A private of the Fore and Aft spun up his company shrieking with agony, another was kicking the earth and gasping, and a third, ripped through the lower intestines by a jagged bullet, was calling loud on his comrades to put him out of his pain. These were the casualties, and they were not soothing to hear or see. The smoke cleared to a dull haze. Then the foe began to shout with a great shouting, and a mass — a black mass — detached itself from the main body, and rolled over the ground at horrid speed. It was composed of, perhaps, three hundred men, who would shout and fire and slash if the rush of their fifty comrades who were determined to die carried home. The fifty were Ghazis. half-maddened with drugs and wholly mad with religious fanaticism. When they 7€ THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. rushed the British fire ceased, and in the lull the order was given to close ranks, and meet them with the bayonet. Any one who knew the business could have told the Fore and Aft that the only way of dealing with a Ghazi rush is by volleys at long range; because a man who means to die, who desires to die, who will gain heaven by dying, must, in nine cases out of ten, kill a man who has a lingering prejudice in favor of life if he can close with the latter. Where they should have closed and gone forward, the Fore and Aft opened out and skirmished, and where they should have opened out and fired, they closed and waited. A man dragged from his blankets half awake and unfed is never in a pleasant frame of mind. Nor does his happiness increase when he watches the whites of the eyes of three hundred six-foot fiends, upon whose beards the foam is lying, upon whose tongues is a roar of wrath, and in whose hands are three-foot knives. The Fore and Aft heard the Gurkha bugles bringing that regiment forward at the double, while the neigh- ing of the Highland pipes came from the left. They strove to stay where they were, though the bayonets wavered down the line like the oars of a ragged boat. Then they felt body to body the amazing physical strength of their foes; a shriek of pain ended the rush, and the knives fell amid scenes not to be told. The men clubbed together and smote blindly — as often as not at their own fellows. Their front crumpled like paper, and the fifty Ghazis passed on; their backers, now drunk with success, fighting as madly as they. Then the rear-ranks were bidden to close up, and the subalterns dashed into the stew — alone. For the rear-rank had heard the clamor in front, the yells and the howls of pain, and had seen the dark, stale blood that makes afraid. They were not going to stay. It 77 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. was the rushing of the camps over again. Let their officers go to Hell, if they chose; they would get away from the knives. '"Come on!" shrieked the subalterns, and their men, cursing them, drew back, each closing into his neigh- bor and wheelmg round. Charteris and Devlin, subalterns of the last com- pany, faced their death alone in the belief that their men would follow. "You've killed me, you cowards!" sobbed Devlin, and dropped, cut from the shoulder-strap to the centre of the chest, and a fresh detachment of his men retreat- ing, always retreating, trampled him under foot as they made for the pass whence they had emerged. "I kissed her in the kitchen, and I kissed her in the hall. Child'un, child'un, follow me! Oh, Golly! said the cook; is he gwine to kiss us all? Halla— Halla— Halla Hallelujah!" The Gurkhas were pouring through the left gorge and over the heights at the double, to the invitation of their regimental quickstep. The black rocks were crowned with dark green spiders as the bugles gave tongue jubilantly: "In the morning! In the morning by the bright light! When Gabriel blows his trumpet in the morning!" The Gurkha rear-companies tripped and blundered over loose stones. The front files halted for a mo- ment to take stock of the valley and to settle stray boot-laces. Then a happy little sigh of contentment soughed down the ranks, and it was as though the land smiled, for behold there below was the enemy, and it was to meet them that the Gurkhas had doubled so hastily. There was much enemy. There would 78 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. be amusement. The little men hitched their kukris well to hand, and gaped expectantly at their officers as terriers grin ere the stone is cast for them to fetch. The Gurkhas' ground sloped downward to the valley, and they enjoyed a fair view of the proceedings. They sat upon the bowlders to watch, for their of- ficers were not going to waste their wind in assisting to repulse a Ghazi rush more than half a mile away. Let the white men look to their own front. "Hi! yi!" said the subadar-major, who was sweat- ing profusely. "Dam fools yonder, stand close-order! This is no time for close order; it's the time for vol- leys. Ugh!" Horrified, amused, and indignant, the Gurkhas be- held the retirement — let us be gentle — of the Fore and Aft with a running chorus of oaths and commentaries. "They run! The white men run! Colonel Sahib, may we also do a little running?" murmured Runbir Thappa, the senior Jemadar. But the colonel would have none of it. "Let the beggars be cut up a little," said he, wrathfully. "Serves 'em right. They'll be prodded into facing round in a minute." He looked through his field- glasses, and caught the glint of an officer's sword. "Beating 'em with the flat — damned conscripts! How the Ghazis are walking into them!" said he. The Fore and Aft, heading back, bore with them their officers. The narrowness of the pass forced the mob into solid formation, and the rear rank delivered some sort of a wavering volley. The Ghazis drew oflf, for they did not know what reserves the gorge might hide. Moreover, it was never wise to chase white men too far. They returned as wolves return to cover, satisfied with the slaughter that they had done, and only stopping to slash at the wounded on the ground. A quarter of a mile had the Fore and Aft retreated, and 79 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. now, jammed in the pass, was quivering with pain, shaken and demoralized with fear, while the officers, maddened beyond control, smote the men with the hilts and the flats of their swords. "Get back! Get back, you cowards — you women! Right about face — column of companies, form — you hounds!" shouted the colonel, and the subalterns swore aloud. But the regiment wanted to go — to go any- where out of the range of those merciless knives. It swayed to and fro irresolutely with shouts and out- cries, while from the right the Gurkhas dropped volley after volley of cripple-stopper Snider bullets at long range into the mob of the Ghazis returning to their own troops. The Fore and Aft band, though protected from di- rect fire by the rocky knoll under which it had sat down, fled at the first rush. Jakin and Lew would have fled also, but their short legs left them fifty yards in the rear, and by the time the band had mixed with the regiment, they were painfully aware that they would have to close in alone and unsupported. "Get back to that rock," gasped Jakin. "They won't see us there." And they returned to the scattered instruments of the band; their hearts nearly bursting their ribs. "Here's a nice show for us," said Jakin, throwing himself full length on the ground. "A bloomin' fine show for British infantry. Oh, the devils! They've gone an' left us alone here! Wot'll we do?" Lew took possession of a cast-off water bottle, which naturally was full of canteen rum, and drank till he coughed again. "Drink," said he, shortly. "They'll come back in a minute or two — you see." Jakin drank, but there was no sign of the regiment's return. They could hear a dull clamor from the head 80 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. of the valley retreat, and saw the Ghazis slink back, quickening their pace as the Gurkhas fired at them. "We're all that's left of the band, an' we'll be cut up as sure as death," said Jakin. "I'll die game, then," said Lew, thickly, fumbling with his tiny drummer's sword. The drink was work- ing on his brain as it was on Jakin's. "'Old on! I know something better than fightin'," said Jakin, "stung by the splendor of a sudden thought," due chiefly to rum. "Tip our bloomin* cowards yonder the word to come back. The Pay- than beggars are well away. Come on. Lew! We won't get hurt. Take the fife an' give me the drum. The Old Step for all your bloomin' guts are worth! There's a few of our men coming back now. Stand up, ye drunken little defaulter. By your right — quick march!" He slipped the drum-sling over his shoulder, thrust the fife into Lew's hand, and the two boys marched out of the cover of the rock into the open, making a hideous hash of the first bars of the "British Grena- diers." As Lew had said, a few of the Fore and Aft were coming back, sullenly and shame-facedly, under the stimulus of blows and abuse; their red coats shone at the head of the valley, and behind them were wav- ering bayonets. But between this shattered line and the enemy, who, with Afghan suspicion, feared that the hasty retreat meant an ambush, and had not moved therefore, lay half a mile of a level ground dotted only by the wounded. The tune settled into full swing and the boys kept shoulder to shoulder, Jakin banging the drum as one possessed. The one fife made a thin and pitiful squeaking, but the tune carried far, even to the Gur- khas. 8i FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. "Come on, you dogs!" muttered Jakin to himself. "Are we to play forhever?' Lew was staring straight in front of him and marching more stiffly than ever he had done on parade. And in bitter mockery of the distant mob, the old tune of the Old Line shrilled and rattled: "Some talk of Alexander, And some of Hercules; Of Hector and Lysander, And such great names as these!" There was a far-ofif clapping of hands from the Gurkhas, and a roar from the Highlanders in the dis- tance, but never a shot was fired by British or Afghan. The two little red dots moved forward in the open parallel to the enemy's front. "But of all the world's great heroes There's none that can compare, With a tow-row-row-row-row-row, To the British Grenadier!" The men of the Fore and Aft were gathering thick at the entrance into the plain. The brigadier on the heights far above was speechless with rage. Still no movement from the enemy. The day stayed to watch the children. Jakin halted and beat the long roll of the Assembly, while the fife squealed despairingly. "Right about face! Hold up. Lew, you're drunk," said Jakin. They wheeled and marched back: "Those heroes of antiquity Ne'er saw a cannon-ball. Nor knew the force o' powder," 82 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. "Here they come!" said Jakin. "Go on. Lew:" "To scare their foes withal!" The Fore and Aft were pouring out of the valley. What officers had said to men in that time of shame and humiliation will never be known; for neither of- ficers nor men speak of it now. "They are coming anew!" shouted a priest among the Afghans. "Do not kill the boys! Take them alive, and they shall be of our faith." But the first volley had been fired, and Lew dropped on his face. Jakin stood for a minute, spun round and collapsed, as the Fore and Aft came forward, the maledictions of their ofificers in their ears, and in their hearts the shame of open shame. Half the men had seen the drummers die, and they made no sign. They did not even shout. They doubled out straight across the plain in open order, and they did not fire. "This," said the colonel of Gurkhas, softly, "is the real attack, as it ought to have been delivered. Come on, my children." "Ulu-lu-lu-lu!" squealed the Gurkhas, and came down with a joyful clicking of kukris — ^those vicious Gurkha knives. On the right there was no rush. The Highlanders, cannily commending their souls to God (for it mat- ters as much to a dead man whether he has been shot in a border scuffle or at Waterloo), opened out and fired according to their custom — that is to say, with- out heat and without intervals — while the screw-guns, having disposed of the impertinent mud fort afore- mentioned, dropped shell after shell into the clusters round the flickering green standards on the heights. "Charrging is an unfortunate necessity," murmured 83 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. the color-sergeant of the right company of the High- landers. "It makes the men sweer so; but I am thinkin' that it will come to a charrge if these black devils stand much longer. Stewarrt, man, you're firing into the eye of the sun, and he'll not take any harm for Gov- ernment ammuneetion. A foot lower and a great deal slower! What are the English doing? They're very quiet there in the centre. Running again? The English were not running. They were hack- ing and hewing and stabbing, for though one white man is seldom physically a match for an Afghan in a sheepskin or wadded coat, yet, through the pressure of many white men behind, and a certain thirst for revenge in his heart, he becomes capable of doing much with both ends of his rifle. The Fore and Aft held their fire till one bullet could drive through five or six men, and the front of the Afghan force gave on the volley. Then they selected their men, and slew them with deep gasps and short hacking coughs, and groanings of leather belts against strained bodies, and realized for the first time that an Afghan attacked is far less formidable than an Afghan attacking; which fact old soldiers might have told them. But they had no old soldiers in their ranks. The Gurkhas' stall at the bazar was the noisiest, for the men were engaged — to a nasty noise as of beef being cut on the block — with the kukri, which they preferred to the bayonet; well knowing how the Afghan hates the half-moon blade. As the Afghans wavered, the green standards on the mountain moved down to assist them in a last rally. Which was unwise. The Lancers, chafing in the right gorge, had thrice despatched their only sub- altern as galloper to report on the progress of affairs. On the third occasion he returned, with a bullet-graze 84 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. on his knee, swearing strange oaths in Hindustani, and saying that all things were ready. So that squadron swung round the right of the Highlanders with a wicked whistling of wind in the pennons of its lances, and fell upon the remnant just when, according to all the rules of war, it should have waited for the foe to show more signs of wavering. But it was a dainty charge, deftly delivered, and it ended by the cavalry finding itself at the head of the pass by which the Afghans intended to retreat; and down the track that the lances had made streamed two companies of the Highlanders, which was never intended by the brigadier. The new development was successful. It detached the enemy from his base as a sponge is torn from a rock, and left him ringed about with fire in that pitiless plain. And as a sponge is chased round the bath-tub by the hand of the bather, so were the Afghans chased till they broke into little detachments, much more difficult to dispose of than large masses. "See!" quoth the brigadier. "Everything has come as I arranged. We've cut their base, and now we'll bucket 'em to pieces." A direct hammering was all that the brigadier had dared to hope for, considering the size of the force at his disposal; but men who stand or fall by the errors of their opponents may be forgiven for turning Chance into Design. The bucketing went forward merrily. The Afghan forces were upon the run — the run of wearied wolves who snarl and bite over their shoulders. The red lances dipped by twos and threes, and, with a shriek, up rose the lance-butt, like a spar on a stormy sea, as the trooper cantering forward cleared his point. The Lancers kept between their prey and the steep hills, for all who could were trying to escape from the valley of death. The Highlanders 85 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. gave the fugitives two hundred yards' law, and then brought them down, gasping and choking ere they could reach the protection of the bowlders above. The Gurkhas followed suit; but the Fore and Aft were killing on their own account, for they had penned a mass of men between their bayonets and a wall of rock, and the flash of the rifles was lighting the wadded coats. "We cannot hold them, Captain Sahib!" panted a Ressaidar of Lancers. "Let us try the carbine. The lance is good, but it wastes time." They tried the carbine, and still the enemy melted away — fled up the hills by hundreds when there were only twenty bullets to stop them. On the heights the screw-guns ceased firing — they had run out of ammunitioa — and the brigadier groaned, for the musketry fire could not sufficiently smash the retreat. Long before the last volleys were fired, the litters were out in force looking for the wounded. The bat- tle was over, and, but for want of fresh troops, the Afghans would have been wiped off the earth. As it was, they counted their dead by hundreds, and no- where were the dead thicker than in the track of the Fore and Aft. But the regiment did not cheer with the Highland- ers, nor did they dance uncouth dances with the Gurkhas among the dead. They looked under their brows at the colonel as they leaned upon their rifles and panted. "Get back to camp, you! Haven't you disgraced yourselves enough for one day? Go and look to the wounded. It's all you're fit for," said the colonel. Yet for the past hour the Fore and Aft had been doing all that mortal commander could expect. They had lost heavily because they did not know how to set about their business with proper skill, but they 86 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT. had borne themselves gallantly, and this was their reward. A young and sprightly color-sergeant, who had begun to imagine himself a hero, offered his water- bottle to a Highlander, whose tongue was black with thirst. "I drink with no cowards," answered the youngster huskily, and, turning to a Gurkha, said, "Hya, Johnny! Drink water got it?" The Gurkha grinned and passed his bottle. The Fore and Aft said no word. They went back to camp when the field of strife had been a littl« mopped up and made presentable, and the brigadier, who saw himself a knight in three months, was the only soul who was complimentary to them. The colonel was heart-broken, and the officers were savage and sullen. "Well," said the brigadier, "they are young troops, of course; and it was not unnatural that they should retire in disorder for a bit." "Oh, my only Aunt Maria!" murmured a junior staff officer. "Retire in disorder! It was a bally run!" "But they came again, as we all know," cooed the brigadier, the colonel's ashy-white face before him; "and they behaved as well as could possibly be ex- pected. Behaved beautifully, indeed! I was watch- ing them. It's not a matter to take to heart, colonel. As some German general said of his men. they wanted to be shooted over a little, that was all." To himself he said: "Now they're blooded, I can give 'em re- sponsible work. It's as well that they got what they did. Teach 'em more than half a dozen rifle flirta- tions, that will — later — run alone and bite. Poor old colonel, though." All that afternoon the heliograph winked and flick- ered on the hills, striving to tell the good news to a mountain forty miles away. And in the evening there 87 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. arrived, dusty, sweating, and sore, a misguided cor- respondent, who had gone out to assist at a trumpery village-burning, and who had read oflf the message !rom afar cursing his luck the while. "Let's have the details somehow — as full as ever you can, please. It's the first time I've ever been left this campaign," said the correspondent to the briga- dier; and the brigadier, nothing loath, told him how an army of communication had been crumpled up, destroyed, and all but annihilated by the craft, strategy, wisdom and foresight of the brigadier. But some say, and among these be the Gurkhas who watched on the hillside, that that battle was won by Jakin and Lew, whose little bodies were borne up just in time to fit two gaps at the head of the big ditch-grave for the dead under the heights of Jagai. C/ESAR AT ALESIA C^SAR AT ALESIA James Afit/iony Froude TWLESIA, like Gergovia, is on a hill sloping off all j\ round, with steep and, in places, precipitous sides. It lies between two small rivers, the Ose and the Oserain, both of which fall into the Brenne and thence into the Seine. Into this peninsula, with the rivers on each side of him, Vercingetorix had thrown himself with eighty thousand men. Alesia as a position was impregnable except to famine. The water supply was secure. The position was of extraordinary strength. The rivers formed natural trenches. Below the town to the east they ran parallel for three miles through an open alluvial plain before they reached the Brenne. In every other direction rose rocky hills of equal height with the central plateau, originally perhaps one wide tableland, through which the waters had ploughed out the valleys. To attack Vercingetorix where he had placed himself was out of the question; but to blockade him there, to capture the leader of the insurrection and his whole army, and so in one blow make an end with it, on a survey of the situation seemed not impossible. The Gauls had thought of nothing less than of being besieged. The provisions laid in could not be con- siderable, and so enormoMS a multitude could not hold out many days. At once the legions were set to work cutting trenches 91 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. or building walls as the form of the ground allowed Camps were formed at different spots, and twenty-three strong blockhouses at the points which were least de- fensible. The lines where the circuit was completed were eleven miles long. The part most exposed was the broad level meadow which spread out to the west to- wards the Brenne river. Vercingetorix had looked on for a time, not understanding what was happening to him. When he did understand it, he made desperate efforts on his side to break the net before it closed about him. But he could do nothing. The Gauls could not be brought to face the Roman entrenchments. Their cavalry were cut to pieces by the German horse. The only hope was from help without, and before the lines were entirely finished horsemen were sent out with orders to ride for their lives into every district in Gaul and raise the entire nation. The crisis had come. If the countrymen of Vercingetorix were worthy of their fathers, if the enthusiasm with which they had risen for freedom was not a mere emotion, but the ex- pression of a real purpose, their young leader called on them to come now, every man of them, and seize Caesar in the trap into which he had betrayed himself. If, on the other hand, they were careless, if they allowed him and his eighty thousand men to perish without an effort to save them, the independence which they had ceased to deserve would be lost forever. He had food, he bade the messengers say, for thirty days; by thrifty manage- ment it might be made to last a few days longer. In thirty days he should look for relief. The horsemen sped away like the bearers of the fiery cross. Caesar learnt from deserters that they had gone out, and understood the message which they carried. Already he was besieging an army far outnumbering his own. If he persevered, he knew that he might count with certainty on being attacked by a second army ira- 92 The Death of Caesar ■ted •iie to- ooked on The Gauls could rts. '■'se. rhe •-•ut ■' district isi. had ■thy . > had I the ex- "; ' on U, on 'od him ,...ed , he bade • nd army im- J C^SAR AT ALESIA, measurably larger. But the time allowed for the col- lection of so many men might also serve to prepare for their reception. Vercingetorix said rightly that the Romans won their victories, not by superior courage, but by superior science. The same power of measuring the exact facts of the situation which determined C?esar to raise the siege of Gergovia decided him to hold on at Alesia. He knew exactly, to begin with, how long Vercingetorix could hold out. It was easy for him to collect provisions within his lines which would feed his own army a few days longer. Fortifications the same in kind as those which prevented the besieged from breaking out would equally serve to keep the assailants oflf. His plan was to make a second line of works — an exterior line as well as an interior line; and as the extent to be defended would thus be doubled, he made them of a peculiar construction, to enable one man to do the work of two. There is no occasion to describe the rows of ditches, dry and wet, the staked pitfalls, the cervi, pronged instruments like the branching horns of a stag; the stimuli, barbed spikes treacherously concealed to impale the unwary and hold him fast when caught, with which the ground was sown in irregular rows; the vallus and the lorica, and all the varied contrivances of Roman engineering genius. Military students will read the particulars for themselves in Caesar's own language. Enough that the work was done within the time, with the legions in perfect good humor, and giv- ing jesting names to the new instruments of torture as Caesar invented them. Vercingetorix now and then burst out on the working parties, but produced no efifect. They knew what they were to expect when the thirty days were out; but they knew their commander, and had absolute confidence in his judgment. Meanwhile, on all sides, the Gauls were responding to the call. From every quarter, even from far-oflf parts of 93 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AXD SIEGE. Belgium, horse and foot were streaming along th« roads. Commms of Arras, Caesar's old friend, who had gone with him to Britain, was caught with the same frenzy, and was hastening among the rest to help to end him. At last two hundred and fifty thousand of the best fighting men that Gaul could produce had collected at the appointed rendezvous, and advanced with the easy conviction that the mere impulse of so mighty a force would sweep Caesar off the earth. They were late in arriving. The thirty days had passed, and there were no signs of the coming deliverers. Eager eyes were straining from the heights of the plateau, but nothing was seen save the tents of the legions or the busy units of men at work on the walls and trenches. Anxious debates were held among the beleaguered chiefs. The faint-hearted wished to surrender before they were starved. Others were in favor of a desperate effort to cut their way through or die. One speech Caesar pre- serves for its remarkable and frightful ferocity. A prince of Auvergne said that the Romans conquered to enslave and beat down the laws and liberties of free nations under the lictors' axes, and he proposed that sooner than yield they should kill and eat those who were useless for fighting. Vercingetorix was of noble nature. To prevent the adoption of so horrible an expedient, he ordered the peaceful inhabitants, with their wives and children, to leave the town. Caesar forbade them to pass his lines. Cruel — but war is cruel; and where a garrison is to be reduced by famine the laws of it are inexorable. But the day of expected deliverance dawned at last. Five miles beyond the Brenne the dust-clouds of the approaching host were seen, and then the glitter of their lances and their waving pennons. They swam the river. They filled the plain below the town. From the heights of Alesia the whole scene lay spread under the 94 C^SAR AT ALESIA feet of the besieged. Vercingetorix came down on the slope to the edge of the first trench, prepared to cross when the turn of battle should give him a chance to strike. Caesar sent out his German horse, and stood himself watching from the spur of an adjoining hill. The Gauls had brought innumerable archers with them. The horse flinched slightly under the showers of arrows, and shouts of triumph rose from the lines of the town; but the Germans rallied again, sent the cavalry of the Gauls flying, and hewed down the unprotected archers. Vercingetorix fell back sadly to his camp on the hill, and then for a day there was a pause. The relieving army had little food with them, and if they acted at all must act quickly. They spread over the country col- lecting fagots to fill the trenches, and making ladders to storm the walls. At midnight they began their as- sault on the lines in the plain; and Vercingetorix, hear- ing by the cries that the work had begun, gave his own signal for a general sally. The Roman arrangements had been completed long before. Every man knew his post. The slings, the crossbows, the scorpions were all at hand and in order. Mark Antony and Gains Tre- bonius had each a flying division under them to carry help where the pressure was most severe. The Gauls were caught on the cervi, impaled on the stimuli, and fell in heaps under the bolts and balls which were poured from the walls. They could make no impression, and fell back at daybreak beaten and dispirited. Ver- cingetorix had been unable even to pass the moats and trenches, and did not come into action till his friends had abandoned the attack. The Gauls had not yet taken advantage of their enor- mous numbers. Defeated on the level ground, they next tried the heights. The Romans were distributed in a ring now fourteen miles in extent. On the north side, beyond the Ose, the works were incomplete, owing 95 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMi- AND SIEGE. to the nature of the ground, and their lines lay on the slope of the hills descending towards the river. Sixty thousand picked men left the Gauls' camp before dawn; they stole round by a distant route, and were allowed to rest concealed in a valley till the middle of the day. At noon they came over the ridge at the Romans' back; and they had the best of the position, being able to at- tack from above. Their appearance was the signal for a general assault on all sides, and for a determined sally by Vercingetorix from within. Thus before, behind, and everywhere, the legions were assailed at the same moment; and Csesar observes that the cries of battle in the rear are always more trying to men than the fiercest onset upon them in front; because what they cannot see they imagine more formidable than it is, and they de- pend for their own safety on the courage of others. Caesar had taken his stand where he could command the whole action. There was no smoke in those en- gagements, and the scene was transparently visible. Both sides felt that the deciding trial had come. In the plain the Gauls made no more impression than on the preceding day. At the weak point on the north the Romans were forced back down the slope, and could not hold their positions. Csesar saw it, and sent La- bienus with six cohorts to their help. Vercingetorix had seen it also, and attacked the interior lines at the same spot. Decimus Brutus was then dispatched also, and then Caius Fabius. Finally, when the fighting grew desperate, he left his own station; he called up the reserves which had not yet been engaged, and he rode across the field, conspicuous in his scarlet dress and with his bare head, cheering on the men as he passed each point where they were engaged, and hastening to the scene where the chief danger lay. He sent round a few squadrons of horse to the back of the hills which the Gauls had crossed in the morning. He himself 9& C^SAR AT ALESIA. joined Labienus. Wherever he went he carried en- thusiasm along with him. The legionaries flung away their darts and rushed upon the enemy sword in hand. The cavalry appeared above on the heights. The Gauls wavered, broke and scattered. The German horse were among them, hewing down the brave but now helpless patriots who had come with such high hopes and had fought so gallantly. Out of the sixty thousand that had sallied forth in the morning, all but a draggled rem- nant lay dead on the hillsides. Seventy-four standards were brought in to Caesar. The besieged retired into Alice (Alesia) again in despair. The vast hosts that were to have set them free melted away. In the morn- ing they were streaming over the country, making back for their homes, with Csesar's cavalry behind them, cutting them down and capturing them in thousands. The work was done. The most daring feat in the military annals of mankind had been successfully ac- complished. A Roman army, which could not at the utmost have amounted to fifty thousand men, had held blockaded an army of eighty thousand — not weak Asiatics, but European soldiers, as strong and as brave individually as the Italians were; and they had defeated, beaten and annihilated another army which had come expecting to overwhelm them, five times as large as their own. Seeing that all was over, Vercingetorix called the chiefs about him. He had gone into the war, he said, for no object of his own, but for the liberty of his coun- try. Fortune had gone against him; and he advised them to make their peace, either by killing him and sending his head to the conqueror or by delivering him up alive. A humble message of submission was dis- patched to Csesar. He demanded an unconditional sur- render, and the Gauls, starving and hopeless, obeyed. The Roman general sat amidst the works in front of the 97 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. camp while the chiefs one by one were produced before him. The brave Vercingetorix, as noble in his calam- ity as Caesar himself in his success, was reserved to be shown in triumph to the populace of Rome. The whole of his army were prisoners of war. The ^dui and Arverni among them were set aside, and were dismissed after a short detention for political reasons. The re- mainder w^ere sold to the contractors, and the proceeds were distributed as prize-money among the legions. 98 A SERVICE OF DANGER Amelia B. Edwards CHAPTER I T FREDERICK GEORGE BYNG, who write this > narrative with my own hand, without help of spectacles, am so old a man that I doubt if I now have a hundred living contemporaries in Europe. I was born in 1780, and I am eighty-nine years of age. My reminiscences date so far back that I almost feel, when I speak of them, as if I belonged to another world. I remember when news first reached England of the tak- ing of the Bastille in 1789. I remember when people, meeting each other in the streets, talked of Danton and Robespierre, and the last victims of the guillotine. I remember how our whole household was put into black for the execution of Louis XVI., and how my mother, who was a devout Roman Catholic, converted her oratory for several days into a chapelle ardente. That was in 1793, when I was just thirteen years of age. Three years later, when the name of General Bona- parte was fast becoming a word of power in European history, I went abroad, and influenced by considera- tions which have nothing to do with my story, entered the Austrian army. A younger son of a younger branch of an ancient and noble house, and distantly connected, moreover, lOI FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. with more than one great Austrian family, I presented myself at the Court of Vienna under peculiarly favor- able auspices. The Archduke Charles, to whom I brought letters of recommendation, accorded me a gracious welcome, and presented me almost imme- ditely upon my arrival with a commission in a cavalry corps commanded by a certain Colonel von Beust, than w-hom a more unpopular officer did not serve in the Imperial army. Hence, I was glad to exchange, some months later, into Lichtenstein's Cuirassiers. In this famous corps which was commanded by his uncle the Prince of Lichtenstein, my far-off cousin, Gustav von Lichten- stein, had lately been promoted to a troop. Serving in the same corps, sharing the same hardships, incur- ring the same dangers, we soon became sworn friends and comrades. Together we went through the disas- trous campaign of 1797, and together enjoyed the brief interval of peace that followed upon the treaty of Campo Formio and the cession of Venice. Having succeeded in getting our leave of absence at the same time, we then travelled through Styria and Hungary. Our tour ended, we came back together to winter quar- ters in Vienna. When hostilities were renewed in 1800, we joyfully prepared to join the army of the Inn. In peace or war, at home or abroad, we two held fast by each other. Let the world go round as it might, we at least took life gaily, accepted events as they came, and went on becoming truer and stancher friends with every pass- ing day. Never were two men better suited. We un- derstood each other perfectly. We were nearly of the same age; we enjoyed the same sports, read the same books, and liked the same people. Above all, we were both passionately desirous of military glory, and we both hated the French. 102 A SERVICE OF DANGER Gustav von Lichtenstein, however, was in many respects, both physically and mentally, my superior. He was taller than myself, a finer horseman, a swifter runner, a bolder swimmer, a more graceful dancer. He was unequivocally better-looking; and having to great natural gifts superadded a brilliant University career at both Gottingen and Leipzig, he was as un- equivocally better educated. Fair-haired, blue-eyed, athletic — half dreamer and poet, half sportsman and soldier — now lost in mists of speculative philosophy — now given up with keen enthusiasm to military studies — the idol of his soldiers — the beau sabreur of his corps — Gustav von Lichtenstein was then, and has ever since remained, my ideal of a true and noble gentleman. An orphan since his early childhood, he owned large estates in Franconia, and was, moreover, his uncle's sole heir. He was just twenty when I first came to know him per- sonally in Vienna in 1796; but his character was already formed, and he looked at least four years older than his age. When I say that he was even then, in accordance with a family arrangement of long standing, betrothed to his cousin Constance von Adelheim, a rich and beau- tiful Franconian heiress, I think I shall have told all that need be told of my friend's private history. I have said that we were rejoiced by the renewal of histilities in 1800; and we had good reason to rejoice, he as an Austrian, I as an Englishman; for the French were our bitterest enemies, and we were burning to wipe out the memory of Marengo. It was in the month of November that Gustav and I received orders to join our regiment ; and, commanded by Prince Lichtenstein in person, we at once proceeded, in great haste and very inclement weather, to fall in with the main body of the Imperial forces near Landshut on the Inn. The French, under Moreau, came up from the direction of Ampfing and Miihldorf; while the Austrians, sixty thousand 103 FAMOUS TALES OK BATTLK, CAMP AND SIEGE strong, under the Archduke John, advanced Upon them from Dorfen. Coming upon the French by surprise in the close neighborhood of Ampfing on the 30th, we fell upon them while in line of march, threw them into confusion, and put them to the rout. The next day they fell back upon that large plateau which lies between the Isar and the Inn, and took up their position in the forest of Hohenlinden. We ought never to have let them so fall back. We ought never to have let them entrench them- selves in the natural fastness of that immense forest, which has been truly described as "a great natural stockade between six and seven leagues long, and from a league to a league and a half broad." We had already achieved a brilliant coup, and had our general known how to follow up his success, the whole fortune of the campaign would in all probability have been changed. But the Archduke John, though a young man of ability and sound military training, wanted the boldness which comes of experience, and erred on the side of over-caution. All that day (the 2d of December) it rained and sleeted in torrents. An icy wind chilled us to the bone. We could not keep our camp-fires alight. Our soldiers, however, despite the dreadful state of the weather, were in high spirits, full of yesterday's triumph, and longing for active work. Officers and men alike, we all confi- dently expected to be on the heels of the enemy soon after daybreak, and waited impatiently for the word of command. But we waited in vain. At midday the Archduke summoned a council of his generals. But the council by-and-by broke up ; the afternoon wore on ; the early winter dusk closed in ; and nothing was done. That night there was discontent in the camp. The officers looked grave. The men murmured loudly, as they gathered round the sputtering embers and tried 104 A SERVICE OF DANGER in vain to fence off the wind and rain. By-and-by the wind ceased blowing and the rain ceased falling, and it began to snow. At midnight, my friend and I were sitting together in our little tent, trying to kindle some damp logs, and talking over the day's disappointment. "It is a brilliant opportunity lost," said Gustav, bit- terly. "We had separated them and thrown them into confusion ; but what of that, when we have left them this whole day to reassemble their scattered forces and reform their broken battalions? The Archduke Charles would never have been guilty of such an oversight. He would have gone on forcing them back, column upon column, till soon they would have been unable to fly before us. They would have trampled upon each other, thrown down their arms, and been all cut to pieces or taken prisoners." "Perhaps it is not yet too late," said I. "Not yet too late !" he repeated. "Gott im Himmel ! Not too late, perhaps, to fight hard and get the worst of the fight; but too late to destroy the whole French army, as we should have destroyed it this morning. But, there! of what use is it to talk? They are all safe now in the woods of Hohenlinden." "Well, then, we must rout them out of the v/oods of Hohenlinden, as we routed the wild boars last winter in Franconia," I said, smiling. But my friend shook his head. "Look here," he said, tearing a leaf from his pocket- book, and, with a few bold strokes, sketching a rough plan of the plateau and the two rivers. "The forest is pierced by only two great roads — the road from Munich to Wasserburg, and the road from Munich to MUhldorf. Between the roads, some running transversely, some in parallel lines, are numbers of narrow footways, known only to the peasants, and impassable in winter. If the 105 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE French have liad recourse to the great thoroughfares, they have passed through ere this, and taken up their position on some good ground beyond; if they have tlirown themselves into the forest on either side, they are either taking refuge in thickets whence it will be impossible to dislodge them, or they are lying in wait to fall upon our columns when we attempt to march through." I was struck by the clearness of his insight and his perfect mastery of the situation. "What a general you will make by-and-by, Lichten- stein !" I exclaimed. "I shall never live to be a general, my dear fellow," he replied gloomily. Have I not told you before now that I shall die young?" "Pshaw ! — a mere presentiment !" "Ay — a mere presentiment ; but a presentiment of which you will some day see the fulfilment." I shook my head and smiled incredulously; but Lich- tenstein, stooping over the fire, and absorbed in his own thoughts, went on, more, as it were, to himself than to me. "Yes," he said, "I shall die before I have done any- thing for which it might be worth while to have lived. I am conscious of power — I feel there is the making of a commander in me — but what chance have I ? The times are rich in great soldiers * * * * Ah, if I could but once distinguish myself — if I could but achieve one glorious deed before I die i * * * * My uncle could help me if he would. He could so easily appoint me to some service of danger ; but he will not — it is in vain to ask him. There was last year's expe- dition — you remember how I emplored him to let me lead an assaulting party at Manheim. He refused me. Von Ranke got it, and covered himself with glory! Now if we do have a battle to-morrow" * * * * io6 A SERVICE OF DANGER. "Do you really think we shall have a battle to-mor- row?" I said eagerly. "I fancy so; but who can answer for what the Arch- duke may do? Were we not confident of fighting to- day?" "Yes — but the Prince of Lichtenstein was at the council." "My uncle tells me nothing," replied Gustav, drily. And then he went to the door of the tent and looked out. The snow was still coming down in a dense, drift- ing cloud, and, notwithstanding the heavy rains of the last few days, was already beginning to lie upon the ground. "Pleasant weather for a campaign!" said Gustav. "I vote we get a few hours' sleep while we can." And with this he wrapped himself up in his cloak and lay down before the fire. I followed his example, and in a few moments we were both fast asleep. Next day — the memorable 3d of December, A. D. 1800 — was fought the famous battle of Hohenlinden; a day great and glorious in the annals of French military history, yet not inglorious for those who bravely suf- fered defeat and disaster. I will not attempt to describe the conflict in detail — that has been done by abler pens than mine. It will be enough if I briefly tell what share we Lichtensteiners bore in the fray. The bugles sounded to arms before daylight, and by gray dawn the whole army was in mo- tion. The snow was still falling heavily; but the men were in high spirits and confident of victory. Divided into three great columns — the centre com- manded by the Archduke, the right wing under Latour, and the left under Riesch — we plunged into the forest. The infantry marched first, followed by the artillery and caissons, and the cavalry brought up the rear. The morning, consequently, had far advanced, and our com- 107 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE rades in the van had already reached the farther ex- tremity of the forest, when we, with the rest of the cavalry, crossed, if I may so express it, the threshold of those fatal woods. The snow was now some fourteen inches deep upon the ground, and still falling in such thick flakes as made it impossible to see twenty yards ahead. The gloomy pine-trees closed round our steps in every direction, thick-set, uniform, endless. Except the broad chaussee, down which the artillery was lumbering slowly and noiselessly, no paths or side-tracks were distinguishable. Below, all was white and dazzling; above, where the wide-spreading pine branches roofed out the leaded sky, all was dark and oppressive. Presently the Prince of Lichtenstein rode up, and bade us turn aside under the trees on either side of the road till KoUowrath's reserves had passed on. We did so; dismounted; lit our pipes; and waited till our turn should come to follow the rest. Suddenly, without a moment's warning, as if they had sprung from the earth, an immense body of the enemy's foot poured in upon us from the very direction in which our left wing, under Riesch, had lately passed along. In an instant the air was filled with shouts, and smoke, and shots, and gleaming sabres — the snow was red with blood — men, horses, and artillery were massed together in inextricable confusion, and hun- dreds of our brave fellows were cut down before they could even draw their swords to strike a single blow. "Call up the Bavarian reserve !" shouted the Prince, sitting his horse like a statue and pointing up the road with his sword. The next instant I was rolling under my own horse's feet, with a murderous grip upon my throat, a pistol at my head, and in my ears a sound like the rushing of a mighty sea. After this I remember nothing more, till by-and-by I came to my senses, and found myself, A SERVICE OF DANGER with some five or six wounded cuirassiers, lying in an open cart, and being transported along a country road apparently skirting the forest. I thought at first that I also was wounded and that we were all prisoners, and so closed my eyes in despair. But as the tide of consciousness continued to flow back, I discovered that we were in the care of our own people, and in the midst of a long string of ambulances bringing up the rear of the Imperial army. And I also found that, more fortunate than my companions, I had been stunned and badly bruised, but was otherwise unhurt. Presently Gustav came riding up, and with a cry of joy exclaimed : "How now, lieber Freund ! No broken bones ? All well and safe this time?" "All well and safe," I replied ; "but sore from head to foot, and jolted almost to death. Where's my horse, I wonder?" "Dead, no doubt; but if you can ride, take mine, and ril secure the first I can get." "Is the battle over?" He shook his head. "Ay," he said, gloomily. "The battle is over — and lost." Lost ! — utterly ?" 'Utterly." And then, still riding beside the cart and bending towards me as he rode, he told, in a few bitter sentences, all he knew of the day's disaster. Moreau, with Generals Grouchy and Grandjean, had, it seemed, lain in wait with the main body of his army at the farthest end of the forest, where the great Munich and Wasserburg road debouches upon the open plain, in order to drive our forces back as soon as the heads of the first column should emerge on that side; 109 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. while Ney, prepared to execute a similar maneuver with his division, was stationed for the same purpose at the mouth of the other great chaussee. Richepanse, meanwhile, separated by an accident from half his brigade, instead of retreating, advanced with great intrepidity, and fell upon us flank and rear, as I have said, when we least expected danger. Thus it was that the Imperial army was attacked and driven back upon itself from three points, and defeated with great slaughter. "As for our losses." said Lichtenstein, "Heaven only knows what they are! It seems to me that we have scarcely a gun or a baggage-wagon left; while our men, herded together, trampled, cut down by thousands — Herr Gott! I cannot bear to think of it." That night we retired across the Inn and halted upon the Tyrolean side, making some show of defence along the line of the river, in the direction of Saltzburg. Our men, however, had none of the spirit of resistance left in them. They seemed as if crushed by the magnitude of their defeat. Hundreds deserted daily. The rest clamored impatiently for a retreat. The whole camp was in dismay and disorder. Suddenly, none could exactly tell how, a rumor went about that Moreau was about to attempt the passage of the Lower Inn. This rumor soon became more definite. The point chosen was distant some three or four marches from that where we were now posted. All the boats upon the Isar had been seized and sent down the river as far as Munich. From Munich they were about to be transported overland to the nearest point upon the Inn. Two bridges of boats were then to be thrown across the river, and the French battalions were to march over to our attack. no A SERVICE OF DANGER. Such was the information which the peasantry brought to our camp, and which was confirmed by the scouts whom we sent out in every direction. The enemy's movements were open and undisguised. Con- fident of success and secure in our weakness, he dis- dained even the semblance of strategy. On the 4th of December the Archduke called another council of war; and some hours before daybreak on the morning of the sth, our whole right wing was des- patched to the point at which we anticipated an attack. At dawn, Gustav, who had been out all night on duty, came in wet and weary, and found me still asleep. "Rouse up, dreamer!" he said. "Our comrades are gone, and now we can sing 'De Profundis' for our- selves." "Why for ourselves?" I asked, raising myself upon my elbow. "Because Riesch is gone; and, if I am not very much mistaken, we shall have to fight the French without him." "What do you mean? Riesch is gone to repulse the threatened attack down the river!" "I mean that my mind misgives me about that attack. Moreau is not wont to show his cards so plainly. I have been thinking about it all night; and the more I think of it, the more I suspect that the French have laid a trap, and the Archduke has walked into it." And then, while we lit our fire and breakfasted to- gether off our modest rations of black bread and soup, my friend showed me, in a few words, how unlikely it was that Moreau should conduct any important opera- tion in so ostentatious a fashion. His object, argued Lichtenstein, was either to mislead us with false rumors, and then, in the absence of Riesch's division, to pour across the river and attack us unexpectedly, or, more probable still, it was his design to force the passage of FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE. CAMP AND SIEGE. the Upper Inn and descend upon us from the hills in our rear. I felt a sudden conviction that he was right. "It is so — it must be so!" I exclaimed. "What is to be done?" "Nothing — unless to die hard when the time comes." "Will you not lay your suspicions before the Arch- duke?" "The Archduke would not thank me, perhaps, for seeing farther than himself. Besides, suspicions are nothing. If I had proof — proof positive * * * * if my uncle would but grant me a party of reconnois- sance * * * * gy Heaven! I will ask him." "Then ask him one thing more — get leave for me to go with you!" At this moment three or four drums struck up the rappel — were answered by others — and again by others far and near, and in a few seconds the whole camp was alive and stirring. In the meanwhile, Lichtenstein snatched up his cap and rushed away, eager to catch the Prince before he left his tent. In about half an hour he came back, radiant with success. His uncle had granted him a troop of twenty men, with permission to cross the Inn and reconnoitre the enemy's movements. "But he will not consent to let thee join, mein Bruder," said Gustav, regretfully. "Why not?" "Because it is a service of danger, and he will not risk the life of a second officer when one is enough." "Pshaw! as if my life were worth anything! But there — it's just my luck. I might have been certain he would refuse. When do you go?" "At midday. We are to keep on this side following the road to Neubevern till we find some point narrow enough to swim our horses over. After that, we shall 112 A SERVICE OF DANGER. go round by any unfrequented ways and bridle-paths we can find; get near the French camp as soon as it is dusk; and find out all we can." "I'd have given my black mustang to be allowed to go with you." "I don't half forgive the Prince for refusing," said Gustav. "But then, you see, not a man of us may come back; and after all, it's more satisfactory to get one's bullet on the open battle-field than to be caught and shot for a spy." "I should prefer to take my chance of that." "I am not quite sure that I should prefer it for you," said my friend. "I have gained my point — I am glad to go; but I have an impression of coming disaster." "Ah! you know I don't believe in presentiments." "I do know it, of old. But the sons of the house of Lichtenstein have reason to believe in them. I could tell you many a strange story if I had time. * * * * But it is already ten, and I must write some letters and put my papers in order before I start." With this he sat down to his desk, and I went out, in order to leave him alone while he wrote. When I came back, his charger was waiting outside in care of an orderly; the troop had already assembled in an open space behind the tent; and the men were busy tighten- ing their horses' girths, looking to the locks of their pistols, and gaily preparing to be gone. I found Lichtenstein booted and spurred and ready. A letter and a sealed packet lay upon the table, and he had just opened the locker to take a slice of bread and a glass of kirschwasser before starting. "Thank heaven you are come!" he said. "In three minutes more I should have been gone. You see this letter and packet? I entrust them to you. The packet contains my watch, which was my father's, given to him by the Empress Catherine of Russia; my hereditary star 113 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. and badge as a Count of the Holy Roman Empire; my will; my commission; and my signet ring. If I fall to- day, the packet is to be given to my uncle. The letter is for Constance, bidding her farewell. I have enclosed in it my mother's portrait and a piece of my hair. You will forward it, lieber Freund * * * *" "I will." He took a locket from his bosom, opened it, kissed it, and gave it to me with a sigh. "I would not have her portrait fall into rude and sacrilegious hands," he said; "if I never come back, destroy it. And now for a parting glass, and good bye!" We then chinked our glasses together, drank to each other in silence, clasped hands, and parted. Away they rode through the heavy mire and beating rain, twenty picked men, two and two, with their cap- tain at their head. I watched them as they trotted leisurely down the long line of tents, and when the last man had disappeared, I went in with a heavy heart, telling myself that I should perhaps never see Gustav von Lichtenstein again. Throughout the rest of the day it continued to rain incessantly. It was my turn that night to be on duty for five hours; to go the round of the camp, and to visit all the outposts. I therefore made up the best fire I could, stopped indoors, and, following my friend's ex- ample, wrote letters all the afternoon. About six in the evening the rain ceased, and it began to snow. It was just the Hohenlinden weather over again. At eight, having cooked and eaten my solitary sup- per, I wrapped myself in my rug, lay down before the fire, and slept till midnight, when the orderly came, as usual, to wake me and accompany me on my rounds. 114 A SERVICE OF DANGER. "Dreadful weather, I suppose, Fritz?" I said, getting up unwillingly, and preparing to face the storm. "No, mein Herr; it is a beautiful night." I could hardly believe him. But so it was. The camp lay around us, one sheet of smooth dazzling snow; the clouds had parted, and were clearing oflf rapidly in every direction; and just over the Archduke's tent where the Imperial banner hung drooping and heavy, the full moon was rising in splendor. A magnificent night — cold, but not piercing — pleasant to ride in — pleasant to smoke in as one rode. A superb night for trotting leisurely round about a peaceful camp; but a bad night for a reconnoitring party on hostile ground — a fatal night for Austrian white-coats in danger of being seen by vigilant French sentries. Where now were Gustav and his troop? What had they done? What had happened since they left? How soon would they come back? I asked myself these questions incessantly. I could think of nothing else. I looked at my watch every few minutes. As the time wore on, the hours ap- peared to grow longer. At two o'clock, before I had gone half my round, it seemed to me that I had been all night in the saddle. From two to three, from three to four, the hours dragged by as if every minute were weighted with lead. "The Graf von Lichtenstein will be coming back this way, mein Herr," said the orderly, spurring his horse up beside mine, and saluting with his hand to the side of his helmet as he spoke. "Which way? Over the hill, or down in the hollow?" "Through the hollow, mein Herr. That is the road by which the Herr Graf rode out; and the river is too wide for them to cross anywhere but up-stream." "Then they must come this way?" IIS FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. "Yes, mcin Herr." We were riding along the ridge of a long hill, one side of which sloped down towards the river, while on the other side it terminated in an abrupt precipice over- hanging a narrow road or ravine, some forty feet below. The opposite bank was also steep, though less steep than that on our side; and beyond it the eye travelled over a wide expanse of dusky pine-woods, now white and heavy with snow. I reined in my horse the better to observe the scene. Yonder flowed the Inn, dark and silent, a river of ink winding through meadow flats of dazzling silver. Far away upon the horizon rose the mystic outlines of the Franconian Alps. A single sentry, pacing to and fro some four hundred yards ahead, was distinctly visible in the moonlight; and such was the perfect stillness of the night that, although the camp lay at least two miles and a half away, I could hear the neighing of the horses and the barking of the dogs. Again I looked at my watch, again calculated how long my friend had been absent. It was now a quarter past four A. M., and he had left the camp at midday. If he had not yet returned — and of course he might have done so at any moment since I had been out on duty — he had now been gone sixteen hours and a quarter. Sixteen hours and a quarter! Time enough to have ridden to Munich and back! The orderly again brought his horse up abreast with mine. "Pardon, mein Herr," he said, pointing up the ravine with his sabre; "but do you see nothing yonder — beyond the turn of the road — just where there is a gap in the trees?" I looked; but I saw nothing. "What do you think you see?" I asked him. Ii6 A SERVICE OF DANGER. "I scarcely know, mein Herr — something moving close against the trees, beyond the hollow way." "Where the road emerges upon the plain and skirts the pine-woods?" "Yes, mein Herr; several dark objects — Ah! they are horsemen!" "It is the Graf von Lichtenstein and his troop!" I exclaimed. "Nay, mein Herr; see how slowly they ride, and how they keep close under the shade of the woods! The Graf von Lichtenstein would not steal back so quietly." I stood up in my stirrups, shaded my eyes with my hand, and stared eagerly at the approaching cavalcade. They were perhaps half a mile away as the crow flies, and would not have been visible from this point but for a long gap in the trees on this side of the hill. I could see that they were soldiers. They might be French; but, somehow, I did not think they were. I fancied, I hoped, they were our own Lichtensteiners come back again. "They are making for the hollow way, mein Herr," said the orderly. They were evidently making for the hollow way. I watched them past the gap till the last man had gone by, and it seeemed to me they were about twenty in number. I dismounted, flung my reins to the orderly, and went to where the edge of the precipice overhung the road below. Hence, by means of such bushes and tree- stumps as were rooted in the bank, I clambered down a few feet lower, and there lay concealed till they should pass through. It now seemed to me that they would never come. I do not know how long I waited. It might have been ten minutes — it might have been half an hour; but the time that elapsed between the moment when I dis- "7 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. mounted and the moment when the first helmet came in sight seemed interminable. The road, as I have already said, lay between a steep declivity on the one side and a less abrupt height cover- ed with pine-trees, on the other — a picturesque winding gorge or ravine, half dark as night, half bright as day; here deep in shadow, there flooded with moonlight; and carpeted a foot deep with fresh fallen snow. After I had waited and watched till my eyes ached with staring in the gloom, I at last saw a single horseman coming round the turn of the road, about a hundred yards from the spot where I was lying. Slowly, and as it seemed to me, dejectedly, he rode in advance of his comrades. The rest followed, two and two. At the first glance, while they were yet in deep shadow, and, as I have said, a hundred yards distant, I recognized the white cloaks and plumes and the black chargers of my own corps. I knew at once that it was Lichtenstein and his troop. Then a sudden terror fell upon me. Why were they coming back so slowly? What evil tidings did they bring? How many were returning? How many were missing? I knew well, if there had been a skirmish, who was sure to have been foremost in the fight. I knew well, if but three or four had fallen, who was sure to be one of the fallen. These thoughts flashed upon me in the first instant when I recognized the Lichtenstein uniform. I could not have uttered a word, or have done anything to at- tract the men's attention, if it had been to save my life. Dread paralyzed me. Slowly, dejectedly, noiselessly, the first cuirassier emerged into the moonlight, passed on again into the gloom, and vanished in the next turn of the road. It was but for a moment that the moonlight streamed full ii8 A SERVICE OF DANGER. upon him; yet in that moment I saw there had been a fray, and that the man had been badly wounded. As slowly, as dejectedly, as noiselessly, with broken plumes and battered helmets, and cloaks torn and blood-stained, the rest came after, two and two; each pair, as they passed, shining out momentarily, distinctly, like the images projected for an instant upon the disc of a magic-lantern. I held my breath and counted them as they went by — first one alone; then two and two, till I had counted eighteen riding in pairs. Then one alone, bringing up the rear. Then * * * * I waited — I watched — I refused to believe that this could be all. I refused to believe that Gustav must not presently come galloping up to overtake them. At last, long after I knew it was in vain to wait and watch longer, I clambered up again — cramped, and cold, and sick at heart — and found the orderly walking the horses up and down on the brow of the hill. The man looked me in the face, as if he would fain have asked me what I had seen. "It was the Graf von Lichtenstein's troop," I said, by an efTort; "but — but the Graf von Lichtenstein is not with them." And with this I sprang into the saddle, clapped spurs to my horse, and said no more. I had still two outposts to visit before finishing my round; but from that moment to this I have never been able to remember any one incident of my homeward ride. I visited those outposts, without doubt; but I was as unconscious of the performance of my duty as a sleeper is unconscious of the act of breathing. Gustav was the only man missing. Gustav was dead. I repeated it to myself over and over again. I felt that it was true. I had no hope that he was taken prisoner. 119 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. No— he was dead. He had fallen, fighting to the last. He had died like a hero. But— he was dead. At a few minutes after five, I returned to the camp. The first person I met was von Blumenthal, the Prince of Lichtenstein's secretary. He was walking up and down outside my tent, waiting for me. He ran to me as I dismounted. "Thank heaven, you are come!" he said. "Go at once to the prince — the Graf von Lichtenstein is dying. He has fought a troop of French lancers three times as many as his own, and carried off a bundle of despatches. But he has paid for them with his life, and with the lives of all his men. He rode in, covered with wounds, a couple of hours ago, and had just breath enough left to tell the tale." "His own life, and the lives of all his men!" I re- peated hoarsely. "Yes, he left every man on the field — himself the only survivor. He cut his way out with the captured des- patches in one hand and his sword in the other — and there he lies in the Prince's tent, dying." He was unconscious — had been unconscious ever since he was laid upon his uncle's bed — and he died without again opening his eyes or uttering a word. I saw him breathe his last, and that was all. Even now, old man as I am, I cannot dwell upon that scene. He was my first friend, and I may say, my best friend. I have known other friendships since then; but none so intimate — none so precious. But now comes a question which I yet ask myself "many a time and oft," and which, throughout all the years that have gone by since that night, I have never yet been able to answer. Gustav von Lichtenstein met and fought a troop of French Lancers; saw his own twenty cuirassiers cut to pieces before his eyes; left 120 A SERVICE OF DANGER. them all for dead upon a certain hillside on the oppo- site bank of the Inn; and rode back into camp, covered with wounds — the only survivor! What, then, was that silent cavalcade that I saw rid- ing through the hollow way — twenty men without their leader? Were those the dead whom I met, and was it the one living man who was absent? I2t IVRY IVRY Lord Macau lay now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are! And glory in our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Navarre! Now let there be the merry sound of music and of dance, Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, O pleasant land of France. And thou Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters, Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters. As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy, For cold, and stifT, and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy. Hurrah! Hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war. Hurrah! Hurrah! for Ivry, and Henry of Navarre. Oh! how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of day, We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array; 125 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. With all ifs priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peerSj And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears. There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land; And dark Mayenne was in their midst, a truncheon in his hand; And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood, And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war, To fight for his own holy name, and Henry of Navarre. The King is come to marshall us, in all his armor drest. And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gal- lant crest. He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye; He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high. Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing, Down all our line, a deafening shout, "God save our Lord, the King." "And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may, For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war, And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre." Hurrah! the foes are moving. Hark to the mingled din Of fife, and steel, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin. 126 IVRY. The fiery Duke is pricking fast across Saint Andre's plain, With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almaync. "Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France, Charge for the golden lilies, — upon them with the lance." A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest, A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow- white crest; And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star, Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre. Now, God be praised, the day is ours. Mayenne hath turned his rein. D'Aumale hath cried for quarter. The Flemish count is slain. Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale; The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and cloven mail, And then we thought on vengeance, and all along our van, "Remember Saint Bartholomew," was passed from man to man. But out spoke gentle Henry, "No Frenchman is my foe: Down, down with every foreigner, but let your breth- ren go." Oh! was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in war. As our Sovereign Lord, King Henry, the soldier of Navarre? 127 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. Right well fought all the Frenchmen who fought for France to-day; And many a lordly banner God gave them for a prey; But we of the religion have borne us best in fight; And the good Lord of Rosny hath ta'en the cornet white. Our own true Maximilian, the cornet white hath ta'en, The cornet white with crosses black, the flag of false Lorraine. Up with it high; unfurl it wide; that all the host may know How God hath humbled the proud house which wrought his church such woe; Then on the ground, while trumpets sound their loud- est point of war. Fling the red shreds, a foot-cloth meet for Henry of Navarre. Ho! maidens of Vienna; Ho! matrons of Lucerne; Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never shall return. Ho! Philip, send, for charity, thy Mexican pistoles. That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearmen's souls. Ho! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be bright; Ho! burghers of Saint Genevieve, keep watch and ward to-night, For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the slave. And mocked the council of the wise and the valor of the brave. Then glory to his holy name, from whom all glories are. And glory to our Sovereign Lord, King Henry of Navarre. 128 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI biBSS^H i9bi^ ^-f ^^ +;fr.ti.,q IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI Being an Account of Certain Adventures of Allan quaterflvain, in company with sir henry curtis, Bart., Commander John Good, R.N., and One Umslopogaas H. Rider Haggard: From '■^ Allan Qtiatcrtnain'''' I UMSLOPOGAAS 4<77|ELL, where are you gentlemen steering for?" ^V asked our friend, the hospitable Consul, as we smoked our pipes after dinner. "We propose to go to Mt. Kenia and then on to Mt. Lekakisera," answered Sir Henry. "Quatermain has got hold of some yarn about there being a white race up in the unknown territories beyond." The Consul looked interested, and answered that he had heard something of that, too. "What have you heard?" I asked. "Oh, not much. All I know about it is that about a year or so ago I got a letter from Mackenzie, the Scotch, missionary, whose station, 'The Highlands,' is placed at the highest navigable point of the Tana river, in which he said something about it." "Have you the letter?" I asked. "No; I destroyed it; but I remember that he said that a man had arrived at his station who declared that 131 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE two months' journey beyond Mt. Lekakisera, which no white man has yet visited — at least, so far as I know — he found a lake called Laga, and that then he went ofT to the northeast, a month's journey, over desert and thorn veldt and great mountains, till he came to a country where the people are white and live in stone houses. Here he was hospitably entertained for awhile, till at last the priests of the country set it about that he was a devil, and the people drove him away, and he journeyed for eight months and reached Mackenzie's place, as I heard, dying. That's all I know; and, if you ask me, I believe that it is a lie; but if you want to find out more about it, you had better go up the Tana to Mackenzie's place and ask him for information." Sir Henry and I looked at each other. Here was something tangible. "I think we will go to Mr. Mackenzie's," I said. "Well," answered the Consul, "that is your best way, but I warn you that you are likely to have a rough journey, for I hear that the Masai are about, and, as you know, they are not pleasant customers. Your best plan will be to choose a few picked men for per- sonal servants and hunters, and to hire bearers from village to village. It will give you an infinity of trouble, but perhaps on the whole it will prove a cheaper and more advantageous course than engaging a caravan, and you will be less liable to desertion." Fortunately there were at Lamu at this time a party of Wakwafi Askari (soldiers). The Wakwafi, who were a cross between the Masai and the Wataveta, are a fine, manly race, possessing many of the good qualities of the Zulu, and a greater capacity for civilization. They are also great hunters. Our friend, the Consul, suggested to us that we had better try and hire these men, and accordingly on the 132 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. following morning we started to interview the party, accompanied by an interpreter. In due course we found them in a mud hut on the outskirts of the town. Three of the men were sitting outside the hut, and fine, frank-looking fellows they were, having a more or less civilized appearance. To them we cautiously opened the object of our visit, at first with very scant success. They declared that they could not entertain any such idea, that they were worn and weary with long traveling, and that their hearts were sore at the loss of their master. They meant to go back to their homes and rest awhile. This did not sound very promising, so by way of effecting a diver- sion I asked where the remainder of them were. I was told there were six, and I saw but three. One of the men said that they slept in the hut, and were yet rest- ing after their labors — "Sleep weighed down their eye- lids, and sorrow made their hearts as lead; it was best to sleep, for with sleep came forgetfulness. But the men should be awakened." • Presently they came out of the hut, yawning — tlie first two men being evidently of the same race and style as those already before us; but the appearance of the third and last nearly made me jump out of my skin. He was a very tall, broad man, quite six foot three, I should say, but gaunt, with lean, wiry-looking limbs. My first glance at him told me that he was no Wakwafi: he was a pure-bred Zulu. He came out with his thin, aristocratic-looking hand placed before his face to hide a yawn, so I could only see he was a "Keshla," or ringed man,* and that he had a great • Among the Zulus a man assumes the ring, which is made of a spe- cies of black gum twisted in with hair, and polished a brilliant black, when he has reached a certain dignity and age, or is the husband of a sufficient number of wives. Till he is in a position to wear a ring he is looked on as a boy, though he may be thirty-five years of age, or even more. — A. Q. 133 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. three-cornered hole in his forehead. In another sec- ond he removed his hand, revealing a powerful-looking Zulu face, with a humorous mouth, a short, woolly beard, tinged with gray, and a pair of brown eyes keen as a hawk's. I knew my man at once, although I had not seen him for twelve years. "How do you do, Umslopogaas?" I said, quietly, in Zulu. The tall man (who among his own people was com- monly known as the "Woodpecker," and also as the "Slaughterer") started and almost let the long-handled battle-axe he held in his hand fall in his astonish- ment. Next second he had recognized me, and was saluting me in an outburst of sonorous language which inade his companions, the Wakwafi, stare. "Koos" (chief), he began, "Koos-y-Pagate! Koos- y-umcool! (Chief from of old — mighty chief) Koos! Baba! (father) Macumazahn, old hunter, slayer of ele- phants, eater up of lions, clever one! watchful one! brave one! quick one! whose shot never misses, who strikes straight home, who grasps a hand and holds it to the death (i. e., is a true friend). Koos! Babar! Wise isthevoice of our peoplethat says, 'Mountain never meets with mountain, but at daybreak or at even man shall meet again with man.' Behold! a messenger came up from Natal, 'Macumazahn is dead!' cried he. 'The land knows Macumazahn no more.' That is years ago. And now, behold, now in this strange place of stinks I find Macumazahn, my friend. There is no room for doubt. The brush of the old jackal has gone a little gray; but is not his eye as keen, and his teeth as sharp? Ha! ha! Macumazahn, mindest thou how thou didst plant the ball in the eye of the charging buffalo — mindest thou " I had let him run on thus because I saw that his enthusiasm was producing a marked effect upon the minds of the five Wakwafi, who appeared to under- 134 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. stand something of his talk; but now I thought it time to put a stop to it, for there is nothing that I hate so much as this Zulu system of extravagant praising — 'bonger- ing," as they call it. "Silence!" I said. "Has all thy noisy talk been stopped up since last I saw thee, that it breaks out thus, and sweeps us away? Behold, Um- slopogaas, I know thee for a great warrior and a brave man, faithful to the death. Even in Zululand, where all the men are brave, they called thee the 'Slaughter- er,'' and at night told stories round the fire of thy strength and deeds. Hear me now. Thou seest this great man, my friend" — and I pointed to Sir Henry; "he also is a warrior as great as thou, and, strong as thou art, he could throw thee over his shoulder. In- cubu is his name. And thou seest this one also; him with the round stomach, the shining eye and the pleas- ant face. Bougwan (glass eye) is his name, and a good man is he and true, being of a curious tribe who pass their life upon the water, and live in floating kraals. "Well, we three whom thou seest would travel in- land, past Dongo Egere, the great white mountain (Mt. Kenia), and far into the unknown beyond. We know not what we shall find there; we go to hunt and seek adventures, and new places, being tired of sitting still, with the same old things around us. Wilt thou come with us? To thee shall be given command of all our servants; but what shall befall thee, that I know not. Once before we three journeyed thus, and we took with us a man such as thou — one Umbopa; and, behold, we left him the king of a great country, with twenty Impas (regiments), each of 3,000 plumed warriors, waiting on his word. How it shall go with thee I know not; mayhap death awaits thee and us. ■ Wilt thou throw thyself to Fortune and come, or fcarest thou, Umslopogaas?" 135 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. The great man smiled. "So we are going to see something of the old times again, Macumazahn, wheq we fought and hunted in Zuluiand? Ay, I will come. Come life, come death, what care I, so that the blows fall fast and the blood runs red? I grow old, I grow old, and I have not fought enough! And yet am I a warrior among warriors; see my scars" — and he pointed to countless cicatrices, stabs and cuts, that marked the skin of his chest and legs and arms. "See the hole in my head; the brains gushed out therefrom, yet did I slay him who smote, and live. Knowest thou how many men I have slain, in fair hand-to- hand combat, Macumazahn? See, here is the tale of them" — and he pointed to long rows of notches cut in the rhinoceros-horn handle of his axe. "Number them, Macumazahn — one hundred and three — and I have never counted but those whom I have ripped open, nor have I reckoned those whom another man had struck." "Be silent," I said, for I saw that he was getting the blood fever on him; "be silent; well art thou called the 'Slaughterer.' We would not hear of thy deeds of blood. Remember, if thou comest with us, we fight not save in self-defence. Listen, we need servants. These men," and I pointed to the Wakwafi, who had retired a little way during our "indaba" (talk), "say they will not come." "Will not come?" shouted Umslopogaas; "Where is the dog who says he will not come when my Father orders? Here, thou" — and with a single bound he sprang upon the Wakwafi with whom I had first spoken, and, seizing him by the arm, dragged him to- ward us. "Thou dog!" he said, giving the terrified man a shake, "didst thou say thou wouldst not go with my Father? Say it once more and I will choke thee" — and his long fingers closed around his throat as he 136 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. said it — "thee, and those with thee. Hast thou forgot- ten how I served thy brother?" "Nay, we will come with the white man," gasped the man. "White man!" went on Umslopogaas, in simulated fury, which a very little provocation would have made real enough; "of whom speakest thou, insolent dog?" "Nay, we will go with the great chief." "So," said Umslopogaas, in a quiet voice, as he sud- denly released his hold, so that the man fell backward. "I thought you would." "That man Umslopogaas seems to have a curious moral ascendency over his companions," Good after- wards remarked thoughtfully. II THE MASAI In due course we left Lamu, and ten days afterwards we found ourselves at a spot called Charra, on the Tana River. Three days after our start an ominous incident oc- curred. We were just drawing in to the bank to make our camp as usual for the night, when we caught sight of a figure standing on a little knoll not forty yards away, and intently watching our approach. One glance was sufficient — although I was personally un- acquainted with the tribe — to tell me that he was a Masai Elmoran, or young warrior. Indeed, had I had any doubts, they would have quickly been dispelled by the terrified ejaculation of "Masai!" that burst simul- taneously from the lips of our Wakwafi followers, who are, as I think I said, themselves bastard Masai. And what a figure he presented as he stood there in his savage war-gear! Accustomed as I have been to savages all my life, I do not think that I have ever 137 TAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. before seen anything quite so ferocious or awe-in- spiring. To begin with, the man was enormously tall, quite as tall as Umslopogaas, I should say, and beau- tifully, though somewhat slightly, shaped, but with the face of a devil. In his right hand he held a spear about five and a half feet long, the blade being two and a half feet in length, by nearly three inches in width, and having an iron spike at the end of the handle that measured more than a foot. On his left arm was a large and well-made elliptical shield of buiYalo hide, on which were painted strange, heraldic-looking devices. On his shoulders was a huge cape of hawk's feathers, and round his neck was a "naibere," or strip of cotton about seventeen feet long, by one and a half broad, with a stripe of color running down the middle of it. The tanned goatskin robe, which formed his ordinary attire in times of peace, was tied lightly around his waist, so as to serve the purposes of a belt, and through it were stuck, on the right and left sides respectively, his short pear-shaped sime, or sword, which is made of a single piece of steel, and carried in a wooden sheath, and an enormous knobkerrie. But perhaps the most remarkable feature of his attire consisted of a head- dress of ostrich feathers, which was fixed on the chin and passed in front of the ears to the forehead, and, being shaped like an ellipse, completely framed the face, so that the diabolical countenance appeared to project from a sort of feather fire-screen. Round the ankles he wore black fringes of hair, and projecting from the upper portion of the calves, to which they were attached, were long spurs like spikes, from which flowed down tufts of tht beautiful black and waving hair of the Colobus monkey. Such was the elaborate array of the Masai Elmoran who stood watching the ap- proach of our two canoes. Whilst we were hesitating what to do, the Masai 138 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. warrior drew himself up in a dignified fashion, shook his huge spear at us, and, turning, vanished on the other side of the slope. '"Hulloa!" holloaed Sir Henry, from the other boat; "our friend, the caravan leader has been as good as his word, and set the Masai after us. Do you think it will be safe to go ashore?" I did not think it would be at all safe; but, on the other hand, we had no means of cooking in the canoes, and nothing that we could eat raw, so it was difficult to know what to do. At last Umslopogaas simplified matters by volunteering to go and reconnoitre, which he did, creeping off into the bush like a snake, whilst we hung ofT in the stream waiting for him. In half an hour he returned, and told us there was not a Masai to be seen anywhere about, but that he had discovered a spot where they had recently been encamped, and that from various indications he judged that they must have moved on an hour or so before, the man we saw having no doubt been left to report upon our movements. Thereupon we landed; and, having posted a sentry, proceeded to cook and eat our evening meal. This done, we took the situation into our serious considera- tion. Of course, it was possible that the apparition of the Masai warrior had nothing to do with us, that he was merely one of a band bent upon some marauding and murdering expedition against another tribe. Our friend the Consul had told us that such expeditions were about. But when we recalled the threat of the caravan leader and reflected upon the ominous way in which the warrior had shaken his spear at us, this did not appear very probable. On the contrary, what did seem probable was that the party was after us and awaiting a favorable opportunity to attack us. This being so, there were two things that we could do — one of which was to go on, and the other to go back. The 139 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. latter idea was, however, rejected at once, it being obvious that we should encounter as many dangers in retreat as in advance; and, besides, we had made up our minds to journey onwards at any price. Ill THE MISSION STATION A sudden bend in the river brought us in sight of a substantial-looking European house with a verandah round it, splendidly situated upon a hill, and sur- rounded by a high stone wall with a ditch on the outer side. Right against and overshadowing the house was an enormous pine, the top of which we had seen through a glass for the last two days, but of course without knowing that it marked the site of the mission station. I was the first to see the house, and could not restrain myself from giving a hearty cheer, in which the others, including the natives, joined lustily. There was no thought of halting now. On we labored, for, unfortunately, though the house seemed quite near, it was still a long way off by river, until at last, by one o'clock, we found ourselves at the bottom of the slope on which the building stood. Running the canoes to the bank, we disembarked, and were just hauling them up on to the shore, when we perceived three figures, dressed in ordinary English-looking clothes, hurrying down through a grove of trees to meet us. "A gentleman, a lady, and a little girl," ejaculated Good, after surveying the trio through his eyeglass, "walking in a civilized fashion, through a civilized gar^ den, to meet us in this place. Hang me, if this isn't the most curious thing we have seen yet!" "How do you do, sirs," said Mr. Mackenzie, a gray- haired, angular man, with a kindly face and red cheeks; "I hope I see you very well. My natives told me an 140 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. hour ago they spied two canoes with white men in them coming up the river; so we have just come down to meet you." "And it is very glad that we are to see a white face again, let me tell you," put in the lady — a charming and refined-looking person. We took off our hats in acknowledgment, and pro- ceeded to introduce ourselves. "And now," said Mr. Mackenzie, "you must all be hungry and weary; so come on, gentlemen, come on, and right glad we are to see you." Meanwhile we had been walking up the slope of the hill, the lower portion of which was fenced off, some- times with quince fences and sometimes with rough stone walls, into Kaffir gardens, just now full of crops of mealies, pumpkins, potatoes, etc. In the corners of these gardens were groups of neat mushroom-shaped huts, occupied by Mr. Mackenzie's mission natives, whose women and children came pouring out to meet us as we walked. Through the centre of the gardens ran the roadway up which we were walking. It was bordered on each side by a line of orange trees, which, although they had only been planted ten years, had, in the lovely climate of the uplands below Mt. Kenia, the base of which is about 5,000 feet above the coast-line level, already grown to imposing proportions, and were positively laden with golden fruit. After a stiffish climb of a quarter of a mile or so — for the hillside was steep — we came to a splendid quince fence, also covered with fruit, which enclosed, Mr. Mackenzie told us, a space of about four acres of ground that contained his pri- vate garden, house, church, and outbuildings, and, in- deed, the whole hill-top. And what a garden it was! Just then we came to a ditch about ten feet wide, and full of water, on the other side of which was a 141 FAMOUS TALES OF CATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. loopholcd stone wall eight feet high, and with sharp flints plentifully set in mortar on the coping. "There," said Mr. Mackenzie, pointing to the ditch and wall, "this is my 'magnum opus;' at least, this and the church, which is the other side of the house. It took me and twenty natives two years to dig the ditch and build the wall, but I never felt safe till it was done; and now I can defy all the savages in Africa, for the spring that fills the ditch is inside the wall, and bub- bles out at the top of the hill winter and summer alike, and I always keep a store of four months' provisions in the house." Crossing over a plank and through a very narrow opening in the wall, we entered into what Mrs. Mac- kenzie called her domain — namely, the flower-garden, the beauty of which is really beyond my power to de- scribe. I do not think I ever saw such roses, gar- denias, or camellias (all reared from seeds or cuttings sent from England) ; and there was also a patch given up to a collection of bulbous roots mostly collected by Miss Flossie, Mr. Mackenzie's little daughter, from the surrounding country, some of which were sur- passingly beautiful. In the middle of this garden, and exactly opposite the verandah, a beautiful fountain of clear water bubbled up from the ground, and fell into a stone-work basin which had been carefully built to re- ceive it, whence the overflow found its way by means of a drain to the moat round the outer wall, this moat in its turn serving as a reservoir, whence an unfailing supply of water was available to irrigate all the gardens below. The house itself, a massively-built, single- storied building, was roofed with slabs of stone, and had a handsome verandah in front. It was built on three sides of a square, the fourth side being taken up by the kitchens, which stood separate from the house — a very good plan in a hot country. 142 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. When dinner was over, we lit our pipes, and Sir Henry proceeded to give our host a description of our journey up here, over which he looked very grave. "It is evident to me," he said, "that those rascally Masai are following you, and I am very thankful that you have reached this house in safety. I do not think that they will dare to attack you here. It is unfor- tunate, though, that nearly all my men have gone down to the coast with ivory and goods. There are two hun- dred of them in the caravan, and the consequence is that I have not more than twenty men available for defensive purposes in case they should attack us. But, still, I will just give a few orders;" and, calling a black man who was loitering about outside in the gar- den, he went to the window, and addressed him in the Swahili dialect. The man listened, and then saluted and departed. "I am sure I devoutly hope that we shall bring no such calamity upon you," said I, anxiously, when he had taken his seat again. "Rather than bring those bloodthirsty villains about your ears, we will move on and take our chance." "You will do nothing of the sort. If the Masai come, they come, and there is an end on it; and I think we can give them a pretty warm greeting. I would not show any man the door for all the Masai in the world." IV INKOSI-KAAS After dinner we thoroughly inspected all the out- buildings and grounds of the station, which I consider the most successful as well as the most beautiful place of the sort that I have seen in Africa. We then re- turned to the verandah, where we found Umslopogaas taking advantage of this favorable opportunity to clean 143 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. thorouglily all the rifles. This was the only work that he ever did or was asked to do, for as a Zulu chief it was beneath his dignity to work with his hands; but such as it was he did it very well. It was a curious sight to see the great Zulu sitting there upon the floor, his battle-axe resting against the wall behind him, whilst his long, aristocratic-looking hands were busily employed, delicately and with the utmost care, cleaning the mechanism of the breech-loaders. He had a name for each gun. One — a double four-bore belong- ing to Sir Henry — 'was the Tliunderer; another, my 500 Express, which had a peculiarly sharp report, was "the little one who spoke like a whip;" the Winchester repeaters were "the women, who talked so fast that you could not tell one word from another;" the six Martinis were "the common people," and so on with them all. It was very curious to hear him addressing each gun as he cleaned it, as though it were an indi- vidual, and in a vein of the quaintest humor. He did the same with his battle-axe, which he seemed to look upon as an intimate friend, and to which he would at times talk by the hour, going over all his old ad- ventures with it — and dreadful enough some of them were. By a piece of grim humor, he had named this axe "Inkosi-kaas,' which is the Zulu word for chief- tainess. For a long while I could not make out why he gave it such a name, and at last I asked him, when he informed me that the axe was evidently feminine, because of her womanly habit of prying very deep into things, and that she was clearly a chieftainess because all men fell down before her, struck dumb at the sight of her beauty and power. In the same way he would consult "Inkosi-kaas" if in any dilemma; and when I asked him why he did so he informed me it was be- cause she must needs be wise, having looked into so many people's brains." 144 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. I took up the axe and closely examined this for- midable weapon. It was, as I have said, of the nature of a pole-axe. The haft, made out of an enormous rhinoceros horn, was three feet three inches long, about an inch and a quarter thick, and with a knob at the end as large as a Maltese orange, left there to prevent the hand from slipping. This horn haft, though so massive, was as flexible as cane, and practically un- breakable; but, to make assurance doubly sure, it was whipped round at intervals of a few inches with copper wire — all the parts where the hands grip being thus treated. Just above where the haft entered the head were scored a number of little nicks, each nick repre- senting a man killed in battle with the weapon. The axe itself was made of the most beautiful steel, and apparently of European manufacture, though Umslo- pogaas did not know where it came from, having taken it from the hand of a chief he had killed in battle many years before. It was not very heavy, the head weighing two and a half pounds, as nearly as I could judge. The cutting part was slightly concave in shape-^not convex, as is generally the case with savage battle-axes, and sharp as a razor, measuring five and three-quarter inches across the widest part. From the back of the axe sprang a stout spike four inches long, for the last two of which it was hollow, and shaped like a leather punch, with an opening for anything forced into the hollow at the punch end to be pushed out above — in fact, in this respect, it exactly resembled a butcher's pole-axe. It was with this punch end, as we af- terwards discovered, that Umslopogaas usually struck when fighting, driving a neat, round hole in his ad- versary's skull, and only using the broad cutting edge for a circular sweep, or sometimes in a melee. I think he considered the punch a neater and more sportsman- like tool, and it was from his habit of pecking at his 145 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. enemy with it that he got his name of "Woodpecker." Certainly in his hands it was a terribly efficient one. Such was Umslopogaas's axe, Inkosi-kaas, the most remarkable and fatal hand-to-hand weapon that I ever saw, and one which he cherished as much as his own life. It scarcely ever left his hand except while he was eating, and then he always sat with it under his leg. Just then the spies whom our host had sent out in the morning to find out if there were any traces of our Masai friends about, returned, and reported that the country had been scoured for fifteen miles around without a single Elmoran being seen, and that they believed that those gentry had given up the pursuit and returned whence they came. Mr. Mackenzie gave a sigh of relief when he heard this, and so indeed did we, for we had had quite enough of the Masai to last us for some time. Indeed, the general opinion was that, finding we had reached the mission station in safety, they had, knowing its strength, given up the pursuit of us as a bad job. How ill-judged that view was the sequel will show. V THE MISSING CHILD Next morning at breakfast I missed Flossie, and asked where she was. "Well," said her mother, "when I got up this morn- ing I found a note put outside my door in which But, here it is, you can read it for yourself," and she gave me a slip of paper on which the following was written : "Dearest M , — It is just dawn, and I am of? to the hills to get Mr. Q a bloom of the lily he wants, 146 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. so don't expect me till you see me. I have taken the white donkey; and nurse and a couple of boys are coming with me — also something to eat, as I may be away all day, for I am determined to get the lily if I have to go twenty miles for it. — Flossie." "I hope she will be all right," I said, a little anxious- ly; "I never meant her to trouble after the flower." "Ah, Flossie can look after herself," said her mother; "she often goes off in this way, like a true child of the wilderness." But Mr. Mackenzie, who came in just then and saw the note for the first time, looked rather grave, though he said nothing. After breakfast was over I took him aside and asked him if it would not be possible to send after the girl and get her back, having in view the possibility of there still being some Masai hanging about, at whose hands she might come to harm. "I fear it would be of no use," he answered. "She may be fifteen miles off by now, and it is impossible to say what path she has taken. There are the hills;" and he pointed to a long range of rising ground stretching almost parallel with the course followed by the river Tana, but gradually sloping down to a dense, bush-clad plain about five miles short of the house. Here I suggested that we might get up the great tree over the house and search the country round with a spyglass; and this, after Mr. Mackenzie had given some orders to his people to try and follow Flossie's spoor, we did. The ascent of the mighty tree was rather a jumpy performance, even with a sound rope ladder fixed at both ends to climb up, at least to a landsman; but Good came up like a lamplighter. On reaching the height at which the hrst fern-shaped boughs sprang from the bole, we stepped without any 147 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. difficulty upon a platform made of boards, nailed from one bough to another, and large enough to accommo- date a dozen people. As for the view, it was simply glorious. In every direction the bush rolled away in great billows for miles and miles, as far as the glass would show, only here and there broken by the brighter green of patches of cultivation, or by the glittering surface of lakes. To the northwest, Kenia reared its mighty head, and we could trace the Tana River curl- ing like a silver snake almost from his feet, and far away beyond us towards the ocean. It is a glorious country, and only wants the hand of civilized man to make it a most productive one. But, look as we would, we could see no signs of Flossie and her donkey, so at last had to come down disappointed. On reaching the verandah I found Um- slopogaas sitting there, slowly and lightly sharpening his axe with a small whetstone he always carried with him. "What doest thou, Umslopogaas?" I asked. "I smell blood," was the answer, and I could get no more out of him. After dinner we again went up the tree and searched the surrounding country with a spyglass, but without result. When we came down Umslopogaas was still sharpening Inkosi-kaas, although she already had an edge like a razor. "That is an uncomfortable sort of retainer of yours," said Mr. Mackenzie. "Yes," answered I, "it is ill jesting with such as he. When he is roused he is like a fiend, and yet he has a kind heart in his own fierce way. I remember years ago seeing him nurse a sick child for a week. He is a strange character, but true as steel, and a strong stick to rest on in danger." "He says he smells blood," said Mr. Mackenzie. "I 148 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. only trust he is not right. I am getting very fearful about my little girl. She must have gone far, or she would be home by now. It is half-past three o'clock." I pointed out that she had taken food with her, and very likely would not, in the ordinary course of events, return till nightfall; but I myself felt very anxious, and fear that my anxiety betrayed itself. Shortly after this, the people whom Mr. Mackenzie had sent out to search for Flossie returned, stating that they had followed the spoor of the donkey for a couple of miles and had then lost it on stony ground, nor could they discover it again. They had, however, scoured the country far and wide, but without success. After this the afternoon wore drearily on, and to- wards evening, there being still no sign of Flossie, our anxiety grew very keen. As for the poor mother, she was quite prostrated by her fears, and no wonder, but her father kept his head wonderfully well. Everything that could be done was done; people were sent out in all directions, shots were fired, and a continuous out- look kept from the gate and tree, but without avail. And then at last it grew dark, and still no sign of fair-haired little Flossie. At eight o'clock we had supper. It was but a sor- rowful meal, and Mrs. Mackenzie did not appear at it. We three also were very silent, for, in addition to our natural anxiety as to the fate of the child, we were weighed down by the sense that we had brought this trouble on the head of our kind host. When supper was nearly at an end I made an excuse to leave the table. I wanted to get outside and think the situation over. I went on the verandah, and, having lit my pipe, sat down on a seat about a dozen feet from the right- hand end of the structure, which was, as the reader may remember, e.xactly opposite one of the narrow doors of the protecting wall that enclosed the house and 149 I FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. flower-garden. I had been sitting there perhaps six or seven minutes when I thought I heard the door move. I looked in that direction and listened, but, being unable to make out anything, concluded that I must have been mistaken. It was a darkish night, the moon not having yet risen. Another minute passed, when suddenly something round fell with a soft but heavy thud upon the stone flooring of the verandah, and came bounding and rolling along past me. For a moment I did not rise, but sat wondering what it could be. Finally I con- cluded it must have been an animal. Just then, how- ever, another idea struck me, and I got up quick enough. The thing lay quite still a few feet beyond me. I put down my hand towards it and it did not move; clearly it was not an animal. My hand touched it. It was soft and warm and heavy. Hurriedly I lifted it and held it up against the faint starlight. It was a newly-severed human head! I am an old hand and not easily upset, but I own that that ghastly sight made me feel sick. How had the thing come there? Whose was it? I put it down and ran to the little doorway. I could see nothing, hear nobody. I was about to go out into the darkness beyond, but remembering that to do so was to expose myself to the risk of being stabbed, I drew back, shut the door, and bolted it. Then I returned to the veran- dah, and, in as careless a voice as I could command, called Curtis. I fear, however, that my tones must have betrayed me, for not only Sir Henry, but also Good and Mackenzie, rose from the table and came hurrying out. "What is it?" said the clergyman, anxiously. Then I had to tell them. Mr. Mackenzie turned pale as death under his red skin. We were standing opposite the hall door and ISO IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. there was a light in it so that I could see. He snatched the head up by the hair and held it in the light. "It is the head of one of the men who accompanied Flossie," he said, with a gasp. "Thank God, it is not hers!" We all stood and stared at each other aghast. What was to be done? Just then there was a knocking at the door that I had bolted, and a voice cried, "Open, my father, open!" The door was unlocked, and in fled a terrified man. He was one of the spies who had been sent out. "My father," he cried, "the Masai are on us! A great body of them have passed round the hill and are moving towards the old stone kraal down by the little stream. My father, make strong thy heart! In the midst of them I saw the white ass, and on it sat the Waterlily (Flossie). An Elmoran (young warrior) led the ass, and by its side walked the nurse, weeping. The men who went with her in the morning I saw not." "Was the child alive?" asked Mr. Mackenzie, hoarsely. "She was white as the snow, but well, my father. They passed quite close to me, and looking up from where I lay hid I saw her face against the sky." "God help her and us!" groaned the clergyman. "How many are there of them?" I asked. "More than two hundred — two hundred and a half a hundred." Once more we looked one on the other. What was to be done? VI THE MASAI MESSENGER Just then there arose a loud, insistent cry outside the wall. iSi FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. "Open the door, white man; open the door! A herald — a herald to speak with thee." Thus cried the voice. Umslopogaas ran to the wall, and. reaching with his long arms to the coping, lifted his head above it and gazed over. "I see but one man," he said. "He is armed, and carries a basket in his hand." "Open the door," I said. "Umslopogaas, take thine axe and stand thereby. Let one man pass. If an- other follows, slay." The door was unbarred. In the shadow of the wall stood Umslopogaas, his axe raised above his head to strike. Just then the moon came out. There was a moment's pause, and then in stalked a Masai Elmoran, clad in the full war panoply that I have already de- scribed, and bearing a large basket in his hand. The moonlight shone bright upon his great spear as he walked. He was physically a splendid man, apparently about thirty-five years of age. Indeed, none of the Masia that I saw were under six feet high, though mostly quite young. When he got opposite to us he halted, put down the basket, and stuck the spike of his spear into the ground, so that it stood upright. "Let us talk," he said. "The first messenger we sent to you could not talk;" and he pointed to the head, which lay upon the paving of the stoop — a ghastly sight in the moonlight; "but I have words to speak if ye have ears to hear. Also I bring presents;" and he pointed to the basket and laughed, with an air of swaggering insolence that is perfectly indescribable, and yet which one could not but admire, seeing that he was surrounded by enemies. "Say on," said Mr. Mackenzie. "I am the 'Lygonani' (war captain) of a part of the Masai of the Guasa Amboni. I and my men followed IS2 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. these three white men," and he pointed to Sir Henry, Good, and myself, "but they were too clever for us, and escaped hither. We have a quarrel with them, and are going to kill them." "Are you, my friend?" said I to myself. "In following these men we this morning caught two black men, one black woman, a white donkey, and a white girl. One of the black men we killed — there is his head upon the pavement; the other ran away. The black woman, the little white girl, and the white ass we took and brought with us. In proof thereof I have brought this basket that she carried. Is it not thy daughter's basket?" Mr. Mackenzie nodded, and the warrior went on. "Good! With thee and thy daughter we have no quarrel, nor do we wish to harm thee, save as to thy cattle, which we have already gathered, two hundred and forty head — a beast for every man's father." ^ Here Mr. Mackenzie gave a groan, as he greatly valued this herd of cattle, which he bred with much care and trouble. "So, save for the cattle, thou mayst go free; more especially," he added, frankly, glancing at the wall, "as this place would be a difficult one to take. But as to these men it is otherwise; we have followed them for eight days, and must kill them. Were we to return to our kraal without having done so, all the girls would make a mock of us. So, however troublesome it may be, they must die. "Now, I have a proposition for thine ear. We would not harm the little girl; she is too fair to harm, and has besides a brave spirit. Give us one of these three men — a life for a life — and we will let her go, and throw in the black woman with her also. This is a fair ofTer, 1 The Masai Elmoran or young warrior can own no property, so all the booty they may win in battle belongs to their fathers alone. —A. Q. 153 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. white man. We ask but for one, not for the three; we must take another opportunity to kill the other two. I do not even pick my man, though I should prefer the l)ig one," pointing to Sir Henry; "he looks strong, and would die more slowly." "And if I say I will not yield the man?" said Mr. Mackenzie. "Nay, say not so. white man," answered the Masai, "for then thy daughter dies at dawn, and the woman with her says thou hast no other child. Were she older I would take her for a servant; but as she is so young I will slay her with my own hand — aye, with this very spear. Thou canst come and see, an' thou wilt. I give thee a safe conduct;" and the fiend laughed aloud at his brutal jest. Meanwhile I had been thinking rapidly, as one does in emergencies, and had come to the conclusion that I would exchange myself against Flossie. I scarcely like to mention the matter for fear it should be mis- understood. Pray do not let anyone be misled into thinking that there was anything heroic about this, or any such nonsense. It was merely a matter of com- mon sense and common justice. My life was an old and worthless one, hers was young and valuable. Her death would pretty well kill her father and mother also, whilst nobody would be much the worse for mine; in- deed, several charitable institutions would have cause to rejoice thereat. It was indirectly through me that the dear little girl was in her present position. Lastly, a man was better fitted to meet death in such a pe- culiarly awful form than a sweet young girl. Not, however, that I meant to let these gentry torture me to death — ^I am far too much of a coward to allow that, being naturally a timid man my plan was to see the girl safely exchanged and then to shoot myself, trusting that the Almighty would take the peculiar circum- 154 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. stances of the case into consideration and pardon the act. All this and more went throug'h my mind in a very few seconds. "x'Vll right, Mackenzie," I said; "you can tell the man that I will exchange myself against Flossie, only I stipulate that she shall be safely in this house before they kill me." "Eh?" said Sir Henry and Good simultaneously. "That you don't." "No, no," said Mr. Mackenzie, "I will have no man's blood upon my hands. If it please God that my daugh- ter die this awful death, His will be done. You are a brave man" (which I am not by any means) "and a noble man, Quatermain, but you shall not go." "If nothing else turns up I shall go," I said decidedly. "This is an important matter," said Mackenzie, ad- dressing the Lygonani, "and we must think it over. You shall have our answer at dawn." "Very well, white man," answered the savage, in- differently; "only remember that if thy answer is late thy little white bud will never grow into a flower, that is all, for I shall cut it with this," and he touched his spear. "I should have thought that thou wouldst play a trick and attack us at night, but I know from the woman with the girl that your men are down at the coast, and that thou hast but twenty men here. It is not wise, white man," he added, with a laugh, "to keep so small a garrison for your 'boma' (kraal). Well, good-night, and good-night to you also, other white men, whose eyelids I shall soon close once and for all. At dawn thou wilt bring me word. If not, remember it shall be as I have said." Then turning to Umslopo- gaas, who had all the while been standing behind him and shepherding him, as it were, "Open the door for me, fellow, quick now." This was too much for the old chief's patience. For 155 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. the last ten minutes his lips had been, figuratively speak- ing, positively watering over the Masai Lygonani, and this he could not stand. Placing his long hand on the Elmoran's shoulder, he gripped it and gave him such a twist as brought him face to face with himself. Then, thrusting his fierce countenance to within a few inches of the Masai's evil, feather-framed features, he said, in a low, growling voice: "Seest thou me?" "Ay, fellow, I see thee." "And seest thou this?" and he held Inkosi-kaas be- fore his eyes. "Ay, fellow, I see the toy; what of it?" "Thou Masai dog, thou boasting windbag, thou cap- turer of little girls, with this 'toy' will I hew thee limb from limb. Well for thee that thou art a herald, or even now would I strew thy members about the grass." The Masai shook his great spear and laughed long and loud as he answered, "I would that thou stoodst against me man to man, and we would see," and again he turned to go, still laughing. "Thou shalt stand against me man to man, be not afraid," replied Umslopogaas, in the same ominous voice. "Thou shalt stand face to face with Umslopo- gaas, of the blood of Chaka. of the people of Amazulu, a captain in the regiment of the Nkomabakosi, as many have done before, and bow thyself to Inkosi-kaas, as many have done before. Ay, laugh on, laugh on! to- morrow night shall the jackals laugh as they crunch thy ribs." VII PLANS FOR RESCUE Then eagerly, quickly, almost fiercely, we fell to dis- cussing the situation. IS6 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. "It is," I said at last, "absolutely necessary that an effort of some sort should be made before the morn- ing." "Then let us attack them with what force we can muster, and take our chance," said Sir Henry. "Ay, ay," growled Umslopogaas, in Zulu; "spoken like a man, Incubu. What is there to be afraid of? Two hundred and fifty Masai, forsooth! How many are we? The chief there (Mr. Mackenzie) has twenty men, and thou, Macumazahn, hast five men, and there are also five white men — that is, thirty men in all — enough, enough. Listen now, Macumazahn, thou who art very clever and old in war. What says the maid? These men eat and make merry; let it be their funeral feast. What said the dog whom I hope to hew down at daybreak? That he feared no attack because we were so few. Knowest thou the old kraal where the men have camped? I saw it this morning; it is thus:" and he drew an oval on the floor; "here is the big entrance, filled up with thorn bushes, and opening on to a steep rise. Why, Incubu, thou and I with axes will hold it against an hundred men striving to break out! Look, now; thus sTiall the battle go. Just as the light begins to glint upon the oxen's horns — not before, or it will be too dark, and not later, or they will be awakening and perceive us — let Bougwan creep round with ten men to the top end of the kraal, where the narrow entrance is. Let them silently slay the sen- try there so that he makes no sound, and stand ready. Then, Incubu, let thee and me and one of the Askari — the one with the broad chest — he is a brave man — creep to the wide entrance that is filled with thorn bushes, and there also slay the sentry, and. armed with battle-axes, take our stand also one on each side of the pathway, and one a few paces beyond to deal with such as pass the twain at the gates. It is there that 157 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. the rush will come. That will leave sixteen men. Let these men be divided into two parties, with one of which shalt thou go, Macumazahn and with one the 'praying man' (Mr. Mackenzie), and, all armed with rifles, let them make their way one to the right of the kraal and one to the left; and when thou, Macumazahn, lowest like an ox, all shall open fire with the guns upon the sleeping men, being very careful not to hit the little maid. Then shall Bougwan at the far end and his ten men raise their war-cry, and, springing over the wall, put the Masai there to the sword. And it shall happen that, being yet heavy with food and sleep, and bewildered by the firing of the guns, the falling of the men, and the spears of Bougwan, the soldiers shall rise and rush like wild game towards the thorn- stopped entrance, and there the bullets from either side shall plough through them, and there shall Incubu and the Askari and I wait for those who break through. Such is my plan, Macumazahn; if thou hast a better, name it." When he had done, I explained to the others such portions of this scheme as they had failed to under- stand, and they all joined with me in expressing the greatest admiration of the acute and skillful programme devised by the old Zulu, who was indeed, in his own savage fashion, the finest general I ever knew. After some discussion, we determined to accept the scheme, as it stood, it being the only one possible under the circumstances, and giving the best chance of success that such a forlorn hope would admit of — which, how- ever, considering the enormous odds and the character of our foe, was not very great. "Ah, old lion!" I said to Umslopogaas, "thou know- est how to lie in wait as well as how to bite, where to seize as well as where to hang on." "Aye, aye, Macumazahn," he answered. "For thirty 158 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. years have I been a warrior, and have seen many things. It will be a good fight. I smell blood — I tell thee, I smell blood." As may be imagined, at the very first sign of a Masai the entire population of the Mission Station had sought refuge inside the stout stone wall, and were now to be seen, men, women and countless children, huddled up together in little groups, and all talking at once in awed tones of the awfulness of Masai manners and customs, and of the fate they had to expect if those bloodthirsty savages succeeded in getting over the stone wall. Immediately after we had settled upon the outline of our plan of action as suggested by Umslopogaas, Mr. Mackenzie sent for four sharp boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age, and despatched them to various points from whence they could keep an outlook upon the Masai camp, with orders to report from time to time what was going on. Other lads, and even women, were stationed at intervals along the wall in order to guard against the possibility of surprise. After this the twenty men who formed his whole available fighting force were summoned by our host into the square formed by the house, and there, stand- ing by the bole of the great conifer, he earnestly ad- dressed them and our four Askari. Indeed, it formed a very impressive scene — one not likely to be forgotten by anybody who witnessed it. Immediately by the tree stood the angular form of Mr. Mackenzie, one arm out- stretched as he talked, and the other resting against the giant bole, his hat oflf, and his plain but kindly face clearly betraying the anguish of his mind. Next to him was his poor wife, who, seated on a chair, had her face hidden in her hand. On the other side of her was Alphonse, looking exceedingly uncomfortable, and be- hind him stood the three of us, with Umslopogaas's grim and towering form in the background, resting, as 159 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE. CAMP AND SIEGE. usual, on his axe. In front stood and squatted the group of armed men — some with rifles in their hands, and others with spears and shields — following with eager attention every word that fell from the speaker's lips. The white light of the moon peering in beneath the lofty boughs threw a strange, wild glamor over the scene, whilst the melancholy soughing of the night wind passing through the millions of pine needles over- head added a sadness of its own to what was already a sufficiently tragic occasion. "Men," said Mr. Mackenzie, after he had put all the circumstances of the case fully and clearly before them, and explained to them the proposed plan of our forlorn hope — "men, for years I have been a good friend to you, protecting you, teaching you, guarding you and yours from harm, and ye have prospered with me. Ye have seen my child — the Waterlily, as ye call her — grow year by year, from tenderest infancy to tender childhood, and from childhood on towards maiden- hood. She has been your children's playmate, she has helped to tend you when sick, and ye have loved her." "We have," said a deep voice, "and we will die to save her." "I thank you from my heart — I thank you. Sure am I that now, in this hour of darkest trouble; now that her young life is like to be cut oflf by cruel and savage men — who of a truth 'know not what they do' — ye will strive your best to save her, and to save me and her mother from broken hearts. Think, too, of your own wives and children. If she dies, her death will be fol- lowed by an attack upon us here, and at the best, even if we hold our own, your houses and gardens will be destroyed, and your goods and cattle swept away. I am, as ye well know, a man of peace. Never in all these years have I lifted my hand to spill man's blood; i6o IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. but now I say strike, strike, in the name of God, who bade us protect our lives and homes. Swear to me," he went on, with added fervor — "swear to me that whilst a man of you remains alive ye will strive your uttermost with me and these brave white men to save the child from a bloody and cruel death." "Say no more, my father," said the same deep voice, that belonged to a stalwart elder of the Mission; "we swear it. May we and ours die the death of dogs, and our bones be thrown to the jackals and the kites, if we break the oath! It is a fearful thing to do, my father, so few to strike at so many, yet will we do it or die in the doing. We swear!" "Ay. thus say we all," chimed in the others. "Thus say we all," said I. "It is well," went on Mr. Mackenzie. "Ye are true men and not broken reeds to lean on. And now, friends — white and black together — let us kneel and offer up our humble supplication to the Throne of Power, praying that He in the hollow of Whose hand lie all our lives, Who giveth life and giveth death, may be pleased to make strong our hands that we may prevail in what awaits us at the morning's light." And he knelt down, an example that we all followed except Umslopogaas, who still stood in the back- ground, grimly leaning on Inkosi-kaas. The fierce old Zulu had no gods, and worshipped naught, unless it were his battle-axe. Then began our preparations in good earnest. As Umslopogaas said, it was time to stop "talking" and get to business. The men who were to form each little party were carefully selected, and still more carefully and minutely instructed as to what was to be done. After much consideration it was agreed that the ten men led by Good, whose duty it was to stampede the camo were not to carry firearms; that is, with the ex- i6i FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE. CAMP AND SIEGE. ception of Good himself, who had a revolver as well as a short sword. We feared that if they had firearms the result of three cross-fires carried on at once would be that some of our own people would be shot; be- sides, it appeared to all of us that the work they had to do would be best carried out with cold steel — es- pecially to Umslopogaas, who was, indeed, a great advocate of cold steel. We had with us four Win- chester repeating rifles, besi'd'cs half-a-dozen Martinis. I armed myself with one of the repeaters — my own; an excellent weapon for this kind of work, where great rapidit.v of fire is desirable, and fitted with ordinary flap sights, instead of the usual cumbersome sliding •mechanism which they generally have. Mr. Mac- kenzie took another, and the two remaining ones were given to two of his men who understood the use of them and were noted shots. The Martinis and some rifles of Mr. Mackenzie's were served out, together with a plentiful supply of ammunition, to the other na- tives who were to form the two parties whose duty it was to open fire from separate sides of the kraal on the sleeping Masai, and who were fortunately all more or less accustomed to the use of a gun. As for Umslopogaas, we know how he was armed — with an axe. It maj' be remembered that he. Sir Henry, and the strongest of the Askari were to hold the thorn-stopped entrance to the kraal against the antici- pated rush of men striving to escape. Of course, for such a purpose as this guns were useless. Therefore Sir Henry and the Askari proceeded to arm themselves in like fashion. It so happened that Mr. Mackenzie had in his store a selection of the very best steel Eng- lish-made hammer-back axe-heads. Sir Henry selected one of these weighing about two and a half pounds and very broad in the blade, and the Askari took an- other a size smaller. After Umslopogaas had put an 162 IN THE LAND OF THE MASAI. extra edge on these two axe-heads, we fixed them to three feet six helves, of which Mr. Mackenzie fortu- nately had some in stock, made of a light but exceed- ingly tough native wood, something like an English ash, only more springy. When two suitable helves had been selected with great care, and the ends of the haft notched to prevent the hand from slipping, the axe- heads were fixed on them as firmly as possible, and the weapons immersed in a bucket of water for half an hour. The result of this was to swell the wood in the socket in such a fashion that nothing short of burning would get it out again. When this important matter had been attended to by Umslopogaas, I went into my room and proceeded to open a little tin-lined deal case, which had not been undone since we left England, and which contained — what do you think? — nothing more nor less than four mail shirts. It had happened to us three on a previous journey that we had made in another part O'f Africa to owe our lives to iron shirts of native make, and remember- ing this, I had suggested before we started on our present hazardous expedition that we should have some made to fit us. There was a little difficulty about this, as armor-making is pretty well an extinct art, but they can do most things in the way of steel work in Bir- mingham if they are put to it and you will pay the price, and the end of it was that they turned us out the loveliest steel shirts it is possible to see. The work- manship was exceedingly fine, the web being com- posed of thousands upon thousands of stout but tiny rings of the best steel made. These shirts, or rather steel-sleeved and high-necked jerseys, were lined with ventilated wash leather, were not bright, but browned like the barrel of a gun; and mine weighed exactly seven pounds and fitted me so well that I found I could wear it for days next my skin without being chafed. 163 FAMOUS TALES OF BATTLE, CAMP AND SIEGE. Sir Henrj' had two, one of the ordinary make, viz., a jersey with little dependent flaps meant to afford some protection to the upper part of the thighs, and another of his own design, fashioned on the pattern of the gar- ments advertised as "combinations," and weighing twelve pounds. This combination shirt, of which the seat was made of wash-leather, protected the whole body down to the knees, but was rather more cumber- some, inasmuch as it had to be laced up the back, and, of course, involved some e.xtra weight. With these shirts were what looked like four brown cloth traveling caps with ear pieces. Eac*h of these caps was, however, quilted w.ith steel links, so as to afford a most valuable protection for the head. It seems almost laughable to talk of steel shirts in these days of bullets, against which they are, of course, quite useless; but where one has to