A HANDFUL 
 OF SILVER 
 
 HORACE TOWNSEND 
 
 THE GORHAM 
 CO: NEW YORK 
 
 !rj 
 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3539.0983H2 
 
 A handful of silver.slx stories of sllve 
 
 3 1924 021 710 698 
 
M Cornell University 
 M Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021710698 
 
-:^^-#^-;- 
 
Went falteringly down the mountain side ' 
 
A HANDFUL OF SILVER 
 
 SIX STORIES OF SILVERSMITHS 
 WRITTEN BY HORACE TOWNSEND 
 PICTURED BY ALEX. M. McLELLAN 
 
 THE GORHAM COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MCMII 
 
Copyrighted, 1902, by the Gorham 
 Mfg. Co., New York. Entered at 
 Stationer^s Hall, London, England 
 
TO ED1VA%p HOLB%pOK,ESQ^ 
 
 Dear Mr. Holbrook : 
 
 The Eighteenth Century author felt his book 
 incomplete wanting a dedication to his patron. A 
 custom worth adopting^ it seems to me, if for patron 
 I may substitute friend. In this case you have 
 a peculiar title to the trifling courtesy. In the 
 first place it was at your suggestion that these 
 stories were written. In the second, you yourself 
 have written, in words more enduring than mine, 
 the story which should fitly close the series and ex- 
 hibit to us the silver worker of our own day. In this 
 utilitarian age of clanking machinery and mechanical 
 repetition you have in the heart of a great factory 
 kept alight the flickering flame of artistic handi- 
 er aft smanship. To-day, thanks mainly to you, there 
 are at Providence many hundreds who put into daily 
 practice, as they handle that elder brother of all 
 useful metals, silver, the precise methods and tech- 
 nical devices employed by my Mysian fashioner of 
 shields, by my Egyptian Neku, by Cellini the Italian, 
 by Hans the son of mediaval Nuremberg, and by 
 Master Paul Revere of Boshn town. 'There is 
 
nothing new and nothing old in the silversmiths 
 craft, as I have discovered by that long-continued 
 delving in the records of the fast which the pleasant 
 task of writing my stories has entailed. 
 
 So, as my friend, and as the head of the Gorham 
 
 Company, I offer you my book, and, since I began 
 
 by a reference to the Eighteenth Century, let me 
 
 close by reverting to one of its ceremoniously formal 
 
 fashions and subscribe myself. 
 
 Your obliged friend and servant, 
 
 Horace Townsend 
 
 New York 
 
 May, igo2 
 
THE OLD WORLD 
 1000 B. C. 
 
 MOUNT IDA 
 
IN DISTANT AGES BORN. HOW THE 
 BLIND SINGER OPENED THE EYES 
 OF THE SILVERSMITH TO ALL THE 
 BEAUTIES OF THE COMMON LIFE 
 
 A 
 
 bird flew with a twitter and a rustle of its 
 wings across the rocky pathway, scarce 
 distinguishable from the track of a wild 
 goat, which led down a sunny slope of 
 Mount Ida to the plain beneath. It was the noon- 
 day heat, when all nature lay basking somnolently 
 beneath the cloudless sky, silent and tranquil 
 save for the ceaseless quivering of the heat-haze. 
 In the midst of the almost oppressive silence 
 this frightened flutter was almost violent in its 
 disturbing discord. It certainly arrested the atten- 
 tion of a white-bearded old man whose long and 
 snowy locks fell in untended disorder over the 
 worn and soiled sheepskin mantle, which, with an 
 old man's craving for warmth, he wore, despite 
 the sultriness of the midsummer sun, across his 
 shoulders. It was not surprising that this should 
 7 be 
 
be so, for the sense of hearing is, in the case of 
 the blind, almost preternaturally acute, and that 
 the large and vacantly-staring eyes of the old man 
 were sightless was evidenced by the fashion in 
 which he leaned his left hand on the shoulder of 
 a handsome boy, who carried in his arms a lyre, 
 the graceful form of which could be discerned 
 beneath the somewhat dingy woolen covering 
 which protected it from the dust of travel. In his 
 right hand the old man bore a wooden staff, with 
 which he felt his way along the rugged path, and 
 thus added to the assistance given to him by 
 his youthful guide. 
 
 ' Eteocles,' said the old man, in deep, sonorous 
 tones, ' surely that bird was frightened by some 
 man, for savage animals haunt not these lower 
 slopes of the mountain. Your young eyes should 
 see if we approach the homes of men, and yet you 
 warn me not.' 
 
 ' Master,' piped the lad in his boyish treble, 
 ' I thought we were far away from any village, 
 but now I think I see under yonder clump 
 of cypress trees a hut, at whose door stands a 
 man.' 
 8 ' Lead 
 
' Lead me thitherward, boy,' commanded the old 
 man, and the boy obeying, they came in a few 
 moments to a low, roughly-built steading, thatched 
 with rushes, and having one large window in front 
 over which was stretched a carefully scraped sheep- 
 skin, taking the place of glass, in that, while freely 
 admitting the light, it kept out the too fierce rays 
 of the summer sun, or the driving rain of the winter 
 storms. At the open doorway stood a man whose 
 dress was hidden beneath a blackened leathern 
 apron, which fell from his neck to his knees. As 
 he stood on the threshold, he raised his arms 
 above his head and stretched himself as though 
 weary with long application to some confining 
 pursuit. A good-natured fellow he seemed, for, as 
 he caught sight of the travelers, his face lit up 
 with a smile, and he called out in cheery tones, 
 ' Come on, old man ! and you, my boy, come on ! 
 'Tis seldom I see the faces of strangers in this 
 outlandish place, and when I do catch sight of 
 them I am not wont to let them pass me by. 
 Come across my threshold and drink a cup of 
 wine with me, tell me such news of the country- 
 side as may have come your way, and a hearty 
 9 welcome 
 
welcome to you !' and he threw the rough plank 
 door wider open with a hospitable gesture. 
 'The hospitality of the Mysians,' said the old 
 man, ' is known far and wide, and, in truth, you 
 speak like a true Mysian; so I will e'en accept 
 your cup of wine as frankly as it is offered and 
 rest for awhile in the shadow of your roof-tree. 
 Not that I myself am over weary, but the lad's 
 youthflil limbs are not so accustomed to your 
 rough mountain-paths as are the old man's, and for 
 an hour past I have felt that the boy has lagged. 
 Of the gossip of your neighbours I fear I can tell 
 you naught, for a stranger am I to these parts, 
 journeying as speedily as may be from Ilios to 
 the coast below, there to take ship for my own 
 island of Kreta. I can, however, strike a chord or 
 two upon my lyre and chant to you one of my 
 songs, to which ere now kings and daysmen have 
 listened with approval.' 
 
 ' In truth I am in luck to-day,' said the Mysian, 
 as he ushered the two travelers into his dwelling 
 and dragged forward a rude wooden bench on 
 which they might sit. Then from an inner room 
 he brought forth a skin of wine and busied 
 lo himself 
 
himself unfastening the thong which secured 
 its mouth, preparatory to pouring, with true 
 rustic * nearness,' a carefully-measured portion 
 into each of the three metal cups which he took 
 from a shelf hanging on the wall. Out of an 
 earthenware jar he then filled them to the brim 
 with water, handed one to each of his guests 
 and raised his own towards them in token of 
 amity. With a dexterity born of life-long custom 
 each of the three before drinking gave his cup 
 a slight whirl which spilled a providently scanty 
 portion upon the ground. The wine thus poured 
 out represented a libation to the gods. 
 The old man took a long and apparently satis- 
 fying draught of the tempered beverage, but 
 before placing the emptied cup on the bench 
 beside him, his thin, nervous fingers played 
 caressingly over the outer surface, which was 
 beaten into a raised ornamental pattern. 
 ' Surely,' said he, in a tone of surprise, ' I do 
 not mistake ; but this cup is of silver and worked 
 into a cunning pattern with the hammer. I did 
 not think to find a vessel fitted for a king's board 
 in a hut on the mountain side.' 
 II His 
 
His host smiled. 'We have a saying,' he replied, 'in 
 these parts, that the children of the maker of shoes 
 go ill-shod, but it would be strange if a worker 
 in silver could not find his friends something 
 better than a cup of horn out of which to drink.' 
 ' You are, then a silversmith ? ' queried his guest. 
 ' I work in all metals ; but since, some three 
 years back, I bought from some Phoinikes on 
 the market-place at Assos two bars of silver and 
 worked them into cups and platters, I have not 
 cared to put hammer to gold or copper or tin.' 
 ' I do not understand you,' said the blind man. 
 'Aye,' asserted the smith, 'but you would if, 
 like me, you had felt the white metal spread 
 itself beneath the blows of your hammer and take 
 the shape to which you destined it as though it 
 were a live thing obedient to your very thought. 
 There be those who place the yellow gold at 
 the head of all the metals men dig from the 
 earth, others to whom red copper is all-satisfy- 
 ing ; but to my thinking, silver, white as the 
 robe of Artemis the Moon-maiden, is the only 
 metal in which a man who loves his craft should 
 work were it permitted him to make his choice.' 
 12 'Is 
 
* Is it with the hammer, then, that you make 
 these brave images that I feel around this cup?' 
 ' Think you those fair ? Why, they are but child's 
 play to what I can do when the mood is on 
 me,' said the silversmith, with true artist's vanity. 
 ' Come here, old man, and if Zeus has taken 
 from you the sight of your eyes, with your fingers 
 you can at least feel the figures and the faces of 
 the panel I am working for the priests of the 
 Temple of Apollo at Assos, to be fastened in 
 front of the altar ; ' and he led the blind man to 
 a bench placed in front of the window and guided 
 his hands to a large plate of silver fastened down 
 upon a square of green hide from which the water 
 was oozing. The old man passed his delicate 
 fingers over the surface. 
 
 ' So you have fashioned the Sun-god warring 
 with the hideous python,' said he, 'and very 
 beautiful indeed is his god-like face and noble 
 are his limbs. Hideous is the monster, and that 
 the hand of man should have wrought this is hard 
 to be believed. Surely the lame Hephaistos must 
 have assisted you. But what is this loathly hide I 
 feel beneath the smooth silver ? ' 
 13 ' Truly, 
 
' Truly,' said the smith, ' it is a common and a 
 loathly thing and unfitting it must seem to you 
 to be wedded as it were to the pure body of 
 the shining silver ; but without it I could not 
 fashion those rounded limbs or that divine face. 
 When I have roughly hammered the silver into 
 form from the back I fasten it down on wet hide, 
 which supports it and yet gives way sufficiently 
 when with my hammer and these small chisels I 
 work the finer lines and modelling of my figure. 
 Then when the work is finished the hide is cast 
 on to the rubbish-heap in the forest there, while 
 the silver panel is placed in the highest place of 
 honour in the Temple. So it is with the poor smith 
 himself, who dies and is thrown away and for- 
 gotten while his work endures and is honoured.' 
 ' Aye, but your work does endure,' sighed the 
 blind man, * but when I die, as soon I must, my 
 songs die with me and we both are as though we 
 never were. Herein is your fate a happier one than 
 mine, O smith, and if Zeus had not robbed me 
 of my sight I too might have made beautiful 
 things instead of idly singing of them. As it is, 
 your name will be remembered and held in 
 14 esteem. 
 
esteem, while mine is as forgotten as the cooling 
 breezes of last summer, which, while they blew, 
 men blessed and found c'omfort in, but which now 
 have gone they know and care not whither.' 
 ' Look you ! ' said the silversmith, ' we are none 
 of us satisfied. 'Tis less than a year ago I was in 
 Assos, and at the guest-house there a singer took 
 his lyre and after supper he sang to us of the gods 
 and the goddesses ; of Zeus the son of Kronos and 
 of Hera his wife ; of Poseidon and of Phoibos or 
 Apollo; of Artemis and Demeter and Hermes; 
 and how they dwelt in high Olympos, and how 
 they loved and fought and strove one with another. 
 And as he sang I said to myself, " Oh ! that I had 
 the gift of this man and could see as clearly as he 
 does the forms of the divine ones and their very 
 clothing. Then would I fashion such scenes in 
 shining silver as should cause all men to wonder, 
 and should make my name known to all parts of 
 this our land of Mysia." But it is in my hands 
 only that my talent lies and my brain cannot con- 
 ceive things that my eyes have not seen.' 
 Then as he spoke the face of the old man became 
 as though transfigured. 
 15 'Only 
 
' Only the things that you have seen ?' he thun- 
 dered forth. 'O, man, what greater beauty is 
 there than those things that we see ? Boy ! give me 
 my lyre,' and taking with trembling hands the 
 instrument from the youth he struck its strings 
 again and again until the sounds which he himself 
 produced seemed to exercise a soothing effect 
 upon him, and his sudden fiiry subsided. Then 
 the sound of the lyre ceased and in a low but 
 musical voice which in some way seemed to have 
 a singing tone underlying it he began : 
 ' Look around you, smith, and fashion what is 
 known and familiar to you and not even the lame 
 god Hephaistos can outrival you. Look upon the 
 earth and fashion it, and upon the heavens and the 
 sea and the tireless sun upon his journey round the 
 earth, and the stars that fill the heavens at night, 
 the Pleiades, the Hyades and the Bear, that men 
 also call the Wain, that turneth in its place, and 
 alone of all the stars sinks not into the ocean. 
 Go you to Assos, that fair city of the plain, and 
 join the marriage feast that follows the espousal 
 of your friends, and fashion the bride as she is led 
 from her chamber through the city while the bridal 
 16 song 
 
song is sung. Look upon the young men as they 
 posture in the dance and upon the matrons as they 
 stand at their thresholds smiling at the sight. Or 
 follow the folk as they gather in the place of 
 assembly round about two men who may dispute 
 anent the slaying of a man and the blood-price to 
 be paid by the slayer. Mark how the folk divide 
 themselves into two companies, cheering on the 
 one or the other of the disputants as their sympa- 
 thies lead them, and mark the heralds keeping 
 order and staying the common folk from disturb- 
 ing the deliberations of the elders as they sit in 
 the fateful circle, each on a smooth stone seat, 
 pondering on the judgment they shall give. These 
 are common things, O smith, but when they are 
 fashioned they become radiant in their beauty. Go 
 talk to the people as they sit in the market-place. 
 Learn from the fighting-men how the city was 
 defended when the hostile army besieged it in the 
 days when thou wert a stripling. How they left 
 the old men and the women and the boys to guard 
 the walls, while the men went forth and waged war 
 with their enemies, lying in ambush perchance in 
 the river bed where the cattle come down to the 
 1 7 watering-place. 
 
watering-place. How they lurked here until the 
 herdsmen, recking naught of danger, came with 
 their herds, playing carelessly upon their pipes, and 
 were slain by the ambushed and their flocks seized. 
 Learn from him how, before the herds could be 
 driven to the city, the besiegers spurring their 
 stamping horses, swept down upon the town-folk, 
 and how the battle raged and Strife and Death 
 joined in the mellay and wrought destruction on 
 the mortal men. Fashion these things, O smith, 
 and leave the gods of high Olympos to those 
 who have seen and spoken to them, if such there 
 be. Or, if these things be too hard for you, watch 
 the herds of the farmer in the plain below, how 
 they plough the fields from early dawn till dusky 
 evening. See how the rich black soil is turned up 
 under the iron-shod plough-share as the patient 
 oxen drag it along the furrows for the third time, 
 and when they reach the furthermost boundary of 
 the field, each man will stop, and, wiping the trick- 
 ling sweat from his brow with the back of one 
 hand, will reach out the other for the cup of wine 
 which the boy hands to him. Or watch later in the 
 year the same men reaping their master's field ; 
 1 8 with 
 
with the swathe falling in rows to the strokes of 
 the sharp sickles, for the following binders to 
 form into sheafs with twisted bands of straw. 
 Or the gathering of the grapes in the vineyard. 
 The maidens and youths laughing in their childish 
 glee as they strip the black grapes from the vines 
 twining around the gray sun-bleached poles, 
 and bearing them away in wicker baskets, their 
 feet keeping time to the song of the boy who 
 makes music for them with sweet-toned viol. 
 Fashion a herd of kine passing from the byre in 
 the steading to pasture beside the slow-moving 
 river with its border of wind-swept reeds. Mark 
 how the kine are followed by the herdsmen with 
 their dogs, fleet of foot and broad of chest, and 
 how two lions seize upon the great bull, the leader 
 of the herd, and how the young men gather around 
 as the terrible beasts tear their way into the vitals 
 of the bellowing bull and the fierce dogs, recog- 
 nizing the kingship of the lions, shrink away and 
 stand off, barking but afraid. Fashion this, O 
 smith, or a pasture in a cool glen of the forest, 
 with a flock of white sheep nibbling the short 
 grass, and hard by the thatched huts of the shep- 
 19 herd 
 
herd and the bark-roofed sheep-folds. Or if these 
 scenes seem too simple or too common follow the 
 example of the great Daidalos the master sculptor 
 of the world, when he wrought a piece for Ariadne, 
 and haunt the dancing places when the youths 
 and maidens meet and clasp one another's hands 
 in the merry dance. Note the broidered linen gar- 
 ments of the girls and the close-fitting doublets 
 of the striplings, the wreaths on the fair locks of 
 the maidens and the golden daggers of the youths 
 hanging from their silvern baldrics. Mark the 
 lightness and freedom of their steps as they move 
 in and out, treading the sinuous measures of the 
 dance, falling apart one from another and anon 
 meeting only to fall away again. Here are beau- 
 tiful things to fashion, O smith, and things you 
 may see whensoever the fancy takes you, and yet 
 you moan that you know not how the gods and 
 goddesses appear before each other. Fashion me 
 scenes like these and not even the shield which 
 Hephaistos wrought at the behest of Thetis for 
 her son Achilles can compare with your work. 
 Methinks, indeed, that shield must have been 
 like to this, and of imagery no whit more strange 
 20 and 
 
and godlike. And now I thank you for your hos- 
 pitality and for the opportunity you have given 
 us to rest awhile in the cool shadows, and with 
 these thanks must take my leave and journey 
 onward towards the coast.' 
 
 The old man and the boy passed out of the hut, 
 the smith with rustic courtesy leading the way 
 until they reached the path. Here they left him, 
 and as he watched them set out he sagely wagged 
 his head and pondered, ' The old man can talk 
 perchance, but I doubt if he can make songs like 
 that one I heard at Assos last year.' 
 
 But the blind Homer, leaning yet infirmly on 
 the shoulder of the comely boy, went falteringly 
 down the mountain side and passed out of sight. 
 
 21 
 
" Alone and broodinsj 
 
THE OLD WORLD 
 35 B. C. 
 
 ALEXANDRIA 
 
THE GIRDLE OF CLEOPATRA. WHICH 
 TO HIS SORROW NEKU THE SILVER- 
 SMITH WROUGHT FOR HER IN HER 
 GLORIOUS CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 
 
 lexandria lay bathed in a flood of silvery 
 moonlight, which changed and trans- 
 mogrified all it touched, here softening 
 and blurring the carved outlines of a 
 Corinthian capital, there silhouetting into strongly- 
 marked relief the severe outlines of an Egyptian 
 pylon. It offered a curiously-blended confusion 
 of styles, did this same Alexandria, when it lay 
 exposed under the strong blaze of the midday 
 sun instead of being mantled with the kindly 
 obscurity of even a moonlit night. It was not 
 that, as many of the world-known cities of our 
 own time — a Rome, a Venice, or a Paris, for 
 example — it traced its history in its succession 
 of architectural fashions. A volume wherein is 
 written their evolution from barbarism to civili- 
 zation, their transit from beneath the sway of a 
 25 dominant 
 
dominant race to municipal freedom, or their mere 
 passage from one epoch of time to another. Here 
 was a city that, like the fabled palace of the 
 Eastern story-teller, had sprung, as it might be, in 
 one night from the sands of the desert at imperial 
 Alexander's autocratic nod; and, despite the wealth 
 of care and invention that had been lavished upon 
 it, the most casual of observers could not fail to 
 note the artificiality of its aspect. The regularity 
 of its plan impressed at first with its grandiosity, 
 but ended by wearying with the sense of monotony 
 it imparted. The very medley of styles offered 
 but little variety, the notes that were insistently 
 struck being only two, Greek and Egyptian ; the 
 first the signature of that dynasty which, after 
 giving new life to the dying nation, had in its 
 turn sunk in subjection to Rome, that master of 
 the world; the second written by the race to 
 which centuries of tyranny had taught the lesson 
 of servility, but which even in its death-throes had 
 forced its science, its learning, even its art upon 
 those who held it in thrall. Thus it was that the 
 lotos-ilower was twined with the acanthus-leaf and 
 Corinthian capitals were found side by side with 
 26 the 
 
the inverted bells of the Egyptian columns, while 
 the sculptured pediments and colonnaded fronts 
 of the temple of Hermes faced the gigantic and 
 gloomy pile reared to the glory of the Egyptian 
 god Hathor. The two wide avenues which ran, 
 the one from east to west, the other from north 
 to south, dividing the city into four quarters, 
 formed the most distinctive feature of its plan. 
 Bordered by marble colonnades, guarded by rows 
 of crouching sphinx-like statues stretching on 
 either side as far as the eye could reach, paved 
 with huge square blocks of granite for the wheeled 
 traffic in the centre, with sidewalks of smaller 
 squares of hard limestone, even those great road- 
 builders of the world, the Romans, never produced 
 more imposing causeways. Branching out from 
 these main avenues were the streets running at 
 right angles to each other and dividing each 
 quarter up into small blocks. These also were 
 well and smoothly paved with stone. It was as 
 the chief emporium of the world's commerce that 
 Alexandria gained her notoriety. From her gates 
 countless caravans crossed the Lybian desert in all 
 directions, while from this the noblest port of the 
 27 Mediterranean, 
 
Mediterranean, navies of merchant vessels sailed 
 through the Pillars of Hercules northward and 
 westward to the tin-producing isles of distant 
 Britain, and southward and eastward, encircling 
 the vast African continent to India and her island 
 dependencies of the East. The port itself had room 
 along its miles of stone-faced quays for countless 
 ships which, guided by the famous light on the 
 Isle of Pharos, found here safe anchorage as well 
 as a ready market for the shipmen's wares. 
 As the commercial centre of three continents 
 Alexandria was the most cosmopolitan city of 
 ancient times, and along its water front and in its 
 streets, types of the world's nations mingled and 
 talked and chaffered over their wares. The sturdy 
 Roman shouldered the pliant Greek, the stately 
 Arab wrapped his burnous about him as he con- 
 temptuously gave place to the fire-worshipping 
 Persian, the cunning Syrian spied his possible 
 prey in the stalwart, shaggy Gaul, while the alert 
 Phoenician spat at his ancient enemy the Jew, who 
 took the insult with a philosophic shrug, secure 
 in his consciousness that it would be dearly paid 
 for in the forthcoming bargain. All day long they 
 28 strove 
 
strove one against the other for mastery in their 
 commerce ; but when the evening came they gave 
 themselves up to the pursuit of their pleasures, 
 coarse and riotous in the case of the barbarians, 
 sensuously refined in that of the Greeks and a 
 majority of the Romans. As might have been 
 expected, it was in the Brucheum or Greek quarter 
 that the revelry attained its greatest height, for 
 it was here that the foreign nations chiefly con- 
 gregated. Surrounded by a high wall, it formed 
 a sort of city within a city, dignified by the 
 presence of the huge palace of the Ptolemys with 
 its luxurious audience chambers and vast out- 
 buildings, of the temple of Kronos and Isis, and 
 of the Library whose fame has descended down 
 a score of centuries to our own time as the vast 
 storehouse of the learning of the childhood of the 
 world. Here, too, was the Alexandrine Museum, 
 a school, a monastery and an academy in one, 
 where at the expense of the Ptolemys lived in ease 
 and comfort poets, philosophers and men of 
 science. Many mansions of wealthy Egyptians as 
 well as Greeks were to be found here also, each 
 surrounded by its elaborately laid-out garden and 
 29 shouldered 
 
shouldered by the huts and hovels of its meaner 
 neighbours, each one of which, however, had its 
 flat roof to serve as the sleeping apartment of the 
 family in the sweltering heat of summer nights. 
 Clustered about the water front were the meaner 
 streets, devoted to the tradesmen and mechanics, 
 the wine shops and the homes of the dancing girls. 
 Keen-eyed tradesmen sat at the entrances to the 
 dark, evil-smelling shops piled high with fabrics 
 from Eastern looms, or the products of native 
 craftsmen; the clang of the coppersmith's hammer 
 or the buzz of the potter's wheel mingled with 
 the wailing cry of the itinerant water and fruit- 
 sellers throughout the working hours, while after 
 night-fall the narrow streets became the stage for 
 the wandering street performers, dancers, acrobats, 
 story-tellers or musicians, as the case might be. 
 It was around a snake-charmer that a crowd of 
 curious onlookers had gathered, nudging each 
 other and gaping in wonderment as the Indian 
 performer put his sluggish pets through their un- 
 willing performance. He had taken up his stand 
 in front of the shop of Neku the silver worker, 
 who stood at his open door gazing with even more 
 30 interest 
 
interest than his neighbours, for the graceful 
 curves of the cobras, as they writhed and contorted 
 themselves in sullen obedience to the movements 
 of the light wand with which their master directed 
 their movements, appealed to his artistic sense. 
 The sound of a movement in the living room of 
 his dwelling, which lay beyond the work shop, 
 seemed to recall to him the fact that in his solitary 
 enjoyment of the snake-charmer's performance he 
 was selfish. Why should his little wife not share 
 it with him ? ' Alona ! ' he called, * Alona ! Come 
 quickly and see the serpents dancing.' The young 
 wife came running joyously, for with the fondness 
 of her race for simple pleasures and amusements 
 she found in the panorama of street life, that was 
 always unrolling itself before their door, her chief 
 amusement and recreation. Although her face 
 was hidden under a linen veil she gave with her 
 girlish outline and graceful carriage the impression 
 of prettiness and youthful ness, while plain and 
 simple as was her dress, as befitted the wife of an 
 artisan, she wore a girdle of wrought silver which 
 the richest and most powerful dame in the entire 
 Brucheum would not have disdained. "With the 
 31 light 
 
light laugh of anticipatory pleasure she came to 
 the door and stood by her husband peering at the 
 sight from over the edge of her veil. The pair 
 made a comely picture as they stood there in the 
 flickering light of the torch carried by the snake- 
 charmer's assistant. He with his reddish brown 
 skin showing from beneath the mantle cast care- 
 lessly over his bare shoulders ; she leaning up 
 against him with an air of appeal as though for 
 the protection of the muscular right arm which he 
 had passed around her waist. 
 Old Nefer the baker, who was standing at his 
 door, which he nearly filled up with his immense 
 girth, caught sight of the youthflil pair and 
 smiled benignly, as he nodded a greeting, albeit 
 he muttered beneath his breath : ' You spoil the 
 girl, brother Neku, and when you are my age 
 you'll have found out your mistake. Silver gir- 
 dles, indeed, for the wife of a workingman ! ' 
 Others, too, seemed to have noticed the unusual 
 adornment, for a woman in the crowd nudged her 
 escort, a soldierly-looking man whose haughty 
 bearing seemed at variance with his plebeian attire, 
 which was apparently that of a groom to some 
 32 Roman 
 
Roman patrician. 'See,my Antony,' said the woman. 
 'See the girdle that creature there presumes to wear. 
 By Osiris I vow it is fit even' for me. Saw you 
 ever the white gold more cunningly wrought and 
 fashioned ? ' Then turning to one of the crowd, 
 evidently an inhabitant of the neighbourhood : 
 ' The women of your quarter, cousin,' she said 
 in the familiar dialect of the lower classes, ' must 
 have rich lovers to furnish them with girdles such 
 as that on the hussy yonder.' ' Nay, cousin,' 
 replied the fellow, a sturdy blacksmith, whose 
 naked shoulders glistened under the torch-light, 
 'she is no light of love that, but an honest work- 
 man's wife. Pity if the silversmith cannot spend 
 his spare time working a girdle for his wife but 
 strangers from another quarter,' and he sent a 
 hostile glance in the direction of the man the 
 woman had addressed as Antony, ' must try and 
 take away a decent woman's character.' 
 ' Pooh ! cousin ! If she has no lover the more 
 fool she, for she looks as though she might have 
 a pleasing face. But tell me about this husband 
 of hers, for you seem to know him.' 
 ' Know him ? Why I have known Neku since he 
 33 was 
 
was no higher than my knee and I know that in the 
 whole of Alexandria there is no silversmith to com- 
 pare to him. Beshrew me if our lady Cleopatra 
 could only see his work his fortune would be made.' 
 ' You think so ? Well, stranger things have 
 happened,' and with a word to her companion 
 the stranger elbowed her way through the crowd 
 and passed into the silversmith's house. The 
 blacksmith grinned as he followed her with his 
 eyes. ' You may wear the dancing girl's dress and 
 you may speak the speech of the quarter, but a 
 blind man could see thee for what thou art, Cleo- 
 patra. I had not believed till now the tales they 
 tell of thee and thy Roman lover, how in disguise 
 you seek amusement and relief among the com- 
 mon folk of the port. ' Stranger things have 
 happened,' quoth she ? Aye ! by this time per- 
 chance the poor wench's girdle is decking the 
 hips of Egypt's Queen,' and he turned away 
 with a coarse laugh. 
 
 Alona, the wife of Neku the silversmith, stood 
 at the door which separated her husband's work- 
 34 shop 
 
shop from the living room of their little home, 
 and looked at the silver worker as he knelt on 
 the clay floor with an iron brazier glowing with 
 red-hot charcoal before him. 
 'And so you believe that the bold-faced woman 
 who forced her way in on us a month ago was in 
 truth our lady Cleopatra ? And you are wasting 
 time and material on a girdle for her. Oh ! how 
 stupid you men are, to be sure ! ' 
 'Nay, Alona, my pigeon,' said Neku, in his soft, 
 pleasant voice, as he arranged some fragments of 
 silver wire on a disc of copper which lay on the 
 burning coals. ' Did she not show me the royal 
 seal on an emerald well-nigh as large as the palm 
 of my hand which she wore hung on a chain of 
 yellow gold around her neck? Besides, 'tis the 
 common talk of the city that she and my lord 
 Antony are wont to sally forth at dusk disguised 
 as common folk and taste the pleasures of the 
 town in this strange fashion.' 
 'Well, tell me once more what she said to you 
 when she followed you into your work room 
 here and shut the door in my face forsooth, as 
 though a husband should have any secrets from 
 35 ^is 
 
his wife, though they are only six months mar- 
 ried.' 
 
 'I have told you a dozen times, Alona, what 
 happened. The lady first disclosed to me who 
 she was, and after I had made obeisance to her she 
 bade me show to her the girdle I made for you, 
 which you were wearing that night.' 
 'Yes ! ' broke in Alona. 'You came running to me 
 and without as much as 'by your leave,' or 'with 
 your leave' dragged the girdle from me and took 
 it to display to your dancing girl.' 
 ' Hush, Alona ! I tell you she is no dancing girl, 
 but our Queen. She deigned to admire the girdle 
 and bade me bring it to the palace next day when 
 I should receive two talents of gold for it, but 
 I, remembering how I had wrought it for you, 
 and how it was my first gift to you, but not 
 daring to refuse her behest, craved her forgive- 
 ness and said : 
 
 ' Royal Cleopatra, hearken to me. It is not meet 
 that you should wear aught save the best that your 
 servant can fashion.' 'Silversmith,' she replied, 
 ' it is not possible for you to work aught more 
 beautiful than this girdle.' 'Nay, Royal One,' I 
 3 6 said ; 
 
said ; ' give me one short month and you shall see 
 a girdle to which this shall be but as the moon 
 to the sun.' 'I do not believe you, silversmith/ 
 said she ; ' but if perchance you speak the truth 
 bring the girdle to me when it is finished and four 
 talents of gold shall be your reward.' If you had 
 seen her and heard her speak, Alona, you would 
 have doubted as little as I did that she was the 
 Queen, and that for a glance from those glorious 
 eyes men have laid not a mere silver girdle but 
 their very lives at her feet.' 
 
 ' Mayhap,' said his wife; 'but I did not see those 
 eyes you speak of, and I have a shrewd suspicion 
 that if you take the girdle to the Palace expecting 
 to see the Queen you will be scourged from the 
 gate by her guards and it will be well with you if 
 they take not from you your month's work, to 
 say nothing of the pound or more of white 
 gold for which you still owe the Greek trader, 
 and give you in return naught but blows or 
 revilings.' 
 
 'You are a true woman, Alona! But to-morrow 
 will tell us which of the twain is right or wrong. 
 The girdle is well-nigh finished, as you see.' 
 
 37 'Is 
 
'Is this it?' queried Alona, as she took up from 
 his side the long girdle of dazzlingly bright silver. 
 ' Why, you spoke truth, husband mine, though like 
 your Queen or your dancing girl, whichsoever she 
 be, I could not believe that anything finer than my 
 own girdle could be made by mortal man. But tell 
 me, Neku, what manner of work call you this ? 'Tis 
 like to nothing I have seen you fashion before.' 
 Neku's brown eyes sparkled with the gratified 
 vanity of the artist. 'So you have noticed it?' he 
 said. 'Tis a trick I learned from the Persian 
 Hytaspes. Though himself a merchant and no 
 worker in metals, he has watched those of his 
 own and other countries and in especial among 
 those who dwell at the mouth of the Indus. 
 Now, little wife, you must bear with me while I 
 tell you how I have fashioned each of the bosses 
 or clasps of which it is made up. First, I had to 
 form my silver into wire of varying thicknesses, 
 and this, as you know, is done by drawing it while 
 heated through these holes in this piece of black 
 basalt, thus making it smaller and smaller by de- 
 grees. Of these wires, cut into pieces of the right 
 length, I form my pattern.' 
 38 'But 
 
'But these little seeds, as it were, Neku,' said 
 Alona, interested as a child in her husband's de- 
 scription ; ' these are not made of wire, else how 
 should they be so round, tiny as they are.' 
 ' No,' said Neku. ' To make those I melt my silver 
 in this little pot, then pour it into this jar of pow- 
 dered charcoal, and when it is cold, look you, it 
 has formed itself into these grains. This was a 
 hint I had from the Persian. But when with my 
 twisted wires and my silver granules I have formed 
 my pattern, I seal it in its place on this disc of 
 copper with this gum from the Lybian desert; 
 then where one little wire touches another I place 
 a pinch of powdered tincal which comes to us from 
 the land of Thabat by way of the Indus. Then a 
 grain of this solder and then the heat of the 
 brazier. The tincal melts and disappears, the solder 
 melts and runs between the wires, and when I have 
 taken it from the brazier and the heat has left it, 
 see, the wires are joined together so that none can 
 separate them. Then have I but to clean it in this 
 jar of sharp vinegar and after in running water, and 
 there is one part of the girdle finished and ready 
 to be fastened with silver rings to its neighbour.' 
 39 'I think 
 
' I thlnk^you must be the cleverest man in the 
 quarter, Neku,' said Alona;'for it sounds so 
 simple in the telling, yet what eye saw work so 
 intricate or complicated, and nineteen of these be- 
 sides the clasp to form a girdle. My poor husband, 
 no wonder you have worked from dawn to dark 
 these thirty days past. Now I begin to think you 
 must be right, since for no one save a queen 
 could you have worked so glorious a work as 
 this. But, Neku, take it not to the palace to- 
 morrow as you purpose. I know not why ; but 
 something tells me that evil awaits you there.' 
 'Nay, lass!' with a smile, 'unless you call four 
 talents of gold an evil ! ' 
 
 Along the sphinx-bordered avenue Neku the 
 silversmith took his way towards the hour of sun- 
 down on the following day, bearing before him on 
 a sort of tray, formed of plaited rushes, the girdle 
 which had occupied his thoughts and his energies 
 for so long. Wrapped in its coverings of thin silk- 
 like papyrus, only its outlines were visible; but 
 Neku's imagination and memory pierced through 
 40 this 
 
this outer wrapping, and as he strode along his 
 mind's eye gloated as it were on the delicate 
 filigree work, with its intricate whirls and twists 
 and interlaced circlings. He had come straight . 
 from his shop, strung to such a pitch by the ex- 
 citement of seeing his work at last completed that 
 he never stayed to throw over his shoulders the 
 light cloak which men of his class wore when 
 going abroad. In his working dress, therefore, 
 which only by courtesy could be called a dress 
 at all, he strode along the stately avenue, thronged 
 as it then was by city-folk on their way to enjoy 
 the cooling breezes on the shores of Lake Mareo- 
 tis, and bent his steps to the marble pylon which 
 formed the entrance to the royal palace and 
 marked its semi-sacred character. The Greek 
 mercenary in charge of the guard at the gate con- 
 sulted a papyrus roll scrawled over with various 
 memoranda which he took from his bosom. He 
 finally came upon what he sought. 
 'Aye,' he surlily admitted, 'you speak the truth. 
 'Admit one Neku a silversmith when he comes — 
 by order of the Queen.' Pass, Neku, and state your 
 business to the worthy Neithotep who is in charge 
 41 of 
 
of the Queen's apartments.' The silversmith's way 
 led him through a dozen or more courts, each sur- 
 rounded by its colonnade of gorgeously-coloured 
 columns and paved with blocks of hard white 
 stone so cunningly fitted together that the joints 
 were imperceptible even on close scrutiny, and 
 brought him at last to the doorway leading to 
 the Queen's apartments, where sat in slumberous 
 meditation a corpulent old man who slowly opened 
 his eyes as Neku's timid query fell on his ears and 
 piped out in a falsetto voice : 
 ' Canst see the Royal Cleopatra, my fine fellow ? 
 That depends neither on you nor on me, but on 
 our lady herself. You could not have come at a 
 fitting time, but you must choose the very hour 
 when I am resting my weary limbs after the 
 fatigues of the day. Since day-break it has been 
 * Neithotep here ! ' ' Neithotep there ! ' until my 
 very bones ache with weariness.' He grumbled on, 
 making, however, no offer to rise. But Neku 
 was an Egyptian and had come not unprovided 
 for such an emergency. He took from his waist- 
 band a silver coin, slipped it in a matter-of-fact 
 fashion into the eunuch's palm and awaited 
 42 events. 
 
events. The needful spur had evidently been 
 supplied, for Neithotep rolled off his bench, 
 squeaked out, ' Tarry here, silversmith, and I 
 will see what can be done,' and disappeared into 
 the recesses of the palace. It was half an hour 
 before he returned, and the sun by this time had 
 sunk, below the horizon, leaving the western sky 
 ablaze with the glory of the yellow after-glow. 
 ' Our lady awaits you. Cross the court of the 
 lions, ascend the staircase that fronts you on the 
 thither side thereof, and you will find her awaiting 
 you,' he growled out, and sank back once more 
 on his bench. 
 
 Alone and brooding Cleopatra sat beneath a 
 brightly-painted awning on the roof of the inner 
 palace. The golden urus, symbol of Egyptian 
 sovereignty, confined her raven tresses round her 
 shapely head, but left them free to fall in careless 
 abandonment over her white shoulders. Resting 
 on the palm of one small hand, her face, with its 
 aquiline nose, its sensuously-rounded chin and 
 full red lips, seemed to fade away, as it were, from 
 view in the radiance of those marvelous eyes 
 which blazed from under the straight dark brows. 
 43 Somewhat 
 
Somewhat too deeply sunken perhaps for perfect 
 beauty, they held within their luminous depths 
 so much of mystery and inscrutable allurement 
 and of wantonness, that the face with all its love- 
 liness of colour and of line became a mere setting, 
 as it were, to these two dark and changeable 
 jewels. Of what she brooded over as she sat there 
 in the waning light, whether of her beloved Caesar 
 done to death so far away from her, or that newer 
 lover Antony, whether of her own land of Khem 
 or Egypt, which thanks to her and her unbridled 
 passions and selfish luxury, was slowly being 
 blotted out of the map of nations, or of that far-off 
 Rome where she had been so hated, but which 
 she loved so well ; whether of these or those she 
 pondered as she sat there motionless who could 
 tell ? Certainly not our poor Neku as he climbed 
 the stately stairway, holding before him his 
 cherished girdle, which when he reached the 
 queenly presence he laid at the dainty feet, pros- 
 trating himself in patient humbleness as he waited 
 for the Queen to speak. Long he lay there till at 
 length the musical voice was heard. 
 'Ah ! I had well-nigh forgotten. 'Tis the silver- 
 44 smith 
 
smith with the girdle I was foolish enough to bid 
 him fashion for me. I do not think I want it now, 
 so take it away and disturb me not. Yet stay ; let 
 me look at the foolish toy.' 
 
 So Neku, trembling in his fearful eagerness, tore 
 the papyrus wrapping from the girdle and dis- 
 played it in all its white and dazzling purity. 
 ' By Osiris, 'tis indeed of some worth. In truth, 
 silversmith, I never saw more cunning craftsman- 
 ship. You were not wrong then, for this exceeds 
 that other work of yours as the sun exceeds the 
 moon in brightness. Leave it, man. Take this 
 tablet to the royal treasury and you will receive 
 your pay. Four talents of gold, was it not? ' 
 'Aye, gracious lady,' said Neku, as she wrote 
 with a gold stylus on a waxen tablet mounted on 
 a cedarn block. She signed it by impressing on it 
 her seal with the incised gem of her finger ring 
 and nestled into her silken cushions as she waved 
 him away with an imperious gesture. No sooner had 
 Neku turned his back on her before she bent for- 
 ward and with eyes ablaze with gratified pleasure, 
 lifted the girdle from the ground and laying it in her 
 lap, bent over it to scan more carefully the delicacy 
 
 45 of 
 
of the workmanship. She was occupied thus when 
 a manly voice caused her to start and look upwards. 
 'A new jewel? Why what an unconscionable 
 itching for gauds is yours, my Cleopatra. What is 
 it this time ? Pearls, belike ? ' 
 'Nay, not so, my Antony. I am not always 
 athirst,' and they both laughed in joyous remem- 
 brance. ' 'Tis merely a girdle of silver, but 
 beshrew me if mortal eye ever saw its fellow or 
 is like to see its equal again. Others, even your 
 beloved Fulvia,' and her eyes gleamed with hate, 
 'can deck themselves with pearls if they have a 
 few poor sesterces to exchange for them, but what 
 other woman in the world has the wit to buy for 
 a paltry talent or two of gold a girdle such as this, 
 which must remain without a rival.' 
 ' O, you women ! ' laughed Antony, ' you women ! 
 But it seems to me, my Cleopatra, your wit 
 is not so keen as usual in this matter. If this 
 silversmith of yours has so far exceeded the girdle 
 which caught your eye the night of our foolish 
 frolic in the city, what is to prevent him exceeding 
 this of yours by just so much again and selling it 
 to some other lover of wrought work ? ' 
 46 ' You 
 
' You say truth, my Antony, as ever. Here ! 
 Within there, Chryssa ! ' and she clapped her hands 
 together thrice. A young Greek girl came running 
 swiftly at the summons. ' Girl,' said Cleopatra, 
 ' hasten to the treasury, where you will find an 
 Egyptian, a silversmith. I know not his name. 
 Tell him to return here on the instant, bringing with 
 him the tablet I gave to him. Hasten ! begone !' 
 A few minutes later and Neku stood once more be- 
 fore the Queen, who had resumed her languid pose. 
 ' I have but one thing to ask you, silversmith,' 
 she cooed, ' is it possible for you to do finer and 
 better work than appears in this girdle of yours ? ' 
 ' 'Tis this way, O Royal One,' answered Neku, his 
 artistic temperament fired by the query, so that he 
 forgot his fear and spoke with a freedom he had 
 not dared to use before. 'With each difficulty 
 overcome by the craftsman, the next becomes 
 easier in the conquering. Never have I done so 
 fine a piece of work as this ; but if the gods grant 
 me strength and life and health, I hope to do many 
 a one that will be finer even than this,' and he 
 swelled with the naive pride and vanity of the 
 true artist. 
 
 47 
 
 "Tis 
 
* 'Tis well,' said Cleopatra, softly, 'give me back 
 the tablet and I will add to your reward,' and she 
 hastily scribbled a line or two on the smooth 
 surface of the wax when Neku had handed it to 
 her. ' Now away to the treasury, silvermith, and 
 see how Cleopatra pays those who tell the truth 
 to her,' and once more she fell back among her 
 cushions. 
 
 The royal litter swept through the canopied gate- 
 way. Upon it Antony lay reclining with his beloved 
 Cleopatra, a sneer at himself for falling so soon 
 into such effeminately Oriental customs curling 
 his handsome lip. He had raised himself slightly 
 and with his chin supported on one hand brood- 
 ingly surveyed the scene around him. Something 
 attracted his attention as they passed under the 
 towering pylon-like gateway, which was the en- 
 trance to the city. Turning to his companion he 
 said with a sudden flash of eagerness. ' See ! That 
 blind man there — with only one hand and sup- 
 ported by a young, and by Hercules, a pretty 
 woman ! Strange, is it not, but he curiously 
 48 resembles 
 
resembles that young silversmith who wrought this 
 girdle for you,' and he touched the silver girdle 
 the Queen wore over her delicate silken robes. 
 ' I never forget a face I have seen once and I know 
 the man again for certain. 'Tis almost worth while 
 having enquiries made, for a month ago the man 
 had two hands and could see as well as you or I.' 
 ' Trouble not yourself, my Antony,' said Cleopatra, 
 in soft, cooing tones. ' Remember how you scoffed 
 at me when I said I had the man's masterpiece. 
 Your words gave me an idea. I added somewhat 
 to the man's reward and I dare swear now that he 
 will never work a finer girdle than this, though he 
 was rash enough to boast that he could do so. It 
 was so easy, too! Just an order to my chief eu- 
 nuch to blind and main him, and the thing was 
 done.' 
 
 Antony gazed at her in something approaching to 
 horror, but lifting her hand lazily as she lay by 
 his side she gently patted his cheek and looked at 
 him with languorous affection. The frown dis- 
 appeared from his brow and he too smiled in his 
 turn. 
 ' My Cleopatra ! ' was all he said. 
 
 49 
 
There Hans ! There's yoiir silver ! " 
 
THE OLD WORLD 
 1496 A. D. 
 
 NUREMBERG 
 
IN OLD NUREMBERG. A STORY OF 
 YOUTH AND AGE, SHOWING HOW 
 THE EMPEROR'S PRIZE WAS LOST 
 AND AFTERWARDS WAS WON AGAIN 
 
 ans,' said old Jacob Peller, the silver- 
 smith of Nuremberg, ' I am going out 
 for an hour to confer with my good 
 friend the Burgomaster Pirkheimer. 
 While I am gone you will finish hammering up the 
 body of that bowl with which I purpose to compete 
 for the prize our Emperor Maximilian (may the 
 saints preserve him), has offered for the finest 
 piece of silver work produced by a Nuremberg 
 craftsman. When I return I will set to work my- 
 self and lay out the design for the chasing thereof 
 I have a pleasing conceit in my head, of vine 
 leaves and grapes and merry little Bacchantes that 
 I flatter myself it will be hard to beat,' and the 
 paunchy little man, with his bald head and red, 
 puffy face, waddled out of the workshop with a 
 last admonitory gesture to the fair-haired sensitive- 
 53 faced 
 
faced lad, who was bending over the work-bench 
 placed so that it received all the light from the 
 wide casement which ran down one side of the 
 long low room and from which the wooden shutters 
 were thrown far back. His master gone, Hans 
 turned to the bench muttering, ' His Bacchantes 
 indeed ! I know those Bacchantes. Fat, pudgy 
 little brutes. True children of their father, 
 the great Jacob Peller. Ugh ! ' and with com- 
 pressed lips and heightened colour he turned 
 to the work to which his attention had been so 
 roughly directed. 
 
 Of all the minor processes connected with the 
 silversmith's art, ' hammering-up ' is surely the 
 most monotonous and wearying. It is the technical 
 term applied to the method by which, thanks to 
 the excessive ductility of the metal, a cup, a bowl, 
 even a long-necked vase, may be wrought into form 
 from the flat silver plate by repeated blows of a ham- 
 mer alone. By fractions of an inch the apparently 
 tough and unyielding metal pays obedience to the 
 compelling strokes of the hammer, and it is the 
 frank recognition of this fact and this inherent 
 nature of silver that differentiates the work of the 
 54 artist 
 
artist from that of the mere workman. But the 
 hammering-up of a sheet into partially spherical 
 form, to serve as a foundation for the delicate 
 hammer-work and chasing of the decoration, 
 wherein alone the artist-sense finds a congenial 
 field, is a monotonous, irksome operation, calcu- 
 lated to fret and irritate the artistic temperament 
 should the craftsman possess that somewhat afflic- 
 tive commodity. Hans, however, worked steadily 
 on until the bells of St. Laurence, hard by, told 
 him that his master had been gone at least an 
 hour. Then he slipped the great grey bowl off 
 the round anvil, laid down his hammer, and with 
 an enthusiastic sparkle in his eye, bent down 
 and picked up what was apparently a bundle of 
 dirty rags from underneath the bench. His long, 
 thin, nervous fingers soon unwound the plebeian 
 covering and there stood revealed upon the three- 
 legged stand, which he had dragged forth to 
 receive it, a most exquisite chalice, fashioned, how- 
 ever, not out of silver, but of the red wax which 
 for generations has been the favorite medium in 
 which sculptors have delighted to model their 
 sketch designs. Even in the wax the symmetrical 
 ^ 5 beauty 
 
beauty of the chalice was apparent, lying altogether 
 as it did in the exquisite proportions and the subtle 
 grace of the curves. The bowl of the cup itself was 
 plain almost to bareness, save for a band of incised 
 ornament around the rim that in the exquisite 
 minuteness was well-nigh gem-like. But it was the 
 ' knop ' or conventional swelled-out portion of 
 the stem, between the base and the bowl, by 
 which the chalice was to be held, that constituted 
 its chief glory. On the hexagonal surface, not 
 much larger than a good-sized walnut, the crafts- 
 man had wrought a representation of the Tree of 
 Life, whose rugged,°gnarled stem and roots, treated 
 with the perfection of decorative handling, formed 
 the lower portion of the stem and the spreading 
 base of the cup. Set in the twining branches were 
 six tiny panels, on each of which was pictured an 
 incident in the Passion of our Lord. Almost 
 microscopical as were these little bas-reliefs there 
 was a breadth and dignity in the modelling that 
 raised them to the highest plane of creative art. 
 Hans gazed long and intently at the chalice, and 
 with a tiny bone modelling tool, which he took 
 from his breast, hovered, as he passed over the 
 56 surface 
 
surface with what seemed a caress of the tool, 
 depressing this surface and forcing that up slightly, 
 altering the expression of a face here, or adjusting 
 more particularly the fall of a fold of drapery 
 there. So intent was he that he did not hear the 
 door of the room open or see the pretty little face, 
 framed in smooth golden hair, peeping out from 
 beneath the snowy cap with its silver wing-pieces, 
 which peered archly into the room. Finally there 
 entered the owner of this pretty face, a young girl 
 dressed in the picturesque Bavarian town-maiden's 
 costume, with its flowing skirt and bodice laced 
 over a fine lawn chemisette. She had no scruples 
 about interrupting the artistic reverie, but tripping 
 across the room she stood on tip-toe behind the 
 lad and putting her chubby little hands, hardened 
 and roughened b.y the house-work which was the 
 portion in those days of the daughters of even 
 the richest burghers, before the lad's eyes, she 
 cried with a ripple of laughter. 
 ' If you guess who it is, Hans, I'll forgive you for 
 wasting your master's time.' 
 ' 'Tis you, Greta, of course,' said the youth, making 
 a mock struggle to free himself, ' but I don't think 
 57 you'd 
 
you'd tell tales to your father even if I didn't 
 guess aright.' 
 
 ' Oh, you don't know me, sir,' said Greta, letting 
 her hands fall and moving so that she faced her 
 sweetheart with her round arms akimbo, ' I can be 
 as spiteful, if need be, as — as — as — the widow 
 Gentz, who is always making eyes at you when 
 she sees you at mass in St. Sebald's. But I want 
 you to be serious, for I have something very 
 serious to say to you. At breakfast this morning 
 my father let slip a hint of a wonderful plan he 
 has in his mind, and what do you think it is ? ' 
 ' I'm sure I don't know,' said Hans, ' unless it be 
 that he has invented a new Bacchante. I'm sure 
 it's about time.' 
 
 ' I don't know what you're talking about, you and 
 your Bacchante,' said the young girl, pettishly. 
 ' Perhaps you won't smile so, when I tell you 
 that he plans to marry me to Michael Pirkheimer, 
 the son of his gossip, old Sebald.' 
 ' You're joking, Greta,' said Hans, changing colour ; 
 ' but, now I come to think of it, it is to old 
 Sebald's he has gone this very morning, doubtless 
 to talk over the detestable scheme. But, Greta, 
 58 you 
 
you won't marry Michael, will you ? Why, he is 
 detested by all the young men of Nuremberg for 
 his meanness and his evil ways. Besides, he squints 
 and has one shoulder higher than the other.' 
 'Aye, lad, but Old Sebald has a business better 
 even than my father's, and Michael will be his sole 
 heir. And you, my poor boy, are still but an ap- 
 prentice to my father, and have not a farthing of 
 your own. In the eyes of old men a bag of gold 
 hides a squint or even a crooked shoulder.' 
 'But, Greta, if I could only win the prize the 
 Emperor offers, my fortune would be made. I 
 could ask your father for your hand, and I dare 
 swear he would not refuse. You knowit is town-talk 
 that our Emperor will appoint the winner of the 
 prize silversmith to the household of Prince Philip 
 when he marries the Infanta Joanna next month.' 
 ' But how are you to win the prize, you foolish 
 boy ? ' 
 
 ' By this ! ' and Hans's face lit up with the en- 
 thusiasm of the artist as he pointed to the wax 
 model on the bench. 
 
 ' Oh Hans ! How beautiful ! And did you really 
 fashion this yourself ? Oh ! You are right ! It must 
 59 win 
 
win the prize! Never have I seen anything more 
 beautiful. But when did you do this ? And why is 
 it only in that ugly red wax ? How grand it would 
 look in silver ! ' 
 
 ' There's the rub/ said Hans, his enthusiasm re- 
 placed by sudden dejection. ' I have done this in 
 my own time after the day's work was done ; but 
 alas, I cannot use your father's silver, and how 
 am I to buy any for myself ? You know I receive 
 but ten florins a year, two suits of clothes and my 
 board and lodging until my term of apprenticeship 
 is at an end. No! It is hopeless.' 
 'I don't know about that,' said Greta, who had 
 been wrinkling her white brow as though trying 
 to solve some problem in her mind. How much 
 silver would it take, Hans ? ' 
 ' Some twenty ounces, at least,' he replied. 
 * Twenty ounces,' she said, reflectively, * and may 
 it be in any form, or must it be silver plates ? ' she 
 asked. 
 
 'What does it matter?' said Hans, pettishly, 'I 
 have no silver of any sort. But as you ask, it 
 matters not so long as it be silver, for Wenzel 
 Schauffelein the smelter will exchange plates for 
 60 silver 
 
silver wares of any description, weighing the one 
 against the other, and deducting but a twentieth 
 part by weight for the exchange.' 
 * Then wait ■ but a moment, Hans,' said the girl, 
 'and you shall see what you shall see. I'm the 
 little mouse, lad, who's going to gnaw asunder 
 the bonds that hold her lion-hearted boy in the 
 toils,' and she ran out of the room, leaving Hans 
 gazing vacantly in wonderment. He had not long 
 to wait, for in a few moments the door of the 
 work-room burst open and Greta rushed in breath- 
 less and carrying in her hands something which 
 jingled curiously as she ran. She threw her burden 
 down on the bench with a bang, exclaiming: 
 ' There, Hans ! There's your silver, and if it helps 
 you to win the prize I'm only too willing that 
 you should have it.' 
 
 The astonished Hans saw lying there a heap of 
 silver ornaments and jewelry. A heavy girdle 
 clasp, two shoulder straps and buckles, a long 
 chain, a comb, two hair-pins and some three or 
 four bracelets. 
 
 Deprived of its silver shoulder straps her bodice 
 had slipped down so that one brown little shoulder 
 6 1 peeped 
 
peeped from the snowy enfoldments of the chemi- 
 sette. Her neatly coiled hair, too, no longer sup- 
 ported by its comb, had fallen in pretty disorder 
 down her back, but her flushed face and sparkling 
 eyes betrayed her state of nervous excitement to 
 be such that no thought of her dishevelled ap- 
 pearance crossed her mind. She could only ejacu- 
 late: 
 
 ' Take them, Hans ! They are my very own. The 
 chain and comb were my mother's, the clasps and 
 bracelets my god-father gave me. Even my father 
 has no word to say as to what I shall do with 
 them. Take them to Wenzel Schauffelein and 
 exchange them for the silver you need for your 
 chalice, and never say a girl can't find out the way!' 
 
 II 
 
 The moon looked down on the sleeping town of 
 Nuremberg, one fine autumn night in the year 
 1496, with a cold, contemptuous stare. She stared 
 down with an unwinking gleam on the thousand 
 or more high-pitched and quaintly-outlined roofs, 
 covered with the reddish-brown tiles, which took 
 on themselves an empurpled bloom in her white 
 62 radiance. 
 
radiance. She touched with her gaze the sluggish 
 stream of the Httle river Pegnitz, as it took its lazy 
 way through the town, and silvered its sullied 
 surface, save where the many bridges and the more 
 plebeian " hinterbriicken " threw deep shadows 
 across its path. She glanced at, and glancing gave 
 ethereal beauty to, the twin soaring spires of St. 
 Laurence's and a more delicate tracery to the 
 sculptured front of the Frauenkirche ; she redeemed 
 from sordidness the Henker Thurm or Hang- 
 man's Tower, gave grace to the prison tower of 
 the frowning castle, which dominated the town 
 and was known to all Bavaria as the Lug ins Land, 
 or ' Peep o'er the Land,' Tower, and added fairness 
 even to the Schone Brunnen, that pride of the 
 mediaeval as it is of the latter-day Nuremberg. 
 All this the moon could do, and did ; but it was 
 for the cheerily twinkling star, just peering over 
 the brow of the tiny hill, at whose foot the town 
 lay cradled, to take a kindly interest in what it 
 saw that was apart from the cold, chaste indif- 
 ference of the moon. 
 
 It was the star who kept unwearying watch over 
 the honest burghers and their families, over the 
 6^ burgomaster, 
 
burgomaster. Von Culmbach, snoring an obese 
 snore between two feather-beds, as well as over the 
 wearied hostler, snatching an hour or two's slum- 
 ber on a truss of straw, before dawn brought a 
 renewal of his labours in the stable-yard of that 
 bustling inn, Zum Griinen Weinstock or The 
 Green Vine. It was not the moon, but the star 
 which night after night for some three months had 
 peered in through the heart-shaped opening in the 
 casement-shutter of Jacob Teller's work-shop, 
 where young Hans, by the indiflFerent light of a 
 smoky oil lamp, was fashioning in silver the daring 
 creation he had shown to Greta as a red-wax model. 
 The star had taken the friendliest of interest in 
 the work. It had seen him take a sheet of the 
 silver he had procured from Wenzel Schauffelein 
 and hammer it up into the rough shape of the 
 bowl. Another smaller bowl he worked in the 
 same manner to serve as a foundation, as it were, 
 for the circular foot. Then on these two roughly 
 formed half-spheres he had traced in black, the 
 main lines of his design. His next step was to 
 place them over a snarling-iron, which is a long 
 horizontal arm of wrought-iron ending in an 
 64 upright 
 
upright protuberance or knob, with a polished face. 
 Against this knob the inner surface of the rounded 
 silver is pressed, and the further end of the iron 
 arm is struck with a hammer. The vibration causes 
 the knob to strike the silver a succession of slight 
 blows, by which it is raised outwards, or repousse, 
 so as to roughly assume the outline of the pattern. 
 Into the bowl of the chalice and the foot, thus 
 hammered into form, Hans now poured melted 
 pitch. When this was hardened he took his chasing 
 tools, which were in effect tiny chisels, and began 
 to chase the fine lines and details of his design on 
 the protuberances raised by the snarling-iron. Up 
 to this point his work had been merely that of the 
 intelligent workman. As he took the chasing tool 
 in hand the craftsman became the artist. Almost 
 imperceptibly the design under the repeated blows 
 of his little punches grew into being, the soft metal 
 not being in any way cut away or removed, but 
 merely displaced from one part of the surface to 
 another. It was only now, however, that the full 
 beauty of the design became manifest and that the 
 joy of the creative artist was his. The knop, with 
 its intricate little panels, he formed after the same 
 S^ fashion. 
 
fashion, hammering it up, however, in two halves, 
 which when the chasing was almost completed 
 were soldered together. The stem also was beaten 
 out of a flat sheet into cylindrical form, the edges 
 being imperceptibly joined. Finally all the sec- 
 tions, the bowl, the knop, the stem and the foot, 
 the pitch being first melted out of them, were 
 soldered together in the same fashion, and there 
 only remained the polishing and the finishing 
 touches to be given. 
 
 And the star agreed with Hans that the chalice was 
 very good, and that if it did not win the prize, the 
 Emperor and his chamberlain, who were to adjudi- 
 cate upon the articles submitted in competition, 
 must, despite their high and lofty station, be 
 strangely ignorant of the nature of fine silverwork. 
 Now, nothing remained but to carry the chalice to 
 the Town Hall, where it must take its chance with 
 the score or more bowls, platters and cups upon 
 which the Nuremberg silversmiths had been hard 
 at work for the past three months. Simple as this 
 part of the affair seemed to be, it yet had given 
 Hans infinitely more concern than the design or 
 even the craftsmanship of the chalice itself. 
 66 According 
 
According to the Emperor's proclamation the 
 competitive works were to be delivered by the 
 workmen themselves at the Castle between the 
 hours of ten o'clock and noon on the 1 2th day of 
 October, in the year of grace 1496. Now, old 
 Jacob kept so close a watch on the outgoings and 
 incomings of his apprentice that Hans had felt 
 that not even the half-hour or so required to climb 
 the steep road to the Castle and back could be 
 taken by him without his master's knowledge; 
 this meant an inevitable explanation and the dis- 
 covery of his secret. Luck, however, seemed to be 
 with the boy. That very afternoon Jacob had 
 announced with a superfluity of snarls and groans 
 that the gout or ' gutta,' as the old Court physician 
 Von Bergen termed it, had so settled in his right 
 knee that he could not walk across the room, much 
 less climb the steep hill to the Castle. ' There is no 
 help for it, Hans,' he growled. 'You must e'en 
 put on your best jerkin in the morning, spruce 
 yourself up and take up my Bacchante bowl to the 
 Castle, explaining to the warder that only illness 
 of the most serious nature has prevented me from 
 appearing in person.' 
 67 ' Certainly,' 
 
' Certainly,' thought Hans, ' the saints are fighting 
 for me. It will be as easy to take two pieces as 
 one to the Castle and Master Jacob need know 
 nothing about it.' 
 
 So he was very well content to put out his lamp 
 and lie down on the truckle bed, which he dragged 
 out from beneath the work-bench, there to dream 
 of the glories and honours which should be show- 
 ered on his head when he had gained the Em- 
 peror's prize. The first white light of the dawn 
 was chasing away the murky shadows from the 
 nooks and corners of the oak-beamed workshop, 
 and causing the quaintly-shaped lead quarrels of 
 the wide casement window to stand out in sharp 
 silhouettes, when Hans awoke and stretched him- 
 self. His morning toilet was of the simplest, a 
 dash of cold water and a rub with a coarse linen 
 towel and he was ready to give a last polish and 
 touch to the bowl and the chalice, and to swathe 
 them carefully in woolen cloths before carrying 
 them to the Castle. Luckily, Master Jacob, whose 
 gout was worse rather than better, did not appear 
 at the frugal breakfast prepared by Greta and 
 enjoyed by Hans with his boyish appetite, so the 
 68 two 
 
two young people were able to talk unrestrainedly 
 of the chalice and its chances of success. Thus it 
 happened that by eight o'clock the lad was on his 
 way up the steep hill to the Castle with a precious 
 bundle under each arm. The warder, grumbling 
 at being disturbed over his morning mug of beer, 
 took the silver from him, paying, as Hans could 
 not help but notice, scant attention to the elaborate 
 excuse he made for Master Jacob's failure to 
 attend in person. 
 
 ' It matters not,' he had said, ' I know the 
 worthy Master Peller, and if he suffers from that 
 accursed gutta, he has my sympathy. 'Tis but a 
 week ago since I was myself flat on my back with 
 the same devil's complaint. But give me the 
 gew-gaws, lad, and I will take them straight to 
 His Serenity's Secretary, who has this matter in 
 hand, and I will tell him they come from Master 
 Jacob Peller.' 
 
 ' No sir,' stammered poor Hans, in his nervous 
 eagerness. ' Only one is from my master. This 
 tall one wrapped in the red drugget is from me 
 myself. Hans Frey is my name, good sir. Master 
 Jacob's apprentice.' 
 69 But 
 
But the warder was somewhat deaf, as well as 
 gouty and irritable into the bargain : 'It matters 
 not what your name is, boy,' he grumbled, ' you 
 youngsters always want to push yourselves forward. 
 It is your master with whom we concern ourselves 
 on this occasion, not his apprentice,' and still 
 grumbling at the impertinence of boys in general, 
 and of this silversmith's cub in particular, he took 
 his way up the winding stone stairway, which led to 
 the Secretary's room, with the two bundles of silver. 
 Hans turned away with a light heart. Doubtless, 
 however, he would not have whistled so blithely, 
 as he hastened down the hill into the town, if he had 
 known that his precious chalice had been delivered 
 with such a blundered-up message on the part of 
 the warder that it was docketed in the Secretary's 
 angular script : ' The alternative work submitted 
 by Jacob Peller, silversmith of Nuremberg.' 
 
 Ill 
 
 The next time Hans took his way to the Castle it 
 was in a far different frame of mind. Although he 
 was walking side by side with his beloved Greta, 
 he was staring moodily straight in front of him, 
 70 and 
 
and when a chubby, little, chapped hand stole 
 timidly under his short cape and rested itself on 
 his arm he left it to itself and its own devices, as 
 though it had belonged to his maiden aunt and 
 not to the girl who had been monopolizing his 
 thoughts for the past six months. Perhaps the 
 presence of Greta's father, who strode along on her 
 other side, with a smirk curling upwards the corners 
 of his mouth, and his bulbous nose elevated high 
 in the air, had something to do with his apprentice's 
 dejection. In truth there was, perhaps, more reason 
 for Jacob's elation than for Hans's depression. That 
 very morning the rumour running through the 
 little town like wild-fire, had reached the silver- 
 smith's household, that the Emperor's prize had 
 been awarded to the work of Jacob Peller. The 
 announcement had not yet been formally made. 
 That was to take place this afternoon in the 
 presence of the town-folk, who had been bidden 
 to inspect all the works entered for the competition.' 
 These, it was understood, were to be displayed in 
 the great hall of the Castle, and the road was 
 thronged with people who, like Jacob Peller, his 
 daughter and his apprentice, were on their way to 
 71 view 
 
view the work of the leading craftsmen in Bavaria 
 and to pass on it the shrewd criticisms of a com- 
 munity in which a knowledge and love of art were 
 well-nigh universal. 
 
 ' What did I tell you, Hans ? ' grunted old Jacob, 
 as he waddled along, spurred by his excitement 
 into unwonted activity. ' What did I tell you ? I 
 thought my Bacchantes would do the trick. They 
 have never failed yet, lad.' 
 
 * Hang his Bacchantes ! ' muttered Hans, under 
 his breath. ' Ungainly, sprawling toads. I have 
 h4d them dinged into my ears ever since I was a 
 boy of fifteen, and I have hated them worse every 
 year I have been with him,' and he trudged along 
 in moody contemplation of the shortcomings of 
 the Bacchantes, which, it seemed, had won the 
 prize, and the manifold perfections of the chalice 
 which had lost it. At length the radiant Jacob and 
 the melancholy Hans, with Greta occupying an 
 emotional plane half way between the two, arrived 
 at the Castle gate and followed the stream of 
 people who were passing in, crossing the stone 
 paved court yard and making their way into the 
 great hall. Here on the great dais, at the far end, 
 72 had 
 
had been arranged a double tier of benches. Over 
 these had been thrown a richly-brocaded hanging, 
 taken from the Castellan's canopied seat, and on 
 the extemporized stand thus formed were dis- 
 played some score or so of silver-pieces wrought 
 by Nuremberg craftsmen. Here were cups and 
 ewers, candlesticks and salvers, bowls and salt- 
 cellars (for the exact nature of the article to be 
 entered had been left to the competitors them- 
 selves) one more elaborately wrought and highly 
 finished than another. To each had been affixed 
 a strip of parchment bearing the name of the 
 competitor written in the Secretary's courtly 
 hand. So it was that the townfolk as they filed by 
 the dais could at a glance see to which of their 
 friends or neighbours the various pieces were to 
 be attributed. In the very centre stood the piece 
 to which the prize had been awarded. So closely 
 were the sight-seers crowded around this that at 
 first Master Peller and his companions could not 
 even catch a glimpse of it, but the old man pushed 
 and forced his way through the crowd, grunting 
 out : ' Make way, good people. Let a man see his 
 own work, won't you ? ' and occasionally saying in 
 73 a lower 
 
a lower tone to Hans : 'Now boy, you shall see 
 how my Bacchantes surpass all others.' At last they 
 came in front of the masterpiece. But there was no 
 glimpse of Bacchantes to be had. Jacob Teller's 
 jaw dropped and his ruddy face blanched white. 
 'Why, what's this? what's this?' he stammered. 
 ' Is it a joke they have played on me ? ' For here 
 was a graceful chalice which he had never seen in 
 his life before, and yet on the parchment slip was 
 legibly inscribed as the maker, ' Jacob Peller.' 
 Hans's eyes lit up. ' It is not the Bacchantes, after 
 all,' he whispered to Greta. ' It is my chalice ! 
 And, Oh Greta! I have won the prize. I must 
 run to the Castellan and tell him there has been a 
 mistake in the name. It is mine, and not your 
 father's, as you can bear witness.' But to Hans's 
 surprise the quick affirmative response he had 
 expected did not come. Instead, Greta put her 
 finger on her lips and assumed an air of mystery. 
 ' Hus-s-sh, Hans! ' she said, 'don't say a word to 
 any one. I have an idea,' and drawing him aside 
 from the crowd she whispered eagerly into his ear. 
 What she had to say did not seem to please her 
 listener, for at first he shook his head doubtfully. 
 74 ' But 
 
'But it is mine, Greta, mine! ' he objected. The girl 
 stamped her foot petulantly : 'And am I not worth 
 an old silver cup, Hans? I tell you, you must ! ' 
 'Well, perhaps you are right, Greta. But it will 
 almost break my heart ! ' She concluded the argu- 
 ment by taking his arm and dragging him up to 
 her father, who was nodding his head vacantly and 
 muttering to himself: 
 
 ' I don't understand it ! I don't understand it ! ' 
 'Come out with us to the courtyard. Father,' 
 Greta whispered, excitedly, ' and we will explain 
 it all to you.' 
 
 A few minutes later and the three were convers- 
 ing eagerly in a corner of the courtyard where 
 they were free from interruption. 
 ' But,' said the old man, when his daughter had 
 finished her explanation. ' I shall be laughed out 
 of Nuremberg. After all the congratulations I 
 have received, to have to confess that the chalice 
 is not mine, but my apprentice's ! Sure the judges 
 must have been distraught, to give the prize to 
 such a piece as that, which has not even a Bac- 
 chante in its decoration. And yet, I see no other 
 way but to tell them of the mistake.' 
 75 'Yes, 
 
' Yes, Master Peller,' said Hans, urged to action 
 by a vigorous nudge from Greta, ' there is another 
 way. Let the chalice remain under your name, 
 for though you cannot exhibit as your own, the 
 work of your apprentice, you surely will have a 
 right to it as the work of your son.' 
 ' My — my — son ? ' stammered Jacob. 
 ' Yes — son, or son-in-law. Are they not nearly 
 the same thing ? ' asked Hans, taking Greta's hand 
 in his. 
 
 The old man gazed at them, and then a look of 
 comprehension stole over his dull face. 
 ' Oh ! That's the quarter where sits the wind,' he 
 said. ' But, my old gossip, Sebald Pirkheimer ? I 
 as good as promised him. Yet — the laugh that will 
 go round the town — and, after all, you are no fool, 
 Hans, the chalice shows that. Well — ^well — I 
 suppose I must. Come home, children, and we 
 will arrange for the betrothal and tell the neigh- 
 bours.' 
 
 76 
 
22«/ »!- • 
 
 '^&iJi' 
 
" I took the bag of sitver " 
 
THE OLD WORLD 
 1540 A. D. 
 
 ROME 
 
THE SILVER CRUCIFIX. CHAPTER 
 CXXIX BOOK FIRST OF HIS LIFE 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN 
 OF MESSER BENVENUTO CELLINI 
 
 ow, I must tell you of what happened 
 while I was living in the Cardinal of 
 Ferrara's palace, just after he had helped 
 me to escape from the prison of Sant' 
 Angelo, wherein the malice of Signor Pier Luigi 
 had kept me immured for so long. Small wonder 
 was it that after passing through such indescribable 
 afflictions I found it for awhile impossible to 
 resume my art, and so had it not been for the 
 beneficence of my good friend the Cardinal, it 
 would have been a labour for me to make both 
 ends meet. With a view of establishing my health 
 I was wont to mount a horse, the which his 
 eminence was gracious enough to lend me, and 
 to ride to one of the inns in the outskirts of 
 Rome, there to eat my dinner and enjoy the fresh 
 breeze, taking to my nag in the cool of the 
 79 evening 
 
evening for the return journey. It happened one 
 afternoon that I was jogging homeward after a day 
 thus spent, and about twenty-three of the clock, so 
 near as I can recollect, that my horse must have 
 stepped upon a loose stone which those scoundrels* 
 of road-makers had carelessly left in the very 
 middle of the road. Be this as it may or not, 
 though I am inclined to think that such was the 
 case, my horse, which was a favorite of the Cardi- 
 nal's and had never been known to fall or stumble 
 before, came down upon his fore-knees, and in a 
 trice I was lying upon the flat of my back in the 
 road. I have consulted many wise and learned 
 men on the subject of what happened to me as I 
 lay there, stunned to all appearance by the fall. 
 They are all inclined to believe with me that on 
 this day, which was the Feast of the Purifica- 
 tion, in the year 1 540, I was vouchsafed, neither 
 for the first nor for the last time, as will appear 
 later, a vision from on high. For as I lay there 
 I heard a loud voice which sounded in my ears 
 and said : 
 
 'Benvenuto! Benvenuto! Is it to waste thy time 
 in these idle junketings that Heaven has granted to 
 80 thee 
 
 ^Furfante. 
 
thee genius and skill beyond all other men ? Put 
 off this sloth from thee as men put off a garment, 
 Benvenuto, and take up thy work again to the 
 greater glory of God ! ' 
 
 Now, when I recovered my senses there was no 
 living creature to be seen near or far, so it was 
 evident that this was a voice from Heaven, and as 
 I took my way back to Rome I pondered deeply 
 over the command that had been given me. The 
 end of the matter was that I went to the Cardinal 
 next morning and told him what had happened and 
 further that it was borne in on me that I should 
 show my gratitude to him, and to God who had 
 inspired his heart with pity for me and my misfor- 
 tunes, by executing for him such a piece of work as 
 should show the envious folk who belittled me that 
 it was not for nothing that he had persuaded the 
 Pope to release me from prison. His excellency 
 was pleased to say that the project was an excellent 
 one and that he would do all that lay in his power 
 towards the furtherance of it. I then told him that 
 it had been revealed to me that a large crucifix with 
 the figure of silver upon a cross of ebony was the 
 form which it was fitting this work should take, 
 8 1 But 
 
But the Cardinal showed that he was not well 
 pleased with my suggestion. 
 
 ' I have,' he said, ' some four pounds of silver which 
 the Duke sent me from his mines ; but if I give you 
 this it surely will not be enough for the figure you 
 design to make, while for a bowl or a salt-cellar it 
 would be ample. Besides which,' he continued, 'a 
 crucifix will give pleasure to but few, for it will be 
 seen only by those, and they are not many, who have 
 the privilege of entering my private oratory. But 
 reflect, Benvenuto, that a bowl or a salt-cellar will 
 be constantly before the eyes of those who sit at 
 table with me and therefore will be much more 
 to the glory of God who inspired you. Further 
 than this,' he said, 'you can in fashioning it work 
 more in the spirit of the ancients who excelled 
 all those of our own day in the beauty of their art.' 
 But I replied, ' It is very true, as your eminence 
 says, that a bowl or a salt-cellar will be the more 
 seen and therefore the more admired. But that 
 four or five pounds of silver is not enough for the 
 figure of Christ, 1 venture to dispute. I am not 
 one of those ignorant fellows who know not how 
 to spare their metal, but think that the more they 
 82 use 
 
use the better the result. Believe me when I tell 
 you that in the hands of one who is proficient in 
 his art, the quantity you mention is more than 
 ample for his needs. I have another reason which 
 I will now disclose which makes me wish rather to 
 make a crucifix than an ornament for your table, 
 and this it is. Everybody, nay, all Italy, knows well 
 that I am a most excellent silversmith and maker 
 of small pieces ; but Italy has yet to learn how 
 high I stand as a sculptor, so high indeed that I am 
 willing to stand comparison with my friend Messer 
 Michel Agnolo Buonarotti, than whom no man is 
 a more admirable master of the sculptor's art.' 
 Then the Cardinal laughed and said, ' I should 
 have known better than to try and reason with 
 you, Benvenuto, for by this time I have learnt 
 that to all argument which comports not with your 
 own wish you are deaf. Only this I would have 
 you remember. Strive to impart to the limbs of 
 thy dead Christ some of the grace and beauty of 
 that masterpiece of antiquity the Apollo, which is 
 to be seen in the Vatican, and which to my mind 
 is by far the finest thing in Rome,' and with this 
 he dismissed me. 
 83 Now 
 
Now the Cardinal had placed at my disposal a 
 sort of summer house which stood in the grounds 
 of his palace and had allowed me to have as my 
 assistants a young Roman, a craftsman in my own 
 trade, by name Piero, and my own pupil Arcanio, 
 of whom I have made mention before. To them 
 I entrusted the preparing of the silver and the 
 hammering it into plates of the thickness I required, 
 while I set to and modelled my dead Christ in 
 clay. But we had not been a month thus employed 
 when something occurred which vexed me. My 
 assistants had beaten out the Cardinal's silver and 
 I found by careful measurement that there would 
 be too little, by a cubit's square, for my figure. It 
 was doubtless the fever into which this annoyance 
 threw me — for after my boasting, how could I tell 
 his eminence of the quandary in which I found 
 myself — that was responsible for the difficulty I 
 met with in modelling the face of my figure. 
 Work at it as I would I could not satisfy myself 
 that it did me justice. Thus I was doubly irked, 
 and thinking that violent exercise might restore 
 me to myself and so tranquilize me that I should 
 be able with ready assurance to ask his eminence 
 84 for 
 
for the extra pound or so of silver that I wanted, 
 I set off on a brisk walk into the country. Hardly 
 had I started, when, as I was crossing the Bridge 
 of St. Angelo, I saw in front of me and going my 
 way, one Messer Jacopo di Rossoli, a goldsmith of 
 my acquaintance. Now I was glad to see this man, 
 though I accounted him ignorant as well as 
 malicious, for one reason in particular. It had 
 happened some three years before this that the 
 fellow had come to me in great distress. He had 
 been entrusted with a fine piece of work by Pope 
 Clement and found himself unable to finish it for 
 lack of silver. I had several bars of the metal lying 
 idle in my workshop at the time, and moved with 
 compassion at the hard plight of one who could 
 claim at least to be a fellow craftsman, I said, ' Take 
 what you want, weigh it, and repay me when you 
 are able in God's name.' He gladly availed him- 
 self of my generosity, but such had been his cir- 
 cumstances that for a year or more he was in no 
 position to repay the loan, and after that affairs of 
 greater magnitude had occupied my attention so 
 that I had forgotten it, nor did Ser Jacopo deem it 
 worth while to remind me. Now, however, it came 
 85 into 
 
into my mind that here was a man who owed me 
 the precise amount of silver that was necessary for 
 the Cardinal's crucifix, and there was about him an 
 air of prosperity that suggested he was well able 
 to discharge his obligation. It fell out, therefore, 
 that I greeted him civilly, and walking by his side 
 fell into conversation with him. By this means I 
 learnt that he was on his way to Tre Fontane on 
 the Ostian Road, where he had lately set up his 
 workshop. He had been in the city to purchase 
 some silver in the rough, and as he hugged close 
 to his side a leathern bag, I judged that in it he 
 carried the bars which, by the appearance of the bag, 
 were about equal to the weight he owed me. So, 
 in a courteous fashion, as is my wont when dealing 
 with those I consider my inferiors, I introduced 
 the subject of his debt to me, and making no bones 
 about it, told him exactly how I was situated and 
 in what need I stood of the silver. Judge of my 
 surprise when the scoundrelly ingrate denied all 
 obligation to me, insisting that I had given, not 
 lent, the silver to him, and defying me to produce 
 any written note of indebtedness. Transported 
 with rage, I seized him by the throat and shook 
 86 him 
 
him violently, but without causing him to waver 
 in his determination, to which he gave utterance 
 when I released him, to deny his debt to me. My 
 choler and indignation were almost too much for 
 me and once more I shook the wretched embezzler, 
 then hurled him from me with such force that he 
 fell forward on his hands and knees. Such, how- 
 ever, was the evil nature of this man that even 
 then he repeated in a mocking voice : * 
 ' I owe you nothing ! Show me my receipt for the 
 silver and I will pay it you, for I have it here ! ' 
 This last remark of his was an unfortunate one 
 for him to make, for it aroused me to fresh fury ; 
 drawing from my girdle a Turkish dagger, the 
 handle of which was richly damascened and the 
 blade of exquisite keenness, I plunged it between 
 his shoulders with all the force of which I was capa- 
 ble. The blow must have taken a slanting direction, 
 for it evidently pierced his heart, and to my sur- 
 prise when I turned him over the man was dead. 
 I dragged the corpse to the roadside and covered 
 the face decently with leaves, but before I did this 
 I took the bag of silver, and as, when I weighed 
 it in my hand, it seemed to nearly equal the 
 87 amount 
 
 *Mi mimichione. 
 
amount he owed me, I slung it across my shoulder. 
 As there was no one in sight who could set an 
 inquiry on foot and cause me trouble, I retraced 
 my steps to the city and went straight to my work- 
 shop. Here, after washing my hands, which had 
 been smeared with Jacopo's blood when I turned 
 the body over, the first thing I did was to care- 
 fully weigh the silver, resolving in my own mind 
 that if it exceeded the amount that was justly 
 owing to me I would take some means of secretly 
 conveying the difference to his family, for through- 
 out my life I have striven to be honest and straight- 
 forward in all my dealings. Had I thought I had 
 wronged a widow and her orphans I should have 
 taken no delight in my work. However, when 
 I came to weigh the silver I found to my amaze- 
 ment that there was not the difference of the 
 weight of a grain of wheat between the silver in 
 Jacopo's bag and the amount he owed me. Then 
 I clearly perceived that the finger of God was in 
 all this, and throwing myself on my knees I 
 returned thanks to Him for showing me a way 
 out of my difficulties. And as I prayed I heard 
 the same voice which I had heard on the day of 
 88 the 
 
the Feast of the Purification, and it said, * Arise, 
 Benvenuto, and finish the work thou hast begun 
 and have confidence in thyself and the strength 
 that shall be given thee ! ' I followed the com- 
 mand thus graciously given me forthwith, first, 
 however, taking a hearty meal, for I had been 
 fasting since early morning and felt the need of 
 repairing my strength. Then I set to at my 
 modelling, and never have I known the clay so 
 obedient to my fingers and my modelling tools. 
 I worked by lamp-light when the sun's light failed 
 me and before midnight I had completed my 
 model, and sure never was anything more admi- 
 rable seen by mortal eye. The features wore an 
 aspect of divine benignity, with such fair grace as 
 for certain the mind of man had ere this not been 
 able to conceive. So rejoiced was I at the outcome 
 of my labours that I made bold to awake the 
 Cardinal and pray him to come down and view 
 my model. He grumbled finely at first, for these 
 great men are not wont to be disturbed, but at last 
 consented and throwing a furred robe over his 
 bed-gown he came to my workshop. When he 
 saw my Christ, which I had disposed to good 
 89 effect 
 
effect in the lamp-light, he said, ' Of a truth, 
 Benvenuto, you have given me the right to steal 
 your name. For well it is that I have come to see 
 so surpassing a work.* Faith, I know not whether 
 it be luckier for me to have found a man so after 
 my own heart, or for you to have found a Cardinal 
 willing to furnish you the means to carry out 
 your great ideas ! ' 
 
 The next day I began in earnest on the task of 
 producing In silver the work I had modelled in 
 clay, and that you may understand how I did this 
 I can do no better than repeat to you what I said 
 to his eminence when he asked me how I intended 
 to perform so difficult an operation. And this is the 
 way in which I began explaining it to the Cardinal. 
 Quoth I : 
 
 ' There are many different ways of doing the thing, 
 and each master chooses the method to which his 
 excellence as a craftsman or his fancy guides him. 
 First of all, having made your figure in clay as in 
 the present case has been done, you make a plaster 
 mould of it in many pieces, the breast and the back 
 forming two pieces and the arms, head and legs 
 each in two pieces. These moulds are then cast in 
 90 bronze 
 
 *Bene e que sono venuto, etc. 
 
bronze. Now you have your sheets of silver handy 
 of such sizes as you deem expedient and laying 
 them over the bronze moulds you begin to ham- 
 mer it with wooden hammers and so carefully 
 round it over the various forms; at intervals you 
 will find it necessary to anneal your sheets of silver 
 by heating them over a charcoal brazier to a red 
 heat. The discreet and cunning master gives a few 
 strokes of the hammer to the edges so as to 
 cause them to overlap slightly. Then he cuts these 
 edges into jags with a pair of scissors and fits one 
 into the other, tightening them with nice judgment 
 with his hammer, holding them over a round stake 
 of iron so as not to indent the silver. 
 ' When all is finished and the various pieces forming 
 the body, legs, arms and head joined together, they 
 are filled with pitch and wrought over with ham- 
 mer and chases until they present an exact render- 
 ing of the clay model. Finally, they are soldered 
 together into one, and the statue or figure is 
 completed.' 
 
 When I had delivered myself of these words to 
 the Cardinal he was pleased to say that I had set 
 it before him so clearly and he had understood 
 91 it 
 
it so well that he thought he was very nearly able 
 himself to undertake such a work. Then said I : 
 'There are, your eminence, other methods which 
 a master thoroughly conversant with his craft may 
 employ, and these methods are really easier in 
 execution though they seem somehow to be harder 
 of explanation.' 
 
 Whereupon the Cardinal retorted that verily he 
 was a great lover of genius ; * that I had spoken 
 so convincingly of the one that he would willingly 
 take my word for the other. 
 Now the way that I actually worked my crucifix 
 was as follows : When I had cast and hammered 
 my silver into sheets I placed my clay model before 
 me, and went straight at the job, and with my 
 consummate knowledge of the hammer and of 
 hammer work beat the sheets into form, striking 
 them from front or from back as the nature of the 
 work demanded. Arms, legs and body I ham- 
 mered out in separate pieces, and the head I 
 treated as though it were a vase, employing for 
 this purpose the tool we call a snarling-iron, the 
 fixed end of which we strike with a hammer so 
 that the free end beats out the silver by sheer 
 92 force 
 
 * Virtu. 
 
force of vibration. Now I dosed the pieces up by 
 soldering, then filled them with pitch and finished 
 by chasing as I told of to the Cardinal. Then came 
 the job of soldering the arms, legs and head to 
 the body and the figure was finished, there remain- 
 ing only the task of setting it upon the cross, 
 which I had made in the blackest of ebony. This, 
 then, is how I brought to a successful conclusion 
 the making of my great crucifix for the Cardinal 
 of Ferrara. 
 
 The time had now come for the Cardinal himself to 
 see my work, and I had so arranged matters that it 
 was completely finished and in its place before 
 I took him to view it. At first he said nothing, 
 but looked at it from this point and then from 
 that just as though he were an expert. This, I take 
 it, however, was rather to try me and to keep me 
 in suspense than out of any real knowledge of 
 the rules of art. At length he could keep up the 
 pretense no longer, but falling on my neck he ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 'At last I have found a man after my own heart. 
 Benvenuto, you have given me what all Rome will 
 envy me. Ask of me what you will and I will try 
 93 to 
 
to give it you. You are the prince of sculptors, as 
 I am Prince of the Church, so that we are of the 
 same rank!' 
 
 So overcome was I by his condescension that at first 
 I was unable to say a word. Plucking up courage, 
 however, I made shift to thank him, and then it 
 suddenly occurred to me that now was a good 
 time to straighten up that matter of Rossoli. So 
 without more ado I told the Cardinal all that had 
 happened, only that I omitted to say anything 
 about the bar of silver, thinking that to be a matter 
 that concerned myself alone. Beside which, indeed, 
 it was a little more difficult of explanation than the 
 other affair. Well, then the Cardinal at first looked 
 very grave and began to lecture me in no measured 
 terms on my violent temper. He also said that 
 unless I could restrain myself I should get into 
 difficulties some day or another much more serious 
 than this. 
 
 'Besides,' he said, 'you should have reflected on 
 your duty towards me and on the risk you ran of 
 hurting my interests. Suppose you had been dis- 
 covered on the spot and arrested. What would 
 have become of my crucifix, with you in prison, and 
 94 the 
 
the work half finished? Benvenuto, Benvenuto, be 
 careful that men call you not Malvenuto. As to 
 this affair of Rossoli, however, you may rely on 
 my protection. You are too good a workman for 
 us to lose for the sake of a rascal such as that. 
 But be more careful in the future, and when you 
 look at my crucifix consider that had it not been 
 for the kindness of Heaven you would never have 
 been allowed to complete that masterpiece.' And 
 with that he gave me his blessing, and I went 
 away very content. 
 
 95 
 
" Then came the final prcfcession " 
 
THE NEW WORLD 
 1510 A. D. 
 
 MEXICO 
 
A PRINCE OF SILVERSMITHS. HOW 
 MAXTLA THE HIGH PRIEST ASKED 
 OF MONTEZUMA HIS BEST AND HIS 
 DEAREST AS A GIFT TO THE GODS 
 
 t was the last day of the ancient 
 Mexican week of five days, and the 
 weekly fair was in progress in the 
 great market-place of Tenochtitlan, as 
 the City of Mexico was called by its original 
 inhabitants. From every direction there had 
 flocked crowds of peasants and artisans to make 
 their purchases, or to dispose of the results of 
 their labours, either at the work-bench or forge, 
 or in tilling the sparse soil of the surrounding 
 country. The huge square in which the market 
 was held, was surrounded by an arcade consist- 
 ing of gracefully-proportioned pillars of hewn 
 stone, supporting a roof of square slabs of the 
 same material. Thus was provided an abundance 
 of shady nooks, sheltered from the burning sun, 
 for gossip or for bargaining. They were a pic- 
 99 turesque 
 
turesque people who crowded the market-place, 
 even the poorer classes well clad in garments of 
 thin white cotton, girt at the waist with a broad 
 sash, often embroidered with richly-coloured linen 
 thread and always finished by a deep fringe of 
 gaily-hued cords. The tilmatli or cloak, of the 
 same finely-textured stuff, fell in graceful folds 
 from the shoulders and offered a telling contrast 
 to the rich copper complexion of the wearer. 
 The women, too, mixed freely with their husbands, 
 brothers and cousins, wearing several skirts or 
 petticoats of varying lengths, set off, like the girdles 
 and cloaks of the men, by coloured embroideries. 
 They wore no veils, as was the custom in some 
 distant parts of the empire, but displayed their far 
 from unattractive faces without false modesty or 
 shame, while their dark, coarse-textured locks fell 
 in straight lines, not without their pleasing effect, 
 within a few inches of their shoulders. It was not 
 a merry or a light-hearted crowd, however, and 
 there were to be heard here none of those inter- 
 changes of rustic wit or cheerful banter to which 
 we are accustomed in similar assemblages. There 
 was indeed nothing in the daily life of the Mexican 
 lOO of 
 
of those days to conduce to levity or high spirits. 
 Crushed beneath the yoke of an aristocratic and 
 ecclesiastic autocracy, ambition, with all that it 
 implies of strenuous effort and relief from mo- 
 notony, was absent, its place being taken by a 
 melancholy acquiescence in their absolute subjec- 
 tion to their superiors, whether civil or religious, 
 while the sombre structures of the pyramidal 
 teocallis, the temples, or rather the sacred sham- 
 bles, of a religion based upon human sacrifice, 
 shadowed at every turn the busy streets of the 
 city, and cast the gloom of cruel superstition over 
 every detail of the daily life of those who dwelt 
 therein. 
 
 The market-square itself was divided into quar- 
 ters or districts, each one allotted to the display 
 of goods or products of some particular class. 
 Here were great bales of cotton stuffs, and heaps 
 of garments, curtains, and coverings of the same 
 material, dyed in the brightest of colourings, 
 among which green predominated ; there the pot- 
 ters of Cholula had laid out in long rows their 
 platters, cups and vases, the latter deftly shaped in 
 imitation of some bird or animal and glazed in 
 loi appropriate 
 
appropriate colourings ; on this side the chair and 
 mat makers of Quauhtillan displayed their goods, 
 while on that, the goldsmiths of Azcapozalco 
 tempted their well-to-do customers with gold and 
 silver trinkets of elaborate design and curious 
 workmanship, conspicuous among them being the 
 figures of wild and domestic birds, clothed each 
 one with tiny sheets of precious metal, hammered 
 into the forms of separate feathers with surpassing 
 skill. There were great spaces, too, devoted to the 
 display of fruits and vegetables, many of them 
 products of the tropics, brought to the capital by 
 swift-speeding couriers for the delectation of the 
 Emperor and his chief nobles. Nor were flowers 
 absent, magnificent clusters of cut blossoms being 
 kept fresh by standing them in great earthenware 
 bowls of cool water, while a constant spray was 
 thrown over them, blown through hollow reeds 
 by their careful attendants. Meats, too, raw and 
 cooked into dainty messes, were for sale, while the 
 booths of the sellers of confectionery, in preparing 
 which the Mexicans were adepts, were thronged 
 with crowds of eager purchasers. So, too, were 
 those set apart for the sale of chocolatl, a beverage 
 1 02 compounded 
 
compounded of cacao beans, flavoured with vanilla 
 and whipped to a creamy froth so thick that it 
 was eaten rather than drunk. Such, too, was the 
 case with those where the inebriating pulque or 
 fermented juice of the aloe was dispensed to the 
 elders, among whom intoxication was considered a 
 merely venial error, though punished as a crime 
 among the youths and young men. 
 It was through this sedately-moving and some- 
 what mournful crowd that an elderly man, accom- 
 panied by two handsome lads, took his slow way, 
 pausing every now and then to scan the merchan- 
 dise laid in more or less tempting array before its 
 possible purchasers. By his white robes bordered 
 with black and by the black ribbon tightly drawn 
 across his forehead, by the emerald pendants in 
 his ears and the humming-bird's feather hanging 
 from the disfiguring gash in his lower lip, it was 
 evident that he belonged to the order of the priest- 
 hood. The gay feather mantle and helmet-like 
 head-dress, the golden greaves and jewelled girdle 
 of his young companion equally proclaimed him 
 to belong to one of the noble families of the 
 empire. Indeed, he was none other than Machula, 
 103 the 
 
the youngest son of Montezuma by his favourite 
 wife. The priest was his uncle, Huaca, who though 
 one of the temple attendants of Tezcatlipoca, the 
 chief of Mexican deities, had for some years past 
 devoted himself almost entirely to his nephew's 
 education. 
 
 ' Well, nephew,' he said in kindly tones, ' keep 
 thine eyes well open, for thou knowest well how 
 much depends on this day's seeing. Thou art to 
 choose a trade to which to apply thyself, and 
 whether it be the making of pots or the weaving of 
 mats that thou electest to set thine hand to, which- 
 ever or whatever it may be, for the next seven, 
 years it must be thy daily occupation.' 
 * But, uncle,' said the boy, ' is it not passing strange 
 that I, a Prince, must learn a trade befitting, so it 
 would seem to me, only the base and lowly-born ? ' 
 ' Nephew ! ' was the stern reply ; ' question not the 
 order of our Lord Montezuma, thy father. In his 
 wisdom he has decreed that thou as his youngest 
 son shalt learn a trade, so that if aught betide thee 
 in time to come, when thy father is no longer here 
 to protect and cherish thee, thou shalt have thy 
 living in thy finger-tips. Even should such dark 
 104 days 
 
days not descend on thee, then our lord declares 
 it will be to thy advantage to know how those 
 beneath thee live and work, * 'Twill make him 
 fitter to govern if he learn how to be governed,' 
 says thy father.' 
 
 ' Then, uncle, I have made up my mind,' said the 
 boy, whose eyes during this talk with the priest 
 had been wandering at intervals to one side where 
 the silver workers of Azcapozalco had displayed 
 their wares. ' I remember how thou wert wont to 
 tell me that the great god Quetzalcoatl, when he 
 walked the earth as a man and taught his children 
 how to live and how to fashion things, delighted 
 above all to work in silver, and showed his chil- 
 dren how to coax the white metal out of the rocks 
 by fire, and having gained it, to work it cunningly 
 into every sort of ornament. Even then, when I 
 was only a boy,' and he drew himself up proudly, 
 as though oppressed with the weight of years, ' I 
 used to think that if I had to work, I had rather 
 work in silver than in aught else. Let me be a 
 silver worker, uncle, and I will make thee a chain 
 for thy neck that thou wilt be proud to wear.' 
 ' So be it, Machula mine,' said the priest, tenderly. 
 105 'From 
 
' From this day forth thou art not only Machula 
 
 the Prince, but Machula the silversmith.' 
 
 ' Perchance the prince of silversmiths ? Eh, uncle ? ' 
 
 laughed the lad. 
 
 ' Perchance. Who knows ? ' was the grave reply. 
 
 II 
 
 It was three years later, or, according to our 
 reckoning, the autumn of 1510, and the city of 
 Tenochtitlan lay under a heavy cloud of dismay 
 and apprehension. The streets were still thronged 
 with people as of yore, but to their wonted aspect 
 of mild melancholy had been added a constant look 
 of terror and fear which was apparent in all classes, 
 the haughty nobles who sped swiftly through 
 the broad cement-paved streets in their gorgeous 
 litters, as well as the semi-nude slaves on whose 
 brown shoulders rested the carved litter-poles. 
 On a people so bound in the thralls of a religion 
 based on cruelty and degrading superstition it was 
 not strange that omens of every sort should exer- 
 cise a powerful influence, and omens of the most 
 diverse as well as of the most startling character 
 had in Tenochtitlan of late been following each 
 1 06 other 
 
other in breathless succession. The sacred lake of 
 Tecuzco, upon which the city stood, had for the 
 first time in the memory of man, and for no 
 apparent cause, overflowed its banks and wrought 
 ruin and havoc to that part of the city lying at the 
 lowest level. Three comets had blazed in the sky 
 for the space of six weeks and had then disappeared 
 as suddenly as they came. A strange light had 
 made its appearance in the east. Extending over 
 a quarter of the horizon at its base it tapered 
 gradually upwards towards the zenith, looking like 
 a great sheet of flame, thickly powdered with stars, 
 while low voices breaking into dismal wailings 
 were heard in the air. All this was terrifying. 
 Naturally the people turned first to their priests 
 not only for an explanation of these dread por- 
 tents, but for direction as to the most fitting 
 manner in which they could pacify the gods who 
 thus displayed their anger. A priesthood would 
 have been singularly ignorant of its business if it 
 had not had an answer pat and ready to queries 
 of such a nature. Now no one who has studied 
 their records will accuse the Mexican priests of 
 ignorance of aught a self-respecting priesthood 
 107 should 
 
should know likely to aid them in increasing their 
 hold upon a superstitious people. So it had been 
 announced that the gods were angry. That much 
 the people readily agreed to believe ; but why this 
 sudden anger ? Had they not sacrificed their 
 thousands of captives, their own children and their 
 loveliest maidens ? Had they not paid in tribute 
 to the temples through the guardians thereof, 
 the priests, at least a tenth of all their belongings ? 
 Had they not joined in the processions in honor 
 of Tlaloc the dread god of rain, of Tezcatlipoca 
 the dread mirror of the world, of Nitzilopochtli 
 the great Sun-God, the humming-bird who flies 
 to the left, as his name denotes ? Had they not 
 done all these things, and had they not brought 
 the best of their crops, their finest melons and 
 their most luscious fruits to place on the altar 
 of the benign Quetzalcoatl, for whose second 
 coming from the east to punish their enemies 
 and to exalt themselves the Aztecs prayed so 
 earnestly, year after year and generation after 
 generation ? Had they not done all these things ? 
 Why then were the gods so angry ? But the 
 priests were accustomed to answer harder ques- 
 io8 tions 
 
tions even than this, and their answer therefore 
 was not long delayed. It was Quetzalcoatl who 
 was aggrieved. For ten years past, owing to the 
 weakness of the Emperor Montezuma in listening 
 to the advice of his ally and fellow monarch, 
 Nezahualcoyotl, Prince of Tezcuco, the sacrifice 
 made to this great god had consisted of flowers 
 and fruit and sweet-scented gums, instead of the 
 captives and victims who were immolated on the 
 altars of his rival deities. Now the priests declared 
 Quetzalcoatl was jealous and nothing would satisfy 
 him and prevent his showing his anger by deeds 
 rather than by portents save the sacrifice of a 
 special victim. Montezuma dared not withstand 
 the frenzied demands of the people, led by the 
 priests. A victim had accordingly been chosen. 
 One of the handsomest and most physically per- 
 fect youths to be found in Tenochtitlan had been 
 chosen and solemnly set aside for the sacrifice. 
 Placed in the hands of tutors, he was carefully 
 taught how to conduct himself with grace and 
 decorum in the dread part he was to enact. Clothed 
 in a splendid dress embellished with the most 
 brilliant of feathers, crowned with chaplets of 
 109 flowers. 
 
flowers, he was attended when he went abroad by 
 a retinue of the Emperor's pages, and wherever 
 he halted the people prostrated themselves before 
 him as though he were Quetzal coatl himself. A 
 month before the appointed day, four of the 
 fairest damsels in the city were appointed to min- 
 ister to him, his days were passed in amusements 
 and pleasures of every description, and his nights 
 in feasting and banqueting at the tables of the 
 chief nobles, who honoured him as though he were 
 in truth a god. It was the eve of the fatal day of 
 execution, and already one of the royal barges 
 lay in readiness to carry him across the lake 
 to the great teocalli, fashioned like a huge pyra- 
 mid, on whose summit the sacrifice was to be 
 offered. It was at this juncture that the heaviest 
 blow which, in the priests' estimation, had ever 
 befallen the city, was struck. Nervous excitement, 
 acting on a youthful frame weakened by long 
 months of excess and dissipation, proved too 
 much for the petted victim. As the priests were 
 divesting him of his gorgeous apparel, prior to his 
 embarkation on the barge of death, he fell forward 
 with a gasping cry, and when they came to raise 
 no him. 
 
him, he was dead. The news quickly ran through 
 the city, and the state of terrified consternation 
 into which it threw the teeming thousands who 
 formed the population is indescribable. There 
 was not a man, woman or child in the city of 
 Tenochtitlan who did not believe that the nation 
 was doomed. Clearly Quetzalcoatl had rejected 
 their proffered sacrifice and was not to be ap- 
 peased. 
 
 In one of the inner rooms in the straggling pile 
 of buildings which was the palace of Montezuma, 
 sat the Emperor himself, the old Tecuzcan King 
 Nezahualcoyotl, and Maxtla the high priest. 
 The room was a spacious one, the ceiling elabo- 
 rately inlaid with cedar and other odoriferous 
 woods formed into the most intricate pattern, the 
 walls draped with gaily-colored woven tapestries 
 and the polished stone floor strewn with the rugs 
 of delicate furs. Montezuma himself reclined 
 upon a sort of couch of richly-carved cedar wood, 
 overlaid with plate of beaten gold, his ally Neza- 
 hualcoyotl sat near him on a simple bench of the 
 same wood, innocent of adornment, while Maxtla 
 stood in an attitude of easy deference before them. 
 Ill Montezuma 
 
Montezuma wore his royal robes, the tilmatli or 
 mantle of blue and white held at the throat by the 
 clasp of precious chalchivitl, an emerald-like stone 
 sacred to royalty ; emeralds themselves, being of 
 lesser value, were used to decorate the border of 
 the mantle. His feet were shod in golden sandals, 
 golden greaves of curious workmanship covered 
 his legs from the knees downwards, while on his 
 brow he wore the imperial copilli, or diadem 
 of beaten gold, not unlike a pontifical tiara in 
 appearance. His ally was dressed in a simple 
 garment of woven stuff, a feather mantle alone 
 denoting his rank, while Maxtla wore the sombre 
 black and white robes of the priesthood. The 
 priest spoke first. 
 
 ' It is evident, O Montezuma,' he said, ' that we 
 have offended. Evident too that Quetzalcoatl the 
 Lord of the Air despises our victim and calls for 
 something more precious. All night long have I 
 kept vigil, fasting, in his temple, and with the dawn 
 I saw a vision and it was revealed to me what 
 must be done to repair the blunder that has been 
 committed. The god demands our best and dear- 
 est. We thought we had given him our best but he 
 112 refused 
 
refiased it with contumely. It was while musing on 
 this that the revelation came to me. It is thou, 
 O Montezuma, thou, the father of thy people, 
 who must provide the sacrifice and give of thy 
 best and dearest.' 
 
 ' What say you, Nezahualcoyotl ? ' said Monte- 
 zuma, gravely. 
 
 ' I think the priest speaks fairly,' said the old 
 king, ' though for myself, I think it was the 
 smell of blood that was ill savoured in the god's 
 nostrils.' 
 
 The priest shot a glance of scorn at the mild and 
 venerable looking old monarch. 
 ' Then is he like no other god we pray to,' he 
 said. ' It was revealed to me,' and his voice rose 
 in a savage ecstacy, ' that it was because he has 
 not been fed on men's blood for these ten years 
 past that he is wroth with us.' 
 ' Well,' said the Emperor. ' What have I to offer 
 of my best. This jewel here ? ' and he touched 
 the green gem at his throat ; ' there is none other 
 of like value in my kingdom, yet freely would I 
 give it for my people's sake.' 
 ' Nay, Lord Montezuma,' said the priest. ' Even 
 113 if 
 
if thou wert to offer that, yet within a space of 
 six moons thou wouldst send to the mines of 
 Cholula and gain from there a stone even larger 
 and of a deeper green in hue than that which it 
 would be an insult to the god to offer him.' 
 ' What then am I to sacrifice ? ' asked Montezuma, 
 pettishly. 
 
 ' Before the setting of the sun,' said the priest, 
 grimly, ' it will be revealed to me, and then I 
 warn thee, O King, that whatever I may demand 
 from thee that must thou relinquish cheerfully and 
 with good will, or on thy head, rather than on 
 thy people, shall the vengeance of the outraged 
 god fall.' 
 
 The words had scarcely left his lips when the 
 curtains at the far end of the chamber were parted 
 and a youth pushed his way through them, carry- 
 ing under his arm a package wrapped in cotton 
 cloth. It was Machula, and as his father's eye fell 
 on him it lit up with pleasure, for among all his 
 children none was dearer to him than this boy. 
 Machula was now in his eighteenth year, tall and 
 slender, with the long black hair, falling over his 
 shoulders in sign of his nobility, framing a bronze- 
 114 coloured 
 
coloured face of perfect oval outline. His dark 
 lustrous eyes were ablaze with excitement as he 
 stopped at the threshold and stammered out an 
 apology for his intrusion. 
 
 ' I thought thou wert alone, my father,' said he, 
 ' and I had something to show thee.' 
 ' Thou shouldst be more careful, my little son,' said 
 Montezuma, with a pretense of sternness, ' but 
 since thou art here show me what wonderful thing 
 thou hast wrapped up as though it were too precious 
 for common eyes to view it. This,' he added, turn- 
 ing courteously to the Tecuzcan King, ' is my 
 Machula, my little silversmith. Thou knowest 
 'twas by thy advice I had him taught a trade, and 
 the craft he chose was that of silver-working.' 
 ' In the which,' said Nezahualcoyotl, ' the divine 
 Quetzalcoatl was himself proficient when he trod 
 the earth in the guise of a man.' 
 ' Yes, father,' interjected the boy, eagerly, ' and it is 
 the bowl on which I have been hard at work for 
 a year past that I have brought to show thee.' 
 He knelt down before his father, hastily stripped 
 off the cotton cloth and proudly displayed the 
 large flat bowl or dish which he had been carrying 
 115 under 
 
under his arm. It was a flat bowl, the rim of which 
 was ornamented with a pierced decoration of ex- 
 cessive minuteness, while to serve as its stand the 
 artificer had fashioned four birds, not unlike quail, 
 facing four different ways, so that the bowl rested 
 upon their necks and backs. On the rim, perched 
 as though in the attitude of drinking, was a delicate 
 little humming-bird, rendered with a marvellous 
 closeness to nature. Each separate feather of the 
 plumage, each tiny scale upon the feet of these 
 birds, was worked with absolute fidelity. It was 
 really a piece of superb silver carving, for after the 
 main forms had been modelled and cast, the fin- 
 ishing touches had been given with a variety of 
 bronze chisels, the metal being practically cut into 
 the required form and not coaxed and humored as 
 by the chasing tools of European silversmiths. 
 'And didst thou really fashion this thyself and 
 unaided, little son ? ' queried Montezuma. 
 ' Aye, father. No other hand has laid tool to it.' 
 ' Look you, Neza ! look you, Maxtla ! Saw ever 
 any one the like of it ? Why, canst hear the buzz 
 of the humming-bird's wings and the cluck-cluck 
 of the brown birds as they take refuge in the long 
 ii6 grass. 
 
grass. And to think the lad should have done 
 this at his age ! Little son,' he continued, turning 
 to the boy with fatherly pride and affection. ' Be 
 sure there is no jewel in my treasure-house which 
 can compare in value in my eyes with this work 
 of thine. I must have it ever by me, and when I 
 look on it I shall feel proud of my little Machula, 
 who has had the skill to fashion the most cher- 
 ished of his father's possessions.' 
 As the words left his lips a keen look passed 
 between the old King and the priest, and the latter 
 stepped forward. 
 
 ' The revelation has been made sooner than I 
 expected. Lord Montezuma,' he said, ' here at 
 least is a possession it is worth thy while to offer 
 to Quetzalcoatl.' 
 
 Montezuma sank back upon the couch and bit 
 his lip in visible annoyance and chagrin. 
 ' Canst ask for nothing else, Maxtla,' he said, 
 ' 'twill break the lad's heart to see his pretty toy 
 go from him. But still, if thou think'st it neces- 
 sary.' 
 
 ' Why, Father, what is the matter ? Why does 
 Maxtla scowl so at my poor handiwork ? ' 
 117 'Trouble 
 
' Trouble not thyself, little son. When we are 
 alone, and it is my will to be alone now, Maxtla, 
 I will explain to thee why for the sake of others 
 thou must give up something that is very dear to 
 thee,' and he drew the youth down to his side 
 with a caressing gesture. 
 
 As Maxtla and the old King left the chamber, the 
 latter glanced with surprise at his companion's 
 satunine face. 
 
 ' Art not satisfied, Maxtla ? ' he queried in his 
 kindly tones. ' Have matters not turned out 
 precisely as thou would'st have had them ? ' 
 ' I was thinking,' said the priest sullenly, ' that if 
 Montezuma sets such store by this poor thing of 
 carven silver, how much dearer to him must be 
 the boyish hands which fashioned it.' 
 ' Why, Maxtla ? Thou surely canst not mean — ?' 
 ' I mean only this, O King ! The god claims the 
 Montezuma's best and dearest, and it is fitting he 
 should have it.' 
 
 Ill 
 
 The long and tedious ceremonials of the day 
 were nearly over, and Machula, who was playing 
 1 1 8 one 
 
one of the chief parts therein, found himself look- 
 ing somewhat eagerly for sunset and the final act 
 of sacrifice. Yet it must be confessed that, boy-like, 
 he had found more pleasure than he had antici- 
 pated in sitting in the gorgeous litter holding at 
 arms' length the silver bowl which his father had 
 reluctantly consented to sacrifice to the great God 
 Quetzalcoatl. Machula himself was now reconciled 
 to the loss of his year's work, and felt a certain 
 amount of pride in the thought that it was his 
 work that was rendered of such supreme import- 
 ance. So when the litter stopped, and the long 
 line of bystanders, who thronged the great cement 
 causeway which bisected the city and down which 
 the procession took its way, fell prostrate in 
 obeisance before him, he felt as though at last he 
 were almost of equal importance to his elder 
 brother Thoan, who, as heir-apparent, had always 
 been accorded honours far exceeding those paid 
 to Machula. So, too, he had enjoyed the row in 
 one of his father's state barges across the lake to 
 the huge pyramidal temple, where they were met 
 by troops of white-clad girls scattering sweet- 
 scented blossoms in their path. Then had come 
 119 the 
 
the slow procession up the inclined plane which 
 circled around the temple from the base to the flat 
 platform like summit where the real house of the 
 gods was erected. They had paused before the 
 images, not only of the benign and beneficent 
 Quetzalcoatl, but of the hideous Huitzilopotchli, 
 the dread god of war. Machula had wondered 
 vaguely why in front of the idol Quetzalcoatl had 
 been erected the huge slab of green jasper known 
 as a techcatl or sacrificial stone in place of the 
 bronze brazier for the burning of odoriferous 
 gums which had stood there on his last visit to 
 the temple as a spectator of, and not as a chief 
 actor in, the religious drama. He said nothing to 
 Maxtla, who was by his side, however, and his 
 attention was soon attracted by the preparations 
 for the ceremonious removal of the image of 
 Quetzalcoatl from its pedestal preparatory to its 
 being placed in a gorgeous litter, similar to that in 
 which Machula and the high priest were seated. 
 Then came the final procession around the pillared 
 temple itself with the god in his feather-decked 
 chariot, borne on the shoulders of eight priests, 
 leading the way. At length the weary gyrations 
 1 20 were 
 
were over, the last song had been sung, the last 
 cluster of delicate blossoms cast to the ground in 
 front of the god. He had been returned to his 
 pedestal and the act of sacrifice was about to begin. 
 ' Take the silver dish in thy two hands and raise 
 it high above thy head,' whispered Maxtla, the 
 priest, as a sort of stage-direction to the youth, 
 who by this time was somewhat awed and fright- 
 ened by the ceremonial. ' Stand at this end of the 
 techcatl,' he continued, 'and face the people.' 
 Machula did as he was bidden. There was a 
 moment's pause, and then with a sudden move- 
 ment of his muscular right arm the priest struck 
 the boy a heavy blow in the throat. He staggered 
 backwards, the silver vessel fell clanging to the 
 stone floor and Machula lay stretched at full 
 length on his back on the rounded top of the sacri- 
 ficial stone. There was a second movement of the 
 priest's arm. The keen-bladed dagger grasped in 
 his right hand sunk deep into the lad's bosom. 
 Like a tiger leaping for his prey the priest hurled 
 himself on the quivering body. With a precision 
 born of horrid custom he slashed this way and 
 that across the boyish breast, plunged his sinewy 
 121 hand 
 
hand into the opening he had formed and holding 
 a nameless something aloft before the impassive 
 idol he shrieked out : 
 
 ' Take the heart of this, thy victim, O Mighty 
 God of the Air, and may it prove acceptable in 
 thy sight. This is Montezuma's best, this is his 
 dearest, and in the name of all his people he offers 
 it to thee, O Quetzalcoatl, as a peace offering ! ' 
 
 ******** 
 
 As in the dusk of evening the priests and wor- 
 shippers filed slowly out of the temple and began 
 to descend to the lake again, they left in the 
 gathering gloom of the inner shrine Machula's 
 silver bowl standing on the green stone in front 
 of Quetzalcoatl's image. But in the center of it 
 lay in a blackened coagulating pool of blood the 
 heart of the princely silversmith, its artificer. 
 
 122 
 
" Caught sight of the disturber of the woodland solitude " 
 
THE NEW WORLD 
 1757 A. D. 
 
 LAKE GEORGE 
 
IN THE NORTHERN WOODS. WHICH 
 WAS WHERE LIEUTENANT REVERE 
 ENGRAVED THE PAIR OF SILVER 
 BUCKLES LOST BY CELINE PARET 
 
 he clearing which General, afterwards 
 Sir William, Johnson's Indians had 
 made for the erection of Fort William 
 Henry was of an extent sufficient only 
 to aiFord space for the low, sand-heaped bastions 
 of this outpost of his Hanoverian Majesty's 
 American colonies. The tall pines and the sombre 
 hemlocks, the graceful birches and the silvery 
 maples uplifted themselves in all their virgin 
 majesty, within a short bowshot of the fort, so 
 that it was but a step from the cluster of sheds 
 and log-cabins which typified man's dominion 
 over these rude wilds, to the primeval forest itself 
 On this early fall afternoon, in the year 1757, it 
 was a pleasant change from the sultriness of the 
 shadeless enclosure, which the reflection of the sun 
 from the blue waters of Lake George seemed to 
 125 make 
 
make all the hotter and more oppressive, to the 
 dark recesses of the woodland. Evidently one of 
 General Winslow's young officers had found it so. 
 So soon as morning drill was over, with its con- 
 comitant of rasping strictures on the handful of 
 colonial artillerymen who formed his command 
 from the irascible King's officer. Colonel Monroe, 
 Lieutenant Revere had wrapped a piece of dried 
 beef and a hunch of very indifferent bread in a 
 clean pocket handkerchief, stuiFed it into the tail 
 pocket of his cutaway uniform coat and disappeared 
 from the fort into the leafy fastnesses of the forest. 
 Close together as the trees grew, the forest was 
 nevertheless no gloomy place. These northern 
 woods are bathed with a flood of filtered sunlight, 
 which somehow intensifies the greenness, not only 
 of the tree foliage, but the underbrush as well. 
 From the dark olive of the hemlock boughs to 
 the translucent emerald of the ferns and mosses, 
 it is a symphony of green, such as rests and soothes 
 the eye in no other quarter of the round globe. 
 Early as it was in the season, however, the maples 
 were touched here and there with a russet, giving 
 promise of those gorgeous tints with which the 
 126 first 
 
first frosts would paint them, while the sumach 
 and trailing brambles also gave a hint that when 
 summer finally took its departure, it would march 
 out attended by a noisy bravura of riotous colour. 
 With his untanned leathern gaiters and tight knee 
 breeches of doe-skin. Lieutenant Revere up to 
 the waist was a woodsman, a hunter or a trapper, 
 though in obedience to the ridiculous British ideas 
 of military fitness, he was, as regards the upper 
 part of his body, buttoned and stocked and pipe- 
 clayed into a fair imitation of a British ' i-egular.' 
 Nevertheless, he was able, with his colonial training 
 and habitude to the woods, to make fair progress, 
 especially as his way led him along the broad trail, 
 dignified by the name of the King's Road, which 
 skirted along the lake's shores until it reached 
 Ticonderoga and French territory, some thirty 
 miles away. He had been walking for an hour or 
 so, and had put some five miles between himself 
 and the fort, when he suddenly swerved aside 
 from the main trail and struck to the left by a 
 pathway, perceptible only to the keen and trained 
 eye of the woodman. Apparently, however, the 
 lieutenant was familiar with the way, for he trod 
 127 with 
 
with an assured step, betraying his upbringing 
 only in unconscious heedfulness, as it were, with 
 which as he stepped, he placed his moccasined 
 feet so that every broken branch, every fallen twig, 
 every dry leaf even, was avoided, and the footfalls 
 were as silent and noiseless as those of a wild animal. 
 At length he seemed to have reached his goal. It 
 was a sufficiently charming little nook to have 
 warranted an even longer and more arduous jour- 
 ney in the reaching of it, A crystal stream of water 
 trickled over the brow of a moss-grown granite 
 boulder, at the foot of which it formed a tiny pool 
 or lakelet, which an athletic man might have 
 leaped across. A stout hemlock tree, its roots 
 undermined, doubtless in some time of freshet, 
 had fallen across it, but in such fashion as to span 
 it arch fashion. By a freak of nature, the wide- 
 spreading, upturned roots were so disposed as to 
 form a very fair imitation of a wide-seated arm 
 chair, a foot or two in front of which a gnarled and 
 ingrowing branch had so grown as to form in its 
 turn a sort of flat-topped excrescence, in which it 
 needed no very great stretch of imagination to see 
 a fair apology for a table in front of the natural 
 128 chair 
 
chair formed by the roots. The lieutenant stood 
 contemplating the pleasant little nook for a few 
 moments and then, walking up to the tree, he 
 leisurely removed his uniform coat and hung it 
 carefully to a projecting branch. Rolling up the 
 sleeve of his coarse linen home-spun shirt, he 
 thrust his bared arm into a cleft in the trunk, 
 which evidently led to a hollow space within. From 
 this he withdrew, one after the other, two or three 
 small packages. With these he clambered into the 
 seat in the root and laid them on the little plat- 
 form in front of him. First there was an irregular 
 lump of clear yellow resin, imbedded in which 
 were two large, square, silver shoe-buckles, the 
 broad, flat surfaces of which were deeply lined in 
 an ornamental pattern. From another wrapper he 
 took some little, sharp-pointed, steel tools, each 
 set in a round wooden handle shaped somewhat 
 like a mushroom with one side cut away. They 
 were in fact the home-made burins of an engraver, 
 and in a very few moments the lieutenant had 
 taken one in his right hand, was holding the block 
 of resin firmly before him with his left, and the 
 sharp point of one of the burins, guided mainly 
 129 by 
 
by his broad phalanged thumb, was ploughing 
 out an infinitesimal shaving of silver from the 
 surface of one of the buckles. The lines thus pro- 
 duced were flowing and graceful, and already the 
 work was so far advanced that the design which 
 he was engraving on the surface of the buckles 
 could be clearly discerned. There was a border of 
 maple leaves outlined with exquisite fidelity, a 
 spray from one of the nearby trees lying on the 
 tree-trunk in front of him, and by this time 
 withered and dry, having evidently served him as 
 model, while within this border he was now at 
 work upon an entwined monogram, formed of the 
 two letters C. P., in old-fashioned script. The 
 lieutenant bent assiduously over his work, and 
 under his deft fingers the delicate lines in their 
 graceful curves came into being with a sureness 
 and lack of hesitation that betrayed the eye and 
 hand of the true artist and craftsman. His move- 
 ments were almost imperceptible, and as he sat 
 there the forest silence was as unbroken as though 
 he were a carven figure instead of a living man. 
 An impudent little chipmunk ran from the leafy 
 branches of the fallen tree along the trunk and then 
 130 stopped 
 
stopped short to gaze with its shining beads of eyes 
 at the intruder on its domain. Finding, however, 
 that there was nothing to be feared from him, it 
 gave a disdainful flirt of its bushy tail and let itself 
 cautiously down from its perch to the ground 
 beneath and started for the edge of the pool and 
 its afternoon drink of the clear, cold water. From 
 the lowermost branch of a hemlock nearby a 
 grey squirrel peered downward with an indignation 
 that soon found vent in a peevish chattering and 
 display of its long white teeth. If Neighbour 
 Chipmunk found nothing to complain of in the 
 advent of this strange beast. Master Squirrel had 
 a grievance of his own against him. Had he not 
 in violation of all the laws of decency cleared the 
 squirrel's storehouse, in the hollow trunk of the 
 fallen tree, of the choice collection of nuts he had 
 begun to gather together for his winter provenance, 
 and in their place put some useless sticks and a 
 lump of uneatable gum ? Could any self-respecting 
 squirrel witness such goings on and keep silence ? 
 Certainly not, and so in the choicest of squirrel 
 language he let the trespasser and house-breaker 
 know what he thought of him. Not that the 
 131 scolding 
 
scolding seemed to have any effect upon the 
 recipient. There was an introspective look in the 
 lieutenant's large grey eyes as he bent over his 
 work, that made it clear that his thoughts were 
 otherwhere than with his surroundings or even 
 with the work on which his nimble fingers were 
 engaged. That work indeed had reached a stage 
 where, as is so often the case with an artistic pro- 
 duction of any description, the creative has given 
 way to the merely technical, and the execution is 
 more or less subconscious. Revere's thoughts were 
 indeed far afield and were concerning themselves 
 with the incidents of the last few days, which inci- 
 dents had led to the somewhat unusual situation of 
 a lieutenant of artillery in the colonial forces, sitting 
 in a woodland solitude, engraving a pair of silver 
 shoe-buckles in as matter-of-fact a fashion as 
 though it were a part of his routine military duties. 
 He thought of that first meeting, now some three 
 weeks ago, when wandering through the woods on 
 just such an afternoon as this, he had caught sight 
 of something moving among the trees and heard 
 the foot-falls of some living creature. His quick 
 ears had at once apprised him of the fact that this 
 13a was 
 
was no native of the woods ; that it was neither a 
 wild animal nor an Indian. It must then be a spy 
 from the French fort at the further end of the lake. 
 Peering with stealthy caution through the trees, 
 he had at length caught sight of the disturber of the 
 woodland solitudes. It was no buck-skin habited 
 trapper lurking about the British settlement 
 to pick up such odds and ends of information 
 as might be useful to the French commander, 
 Vandreuil, who was in charge of Fort St. Fr6der- 
 ique, neither was it a blundering French soldier, 
 as the lieutenant had half expected would be the 
 case, on a similar errand bent. Instead, he saw, 
 picking her way with graceful care through the 
 tangled underbrush, a remarkably pretty young 
 woman, whose short striped skirt and brightly- 
 coloured bodice, laced over a snowy white chemi- 
 sette, whose bright red stockings and silver-buckled 
 shoes, betrayed even to his masculine gaze her 
 nationality. By his own countrywomen, or by such 
 of them at least who were to be found in the out- 
 lying settlements which the fort had been avowedly 
 built to protect, such gaiety of apparel would have 
 been regarded, if not as sinful, at any rate as 
 133 partaking 
 
partaking of foolishness. ' It must be a daughter 
 of one of the habitans on the French ' side," and 
 so thinking, the worthy lieutenant made up his 
 mind to refrain from prying and to slip away as 
 quietly as he had approached. But he was not to 
 get off so easily. Though quite unconscious of his 
 presence, the young girl made a sudden turn 
 which brought her right across the line of his 
 retreat, and in another second they were face to 
 face. She would not have been feminine if she 
 had not betrayed her surprise by a scream, but it 
 was a scream that had in it scarcely an element of 
 alarm, and indeed sounded musically in the young 
 man's ears. 
 
 ' Oh ! Mon Dieu ! ' she cried, ' Vous n'^tes pas un 
 sauvage ? ' with a tone of mock alarm. 
 ' No, madamoiselle,' answered the lieutenant in 
 very passable French. ' I hope I am not. I am an 
 Englishman.' 
 
 ' Well, if all one hears is true, the difference is one 
 in name only.' This is what she said; but the 
 coquettish smile which accompanied the words 
 showed that she did not intend them to be taken 
 very seriously. Indeed, half an hour later the two 
 134 were 
 
were sitting side by side on a fallen log and chat- 
 ting as amicably and light-heartedly as though 
 such a thing as enmity between their respective 
 nations were the most ridiculous of delusions and 
 the most obvious of misconceptions. The lieu- 
 tenant's French, though not of the purest or most 
 idiomatic, was enough for all practical and con- 
 versational purposes, for, as he was careful to 
 explain to his new acquaintance, his father had 
 come, if not from France itself, at least from one 
 of those Channel Islands, which were English only 
 in name and government. He made a point of 
 this as seeming likely to establish between them the 
 common tie of blood, and indeed it attained his 
 purpose for him, for the girl soon became quite 
 confidential with the good-looking young soldier 
 and told him, among other things, that her name 
 was Celine Paret, that she was the only child of a 
 French settler, who had a small clearing just 
 beyond the creek near Ticonderogue, that her 
 mother had died before they left their home 
 in Normandy a mile or two outside of Rouen, 
 and that she hated the loneliness and dullness of 
 life in this dismal forest. Sometimes, for days 
 135 together. 
 
together, she did not see even her father, who 
 made what little money they ever saw rather from 
 his skill as a trapper and hunter, than from his 
 labours on the acre or two he called his farm. Old 
 Jacques Paret, too, had threatened her with a 
 beating if he ever found her talking to any of the 
 garrison of the French fort, so that her only com- 
 panionship was the meeting, at long intervals, with 
 the young people of the one or two scattered farms 
 which lay within walking distance of Fort St. 
 Fr^derique. The lieutenant, on his side, spoke as 
 freely of himself and his surroundings. He told 
 her of his native Boston, and made her black eyes 
 sparkle with envious longing, as he described its 
 wide streets and its imposing shops. He told her 
 of his own father's modest store in North Square 
 and described the bowed windows with their small 
 panes, of the ground floor and the overhanging 
 upper stories. At this she clapped her hands in 
 delight, for it reminded her of the shop of her 
 ' parrain,* Monsieur Jeudet the hosier, in the Rue 
 de la Grosse Horloge of her beloved Rouen, 
 Then he told her she must not call him an 
 Englishman, but an American, for it appeared he 
 136 had 
 
had as little love for the island-born subjects of 
 King George as she herself. He confided to her, 
 too, his detestation, shared by all his comrades, of 
 his military commander. Colonel Monroe, who 
 hectored and bullied even their beloved General 
 Winslow, The latter, as a colonial, despite his skill 
 and experience of border warfare, was outranked by 
 this barrack-yard martinet, whose knowledge of the 
 art of war seemed to begin and end with the fit of 
 his men's stocks and the perfection with which 
 their belts were pipe-clayed. And he brought a 
 shade of melancholy to her face when he told her 
 how ardently he was looking forward to the end of 
 the following month when the term for which he had 
 volunteered would come to an end and he, with 
 some score of his companions, would bid adieu to 
 Fort William Henry and Lake George and set 
 oflTon their toilsome journey back to Boston and 
 civil life and home and comfort. 
 It must not be supposed that all this interchange 
 of confidences took place at this first interview. 
 It grew to be the daily habit of these two young 
 people to meet nearly every afternoon in the 
 woods at a spot where a tiny creek or brooklet, 
 137 owing 
 
owing to a dam which had been raised by a colony of 
 beavers who had long since deserted it, widened out 
 and formed a little pool overgrown with the broad 
 leaves of the water-lily. Old Paret was off on one 
 of his hunting expeditions and so the girl was free 
 to spend her time how she would, while the armed 
 truce prevailing between the two forts at that time, 
 left plenty of leisure upon the lieutenant's hands. 
 But despite these meetings, and their confidential 
 chatterings, the two remained on the same footing 
 of mere good-fellowship which had ushered in their 
 acquaintance. It is true that the lieutenant, as he 
 went about his garrison duties or lay in his narrow 
 shelf-like berth in the long, low, log cabin which 
 served as a dormitory for the officers of the little 
 company, found himself thinking continually of 
 his new-found companion, and we all know to 
 what the continual brooding by one young person 
 upon another of the opposite sex is apt to lead, 
 but let him evince a tendency to become senti- 
 mental when he met her in the day-time, a peal 
 of laughter issued from her ripe red lips, and he 
 found himself merely looking foolish instead of 
 impressive. 
 138 It 
 
It was of all these things, then, that he was think- 
 ing as the busy burin traveled over the smooth 
 surface of the silver. And he was thinking of 
 something else besides, namely of the innocent 
 jest which had led him to undertake the particular 
 work on which he was engaged. It was about a 
 week before this, that he had come to the trysting- 
 place some half an hour or so earlier than usual. 
 In place of the trim little figure sitting demurely 
 upon a flat rock near the water's edge awaiting his 
 coming, which he was wont to espy when he came 
 within sight of the pool, there was no one to be 
 seen. He had hardly sat down himself to wait for 
 her when he espied close beside him a pair of 
 little russet leather shoes with a red stocking 
 tucked neatly into each one. Glancing up the 
 course of the little streamlet he caught a glimpse 
 of a familiar red bodice, and then he knew what 
 the state of affairs was. Madamoiselle Paret had 
 evidently grown tired of sitting still, had slipped 
 off her shoes and hose, and in child-like fashion 
 was ' paddling ' in the brook. He thought he 
 would let her enjoy her innocent pastime a while 
 longer, but as he sat there smilingly contemplating 
 139 one 
 
one of the little shoes which he held in his hand, 
 the sight of the broad silver buckle gave him an 
 idea. Only the day before she had pouted her lips 
 when he had made some casual remark about 
 these same buckles. 'Horrid plain old things?' 
 she had called them. 'Why, Jeanne Dubourg, 
 the daughter of old Dubourg at the next farm, 
 has a pair which she is always flaunting at me. 
 Engraved ! Oh, engraved to a marvel, I assure 
 you. Monsieur Revere ! But these old things ! 
 Bah ! I am ashamed to be seen in them.' So she 
 wanted a pair of engraved buckles — 'cisel^es' — she 
 had termed them ? Well, she should have them, 
 and a fright beforehand. He quickly removed 
 the buckles from the shoes and placed them in 
 the inner pocket of his coat. Then he gave a call 
 and stole from the place into the woods behind. 
 Here he discreetly waited for a quarter of an hour 
 or so, and when he returned he found the owner 
 of the shoes sitting on the rock gazing very rue- 
 fully at them, for they were now on her shapely 
 little feet. ' Oh, Monsieur Revere,' she quavered. 
 ' Such a misfortune ! Whatever shall I say to my 
 father. I placed my shoes on this rock while I 
 140 cooled 
 
cooled my poor feet in the brook yonder, and 
 behold ! Some wandering Indian has stolen my 
 beautiful buckles ! ' No word now, it will be ob- 
 served, of their plainness or lack of engraving. 
 
 * I'm sure it was an Indian,' she went on, ' for I 
 saw one lurking around here when I came to meet 
 you, but he slunk away into the woods without 
 seeing me. 
 
 ' The loss of your buckles is a misfortune truly, 
 Madamoiselle,' replied the deceitful lieutenant, 
 ' but I think I see my way to repairing that. No, 
 I must not say another word about it at present 
 — only wait a week and I pledge you my word 
 you shall have your buckles back. But I do not 
 like to hear that you have seen an Indian lurking 
 around here. It makes me reflect that it is not 
 safe for you to take these long journeys through 
 the woods unaccompanied. I am afraid of what 
 might befall." 
 
 * Fi done. Monsieur ! A soldier and afraid ! The 
 Indians come more often to our home than the 
 white folk, and they are as harmless as harmless ! ' 
 ' Ah ! It is of the Sioux you speak. But those you 
 meet at this end of the lake are of the Iroquois tribe, 
 141 the 
 
the Five Nations, as they call themselves, allies of 
 the British, and taught, I fear, to look upon all 
 of your nation, women as well as men, as their 
 enemies, I shudder to think what would take place 
 should you happen to meet one of these savages 
 when out of reach of assistance, for only the other 
 day Colonel Monroe received a deputation from 
 them, gave them muskets, powder and ball, and I 
 know not what injunctions as to their conduct 
 towards the French settlers. Be careful, I pray, 
 Madamoiselle, for my sake if not for your own.' 
 ' Oh ! Monsieur le Lieutenant ! You make me 
 laugh with your fears. I am sure the loss of my 
 poor buckles is the worst I have to fear from any 
 Indian, Iroquois or Sioux, or whatever their out- 
 landish names may be ? ' 
 
 So there was nothing for the lieutenant to do but 
 to reassure her as to the return of her buckles and 
 to insist on accompanying her the greater part of 
 her way home, which had for its only result that 
 he was late in returning to the fort and earned a 
 snappy rebuke from Colonel Monroe as to the 
 bad example such tardiness set to the men in his 
 company. 
 142 But 
 
But the theft of the buckles was an old story by 
 this time. To-day the two weeks were up and they 
 were to be given back to C6line beautified, as he 
 hoped, until they were more than a match for 
 those of her friend, Jeanne Dubourg. 
 The task had taken him longer than he expected, 
 which was why the finishing touches had been left 
 so late. 
 
 He had had to manufacture his burins himself out 
 of a couple of broken knitting needles, which he 
 had begged from the red-faced wife of one of the 
 sergeants in the handful of King's troops still left 
 in the fort after the bulk of the regular garrison 
 had been drafted away and started on the long 
 march to join Lord Loudon at Albany. These he 
 had tempered in the guard-house fire and ground 
 down to a cutting edge on the armourer's grind- 
 stone. The handles he had whittled out of a piece 
 of soft pine. Then came the search for resin, 
 which was the best substitute he could think of 
 for the lump of pitch, upon which, under ordinary 
 circumstances, he would have mounted the buckles 
 for greater ease in working. But at last, despite 
 these obstacles, he had triumphed and produced 
 143 here 
 
here in the open forest as satisfactory a piece of 
 work as he could have turned out in his own 
 Boston workshop, surrounded by all the tools 
 and conveniences of his craft. At length the last 
 line was cut and the work was finished. There 
 only remained to pry the buckles away from the 
 resin, carefully clean from the inner surfaces such 
 fragments of the gum as still clung there, and to 
 give a final polish to the faces. The discarded 
 resin he flung in the direction of the grey squirrel, 
 who resented the missile as one adding insult to 
 injury, the burins he carefully placed in the pocket 
 of his waistcoat, and then, slipping on his coat and 
 hat, he took the buckles in his hand and set off in 
 the direction of the usual meeting-place to find 
 Celine. As he turned away from the fallen tree- 
 trunk what seemed like a brown shadow flitted 
 across his path and vanished in the direction of the 
 fort. It needed no second glance to tell him it was 
 a wandering Iroquois and he felt a recurrence of the 
 uneasy feeling which had prompted him to warn 
 Celine on the day she lost her buckles. ' Sergeant 
 Wells told me only to-day,' he reflected, ' that he 
 fears the colonel had offered a reward for every 
 144 French 
 
French scalp brought in. The girl must be more 
 carefiil, or — ' but he left even his thought un- 
 finished, so hideous was the conclusion to which 
 it was on the point of bringing him, and quickened 
 his step. Arrived in sight of the flat rock he called 
 Cdine's name, but no response came. He looked 
 to see if she were sitting in her usual place. But 
 no familiar figure caught his eye. Instead a 
 huddled mass of what looked like clothes by the 
 water's edge. His quick walk broke into a run 
 and now he was near enough to see what the 
 clothes concealed. He stood paralyzed with hor- 
 ror! The slinking Indian on his way to the fort 
 had now received a ghastly explanation. The first 
 French scalp to be delivered up for the pitiful 
 reward offered by Monroe would be that of his 
 gay, laughing, trusting little comrade, Celine Paret. 
 
 A year later, Mr. Paul Revere, silversmith and 
 engraver, was attending to a customer in the old 
 shop in North Square, when from the living room 
 at the back, his pleasant-featured wife of barely 
 two months came in to overhear him say : ' I am 
 145 sorry 
 
sorry, Madam, but at present I have no silver 
 buckles on hand. In a week or two, if you would 
 care to wait — No ? Well, I regret it exceedingly. 
 Madam, but the fact is as I say.' 
 At the evening meal that night. Mistress Revere 
 observed: "I am sorry you sent Miss Charlotte 
 Pennover away dissatisfied, Paul. Why did you 
 not show her that pair of buckles you have in 
 your old campaigning valise up-stairs. Sure they 
 are beautifully engraved, and might have caught 
 her fancy. The very monogram is hers, which 
 looks as though they might have been made 
 for her. 
 
 'Those buckles are not for sale, wife ! ' was Paul's 
 curt reply, and, question how she might. Mistress 
 Revere could never learn how the buckles with 
 the monogram C. P. came into her husband's 
 possession, or why he so steadfastly refused to 
 part with them. 
 
 146 
 
THIS BOOK AS PLANNED BY 
 
 ITS AUTHOR, WAS PRINTED 
 
 BY BARTLETT AND COMPANY 
 
 (THE ORR PRESS), NUMBER 
 TWENTY-THREE ROSE ST., 
 NEW YORK CITY, U. S. A.