THE BOOK BRAVERY nrnxmiMum. ox ion CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BEQUEST OF STEWART HENRY BURNHAM 1943 Date Due MAY 6 V. 3520 ' ncp 1 9 AQIA \Q — Ut.v^ ■'•^ AJ/H >J»» c2;7::o 'tf CT107 .L28"7927"'"""' """^ °°?|j,..^J».li!;nYSn;,..-.,!?,P.in9„,true stories in olin 3 1924 029 786 377 Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029786377 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY riRST SERIES The rope was too short THE BOOK OF BRAVERY BEING TRUE STORIES IN AN ASCENDING SCALE OF COURAGE COLLECTED AND RECOUNTED by HENRY WYSHAM LANIER ILLUSTRATED "Everything may be borne by brave men." — Richard Cceur de Lion. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1927 Copyright, 1918, 1919, 1920, bt CHARLES SCHIBNER'S SONS Printed in the United States of America Yr,A5i:.l PREFACE One of the boys had had an accident; the doctor had been obhged to take several stitches in sewing him together again; and he had borne the pain like an Indian. Naturally, we began to talk of bravery. "Do you remember any very brave man or woman in history?" There was a dead silence. ' ' What ! Not one ? Well, have you ever known or heard of anybody who did what seemed a very brave thing?" Nobody could recall a single action which seemed notably courageous ! Starting in enthusiastically to fill this vacuum, I found my own store of tales of valorous deeds did not go far: many were so lacking in details as to be useless. We got some books — of which there have been many since Miss Yonge's "Book of Golden Deeds," of golden memory. In spite of the number, there seemed a need for one more, not only with a larger number of true stories than had yet been put between covers, but with these records arranged so as to make some distinction be- tween the bravery of Pizarro and that of Regulus, even between Coeur de Lion and Bayard. This volume is the result. And though one who looks at the thousands of new volumes each year is almost tempted to apologize for adding even one drop to the flood, I doubt if there can be too many books about bravery. vi PREFACE For courage is almost the foundation of character. A bad nature may be built on it, but it seems as if a good one cannot be based on anything else. It is the beginning of everything worth while. Without it life isn't worth living. Browning says: "A people is but the attempt of many To rise to the completer life of one : And those who live as models for the mass Are singly of more value than they all." And the psychologists tell us that one of the pro- foundest and most dominating impulses of the human mind is that which causes man to imitate; bravery and fear are both contagious. In addition to the fear of being a coward, there is to a soldier the positive inspiration of daring in watching one's comrades, in charging shoulder to shoulder. Make no mistake about it: some men are naturally intrepid, but the bravest are those who fear and con- quer it. And there is almost no limit to the possibilities of training one's own nature to encounter danger coolly; not only can one form a habit of attacking the difficult thing, of calmly measuring and meeting what would once have sent him flying in a panic — but there comes after a while a realization of that physiological fact that "danger makes us more alive." The mind and body summon up their utmost powers to meet the emergency. One lives more fully. And this flood- tide of power is so keen and satisfying a delight in it- self that it often seems worth facing anything just to experience it. The first step, then, in getting the most of what life has to offer is to rid oneself of fear. The surest in- PREFACE vii fluence in this is the memory of what other men have done. So these tales, many of them well known, are their own best excuse. Whenever possible, these stories are told in the words of the chief actors or those of eye-witnesses. It fol- lows, of course, that the quotations are the same as in some previous collections. In one or two instances, scenes which were probable have been added to round out the picture or make it more vivid, but only where this was possible without violating historical accuracy. It would be easy to make from these tales of twenty- four centuries and many nations a list of volumes that would at least form a foundation on which any one could build for himself a Library of Valiant Deeds. And surely every home and every school should have such a collection, large or small. The author wishes to acknowledge with thanks the courtesy and kindness of Messrs. Harper & Brothers in allowing the use of "A Swim for Life in the Arctic" from Dr. Nansen's "Farthest North," which they publish. Henry W. Lanier. April, 1918. CONTENTS PART I FACING DEATH TO AVOID IT CHAPTER PAGE I. THE ESCAPE OF THE WICKEDEST MAN IN HISTORY 5 II. HOW AN ARTIST OUTWITTED A POPE . 11 III. A GREAT NOVELIST AMONG THE CORSAIRS 20 IV. JOHN FOXE, GUNNER OF THE "THREE HALF moons" . . . . . 30 V. THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL ESCAPES 37 VI. OUT OF THE HANDS OF THE INQUISITION 53 VII. MRS. SCOTt's FLIGHT FROM THE INDIANS 64 VIII. THE FIGHT THAT FAILED 70 IX. A SWIM FOR LIFE IN THE ARCTIC 75 X. THROUGH AN ANTARCTIC BLIZZARD 80 PART II THE TREASURE-SEEKERS XI. WITH NO VIRTUE SAVE COURAGE 97 Xn. A YANKEE TREASURE-HUNTER WHO BECAME GOVERNOR 103 XIII. THE MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 113 XIV. THE. TERRIBLY PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 146 XV. HOW CECIL RHODES ENDED THE MATABELE RE- BELLION 171 PART III SOLDIERS WHO KNEW NO FEAR XVI. HOW HORATIUS HELD THE BRIDGE XVII. RICHARD LION-HEART TO THE RESCUE . XVIII. "the BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE " ix 181 187 200 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XIX. A SWEDISH CONQUEROB . ... . . 213 XX. Custer's last fight . . 231 XXI. the capture of QUEBEC . 240 XXII. HOW "mad Anthony" took stony point . 254 XXin. WINNING A MEDAL OF HONOR 260 XXIV. TWO SCOTCHMEN — AND A MACHINE-GUN 263 XXV. DUELS BETWEEN AEROPLANE AND ZEPPELIN . 267 PART IV SOME EXPLOITS ON THE SEA XXVI. THE EPIC OF THE " REVENGE " 279 XXVII. THUNDER-SHIELD . 294 XXVIII. "engage the enemy closer!" . 306 XXIX. i'm JUST BEGINNING TO FIGHT . 315 XXX. THE FIRST VICTORY OF STEPHEN DECATUR . 336 XXXI. REID AND THE "GENERAL ARMSTRONG" 342 XXXII. THE FIRST AMERICAN ADMIRAL AND THE TOR- PEDOES . 349 XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. PART V FAMOUS DEEDS OF DISCIPLINE THE PASS OF THERMOPYL^ . . 365 THE MARCH OF THE TEN THOUSAND . . 376 "THE GUARD DIES BUT NEVER SURRENDERS!" 397 BALACLAVA .... 412 INTRODUCTION There are many dark pages in the history of Man, even during those few thousand years of which we have a fairly exact record. As for the hundreds, or thou- sands, of centuries in which he was strugghng upward from his ape kindred of the Glacial Period (whose very existence has only been suspected for a few dec- ades) it is probably fortunate that the veil of oblivion has fallen upon them. They would not make pleasant reading for us to-day, save by a sort of awed thank- fulness at what we have progressed from. But happily there is a whole library of man's actions to read which makes us thrill with pride in our fellows and their possibilities. The record of brave men and women is a vast and inspiring roster including all times and nations. Al- ways there have been, are, and will be dauntless spirits who have endured the utmost rigors of the ele- ments, of savage beasts, of their far more dangerous fellow men; who have looked unflinchingly into the face of the King of Terrors himself; and to stand be- side whom, even in imagination, makes us realize afresh how human nature may approach the godlike in thus mastering its own destiny. When one thinks of it, however, "bravery" is a most comprehensive term. Clearly, any quality which includes such vast extremes as the fight for life of some trapped criminal and the death on the cross of Jesus of Nazareth needs some classification. It is with this idea that the present collection has xiv INTRODUCTION been arranged. Out of the tens of thousands of true stories available, a number have been selected which seem to group themselves into ascending degrees of courage, from that through which a man faces all dangers in order to save his own life, up to the supreme bravery that leads a man or woman to endure untold sufferings in order to die, or (higher still, I fancy) to live, for others. First come the rising planes of physical bravery; then that intrepidity of the mind which lifts still higher; and finally the courage of the spirit which includes these others and so much else besides. From Csesar Borgia, escaping from his well-earned eiiemies, to Father Damien, devoting his life to the lepers of Molokai with the certainty of a slow and hideous death — that is the gamut of human courage. The present volume deals with a number of the more primitive types, up to some memorable cases of discipUned bravery. PART I FACING DEATH TO AVOID IT Man shares with the animals the courage that springe from desperation. A cornered rat will fight for its life against odds of a hundred to one in size. That is bravery, in its a, h, c; and under the influence of this feeling men have since times immemorial performed acts of most reck- less daring, from those shadowy days when the cave- dweller of a hundred thousand years ago suddenly came upon the monstrous hear whose cavern he had picked for his own home. Even now, at the moment you read this, some resolute man somewhere — on the sea or in some unsettled country — is taking his life in his hands and risking it as the only chance to avoid death. Looked at in this way, you may think such deeds are hardly bravery at all; such a man may be driven mainly by fear. But courage is courage, even when born of cowardice. It is facing odds, fighting difficulties, com- pelling circumstance. And the magnificent endurance, fortitude, ingenuity, and patience which have been shown in such situations by many hardy spirits surely entitle them to a place among the world's brave men. The in- stinctive, selfish Will to Live has created many an epic tale of this lowest plane of bravery. Let us then, from the myriads of such instances in the history of the race, glance at just a few memorable cases of the last four centuries, including an Englishman, two Spaniards, three Italians, a German, a Norwegian, and a group of Americans. Several of these are tales of escapes from prisons in which the fugitives displayed almost superhuvian persistence and intrepidity. It should be noted that some of these men, especially the immortal author of "Don Quixote," exhibited also qualities of a much higher order than this primitive life- saving daring. But since most of the famous escapes from captivity belong in this division, the tale of Cer- vantes and his amazing five years in Algerian prisons is included with theni. CHAPTER I THE ESCAPE OF THE WICKEDEST MAN IN HISTORY The very name of Borgia carries a suggestion of shuddering horror to our ears. There are few crimes of which human nature is capable that are not recorded of Csesar Borgia, his beautiful sister Lucrezia, and his infamous father, Pope Alexander VI. Made cardinal in the year of the discovery of America; created Duke de Valentinois by King Louis XII of France, and marrying that monarch's cousin, the daughter of the King of Navarre, six years later; he spent eleven years in writing his name black in history through every species of perfidy, cruelty, and depravity. In June, 1504, the first taste of retribution began to come to him. Captured by treachery, he was im- prisoned at the Castle of Medina del Campo in Spain, not far from Salamanca. Two weary years he remained in captivity, hoping that his royal connection and powerful friends would come to his assistance. But the great allies of such a man are apt to fall away when his wings are clipped. No sign of succor came, and even the captive's grim resolution began to weaken as it beat itself vainly against the vigilance of his jailers. He knew only too well as he reflected, dm-ing the long weary days, upon the deeds which had won him his many bitter enemies, that his life was forfeit a 5 6 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY dozen times over ; and he knew that his captors would put him to death the instant they felt themselves strong enough to risk reprisal. Then, one morning at breakfast, help came from a humble and unlooked-for source. Borgia was disconsolately cutting his loaf of bread when the knife struck something hard. Surprised and indignant, he broke the loaf apart. There lay a file, a bottle containing a sleeping-draft, and a note from a poor man-of-arms of his, Michelotto, who had followed his master to Spain. The message said that he must do his best to get free with these weapons, and that Michelotto and a friend would await him every night with three horses on the road between the castle and the village. The great Alexander Dumas tells the story: Two years' imprisonment had weighed too heavily on Caesar for him to waste a single moment, now that he had a chance to regain his freedom. He, therefore, lost no time in beginning to work on one of the bars of his window, which opened on an inside court, and soon contrived to cut through so far that a violent shake would enable him to remove it altogether. But the window was nearly seventy feet above the ground, while the only way of leaving the court was by a door reserved for the Governor alone, the key of which was always carried about his person. By day it was sus- pended from his belt, by night it was under his pillow. To gain possession of this key was the most difficult part of the matter. Now, in spite of the fact that he was a prisoner, Caesar had invariably been treated with all the re- spect due to his name and rank. Every day at the dinner-hour he was conducted from the room in which THE WICKEDEST MAN IN HISTORY 7 he was confined to the Governor's apartments and was received as an honored guest. Don Manuel him- self was an old soldier who had served with distinction under Ferdinand, and, while carrying out punctiliously his orders for Csesar's safe custody, he admired his military talents and listened with pleasure to the story of his fights. He had often desired that Csesar should breakfast as well as dine with him, but, luckily for himself, the prisoner, perhaps aided by some pre- sentiment, had always refused this favor. It was owing to his solitude that he was able to conceal the instru- ments for his escape sent by Michelotto. Now it happened that the very same day that he had received them, Csesar contrived to stumble and twist his foot as he was returning to his room. When the hour of dinner came he tried to go down, but de- clared that walking hurt him so much that he should be obliged to give it up, so the Governor paid him a visit instead and found him stretched on his bed. The next day Csesar was no better; his dinner was ordered to be served up-stairs, and the Governor paid him a visit as before. He found his prisoner so dull and bored with his own company, that he offered to come and share his supper. Csesar accepted the offer with gratitude and joy. This time it was the prisoner who did the honors of the table, and Borgia was particularly charming and courteous in manner. The Governor seized the opportunity of putting some questions as to his cap- ture, and inquired, with the pride of a CastiUan noble, who set honor above all, what was the exact truth as to the way in which Gonsalvo de Cordova and Ferdi- nand had broken their faith with him. Csesar showed every disposition to give him satisfaction on this point. 8 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY but indicated by a sign that he could not speak freely before the valets. This precaution was so natural that the Governor could not seem offended at it; he dismissed his attendants, so that he and his com- panion remained alone. When the door was shut, Csesar filled his glass and that of the Governor, and proposed the King's health. The Governor emptied his glass at once, and Csesar began his story; but he had hardly told a third of it when, in spite of its excit- ing adventures, the eyes of his guest closed as if by magic, and his head fell on the table in a deep sleep. At the end of half an hour, the servants, not hearing any noise, entered the room, and found the two boon companions, one on the table and the other under it. There was nothing so unusual about such an event to excite their suspicions, so they contented themselves with carrying Don Manuel to his chamber and laying Csesar on his bed; they then locked the door with great care, leaving the prisoner alone. For a minute or two longer Caesar lay still, apparently plunged in a profound slumber, but when the sound of footsteps had completely died away, he softly raised his head, opened his eyes, and moved toward the door, rather slowly, it is true, but without seeming to feel any ill effects from his accident on the previous day. He stood still for a few seconds with his ear at the key- hole, then, raising himself, with a strange expression of triumph on his face, he passed his hand over his forehead, and, for the first time since the guards had left the room, breathed freely. But there was no time to be lost, and without a moment's delay he fastened the door from the inside as securely as it was fastened without. He next ex- tinguished his lamp, threw open his window, and "Help me into the fort," he commanded. "If this is mortal, I'll die at the head of my column" THE WICKEDEST MAN IN HISTORY 9 finished cutting through the bar. This done, he took off the bandages tied around his leg, tore down the curtains, both of his window and his bed, and made them into strips, adding to them sheets, table-cloths, napkins, and whatever else he could lay hands on. At last he had a rope between fifty and sixty feet long, which he secured firmly at one end to the bar next to the one that he had sawn away; then, mounting on the window-ledge, he began the most dangerous part of his expedition by trusting himself to this frail sup- port. Happily, Caesar was as strong as he was agile, and slid down the whole length of the cord without accident; but when he had reached the very end, he tried in vain to touch the earth with his feet. The rope was too short. Caesar's position was terrible. The darkness of the night prevented his knowing how far he might be above the ground, and his exertions had so fatigued him that he could not have gone back even had he wished. There was no help for it. After muttering a short prayer, he let go the rope, and fell — a distance of twelve or fifteen feet. The danger he had escaped was too great for the fugitive to mind some slight bruises caused by his fall, so he jumped up, and taking his bearings, made straight for the little door which stood between him and freedom. When he reached it he felt in his pocket for the key, and a cold sweat broke out on his face as he found it was not there. Had he forgotten it in his room, or had he lost it in his descent? Collecting his thoughts as well as he could, he soon came to the conclusion that it must have fallen out of his pocket as he climbed down the rope. So he made his way a second time cautiously across the 10 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY court, trying to discover the exact spot where it might be, by the aid of the wall of a cistern, which he had caught hold of to raise himself from the ground. But the lost key was so small and insignificant that there was little chance he would ever see it. However, it was his last resource, and Caesar was searching for it with all his might, when suddenly a door opened and the night patrol came out, preceded by two torches. At first Caesar gave himself up for lost. Then, remem- bering the water-butt that was behind him, he at once slid into it up to his neck, watching with intense anxiety the movements of the soldiers who were ad- vancing toward his hiding-place. They passed within a few feet, crossed the court, and vanished through the door opposite; but though all this had taken such a very short time, the light of the torches had enabled Caesar to distinguish the key lying on the groimd, and hardly had the gate closed on the soldiers, when he was once more master of his liberty. Half-way between the castle and the village the Count of Benevento and Michelotto awaited him with a led horse. Caesar flung himself on its back and all three set out for Navarre, where, after three days' hard riding, they found an asylum with the King, Jean d'Albret, father of Caesar's wife. CHAPTER II HOW AN ARTIST OUTWITTED A POPE One of the most brilliant craftsmen, metal-workers, and designers that Italy has produced, Benvenuto Cellini, was also a personality who was bound to be a centre of stirring happenings — which he did not fail to make the most of in his own "Life." In October, 1538, he was accused by his enemies (of whom he had the greatest plenty !) of having stolen from the Pope precious stones valued at eighty thou- sand dollars. The results were quick and alarming. Cellini relates that one morning he was walking along the strada Julia, when the Bargello met him with all his force. "You are the Pope's prisoner," said the officer. "Chrespino!" exclaimed the amazed artist, "you have arrested me by mistake !" "No," returned Chrespino, "you are the talented Benvenuto, and I know you very well; and I have to take you to the Castle Sant' Agniola, whither go lords and persons of talent like yourself." With this poor comfort, Benvenuto gave up his arms, remembering with a chill that it was on this precise spot that he had slain Pompeio, the papal jeweller, two years before. He was taken to a dungeon up in the keep of the fortress, reflecting that this was the first time in his adventurous life of thirty-seven years that he had tasted imprisonment. He indignantly denied the accusations against him when examined, and he declares that the missing 11 12 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY jewels were found, but that the Pope was determined to compass his death, and would not release him despite the demands of King Francis. Having made friends with the guards, some of these urged him to escape; but he said he had given his word to the Castellan and could not abuse it, though one of these men assured him the Pope meant to have his Ufe. Then a shifty but eloquent friar, a fellow prisoner, urged that a captive's word was not binding. Cellini still refused. The friar gradually won his admiration by his talk and readings, and, adroitly leading the clever artificer on, the latter declared that he could open the prison locks as easily as he could eat a piece of fresh cheese. Cellini thereupon made good his boast by showing the friar how to take a wax impres- sion; the friar adopted this plan and endeavored to get keys made for himself, but was detected; and Ben-- venuto, for his share in the plot, was locked up close instead of having his former freedom. Hearing that the friar was to be hanged, and smart- ing under the insults he had received over the matter, Cellini decided he must be ready for emergencies. He had new and coarse, clean sheets brought him, and did not return the soiled ones, saying he had given them to the soldiers. A mattress was secretly emptied of its contents, and the straw burned. With these materials he made a sort of rope of strips fastened to- gether, which he thought might be long enough to reach from the high keep to the ground. Meanwhile, one of his people almost killed a work- man of the Pope's in the streets, and Cellini only avoided the trial which he felt would at that moment be fatal by the lucky chance of being able to prove HOW AN ARTIST OUTWITTED A POPE 13 through the Castellan that the offender had been dis- missed from his service. This made him the more anxious to escape. Listen to the artist's own vivid story: "This Castellan had every year certain attacks of illness that entirely turned his brain. On one occa- sion it seemed to him that he was a jar of oil; another time it seemed to him that he was dead and they must needs bury him. This time he began by imagining that he was a bat, and while out walking he used to scream softly as bats do. He also made movements with his hands and body as if he wanted to fly. His doctors and servants humored him, and since he took pleasure in hearing me talk they constantly took me to him. "He began by asking me if I had ever the fancy to fly: to which I replied, that all those things which were most difficult for men I had most gladly sought to do and had done; and as to this subject of flying, since nature had given me a body very strong and un- commonly fitted for running and leaping, I felt assured that by using the skill of my hands too I could manage to fly. He questioned me as to the method I should adopt: to which I replied, that having observed the flying creatures, there was only one whose natural gifts I might by art imitate, and that was the bat. "When the poor man heard the word 'bat,' which was then his special delusion, he gave a shout: 'He speaks the truth; he speaks the truth. That is the thing.' Then he turned to me. 'Benvenuto, if any one gave you the means, would you have the courage to fly ? ' To this I replied that if it would give me my freedom afterward, I had plenty of courage to fly to Prati, making myself wings of waxed linen. 14 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY "'I, too, would have enough courage,' replied the Castellan; 'but the Pope has commanded me to keep guard over you as if you were his own eyes, and I know you are an ingenious devil who would escape; but I will have you locked in with a hundred keys so that you shall not manage it.'" Benvenuto besought him not to do this, reminding him that he had not abused his parole thus far, but the Castellan had him bound and placed in a secure cell. "When I saw there was no help for it, I said to him in the presence of his attendants: 'Secure me well and guard me well, for I shall certainly escape.' So they took me away and shut me up with wonderful precautions. "Thereupon I began to think out the plan I must adopt. I set to work to examine how the cell was situated; and when I thought I perceived a way out, I began to consider how I could descend from that great height; so having taken the sheets which I had torn into strips and fastened together, I tried to figure how much would enable me to descend. "Having reckoned up what was necessary, I secured a pair of pinchers, which I took from a Savoyard, who was one of the watchmen. This man had charge of the tubs and cisterns; he was also a carpenter; and since he had several pairs of pinchers, one of them very heavy and large, I abstracted them and hid them inside that mattress of mine. "When the time came, I began to test the nails which held together the iron bands of the door; since the door was a double one, I could not see the riveting of these nails, so that only with great labor did I man- age to extract one. However, I succeeded at last. Then I proceeded to think how I could prevent the HOW AN ARTIST OUTWITTED A POPE 15 guards from seeing it. I prepared a little wax with a few scrapings of rusty iron, so that it was exactly the same color as the nail-head; with this I imitated the latter in the iron band; and one after another as I extracted the nails, I counterfeited them in wax. The iron bands were left attached at top and bottom by some of the real nails, but these were cut short before being put back, and lightly replaced, so that they just held the metal in place. "This work I accompUshed with the greatest diffi- culty, because the Castellan dreamed every night that I had escaped, and consequently sent to inspect my cell from hour to hour; and the man who came had both the name and manners of a constable. He always brought with him a soldier named Giovanni, and this Giovanni never came to my cell that he did not utter some insult. He examined the bands and walls with great care every time, and I would say to him: 'Watch me well, for I surely mean to escape.' This caused the keenest enmity between us; in such measure that I replaced my tools with great care in my mattress. "One feast-day evening, the Castellan was very unwell; his delusions had increased, for he repeated that he was a bat, and if they should hear Benvenuto had flown away, they must let him pursue me, for he could fly much better at night than I could, adding: 'Benvenuto is a counterfeit bat and I am a real bat; since he has been given into my charge, leave it to me, for I shall certainly catch him.' "Having resolved upon a feast-day evening to escape at all hazards, I first most devoutly made a prayer to God, imploring his Divine Majesty that he would defend and assist me in so perilous an under- 16 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY taking; then I drew out all the things I wished to use, and labored with them all that night. "When I had come to two hours before daybreak, I removed the iron bands, with great difficulty, because the wooden panel and the bolt offered such resistance that I could not open the door. I had to cut away the wood. Finally, however, I opened it, and shouldering the strips I had wound up on reels, I emerged and went toward a closet. Seeing from within two tiles on the roof, I immediately leaped on to them. "I was clad in a white doublet and a pair of white stockings; likewise a pair of white buskins in which I had placed my dagger. Taking one end of my strips, I attached it to a- piece of ancient tile, built into the keep, which by chance jutted out about four fingers. The strip was arranged after the fashion of a stirrup. When I had made it fast, looking upward, I said : ' Lord God ! Aid my right, for I am in the right as thou knowest, and because I am helping myself.' "Letting myself go gradually, holding my weight by the strength of my arms, I reached the ground. There was no moonlight, but there was a fine bright- ness. When I was on the earth, I looked up at the great height I had descended so courageously, and went joyfully away thinking I was free. "This, however, was not the case, for the Castellan had had two high walls built on that side which served him for a stable and chicken-house; this place was shut by two heavy outside bolts. "When I saw that I could not escape from this place, it put me into great distress. "While I was pacing back and forth, thinking over my predicament, my foot struck against a long beam hidden under the straw. Raising this with great HOW AN ARTIST OUTWITTED A POPE 17 difficulty to the wall, I pulled myself up to the top. This had a sharp edge so I could not draw up the beam ; I therefore took a piece of my remaining strip, and having bound it to the beam, I descended this wall, which caused me great labor and tired me very much; moreover, I had torn the skin off the palms of my hands, which were bleeding. So I was obliged to rest. "When it seemed that my strength was returned, I leaped on to the last rampart of the outer walls which look toward Prati. Just as I had arranged my strip around a battlement after the same method employed for the greater height, I discovered behind me one of the sentinels on watch. "Seeing that my design was imperilled, and myself in danger of my life, I prepared to face him — who, when he saw my determined spirit, and that I was coming toward him weapon in hand, quickened his step in retreat. "Having gotten some distance from my strip, I turned back; and though I saw another guard, he may not have wished to see me. "Reaching the strip, I let myself go; but, whether fancying I was near the ground I had released my hands to jump, or whether my hands were really tired out and unable to resist the strain — I fell, struck my head, and remained unconscious for over an hour and a half. "Then, as day began to break, that sUght freshness -that comes an hour before sunrise caused me to revive; but I was still out of my senses, and thought my head had been cut off. "Little by little my powers came back; I perceived I was outside the Castello, and suddenly I remem- bered everything. Feeling first the shock to my head, 18 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY I put up my hands and took them away all covered with blood; then having made a careful examination, I decided I had received no severe injury. But when I tried to rise, I found I had broken my right leg three fingers' distance above the heel. "Even this did not dismay me. I dragged out my dagger in its sheath — this latter had an end with a heavy, hard ball and this had been the cause of my disaster; throwing away the sheath, I cut off a piece of my remaining strip, and bound the leg together as best I could. Then I crawled along, dagger in hand, toward the city gate. " I reached the gate. It was closed. However, see- ing a stone exactly beneath it, which seemed not firm, I tried to pull it away. Laying hold of it, it presently gave, and I drew it out. Through this hole I entered the city, it having been more than five hundred paces in a straight line from where I fell to this gate. "When I was inside Rome, some mastiff dogs threw themselves on me and bit me severely; upon whom, when they returned many times to plague me, I drew my dagger, and wounded one of them so severely that he howled loudly, and the others, as is their nature, ran after him. So I crawled on toward the Church of Traspontina. "Meeting a water-carrier who had his donkey laden with buckets of water, I called him and besought him to take me up the stairway." The sight of some gold at once convinced this water-carrier that Cellini was a fit subject for his help; he accepted his story of an accident in an affair of gallantry, took the wounded man on his own back, and carried him up the flight of steps to another street. Here the fugitive crawled on to the house of a powerful HOW AN ARTIST OUTWITTED A POPE 19 friend, who took him in, cared for him, and interceded with the Pope for him. In spite of all, the luckless artist was handed back to his obdurate enemy and underwent more weary months of imprisonment, be- ing finally ransomed by a heavy payment. Whatever opinion one may get of Master Ben- venuto's morality from his own story, one feels he had earned his Uberty. CHAPTER III A GREAT NOVELIST AMONG THE CORSAIRS On the 26th day of September, 1575, a Spanish galley was proceeding westward on the Mediterranean, impelled by both sails and oars. She was a low, broad, one-decked craft at whose masthead flew a banner with the royal arms of Castile and Leon, while on her queerly shaped triangular sails was blazoned in bril- Uant red a figure of the rising sun in emblem of her name, el Sol. Besides the crew, and the rowers chained to their benches, she bore as passengers a number of Spanish officers who had served in the war against the Turks and were now returning for a visit to their native land after an absence of several years. Among these was a young man named Miguel de Cervantes — ^who was, when nearly sixty years old, to give the world one of its great books in "Don Quixote." He had joined the army at the age of twenty-three with a reputation as one of the most promising young poets of Spain. That he was made of sterner stuff than many poets, had been shown at the battle of Lepanto the next year (October 7, 1571) when the combined forces of the Pope, the Venetians, and Spaniards almost an- nihilated the Turkish fleet; for being violently ill with fever, his captain and comrades urged him to remain below as the fleets closed; whereat he broke out: "Gentlemen, upon all occasions up to this day, I have served his Majesty as a good soldier, and now I will 20 A NOVELIST AMONG THE CORSAIRS 21 not do less, though I confess I am ill of fever; it is better to fall in the service of God and his Majesty, and so to die, than to retire to a place of shelter; I must entreat of the captain, therefore, to place me in the most exposed post, for there I shall be till I fall." His commander could not resist this stout-hearted appeal : he was sent with twelve soldiers to the bow — and in the fight that followed, his galley slew five hundred Turks, including the Governor of Alexandria, and captured the royal Egyptian standard. Cervantes himself received three arquebus wounds, one leaving him with a maimed left hand for the rest of his life. He was now eagerly looking forward to a sight of his own land which he had left five years previously, the more ardently since the galley had passed the Island of Sardinia and covered half the distance from Naples to Barcelona; and while his brother Rodrigo and the distinguished officers of the company talked over the past campaigns and the rumors of coming ser- vice, the young poet began to dream again of his uni- versity days at Salamanca, of the pastoral poems and sonnets which had first won him reputation. He car- ried with him letters from Don John and Don Carlos, Viceroy of Sicily, commending him to the King in the highest terms as one worthy of promotion; but this flattering prospect paled beside the youthful thrills with which he remembered he had haunted the theatre, wondering if his passion for the drama would some day enable him to see his own characters and ideas upon the stage. He gazed dreamily off southward, over the blue ex- panse of sea, whose eager leaps before the fresh breeze made him think with a pang of those joyous young 22 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY hopes that had been swept aside by the stormy reaUties of war. Surely that was what he was meant to do in the world, instead of devoting his energies to killing his fellow men, even if these were Turks and infidels. And then with the writer's natural habit of turning even his most harrowing experiences to account, he began to revolve in his mind a drama he had conceived, the tragic story of that remnant of besieged Numan- tians, who, rather than surrender to the conquering Romans, applied the torch, slaughtered each other, and perished with their treasure and city in one vast holo- caust of flames. Suddenly, his inward gazing eye was attracted by a black speck on the horizon. He watched it curi- ously. As it grew larger, his soldier's instinct became aroused. Quietly calling the captain's attention, they stood staring at the tiny spot which gradually resolved itself into three. In a moment a shout arose from a sailor forward. "The Moors! The Moors!" Instantly there was a rush to arms. Every man on board knew the meaning of that dreaded cry to mariners off the Algerian coast. Flight was impossible, as the wind favored the enemy, who also had more rowers and swifter ships. The three corsair vessels approached rapidly. One in particular, a long, slim, greyhound-shaped galley with twenty-two oars, sped ahead of its comrades and seemed to leap toward el Sol like an eager hound that closes in on a buck. There was a hot skirmish as the corsairs shot along- side and boarded — which Cervantes afterward de- scribed minutely in the Fifth Book of his " Galatea." But in spite of valiant resistance, there was no chance against such overwhelming odds. The Span- A NOVELIST AMONG THE CORSAIRS 23 iards knew that the corsairs reaped their harvest of the sea in the form of captives, and that they would not be killed at first, but held for ransom; so like ex- perienced campaigners they finally surrendered. All were made slaves and carried back to Algiers, Cervantes falling to the share of Dali Mami, the Greek renegade who commanded the largest galley. His precious and hard-won letters of commendation now served him an evil turn. Finding these messages from great noblemen to the King, speaking so highly of their bearer, Dali Mami concluded he had a prize indeed. Cervantes was loaded with chains and treated with great harshness, to make him either m-ge his family to ransom him, or prevail on him to turn rene- gade. Rejecting all such suggestions, the poet turned his lively imagination to planning a method of escape. The moment the rigors of his captivity were relaxed — as a sort of object-lesson of the sweets of freedom — he combined with a number of his comrades, and pres- ently found a Moor who agreed for a large reward to guide them two hundred and fifty miles westward to Oran, where a hundred-mile sail would land them on the coast of Spain. Buoyantly they set out. But the treacherous guide left them in the desert the first day. With no choice but starvation, the party was forced to return to Al- giers, where all were again fettered and watched more closely than ever. In spite of this, Cervantes made three other similar attempts, all of which failed. Then, in 1576, he sent word by some redeemed prisoners to his father. The latter mortgaged everything he possessed and sent the sum to the prisoner; but Dali Mami refused to 24 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY consider such a pitiful amount for so distinguished a personage, so the generous Miguel used it to purchase the freedom of his brother Rodrigo. He did not lose heart for a moment, however. When Rodrigo left in the summer of 1577, he promised tO' despatch an armed vessel, which was to approach at a signal and take off the fugitives. Carrying with, him urgent messages from several of the imprisoned noblemen to the Governors of Valencia and Majorca, Rodrigo departed, and his indefatigable brother at once resumed the plan which was to make the scheme effective when the time came. There was a large estate east of the city belonging to the Alcalde Azan, a Greek renegade who had risen to importance. This man had as gardener a Christian slave named Juan. Cervantes had become intimate with the latter, and finding that he too pined for his native Navarre, had induced him to join in a daring enterprise. One by one, fifteen of the prisoners had been spirited away and concealed by Juan in a cave in the wildest part of this estate, this apparently impossible task being facilitated by the great number of captives. Juan stood guard, warning the fugitives of the ap- proach of any danger; and a prisoner known as el Dorador (the gilder), who had once embraced Mo- hammedanism but returned to his faith, was employed by Cervantes to purchase food and convey it secretly to the gloomy cavern. For more than six months* this extraordinary underground colony had thus been built up and supported. Finally, just two years after his capture, feeling that the time had come, Cervantes contrived to send a message to the brigantine waiting at Minorca, fled A NOVELIST AMONG THE CORSAIRS 25 from his master's house in disguise, and joined the anxious group in the cave. Here, in dampness, darkness, and terrible suspense, they waited day after day, upheld by the courage of their leader, who stoutly assured them that for liberty and honor "we ought to risk life itself." Meanwhile the rescuing vessel had sailed promptly, and reached the Algerian shore a week after the flight of Cervantes. The captain crept in at dusk to the point nearest to the garden, and sent a boat ashore to inform the waiting fugitives that he was ready for them. But at this critical juncture, a fishing-boat came along; the Moors aboard saw the strange brigantine and the rowboat; and they raised such an alarm that the messengers threw themselves into the sea and swam back to their vessel, which was forced to retreat. A second attempt met with even worse luck, the party being captured by the Algerians. All this time the luckless fugitives could only main- tain their subterranean vigil, in an anxiety that ever deepened as day succeeded day with no word from their rescuers. Their hopes were shortly to receive a rude awakening. The gilder chose this auspicious time for a third change of his faith. Having some natural doubts as to the value his Mohammedan masters might set upon so habitual a convert as himself, he presented himself before the dreaded Dey (the Turkish Governor) and betrayed the whole conspiracy. In delight at the prospect of thus "picking up" such valuable property, the Dey sent out a strong force of cavalry and foot-soldiers. Led by the traitor, these surrounded the cavern and seized the thunder- struck band. 26 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Cervantes coolly took all the blame of the enter- prise upon himself. Handcuffed, he was marched on foot to the Dey's palace, through a mob which heaped insults and indignities on him, while his comrades were taken to the chief jail, "the Baths," where there were already a couple of thousand prisoners. The Dey was notorious even among those fierce people for his bloody-minded cruelty. Hardly a day passed that some "Christian dog" was not hanged, impaled, mutilated, or tortured by his orders. The captives had heard with shudders the tale of two Spaniards, some years previously, who had been taken while endeavoring to escape, and had perished by the bastinado at the hands of this wanton monster him- self. He brought all the terrors of his reputation and torture-chambers to bear upon Cervantes in the effort to make him say that OHvar, the crown agent for the redemption of captives, had aided his attempt. The Spaniard calmly asserted that he alone was responsible. At length, unable to break down his firmness, the Dey appropriated the captives for himself, delivered poor Juan up to the Alcalde for death, and had Cervantes fettered and closely guarded in his own royal "bath." While his brutal cruelty was not lessened through the fact that Dali Mami's protests forced him to turn a windfall into a speculation by purchasing the "lame Spaniard" for a thousand dollars, this probably saved the future author of "Don Quixote"; for he thus be- came too valuable to kill outright. But no such in- fluence protected many another prisoner, and the daily horrors which made the Turks themselves call the Dey "a butcher of the human race" were a constant object-lesson tp Cervantes. A NOVELIST AMONG THE CORSAIRS 27 They had no effect save to harden his resolution to escape. . Indeed, they were a constant reminder that his turn might come at any moment in some fit of passion on his master's part. He bribed an attendant to carry a letter to Don Martin de Cordova, Governor of Oran, begging to have spies sent with whom he could plan the flight of himself and three others. The messenger reached Oran safely; but before he could dehver his appeal, he was seized and the letter was found on his person. The Dey's reply to this was to impale the messenger alive and to sentence Cervantes to two thousand lashes. But though three other prisoners who had been taken on their way to Oran were also impaled, the punishment of the "lame Spaniard" was for some reason not carried out. With this fate hanging over him, the undaunted poet began a fresh conspiracy. Through a renegade named Giron, who professed penitence for his lapse from Christianity, he arranged with two Venetian merchants of Algiers for the purchase of an armed, twelve-oared brigantine; sixty captives were admitted to the venture; every detail of the desperate attempt was perfected — when at the very moment of departure a wretch named De Paz betrayed his comrades to the Governor. The latter decided to take the party red- handed, so he allowed matters to proceed. Cervantes had actually gotten away from the prison to a friend's house when one of the Venetians came to him in great alai-m, declaring that the Governor knew all and urging the other to hasten aboard without wait- ing for his friends. Cervantes refused this as dis- honorable and remained in hiding several days. Then a proclamation appeared, forbidding any one to con- 28 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY ceal the fugitive under pain of death. Rather than jeopardize his friend, the poet gave himself up again. The Dey's greeting was to have his hands tied be- hind him and a rope put around his neck. In the face of these ominous proceedings, Cervantes boldly pro- claimed that he alone was as before the originator and leader of the enterprise. His indomitable courage seems to have awed his despotic master. In fact, the latter had begun to have a superstitious feeling about this amazing "lame Spaniard," and was in constant fear that his incredible boldness and persistence would succeed in carrying out the general uprising of the Christian captives in Algiers, which the Moors constantly dreaded. The truth was that Cervantes had long worked at this very plot. There were twenty-five thousand such captives in the city, largely men-at-arms, and it was an alluring idea to a soldier that he might thus be able to capture by stratagem for his Emperor a stronghold which had re- peatedly resisted the assaults of Spanish forces. More- over, his captors well knew by this time that he would hesitate at no audacity. The Dey more than once remarked that as long as the "lame soldier" was well guarded, he could feel easy about his city, slaves, and ships. The extra precautions taken because of these appre- hensions made Ceivantes's progress very slow in this ambitious and far-reaching conspiracy. All this time his parents and brothers in Spain had been working to raise money for his ransom. Them- selves impoverished by the first payment, they sought aid of the King, but it was not till 1580 that the monarch graciously permitted the family to export ten thou- sand ducats' worth of merchandise and apply the prof- A NOVELIST AMONG THE CORSAIRS 29 its to the ransom. This venture, by continued ill luck, produced only sixty ducats, which, with three hundred more, raised by the mother and sister, was given to the "fathers of redemption" then setting out for Algiers. The Dey refused this, demanding double what he paid for the captive. He was sailing for Constanti- nople, his term of office having expired, and Cervantes was actually taken on board, in chains, to be carried away, when the good Padre Gil managed to strike a bargain with his master. Paying half the latter's de- mands, the doughty soldier-poet was at last set free after a captivity of nearly five years. CHAPTER IV JOHN FOXE, GUNNER OF THE THREE HALF MOONS At the very time when Cervantes was indefatigably making a fresh plan as soon as each scheme of escape miscarried, an EngUshman was going through a similar but more fortunate experience fifteen hundred miles to the east, in the city of Alexandria. Here is the old narrative of the "worthy enterprise" of this stout-hearted gunner, written by one Anthony Munday — ^who was at Rome when John Foxe came thither in triumph: "Among our merchants here in England it is a com- mon voyage to traffic into Spain. Whereunto a ship, being called the Three Half Moons, manned with eight-and-thirty men, and well fenced (furnished) with munitions the better to encounter their enemies withal; having wind and tide, set forth from Ports- mouth in the year 1563, and bent her journey toward Seville, a city in Spain: intending there to traffic with them. "And falling near the straits of Gibraltar, they per- ceived themselves to be beset round about with eight galleys of the Turks, in such wise that there was no way for them to fly or escape away; but that they must yield or be sunk. "Which the owner perceiving, manfully encouraged his company, exhorting them 'valiantly to show their manhood, requesting them also not to faint on seeing such a heap of their enemies ready to devour them'; putting them likewise in mind of 'the old and ancient worthiness of their countrymen: who in the hardest 30 JOHN FOXE 31 extreimties have always most prevailed ; and gone away conquerors, yea, and where it hath been almost im- possible. Such,' quoth he, 'hath been the vaUantness of our countrymen; and such hath been the power of our God.' "With such other Uke encouragements they fell all on their knees, making their prayers briefly unto God; and being all risen up again perceived their enemies by their signs and defiances bent to the spoil, whose mercy was nothing else but cruelty. Where- upon every man took him to his weapon. "Then stood up Grove, the master, being a comely man, with his sword and target; holding them up in defiance against his enemies. So likewise stood up the owner, the master's mate, boatswain, purser, and every man well appointed. Now likewise sounded up the drums, trumpets, and flutes, which would have en- couraged any man, had he never so little heart or courage in him. "Then taketh him to his charge John Foxe, the gunner, disposing his pieces to the best effect, and sending his bullets toward the Turks ; who likewise be- stowed their pieces thrice as fast toward the Chris- tians. But shortly they drew near, so that the bow- men fell to their charge in sending forth their arrows so thick amongst the galleys, and also in doubling their shot so sure that there were twice as many of the Turks slain as of the Christians. "But the Turks discharged twice as fast, until the ship was sore stricken under water. Which the Turks perceiving, made the more haste to come aboard, but ere they could do so many a one bought it dearly with the loss of his life. "Yet was all in vain, and boarded they were; but 32 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY the enemy found so hot a skirmish that it had been better had they not meddled with the feast. For the Englishmen showed themselves men, indeed, in work- ing with their brown bills and halberds, and the com- pany stood to it so lustily that the Turks were half dismayed. But chiefly the boatswain showed himself valiant above the rest, for he went among the Turks Uke a wood (mad) lion, so that none of them either could or durst stand in his face; till at the last there came a shot which broke his whistle asunder and smote him in the breast so that he fell down, encourag- ing them to win praise by death rather than hve cap- tives. "This they intended, but the number of the Turks was so great that they were overpressed and could not wield their weapons. By reason of this they must needs be taken. "Then would it have grieved any hard heart to see these infidels so violently entreating the Christians who must needs go to the galleys. And they were no sooner in than their garments were pulled over their ears and torn from their backs, and they were set to the oars. "Nigh to the city of Alexandria there is a harbor with strong walls where the Turks do bring their gal- leys in the winter season and lay them up against the springtime. In which road there is a prison wherein captives are put, every prisoner being grievously laden with irons on his legs. In this prison were these Christians thrown and fast guarded all winter. The master and owner were redeemed, but the rest abided still, with ill usage and miserably starved — saving John Foxe, who being skilful as a barber, helped his fare now and then with a good meal. JOHN FOXE 33 "At last he had leave to go in and out at his pleasure, paying a certain stipend to the keeper and wearing a lock about his leg. This liberty six more had, by long imprisonment not being feared or suspected." In the year 1577, in the winter, the galleys came to their accustomed harbor, and were discharged of their toasts, sails, and other furniture. There then remained in the prison two hundred and sixty-eight Christians of sixteen nations. John Foxe having been there thir- teen or fourteen years, continually pondering on escape, took a great heart unto him. Not far from the harbor there was a victualling house kept by one Peter Unticaro, a Spaniard born and a Christian, who had been prisoner above thirty years, and was not suspected of any conspiracy. John Foxe opened to Unticaro the device he would put in practice, and made one more acquainted with their plan. These three debated seven weeks and added another five, determining then to accomplish their purpose three days later. The last day of December, John Foxe explained the project to the rest of the prisoners and persuaded them without much ado to join in the enterprise. He gave them a number of files he had gathered together, charg- ing every man to be free of his irons by eight o'clock the next night. The following night Foxe and his six companions came to the house of Unticaro and passed the time in mirth, for fear of suspicion, till the hour came. In the meantime the other seven had provided them of such weapons as they could get in that house; John Foxe took an old rusty sword without hilt or pom- mel, bending the hand end to serve as a pommel. "The keeper now being come into the house and per- 34 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY ceiving no light nor hearing any noise, straightway suspected the matter. As he went backward, John Foxe stepped forth. '"Oh, Foxe !' said he, 'what have I deserved of thee that thou shouldst seek my death?' '"Thou villain,' quoth Foxe, 'hast been a blood- sucker of many a Christian's blood, and now thou shalt know what thou hast deserved at my hands. ' "Whereupon he lifted up his sword of ten years' rust and struck him a blow that clave his head asunder, so that he fell stark dead to the ground. The rest came forth and marched toward the gate of the harbor, entering softly. Six wardens were on guard. "Who goes there?" asked one. Quoth Foxe and his company: "All friends." But when they were all within, this proved con- trary, for said Foxe: "My masters, here is less than man to man: look you play your parts." They entered the jailer's lodge, where they found the keys by his bedside and better weapons. In this chamber was a chest with a rich treasure all in ducats, of which Peter Unticaro and two others stuffed them- selves as full as they could between their shirts and their skins. But John Foxe would not touch it, saying it was liberty that he sought. Now Foxe opened the gates and doors and called forth all the prisoners, whom he set to ramming up the gate, and dressing the best galley with masts, sails, oars, and such furnishings. At the prison were some warders whom Foxe and his company slew; meanwhile eight more Turks per- ceived them and got on top of the prison. There was a hot skirmish. John Foxe was thrice shot through his JOHN FOXE 35 apparel and not hurt; but Unticaro and the other two who had armed themselves with ducats were slain, not being able to wield themselves with the weight of the treasure, also divers more Christians were hurt. One Turk, thrust through, fell off and gave the alarm. The city and castle next to the road were aroused, so there was now but one way of escape and that looked impossible. The harbor side was filled with the fugitives, every man setting his hand to some preparation, but most keeping their enemy from the wall. Shortly the galley was ready, every man leaped aboard, and they hoisted the sails lustily. "Once out from the shore, the two castles had full power on the galley, cannon on both sides and the vessel in between. There is no man but would think it must needs be sunk. "The shots went thundering about their ears, yet were they not once touched by five and forty balls fired from the castles. Quickly they passed out of reach." The Turks rushed to the waterside hke swarms of bees to set out in pursuit; but everything was in con- fusion, there was no leader, and before they could get a single galley properly ready, the fugitives were at a safe distance off the coast. They met with storms, and were in great misery for twenty-eight days through scarcity of food, so that there died eight persons. But it so fell out that on the twenty-ninth day after leaving Alexandria, they reached the island of Candia and landed, where they were made much of by the abbot and monks. Saihng along the coast, and just missing a pursuing fleet of seven Turkish galleys, they arrived at Taranto, sold their galley, and divided the proceeds. 36 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY The worthy gunner went on to Rome and was re- warded by the Pope; was received and pensioned by the King of Spain, and finally came back to his own country in 1579. " Being come into England, he went into the court and showed all his travel to the council; who consider- ing that he had spent and lost a great part of his youth in thraldom and bondage, extended to him their liberal- ity to help maintain him now in age — to their right honor and to the encouragement of all true-hearted Christians." CHAPTER V THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL ESCAPES There is probably no escape from imprisonment on record so noted as that of Baron Trenck. Trenck was a young, handsome, wealthy Prussian nobleman, who entered the body-guard of Emperor Frederick II when only sixteen. This picked cavalry squadron, magnificently uniformed and equipped, was the most dashing and aristocratic body of troops in Europe, selected individually by the King himself, at once guards, soldiers, instructors, and courtiers. In three weeks young Trenck was made a cornet. He served with distinction for two years in the war between Prussia and Austria, though by his own con- fession he did not always allow duty to interfere with his pleasures. Suddenly in 1746 he was arrested on the charge of treason. What his real offense was has always remained obscure; perhaps, as stated, he lifted his bold eyes to the monarch's sister; but it is certain that the Emperor's friendship changed to relentless severity. Without examination or trial, he was conducted by fifty hussars to the fortress of Glatz, in the mountains of Silesia. His letter to the King brought no reply, and after five months' imprisonment, he heard that peace had been declared and that his place in the body-guard had been filled. Not only was there no 37 38 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY prospect of release, but he feared that any day might bring the order for his execution. He resolved to try for freedom. Trenck's first effort to escape was betrayed by the fellow prisoner with whom he had conspired, and in consequence his former comfortable treatment was altered; instead of having the freedom of the citadel and entertaining the officers, he was shut up in a small cell and closely guarded. The tale is told by himself: "I was now left to myself, surveyed my destiny on the dark side, and thought only of the means to fly or perish; for the narrow prison began at last to be insup- portable to my impatient temper. My first project was this: My window was in the alarm fort, about fifteen fathoms high, and opposite the side of the town, therefore I could not escape from the citadel without first seeking a refuge in the town; this was already assured me, by means of an officer, in the house of an honest soapmaker. With my penknife, which was notched, I cut through three very thick iron bars, but as this took up too much time, and there were no less than eight of them that opposed my passage in front of the window, an officer conveyed a file to me, with which I was obliged to work very cautiously for fear of being heard by the sentry. "As soon as this was finished, I slit my leather portmanteau into strings, knotted them together, took my bedclothes to my assistance, and let myself fortunately down from this astonishing height. "It rained bitterly. The night being dark and gloomy, everything was favorable; but I was under the disagreeable necessity of wading through the sink of the common sewer before I could reach the town. THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL ESCAPES 3» This I had not foreseen. Although I was not above my knees, it was impossible for me to proceed. I did all I could, but stuck so fast that at last I lost all strength, and called to the sentry who was on the alarm fort: 'Tell the commandant that Trenck is sticking in the mud.' To increase my misfortune,. General Fouquet was at that time commandant at Glatz; he was a well-known misanthrope, who had fought a duel with my father when a captain, and had been wounded by him. On these accounts he was a bitter enemy to the name of Trenck, and took every opportunity of making me feel the effects of his ani- mosity. He suffered me to remain in this condition as a public spectacle for the garrison till noon, then ordered me to be taken out and shut in my prison again, but would not allow me' any water the whole day to wash myself. The figure I made was truly pitiable. My long hair had, in the struggle, fallen into the mire,, and nothing could be more obnoxious than my situa- tion, till I was granted a couple of prisoners, who' cleaned me. "My confinement was now increased, with as much rigor as possible. I had, however, eighty louis d'ors in my pocket, which were not taken from me, and from those I found essential service afterward. "But presently all my passions began to storm,, and my young blood mutinied against any reasonable resolve; I saw all hopes vanish; looked upon myself as the most unfortunate creature upon earth, and my monarch as an implacable judge, now further provoked by my unsuccessful efforts to regain my hberty. "Scarce eight days were passed since my last un- successful attempt to fly, when a circumstance oc- curred that would seem improbable in history if I did 40 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY not write it myself, and publicly make it known, at a time when I, the chief actor, am still living, and could call upon all Glatz, the whole Prussian garrison, as eye, ear, and local witnesses. "The town major, Doo, came into my prison,, accompanied by the adjutant and officer of the guard; he visited every corner, and entered into conversation with me, in which he styled my attempt to escape a double crime, that would rouse the monarch's wrath against me. The word crime had already made my blood boil. He talked of patience. I asked: 'How long has the king sentenced me?' He answered: 'A traitor to his country, who corresponds with the enemy, has no other appointed time than the King's will.' At that instant I tore from his side his sword, on which I had already fixed my eye, flew out of the door, threw the terrified sentry down-stairs, found at the door below the guard, which had at that moment been called out for the relief, ran upon them sword in hand — every one started with surprise and made way. I laid about me right and left, wounded four men, ran through the middle of them, sprang upon the breastwork of the principal rampart, and directly •down from the astonishing height, without the small- est damage — even kept my sword in hand. I got as luckily over the second lower rampart ; no pieces were loaded, nobody would leap after me, and there was no other way to pursue me than by going through the town and out of the gate, so that I had near a mile and a half start. In a narrow passage in one of the outworks a sentry ran toward me and opposed my flight; in an instant his firelock and bayonet were parried, and he received a cut on the face; the other sentries of the outworks attacked me in the rear; I THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL ESCAPES 41 sprang with all haste over the pahsades, but, unfortu- nately, one of my feet remained sticking betwixt them; I was wounded by a bayonet in the upper Up, and held fast by the leg until the others came to help. They sent me back to my prison, bruised, beaten, and for having defended myself like a desperate man. "My hopes had now an end; my confinement was more rigid, and a non-commissioned officer and two men were placed in my room, which was also strictly guarded on the outside. I was shockingly treated, my right ankle was disjointed, I spat blood, and my wound was not healed for a month. "I soon found (for I was ever on the watch) new opportunty for a fresh enterprise. I studied the dis- position of the men who guarded me; I did not want for money; with that, and excited compassion, any- thing may be done with a discontented Prussian soldier. In a short time I had a party of thirty-two men on my side, who were ready at a wink to undertake everything; none, except two or three, knew of each other's engage- ment, consequently they could not all be discovered; and the non-commissioned officer, Nicholai, was my chosen conductor. "The garrison of the citadel consisted at that time only of one hundred and twenty men from the different regiments that were divided in the county of Glatz. Four officers reheved each other alternately at the main guard, three of whom were in my secret; everything was prepared; cartridges, pistols, and a sword were concealed in a hole in my jail. We meant to release all the other prisoners, and march with flying colors to Bohemia, but an Austrian deserter, in whom Nicholai confided, discovered the whole affair, and the Governor sent his adjutant to the citadel, with orders for th© 42 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY officer of the guard immediately to confine Nicholai, and with his men to surround the barracks. "The storm which had been for some time gathering around me began now to rage with violence. "All possible rigors of confinement ensued, except- ing that I was not put in irons; for, in Prussia, no gentleman or officer can be chained unless he be de- livered into the hands of the executioner for some in- famous crime. "At a time when every expectation began to vanish, and all probability to escape seemed vain, the follow- ing wonderful circumstances occurred: ' ' Lieutenant Bach, by birth a Dane, who every four days mounted guard upon me, was the terror of the whole garrison — a quarrelsome fellow, who had fought with and marked all his comrades. On this account lie had been changed into two different regiments, and at last, by way of punishment, put into one of the battaUons garrisoned at Glatz. This man was sitting on my bed, and telling me that the day before he had wounded Lieutenant Schell in the arm. I said to him jestingly: 'If I were free, I think you would scarce wound me.' Immediately his blood flew to his face, and in a hurry we made a pair of foils from an old spht door which served me as a table; I touched him on the breast. He ran in a passion out-of-doors — but how I was astonished to see him return with two musketeer's sabres under his coat ! He offered me one, and said : 'Now, boaster, show what thou canst do.' I pro- tested against it, wished to convince him of the danger — it was in vain; he attacked me, and I wounded him in the right arm. He instantly flung down the sword, threw himself round my neck, kissed me, and remained crying in that position. At length with an odd kind THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL ESCAPES 43 of joy visible in his face, he said: 'Friend! thou art my master, and thou shalt obtain thy hberty through me, as sure as my name is Bach.' We bound up the wound in his arm, which, though not mortal, was nevertheless deep. He went away, sent for a surgeon, who dressed him properly, and at night he came to me again. "Here he suggested that there was no wky of escap- ing unless the officer of the guard accompanied me; he himself would willingly lay down his life for me, but he could not perform any villainous deed, or desert his guard. However, he gave me his word of honor to find me a man in a few days, and to assist as much as possible. At night he retm-ned again, and brought Lieutenant Schell with him. The first word was: 'Here's thy man.' Schell embraced me, pledged his faith, the bargain was concluded, and I was assured of my liberty. "We agreed that at his next guard everything should be settled, and our design put into execution the ensu- ing one. He mounted every fourth day, consequently in eight days everything was to be effectuated. "But it now began to be suspected that the officers were too familiar and intimate with me; and an order was given for my door to be always locked, and my victuals delivered to me through a window; the major kept the key, and all were forbidden to eat with me on pain of being cashiered. The ofiicers, however, got a false key made, and generally spent the best part of the day and night with me. "Opposite to my room, in the prison, was a Captain Damnitz. This man had deserted from the Prussian service with the company's money, and was made a captain of his cousin's regiment in Austria; but in the 44 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY campaign of 1744 he acted as a spy, and was taken in the dress of a peasant by the Prussian army; he was deservedly condemned to be hanged, but received his pardon, at the intercession of the Swedish volimteers who were at that time with the army, and was sen- tenced, cum infamia, to remain in Glatz the remainder of his hfe. "This worthless man, who, through interest, not only obtained his freedom after two years' imprison- ment but was even made lieutenant-colonel of his cousin's regiment, was at that time secretly employed by the town major as a spy over the other prisoners, .and had given information that, notwithstanding the strict orders to the contrary, the officer of the guard passed most of his time with me. "On the 24th of December Schell was upon guard; he came immediately to my room, and stayed some time with me ; everything was this day to be settled how we were to make our escape next time he mounted. "Lieutenant Schroder was that day invited to dine with the commanding officer, and heard accidentally from the adjutant that he had orders to relieve Lieuten- ant Schell, and immediately to put him under arrest. Schroder, who was in the secret, instantly conjectured that we were betrayed; although, as I afterward un- derstood, it was owing to nothing else but the spy Damnitz having given notice that Schell was in my room. "Schroder ran terrified to Schell in the citadel, cry- ing : ' Friend ! save thyself, all is discovered, thou wilt be immediately confined. ' "Schell himself might have escaped without the least danger, for Schroder proposed to take horse di- rectly and ride toward Bohemia. But the gallant man. THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL ESCAPES 45 instead of following his salutary advice, entered my prison, drew a non-commissioned officer's sabre from below his coat, and said: 'Friend, we are betrayed, follow me, and do not let me fall alive into the hands of my enemies.' I wanted to speak to him — he seized me hastily by the hand, saying: 'Follow — there is not a moment to spare.' I instantly threw my coat on my shoulders, pulled on my boots, but had not even time to take my little concealed cash along with me. "We went out, and he said to the sentry: 'Your prisoner is going with me into the officer's room, stay here.' We actually did go in, but immediately retired, unperceived, by a side door. My friend was planning to go with me under the arsenal to the covert-way, then get over the palisades, and save ourselves the best way we could. "We had scarce gone a hundred paces when we were met by Major Quaadt and the adjutant. Schell started, stepped upon the rampart, and leaped over the parapet, which at that part was not very high. I ■'allowed, and sprang after him, without receiving any other injury but a sHght hurt on my shoulder; my friend had the misfortune to dislocate his ankle, which gave liim the most excruciating pain; he immediately drew his sword and entreated me to run him through the body and endeavor to save myself. "He was a small, weak man; I took him in my arms, helped him over the palisades, aided him to get upon my back, and ran without knowing where. It is worthy of remark, how fortune favored us in so desper- ate an enterprise; the sun was then setting, and the air exceedingly cold, raw, and cloudy; nobody durst attempt to leap after us; the alarm was great — every one knew us — but before anybody could come from 46 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY the citadel into the town, and from thence through the gate to follow us, we had got at least half a league. "The alarm cannons were fired, as in all cases of desertions, before we were one hundred paces distant; this terrified my friend still more, as he very well knew that there was seldom an instance of a deserter escaping who had not at least two hours' start before the guns were fired, because all passages are immediately beset by peasants and hussars, who are particularly strict and watchful. ' ' We were not above five hundred yards distant from the fortifications before everything was in motion both behind and before us; we fled in daylight, and luckily escaped; for which I partly thank my presence of mind and the character I had established. Among the officers ordered to follow us was Lieutenant Bart, my friend, and Captain Zerbst, of Fouquet's regiment, who always loved me with fraternal affection. We met him not far from the borders of Bohemia, where he called to me: 'Brother, keep more to the left, and endeavor to gain yonder house which stands by itself, that is the border — the hussars are gone to the right ! ' He moved sideways as if he had not observed us; we had not much to fear from the officers, they always assisted each other where they had it in their power. "Scarce had I carried my friend three hundred paces till I set him down and looked about me; but the air was so thick that I could neither see the town nor the citadel; of course we ourselves were invisible. My presence of mind never left me a moment; death or liberty was my positive determination. I asked my friend Schell where we were. Where lay Bohemia. Where flowed the Neisse. The good man had not yet recovered himself enough for recollection, but begged THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL ESCAPES 47 that I would not leave him behind alive, and seemed to despair of all probability of escaping. After having solemnly promised that in case there was no other re- source I would deliver him from the ignominious death of a gibbet, I endeavored to cheer up and encourage him by my own example and high spirits; he then looked around and recollected, observing that we were at no great distance from the field ports. I again asked : ' Where is the Neisse ?' He pointed sideways. ' Friend,' said I, ' we have been seen moving toward the Bohemian mountains, where it will be impossible for us to pass, for there the cordon is beset, and the hussars and all our pursuers have taken that route.' I took him again upon my back, and carried him toward the Neisse; we now heard a dreadful noise in all the neighboring villages, and the boors who had surrounded the de- sertion cordon were running about and giving the alarm on all sides. "The Neisse was but little frozen; I took my friend and conducted him as far as I could wade. In the deep- est part, which was not quite three fathoms broad, he was obliged to hold fast by my hair, and in this manner we landed safe on the other side. "Conceive how pleasant it must have been to swim on the 24th of December, and then to remain eighteen hours without shade or shelter, under the canopy of heaven! About seven o'clock in the evening every cloud had disappeared, and it grew moonlight and frosty. I had my friend to carry, therefore was warm, but fatigued; he, on the other hand, endured cold be- side the pain of a dislocated ankle, which I endeavored in vain to reduce; danger and death were before my eyes at every step. "As soon as we had reached the opposite shore of 48 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY the Neisse we were out of danger of the pursuit, for nobody looked for us on the road to Silesia. I walked a good mile and a half by the side of the river, but when we got to the first villages in our rear which bounded the alarm cordon and were by experience well known to Schell, we found by accident a small fishing-boat; we broke the lock, ferried over, and in a short time gained the mountains. There we set oiu-- selves down upon the snow; our courage increased, and we held a council of what was further to be done. I cut a stick for Schell, with which he now and then helped himself forward on one leg, and let me rest a little; this was work of much difficulty, the snow being very deep and its sm-face exceeding hard. "Thus passed the night, whilst we tumbled about and over our knees in snow, without making much way; the lofty mountains were here and there insurmount- able; the day began to break, and we fancied our- selves near the borders, which were four German miles distant from Glatz; but to our great terror and sur- prise, we heard the Glatz clock strike. I now felt my- self unable any longer to endure the extreme fatigue and cold ; the pain of my friend's leg became almost in- supportable. In this situation, and tortured by crav- ing hunger, we thought it impossible to survive the day. After a long consultation, we arrived, in about an hour and a half, at a village which lay at the foot of the mountain. About three hundred yards on this side of the village stood two separate houses; therefore, we took the following resolution, which we immediately put into execution. "We had both lost our hats in getting over the ram- parts of Glatz; Schell, as an officer of the guard, had still his gorget and sash about him, which might pro- THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL ESCAPES 49 cure us some respect from the country people. I cut my finger, and besmeared my face, shirt, and coat with blood, Uke a man shockingly wounded, at the same time bound up my head. In this condition I carried Schell to the end of a thicket, not far from the houses, where he tied my hands behind my back, but in such a manner that I could easily disengage them, pretended to be in a great passion, beat about with his stick, and called for help. Two old peasants came running toward us. Schell immediately cried out : ' Run to the village, let the judge get a cart and horses ready in a moment — I have got the rascal — he has stabbed my horse, by which I have sprained my leg — however, I have slashed him — ^make haste — a cart — that he may be hanged before he dies.' "Thus I suffered myself to be dragged into a room; one of the boors ran into the village. An old woman and a pretty young girl took compassion upon me, and brought us some bread and milk. But how was I astonished, when the old countrjrman called Schell by his name, and assured us that he knew we were the two deserters whom an officer came after the night before — for the latter had named us in the public house, and described our dress, with the whole story of our flight. This peasant knew Schell personally, for his son served in the same company, and had often spoken to him at Habelschwerd, when he was quartered there. "Nothing now remained but an immediate resolu- tion and presence of mind; I ran quickly into the stable, and Schell kept the old boor in the room. He was a very honest man, and even told us the way toward Bohemia; we were not above a mile and a half from Glatz, and had wandered backward and forward near 50 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY six miles in the mountains. The girl followed me; I found three horses in the stable, but no bridles; I besought her, in a piteous manner, to help me ; she was moved, and immediately gave me two. "I took the horses out, called to Schell — he appeared with his lame leg — I helped him mount — the old coun- tryman cried and begged for his horses; but, fortu- nately, he had neither the courage nor the inclination to oppose us; for, defenseless as we were, he might at least have detained us with a pitchfork till the village was alarmed. We rode off without either saddles or hats, Schell in uniform, with his sash and gorget, and I in my red garde du uniform; but our hopes were nearly frustrated, for my horse would not stir from the place; as a good rider, however, I found means to make him go on. Schell rode first; but scarce were we a hundred paces distant, before we saw the inhabitants hastening out of the village; fortunately, for us, it was a holiday, every one was at church, and the peasant whom we had sent was obUged to call them out ; it was about nine o'clock, and had they been at home we must have inevitably been lost. I was fatigued, and Schell lame; we could not possibly have es- caped. "The road led directly to Wunschelburg; there was no way of getting through this town. Schell had been quartered there about a month before; everybody knew him, and our equipage, without either saddle or hat, looked nothing else but desertion. The horses, however, went tolerably well, and we escaped safe, although there were eighty infantry and twelve hus- sars posted to take up deserters. We went round the town, through the suburbs, and as he knew the way to Bummorn, we arrived safe there about seven THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL ESCAPES 51 o'clock. The joy we felt that day is not to be de- scribed. "I was once more at liberty." This adventure would seem enough for one person. But Trenck was captured again in May, 1754, and spent nearly ten years in the fortress of Magdeburg. Part of the time half -starved and desperately sick; loaded down with sixty-eight pounds of chains and fetters; in a stone cell with his own tombstone in the floor beneath his feet; in spite of all this, this man freed himself from his irons so that he could restore them when visited, cut through nine inches of oak planks, dug down under the foundations, tunnelled forty feet, carrying the sand by handfuls — only to be discovered when he emerged ! Again and again he attempted to burrow himself free, though for four years he was visited every fifteen minutes day and night. Friends had arranged to have horses for him at a certain place on the 15th of each month for a year. While laboring naked in his tunnels one night, a great stone fell from the roof behind and blocked the passage. Fainting for lack of air, in the ghastly darkness, dread- ing discovery and loss of his frightful labor even if he got out alive, he managed to dig a hole in the bottom of the tunnel, drag the stone into it, and return to his cell — actually finding courage to restore the rubbish and make all look natural before the inspectors arrived. Once all was nearly ruined by his tame mouse which made a noise gnawing a wooden platter and brought in the guards. Still Trenck persisted — only to fail time after time. At length on the day before Christmas, 1763, the 52 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY King released him, banishing him from his domii. ions. He travelled all over Europe; married a "young, handsome, and virtuous" Frenchwoman; had eleven children; and, after many more romantic adventures, joined the Jacobins in Paris and died on the guillotine in 1794. CHAPTER VI OUT OF THE HANDS OF THE INQUISITION A YEAR after Baron Trenck was immured in the dungeon of Magdeburg, an almost equally celebrated character met a similar fate in Venice. This was Giovanni Casanova, brother of a distinguished painter, but himself preferring to "live on his wits" — which had been his chief inheritance from his actor parents. His gay career was interrupted for a couple of years when he was about thirty. The officials of the church descended upon him as he was starting to an enter- tainment in all his finery, found in his possession for- bidden books of magic, and promptly clapped him into a cell, beneath the roof of the ducal palace and just above the secret room of the Inquisition. Torture and death were the probable future that confronted the prisoner when he was left alone in the gloomy cell, without a bed and with a ceiUng too low to permit him to stand erect. "I became like a raging madman, stamping, cursing, and uttering wild cries. After- more than an hour of this furious exercise, seeing no one, not hearing the least sign which could have made me imagine that any one was aware of my fiu-y, I stretched myself on the groimd. . . . But my bitter grief and anger, and the hard floor on which I lay, did not prevent me from sleeping. "The midnight bell woke me: I could not believe that I had really passed three hours without conscious- 53 54 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY ness of pain. Without moving, lying as I was on my left side, I stretched out my right hand for my handker- chief, which I remembered was there. Groping with my hand — heavens ! suddenly it rested upon another hand, icy cold ! Terror thrilled me from head to foot, and my hair rose. I had never in all my life known such an agony of fear, and would never have thought myself capable of it. "Three or four minutes I passed, not only motion- less, but bereft of thought; then, recovering my senses, I began to think that the hand I touched was imaginary. In that conviction I stretched out my arm once more, only to encounter the same hand, which, with a cry of horror, I seized, and let go again, drawing back my own. I shuddered, but being able to reason by this time, I decided that while I slept a corpse had been laid near me — for I was sure there was nothing when I lay down on the floor. But whose was the dead body ? Some innocent sufferer, perhaps one of my own friends, whom they had strangled, and laid there that I might find before my eyes when I woke the example of what my own fate was to be ? That thought made rne furi- ous: for the third time I approached the hand with my own; I clasped it, and at the same instant I tried to rise, to draw this dead body toward me, and be certain of the hideous crime. But, as I strove to prop myself on my left elbow, the cold hand I was clasping became alive, and was withdrawn — and I knew in that instant, to my utter astonishment, that I held none other than my own left hand, which lying stiffened on the hard floor, had lost heat and sensation entirely." After six months of suspense, he resolved to escape. He was permitted to walk a while each day in the rubbish-strewn corridor. Among the litter he found a THE INQUISITION 55 small piece of marble, and later a long iron bolt, which he managed to pick up unobserved and hide in his clothing. After fifteen days of steady labor, which lamed his arm and shoulder so that he could hardly raise them, he succeeded in grinding the bolt to a sharp point. He now had a tool, and the rush seat of his chair made a hiding-place for it. Then he ordered the guards not to sweep out his cell. His jailer presently noticed this, but Casanova said the dust affected his lungs. He met the jailer's offer to sprinkle the floor with water by the plausible excuse that the dampness would be just as bad for him; but the former's suspicions were aroused and he not only had the room carefully cleaned but made a most thor- ough search of every foot of it. The precious bolt in the chair-seat, however, escaped his attention. Casanova said nothing, but the next day he ex- hibited a bloody handkerchief (he had cut his finger in order to stain it), declaring that this cruelty would mean his death. The Inquisition had its own means of despatching its prisoners, and till it was ready they were sacred. The doctor at once ordered that the floor be left unswept. Thus the prisoner was free to begin. But first the intense cold and then the presence of a Jew money- lender, who was thrust into the same cell, delayed him for several months. He succeeded in making a lamp before his visitor arrived, imravelling threads from his quilt for a wick, and getting oil from salads. The first night he was alone, Casanova set to work at the floor beneath his bed, boring with his bolt for six hours, then gathering the scraps of wood into a napkin and emptying them next day in the corridor. 56 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY He got through the first two-inch plank. There was another beneath it. This was pierced. He came to a third. Three weeks of cautious, difficult toil were needed to make a hole large enough for his body through all this tough wood. And then he discovered there was a flooring of marble beneath, on which his bolt made no impression. He had read that vinegar would soften marble. The next day he poured a bottleful down the hole, and to his delight succeeded in breaking the blocks out of the cement. Only a thin plank remained between him and the room below, though having by bad luck come against one of the floor beams, he had to enlarge his hole considerably. All this had taken nearly four months. Two days before the night he had set for his attempt, came a crushing disappointment. He says: ' ' On the 25th, there happened what makes me shud- der even as I write. Precisely at noon I heard the rattling of bolts, a fearful beating of my heart made me think that my last moment had come, and I flung myself on my armchair, stupefied. Laurent entered, and said gayly: '"Sir, I have come to bring you good news, on which I congratulate you. ' "At first I thought my liberty was to be restored — I knew no other news which could be good; and I saw that I was lost, for the discovery of the hole would have undone me. But Laurent told me to follow him. I asked him to wait till I got ready. '"No matter,' he said, 'you are only going to leave this dismal cell for a light one, quite new, where you can see half Venice through the two windows; wherf^ you can stand upright; where ' THE INQUISITION 57 "But I cannot bear to write of it — I seemed to be dying. I implored Laurent to tell the secretary that I thanked the tribunal for its mercy, but begged it in heaven's name to leave me where I was. Laurent told me, with a burst of laughter, that I was mad, that my present cell was execrable, and that I was to be transferred to a delightful one. "'Come, come, you must obey orders,' he exclaimed. "He led me away. I felt a momentary solace in hearing him order one of his men to follow with the armchair, where my spontoon was still concealed. That was always something ! If my beautiful hole in the floor, that I had made with such infinite pains, could have followed me too — but that was impossible ! My body went but my soul stayed behind. "As soon as Laurent saw me in the fresh cell, he had the armchair set down. I flung myself upon it, and he went away, telling me that my bed and all my other belongings should be brought to me at once." Presently the man rushed back, in mingled rage and terror, and demanded the axe with which the prisoner must have made the hole he had discovered. Casanova replied that any axe he had had must have come from the jailer himself, since he had been his only visitor; and all Laurent's search failed to discover the bolt. The latter after this had a guard sound the floor and walls every day with a bar, but Casanova noted that he never tested the ceiling. Before long, getting his guard to borrow a book from another prisoner, he succeeded in starting a cor- respondence with this man, a monk named Balbi. The letters were written with his finger-nail, dipped in mulberry juice, and the watchful Laurent himself was the unconscious messenger. 58 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Casanova decided the next attempt must start at the other end. "I wrote to him that I would find some means of sending him an instrument with which he could break through the roof of his cell, and having climbed upon it, go to the wall separating his roof from mine. Break- ing through that, he would find himself on my roof, which also must be broken through. That done, I would leave my cell, and he and I together would manage to raise one of the great leaden squares that formed the highest palace roof. Once outside that, I would be answerable for the rest. "But first he must tell the jailer to buy him forty or fifty pictures of saints, and by way of proving his piety, he must cover his walls and ceiling with these, putting the largest on the ceiling. When he had done this, I would tell him more. "I next ordered Laurent to buy me the new folio Bible that was just printed; for I fancied its great size might enable me to conceal my tool there, and so send it to the monk. But when I saw it, I became gloomy — the bolt was two inches longer than the Bible. The monk wrote to me that the cell was already covered according to my direction, and hoped I would lend him the great Bible which Laurent told him I had bought. But I replied that for three or four days I needed it myself. "At last I hit upon a device. I told Laurent that on Michaelmas Day I wanted two dishes of macaroni and one of these must be the largest dish he had, for I meant to season it, and send it with my compliments to the worthy gentleman who had lent me books. Laurent would bring me the butter and the Parmesan cheese, but I myself should add them to the boiling macaroni. THE INQUISITION 59 "I wrote to the monk preparing him for what was to happen, and on St. Michael's Day all came about as I expected. I had hidden the bolt in the great Bible, wrapped in paper, one inch of it showing on each side. I prepared the cheese and butter; and in due time Laurent brought me in the boiling macaroni and the great dish. Mixing the ingredients, I filled the dish so full that the butter nearly ran over the edge, and then I placed it carefully on the Bible, and put that, with the dish resting on it, into Laurent's hand, warn- ing him not to spill a drop. All his caution was neces- sary; he went away with his eyes fixed on his burden, lest the butter should run over; and the Bible with the bolt projecting from it were covered, and more than covered, by the huge dish. His one care was to hold that steady, and I saw that I had succeeded. Pres- ently he came back to tell me that not a drop of butter had been spilled." There followed several weeks of tense anxiety, while the monk laboriously carried out instructions, Casanova being forced to wait inactive. One day when Balbi had gotten to work at the roof of the other's cell, and the impatient prisoner stood lis- tening to the sounds overhead hke the gnawings of a rat, the startling tramp of approaching feet in the corridor came to his ears. He had just time to give the warning signal of two raps against the ceiling, when Laurent appeared, conducting another prisoner, who was to share his confinement. This unpleasant-looking person, Soradici, proved to be a spy of the Inquisition. The ingenious Casanova wrote two harmless letters to friends, praising the In- quisition, and begged the spy to deliver them when he was released, making him swear on the image of the Virgin not to betray him. 60 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY All went as he had expected. The spy was sent for, promptly delivered the letters to his employers, and came back to learn more. Soon breaking through his deceit, Casanova, as if in desperation, dropped on his knees before the Virgin and implored vengeance on the vile creature who had thus desecrated her name. Soradici, overcome with superstitious dread, besought him to avert this fate — whereupon Casanova wrote to Balbi to start work again at three o'clock next day and continue just four hours. The following morning Casanova appeared to relent and addressed the abject spy: "Learn that at break of day the Holy Virgin appeared to me, and commanded me to forgive you. You shall not die. The grief that your treachery caused me made me pass all the night sleepless, since I knew that the letters you had given to the secretary would prove my ruin — and my one consolation was to believe that in three days I should see you die in this very cell. But though my mind was full of revenge— unworthy of a Christian — at break of day the image of the Blessed Virgin that you see moved, opened her lips, and said: 'Soradici is under my protection: I would have you pardon him. In reward of your generosity I will send one of my angels in figure of a man, who shall descend from heaven to break the roof of the cell, and in five or six days to release you. To-day this angel will begin his work at three o'clock, and will work till half an hour before the sun sets, for he must return to me by day- light. When you escape you will take Soradici with you, and you will take care of him all his life, on condi- tion that he quits the profession of a spy forever.' With these words the Blessed Virgin disappeared." Soradici was ready to believe anything, and the con- THE INQUISITION 61 firmation given by the sounds above, from three o'clock to seven, removed his last doubts. At the moment predicted, a week later, the angel in the shape of dirty and dishevelled Father Balbi came through the ceiling. The latter watched the bewildered Soradici, while Casanova ascended, pierced the roof of the building, and with Balbi's help raised one of the heavy leaden tiles. The brilUant moon forced them to wait, and the time was employed in making a rope of sheets and towels. At last they set out, leaving Soradici, doubly afraid now that he saw the trick, on his knees. As they crawled up the steep roof, Balbi gave an exclamation. "Stop! Stop!" "What is the matter?" "I have lost one of the packages tied about my neck." "Not the cord!" said Casanova, much disturbed. "No — but my black coat and a very precious man- uscript." "Never mind, you must endure it and follow," re- plied the other, feehng he would hke to toss the foolish fellow after his manuscript. They gained the ridge and worked their way along it. The monk's hat fell off, rolled down the roof, and fell into the canal. "It is a bad omen," he muttered in despair. Leaving him straddling the summit, Casanova went on to explore. He saw a skylight. But when he reached it, he found it was covered with an iron grating. Even his firmness was almost overcome. Then, 62 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY as he sat in doubt, the bell tolled out the midnight hour. He remembered his premonition that he should gain his liberty on that All Saints' Day thus ushered in. Res- olutely attacking the grating, in fifteen minutes he tore it loose from its fastenings. He lowered the trembUng Balbi to the room below, but the distance was too great for him to drop down himself. Prowling about the roof he discovered a long ladder, and by desperate exertions managed to get it through the opening, almost falling off into the water in his efforts. Descending, he was in the garret, the door securely bolted from the outside. Dropping down in complete exhaustion, Casanova went to sleep ! Dawn was breaking when he came to himself. For two hours Balbi had been shaking him, even calling into his ear. He leaped up. "This place must have some way out," he declared. "We will break everything; there is not a moment to lose." They forced the door with the invaluable bolt, coming into a room containing musty government records. Down one staircase and then another, they crept, reaching the chancellor's office below. This lock re- sisted them, but they pierced the wood, and beat and pried a hole in the door large enough to squeeze through. It looked as if, after all, their superhuman efforts were doomed to failure. There were people in the court- yard outside; the doors could not be broken; at any moment the alarm might be given. At no moment did Casanova show more intrepidity. THE INQUISITION 63 He calmly exchanged his tattered clothes for his fresh suit, and put on the silk cloak and the plumed and feathered hat in which he had been taken two years before. The monk abandoned himself to despairing lamenta- tions and reproaches. Casanova calmly opened a win- dow and looked out. A servant in the courtyard saw him. Hastily the adventurer drew back, thinking that now, indeed, all was over. But the man ran to the majordomo and told him he had somehow locked up a gentleman in the offices the night before. It was easy to believe. The official came up the stairs. The two inside heard the lock grate, saw the func- tionary's inquiring and alarmed face as the heavy door swung open. Without a word Casanova walked past him, in the dignity of an insulted nobleman, the trembling Balbi at his heels. The majordomo, who had feared dis- missal, was willing enough to have no attention paid to his fancied error and to let bygones be bygones. They reached the shore, and stepped into a gondola. Encouraged by the promise of a double fee, the rowers shot the bark over the waters. And with no further mishap, the adventurer passed beyond the borders of Italy. CHAPTER VII MRS. SCOTT'S FLIGHT FROM THE INDIANS In 1786 there appeared the following "True and Wonderful Narrative" of the "Surprising Captivity and Remarkable Deliverance" of Mrs. Francis Scott, an inhabitant of Washington County, Virginia, who was taken by the Indians. "On Wednesday the 29th of June, 1785, late in the evening, a large company of armed men passed the house on their way to Kentucky, some part of whom encamped within two miles. Mr. Scott's Uving on a frontier part generally made the family watchful; but on this calamitous day, after so large a body of men had passed, he lay down in his bed and imprudently left one of the doors of his house open; the children were also in bed and asleep. "Mrs. Scott was nearly undressed when, to her un- utterable astonishment and horror, she saw rushing in through the open door painted savages, with their arms presented, who at the same time raised a hideous shriek. "Mr. Scott, being awake, instantly jumped from his bed and was immediately fired at. He forced his way through the midst of the enemy and got out of the house, but fell a few paces from the door. An Indian seized Mrs. Scott and ordered her to a particular place, charging her not to move. ' ' Here the unfortunate woman was forced to witness the cruel murder of her four children, one of whom was actually tomahawked in her arms. 64 MRS. SCOTT'S FLIGHT 65 "In the house were four good rifles, well loaded, be- longing to people that had left them as they were go- ing to Kentucky. The Indians, thirteen in number, Delawares and Mingoes, seized these and all the plunder they could lay their hands on, and hastily began a re- treat into the wilderness. "It was now late in the evening, and they travelled all that night. Next morning the chief allotted to each of his followers his share of the plunder and prisoners, at the same time detaching nine of his party to go on a horse-stealing expedition on Clinch River. "The eleventh day after Mrs. Scott's capture, the four Indians who had her in charge stopped at a place fixed on for a rendezvous, and to hunt, being now in great want of provisions. Three of them set out on the hunting expedition, leaving their chief, an old man, to take care of the prisoner, who now had to all appear- ances become reconciled to her situation, and expressed a willingness to proceed to the Indian towns — which seemed to have the desired effect of lessening her keep- er's watchfulness. "In the daytime, while the old man was graining a deerskin, Mrs. Scott, pondering on her situation, be- gan anxiously to look for an opportunity to make her escape. "At length, having matured her resolution in her own mind, upon the first opportunity she went to the old chief with great confidence. In the most uninter- ested way she asked him for liberty to go to a small stream, a little distance off, to wash from her apron the blood that had remained upon it since the fatal night. "He replied in English: 'Go along.' "She then walked by him. His face being in a con- 66 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY trary direction from that in which she was going, and he very busy in dressing the skin, she passed on seem- ingly unnoticed by him. "After arriving at the water, instead of stopping to wash her apron as she had pretended, she hurried on without a moment's delay. "She laid her course for a high barren mountain which was in sight, and travelled till late at night. Then she came down into the valley in search of the track along which she had been brought by the Indians a few days before, hoping thereby to find her way back to the settlements without the imminent peril, which now surrounded her, of being lost and perishing with hunger in this unknown region. "Crossing the valley to the side of a river, she ob- served in the sand footprints of two men who had gone up-stream and just returned. She concluded these must have been her pursuers, which excited in her breast emotions of gratitude and thankfulness to divine Provi- dence for so timely a deliverance. "Being without any provisions, having no kind of weapon or tool to assist her in getting any, and almost destitute of clothing; knowing that a vast tract of rugged high mountains intervened between where she was and the inhabitants easterly — and she almost as ignorant as a child of the method of steering through the woods; these reflections produced disagreeable sensations. But certain death, either by hunger or wild beasts, seemed to be better than to be in the power of beings who excited in her such horror. She addressed heaven, and taking courage, proceeded onward. "After travelling three days, she nearly ran into the Indians, as she supposed, who had been sent to Clinch River to steal horses; but providentially hearing their It was now late in the evening, and they travelled all that night MRS. SCOTT'S FLIGHT 67 approach, she concealed herself among the canes till they had passed. "This gave her fresh alarm, and her mind being filled with consternation, she got lost, wandering back and forth for several days. "At length she came to a river that seemed to come from the east. Concluding that it was Sandy River, she resolved to trace it to its source, which is adjacent to the CUnch settlement. "After proceeding up this stream several days, she came to the point where it runs through the great laurel mountain, where there is a prodigious waterfall and high, craggy cliffs along the water's edge. That way seemed impassable. The mountain looked steep and difficult enough, but our mournful traveller con- cluded this latter way was the best. She therefore ascended for some time, but coming to a lofty range of inaccessible rocks, she turned toward the river again. "Getting into a steep gully and scrambling over several high boulders, she reached the riverside, where, to her inexpressible affliction, she found that an over- hanging rock fifteen or twenty feet high formed the bank. "Here a solemn pause ensued. She tried to retrace, her steps, but the rocks she had descended prevented her, so she returned to the edge of the precipice and gazed at the bottom which she now viewed as the cer- tain spot to end her troubles — unless she chose to re- main where she was and perish of hunger or by wild beasts." After serious meditation and devout exercises, she determined on leaping from the height. Accordingly she jumped off. Wonderful to relate, though the river's edge below was covered with uneven rocks, not a bone 68 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY was broken; but being stunned by the fall, she lay for some time imable to proceed. The dry season had caused the river to be shallow. She travelled in the water and by its edge, until she got through the mountain, which she thought was several miles. After this, as she travelled along the bank, a venomous snake bit her on the ankle. She had the strength to kill it, but knowing its kind she concluded death must soon overtake her. By this time, Mrs. Scott was reduced to a mere skeleton with fatigue, hunger, and grief. For four weeks of exhausting travel she had had no food but the juice of wild cane-stalks, sassafras leaves, and some other plants she did not know. She had seen buffalo, elk, deer, bear, and wolves, and while these had not harmed her, they had added to her terrors. One day a bear came past with a young fawn in his mouth ; dis- covering her he dropped his prey and ran off. Almost famished, Mrs. Scott went to pick it up, but fear that the animal might return and attack her drove her on again, despairing. It may be that this reduced state of her system saved her from the effects of the snake's poison; cer- tainly, very Uttle pain succeeded the bite and there was only a slight swelhng. The wanderer now left the river and came to where the valley split in two. It was a hard situation for the poor creature: one branch led to the settlement, the other to the wilderness. She could not hold out much longer — so it was a choice between life and death, with nothing to guide her. She was thus agitated when she saw a brilliantly colored bird of some sort flying low, which took the left-hand valley. While wondering if this meant any- MRS. SCOTT'S FLIGHT 69 thing for her, another passed her and followed the same direction. Accepting this as an assurance that her own road lay there, she branched off after them and toiled on for two days more. Then, on August 11, she saw ahead of her the log houses of the settlement at New Garden — and knew that after three months of terrible suffering and efforts almost superhuman for a woman, she was saved. CHAPTER VIII THE FIGHT THAT FAILED The gloomy records of polar exploration tell of many- desperate struggles, but none more memorable than that made by the ill-fated Lieutenant De Long. His expedition, fitted out by James Gordon Bennett, sailed from San Francisco in July, 1879, to make an attempt at the pole by the untried way of Bering Strait. The commander had a party of twenty-seven besides three Chinamen and two Aleut dog-drivers. By September 6 they had reached about latitude 78° N. and longitude 157° W.— north of the island of New Siberia, nearly four hundred miles westward along the bleak Siberian coast. That day the ice closed about the little steamer, and never fully relaxed its grasp. For a year and nine months De Long made every effort to save the ship, damaged by the jamming floes, meanwhile exploring over the ice and discovering Henrietta and Jeannette Islands. During the night of June 10, 1881, after a day of alarming movements in the encircling ice, the floe split in two with a report like that of a cannon, leaving the ship hanging to one edge, while the other body of ice, on which were the dogs and observatory, drifted away some hundreds of yards. De Long consulted the old whaler, Dunbar. "She'll be under the floe or on top of it before to- morrow night," said the experienced captain. 70 THE FIGHT THAT FAILED 71 Next day, all the stores and boats were removed, the commander superintending from the ship's bridge. Scarcely was everything off, when the ice pressure pushed the steamer over at such an angle that stand- ing on the bridge was impossible. De Long, the last man to leave, jumped off on the ice. The party camped a quarter of a mile away. About four o'clock the following morning, the whole tired camp was aroused by a shout from the man on watch : "Hurry if you want to see the last of the Jeannette! There she goes ! There she goes !" The crew came running out. "Amid the rattling and battering of her timbers, the ship righted and stood almost upright; the crushing floes backed slowly off, and as she sank with slowly accelerated velocity, the yard-arms were stripped and broken upward, parallel to the masts; and so, hke a great gaunt skeleton clapping its hands above its head, she plunged out of sight." Here were these thirty-three human beings then, five of them sick, with twenty-three dogs, five sleds, six tents, and three boats, on a great ice-field, moving in what direction they did not know, hundreds of miles from even the dreary Siberian shore. De Long fully recognized the seriousness of the situa- tion and went at his task with quiet resolution. Spend- ing a few days in organizing the party and in packing, he started south on June 18, travelling by night and resting through the day, hoping to cover the five hun- dred miles to the mouth of the Lena River and reach some settlement. It was hard going. The boats had to be dragged by hand, and the surface was so rough and broken up with 72 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY hummocks that a road had to be smoothed off in front of them. The sharp edges went through the footgear Uke knives. "Many, many times," says Engineer Melville, "after a day's march, have I seen no less than six of my men standing with their bare feet on the ice, having worn off the very soles of their stockings. A large number marched with their toes protruding through their moccasins, some with the uppers full of holes, out of which the water and slush spurted at every step. I have here to say that no ship's company ever endured such severe toil with so little complaint. Another crew, perhaps, may be found to do as well, but better — never !" After several weeks of terrible exertions, averaging perhaps twenty-five miles a day on their southward journey, De Long succeeded in getting an observation of the sun to check their position. His feeUngs may be imagined when he discovered that in spite of these exhausting efforts, the drift of the ice-field had carried them so far in the opposite direction that they were twenty-five miles farther away than when they had started ! He said nothing, but the men guessed something of the truth, and toiled on in dis- couragement. A week later they were cheered by finding they had made some httle progress; and they labored along, often not advancing more than a mile a day. On July 29 they reached new land, which was chris- tened Bennett Island; and having a little open water, they set out in the three boats after killing ten of the poorest dogs. Sailing, rowing, sledging, they crept southwest five miles a day. Eight more dogs strayed away. They had to lighten the boats by shooting two THE FIGHT THAT FAILED 73 of the remaining four. Fogs, storms, short rations, illness, and fatigue became their world. The last bit of bread was divided up on August 18. But De Long held them to the task in spite of every hardship, and they passed New Siberia early in September. On the 12th a terrific gale struck them. The second cutter, with Lieutenant Chipp and nine men, foundered in the night; and the other two boats were sepa- rated. De Long held on and reached land at the tip of the Lena Delta on September 17. They had to land by wading waist-deep through the icy surf. Only the leader's unconquered will aroused his men sufficiently to bring ashore their scanty stock of provisions. They found themselves, after a day's enforced rest, with three and a half days' rations, at some unknown spot in the vast frozen wilderness of the Lena Delta. All had frost-bitten feet, and three could hardly walk. De Long set out southward. With a spirit that was superb, he cheered his despairing comrades ever on to fresh effort. The last tin of pemmican was doled out. The Chinook hunter managed to shoot three reindeer, two with one bullet; and with this encouragement, they pressed on their weary march. By October 3 this supply was exhausted. The one remaining dog was killed for food. One man died and was buried in the ice. A solitary ptarmigan gave them a scanty meal. On the 9th De Long sent forward the two strongest men, Nindemann and Noros, to try for help from the settlement which he thought only twelve miles away. (In reality it was over a hundred and fifty.) Unable to proceed farther, with no food and scarcely any fire-wood, this heroic officer held out for three 74 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY weeks. His companions passed away, one by one, be- fore his eyes. And finally his brave spirit joined them. Melville and his party, after frightful hardships, reached some native huts on the Lena River. Through the persistent heroism of this engineer, and by a miracle of good fortune, Nindemann and Noros were saved. Only in late November, when the natives absolutely re- fused to continue, did Melville abandon the search for De Long. Even then he insisted on staying throiigh the winter with five men, and setting out in March, 1882, to look for his unfortimate commander. After a week's search they found him. Beside him in the snow lay the famous Ice Journal which he had kept up day by day — till he had no longer strength to write. CHAPTER IX A SWIM FOR LIFE IN THE ARCTIC It is an extraordinary fact that the feat of drifting poleward, while the Fram was gripped in the ice, by which Fridtjof Nansen set the Norwegian flag "Farthest North" in 1897, was made possible through a trifling incident of the De Long expedition. While the Jeannette's crew was working its way over the ice to New Siberia, as just related, the same Noros who was sent ahead by De Long in his extremity, hap- pened to leave a pair of oilskin trousers on the ice. His name and that of the ship were stamped on them. Over nine years later, these oilskins were picked up by Esquimaux, hundreds of miles away on the eastern coast of Greenland ! Doctor Nansen saw the fact pubhshed in a Danish scientific paper; it confirmed his behef that there was a current setting across the pole, and led to his brilliant achievement. Nansen's absorbing narrative is full of tales of cour- age and endurance. The following extract from his diary on New Year's, 1895, after being frozen in on the Fram for over a year, implies much of the passive for- titude required: "I often think of Shakespeare's Viola who sat 'like patience on a monument.' Could we not pass as rep- resentatives of this marble patience, imprisoned here on the ice while the years roll by awaiting our time? I should like to design such a mommaent. It should be a lonely man in shaggy wolfskin clothing, all covered From " Farthest North," by Fridtjof Nansen ; copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers. 75 76 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY with hoarfrost, sitting on a mound of ice, and gazing out into the darkness across these boundless, ponderous masses of ice, awaiting the return of dayUght and spring." But the particular incident which illustrates our point so well occurred on the fifteen months' sledging expedition made by him and Johansen. These two had finished the long strange winter in Franz Josef Land (on Frederick Jackson Island) and started back southward on May 19. They reached open water two weeks later, lashed the kayaks together, and in high spirits sailed along all day. "In the evening we put in to the edge of the ice, so as to stretch our legs a little; they were stiff with sitting in the kayak all day, and we wanted to get a little view over the water to the west, by ascending a hummock. As we went ashore the question arose as to how we should moor our precious vessel. 'Take one of the braces,' said Johansen; he was standing on the ice. 'But is it strong enough?' 'Yes,' he answered; 'I have used it as a halyard on my sledge-sail all the time.' 'Oh, well, it doesn't require much to hold these light kayaks,' said I, a little ashamed of having been so timid, and I moored them with the halyard, which was a strap cut from a raw walrus hide. "We had been on the ice a little while, moving up and down close to the kayaks. The wind had stopped considerably, and seemed to be more westerly, making it doubtful whether we could make use of it any longer, and we went up on to a hummock close by to ascertain this better. As we stood there, Johansen suddenly cried: 'I say! the kayaks are adrift ! ' We ran down as hard as we could. They were already a httle way A SWIM FOR LIFE IN THE ARCTIC 77 out, and were drifting quickly off; the painter had given way. '"Here, take my watch!' I said to Johansen, giving it to him; and as quickly as possible I threw off some clothing, so as to be able to swim more easily ; I did not dare to take everything off, as I might easily get cramp. I sprang into the water, but the wind was off the ice, and the light kayaks, with their high rigging, gave it a good hold. They were already well out, and were drift- ing rapidly. "The water was icy cold, it was hard work swimming with clothes on, and the kayaks drifted farther and farther, often quicker than I could swim. It seemed more than doubtful whether I could manage it. But all our hope was drifting there; all we possessed was on board; we had not even a knife with us; and whether I got cramp and sank here, or turned back without the kayaks, it would come to pretty much the sanae thing; so I exerted myself to the utmost. When I got tired I turned over, and swam on my back, and then I could see Johansen walking restlessly up and down on the ice. Poor lad ! He could not stand still, and thought it dreadful not to be able to do anything. He had not much hope that I could do it, but it would not improve matters in the least if he threw himself into the water too. He said afterward that these were the worst moments he had ever lived through. But when I turned over again, and saw that I was nearer the kayaks, my courage rose, and I redoubled my exertions. I felt, however, that my limbs were gradually stiffening and losing all feeling, and I knew that in a short time I should not be able to move them. But there was not far to go now; if I could only hold out a little longer, we should be saved — and I went on. 78 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY The strokes became more and more feeble, but the dis- tance became shorter and shorter, and I began to think I should reach the kayaks. "At last I was able to stretch out my hand to the snow-shoe, which lay across the sterns; I grasped it, pulled myself in to the edge of the kayak — and we were saved. I tried to pull myself up, but the whole of my body was so stiff with cold, that this was an impos- sibility. "For a moment I thought that after all it was too late; I was to get so far, but not be able to get in. After a little, however, I managed to swing one leg up on the edge of the sledge which lay on the deck, and in this way managed to tumble up. There I sat, but so stiff with cold, that I had difficulty in paddling. Nor was it easy to paddle in the double vessel, where I first had to take one or two strokes on one side, and then step into the other kayak to take a few strokes on the other side. If I had been able to separate them, and row in one while I towed the other, it would have been easy enough; but I could not undertake that piece of work, for I should have been stiff before it was done; the thing to be done was to keep warm by rowing as hard as I could. The cold had robbed my whole body of feeling, but when the gusts of wind came they seemed to go right through me as I stood there in my thin, wet woollen shirt. I shivered, my teeth chattered, and I was num.b almost all over; but I could still use the paddle, and I should get warm when I got back on to the ice again. "Two auks were l3dng close to the bow, and the thought of having auk for supper was too tempting; we were in want of food now. I got hold of my gun, and shot them with one discharge. Johansen said A SWIM FOR LIFE IN THE ARCTIC 79 afterward that he started at the report, thinking some accident had happened, and could not understand what I was about out there, but when he saw me paddle and pick up two birds he thought I had gone out of my mind. At last I managed to reach the edge of the ice, but the current had driven me a long way from our landing- place. Johansen came along the edge of the ice, jumped into the kayak beside me, and we soon got back to our place. "I was undeniably a good deal exhausted, and could barely manage to crawl on land. I could scarcely stand, and while I shook and trembled all over, Johan- sen had to pull off the wet things I had on, put on the few dry ones I still had in reserve, and spread the sleep- ing-bag out upon the ice. I packed myself well into it, and he covered me with the sail and everything he could find to keep out the cold air. There I lay shiver- ing for a long time, but gradually the warmth began to return to my body. For some time longer, however, my feet had no more feeling in them than icicles, for they had been partly naked in the water. While Johansen put up the tent and prepared supper, con- sisting of my two auks, I fell asleep. He let me sleep quietly, and when I awoke, supper had been ready for some time, and stood simmering over the fire. Auk and hot soup effaced the last traces of my swim. Dur- ing the night my clothes were hung out to dry, and the next day were all nearly dry again." CHAPTER X THROUGH AN ANTARCTIC BLIZZARD Among the hardy explorers who have in the last few years made the ice-locked antarctic continent give up its secrets, Doctor Douglas Mawson occupies an hon- orable place. He and two companions located the south magnetic pole (72° 25' S., 155° 16' W.) on the ice-cap, seven thousand feet above sea-level; two years later, on an expedition commanded by himself, he con- firmed the discredited American discovery of Wilkes Land in 1840, skirting the antarctic circle for twelve hundred miles; and his scientific observations have been of profound interest. From his many adventures one in particular stands out. His main party had established itself, January 6, 1912, in Adelie Land, on the edge of the antarctic con- tinent, almost due south of Adelaide, Australia. The weather was terrible, even for the stormy antarctic regions: one gale followed another, and from March to November the wind blew continually, varying only between gales and violent hurricanes. These at times exceeded one hundred and sixteen miles an hour. They would hurl down strongly built structures and lift small stones from the ground. "This river of air rushing unceasingly down from the plateau of the great antarctic continent came loaded with miore or less drift-snow, so that it was often impossible to see one's hand in front of one. For days together not a 80 THROUGH AN ANTARCTIC BLIZZARD 81 glimpse would be caught of the neighboring landscape. Through it the daylight came fitfully, and in the winter darkness weird Ughts (St. Elmo's fire) played about on all exposed objects. Such is the weather of Adelie Land — unparalleled by anything else on earth." At a temperature of twenty-eight below zero, in this hundred-mile-an-hour hurricane, these intrepid scien- tists would push into the storm and feel their way to their instruments. By the time they got back, their faces would be covered with a plate of ice which would have to be pulled loose from beard and eyebrows. In November five parties set out to map the sur- rounding country. Mawson himself, with Lieutenant Ninnis and Doctor Mertz, was to cross the highlands and explore the coast to the east. They took three sledges and seventeen dogs, with seventeen hundred pounds of supphes. The party had five weeks of hard travelling, over dangerous crevasses, crossing difficult glaciers, fighting their way over the rough surface with many a fall and continual upsets of sledges. Then luck seemed to turn. The weather got better. Far below stretched ahead of them the unknown coast- line, which their eyes were first to see. Ninnis had gotten rehef from a gathered finger through lancing. Their spirits were high as they set out on the 14th of December. Mertz, breaking the trail ahead of the dogs on skis, sang student songs as he went. Mawson came next with the leading sledge, one hav- ing been abandoned. Behind him walked Ninnis, one hand in a sling. The leader jumped on his sledge to rest and work out the noon observation. Presently he saw imder him the hazy outline of a 82 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY crevasse. They had passed dozens that looked worse; Ninnis in particular had fallen through several times. Mawson called back a warning and went on. Then he saw Mertz looking around anxiously. He turned. Ninnis, his dogs and sledge had all dis- appeared. They rushed back. A gaping hole told the story. There was no answer to their calls; their ropes would reach nothing. At length, after reading the burial service, they were forced to go on. They had only ten days' food left, nothing for the dogs, no tent, spade, axe. They started homeward on their three-hundred- mile effort. The poorest dogs served for food to eke out the scant supply; tin boxes served for mugs or spoons; the sun made the snow surface sticky, so they travelled by night; they were attacked by snow-blind- ness; the compass proved of no use because of the near- ness to the magnetic pole. Still they pushed on. One dog after another gave out and was killed. The food was so insufficient that all the instruments, ex- cept a theodolite, the camera and exposed films, and everything else possible were thrown away. Yet when the sky cleared on Christmas day, they treated themselves to extra portions of dog-stew, wished each other merrier Christmases for the future, checked up their location, and resolutely faced the one hundred and sixty miles remaining. On the 28th, the last dog was despatched. A few days later Mertz began to show signs of breaking down. Encouraged by his companion, he kept on trying to advance; but the frequent falls were so hard on him that Mawson persuaded him to ride. In spite of all he grew weaker, his condition making it impossible for the other to proceed. What this meant, Mawson knew THROUGH AN ANTARCTIC BLIZZARD 83 well. "Both our chances are going now," he wrote in his diary on January 6. But he nursed his companion faithfully — till next night the end came, and he was alone in this frozen wilderness. He says, in his account of what followed : " For hoiu-s I lay in the bag rolling over in my mind all that lay behind and the chance of the future. " My condition was such that I might go off rapidly at any time. The gnawing in the stomach had de- veloped there a permanent weakness, so that it was not possible to hold myself up in certain positions. Several of my toes began to blacken at the tips and the nails worked loose. " The weather remained abominable. Alone, to break and pitch camp in the winds and to negotiate the crevassed region of the Mertz Glacier ahead was a doubtful undertaking. Weak as I was, there seemed little hope of reaching the hut. On the other hand, I felt that I must go on to the end, for it is inaction that is so hard to brook. FaiUng reaching the hut, a good work would be accomplished if only a point likely to catch the eye of any search-party could be reached, a cairn erected, and our diaries cached. Determined to make every effort to accomplish one or the other of these objects, I commenced, when the day had advanced considerably, to modify the sledge and camping-gear so as to most efficiently meet the demands of a one-man sledging enterprise. "The sky remained overcast, but the wind fell off till it became almost cahn for several hours. This gave a chance to get to work on the sledge, sawing it in halves with a pocket tool, rigging a mast, spar, etc. The spade was remended and a sail made from a foot- 84 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY bag and Mertz's burberry jacket. Later in the day I took Mertz's body, wrapped up in his sleeping-bag, outside the tent, piled snow-blocks around him, and raised a rough cross made of two half-runners of the sledge. " On January 9 the weather was overcast and fairly thick, drift flying in a wind reaching about fifty miles per hour. There were still matters that wanted attend- ing to, and the chances were doubtful of ever getting the awkward tent up again in such a wind. Hour after hour I racked my brains for dodges to facilitate operations and make up for my helplessness in striking and pitching camp unaided in the prevailing winds. In this I was eventually successful, but at what a cost of time on each occasion ! "January 10 was an impossible travelUng day, on account of thick drift and high wind, so the time was spent in carefully counting over the food and cooking all the remainder of the dog-meat, in order to save carrying unnecessary kerosene. Late in the afternoon the wind fell and the sun peered through the clouds; but it caught me in the middle of a long job riveting and lashing the broken shovel, so it happened that camp was unbroken till the following day. "January 11 was a beautiful, calm, sunshiny day. The surface was good and slightly down-hill. From the start my feet felt very lumpy and sore. After covering a mile they had become so painful that I decided to make an examination of them on the spot. It being a still, sunny day, it was possible to do this sitting on the sledge. The sight gave me quite a shock, for the skin, thickened by habitually walking only in fur boots, had separated. In each case a complete cast was shed, and abundant watery fluid had escaped into the socks. THROUGH AN ANTARCTIC BLIZZARD 85 In the absence of nutriment no adequate under-skin had formed. The frail tissue was everywhere abraded and raw. "I did what appeared to be best in the circumstances — smeared them well with lanolin, of which, fortu- nately, there was a good store, and with bandages lashed the skin-casts back in place, as they were com- fortable and soft to touch the raw surface. Above this I wore six pairs of thick woollen socks, fur boots, and a soft leather overshoe. Then I removed most cf my clothing and bathed in the glorious sunshine. A tingling sensation spread throughout my body, and I felt stronger every minute. "Sunshine is the elixir of life for those who have been without it for weeks in the snows and winds of the antarctic plateau. "When starting that day in such ideal weather I had thought to accomphsh more; but after six and a quarter miles, at 5.30 p. m., I felt nerve-worn and had to camp, 'so worn that had it not been a delightful evening could not have found strength to erect the tent.' "The following day strong wind and thick drift prevailed. "On the 13th camp was broken again in good weather, and a slow descent made over a rough cre- vassed blue ice surface into the valley of the Mertz Glacier. "'Descended hard ice-slopes over crevasses, etc.^ almost all descent — but surface cut my feet up. At 8 p. M. camped, having done only five and three- quarter miles. Painful feet — on camping find feet worse than ever. Things look bad, but shall persevere. It is now 11 p. M., and the glacier is firing off like 86 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY artillery — appears to send up great jets of imprisoned air.' "The next day the bed of the glacier was reached. Fifteen miles away, across the valley occupied by crevassed and ridged ice, the slopes could be seen rising to the plateau in the direction of winter quarters. Away to the north Aurora Peak, a landmark on our outward journey, was visible. "The crossing of the Mertz Glacier took some days, during which time the sky remained overcast and snow fell in frequent showers. The soft surface under- foot was very comfortable for the sore feet, but made the sledge-dragging immensely heavy. There were many providential escapes from crevasses, the most remarkable occurring on January 17. On that occa- sion I had gone a couple of miles in Hght-falUng snow, and had 'escaped several large, open crevasses, not seeing them until right upon them or grazing past. I blundered blindly on. Then, going up a long, fairly steep slope, deeply covered with soft snow, broke through hd of crevasse, but caught myself at thighs — got out — turned fifty yards to the north, then attempted cross trend of crevasse, there being no indication thereof. A few moments later was dangUng fourteen feet below on end of rope in crevasse — sledge creeping to mouth. Had time to say to myself, " So this is the end," expecting every moment the sledge to crash on my head and both of us go to the bottom imseen be- low — then thought of the food uneaten on sledge — but as the sledge pulled up without letting me down, thought of Providence again giving me a chance.' "The chance was very small, considering my weak condition. The width of the crevasse was about six feet, so that I hung freely in space, turning slowly THROUGH AN ANTARCTIC BLIZZARD 87 round. A great effort brought me to a knot in the rope, and after a moment's rest I was able to reach another, and then the top just below the overhanging snow-lid into which the rope had cut. Then, when gently climbing out on to the surface, a further sec- tion of the lid gave way, precipitating me once more to the full length of the rope. Exhausted, weak, and chilled (for my hands were bare and pounds of snow had got inside my clothes), I hung with the firm con- viction that all was over except the passing. Below was a black chasm; it would be but the work of a moment to slip from the harness, and then all the pain and toil would be over. It was a rare situation — rare temptation, a chance to quit small things for great — to pass from the petty exploration of a planet to the vaster unknown beyond. But there was all eternity for that, and at its longest the present would be but short. I felt better for the thought. "My strength was fast ebbing; in a few minutes it would be too late. It was the occasion for a supreme effort. New strength seemed to come to my assistance as I addressed myself to one last tremendous attempt. The struggle occupied some time, but by a miracle brought me safely to the surface. This time I emerged feet first, still holding on to the rope, and pushed my- self out extended at full length over the snow-bridge. The soUd ground was reached. "Then the reaction was so great that I could do nothing for quite an hour. After that the tent was erected in slow stages and finally food prepared. Later on I lay in the sleeping-bag thinking things over. The problem that absorbed me for a time was whether it was better to enjoy Ufe for a day or two sleeping and eating my fill until the provisions gave out, or to plug 88 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY on again in hunger with the prospect of any moment plunging into eternity without the great luxury of con- suming the food. At this stage an idea presented it- self that greatly improved the prospects. A length of Alpine rope was available, and out of this a rope- ladder was made, one end of which was attached to the bow of the sledge, the other carried over my left shoul- der and loosely attached to the sledge-harness. "The following day snow continued to fall, but, buoyed up by the safety-ladder, camp was broken as usual and I continued with the very eventful journey across the glacier. "It ended successfully, thanks to the ladder, for on three occasions I was precipitated the length of my harness rope into crevasses, but climbed out easily by ascending the safety device. Fortunately the sledge never followed, owing, no doubt, in large measure to the fact that soft snow lay very deep on the ground, often as deep as one's knees. "The western side of the glacier was reached before noon on January 19. Ahead were steep, snow-covered slopes, up which a laborious climb was commenced the following day. "Every ounce that it was possible to do without was discarded from the load. Amongst other things left by the way were the rope-ladder and crampons. For- tunately the wind was of considerable assistance at this stage. With full sail set and the lightest possible load a few miles' progress was made each day notwith- standing the up-grade. The sky remained densely overcast, and it snowed heavily most of the time. For some days vision was limited to a few yards, for dense, driving snow filled the whole atmosphere. In such winds, on each occasion quite a long distance was THROUGH AN ANTARCTIC BLIZZARD 89 covered, for, with sail set, little energy was required to keep the sledge going. It was when camping-time came that the greatest difficulty had to be faced — that of erecting the tent single-handed, with the wind tearing savagely at it. "By January 27 the crest of the plateau was reached, an ascent of quite two thousand five hundred feet in the week. A high blizzard was raging, the snow falling in large round pellets, to be compacted by the wind. In a single day the whole surface of the plateau thereabouts had been raised two and a half feet. The new surface was quite good to sledge over, the runners making but little impression. "Bad weather, added to the inadequate ration, was beginning to tell again — patches of beard came out, and every day hair strewed the floor of the tent and even became a nuisance in the hoosh. "Miraculous good fortune came on January 29. On that day, with a good wind helping and considerable drift in the air, whilst travelling along on an even slow down-grade, something dark loomed through the drift a little to the right. All sorts of possibilities fled through my mind as the sledge was headed for it. The unexpected happened — it was a cairn erected by Mc- Lean, Hodgeman, and Hurley, who had been out searching for us. And on the top of the mound was a bag of food, left on the off-chance of its being met ! "With it was a note stating that the ship had arrived at the hut and was waiting, that Amundsen had reached the pole, and that Scott was remaining another year in Antarctica. "And so the marvel had happened and I had es- caped aUve!" PART II THE TREASURE-SEEKERS There have always been men a-plenty who were ready to face any dangers for the chance of getting gold. Only too often they have not hesitated to face also the laws of God and man. For in a vast majority of these seekings the treasure has been taken only by that right of the strong- est which the world for thousands of years has sought to curb and outgrow. The first famous expedition after treasure seems to have been that of Jason, in his fifty-oared "Argo," seeking the Golden Fleece; and all other companies, however stout-hearted, pale beside that which numbered among it Hercules, Theseus, Orpheus, and Nestor. The wise schoolboy of to-day laughs at the breathless old tales of their perils — the Clashing Islands, the fire-breathing bull, the menacing crop from the dragon's teeth, the sleepless dragon. But it is probable that the ancient legend com- memorates some real expedition of daring Greek adven- turers, bent on spoil, pushing their way to the fringes of the known world. We reach firmer ground with Hanno, the Carthaginian, who sailed to the opposite "ends of the earth" about 500 B. C, passing beyond the Pillars of Hercules; and the hardy Phoenician sailors surely quested far and near after the wealth of commerce and of spoils. Many of the great barbarian waves which swept over Europe and Asia were due mainly to this lust of plunder and "easy money," as when the Gauls in 390 B. C. 93 sacked Rome and only left on payment of a great treasure in gold, and when Alaric and his Goths eight hundred years later ravaged the imperial city. Early Britain had more than her share of these unwel- come seekers after others' treasure. Hengist and Horsa with their Jutes harried her in the fifth century; Sweyn and his fierce Danes only ceased their successful assaults on the payment of tribute by Ethelred the Unready; the dashing Vikings (or fiord-dwellers), who captured Paris three times, settled themselves in Normandy, and had camps at the mouth of nearly every navigable river of France, took their will of her for three centuries, until, liking these tastes, they finally gobbled up the whole in the Norman invasion of 1066 — having long before swept on to Sicily and soutJiern Italy. Even the Crusaders in 1201^ turned aside from their thoughts of the Holy City to plunder the riches of Con- stantinople — with little more pretext than that needed by Genghis Khan when he sacked Peking eleven years later. Brave men were these, but robbers all. Nor had the dashing Drake very much more justification for some of the buccaneering expeditions during those years from 1572-1579, when he circumnavigated the globe and took such vast treasures from the Spaniards. The exploits of the heroes in "The Pirates' Own Book" — Lafitte, Blackbeard, Kidd, Mary Read, and the Algerine Cor- sairs — were actuated by much the same motives. We have come to look somewhat differently at these matters, even though modern naval warfare still permits ■54 legalized piracy. The vast fortunes secured by the British East India Company in the eighteenth century were won by methods on the border-line between conquest and commerce. The modern treasure-seekers have been the Forty-niners, searching for California nuggets; the diamond hunters of South Africa in 1867 ; those frantic "gold-rushers" of Ballarat and of the Klondike — with occasional hunters after buried or sunken plunder, like that of Cocos Island, which might be considered the prop- erty of him who recovered it. And, of course, the riches which have drawn mast minds for half a century are those incalculable ones of modern business — which often calls out the same qualities as the romantic treasure-hunting of centuries ago. The resolute men selected for this section include ex- amples of the conqueror, the pirate, the lost-treasure hunter, the miner of the earth's riches, the twentieth-century busi- ness man. Whatever other qualities they may have pos- sessed, in these scenes they are actuated mainly by the lure of gold. 95 CHAPTER XI WITH NO VIRTUE SAVE COURAGE While the Puritans and Pilgrims were contending with the rigors of nature and the problems of a new colony on the coast of Massachusetts, the waters of the West Indies far to the south of them became infested with bands of pirates, whg, from having in many cases been engaged in making and selling smoked beef or "boucan" from the wild cattle there, got the name of buccaneers. They drew to their yellow flag riffraff from the "Seven Seas" and the four quarters of the earth, and among this company was a young Welsh- man named Henry Morgan, who had run away from his home as a boy. His headlong fearlessness had made him second in coromand to the leader, Mansvelt, when, in 1667, that bold Dutchman was planning to "carve out a buccaneer republic" from the rich lands still held in Spain's loosening grip. Mansvelt died. Morgan after sacking Puerto Prin- cipe in Cuba found himself, by virtue of his strength and ferocity, the leader of a wild band numbering about four hundred and fifty of the very scum of the earth. Setting sail in his nine small ships, he landed in Costa Rica. When the pirates found that he proposed to attack the strongly fortified and garrisoned town of Puerto Bello, even this rakehelly crew was dismayed. Morgan outHned his plan, appealed to their lust for plunder, and wound up with the ringing phrase: "If our numbers are small, our hearts are great !" 97 98 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY They captured the castle, drove the garrison into the great hall, heaped all the powder in the vault below, and blew up the whole. The fort resisted stoutly: Morgan dragged the trembling monks and nuns from the convents, put into their hands ladders which he had made, and drove them in front of his assaulting party; the commander of the fort did his duty as a soldier and in spite of this distressing barrier opened fire; the monks and nuns rushed forward in despera- tion, and those who were not mown down placed the ladders in position; the fort was captured; and for two weeks the pirates pillaged the hapless town. Morgan sent to De Guzman, Governor of Panama, demanding a great ransom for the inhabitants, and when the Governor replied with an armed force, he ambushed it and forced it to retreat. The terrified citizens got together the ransom and Morgan sailed away, promising De Guzman to pay him a visit next year. That remarkable officer sent word he had better not try it, and accompanied this warning with a gift of a superb ring of emeralds ! With the help of the English Governor of Jamaica, who contributed a fine war-ship from New England, the Oxford, Morgan made ready for a descent upon the Spanish settlements in Venezuela. A French vessel, the Flying Stag, came along and he captured her by strategy without firing a gun. Sailing with fifteen ships and eight hundred men, half his force broke away on the high seas, but Morgan pressed on with the other half, captured the town of Gibraltar with great booty, and entered the strait leading to the lake and city of Maracaibo. He presently found his fleet "bottled up" by a strong fort and by three Spanish men-of-war mounting nearly a hundred guns between them. Mor- WITH NO VIRTUE SAVE COURAGE 99 gan built a fire-ship, crammed with powder, brimstone, and tar, and showing guns and figures of men, made of logs; with this in the lead, he bore down upon the Spaniards, who, believing the fire-vessel to be the pirate flag-ship, waited till they could sink it at one broadside. Before they woke up, the dangerous craft was fast to their galleon. It burst into flames, the venturesome crew leaped overboard, and while the Spaniards were fighting the fire, Morgan sailed up and annihilated them. His first attack on the fort failed; anchoring in sight, he went through the pretense of landing a force for a shore attack; the garrison at once set to work and laboriously shifted their cannon to that side to cover the expected assault. The wily pirate drifted down with his ships that night, undiscovered till he was close to the walls; before the heavy guns of the fort could be moved back to bear on him, he was safely past and bound for the high seas. Emboldened by his successes, the buccaneer now de- cided to carry out his boast of bearding De Guzman in his own capital of Panama. His fame brought a swarm of dare-devils to his flag from every town of the Spanish Main; several ships from New England joined him; the flag-ship (the same Flying Stag which Morgan had captured from the French) was furnished by the Governor of Jamaica and flew the English flag, while Morgan's colors were a red banner with a white cross, and a bow flag of red, white, and blue; it was by far the largest and most nearly lawful expedition he had commanded, there being over two thousand men on the thirty-seven vessels. They captured the fortifications at St. Catherine's Island, and stormed the redoubtable castle of St. 100 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Lawrence that commanded the mouth of the Chagres River, along which their route lay; this mountain fort was impregnable on the waterside, but the pirates hewed a path through the tangled woods with their cutlasses, crawled across the open on their hands and knees in the face of a terrific fire from cannon and sharpshooters, and strove desperately all day to carry the palisades at the top. The leader, Bradley, with both legs broken, still urged on the assault; that night another party attempted a surprise: one, a French- man, received an Indian arrow in the shoulder; dragging it from his flesh, he wrapped some lint around it and fired it from his musket; it struck a dry roof, and in a moment the building was ablaze; in spite of a desperate resistance, the fort was taken and the garrison killed, a score of prisoners and wounded only being left out of three hundred and fifty Spaniards. For phj^sical hardihood these buccaneers were veri- table Berserkers : one wounded man, when the surgeon hesitated, because of the dreadful agony, to remove an arrow from his eye, tore it out himself, tied a rag around his head, and rushed into the fight once more. They left two hundred of their number dead, and several ships were wrecked in the harbor through carelessness. Nothing daunted, Morgan set out with thirteen hundred followers for the march across the Isthmus, some in boats, some on the shore. But for the sordid motives, that feat would be an epic worthy of a great pcet. Their provisions gave out before they were well started, till, ravenous with hunger, they soaked and cooked old leather bags they found, cutting them into pieces small enough to swallow; they eagerly devoured the cats and dogs they killed in the deserted streets of Cruz; they slept on the wet ground; their clothing WITH NO VIRTUE SAVE COURAGE 101 speedily became rags and tatters ; they were ambushed by Indians. Still Morgan held them together and drove them forward by his fiery will. After ten days of this they repeated the experience of Balboa : gaining the sunm^iit of a mountain, still called Buccaneers' Hill, they saw the shining waters of the Pacific, and knew they were drawing near their quarry. The ragged, starved pirates forgot their miseries. Hastening down the slopes they came upon great herds of cattle and feasted upon the half-cooked flesh like savages. That evening their eager eyes beheld the steeples of the capital in the distance. Panama was a city of thirty thousand, the rendez- vous of the Spanish treasure-fleets, "the strongest, richest, most magnificent city in the New World." The buccaneers found themselves next morning facing an army five times their size, half of them seasoned Spanish cavalry and foot -soldiers, while back of this array frowned the big guns of the city forts. The invaders began to waver at the prospect. To add to their dismay, the enemy had an extraordinary contin- gent of two hundred fierce bulls, who bellowed and pawed the earth and could hardly be held by the negroes and Indians who managed them. Morgan braced them with a burst of flaming con- fidence, and when their courage was somewhat revived, he reminded them they had only two choices: to de- feat the Spanish or to die. With two hundred sharp- shooters in advance, he led them down the slope in three battalions. The Spanish cavalry charged, but they were adroitly decoyed into marshy ground and while in confusion were riddled by the marksmen. As the main forces en- gaged, the bulls were turned loose. But the invaders 102 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY knew something of cattle stampedes: they actually turned the animals, headed them back for the Spanish infantry, and charged behind the flying hoofs, which swept dismay and destruction through the ranks of their owners. The Spanish line was broken, the army fled in disorder. Calling his men from the slaughter, Morgan hastened to get between the scattered remnants and the city; the defenses were stormed; the streets were cleared in hand-to-hand fighting; when the sun went down, Morgan was master of Panama. For four weeks he had his will of the place. Then, having suppressed one or two mutinies with a stern hand, he marched out, leaving behind a ruined city, and bearing a booty of two million dollars in gold, be- sides silks, arms, merchandise — everything that could be transported. The leader returned to Jamaica, settled down as a capitalist, was knighted by Charles II, and was for a time acting Governor of the island. But his just reward overtook him, and when the King died, he was thrown into prison, where he probably ended his days. If ever there was a case of the misuse of superb quah- ties of manhood, it was that of Henry Morgan. And in spite of his crimes, his savage cruelty, no one who reads the story of his Homeric march against Panama can doubt his claim to a place among the bravest fight- ing leaders. CHAPTER XII A YANKEE TREASURE-HUNTER WHO BECAME GOVERNOR Twenty-five years after the Puritans landed at Boston there was a family named Phips living on the edge of the Maine wilderness at the mouth of the Kennebec River. There were twenty-six children in the pioneer cabin — which must have been pretty full, for twenty-one of them were boys. The father died; there were no schools; and the youngsters ran wild on the wooded peninsula at Woolwich which jutted out into Monseag Bay. The Indians were all about, and the settlers lived in daily fear of the war-whoop of raid- ing bands. One of the youngest of the big Phips brood was named Wilham. His job was to tend the flock of sheep; and he did not do much else till he was eighteen — except grow strong in body and resolute in mind beyond any of his twenty brothers. These swelling powers could not be contented with a shepherd's life: he apprenticed himself to a ship's carpenter in the near-by settlement, and in four years his hard work made him master of his trade. He must have begun to dream dreams in those early days. There were no books or newspapers, but the sailormen he met brought tales of adventure by sea, of the naval fights between the Enghsh and Dutch, of the privateers and pirates beginning to swarm in the West Indies, of the scores of lost Spanish treasure- ships in those waters. 103 104 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Like any vigorous young man Phips drank in these tales; but he went a step farther than most, for he made up his mind that here was a golden field where a boy from the Maine backwoods had as good a chance as an English lord, if his heart were but stout enough. And, as one who knew him, the great Cotton Mather, wrote years afterward: "He was of an inclination cutting rather Uke a hatchet than a razor; he would propose very considerable matters and then so cut through them that no difficulties could put by the edge of his resolution. Being then of the true temper for doing of great things, he betakes himself to the sea, the right scene for such exploits." First, however, he betook himself to Boston, worked at his trade, learned for the first time to read and write, and presently, at the age of twenty-three, married a buxom widow. He contracted to build a vessel at his former home on the Sheepscot River; but just as he finished it the Indians attacked the settlement — and instead of his expected return lading of lumber, Phips had to carry off the terrified settlers to save them from the savages. Though his affairs were embarrassed by this mis- carriage, he "would frequently tell the gentlewoman, his wife, that he should yet be captain of a King's ship; that he should come to have the command of better men than he now accounted himself, that he would be the owner of a fair brick house in the Green Lane of north Boston; and that it might be even that would not be all that the providence of God would bring him to. She entertained these passages with sufficient incredulity, but he had so serious and positive an ex- pectation of them that it is not easy to say what was the original thereof." A YANKEE TREASURE-HUNTER 105 It was small wonder that the "gentlewoman" — a captain's daughter and formerly quite wealthy — thought her poor carpenter-husband somewhat over- confident; and when at thirty-two, he finally got a crazy ship, "not much unlike that the Dutchmen stamped on their first coins with the words about it, 'None can tell where Fate will bear me,'" and sailed southward on some rumor of a wrecked vessel off the Bahamas, it must have seemed like a crack-brain effort to reach these ambitions. These waters were full of pirates who would slit a man's throat for the coat he wore; but Phips cruised about, actually found his wreck, and salvaged a little money from it. More important still, he heard of another galleon "with a mighty treasure" which had been wrecked off Hispaniola (San Domingo) half a century before. His slender resources were inadequate for this enter- prise. He boldly sailed for England hoping to interest the King or some great lord in the venture. In spite of his poverty, ignorance, and lack of friends, his enthusiasm and persistence and "some small tokens of treasure" from his first voyage aroused interest in a court which remembered the exploits of Drake and Raleigh some generations before. The Duke of York, then High Admiral, induced King James to give the bold adventurer a small frigate, the Rose-Algier, in which to prosecute his search; so that in 1685 Phips found one of his rash prophecies fulfilled, and himself the captain of a King's ship of eighteen guns and ninety-five men. He sailed away in high hopes. But there were some more hard years ahead of him. His crew was a lawless band, attracted by the hopes 106 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY of Spanish gold ; the months of cruising about on false trails, the hard labor and lack of proper implements, the perpetual disappointments, drove them to thoughts of the better chances in a piratical cruise. These mutterings grew to open mutiny : with drawn swords they came at the captain, threatening him with death if he refused to join in this pirate expedition. But they had mistaken their man. "Though he had not so much of a weapon as an ox-goad or a jaw- bone in his hand, yet hke another Shamgar or Samson, with most undaunted fortitude, did he rush upon them and with blows of his bare hands felled them and quelled the rest." Overawed for the moment, the mutineers bided their time and plotted a more effectual rising. It was found necessary to clean the bottom of the vessel, foul with many months in the tropical seas, and she was beached at a desolate Spanish island, a bridge being laid to the land by which the stores could be unloaded. The men were given shore-leave for a time; but no sooner were they out of sight than the rogues ' ' entered into an agreement which they signed in a ring (round- robin fashion) that about seven o'clock that evening they would seize the captain and those eight or ten which they knew to be true to him, and leave them to perish on the island, and so be gone away into the South Seas to seek their fortune. . . . These knaves considering that they should want a carpenter with them in that villainous expedition, sent a messenger to fetch unto them the carpenter who was then at work upon the vessel; and unto him they showed their articles ; telUng him what he must look for if he did not subscribe among them. "The carpenter, being an honest fellow, did with A YANKEE TREASURE-HUNTER 107 much importunity prevail for one half-hour's time to consider the matter; and returning to work upon the vessel, with a spy by them set upon him, he feigned himself suddenly taken with a fit of the colic, for the relief whereof he suddenly ran in to the captain in the great cabin for a dram. Where, when he came, his business was only in brief to tell the captain of the horri- ble distress which he has fallen into; but the captain bids him as briefly return to the rogues in the woods and sign their articles and leave him to provide for the rest. "The carpenter was no sooner gone than Captain Phips, calling together the few friends that were left him aboard, whereof the gunner was one, demanded of them whether they would stand by him in this ex- tremity, whereto they replied they would stand by him if he could save them, and he answered, 'by the help of God he did not fear it.' All their provisions had been carried ashore to a tent made for that pur- pose about which they had placed several great guns to defend it in case of an assault by the Spaniards. Wherefore Captain Phips immediately ordered those guns to be silently drawn and turned; and so pulling up the bridge, he charged his great guns aboard and brought them to bear on every side of the tent. "By this time the army of rebels came out of the woods ; but as they drew near to the tent of provisions, they saw such a change of circumstances that they cried out: 'We are betrayed!' And they were soon confirmed in it when they heard the captain with a stern fury call to them: 'Stand off, ye wretches, at your peril!' He quickly cast them into more than ordinary confusion when they saw him ready to fire his great guns upon them. "And when he had signified unto them his resolve to 108 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY abandon them all unto the desolation which they had proposed for him, he caused the bridge to be again laid, and his men began to take the provisions on board. When the wretches beheld what was coming upon them, they fell upon their knees protesting that they had never had anything against him, except only his un- willingness to go away with the King's ship upon the South Sea design. But upon all other accounts they would choose rather to live and die with him than with any man in the world. However, when they saw how much he was dissatisfied at it, they would insist upon it no more and humbly begged his pardon. And when he judged that he had kept them on their knees long enough, he having first secured their arms, received them aboard, but he immediately weighed anchor, and arriving at Jamaica, turned them off." At Hispaniola Phips succeeded in making friends with an ancient Spaniard who remembered all about the wreck they were seeking, and who was finally in- duced to tell its exact location, on a reef a few miles north of Port de la Plata — which town had its very name from the arrival there long before of a ship- wrecked party with a boat-load of silver plate saved from their frigate. With only this to show for his expedition, Phips had to return to England, the Rose-Algier being out of repair and not half manned. The admiralty would not renew his commission, but nothing could daunt the treasure-seeker now that he believed he really knew the whereabouts of his prize. He managed to in- duce the Duke of Albemarle and some friends to fit out a small vessel for him, and obtain a patent from the King giving them all wrecks discovered for a number of years. A YANKEE TREASURE-HUNTER 109 During the wearisome delays, Phips designed and helped to make some rough drags and hooks for exploring the bottom. His indomitable spirit con- quered all obstacles: sooner than would have seemed possible, he was back at Port de la Plata in the little James and Mary, with another smaller craft as tender. His first task was to make a great dugout canoe from a Cottonwood- tree, "so large as to carry eight or ten oars, for the making of which perigua (as they call it) he did, with the same industry that he did everything else, employ his own hand and adze, and endure no little hardships, lying abroad in the woods many nights together." This canoe was used by the native divers who lived in the tender, and day after day Phips sent out several trusted men with these half-amphibious Indians, div- ing and dredging along the shoals pointed out by the old Spaniard. This reef was called the Boilers; and though the rock came within a few feet of the surface, it dropped off sheer into fifty feet of water on the far side. As weeks went by with no reward for their anxious toil, all lost courage except the leader, who so firmly be- lieved in his informant and in his own destiny that he carried the whole party along from one exertion to another. And at last capricious fortune seemed to relent toward the suitor who had proved steadfast through so many rebuffs for these long years. The canoe had finished its allotted task one day and was returning to report the usual failure. One of the men, gazing over the side, saw in the water below a particularly beautiful coral "sea-feather," with gay- colored long plumes, hanging on the face of the per- pendicular reef. no THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Thinking they might as well take something back with them, he ordered a diver to fetch it up. The Indian plunged overboard. They could see him break away the graceful growth. Then he seemed to pause, holding on to the rough rock. In an instant he shot up to the surface. Dashing the dripping water from his face he began to jabber excitedly: in a breathless silence, one translated his statement that he had "perceived a munber of great guns in the watery world where he had found the feather; the report of which great guns exceedingly astonished the whole company; and at once turned their despondencies for their ill success into assurances that they had now ht upon the true spot of ground which they had been looking for; and they were further confirmed in these assurances when upon further diving the Indian fetched up a sow, as they styled it, or a lump of silver worth perhaps two or three hundred pounds. Upon this they prudently buoyed the place that they might readily find it again: and they went back to their captain, whom for some while they dis- tressed with nothing but such bad news as they for- merly thought they must have carried him. Never- theless, they so slipped the sow of silver on one side under the table (where they were now sitting with the captain and hearing him express his resolutions to wait still patiently upon the providence of God under these disappointments) that when he should look upon one side, he might see that odd thing before him. At last he saw it and cried out with some agony: '"What is this? Whence comes this?' And then with changed countenance they told him how and where they got it. Then said he: 'Thanks be to God! We are made!' And so away they went, ail hands to A YANKEE TREASURE-HUNTER 111 -work, wherein they had this further piece of remark- able prosperity, that whereas if they had first fallen upon that part of the Spanish wreck where the pieces of eight had been stowed in bags among the ballast, they had seen more laborious and less enriching times of it. Now, most happily, they first fell upon that room in the wreck where the bullion had been stored up, and then so prospered in this new fishery, that in a little while they had without the loss of any man's life brought up thirty-two tons of silver, for it was now come to measuring silver by tons." Phips drove his men hard, the sailors on deck ham- mering several inches of incrusted limestone from the treasure. "They knocked out whole bushels of pieces ■of eight which were grown thereunto. Besides that incredible treasure of plate in various forms, thus fetched up from seven or eight fathoms under water, there were vast riches of gold and pearls and jewels, which they also lit upon; and indeed for a more com- prehensive invoice I must but summarily say: All that ■a Spanish frigate was to be enriched withal." This vast treasure, worth nearly a million and a half of dollars, almost produced another mutiny. Phips, however, promised that every man should receive a share, even if it had to come out of his own portion — an engagement which he honorably carried out. Not daring to stop at any port, even for provisions, he set sail for England and turned this dazzling booty safely ■over to his backers. His own share, with the large deduction for the sea- men, was only eighty thousand dollars. But this was a f ortime for those days ; and with it, a gold cup worth another five thousand presented by the Duke to Mrs. Phips,, and the order of knighthood bestowed by the 112 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY King, the triumphant adventurer sailed back to New England in 1688, resisting many fair offers of advance- ment if he would remain in London. I should like to have seen the face of "that gentle- woman, his wife," who had been so incredulous at her carpenter-husband's dreams, when Sir WilUam Phips presented her that gold cup from the great Duke, and told her of the "sea change" that had come upon him I They had their fair brick house in the Green Lane (corner of Charter and Salem Streets, Boston) and the stout-hearted Sir WilUam went on to become Governor of Massachusetts and to capture Port Royal. But nothing in his romantic career was more striking than that valiant quest for the Spanish treasm-e off Port de la Plata. CHAPTER XIII THE MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE One summer evening, nearly four hundred years ago, a man stood on a rocky headland looking out over the GuLf of Mexico. The sun was setting over the tangled tropical forest to the west, and he had removed his steel helmet to enjoy the sea-breeze which was fanning away the fierce heat, and stirring the blue-green waters of the bay whose shores curved around beneath him. A tall pyramid of rough bricks towered behind him, with a flight of stone steps leading to a platform, on which a fire shot up wavering flames and snaoke in the gathering twihght. The cavalier rested one steel-clad arm on the saddle of his bay horse, which turned its head inquiringly toward the motionless figure of its master. He was in the early thirties, tall, slender, with large dark eyes, now fixed on the waters of the bay, and with an expression of great resolution on his face. Upon his steel breastplate gleamed a huge emerald in a heavy gold setting, curiously wrought into the figure of an eagle bearing in his talons a serpent; this single orna- ment hung from his neck by a gold chain. As still and silent as the sacred pjo-amid itself, he watched several boats, heavily loaded with sails, spars, anchors, and rigging of all sorts, which were being rowed toward shore from a little fleet of five ships that rode the rip- pling waters. 113 114 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Presently, the last boat, rapidly forced along by several sailors, left the side of the largest vessel, which, like all the rest save one little caravel, was stripped to bare masts. The watchful figure on the headland stiffened, and bent forward, as if in expectation of something. While he looked, the deserted vessels be- gan to move slowly, drifting before the wind. The man never took his gaze from them. Suddenly, the bow of the largest rose high in the air. She heeled over to one side, quivering hke a desperately wounded thing. Then, slowly, the hull began to disappear beneath the surface. Down, down, she went, till the tips of the masts sank out of sight. Another followed, and another. It was like a flock of injured water-fowl diving. In a few minutes the waters of the bay were bare of Ufe, except for the tiny caravel, still bobbing at anchor, and for the group of boats steadily approaching the shore. The man stood a while longer; then he turned impulsively toward the golden glow in the west, stretching forth his arm. Vaulting into his saddle, he rode rapidly away south- ward into the darkness. The cavalier's name was Hernando Cortes. The ships were his own, sunk by his order — and five others had been destroyed just before in the same way. He was in a strange land, untrodden by any white man, among savage and hostile Indians ; and he had thus de- liberately cut off the only means of return to civiliza- tion for himself and his little band of comrades. And why did he commit an act of such madness? It was the end of the first act in the most amazing ro- mance of history, and the story up to this point shows the kind of man it was who made an immortal name for himself and his men in this incredible expedition. MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 115 Hernando Cortes had been a boy of seven when the news of Columbus's discovery of the New World ex- cited the mind of every man in Spain and all Europe. He showed no signs of greatness in his youth; indeed, his parents were much distressed by his idleness at school and college. He was not even a healthy boy; but he grew stronger as he got older, and became noted for his frolicsome disorders. At seventeen his fancy was taken with the venturesome exploits of his coun- try's famous soldiers ; and, after missing one chance to sail for the West Indies by a humiliating misadventure in a love-affair, he finally went to Hispaniola at the age of nineteen. Having spent seven years as a planter, he joined the expedition which conquered Cuba in 1511, and soon managed to get into the bad graces of Velas- quez, the Governor. Escaping from prison twice, and narrowly missing death both by hanging and drowning, he succeeded in regaining the friendship of the Govern- or, married a beautiful girl, and settled down as a pros- perous planter and miner. For eight years more he fol- lowed this peaceful life, growing wealthy, and becom- ing alcalde or magistrate. Then, toward the end of 1518, the whole colony was aroused by the return of Pedro de Alvarado, who had gone with Grijalva, the Governor's nephew, to follow up the discovery of Yuca- tan the previous year by Cordova. Alvarado brought back gold ornaments and jewels worth a quarter of a million dollars, obtained from the natives in exchange for a few glass beads, pins, and scissors. Velasquez, in great excitement, decided to send out a larger expedi- tion, and Cortes managed, through his friendship with the Governor's secretary and the royal treasurer, to get appointed as the leader. This was the real birth of the great Cortes. He spent 116 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY all his own money, pledged his estates, exhausted his credit, borrowed from his friends, bought vessels, stores, and arms, enlisted recruits, with an energy, en- thusiasm, and good judgment of which his former years had given no promise. Before he was ready, the Governor's distrust of him returned. Learning that he was to be deprived of the comcmand, Cortes set sail from St. Jago (Santiago) that very night, waving a fare- well from his boat to the outwitted Velasquez. At three other Cuban ports he got stores and enlisted re- cruits; he seized a ship and persuaded the captain to join him; Velasquez tried to have him detained at Trinidad and Havana, but Cortes won over the com- mandants of both places, and finally set sail, February 18, 1519, with less than six hundred soldiers, of whom thirty-two had crossbows and thirteen carried the clumsy arquebuses which served in place of our rifles. He had also fourteen cannon and sixteen horses, the last proving of surprising importance. Landing on the coast of Yucatan, the Uttle army presently defeated a horde of forty thousand Tabascan Indians with terrific slaughter, and made their way with much difficulty along the coast. In a short time their eyes were opened to what lay before them. The Tabas- cans told them that the gold ornaments they saw came from the west, from "Mexico"; and proceeding along the shore till they reached the spot now occupied by the city of Vera Cruz, they learned from the natives that their province was part of the great Mexican em- pire ruled over by Montezuma. Through the Governor of the province Cortes sent a request to this Emperor that he might deliver in person a message from the Em- peror of Spain — and while this was refused by the mysterious monarch three times, the embassies which MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 117 returned brought presents that dazzled the eyes of the Spaniards: among them gold and precious stones in quantity and workmanship almost beyond belief. One gold and silver plate, "as large as a carriage-wheel," represented the sun, being richly carved with figures of plants and animals. This was valued at a quarter of a million dollars. In spite of Montezuma's refusal to see him, Cortes was only the more determined after this to probe this mystery to the heart. For he was urged on irresistibly by thoughts of unbounded glory and riches, as well as the rehgious duty of converting these heathen to the true faith. He was continually dreading that Velas- quez or the Spanish Government would send over some one to take his place and snatch this marvellous oppor- tunity from him; but he formed his audacious plan and followed it as coolly as if there were not a doubt of his position. In spite of the opposition of the friends of Velasquez in his own party, who insisted he should re- turn to Cuba, he managed affairs so that his soldiers demanded the founding of a colony in the name of Spain; and the new officials of the new town of Villa Rica de Vera Cruz at once appointed him Captain- General. With this shadow of authority, with gold, and by the force of his own character and enthusiasm, he got his followers in hand again. Most adroitly he made an alliance with the Totonacs, a neighboring tribe who, he found, wished to throw off the yoke of Montezuma. He contrived at the start to make them offer an open insult to the Mexican Emperor; and, helped by these allies, a Spanish town arose as if by magic close to their chief city of Cempoala — ^with "fort, granary, town house, temple, and public buildings." Cortes thus 118 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY had a safe headquarters among friends. (Immediately thereafter, by the way, he risked the success of the whole undertaking by forcibly destroying the idols in one of his new friends' chief temples — actually succeed- ing in substituting the forms of his own religion !) Next he sent a letter to the Emperor of Spain, along with the princely treasures from Montezuma, begging for a confirmation of his acts and his position, so that he should no longer fear what Velasquez might do. But just as he felt everything was ready for his ven- ture, a conspiracy came to light in his ranks: one of the members confessed that this party was to seize one of the vessels that very night and return to Cuba. They had provisions, water, and all necessities on board, and but for the weakening of this man must have suc- ceeded in their plan. Realizing the dangers he must expect perpetually from this source, Cortes came to a bold decision, re- sulting in the scene with which our story began: he had his pilots report that the ships were in such bad condition as to be unsafe; and, removing the sails, anchors, and the like, nine of the ten vessels were sunk by his order. Under all the circumstances, it was an almost unparalleled act of resolve, and well showed the steely courage of the Great Conquistador. 11 When the soldiers, twelve miles away at Cempoala, heard that the ships were sunk, they were thunder- struck. The faint-hearted began to murmur that the general had betrayed them; the despairing protests became outspoken; and it seemed as if the leader's enemies would surely triumph with this weapon he had MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 119 put into their hands. But Cortes showed himself, as before, the master mind. Addressing the men with the rough eloquence he understood so well, he presently turned their minds from fears for their return to a wild enthusiasm for advancing on this marvellous country, whose ruler could bestow on strangers such superb gifts. "They testified the revulsion of their feeUngs by making the air ring with their shouts : ' To Mexico ! To Mexico!'" Accordingly on August 16, 1519, the audacious little band of four hundred foot-soldiers and fifteen horse, with seven cannon and some Indian allies, struck out to the west. The first day they passed through plantations of banana, vanilla, cocoa, and cochineal; through pri- meval trees of vast height, loaded with a tangle of or- chids and other parasites, with grape-vines and convol- vuh — amid which flew gaudy, shrieking parrots, strange toucans, myriads of wonderfully colored butterflies, and all the richness of the sea-level tropics. Then they began the mountain climb to the vast table-lands, finding themselves amid fields of corn and the products of the temperate zone, with forests of oak and pine. From the city of Xalapa (from which our drug of jalap gets its name) they saw the great Sierra Madre Moun- tains, and snow-crowned Orizaba ("Star-mountain") towering to its seventeen thousand three hundred and sixty-eight feet. Then came three exhausting days of travel past volcanic mountains, amid storms of sleeib and rain; and on the high table-land beyond, the plant life had again changed to fields and hedges of cactus, and of the invaluable aloe with its yellow flowers (which furnishes drink and clothing). The chief of the province received them coldly and gave them impres- sive details of Montezimia's grandeur, stating that the 120 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Emperor could muster fi;om his thirty vassals an army of three million men, and that twenty thousand human victims were sacrificed on his altars each year. He may have thought to frighten the adventurers into re- treat. But says old Bernal Diaz, one of the party: "The words which we heard, however they may have filled us with wonder, made us — such is the temper of the Spaniard — only the more earnest to prove the ad- venture, desperate as it might appear." They were advised at the next town to pass through the repubhc of Tlascala, whose mountaineers were still unconquered by the Mexicans; so sending ahead Indian messengers, they passed a week later the huge stone wall marking the boundary of that country. A few leagues farther on, while pursuing a small party of Indians, they were attacked by a body of several thou- sand, who made so fierce an onslaught that they killed two of the horses, and were only routed by the muskets and crossbows. In spite of a visit from two Tlascalan envoys, assur- ing them of a friendly reception, the Spaniards spent a watchful night, and advanced next day in strict order. Dispersing a small band who confronted them, they were drawn by these into a narrow passage, where neither the cavalry nor the cannon could operate; and as they turned an angle of this defile, they saw before them a great army of tens of thousands of warriors, whose bright plumes and banners were dominated by an ensign showing a heron on a rock. With their piercing war-whistle and the boom of many drums, the Indians closed in upon the little company. Their repeated onslaughts were so savage that one horseman was killed, and it looked as if the Spaniards would never force their way through; but, MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 121 inspired by the spirit of their leader, they finally forced the enemy back out of the pass. With room to use cannon, they soon spread death and terror among the savages, who, brave as they were, could not stand be- fore the sulphurous thunders of these unknown weap- ons; and having suffered heavy losses, including eight chiefs, the Tlascalans withdrew in good order. Cortes spent that night in a stone temple on a rocky hill, car- ing for his wounded, planning for the morrow, wonder- ing if his whole advance must be in the face of such a stubborn foe. It did not lessen his care to receive next day a defiant message from the chief Xicotencatl, who was reported to have fifty thousand warriors with him. The in- vaders, he said, might reach the city of Tlascala, but once there, their flesh would be hewn from them as a sacrifice to the gods. It was a solemn company that received absolution that night from the priest. Honest Diaz says, "We feared death, for we were men" — and this kind of death had few attractions even for the danger-loving adventurers. It was on the 5th of September when they confronted the array of painted battalions, a sea of feathers, plmnes, gold ornaments, fantastic head-pieces, and copper-headed spears, the great gold eagle of Tlascala spreading his wings above the lesser ensigns. The battle began with a shower of Indian arrows that "darkened the sim." Despite a most destructive vol- ley from the Spanish guns, the savages charged upon the invaders, breaking their ranks and sweeping them away by sheer force of numbers. The voice of Cortes was drowned in the clamor. It looked as if the rash expedition would meet with its end then and there. But the seasoned warriors fought with the energy 122 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY of desperation. The cannon hurled balls upon the enemy's flank. Cortes at the head of his cavalry charged into the thick of the press. The Tlascalans were beaten back again and again. After several hours a rivalry caused one chief to withdraw with ten thou- sand men; and the Tlascalan leader was forced to re- treat. This redoubtable warrior was still xmdismayed, how- ever, by his defeat, or by the terrible cannon, or the horses which filled the common soldiers with such awe and terror. He urged the council to reject Cortes's pro- posals of peace next day, and, contrary to custom and the laws of coimtry, planned a night attack which should catch the strangers unawares. Cortes heard nothing of this; but his men always slept with their arms beside them, and the horses were saddled by night as by day. On the appointed night, a sentinel saw a dark mass approaching in the moonlight. He gave the alarm. In five minutes the camp was ready for battle; and with characteristic audacity Cortes decided to attack instead of awaiting the foe. As the Indians reached the rising ground, the Spaniards dashed down upon them, threw them into utter con- fusion, and piu-sued them till weary of killing. It was enough. The council of lords submitted their country to these terrible, invincible beings; and the aUiance, faithfully kept by the Indians through all sorts of dangers and reverses, proved of the first im- portance later on. Cort6s here rested his men, quelled the beginnings of another mutiny among those who had had all the fighting and hardships they cared for, and received a fourth embassy from Montezuma. This brought three thousand ounces of gold, hundreds of feather-work MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 123 mantles, and other gifts — but still refused him admit- tance to Mexico. The vacillating Emperor followed this up presently with another, also bearing rich pres- ents, this time inviting the Spaniards to come to the capital, urging them to make no alliance with the bar- barous Tlascalans, and suggesting the route by way of Cholula, where, he said, they would be received as his guests. Against the advice of the Tlascalans, Cortes pro- ceeded to that city, which had formally tendered him its submission. It was of great antiquity, having been founded by the people who preceded the Aztecs then ruling the land; it was believed to have been the abode, after leaving Mexico, of the Fair God (Quetzalcoatl), whose coming again was universally expected — a be- lief to which the Spaniards owed much of their astound- ing success, since it became generally supposed that they were at least messengers from this long-expected deity; and it contained the most famous temple in the land, a pyramid of bricks and clay a hundred and seventy-seven feet high and. twice as long as the great pjTamid of Cheops in Egypt (fourteen himdred and twenty-three feet). Thousands of humaii vic- tims, according to the horrible custom of the country, were sacrificed each year before the altar of this "god of the air," above whose dark face was a crown "waving with plumes of fire," about his neck a collar of gold, great turquoises in his ears, a jewelled sceptre in one hand, and a curiously painted shield on his arm. From Cholula the ardent Spaniards could see, be- yond hundreds of towers, beyond the beautiful gardens, forests, and cultivated fields, two vast volcanoes guard- ing the pass to Mexico: Popocateoetl, "the mountain that smokes," and Iztaccihuatl, "the white woman." 124 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY The first reception was most hospitable. The weary Spaniards enjoyed to the full the luxuries and novelties of this highly civilized city. But the sharp eye of Cortes soon detected a change in the attitude of his hosts that put him on the alert ; and the faithful Indian girl from the coast, Marina, who had acted as inter- preter, presently brought an alarming tale. The Spaniards were to be attacked suddenly as they left the city, various barricades having been erected tO' throw them into disorder, and a force of twenty thou- sand Mexicans was outside the city to make sure of exterminating the little band. Cholula was a trap, and the Spaniards were fast in its jaws. In this alarming situation, Cortes met guile with guile. Making absolutely sure of the fact, he bade the chiefs of the nation to a conference at his headquarters. They came, secure in the belief that their plot was secret. When they entered the great square courtyard, they found all the gates guarded and the Spanish soldiers drawn up along the walls. Cortes at once charged them with the conspiracy, showing that he knew all the details. In a voice of thunder he denounced their treachery, declaring that he proposed to make such an example of them as should never be forgotten. At a signal, the soldiers poured a volley from muskets and crossbows into the huddled mass of Cholulans. They were killed almost to a man, the only ones who escaped hiding under the dead bodies; with the aid of the Tlascalan allies, Cortes soon put down the aroused citizens, and set fire to the temple, while the Tlarjcalans, against his orders, plundered the city. After restoring quiet, freeing the captives reserved for sacrifice, and receiving another embassy from the MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 125 thoroughly alarmed Montezuma — who denied having any share in the plot, and sent as usual gold, jewels, and other valuables — Cortes again took up his march to- ward Mexico. The road led between the two great vol- canoes, Popocatepetl belching up its threatening smoke from its snowy cone three thousand feet higher than the tallest mountain of Europe. Sleet and snow and icy winds made the difficult passage still harder, but when on the second day they suddenly looked out and down to behold spread out before them the exquisite panorama of the Valley of Mexico, all remembrance of their hardships and perils vanished: there, amid beautiful lakes and hills and gardens lay the capital of Montezuma. As they saw its charm, its richness, and thought of what it must contain, they cried out: "It is the Prom- ised Land." With fresh enthusiasm, but exercising the greatest caution, they made their way down, and were welcomed in the name of Montezuma by the King of Tezcuco as the Emperor's representative. Every step showed a fresh marvel: the handsome houses, often buUt on piles out above the lake; the great stone causeways running for miles across the water and wide enough for eight horsemen abreast; the floating islands, natural and artificial, with trees, houses, and gardens; the vast population and swarms of canoes; the fertile irrigated fields and multitude of flowers; the royal palace of Iztapalapan, with its botanical gardens, aviary, and fish-basin nearly a mile in circum- ference; it was like a descent into fairyland. The battered adventurers felt as if they were being trans- ported bodily among the wonders of some of the old romances. On the eighth day of November, 1519, at a fort on 126 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY the great causeway about a mile from the city, Monte- zuma met them, in all the splendor of a barbaric Em- peror. He was in the royal palanquin, blazing with gold, borne on the shoulders of nobles. His canopy of bright feathers, adorned with jewels and silver, was carried by four more lords. As he advanced, in a cloak sprinkled with pearls and precious stones, the atten- dants placed mats before him that the golden soles of his sandals might not touch the earth. Greeting the visitors like the great monarch he was, Montezuma had them conducted past the swarming myriads of onlookers into the city. Here with his own royal hands he hung a massive collar of gold about the neck of Cortes, and presented to him the palace of Axayacatl, which was to be the Spaniards' quarters. This huge structure offered accommodations for the whole "army." And, as the ever-watchful eye of Cortes at once discovered, it was also an admirable fortress which could be defended against almost any odds. Ill Here then were our adventurers, at the goal to which they had cut their bloody path through the hordes of one tribe after another. It did not take long for them to find out that in wealth and splendor this hitherto fabulous capital surpassed their fondest dreams. The great stone buildings with squares and busy market- places; the teeming throngs of people; the evidence at every turn of a surprising stage of civilization: the Aztecs, for instance, were such good astronomers that they were eleven days nearer the correct time than the Spaniards themselves, and their enormous botanical gardens were unknown in Europe till almost a genera- MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 127 tion after the Conquest; the magnificence of Monte- zuma's way of life: the endless kinds of food kept hot with chafing-dishes — including fish and ocean products, as well as tropical fruits brought by fast runners in twenty-four hours from the coast; his beautiful table- ware — given away after a single meal; his clothing — also worn once and then given away; the host of nobles serving him barefooted and in coarse mantles, a house- hold which required two thousand pitchers of the na- tional chocolate each day; a ghastly total of yearly hiunan sacrifices which ran into tens of thousands; all this tremendous stirring life only made more diffi-. cult the question as to what they were to do next. It was like the ardent hunter who pursues an elephant — to find himself facing a whole herd. One little accident helped to whet their appetite, if that were needed. After a fruitless attempt to in-' duce Montezuma to let them cast out the idols from the great temple — an impudent suggestion which out- raged the Emperor beyond measure — Cortes obtained permission to convert one of the halls in the palace they occupied into a chapel for the service of their own church. In the course of these alterations, the curious Spaniards broke open a plastered door, and beheld a large hall filled with gold and silver bars, with jewels and rich stuffs. Bernal Diaz was one of those who looked in. "I was a young man," says he, "and it seemed to me as if all the riches of the world were in that room." The door was walled up again, but the treasure-seekers never forgot what they had beheld. To add to the perplexities of the situation, Cortes heard that the garrison he had left at Vera Cruz had been drawn into a quarrel with a neighboring chief. 128 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY and eight of them, including Escalante, the leader, had been killed — and their prisoners declared the whole affair had been planned by Montezuma. He resolved as usual to grasp this nettle firmly. With five of his most trusted cavaliers, Alvarado, Sandoval, Lujo, De Leon, and De Avila, he called upon Montezuma, ordering thirty soldiers to drop in, three or four at a time, as if by accident. After some casual talk, Cortes charged the Emperor with responsibility for the fate of Escalante. The surprised monarch despatched an order for all those concerned to appear at the capital. Cortes then sug- gested that, to prove his innocence to the Spanish Emperor, Monteziuna should take up his residence at their quarters. The indignant monarch refused. For two hours the discussion got nowhere. Then, losing patience, De Leon cried out: "Why do we waste words? Let us seize him, and if he resists, plunge our swords into his body." Marina, the interpreter, begged the Emperor to yield, assuring him it would mean instant death if he resisted longer. The unhappy King, overcome by superstition as well as fear in the very midst of his power and splendor, at last yielded. He was carried in his litter to a suite of rooms in the quarters, having the extra humiliation of being obliged to quiet the crowds in the streets and assure them he was going of his own free will. His captors treated him at first with great respect, but when the chiefs who had killed Escalante arrived, and were sentenced to a horrible death, they declared they had followed Montezuma's orders — whereupon Cortes had the luckless Emperor put in irons. Though MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 129 soon released, Montezuma's once proud spirit was utterly broken by this final insult. From this time on, he was absolutely under the will of the Spaniard. There is nothing in the wildest romances of Dumas's "Three Musketeers" which can compare with this ex- ploit. The man who could carry through such a feat and the sinking of his ships already descrioed, mani- fested a courage, not of what we consider to-day the highest order, but surely as high of its order as history has ever recorded. IV Cortes was now the real ruler of the Mexican Empire. He explored the country, found out where the gold was obtained, secured a better harbor on the coast, and sent De Leon with a hundred and fifty men to plant a col- ony. He started a great plantation for the Spanish Crown which he stocked and planted, soon having the fertile land under such cultivation that, as he wrote the Emperor of Spain (Charles V), it was already worth twenty thousand ounces of gold. And above all, he easily persuaded the passive Montezuma to acknowl- edge himself a vassal of Spain, receiving from the lat- ter the treasure of Axaycatl, which the Spaniards as related had discovered by chance — a dazzling hoard of golden grains, nuggets, bars and ornaments, with jewels and precious stuffs, reaching in value the great sum of more than six million dollars. One-fifth of this was stamped with the royal arms as the share of the Spanish Crown; another fifth went to Cortes; and by the time the expenses of the expedition were taken out, there was not much left for the eager soldiers. Six months of this dictatorship passed. Then came a thunderbolt. Word came that eighteen vessels, 130 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY bearing a thousand soldiers, sent by his old enemy- Velasquez and commanded by Panfilo de Narvaez, had landed near Vera Cruz — with the avowed purpose of arresting Cortes as a traitor. Thoroughly aroused, Cortes sped as ever to meet the greatest danger. He left Alvarado, with a hundred and forty men, to guard Montezuma as his life, and taking only seventy tried soldiers, set out by forced marches for the coast. On the way he had the good fortune to gather up, not only De Leon's band, but sixty more soldiers from the garrison at Vera Cruz who had heard the news; and with this inadequate force he pressed forward on foot to meet four times the number of his own countrymen, well supplied with cannon, arquebuses, and horses. Peremptorj'- messages from Narvaez showed him there was no appeal except to arms. He only hastened his march. In a terrific rain-storm, this forlorn hope reached a river three miles from the camp of Narvaez. It was a raging torrent. Encouraged by their leader, Cortes's band struggled through in the darkness and tempest, losing two men in the foaming waters. They floun- dered on beyond, through mud and thicket, undis- covered, for Narvaez foolishly supposed the storm to be sufficient protection. One sentinel, indeed, did rush back with news of the advance. His report was not believed; and suddenly, like a pack of famished wolves, the conquerors burst upon the astonished en- campment. There was a Uttle fierce fighting, but in half an hoiir Narvaez, with an eye struck out by a spear, was a captive, the garrison surrendered, and the cavalry followed their example. Narvaez and several of his leaders were brought before Cortes in chains. MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 131 "You have great reason," said the former, "to thank fortune." "I have much to be thankful for," was the scornful answer, "but I consider my victory over you one of the least of my achievements in this country !" To complete the transformation, the successful gen- eral won over the soldiers who had just been arrayed against him, trebUng his forces, and furnishing priceless help in guns and horses. Then he despatched one body to complete the colony before planned, a second to conquer a province to the north, and a third to dis- mantle the ships of Narvaez's fleet. His triumph was soon interrupted. A message ar- rived from Alvarado in Mexico saying that the people had attacked him, and he was so hard beset that only speedy help could save the little garrison. Instantly Cortes prepared his troops and sped back with his thousand men two hundred miles over the mountains to the capital. In five weeks from the time when he had set out on his desperate enterprise, he re-entered the great cause- way. But the streets were now silent and deserted. Many of the bridges had been removed. The tramp of the horses' feet sounded forebodingly amid the emptiness. The cause was soon explained. Alvarado had made the terrible mistake, under the spur of a belief in a plot against the Spaniards, of trying to imitate the massacre at Cholula : while several hundred unarmed chiefs were celebrating a great religious festival, he and his com- panions had rushed upon them and butchered them to the last man. Coming on top of the imprisonment of their Emperor, this had set the city in a blaze. The first direct attack on the palace had been checked by 132 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Montezuma's appeals, but under the leadership of the Emperor's brother the whole country was aroused. The Spaniards were now blockaded, their water cut off, provisions refused. A spring had been miracu- lously discovered within the enclosure, but the outlook was black indeed. "Your conduct has been that of a madman," said Cortes to Alvarado. But after a short display of exas- peration, his resolute mind grappled with the task be- fore him. His greatly increased force emboldened him; he had not experienced in person the aroused fury of the people; and he sent a despatch full of confidence to Vera Cruz. It was but a few minutes afterward that the storm broke. The war-whistles sounded outside the walls, and a multitude of Aztecs rushed forward upon the fortress. In spite of repeated volleys from the guns which mowed them down by hundreds, they reached the ramparts. Driven back, and failing to make a breach in the walls, they shot burning arrows which set part of the quarters on fire, and it proved necessary to throw down a por- tion of the defending wall to put out the flames. Only when night fell did the Mexicans withdraw. At sunrise the Spaniards sallied forth and drove the enemy before them, till they were stopped by the bar- ricades. These were cleared by cannon, but the In- dians fought fiercely, both in the streets and from the flat roofs of the houses, casting stones and missiles of all sorts upon the soldiers. Cortes burned several hundred houses and cleared the streets, yet the enemy built up the defenses almost as fast as they were de- mohshed. Says Diaz: "The Mexicans fought with such ferocity that, if we had had the assistance of ten thou- MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 133 sand Hectors, and as many Orlandos, we should have made no impression on them ! There were several of our troops who had served in the Italian wars, but neither there nor in the battles with the Turks had they ever seen anything like the desperation shown by these Indians." Cortes rescued his secretary, Duero, dashing alone into a body of Mexicans and saving the man from a horrible death; and the Spaniards killed scores for every man lost on their side. Still, the prospect that night was gloomy enough. They could ill spare a single man; Cortes himself had a painful wound; the enemy's numbers seemed inexhaustible; and the leader realized for the first time what formidable foes faced him when in their present aroused state. With much difficulty he induced Montezuma to show himself on the walls and command the people to disperse. After the first moment of instinctive obedi- ence to their dreaded ruler, the crowd broke into execrations of him. A shower of stones and arrows flew through the air. The luckless Montezuma was carried below, badly wounded and heart-broken at the realization of his degrading position. Next day the Spaniards stormed the great temple close to their quarters, from which the Mexicans had harassed them with deadly swarms of arrows. Cortes fastened his shield to his wounded hand and himself led the three hundred chosen. Clearing a path with the guns, he dashed up the stone steps which led around the outer face of the pyramid four times. For nearly a mile the Spaniards fought their way up this perilous path, the defenders showering arrows, spears, stones, beams, and blazing sticks upon them. Driving the enemy at last to the flat top, a fierce hand-to-hand 134 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY battle ensued in mid-air. Cortes was seized by two gigantic warriors and dragged toward the unprotected edge, with the evident intention of throwing him and themselves over the drop of a hundred and fifty feet. By a supreme effort, he tore himself loose and hurled one of his assailants to destruction. At the end of three hours, the temple was captured, the Aztecs all slain except a few priests, and the structure set on fire. But the conquerors had lost forty-five of their best men in the assault; and Cortes's attempt to gain submission in a parley met with stern defi- ance. "Your little numbers are lessening," said the fierce Aztecs. " Your provisions and water are failing. The bridges are broken down, and you cannot escape." Indeed, it looked only too probable that the Span- iards would become sacrifices to the Aztec gods, as their enemy dinned in their ears; and Cortes had to subdue the beginnings of mutiny among his despairing soldiers. He made repeated sallies, repairing the bridges, only to find them again destroyed each time. On one occa- sion the enemy got between him and the camp; the Spaniards were thrown into confusion ; by superhuman exertions Cortes rallied the remnants; he saved him- self, when the last man had crossed the bridge, only by leaping his horse over a gap six feet wide. Utterly discouraged and worn out, the Spaniards met with the heaviest blow yet on their return: com- pletely crushed in body and spirit, Montezuma died. Their one safeguard was removed. Nothing remained but to retreat from the city. Cortes prepared for transport as much of the treasure as they could take, many of the soldiers loading them- selves with what had to be abandoned; he built a MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 135 portable bridge on which to cross the canals; and on the night of July 1, 1520, they set gloomily out in the rain through the silent streets. Disaster awaited them. The enemy was aroused as they placed the bridge over the first canal. When they reached the second (there were three) , word came from the rear that the bridge had stuck and could not be moved. They were hemmed in between the canals — and the Mexicans, in increasing numbers, attacked them savagely, each apparently content to die if he could slay or capture one of the diminishing band. The Spaniards were thrown into utter disorder; struck down in the darkness, carried down by the gold they carried and drowned in the lake, dragged off by the swarming enemy, it became a question of each try- ing to save himself. Cortes with a few comrades crossed the second and the third canals, some riding, some swimming, some holding on to the horses' tails. They were comparatively safe. But word came that the rear-guard under Alvarado was being borne down by the myriads that beset him. Nothing in the whole story is more memorable than the superb courage which those in the lead showed at this crisis. Despite the horrors behind them, they turned, galloped back, swam the canals, found Alvarado wounded and with his horse down, checked the tide for an instant till tl\e hard-pressed handful and themselves could plunge into the lake, and won their way back — what was left of them. The mighty Alvarado, who had performed prodigies of valor, was left on the brink, the Indians around him, canoes everywhere in the water. Setting his long lance on the debris at the bottom of the canal, he vaulted into the air with the vigor of desperation and cleared the yawning gap — 136 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY a feat so incredible that the place is called "Alvarado's Leap" to this day. Pressing on with these renanants. Cortes camped for the night in the temple on the commanding Hill of Montezuma. He had lost two-thirds of his soldiers, three-quarters of his Indian allies, most of the treasure, all his baggage, cannon, and muskets. The victorious myriads of the enemy were behind him. His brief glorious dream was shattered. No wonder that this goes in Spanish records by the name of "the melancholy night." Hungry, wounded, exhausted, discouraged, they slowly made their way back toward Tlascala. After a week of frightful misery, but seeing only scattered parties of the enemy, they rounded a mountain wall — and beheld before them a mighty host of Mexicans stretching as far as the eye could reach. In their abject condition they felt this was the end, but they prepared to die like Spanish cavaliers. Cortes addressed them, striving to hearten them -with the memory of their glorious record. They de- scended the mountain into the "vast ocean of their enemies." Every man fought like a paladin; but the deeper they cut their way, the more hopelessly they were sur- rounded. Their forebodings would have been realized and the "conquest" would have ended here at Otom- pan but for Cortes. Anxiously scanning the enemy, he discovered at some distance the chief who conomanded the Mexicans, -with the distinguishing staff, bearing a golden net, attached to his back. The Spanish leader did not hesitate an instant. "There is our mark. Follow me!" he cried to the MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 137 cavaliers nearest to him. Backed by Alvarado, San- doval, Olid, Avila, and a few others, he set spurs to his tired horse and charged straight through the mass. Nothing could stop this fiery onset ; in a few moments they reached the chief. Cortes dashed aside his guards, and thrust him through with the lance which had done such execution. Juan de Sandoval leaped from his horse, killed the fallen leader, tore away his golden ban- ner, and handed it to Cortes. The loss of their general broke the enemy's ranks. They turned to flee. The Spaniards hunted them till they were weary, killing thousands. With renewed spirits and spoils of much value, they set out once more, and a few days later reached Tlascala, where, to the eternal credit of their allies, they were received as warmly as if they had never suffered so disastrous a reverse as that of "the melancholy night." V The soldiers thought only of resting here till they could again take up the retreat to Vera Cruz: their fondest hope was that they might still manage to reach Cuba alive. They did not yet know the temper of their leader. He had lost the use of two fingers on his left hand and had two wounds in the head, one so alarming that a piece of bone had to be removed, leaving him helpless and fevered in bed for several days. He learned that a large amount of his gold had been captm-ed by the enemy and fifty soldiers in charge of it had been killed. Yet his mind was occupied with nothing save plans for carrying through the conquest to which he had set his hand, and retrieving the dis- aster that had dimmed his glory. 138 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY When they learned this, the soldiers broke out into open remonstrance at such madness. Once more Cortes showed his leadership. After painting in burn- ing words what they had done and what remained to do, he bade any who were too faint-hearted to share in this achievement to return "in God's name." He would rather remain with a few brave men than have the company of cowards. The result was as he had cal- culated: his veterans protested that they stay with him till death; and the newer recruits were carried along by the determination of their comrades. In addition Cortes had to use much diplomacy to prevent trouble with the Tlascalans. He managed, however, to hold the friendly chiefs firm to their alli- ance ; so that when the new Mexican Emperor, Cuitla- huac, attempted to draw these ancient foes into a league against the Spaniards, his overtures were re- jected. The next six months were a busy time. Cortes sent for reinforcements and ammunition to Santo Domingo; got more from a vessel which happened to come to Vera Cruz ; drilled the Tlascalan battalions and helped them by subduing the surrounding tribes; managed to get sulphur from the volcano of Popocatepetl to make powder; and, having formed the audacious plan of building thirteen brigantines and carrying them piece- meal to the Mexican lakes — actually conveyed all the sails, anchors, and rigging saved from the destroyed fleet, by porters, over the formidable mountains from Vera Cruz to Tlascala so that they could be used in constructing this fleet. Just before the end of the year, he started on his mission of vengeance, with a force of six hundred men, including forty cavalry, eighty musketeers and cross- MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 139 bowmen, and nine cannon. He had besides a great force of Tlascalans, estimated at a hundred thousand warriors, who had been drilled to much greater effi- ciency by his careful training. "We had no choice," he wrote home, "but victory or death ; and our minds once resolved, we moved for- ward with as light a step as if we had been going on an errand of certain pleasure." The Mexican Emperor had died, and Montezuma's warlike young nephew, Guatemozin, reigned in his stead. Valiant he was, and "so terrible that his fol- lowers trembled in his presence." He had been strain- ing every nerve to make ready for the life-and-death struggle which he saw approaching: those who could not fight were sent away from the city of Mexico, hundreds of thousands of warriors were brought in from the subject provinces around, the defenses were strengthened, and he proclaimed a great reward for any one who should bring a Spaniard before him, dead or alive. While awaiting the completion of the ships, Cortes conducted two expeditions which fought their way completely around the Valley of Mexico, meeting in several places with a resistance that showed the natives were ready to die rather than yield. At one town the Indians cut the dike holding in the waters of Lake Tezcuco, destroying their city in the attempt to drown the Spaniards — in which they came within a hair's breadth of succeeding. At another, in a hot fight, Cortes was surrounded. His horse fell. He received a violent blow on the head which felled him to the ground. As he was being dragged away, a Tlascalan sprang to the rescue ; a couple of his servants followed ; and between them they managed to get the com- 140 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY mander free and in the saddle — when he ralhed his troops and charged again. Had it not been for the keen desire of the Indians to take him alive for sacri- fice, his career would have ended there. The success of this circuit, however, drew away from the Mexican Emperor one wavering tribe after another. The city- was surrounded. At length, along came the thirteen brigantines, borne piecemeal on the backs of thousands of Indian carriers for sixty miles across the mountains — a stu- pendous feat.* Work had for some time been proceed- ing on a canal from the old royal gardens at Tezcuco to the lake, a mUe and a half. This herculean task, a ditch twelve feet wide and twelve feet deep — in places through solid rock — ^with sides of wood or stone, with locks and dams, took the labor of eight thousand men for two months. But when it was ready, and the vessels set up and each armed with a cannon, the in- vaders had the means of commanding the lakes, the lack of which had largely helped iq bringing about their former disaster. Just at this tense moment, a profoimd sensation was caused by a conspiracy against the life of Cortes and his friends, headed by a soldier named Villafana, who had come from the army of Narvaez. The plot was complete, and was only discovered the day before the one set, by the confession of a conspirator. When arrested, Villafana attempted to swallow a paper. Cortes seized it and read a list of those concerned, many in places of trust. He promptly destroyed the * "Hannibal, and Gonsalvo de Cordova, did the same thing," re- marks Prescott, "but for short distances. And Balboa managed to get two vessels out of four across the sixty-six-mile width of the Isthmus of Darien." MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 141 list, hanged Villafana, and went ahead with his plans as if he had no knowledge of the other plotters. It was a daring and well-calculated handhng of a menac- ing situation. On April 28 the first navy ever launched in American waters spread its sails on the Lake of Tezcuco, flying the royal flag of Castile, amid salvoes from cannon and muskets. It soon met with a fleet of five hundred war- canoes and at once showed its importance by dashing through this mass of frail boats, crushing and sinking them with prows and cannon-balls, till but a tiny frac- tion escaped. Different divisions of the army ad- vanced and occupied the causeways to the north and south of the city, cutting off the water-supply at Cha- pultepec as they went — and about the middle of May, the actual siege of Mexico began. With the co-operation of the ships, one on each side ■of the causeway and thus directing a deadly cross-fire at the enemy, the army drove back the defenders along these highways, repairing one bridge after another. 'They pressed forward into the heart of the city, reach- ing their old quarters and chasing a number of the Mexicans into the great temple they had carried by assault once before. The cross was gone. The ghastly image of the Mexican war-god was again in its place. The invaders tore it from before its altar and hastened down again to the area, to find new masses of the enemy streaming in from every side. They were -driven back by these fresh forces, and only escaped a Teal rout by the arrival of a small troop of horse. Day after day, the troops of Cortes fought their way in and back again, till it became evident that only the destruction of all that part of the city would ^suffice, since the indefatigable foe undid each night all 142 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY that the Spaniards had accomplished. Accordingly, though with great regret, Cortes began a systematic destruction of all the magnificent structures along the route, at the same time using his Indians to fill in one breach of the causeway after another with such great stones that they could not be disturbed by the enemy. Alvarado, too, hammered away on the north, advanc- ing step by step into the city's vitals. In spite of the far more terrible ravages of famine, the Mexicans rejected every suggestion of surrender and fought on with dogged courage. The impatient soldiers urged Cortes to make a gen- eral assault and he consented. All went well at the start; but the advance-guard under Alderete pressed forward too impetuously, failing to obey orders and fill up the canals before they advanced. They reached the great market-place in the heart of the town. The sacred horn of Guatemozin suddenly sounded from a near-by temple. The flying Aztecs turned, reinforced by thousands from every direction. The Spaniards were swept along by the irresistible tide toward the open breach, on the other side of which stood Cortes and his party striving to repair the fatal error of not filling up this chasm. The latter saved as many of the fugitives as they could, stretching out their arms to the poor wretches fioundering in the water. Cortes was a conspicuous mark for the Mexican missiles. Failing to strike him down, six picked war- riors rushed forward crying, "Malintzin ! Malintzin !" (their name for the Spanish leader), and made a con- certed effort to drag him down to their canoe. Cortes got a bad wound in the leg, and it seemed as if he would surely be taken. But Olea, one of his men, threw himself upon the assailants, cut off the arm of MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 143 one with a single blow and plunged his sword through another. As he fell himself, mortally wounded, an- other Spaniard and a Tlascalan chief sprang to the rescue, killing three more of the Aztecs over the pros- trate body of Cort6s. Others followed, and the commander was soon re- mounted and urged away from the scene. They re- treated, while the exultant Mexicans hurled down on them bloody heads from the house-tops, shouting, "Tonatiuh" ("Child of the Sun," their name for Alvarado), "Sandoval," and so on. Alvarado and Sandoval (with whose reported death the enemy thus sought to strike despair into the hearts of the dis- couraged Spaniards) were also compelled to retire on the north by the failure of this main attack, in which sixty-two Spaniards and many allies had fallen alive into the hands of the Aztecs — and the army had the horrible experience that night of hearing the huge drum of serpent-skins boom forth its ghastly message to the surrounding air for miles and miles, and of seeing these luckless comrades sacrificed to the Aztec gods on the summit of one of the temples. Many of the Indian allies deserted the besiegers after this reverse, but Cortes held steadily to his former plan; and with this relentless though slow advance from without, and the most frightful sufferings from famine and pestilence within, the lot of the Mexicans was terrible indeed. Even after weeks of this, however — with thousands of dead unburied, with the living driven by unbearable hunger to cannibalism, with a smoking ruin in place of the temples and palaces of the larger part of the city — in spite of all, Guatemozin remained cahn and courageous, refusing to consider surrender. 144 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY There followed a last butchery (the defenders being almost too weak to resist), in which Cortes himself states that forty thousand were killed. Even then the remainder would not submit. On the following day, however, Guatemozin was captured by one of the brigantines as he fled in a canoe. Without a leader, the Mexicans submitted to the inevitable. Guatemozin was brought before the Conqueror. "I have done all I could to defend my people," said he. "I am now reduced to this state. You will deal with me, Malintzin, as you will." "Fear not," replied the Spanish general. "You shall be treated with all honor. You have defended your capital like a brave warrior. A Spaniard knows how to respect valor, even in an enemy." The remnant of the inhabitants were allowed to depart, the streets were cleansed and purified, and in solemn procession the battle-scarred veterans defiled through the city which had cost them so dear. The conquest of Mexico was accomplished. VI The subsequent career of Cortes was on the whole a sad one. Though confirmed in his command, and granted a vast estate in Mexico, where he lived in splendor, he never received the full recognition which was his due, the Spanish Crown fearing such a power- ful leader in its new dominions. He made, and had made, at heavy expense, many explorations, especially on the western coast in the Gulf of California, but of course failed to find the strait which was the dream of that time, in order to get a quicker route to the East Indies. He finally died in Spain after a fruitless three MAN WHO CONQUERED AN EMPIRE 145 years' effort to get his suit for these expeditions even brought to trial. Nothing more was necessary, however, after his Mexican campaign to win for him a foremost place among the boldest of the world's adventurers. We have learned nowadays to value other kinds of cour- age more highly, since the world has more need of men who will sacrifice themselves than those who will sacrifice others ; and in our peaceful times it is difficult not to shudder at the terrible cruelty which Cortes had to practise to carry out his aim. It is true, too, that while full of hot zeal for converting the heathen, it was the thirst for treasure and for personal glory which mainly led the Spaniard on. Yet his deeds on this plane of courage were so pre- eminent, his resolution in the face of any odds was so superhuman, that so long as men admire physical bravery, the name of Hernando Cortes must be blazoned bright in the annals of the race. CHAPTER XIV THE TERRIBLY PERSISTENT SWINEHERD When Columbus added the New World to the Spanish possessions, there was living in a little town of southern Spain a certain Francisco Pizarro, who had just reached manhood, having been born about 1471. His father made claim to ancient Uneage, but there was a stain upon Francisco's birth. He took care of a herd of swine and grew up without learning to read or write. Probably there was no one of less impor- tance, even in his quiet, forgotten village of Truxillo. Almost the only career open to such a one in those days was that of a soldier of fortune. Young Pizarro drifted across the ocean to Hispaniola, along with so many thousands of other adventurers who had all to gain and nothing to lose. The first definite glimpse of him there is when he accompanied Ojeda in his disastrous expedition to the mainland. The Span- iards were always looking for the marvels of romance in this unknown land: Amazons, giants, fountains of youth — and especially that fabled El Dorado, where the sands were strewn with precious stones, the streets were paved with gold, and nuggets could be fished up with nets from the streams. They founded colonies, made the Indians till the soil for them, were filled with fiery zeal for converting these infidels (or slaying them) ; but it was this golden vision in particular which ever lured them on through the utmost hardships and dangers. 146 THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 147 As related elsewhere, Ojeda, that incredibly brave and absurd little warrior, landed on the shore of South America. He found, instead of gold, showers of poisoned arrows, which killed all his comrades. Rescued by a force from the ships he sailed along the coast with his two tiny brigantines and set up a settle- ment called San Sebastian on the Isthmus of Darien. Disaster followed. The Indians fought them savagely and continually, until the party found itself reduced to one-third of those who had started, and these facing starvation. Out of the skies came temporary help in the shape of a ship-load of provisions seized by one Talavera and a band of seventy pirates. But soon hunger again gripped them. Ojeda decided to return to Hispaniola for help. Leaving Pizarro in command, with orders to wait fifty days and then follow if he had not come back, he sailed off with Talavera and his ruffians. He was wrecked on the coast of Cuba, then not settled, got to Jamaica after a desperate strug- gle, and found himself ill, without money, without credit, unable to get any men or supplies — finally dying in the Franciscan monastery. Meanwhile Pizarro, of course knowing nothing of what was happening, followed orders. Amid constant fighting, sickness, hunger, despair, he stuck to his post. The seven weeks dragged themselves away. No word arrived from Ojeda. He was free at last to try to save his party and himself. But to his dismay he found the two Httle vessels, in bad condition as they were, would not carry even what was left of the expedition. So with grim resolution, he sat down and waited, seeing all too clearly that he need do nothing else to reduce the mmibers of the wretched party. One can imagine him counting up the list after each fresh dis- 148 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY aster, calmly looking forward to the inevitable. And. when the poisoned arrows and starvation and disease had cut down the number to the sixty or seventy whom the brigantines would hold, Pizarro put them aboard and sailed away. One ship was lost, with all on board; Pizarro reached Hispaniola with the other and thirty survivors — and narrowly escaped hanging, under the suspicion that he had murdered and deserted. Ojeda. He went back to San Sebastian with another ex- pedition, there being on board, concealed in a pro- visional barrel, a poverty-stricken stowaway named Vasco Nunez, better known as Balboa. With him Pizarro helped to found a settlement on the shore of Panama, Maria de la Antigua del Darien, where they got their first taste of gold to the extent of about, twenty-five thousand dollars captured from the cacique of that country, and started a town, Darien, which is. therefore nearly a hundred years older than James- town. A Governor came from Spain to take charge of this new colony. His name was Pedrarias; he was seventy-two years old, and he well earned his doleful title (once borne by AttUa, King of the Huns) "the Scourge of God," being as described "a two-legged tiger." Balboa submitted to his authority, and shortly after set out to cross the isthmus and discover if the India,n tales were true of a great sea on the other side. It was Pizarro who led forward the little band of sixty-seven men to the point of outlook beside Balboa, as that leader stood alone, " Silent, upon a peak in Darien," the first white man to view the silver waters of the mighty Pacific Ocean. THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 149 The gallant and lovable Balboa presently quarrelled with Pedrarias; it was patched up, and Balboa — after the memorable achievement of building brigantines on the eastern coast, and carrying them piecemeal thirty miles over the mountains till he reached navigable water on the other side — got ready to sail south to investigate the native tales of a marvellous land down there where gold was so abundant that men thought nothing of it; but while waiting only for a httle pitch and iron, the fierce Governor, whose anger had been aroused, recalled him and put him to death. At the age of fifty, therefore, Pizarro found himself in Panama, a failure, with little except his sword, a firm behef in the Indian stories of an El Dorado to the south, and a reputation for being "of a terrible per- sistence" in whatever he undertook. The return, in 1522, of Andagoya's expedition to the southward, with many fresh rumors of the golden land, and the news of Cortes's actual discoveries and superb achievement, added fuel to the smouldering fire within him. Taking into partnership another old soldier, Ahnagro, as poor as himself, they attempted to raise money for the expedition. A priest named Luque (who afterward proved to be simply an agent for the licentiate Gasper de Espinosa) supplied most of the funds in expectation of a third of the prospective finds; and Pedrarias readily consented to their effort upon the agreement that he, too, was to have a good share. One of poor Balboa's ships was lying dismantled in the harbor of Panama; buying this, they hastily put aboard such provisions and supplies as they could get, and about the end of 1524, Pizarro set sail with a hundred men. Ahnagro was to follow in another vessel as soon as it could be made ready. 150 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Passing the Isle of Pearls, a few leagues from Panama, they held south, against head- winds and incessant tempests of rain. Entering the Biru River, beyond the farthest point reached by Andagoya, they landed, but found nothing save dismal swamp and desolate rock; and a little farther down the coast, they ran into such a violent storm that the ship almost foundered. Pro- visions and water began to get low. Reduced to two ears of corn a day for each man, they were glad to gain shore. But this "Port of Famine" still offered naught but swamp and an impenetrable network of silent, gloomy undergrowth and forest. The men became mutinous, but Pizarro encouraged them and sent back half the company under Montenegro in the ship to bring sup- plies from the Isle of Pearls. His own party dropped off one by one from starvation and from eating poison- ous roots ; they sought for some trace of natives, pick- ing up shell-fish, eagerlj^ eating the bitter buds of palms, a few berries, and herbs. As week after week passed, it was only their leader's example that kept them even struggling to live. When twenty were dead, and the others almost at the end of their strength, they came upon a small Indian village, and the maize and cocoanuts which they greedily seized gave them a little heart. And the tale they heard of a mighty kingdom to the south, which had just been conquered by the "Child of the Sun," did almost more. Although Montenegro hardly knew his emaciated com- rades when he finally returned at the end of six weeks, Pizarro had little difficulty in persuading his men to press on. Creeping along the unknown shore, beset by furious storms at sea and cannibal tribes when they landed. THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 151 they had a sharp battle with the Indians at a place they called Punta Quemada. Pizarro received seven wounds, and almost lost his life through a fall as the enemy beset him. With prodigious effort he held off his assailants till help arrived; but two Spaniards were killed and many disabled. So he decided to go back for reinforcements, trusting that the various confirming stories of the land of gold would serve in place of any- thing more substantial. He sent the ship on to the settlement, but he him- self was set ashore at Chicama, a little west of Panama, as he feared Pedrarias. Here he was joined by the re- turning Almagro, who had followed his route, had gone farther, and had lost an eye in a fight with the Indians. Almagro hastened back to Panama, but found Pedrarias irritable and incredulous. Not only would he have nothing to do with a fresh expedition, but he refused to allow it; and it was only through the in- fluence of Father Luque, upon whom the explorers' story had made quite a different impression, that per- mission was finally gained, the Governor appointing Almagro equal in command with Pizarro. Pedrarias sold out his share for a thousand pesos; a fresh contract was drawn between the three parties, coolly dividing between them the treasures of this unknown empire; two larger vessels were purchased; and though there was little enthusiasm in Panama for what was con- sidered a crazy venture, Pizarro managed to get to- gether a force of a hundred and sixty men and a few horses. He also secured Bartholomew Ruiz, the best pilot in the country. They stood out to sea this time, heading straight for the point at which Almagro had turned back; and reaching this after a prosperous voyage, they captured 152 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY a village where they took a considerable prize of golden ornaments. It became clear, from the increasing num- ber of natives, that their force was too small. Almagro went back, with the treasure as a bait for fresh recruits, Ruiz was sent ahead to explore, and Pizarro encamped where he was. The last had the worst of it: his exploration inland found little but a tropical jungle, full of parrots and monkeys; mosquitoes made life a burden; great boas, alligators, and hostile Indians relieved the sufferings of many by death, fourteen men being cut off at once; and their old enemy famine pressed his gripping hand upon them. Their one faint hope became that some miracle might get them safe back to Panama — when, in their black despair, along came Almagro with eighty more men and fresh stores, and Ruiz with a tale that set them aflame again : he had gone past the equator, had found more prosperous settlements all the way, had, to his astonishment, met at sea a great balsa or raft pro- pelled by a square sail, loaded with fine embroidered woollen cloth and with gold and silver ornaments of skilful workmanship — and had brought along from this balsa two Indians from Tumbez, a Peruvian port farther south. These natives declared that their ruler had vast flocks of the Uamas from which this wool was obtained, and that gold and silver were as common as wood in his palaces. In hot haste, like the bloodhound who scents a fresh trail, they set forth southward again. At Taca- mez they found a better-cultivated country, a city of two thousand houses, the natives wearing rich orna- ments; and near by was the River of Emeralds, from whose banks the Peruvian Incas obtained their gems. But the natives confronted them boldly, to the number THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 153 of ten thousand warriors; and the fight which followed, against Pizarro's orders, was going badly for the Span- iards, when one of them fell off his horse. The Indians had never seen a horse; they thought cavalrymen were a new species of being; and when they saw one of these strange creatures suddenly divide itself in two, they drew back in alarm ! The adventurers returned to their boats. The more timid were for returning, as they were daunted by the prospect; but it was finally decided that Pizarro again was to be left, on the little island of Gallo, while Al- magro went back for reinforcements. The soldiers grumbled openly at this ; and though the leaders seized the letters of complaint which were sent home, one man concealed in a ball of cotton, to be presented to the Governor's lady, a note telling of their hard lot, and declaring they were being sacrificed to Pizarro's insane ambition. It wound up with this verse: "Look out, Seiior Governor, For the drover while he's near; Since he goes home to get the sheep For the butcher, who stays here." There was a new Governor in Panama, and he was very angry when this missive came to light. Refus- ing all Almagro's petitions, he sent two ships to bring home the whole party. Pizarro had sent away the second vessel also, to rid himself of the faintest hearted and to give no choice to the others; and he needed all his steadfastness in the weeks that followed. His party was even harder pressed by hunger than they had been before; and the daily thunder-storms of the rainy season added greatly to their misery. 154 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY When the Governor's ships arrived, the soldiers were in raptures at the thought of escaping from this horri- ble island; but Pizarro, who had received letters from his partners begging him to hold on in hope of their ultimate success, showed once more that "terrible per- sistence" which made him a conqueror. He faced his men and the relief party, who all looked at him in wonder. Drawing his sword, he scraped a line with the point in the sand, from east to west. "Comrades !" said he, pointing his blade southward. "On that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drench- ing storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru, with its riches; here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south." He stepped across the line. Ruiz followed. A cavalier named Pedro de Candia leaped across after him. One by one, eleven brave hearts took their place beside their leader. Their names should not be for- gotten. They were : Cristoval de Peralta, Domingo de Soria Luce, Nicolas de Ribera, Francisco de Cuellar, Alonso de Molina, Pedro Algon, Garcia de Jerez, Anton de Carrion, Alonso Briceno, Martin de Paz, Juan de la Torre. At this impressive moment Pizarro touched one of the high points of his life. Just think of it : these thir- teen half-naked, half-starved, weary adventurers on a lonely island, without equipment, without a boat, electing to remain, in the vague hope that their friends would still succeed in bringing the help which had been denied by the authorities. It took Men, that. The astonished commander of the relief expedition was with difficulty persuaded to leave them a few pro- THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 155 visions. Then he sailed away, and the brave handful were left to the misery of their own choosing. Pizarro decided to move to another island, Gorgona, where there was wood and a few pheasants and rabbits. Making a raft, they managed to drift across the seventy- five miles and reach this new abode, where they built huts and settled down to their dreary wait. Seven weary months they waited, their anxious eyes each day beholding naught but the waste of waters about them and the chill, snow-capped peaks of the Andes towering above the clouds on the distant main- land. Then at last, a sail ! And lo ! instead of reinforce- ments, it was a tiny vessel which the Governor had reluctantly consented to let Almagro send to rescue the rash party. It brought a stern order to Pizarro to re- port at Panama in six months whatever happened. This indomitable being had grown only too well accustomed through the long years to take what he could get and make the best of it. Leaving two ill soldiers with some friendly Indians, he disobeyed these orders and set his face resolutely toward that golden vision which ever drew him southward. At the end of three weeks, they found themselves approaching Tumbez, the native city of the Indians whom Ruiz had taken off the balsa so many long months before. Inland, the mighty mountain range, which had borne them company all the way, rolled up to the vast dome of Chimborazo, while Cotopaxi shot upward its terrible fire and smoke from its silver-white dome over twenty thousand feet above their little craft. It was the largest city they had yet seen, many of the buildings of stone and plaster; the harbor was full of canoes and balsas, and on the shores hundreds of 156 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY curious natives were watching. They were soon on friendly terms with the inhabitants, who regaled them with all manner of fruits and vegetables, fish and game, together with a number of llamas, of which the Span- iards had hitherto seen only drawings. The natives were amazed and awed at the firearms and horses. They gazed with astonishment at these fair-haired "Children of the Sun" and at a negro attendant who had come from Panama: trying to rub from the black man's face with their hands what they supposed to be dye — whereat the good-natured African showed all his teeth in a grin. They had never seen chickens, and a rooster fascinated them: when he crowed loudly they started back, then turned to the strangers and asked what this new god was saying ! The Spaniards on their side were little less impressed. They saw the fort, surrounded by a triple wall; the temple, its inner walls bright with plates of gold and silver; the gardens of the convent which housed the destined brides of the Inca, where besides real flowers there shone beds of golden imitations which they be- held skilful artisans fashioning elsewhere; they talked with an Inca noble, an orejon (wearing the distinguish- ing mark of his rank, the massive gold earrings, which in some cases distended the ears so that they touched the shoulders !) , and learned that all these wonders were but a feeble imitation of the incredible splendors of Peru itself. They might well be amazed, for after all their per- sistence they had at last touched the outskirts of one of the most extraordinary civilizations the world has ever known. For four hundred years one Inca after another, in unbroken line, had ruled over the land; the first was believed to be the child of the Sun, and THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 157 each when crowned was worshipped as only second to that sacred luminary with his sister Moon and atten- dant Stars. The victorious armies of these proud monarchs had extended their dominions till they covered a strip of twenty-five, hundred miles along the mountainous western coast of South America, taking in about what is now Ecuador, Peru, Bohvia, and Chili. They proudly called their domain "the Four Quarters of the Earth." The Inca was absolutely supreme over his million of subjects; he himself was law and religion; he was the Child of the Sun, his banner was the Rainbow; he boasted that the very birds would not dare to fly without his orders; he wore a scarlet fringe on his turban, adorned with two plumes of a rare bird and it was death for a subject to use these feathers; only one of the thousands of royal descend- ant's (for the monarchs frequently had six or seven hundred wives) could hold the most important positions at the court, in the army, in the priesthood, in the out- lying provinces — and even these proud princes could not enter the royal presence without special coarse robes over their fine clothes and jewels, and without bearing loads to proclaim their inferiority; they spoke a special court language, had a costume of their own, were of a perpetual higher order, to which even the chiefs of the conquered lands could never attain. When an Inca died, his mumnay took its place, in all the dead ruler's most gorgeous attire, in the solemn line that ranged itself on either side of the huge golden Sun in the temple at Cuzco; his treasures, his palaces, his belongings were religiously kept, in expectation of his bodily return some day; and on certain festivals these departed monarchs were brought out at the head of a great procession in the public square, amid "such a 158 THE BOOK OF BRAVER"^ display of gold and silver plate and jewels as no other city in the world ever witnessed." Under their far-seeing policy, the narrow strip of land between the mountains and the sea was culti- vated as was no other soil in primitive America, water being brought down in canals and aqueducts for plenti- ful irrigation, the only approach to a plough among any American tribes being used, the very sides of the rocky hills being terraced, filled in with soil and made to produce the products of every zone. They built thousands of miles of good roads, over the pathless mountains, across rock and snow and chasms and rivers and desert, marked off with mile-posts kept in splendid repair, with storehouses of provisions and clothing, and quarters for the ruler, his messengers, his army, at stated intervals. An elaborate system of runners, with stations five miles apart, brought him delicacies from mountain or sea, or news, at a speed of probably two hundred miles a day. Knowing nothing of writ- ing, and not having the Aztec picture-writing art, these communications were by means of the quipus, two-foot cords of colored threads, with a fringe, by the colors of which and by a system of knots the Peruvian sent messages, kept a wonderfully complete census, and preserved the national epics. The monarchs had their swarming thousands of workmen build palaces, forts, temples, quarrying with- out steel, and transporting for leagues without beasts of burden, huge blocks of stone some of which, in the Temple of the Sun, were thirty-eight feet long, eighteen broad, and six thick ! This temple was well called Coricancha, the Place of Gold: the whole of the main interior was covered with seven hundred tiles of gold and silver a foot wide; the image of the deity was a THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 159 human face engraved on a great golden plate blazing with jewels, from which dashed golden rays — and the morning sun always streamed through the open door- way upon this representation of himself; in the gardens beside the myriads of flowers gleamed golden plants and animals wrought by skilled artificers, among them being life-sized stalks of corn with leaves of silver and grains of gold. No ruler of Babylon or Persia could compare with this semidivine monarch in splen- dor. Meanwhile the people were slaves. They were cared for paternally; no man could starve, for he was supplied with food if he needed it. But work he must : tilling the soil, and turning over the fruits of his labor, one part to the Sun (for the temples and priests) ; one part to the Inca; the rest for himself. He could never change his condition, but toiled on in the footsteps of his fathers, at the land, in the workshop, in the army, on the roads, or public buildings, caring for the vast flocks of llamas, domestic and wild, which were the Inca's property. It was death even to question the ruler's authority. At the age of twenty-four he had to marry — and must choose from the girls of eighteen years in his own community. When he married he was given land to care for; when children came he got more land; in misfortune he received food from the King's granaries or clothing from his storehouses. He had to keep his national costume, but was frequently transferred in bodies of ten thousand at a time to colo- nize some ahen territory. He kept his own language, but his children learned the court dialect. No other nation of which we know ever imagined such a prodig- ious paternal despotism as that which the Peruvian Incas wielded unquestioned over miUions of human 160 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY beings, differing in language, habits, dress, religion, for a term of at least four hundred years. Small wonder that the enraptured Spaniards thought their wildest dreams were far short of the reality. Pizarro kept his men firmly in hand : they were not allowed even to take presents of anything valuable, to prove their disinterestedness. They were met with greatest friendliness everywhere; and after sailing on down the coast as far as Santa, over six hundred miles below the equator, the expedition turned back to Panama, sure that they would find every man flocking to their banner and praying to share in the conquest they planned. But when they arrived, biu-sting with their great news, they were discredited and laughed at. The Governor declared coldly that he did not propose to throw away any more men's lives because of their show of "cheap gold and silver toys and a few Indian sheep ! " It was a bitter disappointment. Pizarro and his partners had exhausted all they had. No one had enough faith to lend a hand. But the ex-swineherd's persistence was now founded on too secure a rock of knowledge to think of giving up. Convinced that the only chance lay with the Emperor at home, he sailed for Spain in the spring of 1528, taking with him a few scanty evidences in the shape of golden ornaments, woollen fabrics, and some of the curious llamas. Here it was a different story. His tale was believed. He was authorized to conquer the land, being made Governor and Captain-General with a great salary and many dignities — all to come from the riches of the country itself. He received the Order of St. Jago, the proudest dignity of Castile. Almagro was to rule the THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 161 region to the south of him, Luque was to be Bishop of Tumbez, Ruiz, Lord Mayor. In spite of all this recognition, Pizarro had much difficulty in raising the two hundred and fifty men which his commission called for; he was helped by his distant kinsman Cortes, then in Spain, whose name went far in such matters because of his colossal success in Mexico ; but at the end of six months the expedition was not complete. Pizarro, hearing he was to be stopped by the council, set sail hurriedly, his brother Hernando following with two other vessels, in which were two more brothers, Gonzalo and Juan. Ahnagro was greatly discontented with the inferior award bestowed upon him, compared with that given his partner, and a bitter quarrel followed, which, though patched up, left the seeds of future trouble. Still, they realized that this was no time for disagree- ment. The preparations were pushed forward. In January, 1531, Pizarro set out from Panama with barely two hundred men and twenty-seven horses, in three vessels, on his third and final effort. He was sixty years old. For nearly ten years he had pursued this dream in the face of poverty, famine, disbelief, dangers — at times ahnost alone in his belief and cour- age. Probably his force was far from seeming so ab- surdly inadequate to him as it does to us for the sub- jugation of a powerful empire. This time, as if in recompense for the many buffet- ings of fortune in the past, his star was in the ascendant. Meeting with head-winds, he decided to land about three hundred miles north of Tumbez and march along the shore, while the ships made their way as they could. Capturing a town, they were rejoiced by the unex- pected sight of quantities of gold and fine stuffs, besides 162 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY a great store of precious stones (this being near the River of Emeralds) . One emerald as large as a pigeon's egg fell to Pizarro. He promptly sent back the ships to Panama for recruits, with a quantity of this gold as an earnest of what might be expected, and pressed on. It was hard travelling, through the scorching heat of desert sands, through forest, and over rocks. A mysterious plague of ulcers attacked their bodies. The dis- heartened soldiers cursed the hour when they had been drawn into this mad enterprise. But Pizarro still drove them forward. Presently a vessel with supplies and some Crown officials caught up with them; and after they had de- feated the natives of Puna with much slaughter, their own two ships appeared, bearing a welcome addition of a hundred soldiers, led by the afterward famous discoverer of the Mississippi River, Hernando de Soto. Moreover, the commander learned that the three years which had intervened since his first visit to Tumbez had fought for him more effectively than could a re- inforcement of a thousand cavahers. The Inca who had conquered the land of Quito, north of Tumbez, Huayna Capac, had died in 1525. Against the unbroken tradition of his forefathers, and against all principles of wisdom, he had divided his realm between his lawful son, Huascar, and his child by a princess of Quito, Atahuallpa. The latter was a bold, ambitious prince, while his half-brother was a gentle, lovable nature, content with his share, and un- able to resist Atahuallpa when the northern ruler openly attacked him. Only a few months before Pizarro's arrival, Atahuallpa had marched on the ancient capital of Cuzco, defeated his brother in a bloody battle, im- THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 163 prisoned him, and reigned in the greatest state over the whole empire. He was at this moment encamped at Caxamalca (the modern town of Cajamarca) taking the warm baths for which that health resort was noted. At this auspicious time, with the country still rent by the furies of civil war, did the invaders arrive. The Spaniards found Tumbez devastated and the natives hostile. Pizarro decided to make a settlement as a headquarters, and after a month's exploration he picked out a spot a hundred miles south. Soon a church, fortress, storehouse, hall of justice, and some dwelhngs marked the new town of San Miguel. Still hoping for reinforcements, Pizarro waited some weeks longer, receiving many further accounts of the wealth and power of the new Inca only a two-weeks' journey away. At length he decided action was less danger- ous than further delay. On September 24, he set out to beard the victorious Inca, in the midst of his army flushed with success. There was more than one in that band of less than two hundred who felt tremors at the prospect. The leader perceived this spirit. He knew there was men's work ahead. On the fifth day, he halted in a beautiful valley, and inspected the troops and their equipment. Then he addressed them: "A crisis has arrived in our affairs," said he. "It will take all our courage to meet what is ahead. No man should think of going forward if he has any fears in his heart. If there is any such, it is not too late still to turn back. San Miguel is but poorly garrisoned : I shall be glad to see it strengthened. Any one of you who chooses may return, and he shall have the same proportion of land and vassals as the rest. I want none but the bravest to go forward. 164 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY "As for me," his eyes flashed, "be it one or all who decides to take the chance with me, I shall follow this adventure to the end." There was a silence. Four foot-soldiers and five horsemen shamefacedly fell out of the ranks and turned back toward the coast. But their departure was drowned in the shouts of their comrades, who, fired with enthusiasm by the bearing of their chief, vowed they would follow him into the jaws of death. It was another of Pizarro's high points, this remark- able scene — a display of resolution in itself sufficient to carry an ordinary man's name down to posterity. It was, alas ! almost the last time he reached such levels, though he was shortly to obtain that heart's desire for which he had striven so long and mightily. They went forward. De Soto was sent ahead to reconnoitre. He returned, after an alarming delay, accompanied by an envoy from the Inca. This noble brought presents — two stone fountains, clothes of fine wool embroidered with gold, a peculiar perfume made of dried goose-flesh; besides an invitation from Ata- huaUpa to visit him. Again they advanced, with much anxiety, on ac- count of conflicting rumors as to the Inca's where- abouts and his intentions. At the end of a week, they faced the mountains behind which lay Caxamalca. Ahead were dangerous passes, where they might be cut off at any moment, leading to the Emperor with his great army. To the right ran the broad highway to Cuzco, the capital. How easy for a smaller man to persuade himseK that the wise plan was to capture this important city first. His followers urged it. But Pizarro pointed out that they no longer had any choice but to go to Caxamalca or be branded as cowards. THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 165 And once more the inspirited soldiers submitted their wills to his. The path led along ledges, by the edge of precipices, beneath overhanging rocks, across frightful clefts. They passed from the oak forests into gloomy pines, then through stunted bushes and alpine plants, then over the bare and desolate upper regions where naught grew but stunted yellow grass, and where an occa- sional mountain-llama and the great condor soaring overhead were the only living creatures. After six. days (during which two embassies arrived that increased Pizarro's apprehensions) they came to the charming valley of Caxamalca, a perfect garden- spot, where the travellers' astonished eyes beheld such a host of tents marking the Inca's encampment as caused "something like fear and confusion in the stoutest bosom." So writes one of the party, adding: "But it was too late to turn back or betray the least sign of weakness, since the natives in our company would in such a case have been the first to rise upon us. So with as bold a countenance as we could, after coolly surveying the ground, we prepared for our entrance." The first interview was disappointing. Hernando Pizarro, De Soto, and a few others were led into the presence of the Inca, who sat in great state amid his nobles, the imperial crimson borla on his brow. With- out dismounting, they told him their leader came from the great Emperor across the seas, to offer their services and to tell him of the True Faith; and they invited him to visit their general at his quarters. Not a muscle of Atahuallpa's face changed. It was as if he had not heard them. The speech was trans- lated. Still the Inca sat like an image, too far above them to heed. 166 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY There was an awkward pause. Then Hernando begged the monarch to speak. And at last he deigned to reply that he would come; meanwhile the Spaniards were to stay where they were, in the buildings opening on the public square. De Soto, perhaps feeling that they cut a sorry figure, noticed that those near him shrank from his mettlesome charger. Striking the spurs to his horse, he dashed away over the plain, per- forming all sorts of feats of horsemanship; then, galloping fiercely back straight at the Emperor, he threw the animal back on its haunches so close to the Inca that flecks of foam flew off on the royal gar- ments. Atahuallpa sat as motionless as ever, but some of his attendants drew back — and the Spaniards were told that these were put to death that evening. The adventurers passed an anxious night. Perils seemed to beset them on every side. There were many who wished themselves back in San Miguel. But Pizarro remembered the master-stroke of Cortes in Mexico. He made his preparations with minute care and awaited the event. The next day was Saturday, the 16th of November. After an interminable morning, the royal procession was seen to start about noon. Then it halted half a mile away. Word came that the Inca would not come till the following day. Pizarro was confounded. He feared his men's nerves would not stand a longer strain. He returned an answer, begging Atahuallpa to come as planned, as he had everything ready for his entertain- ment. It was true, but little did the luckless Emperor imagine in what sense it was true. He came, with only a few unarmed attendants, on a golden throne upon a litter, which shone with wonderful feathers and pre- THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 167 cious ornaments; his attire was magnificent; round tiis neck was a priceless collar of emeralds. Pizarro's chaplain met him, Bible in hand, com- menced to expound the doctrines of the Christian faith, and urged him to submit himself to this and to the Spanish Emperor. As he began to understand, Atahuallpa's wrath rose. "I will be no man's vassal!" he cried. "Nor will I change my faith. My God," he pointed to the sun sinking behind the mountains, "still lives in the heavens and looks down on his children." He demanded of the friar his authority, and the latter handed him the Bible. Atahuallpa took it; then, realizing to the full the indignity offered him, he cast it down, exclaiming that the Spaniards should give full satisfaction for the wrongs they had com- mitted in his land. The chaplain hastened to the general. The moment had come. Waving a white scarf, Pizarro leaped for- ward. A cannon was fired. Shouting their battle-cry, "St. Jago and at them!" the Spaniards poured out from the halls where they had been stationed into the square, and attacked the unarmed Indians. These loyally tried to protect the Emperor with their own bodies, striving to force back the horses by the bridles; but in spite of Pizarro's stern cry, "Let no one who values his life strike at the Inca," one of the excited cavaliers would have ended the tumult by cutting him down, had not Pizarro stretched out his arm and caught the blow. He was the only Spaniard wounded — and that by his own soldier. When the ghastly butchery, which ran to some thousands, was over, the Inca was a prisoner. It was a disgraceful act, and worse was to follow. They 168 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY pillaged the Inca's palace and the storehouses and reck- lessly slaughtered the great herds of llamas which had been so carefully protected. Seeing their lust for gold, the royal captive one day told Pizarro that he would fill the room they stood in with gold as high as a man could reach in return for his freedom. The Spaniard eagerly assented. For months the royal treasure poured in, from all parts of the land, on the backs of porters and llamas, a throne of soUd metal, vases, dishes, tiles, ornaments from the tem- ples, bars, nuggets — and in addition silver and other treasures. The mark was so nearly reached that Pizarro exe- cuted a formal agreement declaring the Inca's con- tract fulfilled. It took a month for the goldsmiths to melt most of the huge heap into ingots so that it could be divided. The value of the whole was nearly eighteen millions of dollars, by far the largest ransom ever recorded. The Spanish Emperor received a fifth, Pizarro was a milHonaire, the common soldiers had fortunes; having no iron they shod their horses with gold and silver; a man would give twenty-five thousand dollars for a horse, four hundred for a pair of shoes, a hundred for a quire of paper. And then, when the Inca became a problem in then- advance, Pizarro, on an unproved charge of a con- spiracy, put him to death. It was a base act, which stained his whole record. Pizarro captured Cuzco, the capital, getting six or seven more millions of treasure, and grasped the whole country. He was acclaimed in Spain and made a Marquess, but, save for one final scene, his story from the point of view we are considering ends before his treachery to Atahuallpa. He quarrelled with Ahnagro THE PERSISTENT SWINEHERD 169 and finally let him be put to death ; there was one great uprising of the sheeplike Peruvians, who besieged Cuzco under the brave young Inca, Manco; but this was finally put down. Pizarro founded the city of Lima; there followed years of squabbles and civil war and rebellion among the conquerors. Then, inglorious as is the setting, we get a last flash of the Pizarro who is worthy of chronicle. The "Men of Chili" (as Almagro's followers were called, from his expedition into that country) had never forgotten their leader's death. Driven to desper- ation, they finally plotted to assassinate the Marquess who had at least permitted it. On Sunday, the 26th of June, 1541, a score of the conspirators rushed through the streets of Lima to the Governor's palace, where Pizarro had just dined with a distinguished party. They burst in. Most of the dinner-party fled through the windows into the garden. Pizarro called to an officer in the outer room to fasten the door. He and his half-brother, Martinez de Alcantara, coolly began to buckle on their armor. But the officer attempted to parley with the intruders. They ran him through, sprang over his dead body, and entered. The attendants were soon despatched. Al- cantara sprang to the defense. Presently, he too and the pages were down. Half-armed, Pizarro fought as of old, and so terrible was he, that the murderers drew back with two of their number lifeless. "Why are we so long about it?" cried Rada, the leader. Seizing one of his companions, he hurled him bodily upon Pizarro, and before the veteran could withdraw his sword from the body, they were all upon him. Thus, at the age of seventy, died the Marquess 170 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Francisco Pizarro, who gave to Spain her most priceless treasures of gold and silver, and who in the years of his terrible persistence displayed a steadfastness rarely equalled in mortal man. CHAPTER XV HOW CECIL RHODES ENDED THE MATABELE REBELLION Probably every one who reads this knows some- thing of Cecil Rhodes, the "empire builder" of South Africa. However the future may estimate him, it is certain that few men of modern times have shown such boldness of conception, or such resolute ability in carrying out his colossal dreams. His courage was proved on many occasions; but it was in 1896 that he took his life in his hands to save the fortunes of the "Chartered Company" which was so dear to his heart. Here was the situation. Eight years before, Mr. Rhodes had secured from Lobengula, King of the fierce Matabele, a concession giving him the exclusive right to search for gold and diamonds in that ruler's territory of Mashonaland — a great unknown country of one hundred and seventy- four thousand square miles or nearly three times as large as all our New England States together. He paid for it five hundred dollars a month, a steam gunboat (afterward changed to twenty-five hundred dollars in cash), one thousand Martini-Henry rifles, and one million rounds of ball-cartridges. In the light of sub- sequent events, the last two items were more expensive than they seemed at the time. A year later he secm-ed a charter from the English Government for the British South Africa Company, giving this corporation com- plete control of this great region. Its boundaries were 171 172 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY marked on the east, south, and west; but at Rhodes's insistence no hne was given on the north — for as this audacious dreamer confessed, he hoped to see that part of Africa "all red" (under the English flag) clear up to the source of the Nile. The new colony of Rhodesia, as it was christened, was thrown open. It developed rapidly, though there were inevitable discontents among the settlers and miners; but the expenses of the company were enor- mous; for instance, seven hundred police were needed, costing over a million dollars a year, because of the constant trouble with the Matabele natives. This item was cut down by the administrative skill of Doctor Jameson (later famous in the Jameson raid). War with the Matabele followed; they were promptly defeated with a tenth the number of volunteers that the military experts said would need a year for the job; but the company had rolled up more millions of debt, and great outlays were still needed 'for development. Mr. Rhodes's own large fortune was tied up in tre- mendous telegraph, railway, and mining develop- ments, and the carefully nurtured company, into which he had poured his ideas, strength, and money, was just trembling in the balance, when in 1896 the Matabele again broke loose, and spread terror through the colony by their bloody massacres. The volunteer force could not put down this rebelUon and the settlers threatened to leave the country; General Carrington and a body of soldiers came up and drove the fierce warriors back step by step to their fastnesses in the Matoppo Hills; the rainy season came on, and the commander announced that his force must go into winter quarters and finish the campaign next spring. CECIL RHODES 173 This was a crushing blow. The home government had charge of the operations, but the Chartered Com- pany was paying the bills — to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars a day. Such a long-drawn-out campaign meant a probable total of fifteen or twenty millions — and in the existing state of affairs that meant bankruptcy for the Chartered Company and the down- fall of its founder's ambitious visions. In this critical emergency, Rhodes took a desperate chance: he decided to go into the enemy's stronghold himself and try to persuade the chiefs to make peace. General Carrington, when consulted, pronounced the plan foolhardy and washed his hands of all re- sponsibility. But he agreed to postpone his own movement into winter quarters until the event proved itself. Refusing any escort, and taking with him only three white men (one a veteran hunter, Johann Colebrander) and two native guides, Rhodes started for the hostile camp. The party had no rifles, and while each of his companions was allowed to wear a revolver, the leader carried nothing but a riding-whip. Pitching camp close to the Matabele outposts, a guide was sent forward. He found the chiefs holding an indaba (council) ; and when he told them the facts, the leaders frowned down the murmurs of the hotheads and declared they would be glad to see their "friend Johann" (Colebrander) — and Mr. Rhodes, too, though they did not suppose he would come. The party went forward. The appointed spot was a level amphitheatre surrounded by granite walls two hundred feet high, and commanded by a hill (kopje). As they approached, they saw the redoubtable Matabele swarming on these heights, armed with rifles and the 174 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY broad-bladed assegais which were such terrible weapons in their hands. They knew only too well that they were going among natives as savage and cruel as any in the world, now inflamed both by their bloody suc- cesses and their subsequent defeats; and at that mo- ment the promise of safe-conduct under which they had proceeded did not appear of very great value. But there was no hesitation. They advanced boldly to the meeting-ground. And as they watched tensely, a white flag fluttered in the breeze on the hill. Pres- ently a long procession of chiefs (indunas) filed solemnly down the slope, garbed in their ceremonial finery. The procession wound along and swung itself in a semicircle about the little group. Squatting down on the ground, the fierce black faces gazed at the four adventurous whites, who looked back at these leaders of the thousands about, whose hands and spears had dripped English blood so many times in the preceding months. The elaborate formal greetings followed. When they were at last completed, Colebrander interpreted Rhodes's invitation to the Matabele to tell him what they desired. "Speak your troubles to your father who has come among you with peace in his heart," he concluded. The spokesman recited their grievances, real and fancied ; and for a long time Rhodes met them point by point with frankness, fairness, conciliation : they should have no more native police over them; the mistakes as to confiscated cattle of the dead Lobengula had been unavoidable — and, anyhow, nearly all the cattle had perished of the rinderpest ; and so on. Then, these definite complaints disposed of, Rhodes adopted a tone that alarmed his comrades. Cole- CECIL RHODES 175 brander could hardly bring himself to translate the imperious, threatening denunciations for their wanton massacres. "I do not upbraid you for making war on the white men," wound up Rhodes, his eyes blazing. "But why did you slay our defenseless women and children? For that you deserve no mercy." The three beside him held their breath, expecting every instant to hear the battle-cry ring out. to feel the assegais or rifle-bullets. But the fire and commanding presence of the leader awed the fierce warriors. In silence the indunas bowed their heads as if in recognition that they were before their master. Rhodes's voice rang out again. "The past is past and done with. But what of the future? Is it to be peace or war?" He pointed out their defeat, the increasing odds against them. This was the crucial moment. The four English- men could almost hear their hearts beat as they waited for the result. There was a long silence. Then one of the oldest chiefs arose from his squatting position in the semicircle. Slowly and with dignity he advanced toward Rhodes, holding above his head a light wand he carried as a sjrmbol of his office. "See," said he solemnly. "This is my rifle. I cast it at your feet." He repeated the motion. "And this is my spear: it too I cast at your feet." Not a sound was uttered, while, at the same measured gait, he returned to his place. Then a great shout of assent burst from the lips of the whole tribe. The Matabele rebelUon was ended. 176 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Thus did Cecil John Rhodes risk his life to save the fortunes of his Chartered Company. And his only comment was made to Doctor Sauer as the party rode off: "It is just such moments as these," said he, "that make Ufe really worth living." PART III SOLDIERS WHO KNEW NO FEAR We expect bravery from the soldier. It's all in the day's work for him. To a certain extent, indeed, this at- titude is forced upon him — since it is after all easier for most men to face the chances of battle than the risk of being shot for desertion. Yet no matter how commonplace the abstract idea be- comes, no matter how much one may hate war, it is im- possible to resist the thrill of human valor in battle. There are thousands upon thousands of such narratives which make even the cold, dead type throb with beat of drum and scream of shell and pounding of hearts; even the quiet reader responds to the surge of excitement that obliterates the thought of death in a fierce white flare of determination to succeed. Ever since the record of our race commenced, its his- tory has been largely taken up with wars and the daring of those who fought them. A thousand volumes would hold but a fragment of the Epic of the Warrior, begun so un- forgettably by Homer's resounding stories of clashing Greeks and Trojans. A whole library of valiant deeds was enacted in the twentieth-century Great War alone — French and German and English and Serbian and Italian and Austrian and Russian and "Anzac" and Canadian and American. So one might select this handful of tales at random — for what are ten stories out of twenty centuries of almost continuous battling? 179 They show Kings and Imperial Marshals side by side with British Tommies and American privates, Roman foot-soldiers in armor beside leather-jacketed birdmen — in that companionship where a man's measure is his scorn of death, is his achievement of the impossible under the urge of his blazing spirit. CHAPTER XVI HOW HORATIUS HELD THE BRIDGE The last of the Roman Kings was Tarquin the Proud. He came to the throne by murder, and held it by tyranny. After twenty-five years of misrule, the peo- ple revolted under the leadership of Tarquin's nephew, who had only escaped his father's and brother's fate by pretending to be half-witted and meekly accepting the name of Brutus (stupid). The tjrrant was driven out. Tarquin raised an army among the Tuscans and led it against Rome, but it was defeated, though his son and Brutus killed each other in battle. Again and again the deposed King tried to regain his throne. At last he formed an alliance with Lars Porsena of Clusium, a powerful prince to the north of Rome, who took up the fugitive's cause as his own. When the Romans refused Porsena's demands to reinstate their former ruler, he warned them when and where he meant to attack, and gathered all his forces for the effort. Word came of his approach. The people were filled with terror, for this was one of the foremost powers of Italy which was descending upon them. Moreover, the Tuscan ranks were swelled with their bitterest enemies : deserters and exiles, and all who envied their growing power; and they knew only too well what bloody Tarquin's course would be if he succeeded in his attempt. But the consuls, Publicola and Lucretius, as if to show their disregard of the enemy, proceeded to build 181 182 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY the new-walled city of Sigliura, and placed within it a colony of seven hundred men. This bravado had httle effect upon Porsena, at least. He assaulted the town, drove out the garrison, and sent them flying in disorder toward Rome. Nor did he give them any chance to recover, but followed so hard upon them that a panic seized the citizens. The gates must be kept open to admit their own people; but the foe was so close upon their heels that it looked as if this meant letting him in also. The walls of Rome they felt were impregnable against anybody; a vic- torious enemy actually within the gates was another matter. Great was the confusion as the press of battle swayed to and fro by Tiber's side. The Romans fought val- iantly, but they were outnumbered; and in spite of their utmost efforts they were being forced back upon the wooden bridge spanning the Tiber River. The river was the main natural defense of the city on the west : once in possession of the Sublician bridge, an enemy had a direct entrance, so that the struggle for possession became more and more desperate. At the critical instant, the consul Publicola salUed out of the gate with a chosen band. For a time his onslaught drove the Tuscans back. But before long he fell, desperately wounded; his followers carried him back out of the fight, and the pressure at the bridge head was renewed. The other consul, Lucretius, attacked bravely also. He too fell wounded. With both leaders gone, the Romans lost heart and retreated before the fierce on- slaughts. A dash of the invaders captured the Janic- ulum, and from thence the Tuscan host pressed tri- umphantly forward. HOW HORATIUS HELD THE BRIDGE 183 There was clearly but one chance left. The bridge must be destroyed. If they could break it down be- fore Porsena's army could pass, "Father Tiber" would guard his chosen town. For the river was in flood and it would be a bold man who would even venture to try to cross it in the face of a hostile force. All this was clear as day to those in command. What was not clear at all was how the Tuscans were to be held back even for the 'short time required to saw and hack through the bridge timbers on the city side. To be sure, it was a narrow passage, where a few men side by side could guard the way. But where were there any who would attempt such a foolhardy feat ? It looked like certain death. Even if one were war- rior stout enough to defend himself from those fierce war-wolves thronging forward so eagerly, what would happen when the bridge fell behind him? There was a moment's silence in the hurried council of war, as the menacing facts impressed themselves on every mind. Then up stood one Horatius. He was nephew to Horatius the consul, and came of that line which had made the name memorable in the tremendous combat between the Horatii and Ciu-iatii in the reign of TuUius Hostilius. He bore his own record upon his face, for he had received in the wars such a wound between the eyes that at first glance he seemed to have but one great eye in his forehead. Hence he was called Cy- clops, "the one-eyed, which had somehow been converted by the ignorant populace into Codes. He bade his disheartened comi-ades face the grim truth : the one chance for safety lay in facing the enemy. "Let him who thinks to escape death by deserting his post reflect that if he flies, there will soon be more 184 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY of the enemy in the Palatium and Capital than now are in the Janiculum. "Besides, death comes to all: how can a man die better than in defending his home and gods? ' ' Do ye break down the bridge, by sword, by fixe, or by any means whatever. What one man can do to hold back the foe, that will I do." Like a hon among a frightened flock, he strode across to the first entrance to the bridge. Breasting the current of those whose backs were toward the en- emy, he reached the narrow passage; and the exulting Tuscans paused in sheer surprise at the sight. Two Romans there were who were inspired by his example. Spurius Lartius and Herminius, patricians both and proved warriors, rushed forward and took their places, one on his right hand, the other on his left. The road to Rome was guarded. It was three men against an army. But they were three who were con- cerned only to purchase with their lives the minutes necessary to destroy the bridge behind them. And already their comrades, shamed into action by their devotion, were hacking desperately at the timbers. The Tuscan warriors were not slow to accept the challenge. Their champions sprang forward from the serried ranks into the confined space. Warily the three met the onset. Swords and spears clashed upon their ready shields. Their own weapons flashed in the sun- Ught, then bit deep into their assailants, cleaving through armor and flesh. One after another of the assailants went down and were dragged away to make room for a fresh attack. Battered, and covered with blood and sweat, Horatius and his supporters glared at each fresh adversary HOW HORATIUS HELD THE BRIDGE 185 like some wild boar surrounded by baying hounds, awaiting the instant to strike a fatal blow. Never a word spoke they, but strained their ears backward for the sound of axe and lever which came from the rear. Maddened by the check and the sudden obstacle to the easy victory that had lain before them, the Tuscans attacked more furiously than ever. Bitter was the chagrin of Porsena and the traitor Sextus to see their doughtiest warriors laid low, their whole vast force held back by that thin wall of human courage. A shout from behind made even the combatants turn. "It falls! It falls!" ran the cry from those who wrought so eagerly at destruction. "Back, Horatius! BackLartius! Back Herminius!" The leader of the three looked round. Coolly he bade his comrades to retreat. They darted back, and as they sped to safety the timbers cracked beneath their feet. In a frenzy of rage the assailants hurled a perfect cloud of spears upon the solitary defender. Skilfully protecting himself with his shield, he defied them with taunts that bit deeper than their weapons. "Slaves are ye all," he called, "slaves of haughty tyrants. Ye have lost your own freedom, yet ye think to take away the liberty of Romans." There was a mighty crash, above which rose the triumphant shouts of the Romans. The great bridge collapsed into a mass of wreckage, and the swift waters of the Tiber seized hold of truss and girder. Horatius was cut off between the gap and the threatening mass of the enemy. There was a moment's pause as the realization sank into their minds. Then there rose a hoarse cry from 186 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY a thousand throats, demanding vengeance on the one who had wrecked their hopes. Horatius sprang to the edge of the shattered bridge. He raised his hand aloft. "Holy Father Tiber," cried he, "receive these arms and this thy soldier in thy propitious stream." With this invocation, he leaped into the flood. A silence fell upon friend and foe alike as the gallant war- rior reappeared on the surface, and, encumbered as he was by his heavy armor, struck out for the city shore. Recovering themselves, many of the Tuscans hurled javelins at him as he strove against the buffeting waves and current. One of these wounded him in the thigh, but with powerful strokes he swam across the space in safety and rose dripping from the shallows among the cheering multitude of his countrjonen. He had saved Rome, and Rome gave him full meed of gratitude. PubUcola, the consul, decreed that, in spite of the public scarcity, every citizen should present to him one day's provisions for his maintenance ; and even the women were proud to be among the hundreds of thou- sands who thus honored the one-eyed, and now lamed, hero. He was granted as much land as he could en- circle with a plough in a day. And a brazen statue of him was set up in the temple of Vulcan, that futm-e generations * might ever remember the son of Rome who was ready to give her all, including hfe itself. * A generation grown sceptical, twenty-four centuries later, pro- nounces the tale of Horatius a legend instead of history. The statue, they surmise, was one to Vulcan himself, the lame, one-eyed god, with whom tradition has confused the valiant man. Be this as it may, the deed is in character: such things have happened, do happen, will happen among men lifted up by patriotism. And the story thrills us to-day, in prose or in Macaulay's trumpet verse, as a typical example of soldier heroism. CHAPTER XVII RICHARD LION-HEART TO THE RESCUE If ever there were a man who seemed born to fight it was Richard the First of England. Indeed, he would have been badly off had it not been so: for he was at the age of twelve the acknowledged Duke of his mother Eleanor's great land of Aquitaine; and for the next twenty years there was hardly a time when he was not at war with the rebels of his duchy, or with his father or brothers. While still a mere boy, he reduced the great lords to his authority, and carried his victories to the borders of Spain, becoming renowned as a shrewd leader, as a hot-tempered but generous warrior of enormous per- sonal strength, and as one of the boldest knights errant of his time. "Woe to the traitors in Aquitaine," sings one of the old minstrels. "Fly before the face of bold Richard, Duke of Aquitaine, for he will annihilate all who oppose, from the greatest to the least !" More has been written, though less history than legend, of this fighting ruler than of any sovereign of his day. The romancers loved to tell how he thrust his arm down the lion's throat and pulled out its heart before his Austrian captors — thus getting his nickname of Coeur de Lion; how he cleft the great chain across the harbor of Acre with one blow of his battle-axe ; even of his fondness for Saracen flesh instead of pork; of his imprisonment, and final release through the faithful minstrel, Blondel; and scores of other marvels. Scott 187 188 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY uses many of these tales, in "Ivanhoe" and "The Talis- man," more credibly. But the facts were marvel enough, and the exaggera- tions seem natural when one gets a glimpse of this mighty man-of-arms in action. Fortunately there is a record, by an eye-witness, of a characteristic exploit by the Lion-Heart in the Holy Land. He had started on the Third Crusade in 1189, imme- diately after being crowned King of England, and had increased his already tremendous reputation by his feats at Acre and in the two years of fighting with the Saracens. He had led his knights to a spot only twelve miles from Jerusalem, but was being compelled to re- turn home without accompUshing the main aim of the expedition: the recapture of the Holy City. Then, in the summer of 1192, word came that Saladin, the Turkish Sultan, had attacked the city of Jaffa, where there were five thousand Christians. The town had been taken with much slaughter, the citadel was be- sieged, and the survivors were close to surrender. King Richard was at Acre preparing for his return to England. He was then at the height of his powers — very tall, of shapely build, with curly red-gold hair and beard, and an eye that few could look upon when he was angry. His favorite weapon was a battle- axe weighing twenty pounds, or a great sword beyond ordinary wielding. His chief pleasure in life seemed to be opening a path with these through some desperate melee. To his tent entered the messengers from Jaffa, re- lating the sad case of their beleaguered companions. They had hardly explained the facts when Richard broke out: RICHARD LION-HEART 189 "As God lives," said he, "I will be with them and give them all the assistance in my power !" He gave instant orders for his army to be made ready. His French alhes refused to aid, but nothing checked the King's generous ardor. Sending part of his force by land, he embarked with the rest and set sail. The land force went slowly for fear of an ambuscade. Head-winds delayed Richard's galleys three days. "The King, vexed at this delay, exclaimed aloud: 'O Lord God, why dost thou detain us here? Con- sider, I pray Thee, the urgency of the case, and the devoutness of our wishes.' "No sooner had he prayed thus, than God caused a favorable wind to spring up which wafted his fleet into the harbor of Jaffa." It was high time. Unknown to the rescuers, the unfortunate survivors in the citadel had just secured from Saladin a respite of a single day, under penalty of a great ransom if aid did not come to them. Ahead of the hour, the besieged were pressed to ful- fil the conditions of the truce. They had no recourse save to begin to pay over the promised bezants to the Turks — whereupon the latter promptly cut off the heads of seven who had paid. , At this treachery the remainder retired to the tower again, and awaited with lamentations the certain death which seemed their fate. But in the midst of their despair and the Saracen threats from without, one gave a cry of joy. All eyes turned to the harbor. There swept in the royal galleys and rounded-to, ready to anchor and discharge the rescuers they brought. It is Master Geoffrey de Vinsauf who seems to have 190 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY seen these things and set them down for us over seven hundred years ago. Says he: "The Turks, discovering the arrival of the King's fleet, sallied down to the seaside with sword and shield, and sent forth showers of arrows: the shore was so thronged with their multitude that there was hardly a foot of ground to spare. Neither did they con- fine themselves to acting on the defensive, for they shot their arrows at the crews of the ships, and the cavalry spurred their horses into the sea to prevent the King's men from landing. "The King, gathering his ships together, consulted with his officers. "'Shall we,' said he, 'push on against this rabble multitude that occupy the shore, or shall we value our lives more than the lives of those poor fellows who are exposed to destruction for want of out assistance ? ' "Some replied that further effort was useless, for it was by no means certain that any remained alive to be saved ; and how could they land in the face of such a multitude? "The King gazed out thoughtfully, and at that moment saw a priest plunge into the water and swim toward the royal galley. When he was received on board, he addressed King Richard with heaving breath and voice almost failing him. "'Most noble King, the remnant of our people, waiting for your arrival, are exposed like sheep to be slain, unless the divine grace shall bring you to the rescue.' "'Are there any of them still ahve then?' asked the King. ' And if so, where are they ? ' "'There are still some living — hemmed in, and at the last extremity in front of yonder tower. ' RICHARD LION-HEART 191 "'Please God then,' replied the King, 'we will die with our brave brothers-in-arms; and a curse light on him who hesitates.' "The word was forthwith given. The galleys be- gan to move toward the shore. The King dashed forward into the waves, with his thighs unprotected by armor, and up to his waist in the water. "He soon gained firm footing on the dry strand. Behind him followed Geoffrey du Bois and Peter de Pratelles, while in the rear came all the others rushing through the waves. "The Turks stood to defend the shore, which was covered with their numerous troops. "King Richard, with an arbalest* which he carried, drove them back right and left; his companions pressed upon the recoiling enemy, whose courage failed when they recognized King Richard and they no longer dared to meet him. "The King brandishes his fierce sword which allows them no time to resist, but they yield before his fiery blows, and are driven in confusion with blood and havoc by the King's men till the shore is entirely cleared of them. "The landing party then brought together beams, poles, and timbers from the old ships and galleys to make a barricade; and the King placed there some knights, servants, and arbalesters, to keep guard and dislodge the Turks, who seeing they could no longer oppose our troops, dispersed themselves with cries and howling in one general flight. "King Richard was the first to enter the town, by a winding stair he had remarked in the house of the Templars. Here he found more than three thousand * A crossbow, with a steel bow. 192 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Turks turning over everything in the houses and carry- ing off the spoil. The brave King had no sooner en- tered than he caused his banners to be hoisted on an eminence that they might be seen by the Christians on the tower. These, taking courage at the sight, rushed forth in arms to meet him, and at the sound thereof the Turks were thrown into confusion. "The King, meanwhile, with brandished sword, still pursued and slaughtered the enemy, thus enclosed between two forces, and filled the streets with the slain, showing no mercy; for there never was a man on earth who so abominated cowardice as he. "But the King had only three horses with him, and what were three among so many? If we examine the deeds of the ancients, and all the records of former historians, we shall find that there was never a man who so distinguished himself in battle as King Richard did this day. "When the Turks leaving the town saw his banners floating in the air, a cry was raised on right and left as he sallied forth upon them, and no hail-storm or tempest ever so densely concealed the sky as it was then darkened by the flying arrows of the Turks. "Saladin, hearing of the King's arrival and how he had slain all who opposed him, was seized with a sud- den panic, put spurs to his horse and fied. King Rich- ard with his men still continued the pursuit, slaying and destroying, while his arbalesters made such havoc of the horses that for two miles the traces of their flight were visible. "He now pitched his tent where Saladin's had been, having thus with so small a body defeated this great army. RICHARD LION-HEART 193 "Saladin called together his captains and thus ad- dressed them: '"Has he then beaten all of us? Have they come from Acre to defeat us thus? By what superiority have they been able to accomphsh this ? In infantry, as well as cavalry, our army was much superior.' "One of those present replied: "'My Lord, they have neither horses nor beasts of burden of any kind, save three horses only which their wonderful King found in Jaffa. I think, however, that the King himself could easily be surprised for he lies almost alone in his tent, and fully worn out with fatigue. Whoever seizes him will at once put an end to our labors and the whole campaign.' "It was then given out among the Turks what a reproach it was to them that so many thousands had been defeated by so small a force, and that Jaffa had been retaken. "In this manner they murmured to one another at what had taken place, and trembled with confusion. "On the next day, being Sunday, the King diligently set to work to repair the walls of Jaffa, and continued his exertions on Monday and Tuesday, that some pro- tection might be furnished by them, such as it was, though the repairs were made without lime or cement; but this could not be avoided, for an immense army of Turks was still close at hand. "Meanwhile Count Henry arrived in a galley from Caesarea, where the rest of the army was detained. So that the King on this emergency could muster out of his whole army only fifty-five knights, besides in- fantry, arbalesters, and retainers, and two thousand Genoesp and Pisans. Of horses he had no more than fifteen, whether good or bad." 194 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Presently two groups of Saracens, the Menelones of Aleppo and the Cordivi, decided to wipe out the former disgrace by seizing King Richard in his tent. Accordingly they set out during the night and had al- most accomplished their object. But luckily a dis- pute as to precedence arose among them; and a Geno- ese, rising early, saw the helmets gleaming in the morning light. "He immediately rushed with all speed into the camp, calling out : ' To arms ! to arms ! ' "The King was wakened by the noise. Starting up, he leaped from the bed, put on his coat of mail, and summoned his men. "Lives there a man who would not be shaken by such an alarm? "The enemy rush unawares, armed against un- armed, many against few, for our men had no time to arm, or even to dress themselves. The King him- self and many others proceeded to the fight without their cuishes,* some even without their breeches; and they armed the best they could though they were to fight the whole day. "While they were thus arming in haste, the Turks drew near. The King mounted his horse with only ten other knights. These alone had horses, and some even of those they had were base and worthless animals, unused to arms. The common men were skilfully drawn out in ranks and troops, with each a captain to command them. The knights were posted nearer the sea, having the church of St. Nicholas on the left, because the Turks had directed their principal attack on that quarter, and the Pisans and Genoese were be- yond the suburban gardens. * Armor for the thighs. RICHARD LION-HEART 195 "Oh, who could fully relate the terrible attacks of the infidels ? The Turks at first rushed on with horrid yells, hurling their javelins and shooting their arrows. "Our men prepared to receive their furious attack, each fixing his right knee in the ground, that so they might better hold together and maintain their posi- tion; whilst there, the thighs of their left legs were bent, and their left hands held their shields; stretched out before them in their right hands they held their lances, of which the lower ends were fixed in the ground, with their iron heads pointed threateningly toward the enemy. "Between each two men thus covered with shields, the skilful King placed an arbalester, and another be- hind him to bend the arbalest as quickly as possible, so that the man in front might discharge his shot while the other was loading. This did much harm to the enemy. "Thus everything was prepared as well as the short- ness of the time allowed, and our little army was drawn up in order. The King passed along the ranks and ex- horted every man to be firm and not flinch. "'Courage, my brave fellows,' said he, 'and let not the attack of the enemy disturb you. Everything may be borne by brave men. There is no chance for flight, for the enemy surround us, and to attempt to flee is to provoke certain death. "'Be valiant, therefore, and let our urgency sharpen your courage: brave soldiers should either conquer nobly or gloriously die. But before we die let us do what may avenge our deaths. This will be the end of our labors, the termination of our life and battle. ' "These words were hardly spoken when the hostile army rushed with ferocity upon them, in seven troops, 196 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY each of which contained about a thousand horse. Our men received their charge with their right feet planted firm against the sand, and remained immovable. Their lances formed a wall against the enemy, who would have assuredly broken through if our men had in the least given way. "The first line of the Turks recoiled, when our cross- bowmen plied them with a shower of missiles, slaying large mmibers of men and horses. Another Hne came on and were also driven back. In this way the Turks came on like a whirlwind, feigning attack that our men might be induced to give way. "Seeing this the King and his ten mounted knights put spurs to their horses and charged right into the middle of the foe, upsetting them right and left and piercing many with their lances. They pulled up at last because they found they had broken entirely through the Turkish lines. "Looking about, Richard saw the noble Earl of Leicester dismounted and fighting bravely on foot. He rushed to his rescue, snatched him from the hands of the enemy, and replaced him on his horse. "A multitude of Turks now advanced: enraged at our success they rushed at the royal standard of the lion, for they would rather have slain King Richard than a thousand others. "In the midst of the mel^e, the King saw Ralph de Mauleon dragged off prisoner, but, spurring his horse to a gaUop, in a moment he had freed him; for King Richard was a very giant in the battle, and was every- where in the field — now here, now there, wherever the attack of the Turks raged the hottest. There was no one, however gallant, that would not readily yield to him the pre-eminence. He slew numbers with his Richard and Saladin in battle RICHARD LION-HEART 197 sword which shone hke Mghtning : some were cloven in two from the helmet to the teeth, while others had heads or arms lapped off at a single blow. "Many of our men were wounded; and as the weight of the battle became heavier, the galley-men withdrew in the galleys that had brought them. The Turks pressed forward into the town once more. The King slew three mounted men with his own hand, the re- mainder were driven back, and Richard succeeded in bringing back the galley-men to the fight. "No sooner had he returned than with all his fury he fell upon the thickest ranks of the enemy, driving them back and routing them, so that even those who were at a distance and untouched by him were over- whelmed by the throng of their fellows as they re- treated. "Never was there such an attack made by one man ! He actually pierced the middle of the hostile army, opening a space about him like the tried warrior he was. The Turks at once closed about him, hoping to overwhelm him by numbers. "Our men, losing sight of their King, feared he would be slain; and when one proposed they should advance to rescue him, the lines could hardly contain themselves. Yet clearly any break in the front meant that all would surely be destroyed, so they stood fast. "What can one think of King Richard, hemmed in by the enemy, a single man against so many thou- sands ? Who ever heard of such a man ? No adverse storm could sink his bravery. His valor was ever- blooming. "Inured to battle from his tenderest years, to whom famous Roland could not be considered equal, he re- mained invincible even in the midst of the enemy, and 198 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY his body seemed impenetrable as brass to any kind of weapon. "In his right hand he brandished his sword, whose rapid descent ever broke the ranks on either side of him. Such was his vigor amid that host, that he mowed down Turks as reapers mow down corn with their sickles. "He who felt one of these blows had no need of a second. The King cut down men and horses alike. The more he saw hunseh separated from his own men, the more the enemy sought to overwhelm him, the more conspicuous did his valor shine. "There was one magnificently caparisoned emir who seemed to reproach the rest with cowardice, in- timating by gestures that he was going to end the disgrace. Putting spurs to his horse, he charged through the press upon King Richard. "Brandishing his dripping sword, the King with a single mighty blow smote off not only his head but his shoulder and right arm. "The Turks were struck with terror at this incredible feat and fell back on all sides, scarcely daring to shoot at this human lion from a distance with their arrows. "Thereupon the King returned to his anxious friends, safe and unhurt, though he was stuck all over with javelins like a deer pierced by the hunter, and the trappings of his horse were thickly covered with arrows. "Thus like a brave soldier he returned from the contest, and a bitter contest it was, for it had lasted from sunrise to sunset. It may seem incredible that so small a body of men endured so long a conflict; but we cannot doubt the truth of it, for in that battle only one or two of our men were slain. But the number of the Turkish horses which lay dead upon the field RICHARD LION-HEART 199 exceeded fifteen hundred ; and of the Turks themselves more than seven hundred were killed. "Yet they did not carry back King Richard, as they had boasted, as a present to Saladin; but on the con- trary he and his brave followers performed so many deeds of valor in the sight of the Turks that the enemy shuddered to behold them." It is little wonder that when Saladin ridiculed his leaders for their failure they should have replied that the deeds of "Melech Ric" were beyond human nature. In fact, for generations afterward Syrian riders used to ask of a horse shying in the dark if it saw Melech Ric! CHAPTER XVIII "THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE" The great Napoleon was a connoisseur of bravery. He needed it in the business of conquering the world to which he devoted his genius. Such a group as his marshals — Ney, Murat, Junot, Lannes, Macdonald, Massena — would be difficult to match in all history; and, different as they were, they had all been picked from obscurity by the Emperor on account of their pre- eminence in this quality. When we read, therefore, that Napoleon, as well as his other generals, christened Marshal Ney "the bravest of the brave," we know this must have been a soldier indeed. He had a "marble cahnness" amid extreme danger while studying the enemy's position; yet neither Murat nor Lannes could carry his followers into a more desper- ate charge when the time came. No hope seemed too forlorn for him to see the chance left instead of the ob- stacles. And never did his qualities show more bril- liantly than in the retreat from Russia. Ney was a cooper's son, whose longing for a soldier's life drove him at the age of eighteen to run away and enlist in a hussar regiment. It was in 1788. He was of medium height, with a wide forehead, blue eyes, and a ruddy complexion. His carrot-colored hair was ac- companied as usual by a quick temper; but le rougeat ("Reddy") became a hard-working soldier, a champion fencer, and expert horseman; his tireless persistence soon won him another name, "the Indefatigable." 200 "THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE" 201 It took two years for him to become a corporal. In 1792 he was sergeant-major. The war with Austria began the years of conflict which were to transform Europe; and with opportunity Ney rose fast. In 1794 General Kleber reported that "Captain Ney, who is doing duty as adjutant-general, has performed prodigies of valor"; and by 1799 he had continued his steady advance till he was in command of the Army of the Rhine. He shared in the victories of Marengo and Hohenlinden in 1800, and next year met Napoleon, then First Consul. When Napoleon became Emperor in 1804, Ney was one of the eighteen generals who were created Marshals of France. From that time on. Marshal Ney was one of the main props of the Emperor's military power. He was made Duke of Elchingen after his victory at that town; he won fresh honors against the Prussians at Jena, against the Russians at Friedland, and on a hundred other battle-fields. Then came 1812 and the fateful invasion of Russia, where Ney was destined to reach his true greatness, not amid brilUant victories, but in the face of dis- aster. Napoleon had staked all his fortunes on his Grand Army and hurled it into Russia. He had won the costly victory at Borodino where Ney's brilliant attacks for fifteen hours brought him the new title of Prince de la Moskowa. He had found the Russian capital city of Moscow a smoking ruin instead of the needed winter quarters. Forced to fall back, he had divided the remains of his army, giving charge of the rear-guard — the post of honor and danger^to Ney. On November 14, what was left of this force reached the town of Smolensk. Between cold and snow and 202 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY hunger and the Russian harrying, this amounted to only three thousand men. There was not one com- plete squadron of cavalry. A dozen badly horsed guns and scant ammunitions for those was all his artillery. His duty was still to take the brunt of the enemy's attacks and save what fragments of his column he could by pressing forward to a junction with the Emperor. He hoped to find one of the other corps at Krasnoi, and to rejoin Napoleon at Orsza, beyond the Dnieper River. On the 17th of November Ney set out on this hazard- ous retreat. He had built his force up to five thousand men. He took with him but six guns, leaving much artillery, with wagons and all sorts of supplies which he could neither carry nor destroy. It took more courage than any charge, that start. The country ahead was almost unknown. The cold was so intense that sentries could hardly do their duty at night. No one realized so keenly as Ney how in- adequate was this wretched handful of men, with but a semblance of cavalry or artillery, harassed inces- santly by the enemy's attacks. Yet the marshal was serene and confident, cheering officers and men with praises for the recent repulse of an attack, with assurances that by the next afternoon they ought to join Davout's corps at Krasnoi. All that day they marched steadily, breaking up the Cossack dashes without much difficulty. At sunrise next morning they set out again, every thought going forward to the hoped-for meeting with their comrades that afternoon. The Cossacks hung upon flank and rear of the column all morning. Marauding parties would swoop down "THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE" 203 and cut off a straggling group or company, but they did not venture to attack the ordered hnes in the face of regular volleys. The thunder of cannon was heard ahead. Nobody knew what it meant. >Tey did npt like the sound, but there was nothing to do save push on. The 2d Division, which was in the lead, reported Cossacks directly ahead; little was thought of it, since these restless irregulars often cut across the line of march. Presently the vanguard neared Krasnoi. To their surprise they came upon a few hundred Frenchmen and half a dozen guns. These proved to be a portion of the 1st Corps which had become separated from the main body of Davout's force by an attack of the Russians. Their commander knew nothing except that there were Russians ahead in large numbers, and somewhere beyond them was the rest of the French army. The weather had moderated, so that there was a dense fog over everything. One could get glimpses of the usual bands of Cossacks on every side, but beyond these shifting, blurring groups all was a gray, im- penetrable wall. Ney joined this fragment of Davout's corps to his own, formed his men in line of battle, and pushed ahead to meet whatever might befall. Suddenly the blankness was pierced by the flashes and thunder of artillery. A battery of forty guns opened on the advancing column at short range. The leader had glimpses, too, of masses of Russians ahead drawn up in battle array. He fell back, disposing his men for the attack he expected. To his surprise, a single Russian officer appeared under a flag of truce. 204 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY This officer informed the marshal he was come to demand the surrender of the 3d Corps. "A marshal of France never surrenders," repUed Ney. "Go back to those who sent you." But the Russian begged him to consider the situa- tion calmly. His superiors had far too high a regard for the famous Frenchman to suggest anything im- worthy of him. The fact was, however, that General Kutusoff had broken the French hnes at Krasnoi. The columns of Eugene and Davout had lost thousands of killed and wounded, their guns and supphes, and had barely escape^ to join the Emperor. These pitiable fragments of the Grand Army had probably united somewhere ahead, it was true. But between them and Ney there was at that moment a force of eighty thousand Russians, with plenty of artillery. Any experienced soldier must see that his case was hopeless. If he wished to verify these state- ments, a brief truce would be granted for that purpose. Ney did not need to verify anything. He saw in a flash what had happened, and just how bad his situation was. What to do was another matter. He must have thought hard as he looked from this spruce messenger in his gay uniform to his own gaunt and ragged officers, all waiting in front of their men for his decision. Not many men would have hesitated at all. The case was too clear. But Ney was only making up his mind how, and not if, he was to do what he had set out to do. An accident gave him what seemed a clue. To the surprise of everybody, there was another flash from the front, a heavy report, and the sound of balls overhead. One of the Russian batteries had opened fire on some false alarm. "THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE" 205 "You are a prisoner, sir," said Ney to the envoy. "Your people have fired on us while you are in my Hues, which forfeits the protection of your white flag." The point was valid, and Ney had the Russian dis- armed and guarded. He had resolved to attack the enemy, hoping that the very audacity of the attempt might give it success. The fog, and the failure of the messenger to report, might serve him by keeping the Russians in doubt up to the last moment. It would be hard to recall a bolder operation than the charge which followed. Inspired by their commander, these war-worn veterans plunged forward, only loiowing that ahead was the enemy, and whether two to one or twenty to one, their business was to cut their way through. The attempt was not within human power. Razout's division was driven back by a hail of grape-shot from the batteries. Overwhelmingly superior numbers of cavalry and infantry attacked the French on both flanks. Only superhuman efforts by Ney himself beat back this onset long enough for Razout's division to extricate themselves from their danger. The disastrous and confused struggle was finally ended by darkness. It seemed like a miracle that there was any 3d Corps left at all. But the facts were gloomy enough. The men were beaten and discour- aged. Half the guns were gone. Some of the regi- ments had lost more than half their numbers. The great Russian army was still between them and their Emperor. If Ney's case had been difficult before, it was surely hopeless now. Not a man in the httle force understood what was in Ney's mind. There could be nothing left save sur- render on the best terms obtainable. 206 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Yet to their amazement they found themselves formed into marching order somehow — and presently knew they were returning toward Smolensk. The wounded who could stand marched with the rest. Occasional groups of fugitives fell into place as they proceeded. The darkness was a slight protection from the dreaded Cossacks for the time being, but every one felt the fatal moment was merely being post- poned a few hours. Yet General de Fezensac wrote afterward that the mere presence of Marshal Ney somehow carried re- assurance to the hopeless ones. "Without knowing what he intended or what he could do, we knew that he would do something. His confidence in himself was equal to his courage. The greater the danger, the more prompt was his resolu- tion, and once he had decided what course to take, he never doubted of success. "Thus, even at a moment like this his face showed no sign of indecision or anxiety. Every one txirned his eyes to him, but no one ventured to question him. "At last, seeing one of his staff near, the marshal said in a low voice: "'It is not well with us.' "'What are you going to do?' replied the officer. "'Get to the other side of the Dnieper.' "'Where is the way to it?' '"We shall find out.' "'But what if it is not frozen over?' '"It will be.'" He was still the leader, and he had no more thought of surrendering than when he started. Somewhere to the north was the Dnieper River. Somewhere beyond was Napoleon's Grand Army. They would find the "THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE" 207 river, cross after dark on the ice, and join their country- men as planned. Simple enough — if they could manage any of these things. The only map Ney had was ahnost useless. "But presently," relates his biographer, "he led the column away from the road across snowy fields to the left. In a hollow he dismounted, cleared some snow away, and found as he expected the ice on a stream. He broke the ice and found in what direction the water was running. "'The stream must flow into the Dnieper,' he said. ' It wiU guide us to the river-bank. ' "At sunset he halted at a small village. The peas- ants had fled, leaving their small stores of food in the houses. Fires were lighted, more fires than were actu- ally needed, in order to impress the pursuing Cossacks with a false idea of his numbers. The men bivouacked and had supper. The many wounded were sheltered in the houses, where the surgeons dressed their wounds. An outpost hne was formed, and after the exchange of a few shots the Cossacks drew off to a respectful dis- tance. They were quite satisfied that they had marked the column down for destruction next morning. "But at eight o'clock, leaving a few men to keep the fires alight and follow later, Ney silently reformed his column and marched to the Dnieper bank, guided by one cf the villagers, whom some of Ney's Polish soldiers had captured and who promised to show him a bend of the river where the ice was firm enough to cross. At nine o'clock he stood on the river-bank. The ice had partly thawed, but there was a hard frost, and he decided not to attemxpt the crossing at once, but to wait till after midnight. The three hours would make the ice firmer and give time for more of the strag- 208 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY glers to come in. His perfect self-possession was shown by the fact that, as soon as he had reconnoitred the river and given his orders, he wrapped himself in his cloak and lying down on the snow slept soundly till midnight. "Then the marshal rose and began to direct the crossing. The ice was treacherous, and it was found that the only safe way to cross was by sending the men over in single file at several points. Fires lighted on both banks showed the way. When most of the in- fantry and some thousands of the disbanded fugitives had crossed, an attempt was made to send some horses and wagons over the ice. A few horses crossed safely, but several broke through and were lost. A wagon laden with wounded men crashed through the ice and disappeared, and a few of the wounded were seen struggling in the chilly water or chnging to fragments of floating ice. Some of them were rescued. In one case Ney himself was the rescuer. CrawUng on hands and knees along the ice, he reached the huge gap that had opened in it and dragged out a man who was clinging to the broken edge. It proved to be a staff-officer, Captain de Briqueville, who had the good fortiuie to survive the horrors of the retreat and return to France. "After this accident it was decided that all the guns and wagons must be abandoned on the south bank. The march began, at first for a few miles northward in order to gain some distance from the river, then once more to the westward. For some hours of the long night the men bivouacked in a belt of pines and made fires to warm themselves. Ney hoped that he had shaken off all pursuit and that there were no Russians north of the river. He expected that two long marches would bring him to Orsaa. "THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE" 209 "But early next day there was a disappointing dis- covery. Before dawn some Cossacks were surprised asleep in a farm. Then after the column had been moving across open snow-covered fields and through belts of wood, at last it came upon a highway, and there the snow was trampled with horse-hoofs and there were the tracks of sledge-runners. A large body of mounted troops had evidently passed that way within a few hours. "Platoff, the hetman of the Cossacks, had crossed the Dnieper the day before at the head of some thou- sands of his men, irregulars such as had been harassing the French retreat day after day, and with them several squadrons of drilled regulars accompanied by a num- ber of light field-guns mounted on sledges. It was not expected that any French troops would be found on the north bank, and the column was sent there to make a rapid march, in order to fall upon the right flank of the Grand Army. It was not long before Cos- sack patrols came upon Ney's little column toiling through the half-melted snow, with the miserable crowd of disbanded men straggling after it. Some of the Cossacks galloped off to carry the news to their het- man; the rest, rapidly reinforced by other bands of wild spearmen, rode in among the fugitives, killed numbers of them, and drove the rest back to the pro- tection of the column. "Platoff was between Ney and Orsza, and farther from the river than the French. He turned back to attack them. At first Ney had hoped that he would have to deal only with the worrying tactics of the ir- regulars. They never charged home, and were easily driven off by the musketry-fire when they came within close range, but no one who straggled from the formed 210 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY ranks of the French escaped their spears. The situa- tion became more serious when Platoff's main body came in sight and his hght artillery opened fire. It needed all Ney's courage and energy to face this new danger. "He now commanded only a small force of infantry, encumbered by a mob of disbanded men, and having with them not a gun or a wagon so that they had only the small supply of cartridges and food that the men carried. They were opposed by a numerically superior force of mounted men with artillery. If they marched with closed-up ranks the Cossack leader could choose his own distance and keep them under artillery-fire. If they opened out, the cavalry would be upon them. But for two days and the intervening night Ney faced this terrible situation, marching slowly for most of the time, snatching a brief rest when for a while the enemy's attacks slackened, and losing men continually. In the course of the 19th all the disbanded men had disappeared. Some had been made prisoners, a few were wandering about the country or hiding in the woods, but most had been mercilessly massacred by the Cossacks. There was hope only for those who could keep their places in the marching ranks. For those who fell wounded by the enemy's fire, or out of sheer exhaustion, there was no chance. They mostly accepted their fate with stoical indifference. A ser- geant of the 4th Infantry dropped with his thigh shat- tered by a shot. 'Here's another man done for,' he said coolly to his comrades. 'Take my knapsack. You will find it useful.' But there were moments when it seemed as if the sorely tried nerve of the men was breaking down. More than once it was all that Ney and his officers could do to steady the ranks, as "THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE" 211 with a wild 'Hurrah!' the storm of Cossack lancers came surging round them. "Ney marched his men in two columns, one under his personal command, the other under General Henin. When in close action with the Russians, one would show a bold front and beat off the charges, while the other moved on and gained ground. If both had to make a stand they could cross their fire. During the 19th he gradually drew nearer to the course of the river, and in the afternoon found some respite from the enemy's attacks when he gained the shelter of the pine woods along the Dnieper. Here he rested for a while in the night, but marched again before dawn. He left the woods, and the ground became difficult as the track was intersected by the numerous ravines formed by streams running down to the river. At each of these obstacles some of the weary men broke down and were left behind. The attacks of the enemy began again at daybreak. Platoff marched on a parallel track to Ney's rapidly dwindling force, now cannonading it with his sledge-mounted artillery, now launching his Cossack cavalry in charge after charge. Ney was the life and soul of the dogged resistance that was every- where offered to these onsets. Moving on foot among the men, now here, now there, he encouraged them by telling them that the worst was over; that next day they would be resting in safety at Orsza; that he had sent on an officer to tell the Emperor they were comic g, and that soon a helping hand would be held out to them." By a miracle this messenger had really reached Orsza. The Emperor had just left with his imperial guard (reduced from thirty-five thousand to six thousand men); but Marshals Eugene and Davout were over- 212 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY joyed when they heard that Ney was still aUve, since they had had no hope of ever seeing him again. Eugene set out at once with a strong force, and at length guided the little band through the darkness to his location by signal-guns. Of the six thousand who had marched from Smolensk, there were left less than nine hundred. But Ney was at their head. He and Eugene fell into each other's arms. When the Emperor heard of Ney's feat he exclaimed: "He is the bravest of the brave." He was cheered by this piece of fortune. "I shall yet save my eagles," said he. And Ney's reward ? It was to continue in his charge of the rear-guard through the remaining month of that ghastly retreat which finally reduced the "Grand Army" to a mere tragic memory. But the cahn historian of to-day declares that but for the indomitable com-age and skiU of Michel Ney, the Emperor himself would never have escaped ahve from the Russian trap into which he had marched so confidently. It's an odd fact that many of the experts in the occult mysteries of the Rosicrucians assert that Marshal Ney did not perish on that December day of 1815, when history records, after being condemned as a traitor, he was shot in the Luxembourg Gardens. These mystics have written volumes to prove that the gallant warrior, being also an Initiate, exercised the powers of the in- structed philosophers — and was living peacefully many years afterward in Rowan County, North Carolina ! CHAPTER XIX A SWEDISH CONQUEROR One day in November, 1697, a review was being held of the royal troops at Stockholm, Sweden. It was not a very large force of men that marched past the commander-in-chief. Indeed, they would seem like a pitiful handful to us to-day. But these soldiers had at that time a reputation beyond any in Europe. For a hundred and fifty years, under Gus- tavus Vasa, under his grandson Gustavus Adolphus the Great, under each successive ruler, they had made the Swedish arms feared by Denmark, Poland, Russia, and the loosely knit states of the empire. They had conquered great provinces of what is now Russia and Germany, besides a hundred towns in the German states. Thrones shook when the Swedes descended from the north. The pride of this record was in the bearing of the soldiers as they manoeuvred in precision that told of long and thorough discipline. But the reviewing general was a strange contrast to his veterans. He was a mere boy, fifteen years old the summer before. Tall and slender, his large blue eyes were gentle, almost diffident. He was dressed rather magnificently. And while there was a grim expression about his smooth mouth and chin, he seemed absurdly out of place as the commander of such a body. To be sure, he was the eldest son of the King of Sweden, and the King had died a few months before. But though the law of the country declared that a monarch came of age at fifteen, his autocratic father, 213 214 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Charles XI, had deferred his accession till eighteen; and the boy's grandmother had taken over the power as Regent. The last regiment clanked past, saluting. The re- view was over. Yet the young Charles stood still, silent and thoughtful. There was an awkward pause among the group of dignitaries behind him. Nobody knew what to do. Presently State Councillor Piper moved forward. "May I take the liberty," he said, with concealed sarcasm, "of asking your Majesty of what you are thinking so seriously?" The prince started. "I am thinking," he replied, "that I feel worthy of the command of those fine fellows, and that it is not my will that either they or I should receive our orders from a woman." It was the councillor's turn to be surprised. He gave a keen, appraising look at the young man, made some non-committal assent, and the company left the field. But the astute Piper had had a glimpse of a possi- bility which gave him no rest. Like a prudent courtier he had studied his future ruler. He knew how the boy had learned to manage a horse at seven; his fondness for hunting and military exercises; his occasional flashes of temper and his invincible obstinacy ; how he had replied to his tutor when the latter had reproved his wish to be like Alexander the Great — because the Macedonian had ' ' lived only thirty-two years. ' ' ' ' Ah ! ' ' said Charles, "and is not that long enough when one has subdued kingdoms?" And he felt that the boy of yesterday was a man to help whom was to help oneself. A SWEDISH CONQUEROR 215 He sounded some important noblemen, the coun- cillors of the regency. The logic of the situation was irresistible. The officials tried to outdo each other in hastening the scheme. In three days the councillors had laid the matter before the surprised and reluctant Queen Regent, the states general had been convoked and had unanimously voted for the change — and the boy of fifteen was Charles XII, King of Sweden. On December 24, he rode into Stockholm on a sorrel horse shod with silver, a sceptre in his hand. The crowds in the streets cheered him wildly, noting his firm seat, his confidence and royal air. Then he stood before the Archbishop of Upsala, to whom venerable tradition gave the right of crowning Sweden's monarch, a right jealously maintained by the clergy. The solemn ceremony proceeded. The Archbishop, in his gorgeous robes, anointed the young ruler. Tak- ing the crown, he held it ready to place on his head. But, quick as thought, Charles straightened himself, seized the crown, and with a proud glance at the Arch- bishop, crowned himself. The thousands who looked on broke into wild ap- plause. There was something magnificent about such haughty arrogance. Nothing happened for some time after Charles's accession, however, to justify the new estimate made of him. He made Piper a count and gave him charge of most affairs. As for himself he did little, seeming too haughty to descend to details of government. When he appeared at the council, he would generally cross his legs on the table, and pay little attention to what was going on. Everybody concluded he was after all a weak repre- 216 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY sentative of the fighting Swedish Kings; and before long three of his neighbors decided that the time had come to take from Sweden her territories on the south and east of the Baltic Sea. The King of Denmark, who had a standing quarrel with Charles's brother-in-law, the Duke of Holstein; King Frederick Augustus of Poland (also Elector of Saxony), and the Czar of Russia, Peter the Great, combined to seize what each wanted of the great king- dom which Sweden's rulers had built up by conquest and confirmed by solemn treaty. The Czar had just returned from his amazing two years of travel, and work in the shipyards of Holland and England. He was transforming his vast country from barbarism to civilization. He had begun to build the new capital of St. Petersbm-g, to drill his troops, cast cannon, construct ships. In a hundred ways Russia was waking up. She was a formidable antagonist. The news of this danger appalled the Swedes. A twenty years' peace had left them without proved generals. There seemed no help in their ruler. They cast about for some plan of treating with these enemies, to see with how little concession they could be satis- fied. This view was broached in the King's council. While it was being discussed, Charles rose: "Gentlemen," he said, "I have resolved never to engage in an unjust war, but on the other hand, never to conclude a just war but by the ruin of my foes. "I have made up my mind. I intend to attack the first who declares war against me, and when I have conquered him, I hope to strike terror into the rest." The timid were fired by the young King's spirit, the A SWEDISH CONQUEROR 217 bolder rejoiced. From that moment Charles stopped being a spectator and took command. In fact, this crisis seemed to crystallize the boj^'s whole character. He forsook everj^ pleasure he had indulged in; he stopped drinking wine for the rest of his life; he replaced his former magnificent clothing with a common soldier's uniform ; he forsook the society of the court ladies, as if determined to avoid every softness. In every way he subjected himself to the most severe miilitary discipline. With absolute single- mindedness, he threw all the energy he possessed into the one ambition of making himself a warrior. The King of Denmark had already invaded Holstein. Charles's brother-in-law was hard pressed. A force of eight thousand men was sent to aid him ; and in a flash the conflict widened, as troops from half a dozen petty German states joined one side or the other. Charles was bear-hunting when news came that the Saxons had invaded his province of Livonia. He cap- tured his bear, with net and forked club, hastened to the capital, arranged everything for the defense of his realm, and in an incredibly short time had his fleet of forty-three vessels ready to sail. The English and Dutch fleets had arrived in the Baltic to help against the Danes, who had broken the treaty of Altena by attacking Holstein. Charles joined forces with them, and the Danish fleet, refusing battle, allowed the aUies to pass. They soon ap- proached Copenhagen. The King at once proposed to his commander, Gen- eral Renschild, that they should attack the Danish capital. His audacity silenced all objections. With a force of eight hundred men in small boats, and a few frigates to cover the landing, the attacking party moved 218 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY along the shore, while the Danes followed on land watching to see where the attempt would be made. At Humblebek, seven miles from Copenhagen, the invaders paused. Immediately the Danes threw up intrenchments, and prepared infantry, cavalry, and guns to resist the attack. As soon as everything was in readiness, Charles jiimped into the leading boat. The tiny force rowed straight toward shore, under cover of broadsides from the vesseb, but assailed by constant fire from the enemy. When they were a hundred yards from land, the King's impatience would not permit him to remain in- active any longer. Sword in hand, he leaped over- board, up to his waist, his officers and men follow- ing. The bullets whistled around their ears. "What is that noise?" asked the King of Major Stuart, who was beside him. "It is the balls from the muskets they are firing at us." "Ah!" said Charles, "that shall henceforth be my band." As he spoke, the major received a bullet in the shoulder. A lieutenant on the other side fell dead. Nothing daunted, the King charged straightforward ■ at the head of his men. The Danes were so overcome at this show of resolution that they broke and fled. Without a check, Charles took possession of their in- trenchments. His first act was to fall on his knees and thank God for this auspicious beginning. Then he laid out re- doubts, made his camp secure, and sent back to Scania for reinforcements. A SWEDISH CONQUEROR 219 Everything went like clockwork. The very next day these nine thousand fresh troops were with him. The inhabitants of Copenhagen gave up hope at this sudden and irresistible onset. An embassy came out to beg that the city might not be bombarded. Charles agreed on condition that they should give a ransom of fom- hundred thousand dollars, and furnish provisions, agreeing to pay for the latter. To the great surprise of the conquered, he not only kept his word, but held his soldiers under such strict discipline that marauding was unknown. The King of Denmark made some fruitless proclama- tions from his camp in Holstein. But his capital was at the mercy of his enemy, his fleet was hopelessly out- numbered, and he presently began to treat for peace. Charles forced the negotiations through in the same headlong style in which he had attacked. In six weeks he had disposed of one foe, freed the Duke of Holstein, and secured for him the expenses of the war. The greater part of his task remained, however. The King of Poland had laid siege to Riga; and while he had been unable to make headway against the stout defense of old Count d'Alberg, and had gladly aban- doned the attempt on the representations of the Dutch, word came that his ally, the Czar, was advancing from Russia with a great army of one hundred thousand men and one hundred and fifty cannon. Then, as the early rigors of winter shut in that land of ice and snow, the Russians attacked Narva, the most eastern town of the Swedish dominions. Charles hastened his preparations. Two hundred transports conveyed his army across the sea. Landing at Pernaw, on the Gulf of Riga, he struck across country by forced marches. He waited for 220 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY nothing, not even for the main body of his own twenty thousand men; and presently he arrived, with four thousand horse and four thousand infantry, at the Russian outposts. The first detachment of five thousand did not wait to find out the facts, but retired precipitately. The second twenty thousand was infected by their flight and also fell back. Charles pushed straight on. The next thirty thousand were driven in without the shght- est delay, and the Swedes confronted an intrenched army of ten times their size, with strong artillery. Charles hardly gave his men time to rest after their terrific marches, but ordered an immediate attack. One officer remonstrated at this rashness in the face of such tremendous odds. "Surely," said the King, "you can have no doubt but that I with my eight thousand brave Swedes shall trample down eighty thousand Russians!" The officer turned away. The King stepped after him. As if fearing his outbiurst had been boastful, he said: "Do you not agree with me that I have a double advantage over the enemy ? First, because their horse will be useless to them, and secondly because, as the position is cramped, their nimibers will only incommode them." There was no answering such reasoning. At noon of November 30, 1700, the Swedes charged with fixed bayonets, behind a fire of cannon which opened some breaches in the fortifications. The snow was driving with them as they burst through upon the enemy. Charles himself, at the head of half his force, attacked the right wing, hoping to meet the Czar in person. The latter had gone, how- A SWEDISH CONQUEROR 221 ever, to meet the reinforcements of thirty thousand men which he had thought it necessary to send for. At the first onset Charles was hit in the shoulder, but it was a spent ball, which did him no injury. His horse was shot under him. He jumped upon another, exclaiming: "These fellows make me take exercise." Leading and giving orders at the same time, he swept on like a whirlwind. In three hours the trenches were carried. The little hand of Swedes drove the Russians headlong, killing more than ten to one. The right wing broke, and fled in disorder toward the River Narva, forty thousand pursued by less than four thousand. As the disorderly mob thronged over the bridge, the wooden structure broke down. Many were drowned. Those who had not reached the bridge, turned aimlessly, and rallied for a time behind some buildings. Charles and his Swedes gave them no time to recover; in a short while the Russian generals surrendered. The general officers were put under a guard; the soldiers and under-officers were disarmed, taken to the river, and embarked in boats to return home. The artillery was seized. Then night fell. The King took up a position readj/ to attack the left wing, which still held its ground, though badly battered. The situation was still peril- ous enough. The enemy had still thirty thousand troops against his six thousand five hundred. But his mind was calm enough for him to lie on the ground wrapped in his cloak and snatch a few hours' sleep till daybreak should make it possible to complete his work. At two in the morning, a message came that General Wade, who commanded the remaining Russians, was 222 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY willing to surrender on the same terms granted his companions. Charles at once accepted. A strange scene followed. In the gray morning, across the snow-covered land- scape, a long irregular line of Russians approached. In the lead marched their commander, bareheaded like his troops. The thirty thousand defiled past the King, in front of his compact regiments containing about six thou- sand five hundred men. The officers threw down their swords and colors as they passed ; the private soldiers dropped their muskets. The interminable line wound on toward the river, intent only upon escaping home. Charles was glad enough to let them go, since it was manifestly impossible to guard so many prisoners with his little force. He treated the captured officers with the greatest consideration, and in his reports of this incredible victory exhibited a modesty as striking as his prowess had been. From that time on, however, his people and his army looked upon the "Lion of the North" as invincible in battle. While the Russian people were imploring the aid of St. Nicholas against the sorcery which they felt must have defeated their great army, the Czar himself set about repairing the disaster. He agreed with King Augustus of Poland to hire fifty thousand German mer- cenaries, and to send fifty thousand of his Russians to Poland to be trained. Charles as usual faced the danger-point. Early in the spring, he marched south to Riga. King Augustus's Saxon troops, commanded by Marshal Stenau, were ready to oppose his crossing of the River Dwina, which is very wide at that point. It looked as if the odds were much against the attack- A SWEDISH CONQUEROR 223 ing party under such conditions. The Swedish King, however, constructed large boats with high, movable sides, which protected those within and could be lowered to form a landing-bridge. Then when he was ready, on a day when the wind blew strong from the north, he had built a huge pile of wet straw and fired it. The dense smoke blew over the river. In the midst of this artificial fog, increased by boats containing more smoking straw, he started his transports across, he himself taking his customary place in the lead. In fifteen minutes the force was at the opposite side, the only mishap being to the King's pride, when three men got to shore before him. Landing his cannon, he at once began to order his line of battle. Before he was ready, however, the wind blew the smoke away sufficiently for the Saxons to see what their enemy was about; and taking a leaf from Charles's own book, Marshal Stenau charged him furiously with his cavalry. The unprepared Swedes were thrown into disorder and driven back to the river. Their intrepid leader rallied them, reformed his line partly in the water, and advanced steadily. There was a fierce fight, ior Stenau was brave and capable. But on equal terms there were few troops which could stand against the Lion and his disciplined veterans: the Saxons gave way, at length, and retreated. Charles hastened on, capturing all Courland and Lithuania, while King Augustus intrigued with the various factions into which Poland was hopelessly divided. He even tried to negotiate secretly with Charles through the beautiful Countess of Konigs- marck. The implacable Swede advanced relentlessly. 224 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY When he took Warsaw, Augustus could not refuse to let an embassy wait upon him. "I wiU never grant the Poles peace till they have elected another King," declared the conqueror. Augustus saw his only hope lay in fighting. He gathered all his forces and prepared for a supreme effort. The two faced each other between Warsaw and Cracow, and the headlong charge of the Swedish King once more brought him complete victory, though he had only a little more than half the other's numbers. Following up the defeated Augustus, he took Cracow almost without resistance, himself snatching the match from one gunner who was preparing to fire a cannon. Had it not been for a fall of his horse, which broke his thigh, he would probably have captured his enemy then and there. This accident gave his foes another chance. The Poles still hesitated to dethrone their King. The Saxon army gathered again. In one of his irresistible dashes, he routed it at Pultask, whereat Augustus fell back into Saxony. Charles captured Thorn and Elbing. The whole country was in awe of him. His friends urged him to seize the Polish crown himself, since he was the real ruler. The King held to his plan, and finally the Diet, rent by pohtical parties, obeyed his will and elected Stanislas Leczinski King in place of the deposed Augustus. Charles's real business in life was fighting, so he immediately set out to conquer the rest of Poland. He took the strong city of Leopold in one day, cap- tured vast treasure, and presently drove Augustus once more out of Warsaw, which he had recaptured. All this time the King was exposing himself with the utmost recklessness, swimming rivers, leading charges, A SWEDISH CONQUEROR 225 living the hard hfe of a campaigning soldier. His in- variable dress was a coarse blue coat with brass but- tons; a piece of black taffeta served him for a cravat; he remarked once that he had not had his jack-boots off for six years, save when he went to bed. His only complaint was that his enemies had come to run away too soon: it had become more like hunting than fight- ing! Fortune seemed ever to charge with him in his im- petuous onsets. He drove back one hundred thousand Russians who had come to King Augustus's aid. He conquered the latter so completely that he finally forced him in the treaty of peace to publicly renounce the throne and to write a letter of congratulation to his successor Stanislas. He crossed the Oder into Saxony, against the solemn warning of the Imperial Diet; he levied heavy contributions, and received at his camp ambassadors from nearly all the princes of Europe, each seeking his influence in some scheme or quarrel; he publicly humiUated the Emperor and made him grant religious freedom to the Protestants of Silesia. When Emperor Joseph was reproached by the Pope's nuncio for thus giving way to heretics, he smiled and answered : "It is very lucky for you that the King of Sweden did not propose that I should turn Protestant, for had he done so, I do not know what I might have done." There is hardly a case in history of the attainment of such dominance by the ruler of so relatively small a nation. This northern conqueror, unknown or scorned a few years previously, warned Rome that before long she might see him nearer at hand. He had ideas of sweeping on to Persia, Turkey, and Egypt. Alexander's dream of conquering the world began to seem a possi- 226 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY bility. All the while he was rising at four o'clock, dress- ing unaided, spending a quarter of an hour at the table, drinking no wine, exercising his soldiers daily. The persistent Russians claimed his first attention. They were continually harassing the eastern borders. Charles allowed himself a year in which to dethrone the Czar. In September, 1707, at the height of his renown, he set out. He had with him a rich, splendidly armed and equipped force of forty-three thousand men. Count Levenhaupt waited for him in Poland with twenty thousand more. A third force of fifteen thou- sand was in Finland. Fresh recruits were coming from Sweden. He seemed irresistible. The Sublime Porte of Turkey, the inveterate enemy of Russia, sent him an embassy and suggestions of friendly alliance. The Czar had advanced far into Poland, but was at this time at Grodno. Charles was following his habit of distancing his main force, and arrived within six miles of Grodno accompanied by only six hundred guards. Peter at once evacuated the town with two thousand men; but learning presently the smallness of his enemy's numbers, and that the rest were fifteen miles behind, he despatched a body of fifteen thousand cavalry for a surprise attack. They entered the town in the dusk undiscovered, reaching the first guard of thirty men. The alarm was given. For seven minutes, this heroic thirty sus- tained the attack of an army. Then Charles dashed up with the rest of his six hundred, and his mere arrival threw the Russians into a panic. The King pursued them, joined by his army, regard- less of the midwinter cold, the marsh and forest, the lack of provisions, the destroyed roads and bridges. A SWEDISH CONQUEROR 227 It was six months before he finally came up with them at Hollosin, intrenched behind a marsh and river. Without waiting for the main body of his infantry, Charles led his foot-guards straightforward, sending the cavalry around to flank the enemy. Dashing into the stream, the King crossed the river, the water up to his shoulders. He did not pause an instant, but floundered across the marsh, his men fol- lowing in that blind confidence he always inspired. They fell furiously upon the surprised Russians, who had supposed their natural defenses sufficient. The conflict that followed was one of the most nota- ble of Charles's career. Seeming to bear a charmed life, he was always in the thickest of the fray. He fought on foot till the cavalry arrived from its detour; then he mounted : but noticing that a young nobleman, of whom he was fond, was wounded, he made him take his charger, and continued to command on foot. Nothing could resist him that day, and while the Rus- sians fought far better than they had done in the former campaigns, they were finally routed and forced to re- tire beyond the Borysthenes into their own country. Charles pursued them hotly. Czar Peter, great man as he was, began to fear for the country he was bringing up from semibarbarism. He sent proposals of peace. " I will treat with the Czar at Moscow," was Charles's haughty answer. He pushed on, routing a force of Kalmuks at Smo- lensk and almost losing his life in the engagement. Re- fusing to wait for the reinforcements behind, he turned off from the Moscow road into Ukrania, where he ex- pected to make an alliance with the Prince Mazeppa (the same Mazeppa of whose terrific ride, tied to the back of a wild horse, Byron wrote) . 228 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Instead of joining an army of thirty thousand, with ammunition and provisions, he found Mazeppa a de- feated fugitive, the Russians having annihilated his power. Far worse. General Levenhaupt finally ap- peared with five thousand men — all that was left of his army after a series of tremendous battles with fifty thousand Russians, who had captured his cannon and supplies. A frightfully cold winter followed. Half-fed and half-clad, the Swedes suffered intensely. It is declared that two thousand died of cold on one march. Only the leader kept up his courage. A soldier ventured to show him publicly a piece of black and mouldy bread, made of oats and barley, which was about their only food. Charles took it, ate it cahnly, and remarked: "It is not good, but one can eat it." In the face of such spirit the men could only follow him. By spring his army had dwindled to eighteen thou- sand. Still he thought only of his resolve to conquer Russia, and laid siege to Pultawa, a storehouse from which he counted on supplying his force with all neces- saries. The large garrison resisted all attack. The Czar was hurrying up with reinforcements. In a skirmish, Charles received a ball which shattered his heel-bone. For six hours he sat his horse and directed the fight. When some one discovered his hurt, he was in such pain that he had to be lifted from his horse and carried to the tent. The surgeons decided the leg must be cut off. One, however, thought he could save it by deep in- cisions. The King bore the agony of the surgery unmoved. A SWEDISH CONQUEROR 229 As soon as it was done, he gave orders for an attack in the morning. Despite all protests, he headed the in- fantry in his litter. The first charge broke the Russians. Victory seemed sure. But General Creuts, who had been ordered to flank the enemy with the cavalry, lost his way. The Czar had time to rally his men. Their cannon killed the horses of the King's litter. He had two more harnessed. Another volley struck the litter and threw the King out. The report flew about that he was killed. The Swedes fell back. Their powder gave out. The Rus- sians profited by their confusion so well that when the battle was over half the Swedes were killed or captured, all the supplies and treasure were lost, and Charles's life was only saved by his being carried forcibly off the field. Most of the remainder of the famous army was captured a little later, and the wounded King, with a few hundred followers, made his way into Turkey. It would take a long time to tell of his five years' stay there; of his efforts to destroy the Czar through the Turks; of the Homeric battle between his three hundred guards and a Turkish army of eight thousand; of his return to Sweden, to find that his many enemies had lopped off most of his conquests and inheritances outside of Sweden itself; of his famous defense of Strals- burg, where he performed feats enough for the lifetime of an ordinary man; of his characteristic invasion of Norway just when his fortunes seemed at the lowest ebb, and his actual reaching of the Norwegian capital. The last scene comes in the winter of 1718. He was making a second attempt on Norway, and laid siege to Fredericshall in December. The cold was so intense that sentinels fell dead at their posts. Charles, hard- 230 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY sned by sixteen years' exposure, endured everything, sleeping in the open on boards or straw, encouraging his men to the assault. On December 11, as he stood in the trenches at night, directing the workers who were breaking the frozen ground by starlight, a discharge of grape-shot from the fortress killed him instantly. In dying, he laid his hand on his sword, and the witnesses who ran up found him lying in that posture. Thus ended the career of one of the most extraor- dinary soldiers in all history. By a strange coincidence, between the time the above narrative was written and when it was put into type, in September, 1917, the newspapers announced that the body of King Charles XII had been taken from its coffin in the ancient Knights' Church at Stockholm, where it had reposed in peace nearly two hundred years — that a commission of scientists might determine whether the fatal shot was fired from the enemy's camp or by a traitor in his own army ! After minutely describing the wound, and declaring that the indications were that the bullet came from the hostile direction, the account says: ' ' Those who viewed the dead King were struck by his masterful countenance still bearing through all the years the look of a leader of men." CHAPTER XX CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT It was the late afternoon of June 22, 1876. The val- ley of the Uttle Rosebud River in southern Montana, then an almost unknown wilderness, was filled with the dust rising from a mob of soldiers, horses, and mules in the first confusion of making camp. The 7th U. S. Cavalry had cut loose from their comrades on the Yellowstone River, twelve miles away, a few hours before; they had marched out in columns of fours to the stirring strains of "Garry Owen"; and the seven hundred troopers, with their heavily loaded horses and a pack-train of one hundred and thirty mules, were now engaged in "finding themselves" on the first halt of this expedition into the Indian country. The officers' call sounded from the commander's tent. Presently a httle group of men was gathered there for a conference. This leader, Lieutenant-Colonel George A. Custer, was a striking figure. Tall, erect, dashing, handsome, with long yellow curls, and fond of wearing a con- spicuous jacket of black velvet and gold, "Old Curly" had always been the idol of his men. He had become a major-general at the age of twenty-four in the Civil War; he had made a whirlwind success with his cavalry division; for years now he had built and tested and led this 7th Cavalry Regiment in constant fighting with the Indians, until he and they had a reputation 231 232 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY second to none in this peculiar and trying kind of war- fare. Of extraordinary strength and endurance, and recklessly brave, a headlong dash against the enemy was ordinarily what he seemed to live for. But on this occasion his situation was unusual, and his troop conunanders could not fail to see at a glance that he was strained and unlike his usual confident self. He had just returned from Washington, where his failure to produce legal evidence of his charges against the secretary of war had left him in disgrace with his superiors. Only his magnificent reputation in the field and his peculiar value had given him a place at all in this expedition against the Sioux. As it was, he was under the command of General Terry, instead of having charge of the column from Fort Lincoln which was to co-operate with Crook's force from the south and Gibbon from the west ; and this change from the independent command he had so long enjoyed was a severe strain on him. For this campaign was of exceptional importance. There had been constant trouble with the Sioux ever since the treaty of 1868, which gave them this great territory of one hundred thousand square miles in what is now Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. The almost impassable stretches of the "Bad Lands" and the wild region of the Black Hills were no longer a protection when gold was discovered. Miners and settlers crowded in; the Northern Pacific Railroad be- gan to survey for a route across the region. The In- dians, with good reason, considered that their land was being taken from them. Murders and outbreaks fol- lowed in swift succession. Finally the government decided that all the North- west Indians must confine themselves to definite res- CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT 233 ervations. This set the tribes ablaze. A great force gathered together under the famous Sitting Bull, Gall, Crazy Horse, and Rain-in-the-Face — who had escaped after being boldly arrested for a murder by Captain Tom Custer, the general's brother. There were supposed to be from one thousand to fifteen hundred of them on the war-path. The three columns already mentioned, each with more than one thousand men, were to strike in from different sides and end the dangerous uprising. Custer had been despatched to follow a westward Indian trail up the river, discovered by one of his officers, Major Reno. General Terry supposed he would thus cut the Indians off from the east, and Cus- ter would be ready to attack when Gibbon penetrated the country from the north, about the 26th. The latter's last words that noon had been: "Now, Custer, don't be greedy, but wait for us." Opinions differ greatly as to the amount of freedom given him by Terry's orders. It seems fairly certain, however, that he was making up his mind to wipe out his official censure by some brilliant success on his own responsibility. Ordinarily Custer said nothing of his plans till the time came for action. His officers were surprised, therefore, at this first conference, to hear him begin to explain matters. He announced that he had declined Terry's offer of a battalion of the 2d Cavalry and a detachment of gatling-guns ; he wished to be free to move rapidly, and thought his own regiment sufficient. He showed clearly that he meant to strike the Indian trail and then "go for" them. There were to be no more bugle-calls ; the march was to be silent and rapid as possible, beginning at five in the morning; each troop 234 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY commander was to be responsible for everything except starting and going into camp. As the officers left, they commented on their com- mander's unusual depression. "I believe Custer is going to be killed," said one. "I never heard him talk so seriously about a coming fight." Next morning the regiment started south. Twelve hours of hard marching carried them thirty-three miles through the difficulties of these broken-up, discouraging "Bad Lands." On the 24th they made twenty-eight miles over an even worse country. Signs of the Indians were plain: large numbers had evidently passed toward a rendezvous to the westward. All fires were put out after supper, and the men got some sleep while scouts and officers studied the trail. Finding that the enemy had gone across the divide between the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn, the column set out shortly before midnight and toiled up the hills till two o'clock, advancing about ten miles. Unsaddling to rest the tired horses, they halted here. But when the scouts returned, about eight in the morn- ing, and reported that the Indian camp was in the valley of the Little Big Horn, the march was resumed till half past ten. They were now about sixteen miles from the valley, with an exceedingly rough country ahead, cut up by deep gulches. Concealing his force in a ravine, Custer went forward with the scouts to reconnoitre. The smoke of the camp-fires was plainly visible from the hilltop. The sight brought back all the swift de- cision which had carried the leader to so many dashing victories. He decided to surprise the Indians by an attack at daybreak next morning. CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT 235 But he did not know that a portion of the great camp v/as cut off from his view by an intervening bluff: in- stead of one thousand to fifteen hundred warriors, there were probably twice that many ahead of him. And on hit return he found that the Indians had discovered his approach. A box of biscuit had been dropped from the pack-train; sending back for it, an Indian had been seen trying to break it open. Beyond a doubt, the vil- lage was warned. The only effect of this, serious as it was, was to cause Custer to attack at once instead of waiting. His one fear seemed to be that the Indians might escape, as they so often had done. All doubts about orders or anything else had vanished. There was stiff work ahead, of the sort he knew and delighted in. He grasped the opportunity for which he had evidently hoped and planned. He adopted on a small scale the plan of the whole campaign. Major Reno with three troops was sent to attack the village from the south; Captain Benteen and a similar detachment was to swing across the valley and fall upon them from the west; while Custer him- self planned to sweep down on the northern end of the encampment. It was good strategy, which had often before suc- ceeded. But its success depended entirely on one of the sud- den confident dashes which nearly always threw the loosely organized Indian forces into a panic. Reno failed completely. He crossed the river, threw out skirmishers, and started down the valley. But so slow and hesitating was his advance that the enemy recovered from their first disorder. Reinforce- ments were rushed back from the other camps, and 236 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Reno's one hundred and fifty troopers were hotly as- sailed by an increasing force. His Arikaree scouts, on the left of the line, gave way immediately — and did not stop running till they reached the Powder River. Breaking through this gap, the Sioux threw the whole line back into the timber by the river. Instead of boldly charging, or even holding his position, Reno presently retreated. Hotly pursued, he managed to recross the river and take up a position on the bluffs, losing a fifth of his com- mand in the dangerous movement. During the retreat, Lieutenant Hodgson was wounded and fell into the river. Sergeant Criswell dashed to him and dragged him across, clinging to a stirrup. As they reached the bank, another bullet killed Hodgson. Criswell rallied his men, then coolly rode back and brought off the body, with the ammunition from several fallen horses — untouched by the rain of bullets. He received a medal of honor for his exploit. Benteen had found almost impossible country and no Indians. Turning to the right he swung down the valley. He met a trooper with a message from Custer, order- ing him to come on quickly and bring the spare ammimi- tion. Exhausted as the horses were, by the heat and the terrible travelling, he set out at a gallop. Through the clouds of dust and smoke, he presently made out Reno's force on the bluff. There was plainly a big fight also farther down the valley; but a Crow scout galloped by pointing to the bluff, and Benteen joined Reno, who was still being assailed. Little as he sus- pected it, this sealed Custer's fate. Major Reno was, of course, the superior officer. Hour after hour the force waited there, suffering greatly CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT 237 from the enemy's fire and from lack of water. They could hear the sounds of battle to the north. Late in the afternoon two heavy volleys brought an evident signal from Custer. Reno did nothing. The force would have been annihilated but for a desperate charge by Benteen, to which the commander reluctantly assented. Nineteen heroic volunteers brought up a scanty supply of water from the river in the face of heavy fire. After a terri- ble experience, with many individual acts of bravery, the attack died away in the afternoon and they saw the Indians moving of?. Meanwhile what had become of Custer? After separating from Reno, he led his force north- ward as rapidly as the difficult ascent permitted. He was ablaze with eagerness, dashing ahead from time to time, and then reining up for the column. From one pinnacle, he had a glimpse of the valley, and waved his hat to Reno in the distance. Galloping back, he called to the captain in the lead : "Keogh, those Indians are running. If we can keep them at it, we can afford to sacrifice half the horses in the command." Keogh glanced back at the veterans who had been with them in many a "hot corner." "General, we'll do all that man and horse can do." The bugles sounded the charge. The troopers clat- tered forward, down toward the river, looking for a spot where they could descend to the valley. Several attempts proved fruitless. Reahzing probably for the first time the numbers opposed to him, Custer sent back a message to Reno and also to Benteen. About half past two in the afternoon, Custer turned down toward the river. 238 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY The Indians had seen him, however; and their easy repulse of Reno enabled them to mass most of their force against him. With shrewd generalship they made use of deep ravines on each side of the advancing col- umn. Before Custer reached the river, he found him- self suddenly attacked in front and on both flanks by a force several times as large as his own. The assault was transformed into a defense. The men dismounted, the horses were sent to the rear, and with cool courage Custer met these new and unex- pected conditions. Doubtless he still expected that Reno and Benteen would come to his assistance. In any case, he and his little band immortalized themselves by their resolute and telling struggle. The Indians had better guns. They galloped along the line pouring in a destructive fire. The soldiers answered steadily, making each shot count, undaunted by numbers, by death, wounds and thirst, by carbines in which the cartridges jammed and had to be picked out by knives, by the stampede of one group of horses after another, carrying with them the priceless reserve of anamunition. The hours passed. Through the smoke and dust and scorching heat they fought on, an ever-lessening band, yet with no sign of faltering. At last the ammunition ran low. The Indians real- ized the situation only too well. From three sides they charged upon the pitiful remnant. Overwhelmed by numbers, Custer and his men went down fighting to the last. A few individuals had made futile efforts to break through. But "the bulk of the command was found just where it had fought, with the troopers in line, their officers in position ! They had Custer found himself suddenly attacked in front and on both flanks CUSTER'S LAST FIGHT 239 been beaten and killed. Not an officer or man lived to tell the story, but they had not been disgraced." So died George A. Custer, at the age of thirty-seven — a fitting ending for one of the most romantically brave and dashing officers of the American cavalry. CHAPTER XXI THE CAPTURE OF QUEBEC "My utmost desire and ambition is to look steadily upon danger." Thus wrote James WoKe once to his mother. And he had his desire many times. His first attempt at soldier- ing, when he was only thirteen years old, was cut short by sickness; but in 1742, when he was fifteen, he was an ensign in the 12th Foot in Flanders. At Dettingen his regiment took the brunt of the attack; the boy of sixteen found himself a lieutenant for his share in that. Two years later he was a major at Culloden, where his regiment lost a third of its men. In 1747 he was wounded at Laeffelt and personally thanked for his services by the Duke of Cumberland. His zeal in the blundering expedition against Rochefort caused the King to make him brevet-colonel. And in the trying landing at Louisburg, in 1758, his tall, thin figure stood erect in the bow of his boat, amid a heavy French fire, directing the dash through the pounding surf to the shore. So he had looked steadily on danger over and over before that capture of Quebec which was the high point of his life. When Wolfe was appointed in 1759 to lead this supreme effort against the French power in Canada, one of King George's ministers remonstrated, saying the man was mad. "Mad, is he?" retorted his Majesty. "Then I hope he'll bite some others of my generals." 240 THE CAPTURE OF QUEBEC 241 In fact, the young officer's military reputation was admirable; he had made his regiment a model, and strict disciplinarian as he was, his officers and men worshipped him; his system of manoeuvres remained in use long after his death; and his personal courage had been repeatedly manifested. He was tall and slender, with red hair; solitary, given at times to gloomy musings, and suffering from ill health, he was nevertheless impetuous and easily aroused; and his insatiable ambition for glory ever drove him forward. He had hoped at this time to rest a while and to be married to the beautiful Miss Lowther (as every reader of Thackeray's "The Virginians" will recall); but though he confidently expected the ocean voyage would break down his health, he had always made it a rule to accept service whenever offered; so in February, 1759, he set sail in command of nine thousand soldiers, with a fleet of twenty-two sail co-operating under Admiral Saunders. On the 27th of June the young commander had the first sight of the task ahead of him. He stood on a bluff at the nerth end of the Island of Orleans, three hundred miles up from the mouth of the river. Be- hind him, anchored beside this long island, lay the fleet. Before him rose the mighty fortress which French experts had boasted to be impregnable. The river narrowed just above the island to half its former width; here, dominating both shores, the great rock thrust itself defiantly forward. It was over three hundred and thirty feet high, and well fortified. On its sides and at its base lay the town. But the French had not trusted to town and citadel : they had made one great fortress of the whole eight-mile stretch along the 242 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY north shore. Protected by the Montmorency River, and its falls on the east, and the lofty plateau on the west, this strong shore was defended by a line of redoubts. Everywhere were batteries and camps. There was an intrenched army to defeat before an invader could get at Quebec at all from this eastern quarter. Montcalm, the French commander, was a skilful veteran, with eleven thousand troops manning these defenses. And Wolfe was assured that the cliffs which lined the river west of the town were unscalable, except at a few easily defended points, so there seemed no chance of gaining this plateau which dominated the city. His whole plan of campaign must be revised. He felt confident too that he could not hope for Lord Am- herst's arrival, with his twelve thousand men, from the Montreal side in time to serve. It was a mighty responsibility. His thoughts must have been gloomy as he returned to his vessel; and they were not brightened when a sudden terrific storm that night threw the fleet into disorder and wrecked many transports and boats. However, he hoped to get Montcahn to fight and felt sure of the result on anything like equal terms. The following weeks brought a series of disappoint- ments. Wolfe occupied Point Levis and bombarded the town of Quebec, but this could have little effect on the final issue. Two attempts by the French to drift down on the fleet with fire-ships came to nothing; but an English attack at Montmorency east of the city was repulsed with heavy loss; and word came that Am- herst's force was still at Crown Point and could not arrive before cold weather would drive the fleet down the river. THE CAPTURE OF QUEBEC 243 Wolfe's tireless activity had led him to every sort of exposure. For weeks he was never undressed. He fretted over the passing of the precious weeks with nothing accomplished. Presently he went down with fever. A council of war was held, and it was decided that the best chance lay in a blow somewhere to the westward of the town. Wolfe's main anxiety was lest he might not be able to lead this in person. "I know that you cannot cure me," said he to his physician, "but if you can fix me up so that I will not suffer pain for two or three days and can do my duty — that is all I ask." To the joy of the French, who thought the siege was being raised, the English began retiring from the Montmorency heights at the beginning of September. They concentrated at Point Levis, and with each favor- able wind more ships moved up above the city. That a new blow was impending was evident; but Montcalm could hardly learn the point threatened, for the English leader did not know this himself. As late as September 8, Wolfe, pale and weak from his illness, sat in his cabin on the Sutherland, and wrote home that he had about three thousand six hundred troops waiting to attack when and where they best could. "My constitution is utterly ruined, without the consolation of having done any considerable ser- vice to the state, or without any prospect of it." Yet, gloomy as he might be, he was still searching for the most hopeful point of attack. As he had once said of another man: "Don't talk to me of constitu- tion: he had good spirit and that will carry a man through everything." 244 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY He had repeatedly explored the whole shore for miles west of Quebec, but on the 10th, he examined with a telescope from the south shore a spot pointed out to him by Major Stobo, who had been a captive in Que- bec and had recently escaped. Here he could see a small cave; a stream, St. Denis brook, tumbling down the face of the cliff, a path slant- ing upward; and a cluster of a dozen tents at the top with no movement near them. Clearly the post was not well guarded. With good luck, a night attack might get past — and once on the Plains of Abraham, as the plateau was called, he felt he could inevitably master Quebec sooner or later. The plan was hazardous. A handful of men at the top of this breakneck path could hold it against an army. But Wolfe had learned that Vergor, who was in charge of these French outposts, was worthless as a soldier. He resolved to make the attempt. The night of the 12th was set for the enterprise. Wolfe had three thousand six hundred men aboard the ships, and one thousand two hundred more were ordered to march along the south shore after nightfall, ready for re-embarking. For days the vessels had drifted up and down with the tide keeping the Frenchmen ever uncertain as to where the next attempt at landing might be made. To add to this, those below Quebec now made a feint of attacking on the Beauport shore, completely deceiv- ing Montcalm, who thought the real effort would be there. So anxious was Wolfe to keep his plan a secret, that his own brigadiers did hot know on the day beforehand just where he. purposed to land. THE CAPTURE OF QUEBEC 245 He had learned from deserters that provision-boats were to drop down the river to Quebec that night. He did not know that the order had been countermanded, but that by a miracle of good luck for him the sentries knew of the instructions but not the change. A number of large bateaux and other boats had been gathered together, capable of holding about one thou- sand seven hundred men. The general had issued his final orders to his troops, reminding them that a vigorous blow now might decide the fate of Canada, ordering the battalions to form speedily when they reached the summit and drive off the enemy till all were in place. "The officers and men will remember what their country expects of them," it said. In his cabin on the Sutherland Wolfe gave his friend Jervis his will and a miniature of his betrothed. Miss Lowther, which he carried on his breast. If he fell, it was to go back to her. At midnight a lantern at the flag-ship's maintop gave the signal. The troops in the first division embarked quietly in the flat-bottomed boats. Toward two in the morning the little flotilla cast loose, Wolfe in the stern of a heavily loaded craft in the van. With tide and wind favoring them, they swept slowly and noise- lessly down-stream in the darkness, using the oars only for steering. It was a solemn moment for James Wolfe. What- ever others thought of his achievements thus far, they were far below his ambitious dreams. Now, at least, it looked as if the chance to make himself a place in his- tory might lie ahead there in the blackness. There was no moon, and a September mist obscured the stars. Only the ripple of the water against the 246 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY boat and the sighing of the southwest breeze through the trees on shore came to the ears of the Httle party. The leader's mind went back to England and those he loved there. His physical sufferings made him wonder if he should ever again see his betrothed, or the mother to whom he had been so devoted. His musings found natural expression in some stanzas of one of his favorite poems, Gray's "Elegy." In a low voice he repeated: " The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour; The paths of glory lead but to the grave." The little group about him was silent. "Gentlemen," said WoKe with animation, "I would rather have written that poem than take Quebec." He had hardly finished when the hulk of an English vessel loomed up ahead in the channel. It was the Hunter waiting to intercept the French provision-boats. As they drew near, Wolfe's trained ear caught sounds he recognized only too well: thinking this was the enemy, the Hunter was bringing its guns to bear on his boat. In another moment they would have fired. But the leader hailed them cautiously and the expedi- tion sv/ept past in safety. They neared the spot which had been marked. The beach here by the Anse du Foulon (Fuller's Cave — now Wolfe's Cave) was patrolled by French sentries. Presently a challenge rang out from the shore: "Qui Vive f" "La France," called back an officer who luckily spoke excellent French. "A quel regiment ?" demanded the sentry. THE CAPTURE OF QUEBEC 247 "Be la Reine," answered the Highlander. "We are the provision-boats," he continued. "But hush, we may be heard by the enemy's ship yonder." The unsuspecting sentinel let them pass. A few minutes later the commander's boat scraped on the sand. He was the first to leap ashore. In a moment there were grouped about him twenty-four officers who had volunteered to lead the way up the path. Wolfe looked upward at the precipice rising into obscurity. It was four o'clock. They had but a short while before dawn. The narrow zigzag path up the heights was, as he knew, obstructed by rocks and trees. It was difl&cult enough even when cleared and by day- light. He turned and saw the men disembarking from the other boats, some of which had gone too far. "You must get up as you can, my lads." Strapping their muskets to their backs, the volunteers began their perilous climb, pulling themselves up by trees and bushes and points of rock. Three Light In- fantry companies followed. As they neared the top, a sentry challenged them. Captain Macdonald began to answer in French. But the impatient volunteers threw themselves forward, gaining the summit in one breathless dash. The sentry fired. Vergor, the French commander at the spot, was asleep. He ran out. But he had only thirty men, having allowed the rest to go away to gather their crops. The volunteers rushed upon them, and some of the Light Infantry appeared behind these. Losing heart, the Frenchmen ran. Vergor got a ball in the heel. One man was captured. In the keenest anxiety, Wolfe waited below with the rest of his one thousand six hundred troops. Suddenly 248 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY he heard a few shots, followed almost immediately by English cheers. He gave the word. Headed by their general, the men swarmed up the cliff, up the path — any way they could. In an incredibly short time Wolfe had this advance force drawn up to protect the head of the path. Day was just breaking. Spurred on by his fiery ardor, the movement was hurried through as he had planned. The other detachments were ferried over and brought up the cleared path in double file. With the greatest effort, one gun was dragged to the summit. As the sun appeared over the eastern hills, its level rays fell upon a force of four thousand eight hundred Englishmen, drawn up in battle array on the heights. Before them stretched the undulating, tree-dotted Plains of Abraham, level with the highest part of Que- bec. They were only a mile from the town. Not an enemy was in sight. By the most amazing combina- tion of chances, the venturesome attempt had suc- ceeded. The surprise had been complete. The only loss had been a handful of men killed by a volley from a French battery at Samos, above the landing-place. Montcalm was at his headquarters far to the east of Quebec. He had been up all night expecting an assault. When the sound of the guns at Samos was heard, he exclaimed to his secretary that it meant disaster to the convoy of provisions so greatly needed. While they were discussing this, a breathless soldier burst in. He declared he was the only survivor of Vergor's post, and that the English held the heights. It seemed so incredible that Montcalm did not even send for further information. An hour or more later a courier brought word that there really were EngUsh on the heights. Hastening detachments thither, Mont- THE CAPTURE OF QUEBEC 249 calm rode swiftly to the Governor's quarters in the city. He looked across the table-land. There he saw not a raiding detachment as he had supposed, but the whole British army. It was as if that menacing "thin red line" had appeared by magic in this unexpected quarter. "I see them," said the Marquis to his excited com- panions. "I see them where they ought not to be. This, my friends, is a serious business." He was urged to delay and bring up reinforcements. But the intrepid old warrior refused. "We cannot avoid the issue," said he. "The enemy is intrenching and already has cannon. If we give him time to make his position good we can never attack him. We must crush them before midday," was his decision. He sent forward one thousand five hundred militia to harass the English by sharpshooting while he gathered his forces. The sharpshooters soon laid so many of Wolfe's men low, that he had them driven back by bayonet charges, but the EngUsh had not yet fired a shot. Wolfe "seemed to be in all parts of the field at once," holding his men to strict order, cheering them in this trying situation, waiting coolly for the real attack he was ex- pecting. He saw a captain fall, badly wounded. Bending over him, he told him not to give up hope, and promised him promotion for his gallantry. And, at this crisis, he actually sent a message to General Monckton to carry out these instructions in case he himself fell in action. (The captain survived — and got his promotion.) At eight o'clock the English commander saw the heads of the French columns skirting the ramparts be- yond the plateau. He gave a sigh of relief. Here 250 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY was what he had been waiting for. Cahnly he ordered his men to he down and rest. The French advanced in three divisions, numbering about seven thousand five hundred men, with parties of Indians. In the middle came the regulars led by the veteran Montcalm on a black charger. Facing this division stood Wolfe, watching the enemy like a wrestler about to close. Seeing an attempt to outflank his left, he reformed this to meet the danger. At nine o'clock the French were in line. WoKe waved his sword. His men behind him sprang to their feet. Six hundred yards apart the two armies faced each other. On the issue of the next hour depended the destiny of half the North American continent. Montcalm rode up and down his line, animating his men. At five minutes past ten the French charged, with flags flying and "uttering their war-cry in the old-time fashion." Wolfe had ordered his men not to return a shot till the foe was within forty yards. The ground directly in front of his lines descended into an uneven hollow and he saw the advantage he would have at close range. The sun had come out from behind the clouds. Its brilliance lit up the scarlet uniforms of the English, the gay tartans of the Highlanders. They made ideal marks for the French, who began firing when they were within two hundred yards. - The British lines, drawn up as if on parade, received the volley in grim silence. The only motion was the closing up of ranks when a man fell. A ball struck Wolfe in the wrist, severing the tendons. The pain was agonizing. He tied a handkerchief about THE CAPTURE OF QUEBEC 251 it, and walked calmly up and down in front of his line, exhorting his men to stand firm and await the word. At last the French were ascending the broken slope, barely forty yards away. "Present — fire!" rang out the command. A simultaneous discharge followed, like the report of a cannon — "one of the most tremendous and effective volleys that had ever been delivered since the invention of gunpowder." As the smoke cleared slightly, a great gap in the French ranks and heaps of dead and wounded showed what frightful execution had been done. The British reloaded and fired again, and again. In fifteen min- utes there were more gaps than ranks in the enemy's fine. Montcalm galloped to and fro striving to rally his men. Wolfe saw the moment had come. His tall figure in a bright new uniform was most conspicuous as he placed himself at the head of his grenadiers and gave the order to charge. In the very act of waving his sword for the advance he was struck a second time. It was a dangerous wound, but he had often said that "while a man is able to do his duty, and to stand and hold his arms, it is in- famous to retire"; and he hved up to his maxim. Calling to his aroused men, he pressed forward, and the whole force dashed upon the enemy at a run. A third ball struck Wolfe in the chest. He stag- gered on, trying to keep pace with his comrades. But after a few steps he reeled. The charge swept past him. "Support me," he gasped to a lieutenant beside him. "Don't let our brave fellows see me fall. The day is ours — keep it." 252 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY As he spoke, he sank to the ground. The heutenant and three others Ufted him and car- ried him a httle toward the rear. The grenadiers had gone on; they did not even know their leader was struck. The anxious bearers rested their burden against a small redoubt. One proposed to go for a surgeon. "It is useless," murmured WoKe. "It is all over with me." For a few seconds there was silence. They feared he was already gone. Suddenly a messenger close by called out: "They run — they run !" The words seemed to electrify the djdng general. He started up. "Who run?" he asked, with the air of a man just waking. "The enemy, sir," was the reply. "They give way everywhere." "Run quickly to Colonel Burton," commanded Wolfe. "Tell him to march Webb's regiment down to the St. Charles and cut off the retreat to the bridge." The effort had exhausted his strength. Turning over on his side, he murmured: "Now God be praised, I die happy." The brave Montcalm, too, had received a mortal wound. "I am glad of it," said he. "I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." He died the following day. Four days later the keys of Quebec were delivered to the British conmaander. Small as the engagement was, in its results it was one of the great battles of the world. Wolfe's remains were borne home in state and THE CAPTURE OF QUEBEC 253 England mourned her hero who had given her a new empire. This inscription stands in marble in Westminster Abbey : To THE MEMORY OF JAMES WOLFE Major-General and Commander-in-Chief OF THE British land forces ON AN expedition AGAINST QuBBEC, Who, after surmounting by Ability and Valour All obstacles of Art and Nature Was slain, in the moment of Victory ON the XIII OF September, MDCCLIX., The King and Parliament of Great Britain Dedicate this monument. CHAPTER XXII HOW "MAD ANTHONY" TOOK STONY POINT In 1779 the British held New York, with a force several times as great as that under Washington in New Jersey. Sir Henry Clinton sailed up the Hudson in May, and easily captured the fortifications which had been started by the Americans to guard the ferry from Stony Point, on the west shore, to Verplanck's. Having strengthened and garrisoned these strategic points, he tried to draw Washington to the east of the Hudson by a descent on the Connecticut shore. But the American general decided that a better answer to this feint would be the recapture of Stony Point. For this difficult attempt he selected General Wayne, who had already won his nickname of "Mad Anthony" by his personal gallantry, but who had also made a reputation in the past three years as an able com- mander. "Where Wayne went, there was a fight always; that was his business." This was a task which demanded a fighting leader. Stony Point was a rugged promontory of a hundred acres, jutting far out into the river and rising one hundred and forty feet into the air, steep on all sides, but especially precipitous toward the land. A swamp turned it practically into an island, with one causeway crossing from the mainland ; but at low tide there was a narrow beach at each end of this march. The British had been working "like a Parsel of Devils" in strengthening this natural fortress, which 254 "MAD ANTHONY" 255 they called "Little Gibralter." They had garrisoned it with six hundred men, and thrown up fourteen lines of breastworks, commanding every possible line of attack; half-way down the hill were two rows of great trees, felled with their branches pointing downward, to form a double abatis; and batteries of twenty-one guns, in- cluding a ten-inch mortar and two twenty-four-pound- ers, frowned above these obstacles. In addition, sev- eral war-vessels lay in the river, their guns command- ing much of the lower ground. Indeed, when Wayne studied this stronghold from the heights of the Donderberg, between it and his camp at Fort Montgomery, he wrote to Washington that its captm-e by storm did not seem practicable. But he added: "Whenever you may order it, I will attempt the surprise." In a conference on July 10, he expressed this more strongly, according to Irving. "General," he exclaimed, "if you will plan it, I'll storm hell." It was decided to make the attempt on the night of July 15. Wayne took every precaution to keep his plans from the enemy: his patrols killed every dog within three miles of the point, lest some barking cur should give the alarm ; and no conununication with the fort was allowed, "Widow Calhoun and another widow going to the enemy with chickens and greens" being arrested by one party. On the morning of the appointed day the Light In- fantry, one thousand three hundred and fifty strong, were drawn up on parade at Fort Montgomery. By special orders of "the Dandy," as Mad Anthony was also called, they were "fresh shaved and well pow- dered." At eight that night the column had made its way 256 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY silently southward over the mountain trails to Spring- steel's farm. Here they could see the lights of Stony Point, a mile and a half away to the east; and here the men learned for the first time what was ahead of them. They were formed in three columns, and in the silence of the summer night the order of battle was read. One detachment, led by Wayne and Febiger, was to attack from the southern end of the swamp, pre- ceded by Colonel Fleury with one hundred and fifty picked men. Another was to strike from the north — these two assaults being made with arms unloaded, "placing their whole dependence on fixed bayonets." The third column's part was a feigned attack across the causeway, firing rapidly to divert the enemy's at- tention from the real attempt. Utter silence was to be observed, and any man who fired before orders was to be instantly put to death by the nearest officers. Each man was given a piece of white paper to fasten to his hat, that they might know friend from enemy in the darkness. "When the works are forced, and noi before, the victorious troops will give the watchword, 'The fort is ours,' with repeated and loud voices." Rewards were offered to the first men entering the works : any one who ran or skulked was to be shot im- mediately. The order wound up: "As General Wayne is determined to share the dan- ger of the night, so he wishes to participate in the glory of the day, in common with his fellow soldiers." Wayne and a few of the officers cautiously recon- noitred, checked up each route, and found no sign that the British anticipated their coming. "MAD ANTHONY" 257 Then, at half past eleven, the commander took his place at the head of Febiger's detachment. "Forward," said he. The three detachments crept ahead into the black- ness. They passed down the slope for half a mile, then separated, each making for its allotted post. Twenty axemen were in front to cut a path through the abatis. Every man was tense with anticipation, wondering when the big guns would flame out from the stronghold looming up ahead, hoping for success in the daring effort, but hardly venturing to breathe as they drew closer and closer to the silent bulk on the height. Half an hour after midnight, Wayne and his four or five hundred men reached the southern end of the swamp. The tide was in, and instead of a sand-beach there was a stretch of water two hundred yards wide and waist-deep. There was no help for it. The leading squad splashed into the water. The noise cut sharply through the quiet night air. A British sentry on the opposite shore heard it and promptly challenged: "Who goes there?" There was no answer. The sentry's gun flashed in the darkness. A bullet zipped along beside the waders. The report that broke the silence sounded like a cannon to the strained ears of the attacking party. "Advance! Advance!" called Wayne. The men abandoned all effort at concealment and floundered desperately across the little bay. They heard the central column of their comrades open a spluttering fire at the causeway, in an attempt to do their part. Before they were half-way across, they 258 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY heard more than this. There were alarms and the roll of drums and sharp commands from the fort above; then, with a roar, the gims of the batteries came into action. Heeding neither grape-shot nor musket-balls, the little force reached the shore and raced upward with fixed bayonets. Those in advance reached the abatis, and their skilled axes were instantly busy. In a few moments they had gpened a gap through both lines of obstructions. Wayne's party rushed through, climbing over trunks and stakes. But at this moment a terrific volley from the fort swept the breach. Seventeen men fell. Wayne himself went down, struck in the head. "March on," he shouted. Then he called to his aides. "Help me into the fort," he commanded. "If this is mortal, I'll die at the head of my coliunn." Up they went, Wayne supported by his officers. They were muddy, wet, ragged, breathless, wounded. Volley after volley of musketry, of shells and grape- shot rained upon them. Nothing could stop the charge. Colonel Fleury was the first over the breastworks, but the rest were close behind. The gunners were thrown back by the impetuous onset. As the leaders gained a footing within the fortifica- tions, they set up a shout, according to orders: "The fort's our own ! The fort's our own !" The cry was repeated down the line, as the Americans threw themselves upon the confused garrison in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle. In a few moments it was re-echoed from the other side of the fort, the column from the north having "MAD ANTHONY" 259 reached the fortifications ahnost simultaneously with Wayne's body. To add to the confusion of the British, the firing from the causeway was mistaken for the real attack, as had been planned. In consequence, the various companies of the garri- son were disordered and isolated. Although the 17th Regiment had a fighting record in the British army, and though individual detachments resisted to the utmost, the two wings of the American attack swept all before them. In less than half an hour aU was over. Stony Point had been taken. The British flag was hauled down, the guns trained on the ships in the river. The British had lost sixty-three killed, seventy wounded, and four hundred and seventy-three were taken prisoners — instant quarter being given when asked for. One lieutenant escaped by swimming to the war-ship Vulture in the river. On the American side there were fifteen killed and eighty-three wounded, two-thirds of these casualties being among Wayne's colximn. The latter paid no attention to his own wound. His despatch to General Washington ran as follows: "The fort and garrison with Colonel Johnson are ours. "Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free." From a military point of view Stony Point was a slight matter. But as a gallant exploit it deserves the fame it reflected upon "Mad Anthony," who became more than ever the idol of his soldiers. CHAPTER XXIII WINNING A MEDAL OF HONOR Dtjking the American Civil War, Congress decided to recognize, by the award of a medal of honor, acts of conspicuous bravery, outside the strict lines of duty and performed on a soldier's own initiative. About one thousand four hundred of these medals were awarded up to the Spanish War, twenty-six more being granted during that conflict. There is a tale of bravery back of every one of these medals. Perhaps as good an example as any of the "fighting spirit" is the action that won this coveted reward for Private Michael Dillon. On May 5, 1862, General Hooker's division, after a long march through rain and mud, became engaged with the Confederates at Fort Magruder, near Williams- burg, Virginia. The fight went on in a drenching storm all afternoon. Hooker's ammunition ran low, reinforcements did not come, and the tired soldiers were feeling all the depres- sion of a hard struggle under such conditions against a superior force. The Confederates charged repeatedly from the fort, and during one of these onslaughts they captured a battery of four guns. The guns 'Were important, but there was in addition that feeUng of disgrace at losing artillery, second in a soldier's mind only to the loss of colors. A youngster named Michael Dillon, a private in the 2d New Hampshire Infantry, sprang to his feet. Call- ing his companions to join him, he started forward. 260 WINNING A MEDAL OF HONOR 261 His lieutenant called him back, fearing his reckless exposure would concentrate the enemy's fire on their position. "Get down, Dillon !" he shouted. "You're drawing their fire." But Dillon was beyond thought of discipline or any- thing else except those guns. "What are we here for?" he retorted. "Come on, boys, come on ! " said he to his hesitating fellows. "We mustn't let them have that battery." His example was catching. A group of daredevils leaped up alongside of him. Waving his arms in the air, the young private, who had suddenly transformed himself into a leader, dashed forward thi'ough the smoke and d6bris with his volunteers behind him. Dillon was struck in the leg by a ball. He stanched the flow of blood and kept on. Just as they reached the enemy, an exploding shell shattered his musket in his hands. Throwing away the useless fragment, he picked up the weapon of a fallen companion, and plunged into the melee with his little group. The charge was so bold and sudden that the Con- federates were thrown into confusion. In a few min- utes of savage hand-to-hand fighting, Battery H of the 1st Artillery was recaptured and brought off in tri- umph. There are several other glimpses of Dillon in action. A month later, just before the battle of Oak Grove, General Hooker called for volunteers to take a redoubt beside the Williamsburg road. It looked like a forlorn hope, but Dillon was one of the first to step forward. His lieutenant again remonstrated with him, saying 262 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY that he would be needed with the command, as there was desperate work ahead. But Dillon's fighting blood was up. "General Hooker needs desperate work done too," said he. "He's asked for volunteers, and I'm going." The volunteers charged across an open field, in the face of a withering fire of artillery and musketry. Nothing could stop them. DiUon was among the leaders as they scrambled over the parapet. In a few moments of deadly struggle, they swept the Confeder- ates back and the redoubt was captm-ed. Again, a week later, he was in the tragic Seven Days' battles before Richmond. There was a lull in the fight- ing. Young Dillon set out alone on a scouting expedi- tion. Crawhng forward at dusk among the grass and bushes, he reached the enemy's line, managed to se- crete himself where he could overhear a discussion of the Confederate plans, and returned safely with in- formation that enabled General Hooker to alter his plans and win a victory in the ensuing fight. Every war produces such men. Death loses its terrors in the excitement of a dash against overwhelm- ing odds. Clearly Michael Dillon can well stand as a type of such a soldier. CHAPTER XXIV TWO SCOTCHMEN— AND A MACHINE-GUN The great war which convulsed the world in 1914 has often been spoken of as a conflict of science and organization, rather than of soldiers. It is true that enormous guns, air-ships, submarines, poison-gas, and the wonderfully accurate and effective handling of men and supphes somewhat obscm-e the individuals in that colossal struggle. But whenever battle was joined the brave man stood out as he has done since the beginning of history. It would be easy to fill many volumes with the exploits of men who distinguished themselves in any one of the armies. Let us hsten to a Scotchman's own story of how he won the Victoria Cross. This little piece of bronze, simply inscribed "For Valor," has for half a century been one of the most prized rewards of the English soldier, sailor, or civilian. George Wilson says: "The proudest minute in my life was when the King pirmed the Victoria Cross on my breast and talked to me for a few minutes. "'You're not a very big man but you've got a very big heart. Truly I'm proud of my soldiers.' These were the words he used, and there were tears in his eyes. The King also asked me what were my feehngs while I was going through the job, and I told him the thing I remembered best was when the German officer tried to shoot me with his revolver and I put the bayonet through him. 263 264 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY "After the retirement from Mons the Highland Light Infantry came to a village called Verneuil, and we were intrenched there. Not far off a few snipers were potting away. One of our officers got up out of the trench and was just kneeling down and putting the binoculars to his eyes when a bullet struck him. He rolled over dead. I was a few paces off, and turning to the next man, I said: 'Poor Powell is over and I'll have revenge.' "We tried all we could to locate the snipers, and I was lucky to get a good sight of them. Two bullets from my rifle did for them, and then we advanced cautiously nearer the enemy. When we were getting nearer I was surprised to see a number of spiked bay- onets. I was taken aback for a second, but then I decided to make a rush for it. "Shouting at the top of my voice, 'Charge, men, charge,' I rushed at them. They were taken by sur- prise and threw down their rifles. Two men in the Middlesex regiment came up and I told them to look after the Germans. There were eight of them. "Farther along I took up my position in a trench, but when I looked over I was horrified to see men ly- ing about in all sorts of positions. Some were dead and others were writhing in agony. I asked the man next me what was wrong, and he said : ' It's a Maxim, and it's not done with its work yet.' "I stood up to see for myself. The machine-gun of the Germans was not a great distance off, and I said to myself: 'It will kill us all if something doesn't happen to it.' I thought I would at least have one good shot, and got in position to fire. The officer told me to get down, but I was so excited that I ran for- ward. Beside me there was a man in the Middlesex TWO SCOTCHMEN 265 regiment and he turned to me and said: 'Jack, will you have a try to stop the gun?' I said I would, and he replied: 'I'll go with you.' "By this time we had got beyond range of the officer's orders, for we had gone without permission. "Then began a journey that as long as I live will ever remain in my memory. "The Germans saw us coming and bullets flew thick around us. My pal was struck in several places and dropped. I ran zigzag and dropped on my knees to take a shot at the operators of the machine-gun. My first shot knocked the man sitting on the Maxim back- ward. His place was taken by another German, but he, too, I accounted for. How I escaped being hit my- self I cannot explain. There seemed to me a good Providence keeping guard over me. "When four of the Germans were killed, there only remained an officer beside the gun. He had crept be- hind it and was waiting for me with his automatic pis- tol ready. "I rushed forward, yelHng at the top of my voice, when the pistol started to spit. One bullet just passed the side of my head and my ear tingled. That was all the damage that German officer did. I sprang at him in wild fury and drove the bayonet straight into his body. He collapsed, and to withdraw the steel I had to put my foot on his face. My clothes were spattered with blood, but I felt much easier in mind, and I put down my rifle and turned to the belt containing am- munition. "There were over seven hundred rounds left. I shifted the Maxim round in the direction of the Ger- mans. They were over a hundred yards off and massed in close formation. I started firing, and to my delight 266 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY I saw big holes being made in their ranks, for it was im- possible to miss them. They fell in bunches and the heaps kept piling up. "The enemy now saw the deadly effect of their own gun being used against themselves and sent shells in my direction. They flew on all sides of me and threw up dirt and sphnters, but not once was I struck. I continued working the Maxim until the Germans fled in disorder. "There must have been four companies of Germans altogether, and I reckon the Maxim accounted for at least half their number — two hundred men. "As there was no further use in my remaining where I was, I took the gun and two boxes of ammunition back to our lines. I hadn't gone very far when I be- gan to feel sickish, but once I came near our own lads I bucked up and an officer came to meet me. "'There's the thing that's been causing all the dam- age,' I said to him, and he replied: 'You have done splendidly.' "Then I was told that my comrade was still lying out in the open, and I told those near me that I would fetch him in. They told me not to risk it, as the snipers were again busy potting. However, I wasn't going to rest until I had made an effort to save him. "I reached my pal all safe and Ufted him on my shoulder. When I had gone a few yards a terrible storm of bullets hailed around us. I felt the finger of one of my hands tingle. A bullet had just grazed it. My poor mate was, however, struck several times, and he did not live long after I carried him into our lines. "His dying words to me were: 'Thank God you got that gun.'" CHAPTER XXV DUELS BETWEEN AEROPLANE AND ZEPPELIN ' It is a great temptation to tell some more stories of the men who won the Victoria Cross in the great war: Sergeant O'Leary, who charged ahead of his fellow guards at Cuinchy, took a German trench with two barricades, killed eight men, and captured two more and a machine-gun — single-handed; Miller of the "Black Watch," whose comment upon the desperate struggle was, "I'm telling ye, laddie, it was a wee bit warm"; Lieutenant Dimmer, who stuck to his gun till it was blown to fragments and he was wounded five times; and a host of others. Moreover, these stirring exploits could be duplicated from the records of every country engaged in the struggle. Some of the most dramatic events were in the new battle-field of the air. In June, 1915, Victor Chapman, a young American in the French Aviation Corps, was carrying some oranges to a near-by hospital when he came upon three French aeroplanes beset by four Germans. Rising to a great height, he swooped down into the fight. In a few moments his accurate fire sent two German machines to earth. Then the redoubtable Captain Boeike managed to turn and rake him with a machine- gun — and the gallant youngster plunged Ufeless down to the German lines. Before the end of the war's third year, one French airman, refused admittance to the army five times be- 267 268 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY cause of his size, and having joined the flying corps, had accounted for nearly forty enemy aeroplanes; and Baron von Richthofen, on the German side, had brought down sixty-two hostile machines; each com- bat representing a tale of intrepidity well worth tell- ing. It would be hard to exaggerate the courage dis- played every day by hundreds of fliers when the aerial forces were once organized. A particularly picturesque combat was between an aeroplane and a Zeppelin in the first year. At three o'clock in the morning of June 7, 1915, a Zeppehn air-ship appeared over the British Unes in Belgium. It was returning from an attack on the English coast or from a scouting expedition. Among the airmen there was a young Canadian sub- lieutenant, A. J. Warneford. He had made his first aeroplane flight only four months before, and had joined the flying squadron one month back, but had already made his mark as a born aviator, with an Utter disregard of danger. Warneford instantly leaped into his machine and started in pursuit accompanied by a French aviator in his aeroplane. Their rifle-fire produced no result, the Germans re- plying with rifles and machine-guns. At once, too, the Zeppelin began to rise to keep above her wasp-hke enemies. A thrilUng struggle for position followed. In great spirals Warneford circled up and up, following the giant air-ship, which was all the time speeding toward her home hangar at Ghent. At the end of about twenty minutes the Zeppelin was ten or fifteen miles from the spot where she had been sighted and nearly a mile high. But the persistent AEROPLANE AND ZEPPELIN DUELS 269 Warneford could not be shaken off. He was using the "tactics of a king-bird attacking a crow. On and up he circled, till he found himself, at an altitude of six thousand feet, speeding directly above the great gas-bag. With cool accuracy he began to drop his explosive bombs, as if at target practice. Two or three slight ■explosions showed that his missiles had found their mark. The sixth again fell squarely upon the vulnerable bag of the air-ship. There was a terrific roar and burst of flame. Sud- denly converted into a mass of blazing wreckage, the great Zeppelin fell like a meteor to the earth, carrying all its crew to destruction and setting fire to the build- ings on which it landed. The force of the explosion directly beneath him turned Warneford's monoplane completely upside •down. The machine pitched and tossed in the swift air-cm-rents, and it looked as if the leviathan's expiring breath would surely involve its destroyer in its own ruin. The plucky aviator, however, did not lose heart. Making a supreme effort, he succeeded in righting the machine and planed down from his lofty position to earth, far within the enemy's lines. He alighted unhurt. Quickly the propeller was started once more, and rising aloft he flew back to his own camp in safety. King George bestowed the Victoria Cross on the young Canadian by telegram the following day; and upon the recommendation of General Joffre, the French Legion of Honor also rewarded his intrepid feat. Another successful Zeppelin chase took place in the spring of 1916. 270 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY "Another raid across England — the bombs, dropped from the clouds, burst into little fires below — the great Zeppelins, their work done for the night, are ploughing homeward through the clouds. But there is one that lags behind. Perhaps there was engine trouble^ per- haps the pilot went astray, possibly it was sent out on a longer course than the rest. At all events, it is seen emerging in the dawn, a gray bulk against a gray sky, trailing such a cloud of smoke as indicates that the en- gines are at full speed in a frantic endeavor to get home before hostile aeroplanes can rise to the attack. Al- ready the commander detects two moving dots on the sky behind him and regards them anxiously. The wireless has flashed a report of the raid from England, and the French airmen have been on the lookout for the raider. As the German watches them, they poise a moment, then dart upward, and every moment grow slightly larger to the sight. They have seen the air- ship and are in pursuit. Can he outrun them? "This is the drama staged in the story of a young American air-pilot with the French army. As his aeroplane rose to join in the chase and the others closed in on the Zeppelin, the German craft took refuge in the clouds. "A brilliant burst of sunlight suddenly reveals the ship to the aviators, and the Zeppelin captain also dis- covers us as we wheel around to pursue. We are at a lower level and we promptly start climbing. The Zeppelin leaps upward, and, setting her elevation- planes, seeks to gain a still greater advantage in height. "To us below it looked as though pursuit were helpless, but we held on grimly. Steadily we gained in forward speed. Our engines were fresh, while the AEROPLANE AND ZEPPELIN DUELS 271 Zeppelin motors were feeling the strain of long running at high speed. When the affair settled into a stern chase the Zeppelin opened fire. "We were prepared for this and kept as close as pos- sible in the wake of the German ship, thus masking the guns in the forward cabin. But the Zeppelin, learning a lesson from previous encounters, had guns in the rear cabin, and, despite the disadvantage of shooting in a line parallel with the keel, they made rapid practice on the aeroplanes. "The situation grew desperate for the Zeppelin. All the ballast had been thrown out, gasolene was running short, and the engines were showing signs of increasing weakness and irregular running. "Undeterred by the guns, one of our squadron of aeroplanes had already climbed to the same level as the air-ship and was steadily rising to a height where it would be concealed from the Zeppelin guns by the body of the ship itself. A great burst of forward speed could alone save the commander of the Zeppelin from being overtaken by the enemy. "The machine which I was piloting was the second to rise above the fire-zone, though one ragged wing showed a wound of the fray. "As a balloon the Zeppelin could rise no higher, for all her ballast had been sacrificed. The captain de- cided to bring his elevating planes back to normal and stake all on a high-speed flight in a horizontal course. He was encouraged in this by the sight of his German lines below, with the landmarks which he knew so well. Puffs of smoke told him that the aeroplanes were being shelled by German gunners, that the bombardment showered upon us might relieve him at any moment. Indeed, some of the shots burst so near the Zeppelin 272 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY that the commander must have had an indifferent opinion of the gunners' marksmanship. "Then suddenly the firing from below ceased. Too well the commander of the Zeppelin knew what that meant ! The gunners below dared not fire for fear of hitting his ship, and so the planes must now be poised directly above him, the vantage-point from which a dirigible is always utterly at the mercy of any aero- plane armed with bombs. "When I talked afterward with a comrade in a machine below the level of the Zeppelin, he told me of the intense agony which the Zeppelin crew suffered as they looked at each other with horror-stricken eyes. Without doubt their one possessing thought was: 'What is happening above us?' From their little cabins there was no possibility of an upward survey, for the great body of the ship loomed above them, shutting out the overhead view. "But the crew of the ZeppeUn could picture in their minds' eyes those two gaunt birds, of which I happened to be piloting one, flying after them remorselessly as Fate, and inch by inch gaining on them. Well did the crew know that the Zeppelin would soon be beneath the aeroplanes. A bomb will drop on the great ship's back, and then "In a frenzy the captain plunged his ship downward and swung her to the right with a swerve that threat- ened to break her spine. But the elephantine manoeu- vre availed him little. We in the aeroplanes could dive and swerve with the grace of swallows, while the giant ship lumbered like a derelict balloon. "We smnmoned up all our remaining nerve-energy. Our prize was just within our grasp — he must not escape. If he did we would most easily become the AEROPLANE AND ZEPPELIN DUELS 273 prey of the anti-aircraft guns that were waiting their chance to send aloft their deadly hail of shrapnel. "Down swept our bombs with unerring accuracy. There was a dull thud and then a sheet of flame, spread- ing with hghtning speed, in a moment enveloping the entire massive vessel. The burning hydrogen con- simaed it with appalling fury, and in a few instants the great ship, crumbling and melting, hurtled to earth like a blazing meteor. "From the earth many guns spoke. They but served only for the firing-salute over the graves of the fallen." PART IV SOME EXPLOITS ON THE SEA The sea mothers hardy spirits. Her sons who face her mighty wrath take little heed of human odds. There is an epic strain, a Viking blaze, in every seafaring race, no matter what be the nationality, which is aroused by the fierce emergencies of battle. The first difficulty in this section was to select a few from among so many. To leave out Salam,is, to omit all those stormy romances of the "baresark" Norsemen, of Drake, Van Tramp, De Ruyter, Jean Bart, and many an- other seemed impossible. Equally so not to tell of that superb attack, in April, 1917, of two English captains, in the little vessels "Swift" and "Broke," upon a flotilla of six German destroyers raiding in the Straits of Dover : how they dashed upon the enemy, ramming and firing, torpedoing one which had surrendered and then treacher- ously renewed tlie fight — till two of the raiders were sunk, and the rest ignoviiniously fled. There would be no end to the sea-stories if one did not simply make an end. There is another stumbling-block. Ordinary prose, the calm phrases of peaceful life, become childishly inade- quate to portray the figures that dominate the great crises of naval warfare — Grenville in his little "Revenge" fighting twenty larger Spanish war-ships to a standstill, Nelson signalling his fleet at Trafalgar to "Engage the enemy more closely," Paul Jones at that volcanic moment when 277 he had "just begun to fight." These seem like Supermen. They require meteor words, an alphabet of wings and fire. And while we hope for the day when no m,an will wish to slay a fellow man because he is of another nation, we find inspiration in the deeds of these fiaming spirits. We can separate their mastery from its motives and its results. We can glory in these evidences that man's nature may be forged and tempered and whetted to such a sword-edge — confident that in ilie future this cleaving weapon will serve against the common enemies of humanity even more nobly than it has in these civil wars of mankind. Lest we forget this, our common heritage, there follow a few glimpses of man indomitable on the face of the waters. CHAPTER XXVI THE EPIC OF THE REVENGE Over three hundred years ago an Enghshman set a mark of haughty and dogged courage in sea-fighting which has suflfiiced ever since to measure all other ex- ploits on the water. It happened thus. An English squadron lay at anchor in the harbor of Flores, one of the westerly islands of the Azores, in late August, 1591. There were six rather small men- of-war, together with seven provision-ships and three httle pinnaces, conamanded by Sir Thomas Howard. For six months this force had been cruising, with the object of cutting off the Spanish treasure-fleet; ships and men were in such a bad way that Howard had been forced to put into Flores for water, ballast, and repairs, and to give the sick a chance to recover on shore. Full haK the sailors were down with fever or scurvy — not enough well men had been left on the Bonaventure, for instance, to handle the mainsail, and it had been necessary to take the crew of twenty out of a bark of Sir George Gary's, and sink that smaller vessel, in order to bring in this war-ship. Though the commander still hoped the treasure-ships might come along — these western islands being the meeting-place of the Portuguese fleets from the East Indies and of the Spanish West India carriers — he was for the time devoting all his attention to getting his crews well and his vessels seaworthy once more. The haggard sick were sent ashore; those who could work 279 280 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY were employed in filling water-casks, loading fresh ballast, cleaning, and refitting. Everything was in the disorder accompanying such repairs; and while the captains expected no attack, their fear lest they might after all lose the chance they had been so long pursuing made them drive the work along as fast as they dared under the circumstances. The vice-admiral was Sir Richard Grenville. He was "a man very unquiet in his mind and greatly affected to war," and had seen hot campaigning under Maxi- milian in Hungary against the Turks. His first sea- service, however, had been only six years before this time, when he had commanded the expedition to Vir- ginia in the interest of the colony projected by Sir Walter Raleigh, his cousin. Returning, he had dis- tinguished himself by overpowering a Spaniard who attacked his ship, and settiug off to take possession of his prize on a crazy raft knocked together from old chests — which fell to pieces as they reached their cap- ture. He had also been bitterly complained of by his associates for "intolerable pride"; but all admitted him one "of great and stout courage," and there were many tales of his valiant acts in the ensuing years when he harried the Spaniards of the Azores towns. The latter afterward avowed that he was of "so hard a complection" that he was wont to crunch up his wine- glass between his teeth and swallow the fragments ! His ship in Howard's squadron was the Revenge. She was a five-hundred-ton craft, with two tiers of guns, normally carrying two hundred and fifty men; and though she had been Drake's flag-ship in the mem- orable fight with the Armada, she had a record of bad luck going back almost to her launching at Chatham by stout John Hawkins twelve years before. She had THE EPIC OF THE REVENGE 281 been cast away on the Kentish coast; ashore at Plym- outh; twice aground at Portsmouth — the second time with six feet of water in her hold; she had ahnost foundered with all hands going up the Thames; and earher in this very year she had turned turtle. There was more than enough in her history to make superstitious tars grumble and prophesy dark things. Yet she was a crack second-rate war-ship, and every man of her crew felt unbounded confidence in her smart- ness under sail, as weU as in her conmiander. Ninety of her sailors were among the sick on shore, and the remaining hundred were hard at work, like every other well man in the fleet, on the afternoon of August 31. They paid no attention to a tiny pinnace which ap- peared at the mouth of the harbor and stood in toward the flag-ship, with every stitch of canvas drawing in the fresh breeze. The pinnace rounded-to alongside of the Defiance. Its captain, Middleton, scrambled hastily aboard. In a few moments he was closeted below with Sir Thomas Howard. It was a life-and-death message he had raced hither to deliver. The Earl of Cumberland had despatched him from the Portugal coast with news of a great Span- ish fleet of war-ships, bound to the Azores to surprise the English squadron: the daring Middleton had ac- tually sailed along with this Armada for three days, in order to get first-hand information of its force and desti- nation. Then he had cut loose with his swift craft to warn the admiral. Fifty-three vessels, twenty of them war-ships — and the whole liable to be down upon them within twenty- ' fom' hours ! Sir Thomas had no need to call a council 282 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY of war, or even to go on deck, to come to a decision. His squadron was in no condition to engage even an equal force: half-manned, and with some of the ships so hght and so foul as to be almost unmanageable, he would be fighting under fearful handicaps. And even had all been in perfect trim, there was no disgrace in avoiding such odds. He gave instant orders to recall the shore parties and prepare the vessels for sailing. But this work had hardly begun when to his dismay the cry of "Sail ho ! " rang out. Every eye turned to the west. There, gleaming white in the sunlight, appeared the clustering sails of the overwhelming Spanish force. Signals raced up the halyards of the Defiance, order- ing every captain to sail as speedily as possible. There followed a breathless interval. Working desperately against time, whUe the enemy swept down with the wind, the English commanders strove to get their sick aboard, and their ships in some sort of order, before the one road of retreat was cut off. In wild confusion, sails were set, and one after another the vessels took wing like a flock of startled ducks, all bent on gainiag the position of safety to windward. Several had not time left even to weigh anchor, but slipped their cables and made off, setting every rag of sail that might add speed. Grenville was in some way delayed. He absolutely refused to move till the last of his sick were aboard, well knowing that the Inquisition would be their fate if captured. Anyhow, as vice-admiral, his place was in the rear. At last the Revenge stood out, her helpless ninety laid on the ballast in the hold, the rest of the crew, a scant hundred, striving to get the cluttered decks and the guns to rights. THE EPIC OF THE REVENGE 283 Ahead, the last of her consorts had barely slipped out of the trap. But its jaws were closing so fast, as the Armada swung down on the weather-bow, that it soon became evident the Revenge was too late to escape in that way. Closer and closer came the stately array of hostile vessels. The great galleons loomed larger and larger, disclosing their triple gun-decks, with death peering from every black port-hole. One of these floating castles, the San Philip, alone was three times the size of the Revenge, with thirty-three guns to each broad- side, besides stern-guns and eight bow-chasers. And in addition the water behind her seemed full of ships, a score of them, armed and almost as formidable as this towering monster. It was sheer madness to head that way any longer. The master of the Revenge, who knew her sailing powers, saw there was but one hope for her. By keeping away large, her swiftness might enable her to double on the enemy and regain the company of the squadron. He gave orders to cut the mainsail. To his dismay. Sir Richard commanded in a voice of thunder that no one should touch it, swearing he would hang the first man who did so. Both master and captain remonstrated, pointing out that there was no other possibility of saving the ship. But Grenville's mind was made up. "Rather would I choose to die," he cried, "than so to dishonor myself, my country, and her Majesty's ship by turning from the enemy." And he boldly announced his resolve to sail through both these great squadrons and force a passage to the open. Protest was useless. And carried away by the great- 284 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY ness of his spirit, officers and men made ready with a sort of grim exaltation. The gunners stood to their pieces; every man of the inadequate force who could be spared seized pike and cutlass. In a silence full of deadly promise, the Revenge held her course straight into the advancing throng of foes. A single ship against twenty larger ones. A hundred men against fifteen thousand. Several of the leaders sprang their luff and fell off under the lee of the English vessel. And presently the tense silence aboard the Revenge deepened. She lost way. The sails flapped idly. Grenville and his men looked up at the massive bulk of the San Philip tower- ing right above them, so high that the little Revenge was completely "blanketed." The helmsman spun his wheel, but the ship answered to neither rudder nor sail. Still the high-decked gal- leon loomed up to windward, looking almost like a rock-cliff fortress lined with soldiers — for she carried eight hundred fighting-men besides her mariners, and the three tiers of guns, eleven in each, looked sufficient to annihilate the Revenge at one broadside. The clustering Spaniards laughed aloud as they gazed down on this puny antagonist and the handful who manned her. It was like the meeting of a mastiff and a terrier. And still no sound or movement came from the Englishmen. Slowly the San Philip ranged up alongside. With the same ponderous solemnity, two galleons luffed up to starboard, one of them the Admiral of the Biscaines, "a, very mightie and puysant shippe," while two more laid themselves to larboard. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon. The THE EPIC OF THE REVENGE 285 sun blazed down upon this solitary vessel, the centre of a threatening ring, the mark upon which was con- centrated over a hundred great guns and the muskets of a couple of thousand soldiers. Little chance did there seem that she or any one aboard would see that sun dip even half-way to the western horizon. The galleons opened upon her with successive volleys like a series of blasts exploding. "Fire ! " commanded Grenville at last from the centre of that volcano. With a cheer the English gunners came to life. The lower tier of cannon, loaded with cross-bar shot, hurled their crashing missiles into the vitals of the San Philip. So terrific was the effect of this volley that the great galleon swung hastily away, "utterly misliking her first entertainment." But another took her place. The battle was fairly joined. The four Spaniards swept the Revenge with a hail of shot, great and small, while the Englishmen, stripped to the waist, worked their guns in a frenzy of passion. Splashed with blood, amid a chaos of dead and wounded comrades, disabled guns, splintered wood, crashing rigging, they hammered their enemy to east and west. The red flashes split the heavy pall of smoke and sulphur fimies that settled over all. When a man fell, another was in his place almost before he struck the deck. Undismayed by the utter hopelessness of the odds, they radiated destruction upon each of their as- sailants. Grenville was wounded early in the fight, but he disregarded it and cheered his men on to their desperate work. His indomitable spirit seemed to burn in every member of that gallant one hundred, and as their num- 286 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY bers lessened, those who were left but fought the harder. A wild huzza! rang out as the largest galley, the Ad- miral of the Hulks, sank under the fierce rain of balls. Finding that their combined broadsides could not crush the berserker attack of these mad Englishmen, the Spaniards ranged alongside and tried to board. Time and again Grenville and his few followers beat them back, from bow and stern, from starboard and larboard, one rush after another, with fresh companies ever behind to take the places of those they cut down and thrust through and hurled over the bulwarks. Hour after hour continued this Homeric combat. When one of the galleons had had enough, she sheered off and another took her place. Always the Revenge lay between from two to four, spouting heavy shot and musket-balls, boarding in superior numbers, drawing when needed on fresh ships, fresh men, fresh ammuni- tion. And still the Revenge fought on. She fought while the sun sank slowly to the west. She fought alone. In the beginning of the struggle, the little George Noble, a provision-boat with a couple of guns, lay close by under her lee; badly hulled as she was, her captain hailed Grenville and asked for orders. "Save yourself," commanded Sir Richard calmly, "and leave me to my fortune." Whereat she sped away and disappeared from sight after the rest of the squadron. Thomas Vavasour in the Foresight, too, hung on for a couple of hours, aiding his comrade as well as he could at long range. Then he had to choose, and followed the admiral, barely clearing himself from the pursuers. And Howard himself would have turned back with his whole force when he saw Grenville in the midst of THE EPIC OF THE REVENGE 287 che enemy. But his master declared he would cast himself overboard rather than take part in this suicidal throwing away of the whole squadron. So the admiral had reluctantly held on his course. From five o'clock on, the flag that fluttered above the Revenge had been utterly alone among the pennants of Castile. But ever the Revenge fought on. The red sun was swallowed up in the dancing waves. Night fell. The stars peered down at this convulsed patch of miu-kier, man-made night upon the waters, riven by sheets of flame, blown to and fro by cannon- breaths, shrouding blood and death and wounds, attack and repulse — but surcharged with undying human re- solve, electric with the spirit that battles while life lasts. For still the Revenge fought on. Shortly before midnight Grenville was again wounded, with a musket-ball through the body. While the chirurgeon was dressing this hurt, another volley came. The surgeon fell dead. Sir Richard received another shot in the head. Hastily bandaged up somehow, he took command again, and through the long night watches he held his men to their task while the enemy's assaults continued. For the Revenge still fought as if the action had just begun. Gray dawn came. The galleons attacked now only at intervals. Practically all of them had had their taste of this night's banquet, and after fifteen hours they were losing stomach for it. But while each new onslaught was beaten off, it left an ever smaller group of defenders. Nearly all these were wounded; but each man who could stand, loaded and fired a gun, or sprang with raised cutlass to repel boarders. Time 288 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY seemed utterly blotted out. It was as if the battle had lasted from the beginnmg of things and would keep on till eternity. Thought and emotion were not. The horrors about no longer made any impression. Life was but a succession of automatic firings, slash- ings, thrustings, waitings. And the Revenge fought on. Slowly the sun rose. His beams ht up such a scene as was never beheld in the history of the world. A smiling summer sea rippled in the morning breeze. There lay the Revenge — what was left of her by the eight hundred heavy shot she had received. Her masts were shot away, tangled masses of rigging hung bunched along her sides. Her upper work was razed clean: merely the lower part of a hull remained, and that was battered, splintered, pierced with gaping shot-holes. Dead, dying and wounded, English and Spanish, lay in heaps. Blood-pools washed to and fro in the scup- pers as she rolled. Of her hundred men, less than half were ahve: many of these were badly hurt. Sir Richard himself was so desperately wounded he could not stand. Ringing her about, but at a respectful distance, lay the galleons of the Armada. Two had gone to the bot- tom. Two more had been run ashore in a sinking state. Hardly one of the remaining sixteen but showed the marks of English cannon. Nearly two thousand Span- ish soldiers were dead. Yet the English flag still floated from the stump of a mast. Like a pack of hounds about a dying boar they lay, the memory of his tusks so keen that they had no mind save to glare and growl, the while they Ucked their wounds. A hundred to one in men and cannon, they THE EPIC OF THE REVENGE 289 had been fought to a standstill. So they lay impotent, watching, waiting. They were brave men, but this went beyond human calculation. They knew not what to expect. In all that long war no English ship had yet struck its flag to a Spaniard. This insignificant craft, at which they had laughed fifteen hours before, was still afloat. She could not escape, but she seemed manned by demons. They waited. The last barrel of powder had been broached aboard that shattered hulk. The pikes were bent or broken. The decks were a shambles. What was left of the crew could not survive another hand-to-hand assault. Yet the wounded leader was of the same high mind as when he sailed into the throng of hostile sea- castles. He called his master-gunner to where he lay and commanded him to blow up the ship, that "nothing might be left of glory or victory to the Spaniards." "Let us yield ourselves unto God," said he, "and to none else. Having like vaUant, resolute men repulsed so many enemies, let us not now shorten the honor of our nation in order to prolong our Uves a few hours or a few days." The master-gunner, "a most resolute man," was well content at this, as were several others. But the cap- tain and the master were of another mind. They be- sought Sir Richard to have care of those that were left. They urged that the enemy would be as wiUing as themselves to treat, since he no longer dared to attack. Surely they had done enough for honor. Moreover, the ship had six feet of water in the hold, and three holes below the water-line, so weakly stopped that she would certainly sink, and the Spaniards would have short glory of her. It was time to give the few left the 290 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY chance of life and of fighting again which they had so well earned. It was a strong argument, especially from one who, like the master, had already had a dozen wounds. It was, indeed, hard common sense. But the half-dead man who lay there was on a plane above common sense. He refused to consider the idea of surrender. While the matter was being discussed, and the cap- tain was endeavoring to persuade the men to his view, the master privately got into a boat and rowed across to the General Don Alfonso Basson, to sound the Spanish admiral as to terms. He so skilfully set forth his commander's desperate resolve, that, between fear of losing their prize after all and enforced admiration of the defense, the Spaniard offered to spare the lives of the crew and send them back to England, as well as to admit the officers to reasonable ransom without confinement to galley or prison. Returning with this surprising offer, the master found it "no hard matter to dissuade men from death to life." The crew could not resist this unexpected chance. They drew away from Sir Richard, and joined their voices to the captain and master in a decision to accept. At this the master-gunner, who alone held stanch, tried to kill himself with a sword, but was restrained and locked into his cabin. Down fluttered the flag in token of surrender. A dozen Spanish boats came alongside, and the crew, still fearing what Sir Richard might resolve, stole away in these to safety. Came then an officer from the admiral, courteously begging Sir Richard to allow himself to be removed out of this slaughter-house to a place where he might b^ better cared for. THE EPIC OF THE REVENGE 291 "Do with my body what you list," said this stout heart, "for I esteem it not." As he was carried to the side, he swooned from loss of blood. He did not see the shattered hulk behind, as the boat rowed rapidly away. It lay, tossing to and fro, deserted, forlorn. Only now had the spirit de- parted from it. As the officers gently hfted Grenville aboard the flag- ship, he recovered consciousness. "Pray for me," he said to those nearest. He was treated with every care and respect. Don Alonso himself would not look upon his face; but many of the captains and gentlemen visited him, desirous of beholding this paladin, and all marvelled at his forti- tude. The second or third day thereafter he found himself facing a more inexorable foe than on the deck of his Revenge. He looked death in the eyes unafraid. Just before the end he spoke his own epitaph: Heke die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind: for that i have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, that hath fought for his country, Queen, religion and honour. Whereby my soul most joyfully departeth out of this body, and SHALL ALWAYS LEAVE BE- HIND IT AN EVERLASTING FAME OF A VALIANT AND TRUE SOLDIER, THAT HATH DONE HIS DUTY AS HE WAS BOUND TO DO. The Spaniards repaired and manned their dearly bought prize, but the Revenge did not serve the enemy for long. Within a week after her master's death, a fearful hurricane swept the Azores. It dashed the Revenge upon the rocks of St. Michael's. She sank with 292 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY two hundred Spaniards and some of her own crew aboard. And a noble company of thu-ty more ships of the Armada went down with her in the same storm. Hers was a name of ill omen to Spanish ears. Those of the crew who reached England received six months' wages from a gracious Queen. Lord Howard, in spite of his own effort at the time, found himself obliged to defend his name against those who felt that Grenville should never have been abandoned. Some modern historians point out that Sir Richard disobeyed orders and wilfully threw away his ship in a hopeless combat. There is some justice in the charge. But it is at least possible that had the whole squadron attacked with resolution equal to Grenville's, they might have actually won a victory ; in which case, be- sides the glory, they would have achieved their object and taken the treasure-fleet, which arrived just after- ward. And the historian Froude declared this "struck a deeper terror, though it was but the action of a single ship, into the hearts of the Spanish people, it dealt a more deadly blow upon their fame and moral strength, than the destruction of the Armada itself." That sug- gests justification even from a strictly military stand- point. But admit that Grenville's act must be counted an error of judgment, even a disobedience of orders. Admit that it resulted in the first lowering of the Eng- lish flag to a Spanish vessel. His memory can well stand whatever criticism is due. As Lord Bacon declared, his fight was "memorable beyond credit, and to the Height of some Heroicall Fable." THE EPIC OF THE REVENGE 293 He made his name and his vessel immortal. He founded a never-say-die tradition in the English navy which has helped to give it for centuries the mastery of the seas. He left for all time a glorious example of human heroism. For as an inspiration to fortitude still to-day the Re- venge fights on. CHAPTER XXVII THUNDER-SHIELD These tales of brave men afloat run heavily to Eng- lishmen and Americans. Not that those nations have had any monopoly of sea-courage. "There were brave men before Agamemnon" — and after; Greeks and Venetians, Portuguese and Russians, Frenchmen and Spaniards, Dutchmen and Scandinavians, Japanese and Turks, Malay and Barbary corsairs: every nation with a seacoast has had its ocean champions. But the plain fact of history is that when English and American ships have fought those of other peoples, they have won an overwhelming majority of the battles. With a few brief interludes (like that in the seven- teenth century, when Dutch Van Tromp proudly cruised the English Channel with a broom at his mast- head to show he had swept the water clean" of foes; and when De Ruyter a few years later smashed the British fleet and sailed up the Thames itself), Great Britain held almost unchallenged mastery of the Seven Seas for some three hundred years. John Paul Jones and his successors showed there were others — of the same bull- dog breed, and a bit better at aiming cannon. Naturally the victors have the spoils of fame. Yet there was a certain Peder Wessel who showed so conclusively in 1716 (not to mention various earlier and later episodes) that the blood of the Norse sea-kings still ran hot in at least one Scandinavian son, that he demands a place here. 294 THUNDER-SHIELD 295 At the moment when Charles XII of Sweden was be- ginning his meteoric career of conquest,* Peder was a ragged boy of ten years in the Norwegian town of Trondhjem. How the young King would have smiled if some soothsayer had predicted that this little gutter- snipe, on the bleak Norway coast, four hundred miles to the northwest, would only a few years later frustrate the conqueror's dearest ambition ! Peder was ragged and a gutter-snipe by choice. His alderman father had eminently proper notions, and sufficient money, for clothing his twelve sons and six daughters decorously. In fact, if Peder was a fair sam- ple of the eighteen, it's at least a question if Alderman Wessel did not earn the title of hero (among the martyrs, like St. Lawrence grilled over a slow fire, for example) as thoroughly as his afterward famous boy. For, to put it plainly, young Peder was a holy ter- ror, a pest, of infinite, persistent, and rarely ingenious pestiferousness. He was always in rags and tatters, because like Huck Finn his spirits suffered from the confinement of clean, whole garments as definitely as his wrists would from handcuffs. At his wits' end to preserve the family reputation through the stoutest homespuns, the alder- man finally invoked his imagination: Peder, to his intense disgust, found himself encased in a pair of leather breeches, guaranteed indestructible for a season or two at least. But Peder had an imagination too. Impressing a schoolmate to work a grindstone with all his might — Peder sat on the whirling stone, managing to concen- trate enough wear and tear upon the most vulnerable spot in those tough breeches to reduce even leather to * See "A Swedish Conqueror," Part III. 296 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY the desired condition. For several years, if there was any local deviltry that the young ragamuffin wasn't in, it was merely because he was busy with some more enticing mischief elsewhere. He was naturally in constant fights with other boys as well as with authority, and he learned to use his head as well as his fists : having been once well beaten by a bigger fellow who got a grip of his long hair and punished him unmercifully, Peder presently returned to the fray with hair clipped close (like those cunning old Abantes warriors of whom Homer sings) and pate well slicked with soft soap — and turned the tables. The schoolmaster gave him up as a hopeless job. His father apprenticed him to a tailor, with a daily thrashing as a prominent part of his instruction: the imp got his chance one winter day — and the shiv- ering tailor regretted every stroke as the snowballs .smacked against his stinging face. Next a venture- some barber tried his hand with this untamable urchin. Peder got tired of lathering and scraping, and took to the streets. King Frederik, ruler over Denmark and Norway, bamboo hut — ^with a revolver! Anecdotes of sport,, of men, of narrow escapes on land and sea. WHERE WOEK IS STILL ADVENTURE 33 It all fitted into the mental picture the financier had of the man he needed — a fact of which Mr. Hall was qnite aware, for his life demands even more <[nick and accurate grasp of character than that of one who stakes his money on a given personality. And then, just casually enough, the applicant told another story which showed himself as an intimate acquaintance of the British General in command in that part of Africa where the magnate's immediate interest lay. The great man's face was impassive, but Hall had an amused conviction that this shot Jiad gone home. The event proved him correct: a couple of days later he received ofiicial notice that he had been se- lected from a hundred applicants to explore the London syndicate's new concession in Ashanti. A few months later Hall was landing on the de- pressing shore of Cape Coast Castle. There are still few more unhealthy spots in the whole world than the Guinea Coast; at this time a man's chance ■of dying from fever alone was a good deal more "than an even one. The inland country was un- known, the natives hostile and in places cannibals. All the conditions were strange, and the job to be accomplished was difficult enough even without these obstacles. But there are some men who only become fully alive when confronting danger: the ex-cowboy had simply a pleasurable sense of antici- pation of new country and an abundance of big ^ame, with a lively impatience at the tedious opera- ition of getting his belongings ashore. Nor did the gloomy prophecies of the English officials in the town affect him. He set about get- ting his porters from the Queens of the Carriers who control that labor market; and after ten days' 34 THE BOOK OF BRAVEKY hard work, he started, borne in a hammock by four stalwart blacks, in command of a motley array of five hundred natives, men and women, carrying loads ranging from sixty pounds to double that weight. Among the baggage there were four boxes upon which the leader's attention was especially concen- trated, for they contained about four thousand dol- lars in small silver for paying porters, trading with the natives, and so on. From his position in -the swaying hammock Hall kept a watchful eye on these precious chests, while at the same time he tried ta get his men in hand by inaugurating strict disci- pline, meeting every act of disobedience with the customary sjamsbok wielded by his own vigorous arm. After a tiresome trip they arrived at Kumbassi, and made camp on the outskirts of the huddle of huts. Scarcely had the Englishman crawled under his mosquito-bar and settled himself for a well- earned rest, after the struggle to bring order out of chaos and stupidity, when one of his. personal attendants ran into the tent. "Massa, massa, massa! Dey tiefum!" cried the boy excitedly. Grabbing his revolver. Hall ran out. One glance showed that the money-boxes had disappeared from the pile of luggage. Ordering the noisy blacks to keep qxiiet and search. Hall squatted down so that he could see the moving figures against the dim sky-line, hoping he might still catch a glimpse of the robber making off, and gripping his pistol in the determination to give him a sharp lesson. Presently a chorus of shouts broke out from the WHERE WORK IS STILL ADVENTURE 35 darkness to his left. Hastening over, he found half-a-dozen men grouped about the missing boxes. They had been forced open and emptied of their contents. Most of the five hundred men of the party had gone into the village for the night. Without a moment's hesitation, Hall started for the town, fol- lowed by a few blacks carrying lights. He found his porters scattered about everywhere among the natives, in the huts and on the ground; the long carrying-cloths, which they rolled up to make head- pads for their loads, were now turned into bedding, and under these coverings most of them were sleep- ing soundly. Setting his teeth, the leader began a systematic scrutiny of every figure. As he stepped between and over the sprawling blacks who almost covered the earth, the lantern light revealed to his quick eye a bunch of burs on one sleeper 's covering. He jerked the cloth off, exposing a series of tell-tale white scratches on the fellow's legs. The porter sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes and blinking at the light. He was a vicious-looking big chap, and he somewhat overdid his confused pretense of innocent ignorance. Indeed, an eye trained by necessity to read another 's intentions be- fore the act could not fail to perceive that he was hesitating to attack only because of the habit of submission. Hall leveled the revolver at him without a word. The threat in the ugly black face instantly turned to terror. "Massa, massa — ^no shoot," he begged. "Maybe me findum." He scrambled to his feet, shaking in every limb. 36 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Casting ludicrous apprehensive glances behind at the steady muzzle of the revolver, he led the way through the darkness to a great rudder-root tree between the towa and camp. There, hidden in the deep recesses between the projecting ribs, lay the missing bags of threepences, unopened. Full of satisfaction at recovering the money, Hall still realized the necessity of making an example of the offender. So he ordered the thief strung up by the wrists, then chained him to his own bed, and at the end of three days turned him off. There- after the leader slept each night with the money- chests chained to his cot. It became increasingly difiSicult to manage the blacks with the attractions of Kumbassi so close at hand; but in spite of every effort it was ten days before the exasperating delays could be overcome. At last everything was in readiness for the start. The head-loads were all corded up ; every man was in place and ready. Hall went into one of the filthy huts to get his "chop" before setting out, while the headman outside was setting the slow procession in motion. He had taken a few spoonfuls of soup when the familiar "Massa, massa, massa!" warned him of trouble. Jumping up from the table, he strode outside, and beheld a big negro who was roughly command- ing the bearers to put down their loads. The fellow was tremendous in size, greasy and prosperous- looking; and the Englishman at once recognized him as the leading money-lender of Kumbassi. It speedily became clear that a large number of the carriers had gotten into his debt during these ten days, he having freely financed their plunge into WHERE WORK IS STILL ADVENTURE 37 town pleasures. He now declared they belonged to him Tintil these advances were paid, and insolently refused to let them leave the place. The blacks looked from one master to the other, not knowing which to fear most, but ready to obey the one who proved himself stronger. It was no time for half measures: Hall saw in a flash that his control of the party depended on settling the matter in the only way the blacks could understand. Besides, the Wangari's demands were plainly most exorbitant, and his manner was such as no Avhite man could permit without losing all his influence with the natives. The rascal was almost twice his weight, and noted for "dirty" fighting among a community where ear-biting is a customary feature of combat; but without any further parley Hall went for him with bare fists. It was a sharp set-to for a few moments. The negro was tremendously strong, and if he had known how to box could have demolished his as- sailant in a twinkling. But the little Englishman gave him no chance; his blood rose with the en- counter; he felt a sense of strength he had never experienced in his life; and presently, "with a stiff- legged jump," he landed a blow on the other's jaw that had every ounce of his weight behind it. The darky went down like a pole-axed steer and lay unconscious. At Hall's command, the porters re- sumed their loads, and the long procession filed away from Kumbassi into the wilderness. From that moment the five hundred never doubted whom they should obey. There followed long months of travel through a wild country, accompanied for part of the time by 38 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY a mining expert who studied the mineral resources of the land. Hall found all the shooting and all the adventure he had looked for; he saw the great go- rillas, savage beasts creeping off with irregular shambling movements through the tall grass, which do not hesitate to attack the natives ; he had a nar- row escape from a python, stepping right over it as he hurried through the jungle after a wounded hartebeeste — and when he had killed it found the creature was a few inches short of thirty feet long ; but his coolness and pluck carried him through everything, and he completed the exploration for which he had come. At length, far in the Ashanti interior, he decided to strike east with only ten blacks and return to the coast by descending the unknoAvn waters of the Volta River. He was assured he would never suc- ceed, and would probably be eaten by the canni- bals ; but he declared he would manage it somehow by Christmas. The tribes they passed became wilder and more hostile as they pushed on into a region where the white had never penetrated. They had diflEiculty in getting food and had to be on guard constantly, and the blacks insisted that it was madness to make the attempt. But Hall pushed cheerfully on, and at last they did come to the Volta River, They found themselves, however, in a large vil- lage where a tribe of five or six thousand natives promptly made them prisoners in fact though not in name. Their intentions became plain enough that night when the savages held a grand ju-ju dance. Led by the king and the chief medicine man, beating tom-toms of hollow logs and skins, and blowing on hartebeeste horns, the bedaubed crew WHERE WORK IS STILL ADVENTURE 39 went through the ceremonies which the Englishman recognized as preparatory to sacrifice; and when the painted and bedecked medicine man danced round him and shook some drops of red liquid on him, there was no doubt whatever that they meant to kill him next day. Hall did not show any outward concern, but he realized that he was in a tight place. Early next morning he walked to the river and demanded ca- noes in which to continue his journey. The blacks, who were always near when he moved, replied eva- sively : there were no canoes ; the other natives had stolen them all. Still taking a high hand. Hall ordered them to send for the king, and seated himself in dignity on an Ashanti stool. The monarch" soon appeared, followed by his retinue of state, one attendant holding over him a palm-leaf umbrella. The royal stool was placed opposite that of the white man. The palaver began. It was a very prolonged and unsatisfactory talk for the traveler. For four hours he sat there in the blistering stm, rifle across lap and revolver handy, receiving only evasions and circumlocutions and falsehoods to his questions and demands. His ten followers, crouching in abject fear, showed by their faces what result they expected. Still they were getting nowhere, and Hall knew that his only chance lay in cutting short the pur- poseful delay. He tried sheer bluff. ''This little palaver no good," he broke out in disgust. Then, looking his black antagonist in the eye, he added emphatically: "Big palaver live to come. ' ' The savage's face showed he was impressed — the 40 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY more since this lone white man was so completely in his power. His tone altered. Presently he gave an order. As if by magic, canoes appeared from everywhere. Hall got into a forty-foot pirogue manned by the royal paddlers. In a few moments he was gliding swiftly down the Volta and away from this dangerous neighborhood. The nearest paddler, a big, brawny savage, evi- dently disapproved of this ending to the situation. He scowled and muttered at the white man facing him, but avoided meeting his eye. Hall watched him like a hawk. As they shot down the current he noticed the fellow's toe sticking up. He felt the man was working himself up to the point of attack- ing. Waiting his chance, he suddenly bent forward, grabbed the toe, caught hold of an arm with the other hand, and heaved the struggling brute into the river. Then the pirogue continued on its way in peace. On Christmas Day, as he had predicted, the ex- plorer landed at Cape Coast Castle to the amaze- ment of all who heard his tale. His success in this pioneer work led to his being given a sort of roving commission to manage the native workers in the mines. They were always giving trouble of one kind or another, and the filth in which they lived bred frequent outbreaks of small-pox which ravaged the settlement. Hall gradually acquired a great influence with all of the various tribes represented. He would joke and frolic with them, to their huge delight: he would waltz a negro mammy along the main street of the capital; but every black learned that when he promised or threatened to do a thing he did it. The other whites thought him a crack-brained idler. WHERE WORK IS STILL ADVENTURE 41 Presently a rumor began to spread that this friv- olous outsider had a plan of burning down the worst infected village. The wise ones shook their heads and prophesied trouble. One German espe- cially, on the mine staff, was loud in his denuncia- tion of such folly. Even the President Commis- sioner became apprehensive and sent word that he didn't know what Hall was up to, but he'd cer- tainly decide against him when the claims for com- pensation came in. Hall paid no attention to all this or to the mut- terings of the blacks. He would travel alone down the narrow jungle paths by day or night, arguing with the natives and trying to bring them to reason. The place reeked with pestilence; on one occasion he met a pair of bearers carrying, slung from a pole, the corpse of a man who had just died of small-pox : the confused carriers swung about, com- pletely blocking the slashed out track and making exposure to infection almost inevitable; moreover, the natives of the threatened village were increas- ingly hostile and the chance of his taking-off by knife or poison seemed always imminent. He was carried to one conference with a dislo- cated knee, the result of a fall. The native leaders told him flatly they would not permit him to carry out his design. To emphasize this decision they put forward as spokesman their biggest bully, a hulking chap who tried to scare the Englishman by the most violent threats. After listening a while, Hall told the chief through the interpreter to send another person to talk: he was tired of this man. Besides this one wouldn't live long anyhow— a remark which threw the superstitious blacks into consternation. 42 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY During all this time he was having a space hacked out of the jungle where new huts could be built. Excitement ran high and many of the towns- foUv feared there would be a general uprising if the thing were attempted. The Grerman mentioned taunted him at the club one day as the staff were lunching. "I thought you were going to burn down Tamsu to-day," he sneered. Hall had never mentioned the subject to any of his fellows. He merely replied: "It was to burn down at four p.m. It's only one now." A couple of hours later he set out with one black and a kerosene torch, went to Tamsu and burned down the whole plague-ridden nest of hovels. The natives stood and watched him as if hypnotized. Then they quietly settled in the new place that had been prepared, and there was a lull in the small-pox. After that this Massa's word was law. He ac- tually made J;hem agree to the hut tax which the government had vainly tried to levy in order to have some control. They paid it, too — seven shillings and sixpence ($1.80) "every three big moons," to a total of nearly three thousand dollars the first year. And then, after the fashion of such men, having done his hard and dangerous job, he went on to look for more adventure elsewhere. CHAPTER V C. Q. D. A TRANSATLANTIC liner was nosing her way along ihrough the fog. The whole world seemed blind and muffled. A chill January night settled down upon the murky ocean. The steamer's bells tolled forth a persistent anxious warning, emphasized at regular intervals by the protesting, squawking bel- low of her siren, as she cautiously groped ahead into the encompassing blackness. Most of the five hundred people on board were comparatively unconcerned. They were passengers. Bound for the Mediterranean, they had left their Tesponsibilities behind; so they passed the evening with the usual shipboard gaieties and "turned in" for the night as confidently as if they were in their own homes. But the steamship herself was alert and tense as is a man advancing over dangerous unknowai ground in pitch darkness. The little iron tanks on each side of the bow and the human ears back of them were listening for submarine signals from lightships' bells. The watertight compartments were locked in preparation for any sudden accident. The wireless operator had his ears "in the air" for any impulse striking the hard rubber receivers ; the vessel was about 175 miles southeast of Nantucket Island and he had been in regular communication with the shore station at Siasconsett — ordinary, 43 44 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY every-day messages wliicli made it seem almost ab- surd to look for anything sudden or startling; but a seaman's attitude in a fog becomes that of expect- ing the unexpected, for he knows well the chances when the ocean leviathans go blind. Especially on the alert was the Captain. He was in charge. He held the lives of those five hundred men and women in the hollow of his hand — ^not to mention the life of his ship, which is almost more precious than his o-viTi to a true sailorman. He had no thought of sleep: up on his bridge he paced to and fro, wait- ing for any least hint of danger from any quarter. The night wore on. The Republic crept forward mile after mile. Never a sound except her own warnings came to those on watch. Toward morn- ing, Binns, the wireless operator, who handled the job alone, climbed into his berth for some sleep. It was his first opportunity since leaving New York the day before, for the wireless man must keep in touch with the shore stations, and a solitary opera- tor gets few chances even for cat-naps while his ship is within a couple of hundred miles of port. Still the Republic crept on into the fog, her siren crossly announcing that she couldn't see her own length ahead and she didn't like it, and everything had better keep out of the way if there was any- thing behind that impenetrable veil. And still the Captain strode up and down, too keenly alive to his responsibility even to feel sleepy. A fog at sea is a treacherous enemy for whom familiarity breeds watchful resentment instead of contempt. The more a captain sees of it, the less he likes it. He learns only too surely that this is a time when, even after a lifetime of experience, his best may not be good enough. a Q. D. 45 Four o'clock came, and five. Practically every- body on board, save the Captain, the Avateh, and the engine-room crew, was asleep. "Three bells" sounded from the deck. "While it was still a long time before dawTi on sneh a morning. Captain Seal- by began to feel as if his vigil were nearing an end. Look as he might, however, there was no sugges- tion of any lightening in the blank chaos in which they moved like a ship in a misty dream. Suddenly he stopped short in his monotonous walk, in an attitude of intent listening. Yes, he had not been mistaken: he had heard a bell somewhere out there in the thickness. There it was again — faint, muffled, elusive, but clearly a fog bell on some other vessel. He gave a sharp signal to the quartermaster. The Republic bellowed forth a prolonged, full- throated warning from her whistle: "Look out! Look out! Look o-u-t!" she seemed to call. The sound had hardly died away when a querulous an- swering shriek split the fog as if to say: "Look out yourself! I can't see!" There was something pa- thetic about these two great blind things groping about in mutual terror of each other's involuntary power of harm. With every muscle and nerve taut as a mainsheet in a gale, Captain Sealby strained his eyes through the murk in the ei¥ort to locate the other ship. He had at once signaled his engi- neer to slow do"«Ti, and the Republic's screw was barely turning fast enough to give her seaway. She hesitated there, marking time, till some hint should come of just where the danger was. All at once a piece of the fog wall to port thick- ened into a darker blurred mass before Sealby 's eyes. It grew larger, blacker, menacing. It was 46 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY no fog-wraith or squall cloud. It was the other steamer, coming straight for him and coming fast. He signaled instantly: "Full speed astern!" The Republic gave one worried roar — ^meaning in ship-language that she intended to pass on the port side of the stranger. The latter whistled back a sharp assent, accepting the manoeuvre. And while these echoes still rang in the ears, a great black mass loomed up with frightful rapid- ity on the port side. As silently as in some night- mare it transformed itself before the Captain's horrified eyes into the vast sharp prows of a steamer. Even then the stealthy suddenness of its coming made it seem like an unreal phantom of the imagination. The next instant there was a crash. That on- coming edged wall struck the Republic slantingly, a little aft of amidships. It crushed through hull, timbers, state-rooms, and coal-bunkers, piercing to the engine-room; and the stricken vessel stopped, quivering under the blow as if it were indeed some live creature that had received a death-wound. Startled from sleep by the shock, the hundreds of passengers were powerfully affected by this change from controlled purposeful motion to the uncertain, staggering, aimless pitchings to and fro which they now felt. One must go through such an experience to realize how overwhelming it is to lose confidence suddenly in the great vessel which has seemed to master the waves so easily. To add to the terror of the situation, all the lights went out, the dynamos having been put out of commis- sion. With over two hundred excitable steerage passengers on board, there were all the elements for a panic which might produce ghastly results. C. Q. D. 47 Captain Sealby rose to the emergency. The ves- sel which had cut the Republic down had backed out and drifted away in the fog. The water was rushing in like a mill-race. In the darkness it was impossible to ascertain the extent of the injury, and no one could tell whether the ship would stay afloat for minutes or hours. The first task, how- ever, was to get the passengers out in readiness for whatever might come. Quietly the officers and stewards collected the white-faced men and women who rushed out of their state-rooms in all sorts of grotesque costumes, re- assuring them by their manner more than by their words, directing, guiding, herding them out to the promenade deck. There was a great outburst of screaming and wailing at first in the steerage, but the "capositives," or under-stewards, hastened about among their countrymen assuring them there was little danger, cowing a few panicky groups who were rushing wildly they knew not where, giving them crisp orders which the poor bewildered crea- tures presently obeyed blindly. It was a motley crowd that huddled on the prom- enade deck that gloomy January morning, half an hour after the accident. Hardly anybody had been calm enough to dress completely. Men and women alike caught up the first garments they could lay their hands on, and followed the instructions which alone seemed to promise any hope. Those who could cover their sleeping costumes with fur coats looked conventional beside the women in trousers and the men in skirts, the queer combinations and misfits. But they had little sense of humor then, even at the sight of the dignified elderly gentleman, whose chalky face made his correct, gray side- 48 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY "whiskers look dark, as he shivered beneath a bril- liant petticoat of his wife 's. Nor did it add to their peace of mind as details of the disaster were wliis- pered from group to group, and they learned that two passengers lay dead and four were wounded in that tangle of shattered wood and twisted steel where the other steamer's bow had crushed through five state-rooms. Ordering the stewards to serve coffee and food, the Captain made a short speech from his deck. Very calmly he told them that there was no imme- diate danger, but that prudence dictated they should be transferred to the vessel which had run them down. There was a feeble cheer and a buzz of relief at that ; for some hours their part was merely to Avait, trying to keep warm in the penetrating, chill dampness, while comparing notes as to their experiences, bewailing the belongings they had not dared to try to save, and even laughing at the rue- ful face of the stout, baldheaded man who had res- cued nothing from his state-room except a comb. But there was plenty of Avork for others. As stated. Jack Binns, the wireless operator, had turned in about three o 'clock to snatch a few hours ' sleep. He was awakened by being hurled out of his bunk to the floor, amid a crunching, grinding, rip- ping noise that sounded as if the foundations of the world about were falling in. A panel of the cabin wall flew into splinters, and the whole wall was wrenched into gaping slits. The first idea that came into his mind as he dazedly picked himself up was that the Republic must have run ashore. The next was a wonder if his precious aerial wires between the masts had been jarred loose by the shock. He hastily tested them. C. Q. D. 49 Finding them still intact, he settled at once into the operator. That was his job. He was the human link between the wounded ship and the outside world from which help might come. Peering through the holes in the wrecked wood- work, he could see a dark object over which the waves were Avashing, and concluded this was the rock they had struck; it was some time before he discovered that it was merely boat No. 15, which was always swung out from the ship's side and had been torn from its davits. Out went the lights. That meant only one thing to the operator: his power from the dynamos was gone; he must depend on the accumulators which are carefully kept charged for just such an emer- gency. It was but a moment's work to find them under the shelf, even in the darkness, and to switch them on. Then he tried to make his way to the captain 's bridge to report himself ready for action ; but the piled-up wreckage made this so difficult in the darkness that he returned to his shattered cabin and began to work his key: "C Q" (important). ''D" (danger). Just then the steward came along with a light. He piloted Binns back to the Captain's bridge through the fog pall, past the forlorn crowd of pas- sengers who were assembling on the boat deck, past the crew who were smartly swinging out the boats in perfect discipline. Making his report and receiving his orders, the operator hurried back to his post, more than ever realizing that the situation was "up to" him. At this time no one knew just how badly injured the vessel was; but in spite of his encouraging words to the passengers, the Captain thought she might 50 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY go down at any moment. That made no difference. A man's job is his job, especially at sea. Reaching his ruined cabin, through which the wind blew piercingly, Binns clamped the steel bands of the headpiece on his head, and jammed the hard-rubber receivers against his ears. They call the wireless operators the "men of the broken ear," because the strain of trying to catch impor- tant messages at sea is sometimes so great that one involuntarily forces this receiving apparatus tighter and tighter, never noticing the pain though the cartilages of the ears may be mashed and crum- pled into permanent flexibility. The spark from accumulators is much more fee- ble than that from the dynamos, and this lessening of the working radius added greatly to the diffi- culty and anxiety. Moreover, in the first confusion of "finding himself" when the lights went out, Binns had managed to break the lever of the send- ing key. He foimd, however, that by holding the broken lever with one hand and sending with the other, he could project his feeble spark. Out through the fog it sped: "C Q"— "K C" (the Republic's letters). "C Q — K C," "K C." Had the full power been available, the most di- rect way would of course have been to flash out the call for help to all vessels within full radius. There was still a possibility that he might reach something besides the unkno\\Ti ship that had col- lided with them; but the best chance was to pick up the Siasconsett station on Nantucket and have the message relayed oiit from that powerful appa- ratus. So while his fingers worked the awkward broken key, every nerve in his body seemed con- He found, however, that ... he could project his feeble spark [Page 50 C. Q. D. 51 centrated in attention to catch the hoped-for re- sponse from land. At last, to his infinite relief, it came. Nearly two hundred miles away, Ginman, the Siasconsett operator, had been clicking off routine messages when the faint but insistent repetition broke in up- on his attention. He at once dropped everything else and flashed back an acknowledgment of the call whose urgency he recognized- "K C" snapped out Binns. "We are ship- wrecked. Stand by for Captain's message." "All right, old man," came back the instant re- ply. "Where are you?" Just then the chief officer stuck his head into the door of Binns' little cabin, anxiously inquiring if he had been able to get in conmaunication with any- body yet; Hearing that Siasconsett had answered, he hurried off and presently brought back the Cap- tain's message: "Eepublic rammed by unknown steamer. Twen- ty-six miles southwest of Nantucket Lightship. Badly in need of immediate assistance, but no dan- ger to life." Five minutes later Binns had the comforting as- surance that the revenue cutter Acushnet had been ordered to start at once from Wood's Hole to as- sist them, and that the call had also been flashed to the Baltic, La Lorraine, and the City of Everett, all of which were within range. With the realization that all this machinery had been set in motion, Binns had a moment's respite from the strain which had gripped him since he first found himself hurled to the floor by the collision. Dawn was coming reluctantly. He glanced about in the faint gray light and the signs of destruction 52 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY gave him a fresh sense of the peril. Then he shud- dered as his eye fell upon two mangled bodies lying on the floor just outside of his battered cabin. It was still too dark to make out whether they were men or women. They lay there, silent and ghastly, depressing testimony to the malignant force that seemed to be encompassing the vessel. Presently the doctor came. He announced after a moment's examination that both these unfortu- nates had been killed outright. The bodies were covered with blankets and carried away. The roll of the passengers had to be called before they could be identified. The operator shivered again as this mournful procession departed. The wind was whistling through the gashed walls and it seemed to drive the clammy fog into his very vitals. Realizing for the first time how scantily clothed he was, he pulled on a pair of boots and got a waistcoat. Finding an apple, he munched this, and took a drink of water. Then his work called him again. Word came from the shore station that it was in touch with the Baltic, and the latter was coming to help as rapidly as she dared. It was so difficult for one ship to find another in the fog, however, that it was highly important for Binns to get into direct communication with the Baltic to guide her to the spot. Over and over he tried, but though he could hear her messages going to Siasconsett, his own dis- abled spark was too weak to carry that far. He could only force it to the utmost and wait in strained anxiety till the big vessel came within his range. Meanwhile, Captain Sealby did not dare to delay longer in transferring his passengers. The Florida, which had run them down, lay about a thousand feet C. Q. D. 53 away, her bow badly crushed. She was clearly in better shape than the poor Republic, and it might be a long time before a rescuing vessel could locate them in this enforced game of hide-and-seek. So at eight 'clock the boats were loaded, women and chil- dren j&rst, twenty-five or thirty to a boat. It was touch-and-go work, especially with the frightened Italians and Slavs, for there was some sea running ; but by eleven the last trip was accomplished. Only the Captain and crew remained on the battered Be- piiblic. The situation was still serious enough. The Florida now had about 2,000 people on board and was terribly overcrowded. She was all crumpled up forward, and if the wind should rise, she would be in a bad way indeed with such a load. Her food sup- ply was as inadequate as her accommodations, for she had been nearing the end of her trip. Moreover, she had no mreless. So it was still Binns upon whom lay the burden of directing the reliefs for all. He had now gotten into communication with the Baltic, and messages were steadily crackling be- tween the two ships, urging speed and giving direc- tions on the one hand, sending encouragement and assurance on the other. It was nerve-racking work in the chill desolation of that wrecked cabin, with his broken key, and the knowledge that it must last for hours with the best of luck, whereas the lurches of the water-logged Bepublic seemed at times to in- dicate that it was but a matter of minutes before the eager waves would drag her down. Nor did it lessen this tension when the fog lifted about noon and he could see the Florida, her bows gone almost to the bridge, and most of her remain- ing forward plates twisted into hopeless confusion. 54 THE BOOK OF BKAVERY The gray waves in between had a sort of cruel eagerness as they trembled forward to slap against the side of the disabled ship. BiTt there was little time to indulge in fancies. The fog shut down into a gray wall again. The messages were going or coming continually. He was the one link between 2,000 human beings in increasing peril and the aid that must be piloted to the spot through this means alone. There were other vessels too seeking for them; in such blind- man's-buff no chance must be overlooked; so, when he was not directing the Baltic, he was persistently striving to send his weak spark to the ears of these other operators. About 2 o'clock the steward, who had been carry- ing messages all morning between the cabin and bridge, brought him a little food, and he gulped this down while sending and receiving. His patient efforts were reAvarded finally. There snapped upon his ear-drums a succession of long and short impulses that told him he had reached the Lorraine and that she also was on the way. So there Avere two definite rescuers to lead, while still feeling around for any other possibilities in the neighborhood. Hour after hour this went on. Darkness fell earh^, and it was almost impossible to keep up hope as the time dragged along and the searchers re- ported their inability to hasten more. A little after four. Captain Sealby, thinking the Republic might sink at any moment, sent off the cabin and engine crews to the Florida, since they could be of no more use. Indeed, there was little that could be done except to explode bombs in the hope of giving the rescuers something to steer by. C. Q. D. 55 By six 'clock the supply of bombs tiad been used up. The wireless was growing weaker, for the ac- cumulators were almost exhausted and there was no way of recharging them. The Republic had set- tled down alarmingly. The Baltic was close by somewhere, but there was no sign of her to eye or ear ; only the spark leaping through the night kept hope alive. The operator had little idea of ever seeing land again. He confessed afterwards that he had resigned himself to the fate which every sea- faring man contemplates as a possibility. But the work was still there. The captain was still sending messages, instructions. He had no idea but to see it through as long as his broken key would start a tiny impulse, or his receiver take in a message. Bours, the operator on La Lorraine, slipped in a personal message between times: "How are you, old man?" "I'm on the job," Binns flashed back. "Ship sinking, but will stick to the end." Up on his bridge the Captain gave an exclama- tion. His ear had caught a faint noise in the dis- tance. He at once ordered the operator to make inquiries, and Binns learned that the Baltic had been exploding bombs in an effort to apprise them of her whereabouts. She had but one left. So it was arranged that she should set this off at a given moment, that Captain Sealby might mark the direction. Noting by compass the exact quarter from which the muffled sound seemed to come, he had the opera- tor send steering directions. The watches on the helpless, wallowing Republic listened in a suspense that hardly permitted them to breathe. Presently they heard a faraway foghorn. Eock- 56 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY ets were sent up from time to time, but the Baltic could not see them for the fog. The horn soimded louder. Then came the bellow of the siren, so clear that it was evident the rescuing vessel was very close. More messages were wirelessed by Binns, direct- ing the Baltic to proceed with great care or she would complete the destruction instead of saving them, for she was now very close to the port side. Hardly had this warning been clicked off when the operator heard a cheer. He knew his captain and the crew were busy with the boats. Could it be ? Jumping up, he peered aft through the splendid wreckage of his cabin wall. The fog had once more lifted slightly. There, all ablaze with lights, was the 700-foot Baltic — a beautiful sight to any eyes, but poignantly wonder- ful to those which saw in it rescue from the en- gulfing death over which they had hung poised so many hours. It was almost like being born again into a world of beauty and good cheer. Nor had help come any too soon. The weather was clearing, but there was a heavy swell running, and at nearly every heave the wounded Bepuhlic seemed to settle do"v\Ti a little deeper into the hungry waters. A message clicked out from the broken key which had done such good service : "Come to our leeward and take up our boats. Have Lorraine and Laconia convoy the Florida. Wireless closed." Captain Sealby sent off Binns with the officers and crew. He kept the chief officer, the boatswain and enough sailors to man one boat, for he was de- C. Q. D. 57 termined to stay by his ship as long as she -would float. The rest reached the big liner safely and received a volley of welcoming cheers as they came along- side. Sealby megaphoned to the Baltic's captain to go to the assistance of the overcroAvded Florida. "Leave me," he called. "I'm all right." So they again transferred the 2,000 passengers across that tumbling stretch of water, the waves making the loading a nightmare for the frightened women and demanding the most seamanlike han- dling to avoid disaster. Then the Baltic lay by till dawn. When daylight came it was seen that the Florida had righted from her list. Her captain decided to make for port without assistance. The Baltic steamed back to the Republic, which all were sur- prised to see still on the face of the waters. Sealby shouted across asking for volunteers to return and stand by. He was of the bulldog breed. Binns was one of the first to volunteer. He and about thirty others- — officers, sailors and stewards — gave up their hard-won safety and returned to that melancholy death-trap to see the thing through. The broken key was waiting for him. He at once began to wireless inquiries for the tugs they were expecting. The Gresham and the Furnessia, which had come up, stood by to safeguard this forlorn hope. The Baltic Math her rescued thousands steamed away for New York. It was fine to hear the cheer that burst from every living soul aboard of her when she swung past the stern of the poor Republic, whose people were mak- ing such a plucky fight in her behalf. But the oper- 58 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY ator's cabin looked cheerless enough as the great liner disappeared into the horizon. Binns nailed up some blankets to protect him from the keen wind, and settled down again to the busi- ness of calling and listening and waiting. The Gresham arrived on the scene. Taking a hawser from the bow, she began to tow the BepxMic, while the Furnessia, attached by two lines to the stern, steered the clumsy hulk as well as she could. For some hours this queer procession fought its way along. Then the Captain ordered his volun- teers to take to the boats. The water was gaining so rapidly in the Republic's hold that he would not risk their lives any longer. Binns presently found himself on board the Gresham, without even the cigarettes he had had by his side, gazing back at the doomed vessel on which there was now nobody but the Captain and his sec- ond officer. Everything was in readiness for the last act of the drama, but still the Gresham towed on; and when the Seneca came up, she also put out a line and helped. Darkness fell. Six o'clock came, then seven. The watchers on the Gresham missed the lights of the Furnessia in the rear. ) Eight o'clock. A signal light sputtered through the darkness from the Republic. Before one could realize what was happening, a waiting seaman had brought his axe down across the rope hawser; the crew was in the lifeboat and pulling astern as if their lives depended on it; and the Gresham' s searchlight was playing upon the bow of the Be- puhlic. C. Q. 1). 59 One glimpse only they had of the ship. Then it plunged beneath the waves. The men who kept that last watch on the Repub- lic's bridge lived to tell the story. "We could tell it was coming," said Captain Sealby, ' ' and when we realized that at last the time to desert the Republic was close at hand Williams and I just stood there and waited. We knew it was not to be a long wait. Suddenly we heard a rum- bling and then a cracking sound aft and the stern of the Republic began to go down rapidly. "I turned to Williams and said, 'Well, old man, what do you think about it?' " 'I have an idea it won't be a long race now,' Williams answered, 'and when you are ready I am.' " 'Burn the blue lights,' I said, and then, as a signal to the Gresham that it was time to cut the hawsers that bound her to the Republic, I fired five shots into the air from my revolver. That was the beginning of the last few minutes of the Republic. 'Take to the fore rigging; get as high as possible,' I shouted to Williams. "From the bridge deck to the saloon deck, both of us carrying blue lights, Williams and I ran. When we got to the saloon deck the water was al- ready coming over that deck, aft, and we could see the stern sinking rapidly, the incline of the deck, as we ran forward, becoming so steep that we began to slip with every step forward. "About that time I saw Williams for the last time on the Republic. He was hanging on to the port rail, and dim as was the light, I saw he was as game as ever. I took to the fore rigging and climbed up about 100 feet. In my pocket was a blue light, and I took it out, but it would not go off. 60 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY There was still one more shell in my pistol, however, and I fired that. "Do-ftTi, down, down went the Republic, and soon she was entirely submerged, and a moment later I was in the water. I wore my greatcoat, and the air getting under that made it support me, while the binocular, the revolver, and the cartridges that were in my pockets acted as a sort of ballast, so to speak. The water around me by this time was seething and roaring, due to the suction caused by the Be- piihlic as she sank, and several times I was carried do\\Ti, only to be churned back to the surface again. I was wet through and through now, and my great- coat had become a perilous burden instead of a sup- port, and I tried to get it off, but it could not be done. Fortunately there was much debris around, and I found a stout piece of lumber, and to this I made fast as best I could. "All this time the powerful searchlights on the Seneca and the Gresham were playing around me. I fumbled in my pocket and got out my pistol, and then I got a cartridge and put it in the cylinder. I had no idea it would go off, but it did. Finally the searchlights located the place where the Repub- lic had gone doA\Ti. The life crews of the Gresham and the Seneca were looking for us all this time, and were, of course, being guided by the search- lights. It seemed as if they would never find me, and once more I got out my revolver and fired, and once again, to my surprise, the cartridge exploded. "I was getting numb now, and knew that I could not hold out for a very long, time. I looked about me and saw something white in the water. It was a towel. My strength was going fast, and I was chilled to the bone, yet I managed to wave that C. Q. D. 61 towel, and maybe that was what saved my life, for a few minutes later a lifeboat, under command of Gunner Johansen of the Oresham, came up, and Johansen, a big, strapping sailor of the type that does your heart good to see, picked me up and laid me in the bottom of his boat. A few minutes later I was on the Gresham. I was almost in, too. ' ' PART II CRUSADERS, MISSIONARIES, AND HOLY WARS The psychologists tell us that ivhen one idea dominates the "field of consciousness" it drives all others out of the mind. When the potverful primi- tive emotions like fear and anger take possession, everything else is forgotten. And the crusading fervor, the impulse to go oiit and conquer something in the name of religion, has alivays been one of the passions to which man's mind gave itself up com- pletely if at all. It seems, somehoiv, as if the amazing Crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when even armies of children started for the rescue of Jerusa- lem, shouting "Ood tvills it!" ivere far less im- pressive than the many individuals who have gone quietly out to carry light into the world's dark places, under the spur of a conviction that they ivere called from on high. In fact, many of the most conspicuous Crusaders were really driven toivard the Holy City hy a fear of future punishment for crimes they had com- mitted, exhibiting that "piety of savage, simple minds ivhich held that the doing of an exceptionally bad deed could be cancelled by the doing of an ex- ceptionally good one." But it was a far different "call" that came to Hans Egede, from the frozen wastes of Greenland, or to good John Eliot from the neglected Indians, or to Dr. Livingstone from "Darkest Africa." It is a ivide range of this religious fervor which is shoivn here from the fanatic Dervishes at Om- 65 durman to that magnificent Jesuit, Isaac Jogues, ivJio belongs alike to Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Mahometan, Zoroastrian, Confucian or Shintoist — to every human being who is moved by the highest devotion to an ideal of ivhich our frail human bodies and minds are capable. 66 CHAPTER VI THREE MUSKETEERS OF THE NORTH Ik a little village on the largest Danish island of Seeland, some fifty miles west of Copenhagen, an ancient church thrusts upward the double allowance of two stone towers "above the wheat-field where the skylark soars and sings to its nesting mate." It has stood there for seven hundred years — a sign-language memorial to a man who acted with all his might the Knights Templars' precept "Pray and fight," and to his paladin brother. Upon the walls within, hidden for centuries by whitewash, the original twelfth-century paintings tell the story of how Sir Asker and Lady Inge, his wife, offered this twin-towered edifice to the Virgin in worshipful thanksgiving for their two mighty sons. The memory of Absalon and Esberne the Fleet indeed juts upward toward the sky in stone. The two brothers grew up in days when stout hearts and strong arms were conditions of existing, much more of accomplishing something in the world. Not for nothing were the Danes of the twelfth cen- tury christened ' * the barbarians of the north ' ' ; the years were scant enough since they had definitely forsaken the worship of their battling ^sir gods for that of the "White Christ, though it was three hundred years since the Frankish monks of Louis the Debonair had first labored with them and Ans- 67 68 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY garius had converted the Swedes to the north ; with all their magnificent virtues, the Viking blood caused their swords to leap into action much of the time. In a single century nearly a score of kings and their kin had died some sudden death. The boys' very pla>T.nate, bound to them by warmest ardor of young friendship, was Valdemar, whose father had been foully murdered by a rival aspiring to the crown. That the child himself lived was only due to the protection of the father of Absalon, who had been a foster-brother of the assassinated prince. So, as was fitting, the primary lessons of the three were in the grim duties of the warrior. Well they learned them. And well in after years they kept the unspoken but binding pact which cemented them into a sort of phalanx like that of the uncon- querable "Three Musketeers." Absalon, the oldest, was to be a priest; but the shepherd of the flock in those stern days needed sword quite as much as crook. At eighteen he went to France to study; but though he became "the most learned clerk" in the Paris cloister of St. Genevieve, he was anything but "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." He hardened his powerful body and quickened his eye and steadied his nerve with the martial exercises of the days of knights and chiv- alry, and all the newest lore of combat developed in France and Germany. He could use an axe to fell trees for the cloister fires, or a battle-axe to crash through an opponent's helmet. In full armor he could swim like a fish — and more than once later on saved less expert comrades who were drowning in their clumsy iron garments. He broke vicious horses with a daring that made the gentler brethren THREE MUSKETEERS OF THE NORTH 69 cross themselves and exclaim frightened paternos- ters for his safety. Also he listened to his fiery-tongued master, Ab- hot Bernard of Clairvaulx, in the new miracles of Gothic cathedrals, Avhen this churchly potentate preached eternal salvation to every Christian who would help to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the paynim in the Second Crusade. And there grew up a deep conviction in the young monk's mind that as a member of the Church militant his crusade Avas nearer home : the fierce sea-pirates were constantly ravaging the shores of his island birthplace; and the shrill yells of these pillaging pagans from near- by Riigen rang even louder in his ears than the call of Jerusalem. He would go to his own, teach them, defend them. With mind and body pulsing with vigorous hope- ful life, the young student of theology and war re- turned to his native land. It was a desolate home-coming. As if the devas- tating enemies from the isles about were not suf- ficient, the Danes had been earnestly slaying each other in behalf of rival kings, just as they had done for most of the thousand-year stretch back into un- chronicled darkness. The bloody strife was presently stopped by a partition of the contested prize. The hopeless, suf- fering folk drew breath again when the country was divided between the three chief claimants, Canute (Knud), Sweyn (Svend), and Absalon's former playmate Valdemar. Brief was the respite. "The three kingdoms did not last three days." King Canute, who had secured this eastern realm, invited his brother monarchs to his castle at Ros- 70 THE BOOK OF BEAVEKY kilde. They came, with their mail-clad retainers; and you may be sure the soldier-priest Absalon Avas close beside his comrade Valdemar ; but Sweyn came also with black treachery in his heart. Loud was the Avassail in the great hall, and many the congratulations that peace had come to the land. Yet there was no thought of peace, but a sword, in the mind of SAveyn as he joined in the festivities. Afterwards, in the "big room," the guests broke up into groups. Valdemar was playing chess with one of his followers. Canute moved about, per- forming his duties as host. This watchful eye noticed Sweyn, wary of glance, in a corner of the ill-lighted hall, whispering among a close knot of his grim-visaged men-at-arms. All about, his men seemed to be everjnvhere. Something vague but warning spread its shadow over Canute's cheer. Impulsively he threw his arms about Valdemar and kissed him. The young king looked up from his study of the game, and asked in surprise what was the matter. At that very moment Sweyn left the room. As if this were an a^vaited signal, his henchmen drew their swords. There was a swift gathering from every side of the hall. Swords and armor clashed as the threatening group moved forward. Valdemar sprang to his feet. In an instant, how- ever, the conspirators were upon them. Canute dropped to the floor, his head almost cleft in twain beneath the savage strokes. With one sweep Valdemar upset the table before him. The candles were hurled to the floor and went out, leaving the barn-like room almost dark. Wrap- ping his cloak about his arm, he charged into the thick of the murderous band, dashed them to right THREE MUSKETEEES OF THE NORTH 71 and left while they slashed and thrust at him in the obscurity, and he escaped with the blood streaming from his wounds. Hearing the clash of steel and the scuffle, Absalon had run into the room in time to see a figure go down under the swords just as the candle-lights vanished. Thinking it was his friend and ruler, he dropped beside him and tenderly lifted the battered head to his lap. The brief, blind struggle raged above him as he felt the spirit leave the body he held in a last, shuddering gasp. His hand went down to fold the robe about the corpse of Valdemar. But instantly he realized as he tovTched the garment that this was not Valdemar but Canute. Gently he laid the body doAvn. Springing to his feet, he strode toward the disorderly crowd of SwejTi's retainers. They barred his path with sword and spear; but they had no orders to slay him — when he firmly brushed the weapons aside, they let him pass. Vaulting upon a swift charger he galloped off into the night after his master. Twenty miles away, at his own home where the two- towered chiTrch now stands, he found Valdemar and the brother Esberne who formed the personal ''triple alliance." Their peril was still hard at their heels. The dastard Sweyn proclaimed that Canute and Valde- mar had sought his life, showing as proof his cloak pierced by his own sword. Secretly he sent out his assassins to find Valdemar and finish their half-done work. But Esberne tricked them: putting on Valdemar 's clothes he mounted the fleetest horse in Sir Asker's stables, and openly galloped forth as one riding for 72 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY his life. Sweyn's riders soon struck this blazoned trail and pursued hotly — and crafty Esberne played hide-and-seek Avith this following death all over the island of Seeland. Then as soon as the young king's wounds were healed, the brothers secured a boat and ferried him over to his o"wti realm on the mainland. Aroused by the outrage, the fighting men of Randers, Viborg, Jylland, and Aarhuis flocked to his standard. Seeing open war ahead, Sweyn hastened to make ready a ship that he might crush the fugitives before their strength grew formidable. In which crisis, the gen- tle mother, Lady Inge, showed that her redoubtable sons came by their mettle from both sides : by night she scuttled this vessel, giving the three some pre- cious days more in which to stir up an army. They used this time to such pvirpose that pres- ently when SwejTi followed with his force, they utterly routed his army and killed him at Grathe Heath. Two of the three momentary monarchs had gone to join the long line of those who had sought a crown and found death instead. Valdemar I be- came king of all Denmark, like Gorm the Old, who, first, three centuries before, had overcome all the smaa-Kongar (little Kings) and ruled over a united land. It hardly needs saying that this handsome, warm- hearted, generous, young knight did not forget the foster-brothers to whom he had vowed boyhood friendship and Avho had given him life and crown. In less than a year, Absalon, though barely thirty, was made Bishop of Roskilde, the most honorable See of all Denmark, competed for by aspirants from three powerful families. He became, too, keeper TI-IREE MUSKETEERS OF THE NORTH 73 of the king's conscience — and that was no sinecure in those days when Majesty's conscience was wont to be quite as submissive to his desires as the most loyal subject was expected to be. He and Esberne were veritable props of the throne, brothers and allies of royalty, outweighing the oldest and proud- est of the nobility. Yet these dazzling honors did not in the least alter the fighting bishop's notions of his place among his people. Nor was the hour long in coming that showed his studies of war to be as necessary to his flock as his religious learning. On the eve of Palm Sunday, but a few months after his installation, breathless fugitives brought word that the savage "Wends had descended upon the coast, and were slaying and burning, after their habit from time immemorial. These Wends (whose very name Avas a Teutonic term for "water folk") had long been the scourge of all the Baltic shores. Every favoring wind from their island fastness of Riigen blew them like some fabled devastating horde of fiery serpents upon Denmark 's nearby shores ; before the peaceful farm- ers and fishermen knew well what had happened, their men were slain or carried off into thralldom, their women maltreated, their homes ablaze, their children taken for sacrifice to the bloody pagan gods. The Christian Danes, once sea-rovers them- selves, now shuddered at the battle-cry of these savage Slavs, and suffered them to glut their blood- lust with only spasmodic attempts at punishment. Bishop Absalon, however, had not come back to shudder or submit to outrages. Hastily gathering his eighteen house-carles, and as many of the coun- try folk as he could get together, he raced his little 74 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY force across to the seashore, fell upon the trium- phant pirates, twenty-four shiploads of them, wild with triumph and slaughter, and put them to head- long flight, himself losing only a single man. Then he hurried back to Roskilde — just in time to exchange his bloody armor for pontifical mag- nificence, and solemnly administer High Mass in the noble cathedral, and preach to his rescued flock the peacefully triumphant entrance of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. I fancy those Danish peasants told each other, as they watched the new bishop, that this was indeed a shepherd Avho took care of his sheep, and no hireling. Absurdly enough, these dreaded heathen freeboot- ers were in Bishop Absalon's own diocese: long be- fore his time a Danish king had conquered the Wends and added their country to the See of Ros- kilde. Little it had troubled the freebooters, Avor- shipping their ancient Northern deities. Clearly, it was incumbent upon the Bishop to chastise these errant members of his flock, and make the wolf lie do\\Ti with the lamb. He found King Valdemar more than -willing to stir up the nation to put an end to this scourge. Cowed as the Danes had become, they rallied to the call. A mighty fleet of 250 vessels was assembled. The backbone of this armada was the Roskilde broth- erhood, shriven and absolved like monks before each expedition, vowed to plain living, vigilance, perpet- ual rescue of enslaved Christians, the stamping out of paganism — who had already, under the dashing Wedemann, shoA\Ti the enemy that some Danes still had teeth. This great fleet set sail. But the effects of years THREE MUSKETEERS OF THE NORTH 75 of terrorization soon showed itself among captains and crews. As they approached the dreaded enemy, tlie doubts and fears grew so clamorous that even King Valdemar became uncertain. It seemed hope- less to attack such an enemy with this half-hearted and disorganized force. He decided the expedition must be given up. But the keeper of the king's conscience was also a vigilant guardian of the king's honor. Bishop Absalon, from his usual place in the van, looked back and saw the vessel with the royal banner coming about and turning homeward. Instantly he tacked his own ship, swung around, and sped after his master. Crowding on all sail, he overtook the flagship. Keen and biting were the words with which he reproached his king: ''What wonder," he burst out, "if the words stick in our throats and are nigh to stifling us, when such grievous dole is ours! "Grieve we must, indeed, to find in you such a turncoat that naught but dishonor can come of it. You follow where you should lead, and those yon should rule over, you make your peers. There is nothing to stop us but our own craven souls, hunt as we may for excuses. "Is it with such laurel you would bind your crown? with such high deeds you would consecrate your reign ? ' ' This was ill for the monarch of all Denmark to bear from one of his subjects, even from a foster- brother. Controlling his royal wrath with a mighty effort, he walked off without a word. All was doubt and uncertainty abroad. That night a howling storm swept down across the Baltic. The question of advance was swallowed 76 THE BOOK OF BKAVERY Tip in the pressing fight for safety. The fleet had to run under the lee of an island for protection. Four days and nights the Avind and waves made the open sea unsailable, — while Valdemar in solitary silence fought the proud passions that raged within himself. Then the true man conquered. He frankly con- fessed to his bishop brother that he had been at fault. The two shook hands in token of a renewal of their ancient pact; and Valdemar gave orders that the fleet should sail as soon as the northwester permitted. Once more they headed for the pirate isle. Mind- ful of his former disappointment, Absolon asked the King on parting: "What now, if we must turn back once more?" "Then you write me from Wendland," laughed Valdemar, ' ' and tell me how things are there. ' ' In spite of all, the expedition was a disgraceful disaster. Even with such leaders, the majority of the Danes could not yet stand before their old con- querors: of that proud fleet of two hundred and fifty ships, but seven returned Avith the standard. The rest ran away like sheep before the wolf. This little group that had held staunch under the King and Absalon, retreated sullenly home, keeping up a running fight all the way with the exultant pur- suing pirates. Still, the plunge had been taken, and the shame brought its own cure. The Bishop preached this new crusade with all his fiery zeal, thundering forth his plea to patriotism and religion from his pulpit in Roskilde Cathedral; the King summoned every true Dane to wipe out this blotch upon their honor. And as they penetrated the enemy's homeland, his mysterious terrors faded away. Before many moons THREE MUSKETEERS OF THE NORTH 77 the Danes were cutting their spear-shafts shorter, to attack the foe at closer quarters. Nor did Absalon merely preach : he illustrated his text by ever leading the waj^, and achieved his most telling arguments with the smashing power of a right arm that made his flashing sAvord and spear portents of terror to the savage islanders. It took years. At last, however, the grim job neared completion. The "Darkness of the Gods" settled about the ^sir. The only stronghold that remained to the Wendish power was the one town of Arcona. This was their holy city, a sort of Mecca or Jeru- salem. Here dwelled their Mars, a monster-deity called Svantevit. He was the Wendish god of gods. Four-headed, and girt with a giant sword, this di- vinity reared his colossal bulk in the awe-inspiring temple, where even the officiating priests must retire from his dread presence when they were forced to draw breath. Befouled with human sacrifices, his fate ajid that of the Wends were one : so long -as the sacred Stanitza banner waved above his abode, Wendland could not be conquered, whatever out- posts might be held by an invader. Upon a spring day of 1169, Valdemar and Absa- lon led their victorious Danes to the siege of this final heart-city of the land. It was perched upon tall cliffs. Only from the west was there a natural approach, and this was guarded by a wall a hundred feet high. Many a time before, the Danish armies had halted here in their triumphant course, hopeless of overcoming this impregnable stronghold. Now their leaders were determined to make an eiid of the long, bloody struggle. Some of the young hotheads made a feigned as- 78 THE BOOK OF BKAVERY sault on the walls, opposite the tall citadel, from the pinnacle of which flew the sacred banner. Their venture revealed a natural cave beneath this tower. Hastily bringing up a load of straw, they stuffed it into this hollow and set it afire, more in high spirits than with any plan. Up ran the flames. The tower became a pillar of fire. Though the "Wends strove frantically to put it out, dashing milk upon the blaze in their lack of water, the tower burned like a torch. A great cry •of consternation rang through the town as the leap- ing tongues of flame licked hungrily at the flagstaff. The holy Stanitza banner fell, a curling piece of burning rag. Absalon 's soldier eye saw the opportunity created by this lucky accident, and the superstitious terror it had caused. At his urgence, the king ordered an instant general assault. The Wends fought hard; but the loss of their protecting talisman, on top of the combined attack 'of fire and the enemy, was crushing. Panic laid chill fingers on them: they called to Absalon for mercy, offering to surrender their city. The aroused Danes, beside themselves at seeing in their grasp this long-deferred chance to pay off their heavy score of injuries and insults, clamored for no quarter and pillage. Valdemar himself was almost inclined to turn them loose and let them have their will of Arcona. The Bishop would have none of it. Sternly he rebuked his people: the moment these pagans sub- mitted, he asserted, their duty as Christians was to convert them, not to emulate their crimes. The Wends were allowed to surrender their last strong- hold. Arcona went unsacked. THREE MUSKETEERS OF THE NORTH 79 But the temple and the false gods Avere another matter. Before a great, breathless crowd Absalon directed his men to hew doAvn the grisly image of the de- throned Svantevit, cautioning them to cut with woodsmen's caution, lest the warrior god crush them in his very fall. The axes sounded through the temple, once so hushed in reverent awe. The chips flew upon the sacred floor. The grim colossus swayed, fell head- long with a crash that jarred his edifice to its foun- dations. ' ' And in the same moment, ' ' avers the old chronicler — ^who probably saw the event, but also saw through miracle-working monkish spectacles — "the fiend ran out of the temple in a black shape with such speed that no eye could follow him or see where he went." The fiend may have escaped, but the Svantevit of the Wends was chopped into small bits and fed the Danish camp-fires. And the gloomy pagan tem- ple went up in crackling, towering flames that blaz- ened to all the world the funeral-pyre of the blood- stained god. The real work was done. The royal city of Ka- rents hastened to offer its submission. With a single boat's crew, Absalon went to take possession. In the narrow entrance to the town they met 6,000 armed Wends. The Bishop and his corporal's guard passed in single file between these ranks of scowling faces, these itching hands gripping re- versed spears. His followers were sure they had walked into a death-trap. But Absalon led them calmly through this army, into the city, straight to the temple where Rygievit, the special patron deity of Karents, held his state. 80 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY This was another monster image, of oak, tortured into revolting and beastly shapes, like some evil dream. Behind purple hangings he stood; and the swallows had made nests in his seven mouths, filling him "mth all manner of stinking uncleanness." Seven great swords he bore, one for every face. But they were powerless. He was hewed to earth like the supreme god of Arcona, and the Christian priests stood upon his prostrate bulk while the Danes dragged him forth and made kindling wood of him. The downcast custodians of the temple humbly delivered up to the conquerors its treasure, — seven chests full, including a silver cup sent by the traitor Sweyn to bribe the "Wends to attack his countrymen. Having destroyed the symbols of the old religion root and branch, Absalon used the timbers gathered for the siege of Arcona to build Christian churches in place of the temples. He called upon the people to follow the White Christ from now on. The Wends were quite ready to swear allegiance to the new god against whom their ancient protec- tors had proved powerless, and who was preached by a warrior-priest like this. Thirteen hundred of them the bishop baptized in a single day, and nine hundred more the next, taking no sleep for seventy- two hours. As soon as he returned to Denmark, he sent over missionary priests and teachers to carry on the work, showing his worldly as well as heavenly wis- dom by supplying them mth everything they would need, even food, lest they "be a burden to the people whom they had come to show the way to salvation." There was still plenty of fighting. Though the central power of the Wends was overcome, there THEEE MUSKETEERS OF THE NORTH 81 were plenty more of these heathen scattered along the mainland coast of nearby Pomerania and stretch- ing hundreds of miles east to Esthland (now Esthonia). Resolved to give reality to his foster-brother as title of "King of the Slavs and Wends," Absalon cruised and marched and fought and baptized, ex- tending the crozier the moment the foe had had enough of the sword. Once his fleet was trapped in the inland sea of northern Pomerania, where Stettin, above the mouth of the Oder, now stands. Valdemar and his army were ashore. The thronging pirate ships blocked the road to the sea. The Danish captains bewailed their hopeless situation and reproached the bishop for leading them to destruction, while the Wendish forces on the land shouted their certainty of tri- umph. Unmoved, Absalon set sail toward the wait- ing enemy, sending word to the King to attack by land with his horsemen. In single file his ships swept Out along the channel, pierced the enemy's line, routed the exultant fleet. The shame-faced pro- testations of the cowards who then saw their error affected him no more than had their unjust re- proaches. On another expedition he was heading an assault upon a fortified town: the bridge broke down be- neath the storming party, and the whole crowd of men-at-arms fell into the moat; Absalon, skilled from youth in swimming in full armor, not only saved himself but helped his comrades safely ashore. So well did he train his archers that upon one occasion when news of a pirate descent hurried him from his bath, in the castle of Hoifn (now Copen- 82 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY hagen) Avhere he was resting, Ms men who beat off the marauders "pinned the hands of the rowers to the oars with their arrows." The Riigen islanders, now turned fishermen, looked to him for protection during the herring-catch on which their winter food depended ; whenever danger threatened, word went first to the bishop, and never went in vain. If his force was insufficient, the King had but to be notified to join him. His brother, Esberne the Snare (Fleet), was his constant companion in these forays. The brotherly rivalry between all these three showed itself in a perpetual contest to be first among the hardest laiocks. The Fleet One used his speed to hasten toward hard knocks and peril, not away from them. In one battle, Valdemar's son had pushed recklessly ahead till he was surrounded by the enemy and in immi- nent peril of death or capture. Thrusting his own ship in betAveen the prince and the sea-rovers, Es- berne gave the young man a chance to extricate his vessel, and took the brunt of the fight upon himself. The pirates were overwhelmingly superior in force. Esberne 's men went down beneath the rain of spears and arrows and sword strokes of the boarders, until he had but a single follower left. Never faltering in their vehement assault, the Snare and this brave comrade beat off the swarming foes, two men against a hundred, until the Wends began to fancy him su- perhuman and "fled in terror as they saw his face." Some one hurled a stone from the crowd. It stretched Esberne senseless. It looked as if he had fought his last battle on that gory deck. But the young prince had carried word of his plight; the King's ships came to his rescue in the very nick of THREE MUSKETEERS OF THE NORTH 83 time; he was rescued, to continue his amazing ex- ploits with his brother paladins. For instance, not long afterwards he was coming back from Norway with a single ship when he sighted the Wendish fleet ahead, forty sail of them, close to the Seeland coast. Forty to one was odds that even an Athos would avoid if he could, so he tried to sneak by unobserved at night. The pirates discovered him in the brilliant moon- light. Swinging about, they cut off his retreat. At this, Esberne gave orders to make ready for the fray and steered straight at the hostile line. His helmsman grumbled at exposing himself with- out armor — whereat Esberne took off his own coat of chain-mail and bade him put that on. Into the melee he Avent unprotected, and so venomous was his onslaught that he beat off the surrounding ships again and again. The wind slackened. His sails fell dead. He could no longer manoeuvre. Eagerly the enemy closed in, for a prisoner had revealed to them that the stranger was the famous Fleet One, and they swore by all the gods of the Northland that they would take back this prize, dead or alive. Strength and valor were vain before such multi- plied strength and revengeful ferocity; but the Snare had still his cunning brain to fall back upon. He sent a sailor aloft; with flint and steel the man struck a light in the topmast as if signaling. The ruse succeeded ; there could be no other explanation, and fearing the attack of some strong ambushing force, the Wends came about and hastened away in the moonlight, while Esberne and his relieved crew sailed serenely home. Nothing could drive a wedge into this human tri- 84 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY angle. When the German Emperor drove Pope Alexander III from Eome, King Valdemar took the side of the exile. Absalon was called upon by his Archbishop, Eskild (who was no friend to Valde- mar, anyhow), to support the new Pope and join in a rising against the monarch who refused to accept the dictates of the Church in power. But not even the commands of his Primate could shake the bishop's loyalty. ' ' My oath to you I will keep, ' ' he answered, ' ' and in this wise, that I will not counsel you to your own undoing. '^Vhatever your cause against the King, war against him you cannot, and succeed. "And this know, that never will I join with you against my liege lord, to whom I have sworn fealty and friendship, with heart and soul all the days of my life." The archbishop went his own irate way — to de- feat. And, dramatically enough, when his weight of years later on forced him to lay down the burdens of his dignity — there Avas none but Bishop Absalon whom he could discover as worthy to walk in future behind his o\\aa archiepisoopal cross. Privately, he got permission from the Pope to appoint his own successor. Publicly, he convoked a solemn meeting of church dignitaries. Freely he assured the suspicious Valdemar that his abdica- tion was not part of any cunning plot against the throne. Before the gorgeously clad assembly of prelates in the High Cathedral, the aged Primate laid his miter, the jewels flashing between its horns, his sig- net ring, and his staff upon the altar. He announced that he was no longer Archbishop of the North. Though the Pope had commissioned him to name THREE MUSKETEERS OF THE NORTH 85 him who should take up these holy emblems, he re- signed this privilege and called upon the dignitaries to elect one of their number. The bishops and clergy took counsel of the King, who sat in state viewing the proceedings : had he a choice for this highest honor of the nation's Church? Aye, that he had, returned the monarch, and sorely was he perplexed by the fact : for if he named him, he would offend a friend ; and if he named him not, he would sin against truth and justice. "Name him!" cried they all. "The Bishop of Roskilde," said Valdemar. Up stood the frail old Eskild, insisting that the convocation proceed to the election then and there. All were of one mind — save Absalon himself. Stoutly he protested. The burden was too heavy for him, he declared. He could best serve his people and his country by being free, as he had been so long, to repel their enemies, to convert the heathen, to care for his own flock of Roskilde. The abdicating archbishop laid hold of him; the enthusiastic bishop and clergy seized him; intoning the chant of consecration, they endeavored to force him up to the altar. But the man who had scattered Wendish savages a hundred times was not to be driven against his will and conviction by chanting priests. Force roused the warrior beneath the bishop's robes: he struck out right and left, and church dignitaries went down on the floor with their magnificent vest- ments torn and their tonsured heads ringing most unreligious chimes. Meanwhile, the lay spectators added to the confusion by striking up a vociferous hymn. It was a strange election of a Primate of the Holy Church. 86 THE BOOK OF BRAVEKY The King and Eskild vainly pleaded and argued; Tincanonical human nature had its way, and the dis- orderly tumult and scuffling kept up. Finally a sort of mass-play football rush of his ■over-zealous admirers carried the struggling Absa- lon to the high seat at the altar steps. Triumphantly they were about to force him down upon this official chair. Seeing these enthusiasts would presently claim lie had been actually installed, Absalon asked leave to address them one formal word. His breathless and perspiring assailants drew back for a moment. "I appeal to the Pope," he thundered out. That settled it: no one could deny a bishop that immemorial privilege. Warily refusing to pro- nounce the benediction, as requested by Eskild, lest this exercise of the archbishop's functions might commit him, Absalon laid his case before the sover- eign pontiff. The Pope decided he must take the office — but he permitted him to remain Bishop of Roskilde, and to arrange his duties so that he could stay by the side of his king and continue his pioneer labors for church and land. But the treble alliance which had defied time and prosperity and wars was shortly to meet Avith a shrewder foe. Even while the inseparable three were planning a final crushing campaign against the Pomeranian Wends, on the very day set for sailing. King Valdemar died. The archbishop said the solemn requiem mass over his body, but the foster-brother-friend burst out weeping in the midst of the ceremony; and the bitterness of his grief laid Absalon upon a sick-bed for weary months. THEEE MUSKETEEES OF THE NORTH 87 Then the need of his lost friend's heir, the new- King Canute, brought him back into the field. As he had served the father, so, for fifteen years, he served the son — ^\vho as Denmark's greatest ruler was a few years later to give his land its sacred banner, the Dannebrog, the blood-red flag bearing the white cross which fell from heaven into the out- stretched hands of the Christian knights, upon that hard-fought field of faraway Esthland. The w^rathful German Emperor stirred up Bugis- lav, Duke of Pomerania, to fall upon Denmark Avith five hundred ships. The young king was away w^hen the tidings came to Absalon that the blow w^as already launched. Gathering Avhat ships he could, he hastened across the Baltic to meet the invaders. It was the day after Whitsunday. Absalon had gone ashore on the island of Eiigen to say mass. A messenger raced in amid the service: the Pomera- nian fleet was in sight from the harbor. Off came the archbishop's vestments. His battle harness took its place. "Now," said he, making for his ship, "let our swords sing the praise of God." The Wends had not dreamed their prey w^ould meet them more than half way. They were so taken aback when the dreaded war-cry of the fighting bishop rang out over the waters, that they inconti- nently turned tail and fled. So great was the panic that eighteen ships were rammed by their fellows and sank, while one rower hanged himself lest he fall into the hands of the Danes. Absalon made good use of their disordered rout. When he Avas through with them, of the five hundred invading vessels there were left but thirty-five. Bu- 88 THE -BOOK OF BEAVERY gislav's power was crushed; he became a vassal of Denmark. Valdemar's son reigned unchallenged, a second Valdemar; Canute's brother promised even greater things, and the archbishop's sword could hang idle for some years, while he built churches and taught the flock, and related to Saxo, his clerk, the tale of his own times — ^with an injunction to write down this and the other Danish chronicles. Fortunate for us that Saxo the scribe obeyed, putting his whole ardent heart into the descriptions of what he had seen and had been told. For not only has he preserved for all time unforgetable pictures of the gallant three in action, but one of the traditions he noted down of the castle of Elsi- nore, only a few miles north of Absalon's castle, was to give a certain William Shakspere, some four centuries later, the idea that enriched the world with Hamlet. In the quiet cloister at Soro, built by Sir Asker, the fighting bishop closed his eyes in his last sleep, just as the new century was well begun. ''All Denmark grieved for him, and commended his soul to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, for that in his lifetime he had led many who were enemies to peace and concord." Three years later steady-footed death overtook the Fleet One, tricking him, who had dared a thou- sand times by land and sea, through a fall in his own home. Valdemar, Absalon, Esberne — once more they were comrades; and comrades too of Roland and Arthur and Bishop Turpin and Bayard and all the other gallant kings, priests and commoners who were in their day "knights without fear and "without reproach." CHAPTER VII A "BLACK-ROBE" AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS It Avas shortly after daybreak of an August morn- ing. The sun peered curiously over the rim of the world along the great water Ijighway of the St. Lawrence River, which his last beams had turned the previous evening to a blazing path into an in- finity of mystery. His rays fell upon a little fleet of a dozen birch-bark canoes, paddling silently along the northern shore, among the clustering islands at the west end of the Lake of St. Peter. To avoid the current, these kept close to the bank, where the primeval forest crowded do-wm to the water's edge; and this brought them amid the dense growth of reeds and bulrushes which turned the shallow mar- gin of the stream into a swamp rather than a river. Any coureur de hois would have seen at a glance that some of these canoes were of the eastern Hurons, while the rest showed the shape and finish characteristic of the Ojibwas of the Lake Superior regions ; and the faces, decorations and moccasins of the three Indians in each canoe would have at once confirmed this. In the foremost canoe sat a slender, bookish-look- ing man in the black robe of a Jesuit Father. He was about thirty-five years old. His oval face was pale and delicately modeled. Modest reflectiveness, innate refinement, and culture were imprinted upon his expressive features. 89 90 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY The name of this Father was Isaac Jogues. He sat on a pile of skins in the bottom of the canoe, looking thoughtfully out at the oily yellow and crim- son streaks of the sunrise on the water. Everything Avas quiet and conducive to reflection. The Indiar paddlers dipped their blades so skilfully that hardly a sound came from them, save a tiny patter now and then of trickling drops dripping on the calm surface. Isaac Jogues was far, far away from his Orleans home in smiling France ; farther still from the sort of life his young visions had depicted. A timid and sensitive young man, he had found the chief outlet of his energies in books: long before he reached thirty, he was a finished scholar, looking forward to a cumulative literary reputation as the future reward of his labors in life. But his marked religious susceptibilities had pres- ently bade him sacrifice these dreams, do violence to his delicate instincts, cast his timorous self into a work beside which Daniel's den of lions would offer an easy, quick and comfortable prospect. He became a Jesuit. For six years he had been work- ing in this perilous mission field. Like more than one of his colleagues, many of whom were of the nobility and nurtured amid every luxury, the wig- wam life of the Indians was loathsome to his culti- vated senses — "the smoke, the vermin, the filthy food, the impossibility of privacy." Restless, screeching papooses, excitable men and women, thieving, howling, barking dogs combined in a cease- less uproar that was hardly favorable to study. But he had learned well that first lesson of complete self- abnegation which the Society of Jesus insists on as the fundamental duty of each of its members; and he had done his part, since arriving in the Canadian AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 91 wilds, in the hard and dangerous work of saving these heathen souls and bodies. Three years before this, he and Father Grarnier had made a perilous trip to the Tobacco Nation among the mountains at the head of Nottawassaga Bay — setting out alone on the two-day pull through the deep snow when no guide would go Avith them, and barely escaping with their lives by a .combina- tion of good luck and fleetness of foot. The previous autumn (1641) Father Raymbault and he had pressed deep into the unknown wilder- ness of the upper lakes, finally reaching the Sault Sainte Marie and preaching the Gospel to a great crowd of a couple of thousand Ojibwas and other western Algonquins who gathered to hear them. He was now returning from Quebec and Three Eivers with badly needed supplies for the Huron mission of Ihonatiria, at the east end of Georgian Bay — "clothing for the priests, vessels for the al- tars, bread and wine for the eucharist, writing ma- terials, in short, everything. ' ' With him were three other Frenchmen, — Goupil and Couture being don- nes, laymen who had attached themselves to the Society Avithout pay; and a noted Christian Huron chief, Eustache Ahatsistari, besides about forty con- verted and heathen Hurons. The word Jesuit has rather an ill-omened sound in the ears of most readers who are not of the Roman Catholic faith. But it is the Spanish branch of the Order, and its dark Inquisition, at which read- ers of Motley and Kingsley shudder. When one thinks of it, no such cruelties were ever charged up against the French Jesuits. And if the Society of Jesus had devoted all its energies to such work as absorbed its French members during the seventeenth 92 THE BOOK OF BKAVEEY century in the American "wilderness, the most big- oted Protestant conld not fail to do it reverent honor. It may help to appreciate the character and the dramatic story of Isaac Jogues, if we glance for a moment at what was happening in the Puritan col- onies along the Atlantic Coast while his canoes were bearing him back, this August morning of 1642, to his Huron flock beside Georgian Bay. This very same month. King Charles I of England set up his royal standard at Nottingham, defied Par- liament and Puritans, and set in motion the Civil War which was to bring him to the scaffold, to cause the do"mifall of his Stuart dynasty, and to bring about the rule of England for a dozen years by a sort of religious autocracy under Cromwell. Partly in consequence, a few months later, com- missioners of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Haven met at Boston and formed The United Colonies of New England, a confederation urged for six years previous by Mr. Hooker and Mr. Haynes, two reverend leaders of Boston. (The greater portion of the first "Proceedings" of this body is occupied mth deciding that Chief Uncas shall be permitted to execute his rival, Chief Myan- tinomo — and that the colony will protect him in do- ing so against the Nanohiggansetts.) But: The reason these worthy divines ardently desired such union was qiaite as much to secure uniform ac- tion against heretics and "unwholesome" thinkers, as because of the political upheaval in the mother land. Thus they had driven out Eoger Williams as one accursed (though he had been called by those of Salem to the office of a teacher), — ^banishing him from home, wife and children in the dead of winter AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 93 to the wilderness beyond their jurisdiction, among the distinctly hostile Indians of "Nahigonset Bay." They had also banished John Wheelwright, a man of excellent report of life and doctrine save on the one point only that he maintained "That sanctifica- tion is not the first evidence nnto a Christian of his salvation. ' ' They had cast out Gorton and his followers after "confinements, imprisonments, chains, fines, whip- pings" — to "wander in the wildernesse in extrem- ity of winter, yea when the snow was up to the knee, and rivers to wade through up unto the mid- dle; ... in which condition, in the continuation of the weather, we lay divers nights together, having no victuals but what we took on our backs, and our drink as the snow afforded unto us, whereupon we were constrained with the hazards of otir lives to betake ourselves into a part of the country called the Nanhyganset Bay." Just a few years previous they had expelled Mrs. Ann Hutchinson for promoting opinions "troubling the peace of the commonwealth and the churches," and for "maintaining a meeting and an assembly" in her house — "a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex ; ' ' and when she defended herself before the authorities, declar- ing she had never, as they accused her, charged the ministers with preaching nothing but a covenant of works, the Deputy-Governor remarked scornfxilly: "Why, a Jesuit may preach truth sometimes;" and despite her stout denial of the indictment, despite the fact that she had really come to Massachusetts to follow her revered pastor, John Cotton, a lead- ing light of the colony's elect, — they had purged their grim theocracy of her; and this very year 94 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY (1642) the unfortunate lady had gone on from Rhode Island to a pioneering home on Long Island Sound (only fifteen or twenty miles from New York ' — near the present town of Rye) to meet her death there presently in an Indian uprising. It was just the year before Father Jogues' trip that Thomas Lechford, first lawyer in the Massa- chusetts Bay Colony, by this time containing some twenty thousand people, set down "A Note of what things I mislikeS in the Country" — enumerating r the spending of so much time in public church ordi- nances on the Sabbath that necessary duties, like visiting sick and poor, were "hindered" ; public han- dling of matters of offence before the whole Church ; denial of Communion and baptism for all sorts of offences; failure of effort to "teach, civilize and convert the Indians," even those close to the Plan- tations ; and many more such shortcomings. In fact, besides the liberal thinkers exiled, many influential Presbyterians were by law excluded from the suffrage, because they were not members of the established Congregational Church — against which injustice Robert Child and his friends formally pro- tested in a public memorial in 1646. And the atti- tude of most of those in power was not unfairly represented by that Ipswich divine, Nathaniel Ward ("the simple Cobbler of Agawam"), who remarked: "I dare take upon me to bee the Herauld of Neiv- England so farre, as to proclaime to the world, in the name of our colony, that all Familists, Antino- mians. Anabaptists, and Enthusiasts shall have free Liberty to keepe away from us, and such as will come to be gone as fast as they can, the sooner the better, ... I lived in a City, where a Papist preached in one Church, a Lutheran in another, a AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 95 Calvinist in a third ; a Lutheran one part of the day, a Calvinist the other, in the same Pulpit : the Relig- ion of that place was but motly and meagre, their affections Leopard-like. . . . "There is talke of an universall Toleration; I would talke as loud as I could against it did I know . . . how they shall make an universall Reformation, but by making Christ 's Academy the Divills Univer- sity, where any man may commune. Heretique per saltum; where he that is filius Diaholicus , or simpli- citer pessimus, may have his grace to goe to Hell cum Publico Privilegio; and carry as many after him as he can." Also in the infant settlements of New Haven and those on the Connecticut River, the first Constitu- tion of 1639 provides that the Governor must be a member of some "approved congregation"; and the laws which were codified thirty years later named, among other crimes, the following as punishable by death: Any Man or "Woman who shall "have or worship any other God but the Lord God." Any person who blasphemes or "shall Curse in the like manner." Any Man or Woman Avho is a Witch, ' ' that is hath or consulteth with a Familiar Spirit." Any Child above sixteen who curses or smites its father or mother. Any son whose parents testify that he is incorri- gibly disobedient. Fines and the stocks were for those who enter- tained any Quaker, Ranter, Adamite "or other notorious Heretick"; for lying; for profaning the Sabbath; for lack of respect to preachers. Josselyn reported of all New England: 96 THE BOOK OF BEAYERY "For being drunk they either whip or impose a fine ... so for swearing and cursing, — or they bore- through the tongue with a hot iron. "For kissing a woman in the street, though in the way of civil salute, whipping or a fine. , . . "They that are members of their churches have the Sacraments administered to them, the rest that are out of the pale, as they phrase it, are denyed it. Many hundred Souls there he amongst them grown up to me7i and women's estate that were never Christened. "They judge every man and woman to pay Fivfr shilling per day, who comes not to their Assemblies, and impose fines of forty shillings and fifty shillings on such as meet together to worship God. "Quakers they Whip, banish, and hang if they return again. "Anabaptists they emprison, fine and weary- out. . . . "There are none that beg in the Countrey, but there be witches too many . . . amongst the Quakers and others that produce many strange apparitions,, if you will believe report, of a Shallop at Sea man'd with women ; of a Ship, and a great red Horse stand- ing by the main-mast, the ship being in a small Cove to the East- ward vanished of a suddain. Of a Witch that appeared aboard of a Ship twenty leagues to Sea to a Mariner who took up the Carpenter's broad Axe and cleft her head with it, the witch dying of the wound at home, with such like bugbears and Terriculament(B. ..." William Penn was not yet born, but it was in this year of 1642 that George Fox founded the sect of Quakers, and began as a lad of twenty to preach simplicity and purity. Eighteen years later, Ed- AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 97 ward Burrough proved to King Charles that the fol- lowing was the way in which these harmless folk had been received by the New England land of freedom : ". . . 2. Twelve strangers in that Country but free born of this nation, received twenty-three whip- pings . . . the stripes amounting to three hundred and seventy. "3. Eighteen inhabitants of the Country, being free borii English, received twenty-three whippings, the stripes amounting to tAvo hundred and fifty. "4. Sixty-four imprisonments of the Lord's Peo- ple . . . amounting to five hundred and nineteen weeks. . . . '^5. Two beaten with Pitched Eopes, the blows amounting to an hundred thirty-nine, by which one of them was brought near unto death. " . . . 7. TAventy-five banishments. ..." Besides ruinous fines, brandings, cutting of ears, ■chainings and imprisonments; and three "Servants of the Lord" ruthlessly put to death. "Wherefore the monarch is prayed to rebuke "the Bloody Pro- ceedings of these Bloody Persecutors." (The facts must have been gross indeed when a Charles II felt forced to take action ! ) These things, mind you, were in our own "cradle of Liberty," whither men had come that they might worship God freely after their own beliefs ! Is it for us whose forefathers were under the dom- inating fear of witches, to smile too loftily at the visions or miracles of those earnest and devoted, if •childisli, Jesuit Fathers? Or to criticize too harshly the "Jesuitical" laabits of the priests, who could even lie straight out to Indian parents, who objected to the "charm," so 98 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY as to baptize their children and save these infant souls by stealth? Or to call them bigoted when our own forebears were such "Bloody Persecutors" of all their fellow-pilgrims who disagreed with them on the most trivial and abstruse points of doctrine? And it is well to remember that at the very time when Isaac Jogues and dozens of his colleagues were daring all in order to baptize a single Indian con- vert, even an infant, — not only was nothing being done in New England to christianize the Indians at their very gates, but, as shown above, hundreds of adult whites had never been christened because of the narrow exclusiveness of the Church. Moreover, the Dutch Governor in New Amsterdam and the English one in Virginia were so treating the Indians that in the very next two years the tribes fell upon the whites in both colonies and all but annihilated them. Let us glance at a few more social facts. The first class had just been graduated from Har- vard College the year before — though forty years later two Dutch scholars and exiles for religion's sake, visiting Cambridge and going to the college, ' ' expecting to see something curious, as it is the only college, or would-be academy of the Protestants in all America," were sadly disappointed. Here is their laconic report : "In approaching the house, we neither heard nor saw anything mentionable; but, going to the other side of the building, we heard noise enough in an upper room to lead my comrade to suppose they were engaged in disputation. We entered, and went up stairs, when a person met us, and requested us to walk in, which we did. We found there eight or ten young fellows, sitting around, smoking tobacco, AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 99 "wdth the smoke of which the room was so full you could hardly see; and the whole house smelt so strong of it that when I was going up stairs I said, This is certainly a tavern. We excused ourselves, that we could speak English only a little, but under- stood Dutch or French, which they did not. We inquired how many professors there were, and they replied not one, that there was no money to support one. We asked how many students there were. They said at first, thirty, and then came doAvn to twenty ; I afterwards understood there are probably not ten. They could hardly speak a word of Latin, so that my comrade could not converse with them. They took us to the library where there was nothing particular. We looked over it a little. They pre- sented us with a glass of wine. This is all we ascertained there." These same two keen-eyed Dutch gentlemen Avere a few days later refused admittance to a Boston tavern because they were so quiet the people began to whisper to each other they were "certainly Jesuits"! The first printed book issued in the Colonies had appeared two years previous — the Bay Psalm Book, wherein three reverend ministers improved on the King James version of the Psalms as follows : "I'le dearly love thee, Lord my strength : The Lord is my rock and my towre, and my deliverer, my God, I'le trust in him who is my powre, My shield & my salvationes-horne, my high-fort;" etc. A will of a settler at "Wyndsor" on the Connecti- cut River shows the trundle bed in the house was 100 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY worth more than three times as much as the farmer's 66 ' ' akers ' ' of upland — and the ' ' standing bed with furniture" was valued at about six times as much as this piece of land. The same two Dutchmen mentioned above went to New York and found on Staten Island the Dutch and French families very desirous and eager for a minister (there was none, though a hundred families lived there), but "the English are less disposed to religion and inquire little after it." Such was the state of our own forefathers in America while the French Jesuit Fathers were brav- ing torture and death to carry the Gospel to the sav- ages of Canada and upper New York. We have left the good Father to his daybreak rev- erie on the quiet reedy river overlong : but the slen- der figure that cased that indomitable spirit takes on a fresh significance after our little journey to the enlightened and progressive settlements of New England. Father Jogues doubtless was thinking of the many memorable happenings which had transformed his quiet, bookish life since he had first made this dan- gerous journey to Ihonatira six years previous — contagion, famine, small-pox outbreaks among the converts, the malignant enmity of the Indian sor- cerers, the attempts on life itself by savage braves, the frightful journeys through snow and ice and storm. His fellow-worker, Chabanel, then on his way to this region, confessed that he was so tempted by the Devil to give over his barren and disgusting labors after five years, that he only stayed by bind- ing himself through a solemn vow to remain in Can- ada till the day of his death. Isaac Jogues had no special aptitude for the work. AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 101 Beyond a certain wiriness, and a remarkable fleet- ness of foot, he was ludicrously unfit physically for such feats of strength and endurance as it de- manded ; he had not even any particular native force of mind or energy. But, dominated by the passion of saving souls, the retiring scholar had become indomitable. His mind reviewed the eventful past, looked hope- fully forward to a future when all the Hurons, nay those very demons the Iroquois themselves, should bow the knee before Christ and the Virgin. Even as this canoe in which he sat (amid the sacred ves- sels, the holy bread and wine that would be trans- muted into Christ's body and blood) pushed its way through the wilderness of reeds, so must the True Faith penetrate the forest of heathen errors, if he and his fellows were but staunch in their unwearied service. His ascetic face kindled with fresh enthusiasm as he gazed dreamily out upon the morning beauty of the surrounding wilderness. "Suddenly," says Parkman, "the silence was frightfully broken. "The war-whoop rose from among the rushes, mingled with the reports of guns and the whistling of bullets; and several Iroquois canoes, filled with warriors, pushed out from their concealment, and bore down upon Jogues and his companions. "The Hurons in the rear were seized with a shameful panic. They leaped ashore; left canoes, baggage, and weapons, and fled into the woods. The French and the Christian Hurons made fight for a time ; but when they saw another fleet of canoes ap- proaching from the opposite shores or islands, they lost heart, and those escaped who could. 102 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY "Goupil was seized amid triumphant yells, as were also several of the Huron converts. Jogues sprang into the bulrushes and might have escaped; but when he saw Goupil and the neophytes in the clutches of the Iroquois, he had no heart to abandon them, but came out from his hiding-place, and gave himself up to the astonished victors, A few of them had remained to guard the prisoners ; the rest were chasing the fugitives, Jogues mastered his agony,, and began to baptize those of the captive converts who needed baptism. "Couture had eluded pursuit; but when he thought of Jogues and of what perhaps awaited him, he resolved to share his fate, and, turning, re- traced his steps. As he approached, five Iroquois ran forward to meet him ; and one of them snapped his gun at his breast, but it missed fire. In his con- fusion and excitement, Couture fired his own piece, and laid the savage dead. The remaining four sprang upon him, stripped off all his clothing, tore away his finger-nails with their teeth, gnawed his fingers with the fury of famished dogs, and thrust ai sword through one of his hands. "Jogues broke from his guards, and, rushing to his friend, threw his arms about his neck. The Iro- quois dragged him away, beat him with their fists and war-clubs till he was senseless, and, when he revived, lacerated his fingers with their teeth, as they had done those of Couture. Then they turned upon Goupil, and treated him with the same ferocity. The Huron prisoners were left for the present un- harmed. More of them were brought in every mo- ment, till at length the number of captives amounted in all to twenty-two, while three Hurons had been killed in the fight and pursuit. The Iroquois, about AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 103 seventy in number, now embarked with their prey; but not until they had knocked on the head an old Huron, whom Jogues, with his mangled hands, had just baptized, and who refused to leave the place. Then, under a burning sun, they crossed to the spot on which the town of Sorel now stands, at the mouth of the river Eichelieu, where they encamped. "Their course was southward, upon the river Eichelieu and Lake Champlain; thence, by way of Lake George, to the Mohawk to-wTis. The pain and fever of their wounds, and the clouds of mosquitoes, which they could not drive off, left the prisoners no peace by day nor sleep by night. ' ' On the eighth day, they learned that a large Iro- quois war-party, on their way to Canada, were near at hand; and they soon approached their camp, on a small island near the southern end of Lake Cham- plain. The warriors, two hundred in number, sa- luted their victorious countrymen with volleys from their guns ; then, armed with clubs and thorny sticks, ranged themselves in two lines, between which the captives were compelled to pass up the side of a rocky hill. On the way, they were beaten with such fury that Jogues, who was last in the line, fell pow- erless, drenched in blood and half dead. As the chief man among the French captives, he fared the w^orst. His -hands were again mangled, and fire ap- plied to his body; while the Huron chief ,. Eustache, ■was subjected to tortures even more atrocious. When, at night, the exhausted sufferers tried to rest, the young warriors came to lacerate their wounds and pull out their hair and beards. "In the morning they resumed their journey. And now the lake narrowed to the semblance of a tranquil river. Before them Avas a woody mountain, 104 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY close on their right a rocky promontory, and be- tween these flowed a stream, the outlet of Lake George. On those rocks, more than a hundred years after, rose the ramparts of Ticonderoga. They landed, shouldered their canoes and baggage, took their way through the woods, passed the spot where the fierce Highlanders and the dauntless regiments of England breasted in vain the storm of lead and fire, and soon reached the shore where Abercrombie landed and Lord Howe fell. "First of white men, Jogues and his companions gazed on the romantic lake that bears the name, not of its gentle discoverer, but of the dull Hanoverian King. Like a fair Naiad of the wilderness, it slum- bered between the guardian mountains that breathe from crag and forest the stern poetry of war. But all then was solitude; and the clang of trumpets, the roar of cannon, and the deadly crack of the rifle had never as yet awakened their angry echoes. ''Again the canoes were launched, and the wild flotilla glided on its way, — now in the shadow of the heights, now on the broad expanse, now among the devious channels of the narrows, beset with woody islets, where the hot air was redolent of the pine, the spruce, and the cedar, — till they neared that tragic shore where, in the following century. New England rustics baffled the soldiers of Dieskau, where Montcalm planted his batteries, where the red cross waved so long amid the smoke, and where at length the summer night was hideous with carnage, and an honored name was stained with a memory of blood. "The Iroquois landed at or near the futiire site of Fort "William Henry, left their canoes, and mth their prisoners began their march for the nearest AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS .105 Mohawk town. Each bore his share of the plunder. Even Jogues, though his lacerated hands were in a frightful condition and his body covered with bruises, was forced to stagger on with the rest under a heavy load. He with his fellow-prisoners, and in- deed the whole party, were half-starved, subsisting chiefly on wild berries. They crossed the upper Hudson, and in thirteen days after leaving the St. Lawrence neared the wretched goal of their pilgrim- age, — a palisaded town, standing on a hill by the banks of the river Mohawk. "The whoops of the victors announced their ap- proach, and the savage hive sent forth its swarms. They thronged the side of the hill, the old and the young, each with a stick or a slender iron rod bought from the Dutchmen on the Hudson. They ranged themselves in a double line, reaching upward to the entrance of the town ; and through this 'narroAv road of Paradise,' as Jogues calls it, the captives were led in single file, — Couture in front, after him a half- score of Hurons, then Goupil, then the remaining Hurons, and at last Jogues. "As they passed, they were saluted with yells, screeches, and a tempest of blows. One, heavier than the others, knocked Jogue's breath from his body, and stretched him on the ground; but it was death to lie there, and, regaining his feet, he stag- gered on with the rest. When they reached the town, the blows ceased, and they were all placed on a scaffold, or high platform, in the middle of the place. The three Frenchmen had fared the worst, and were frightfully disfigured. Goupil, especially, was streaming with blood, and livid with bruises from head to foot. "They were allowed a few minutes to recover 106 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY their breath, undisturbed, except by the hootings and gibes of the mob below. Then a chief called out, 'Come, let us caress these Frenchmen!' — and the crowd, knife in hand, began to mount the scaf- fold. They ordered a Christian Algonquin woman,. a prisoner among them, to cut off Jogue's left thumb, which she did; and a thumb of Goupil was also severed, a clam-shell being used as the instru- ment in order to increase the pain. It is needless to specify further the tortures to which they were subjected, all designed to cause the greatest possible suffering without endangering life. At night they were removed from the scaffold and placed in one of the houses, each stretched on his back, with his limbs extended, and his ankles and wrists bound fast to stakes driven into the earthen floor. The children now profited by the examples of their parents, and amused themselves by placing live coals and red-hot ashes on the naked bodies of the prisoners, who, bound fast, and covered with wounds and bruises which made every movement a torture, were sometimes unable to shake them off. "In the morning they were again placed on the scaffold, where, during this and the two foUowing^ days, they remained exposed to the taunts of the' crowd. Then they were led in triumph to the sec- ond Mohawk town, and afterwards to the third" (the tribe had but three fortified towns with a total population of about thirty-five hundred), "suffer- ing at each a repetition of cruelties, the detail of which would be as monotonous as revolting. "In a house in the town of Teonontogen, Jogues. was hung by the wrists between two of the upright poles which supported the structure, in such a man- ner that his feet could not touch the ground; and AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 107 thus he remained for some fifteen miniates, in ex- treme torture, until, as he was on the point of swoon- ing, an Indian, mth an impulse of pity, cut the cords and released him. While they were in this town, four fresh Huron prisoners, just taken, were brought in, and placed on the scaffold with the rest. Jogues, in the midst of his pain and exhaustion, took the opportunity to convert them. An ear of green corn was thrown to him for food, and he discovered a few rain-drops clinging to the husks. With these he baptized two of the Hurons. The remaining two received baptism soon after from a brook which the prisoners crossed on the way to another town. "Couture, though he had incensed the Indians by killing one of their warriors, had gained their admiration by his bravery ; and, after torturing him most savagely, they adopted him into one of their families, in place of a dead relative. Thenceforth he was comparatively safe. "Jogues and Goupil were less fortunate. Three of the Hurons had been burned to death, and they expected to share their fate. A council was held to pronounce their doom; but dissensions arose, and no result was reached. They were led back to the first village, where they remained, racked with sus- pense and half dead with exhaustion. Jogues, how- ever, lost no opportunity to baptize dying infants, while Goupil taught children to make the sign of the cross. "On one occasion he made the sign on the fore- head of a child, grandson of an Indian in whose lodge they lived. The superstition of the old sav- age was aroused. Some Dutchmen had told him that the sign of the cross came from the Devil, and would cause mischief. He thought that Goupil was 108 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY bewitching the child; and resolving to rid himself of so dangerous a guest, applied for aid to two young braves. "Jogues and Groupil, clad in their squalid garb of tattered skins, were soon after walking together in the forest that adjoined the town, consoling them- selves with prayer, and mutually exhorting each other to suffer patiently for the sake of Christ and the Virgin, when, as they were returning, reciting their rosaries, they met the two young Indians, and read in their sullen visages an augury of ill. The Indians joined them, and accompanied them to the entrance of the town, where one of the two, sud- denly draAving a hatchet from beneath his blanket, struck it into the head of Groupil, who fell, murmur- ing the name of Christ. Jogues dropped on his knees, and, bowing his head in prayer, awaited the blow, when the murderer ordered him to get up and go home. He obeyed, but not until he had given absolution to his still breathing friend, and pres- ently saw the lifeless body dragged through the town amid hootings and rejoicings. "Jogues passed a night of anguish and desola- tion, and in the morning, reckless of life, set forth in search of Goupil's remains. " 'Where are you going so fast?' demanded the old Indian, his master. 'Do you not see those fierce young braves, who are watching to kill you?' ' ' Jogues persisted, and the old man asked another Indian to go with him as a protector. The corpse had been flung into a neighboring ravine, at the bottom of which ran a torrent; and here, with the Indian's help, Jogues foimd it, stripped naked, and gnawed by dogs. He dragged it into the water, and covered it with stones to save it from further muti- AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 109 lation, resolving to return alone on the following day and secretly bury it. ''But with the night there came a storm; and when, in the gray of the morning, Jogues descended to the brink of the stream, he found it a rolling, turbid flood, and the body was nowhere to be seen. Had the Indians or the torrent borne it away? Jogues Avaded into the cold current : it was the first of October ; he sounded it with his feet and with his stick ; he searched the rocks, the thicket, the forest ; but all in vain. Then, crouched by the pitiless stream, he mingled his tears with its waters, and, in a voice broken with groans, chanted the service of the dead. "The Indians, it proved, and not the flood, had robbed him of the remains of his friend. Early in the spring, when the snows were melting in the woods, he was told by Mohawk children that the body was lying, where it had been flung, in a lonely spot lower down the stream. He went to seek it; found the scattered bones, stripped by the foxes and the birds ; and, tenderly gathering them up, hid them in a hollow tree, hoping that a day might come when he could give them a Christian burial in con- secrated ground. "After the murder of Goupil, Jogue's life hung by a hair. He lived in hourly expectation of the tomahawk, and would have welcomed it as a boon. By signs and words he was warned that his hour was near ; but, as he never shunned his fate, it fled from him, and each day, with renewed astonishment, he found himself still among the living. "Late in the autumn, a party of the Indians set forth on their yearly deer-hunt, and Jogues was or- dered to go with them. Shivering and half-fam- 110 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY ished, he followed them through the chill November forest, and shared their wild bivouac in the depths of the wintry desolation. The game they took was devoted to Areskoni, their god, and eaten in his honor. Jognes would not taste the meat offered to a demon ; and thus he starved in the midst of plenty. At night when the kettle was slung, and the savage crew made merry around their fire, he crouched in a corner of the hut, gnawed by hunger, and pierced to the bone with cold. They thought his presence unpropitious to their hunting, and the women espe- cially hated him. His demeanor at once astonished and incensed his masters. He brought them fire- wood like a squaw; he did their bidding without a murmur, and patiently bore their abuse; but when they mocked at his God, and laughed at his devo- tions, their slave assumed an air and tone of author- ity, and sternly rebuked -them. "He would sometimes escape from 'this Baby- lon, ' as he calls the hut, and wander in the forest, telling his beads and repeating passages of Scrip- ture. In a remote and lonely spot, he cut the bark in the form of a cross from the trunk of a great tree; and here he made his prayers. This living martyr, half clad in shaggy furs, kneeling on the snow among the icicled rocks and beneath the gloomy pines, bowing in adoration before the emblem of the faith in which was his only consolation and his only hope, is alike a theme for the pen and a subject for the pencil. "The Indians at last grew tired of him, and sent him back to the village. Here he remained till the middle of March, baptizing infants and trying to convert adults. He told them of the sun, moon, planets, and stars. They listened with interest ; but AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 111 when from astronomy he passed to theology, he spent his breath in vain. "In March, the old man with whom he lived set forth for his spring fishing, taking with him his squaw and several children. Jogues also was of the party. They repaired to a lake, perhaps Lake Sara- toga, four days distant. Here they subsisted for some time on frogs, the entrails of fish, and other garbage. Jogues passed his days in the forest, re- peating his prayers, and carving the name of Jesus on trees, as a terror to the demons of the wilderness. "A messenger at length arrived from the town; and on the following day, under the pretense that signs of an enemy had been seen, the party broke up their camp, and returned home in hot haste. The messenger had brought tidings that a war-party, which had gone out against the French, had been defeated and destroyed, and that the whole popu- lation were clamoring to appease their grief by tor- turing Jogues to death. "This was the true cause of the sudden and mys- terious return; but when they reached the town, other tidings had arrived. The missing warriors were safe, and on their way home in triumph with a large number of prisoners. Again Jogues 's life was spared ; but he was forced to witness the torture land butchery of the converts and allies of the French. Existence became unendurable to him, and he longed to die. War-parties were continually go- ing out. Should they be defeated and cut off, he would pay the forfeit at the stake ; and if they came back, as they usually did, with booty and prisoners, he was doomed to see his countrymen and their Indian friends mangled, burned, and devoured. "Jogues had shown no disposition to escape, and 112 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY great liberty was therefore allowed him. He went from town to town, giving absolution to the Chris- tian captives, and converting and baptizing the heathen. On one occasion he baptized a woman in the midst of the fire, under pretense of lifting a cup of water to her parched lips. There was no lack of objects for his zeal. A single war-party returned from the Huron country with nearly a hundred pris- oners, who were distributed among the Iroquois towns, and the greater part burned.* Of the chil- dren of the Mohawks and their neighbors, he had baptized, before August, about seventy; insomuch that he began to regard his captivity as a Providen- tial interposition for the saving of souls. "At the end of July, he went with a party of In- dians to a fishing-place on the Hudson, about twenty miles below Fort Orange. While here, he learned that another war-party had lately returned with prisoners, two of whom had been burned to death at Osseruenon. On this, his conscience smote him that he had not remained in the town to give the sufferers absolution or baptism; and he begged leave of the old woman who had him in charge to return at the first opportunity. A canoe soon after went up the river with some of the Iroquois, and he was alloAved to go in it. When they reached Ren- saellerswyck, the Indians landed to trade with the Dutch, and took Jogues with them. "The centre of this rude little settlement was Fort Orange, a miserable structure of logs, standing * The Dutch clergyman, Megapolensis, at this time living at Fort Orange, bears the strongest testimony to the ferocity with which his friends, the Mohawks, treated their prisoners. He mentions the same modes of torture which Jogues describes, and is very explicit as to cannibalism: "The common people eat the arms, buttocks, and trunk; but the chiefs eat the head and the heart." This feast was of a religious character. AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 113 on a spot now within the limits of the city of Al- bany.* It contained several houses and other build- ings; and behind it was a small church, recently erected, and serving as the abode of the pastor, Dominie Megapolensis, known in our day as the writer of an interesting though short account of the Mohawks. Some twenty-five or thirty houses, roughly built of boards and roofed with thatch, were scattered at intervals on or near the borders of the Hudson, above and below the fort. Their inhabi- tants, about a hundred in number, were for the most part rude Dutch farmers, tenants of Van Eensse- laer, the patroon, or lord of the manor. They raised wheat, of which they made beer, and oats, with which they fed their numerous horses. They traded, too, with the Indians, who profited greatly by the competition among them, receiving guns, knives, axes, kettles, cloth, and beads, at moderate rates, in exchange for their furs. The Dutch were on excel- lent terms with their red neighbors, met them in the forest without the least fear, and sometimes in- termarried with them. They had known of Jogues's captivity, and, to their great honor, had made efforts for his release, offering for that purpose goods to a considerable value, but without effect. "At Fort Orange, Jogues heard startling news. The Indians of the village where he lived were, he was told, enraged against him, and determined to burn him. About the first of July, a war party had set out for Canada, and one of the warriors had offered to Jogues to be the bearer of a letter from him to the French commander at Three Eivers, thinking probably to gain some advantage under cover of a parley. Jogues knew that the French * The site of the Phoenix Hotel. 114 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY would be on their guard ; and he felt it his duty to lose no opportunity of informing them as to the state of affairs among the Iroquois. A Dutchman gave him a piece of paper; and he wrote a letter, in a jargon of Latin, French, and Huron, warning his countrymen to be on their guard, as war-parties were constantly going out, and they could hope for no respite from attack until late in the autumn. When the Iroquois reached the mouth of the river Eichelieu, where a small fort had been built by the French the preceding summer, the messenger asked for a parley, and gave Jogues's letter to the com- mander of the post, who, after reading it, turned his cannon on the savages. They fled in dismay, leaving behind them their baggage and some of their guns ; and returning home in a fury, charged Jogues with having caused their discomfiture. "Jogues had expected this result, and was pre- pared to meet it ; but several of the principal Dutch settlers, and among them Van Curler, who had made the previous attempt to rescue him, urged that his death was certain if he returned to the Indian town, and advised him to make his escape. In the Hud- son, opposite the settlement, lay a small Dutch ves- sel nearly ready to sail. Van Curler offered him a passage in her to Bordeaux or Rochelle, — represent- ing that the opportunity was too good to be lost, and making light of the prisoner's objection that a con- nivance in his escape on the part of the Dutch would excite the resentment of the Indians against them, "Jogues thanked him warmly; but, to his amaze- ment, asked for a right to consider the matter, and take counsel of God in prayer. "He spent the night in great agitation, tossed by doubt, and full of anxiety lest his self-love should AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 115 beguile him from his duty. Was it not possible that the Indians might spare his life, and that, by a timely drop of water, he might still rescue souls from torturing devils and eternal fires of perdition? "On the other hand, would he not, by remaining to meet a fate almost inevitable, incur the guilt of suicide? And even should he escape torture and death, could he hope that the Indians would again permit him to instruct and baptize their prisoners? Of his French companions, one, Groupil, was dead; while Couture had urged Jogues to flight, saying that he would then follow his example, but that, so long as the Father remained a prisoner, he. Couture, would share his fate. "Before morning, Jogues had made his decision. God, he thought, would be better pleased should he embrace the opportunity given him. He went to find his Dutch friends, and, with a profusion of thanks, accepted their offer. They told him that a boat should be left for him on the shore, and that he must watch his time, and escape in it to the ves- sel, where he would be safe. "He and his Indian masters lodged together in a large building, like a barn, belonging to a Dutch farmer. It was a hundred feet long, and had no partition of any kind. At one end the farmer kept his cattle; at the other he slept with his wife, a Mohawk squaw, and his children, while his Indian guests lay on the floor in the middle. As he is de- scribed as one of the principal persons of the col- ony, it is clear that the civilization of Eensellaers- wyck was not high. "In the evening, Jogues, in such a manner as not to excite the suspicion of the Indians, went out to reconnoitre. There was a fence around the house. 116 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY and as he was passing it a large dog belonging to the farmer flew at him, and bit him very severely in the leg. ' ' The Dutchman, hearing the noise, came out with a light, led Jogues back into the building, and band- aged his wound. He seemed to have some suspi- cion of the prisoner's design; for, fearful perhaps that his escape might exasperate the Indians, he made fast the door in such a manner that it could not readily be opened. "Jogues now lay down among the Indians, who, rolled in their blankets, were stretched around him. He was fevered with excitement; and the agitation of his mind, joined to the pain of his wound, kept him aWake all night. About dawn, while the In- dians were still asleep, a laborer in the employ of the farmer came in Avith a lantern, and Jogues, who spoke no Dutch, gave him to understand by signs that he needed his help and guidance. The man was disposed to aid him, silently led the way out, quieted the dogs, and showed him the path to the river. It was more than half a mile distant, and the way was rough and broken. Jogues was greatly exhausted, and his wounded limb gave him such pain that he walked with the utmost difficulty. "When he reached the shore, the day was break- ing, and he found to his dismay that the ebb of the tide had left the boat high and dry. He shouted to the vessel, but no one heard him. His desperation gave him strength ; and, by working the boat to and fro, he pushed it at length, little by little, into the waterj entered it, and rowed to the vessel. The Dutch sailors received him kindly, and hid him in the bottom of the hold, placing a large box over the hatchAvay. AjMONG the cannibal MOHAWKS 117 ''He remained two days, half -stifled, in this foul lurking-place, Avhile the Indians, furious at his es- cape, ransacked the settlement in vain to find him. They came off to the vessel, and so terrified the offi- cers that Jogues was sent on shore at night, and led to the fort. "Here he was hidden in the garret of a house oc- cupied by a miserly old man, to whose charge he was consigned. Food w^as sent to him; but, as his host appropriated the larger part to himself, Jogues was nearly starved. There was a compartment of his garret, separated from the rest by a partition of boards. Here the old Dutchman, who, like many others of the settlers, carried on a trade with the Mohawks, kept a quantity of goods for that pur- pose ; and hither he often brought his customers. "The boards of the partition had shrunk, leaving wide crevices; and Jogues could plainly see the In- dians as they passed between him and the light. They, on their part, might as easily have seen him, if he had not, when he heard them entering the house, hidden himself behind some barrels in the corner; where he would sometimes remain crouched for hours, in a constrained and painful posture, half suffocated wdth heat, and afraid to move a limb. "His wounded leg began to show dangerous symp- toms; but he was relieved by the care of a Dutch surgeon of the fort. The minister, Megapolensis, also visited him, and did all in his power for the comfort of his Catholic brother with whom he seems to have been well pleased, and whom he calls 'a very learned scholar.' "When Jogues had remained for six weeks in this hiding-place, his Dutch friends succeeded in satisfy- ing his Indian masters by the payment of a large 118 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY ransom," (Goods were given to the Indians to the value of three thousand livres.) "A vessel from Manhattan, now New York, soon after brought up an order from the Director-General, Kieft, that he should be sent to him. Accordingly he was placed in a small vessel, which carried him dowoi the Hud- son. The Dutch on board treated him with great kindness; and, to do him honor, they named after him one of the islands in the river. "At Manhattan he found a dilapidated fort, gar- risoned by sixty soldiers, and containing a stone church and the Director-General's house, together with store-houses and barracks. Near it were ranges of small houses, occupied chiefly by mechan- ics and laborers ; while the dwellings of the remain- ing colonists, numbering in all four or five hundred, were scattered here and there on the island and the neighboring shores. The settlers were of different sects and nations, but chiefly Dutch colonists. Kieft told his guest that eighteen different languages were spoken at Manhattan. The colonists were in the midst of a bloody Indian war, brought on by their own besotted cruelty; and while Jogues was at the fort, some forty of the Dutchmen were killed on the neighboring farms, and many barns and houses burned. ' ' The Director-General, with a humanity that was far from usual with him, exchanged Jogues 's squalid and savage dress for a suit of Dutch cloth, and gave him passage in a small vessel which was then about to sail. The voyage was rough and tedious; and the passenger slept on deck on a coil of ropes, suf- fering greatly from cold, and often drenched by the waves that broke over the vessel's side. "At length she reached Falmouth, on the southern AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 119 coast of England, when all the crew went ashore for a carouse, leaving Jogues alone on board. A boat presently came alongside with a gang of despera- does, who boarded her and rifled her of everything valuable, threatened Jogues with a pistol, and robbed him of his hat and coat. He obtained some assistance from the crew of a French ship in the harbor, and, on the day before Christmas [1643] took passage in a small coal vessel for the neigh- boring coast of Brittany. "In the following afternoon he was set on shore a little to the north of Brest, and, seeing a peasant's cottage not far off, he approached it, and asked the way to the nearest church. "The peasant and his wife, as the narrative gravely tells us, mistook him, by reason of his mod- est deportment, for some poor but pious Irishman, and asked him to share their supper, after finishing his devotions, — an invitation which Jogues, half famished as he was, gladly accepted. He reached the church in time for the early mass, and with an unutterable joy knelt before the altar, and renewed the communion of which he had been deprived so long. "When he returned to the cottage, the attention of his hosts was at once attracted to his mutilated and distorted hands. They asked him with amaze- ment how he could have received such injuries ; and when they heard the story of his tortures, their sur- prise and veneration knew no bounds. Two young girls, their daughters, begged him to accept all they had to give, — a handful of sous; while the peasant made known the character of his new guest to his neighbors. "A trader from Eennes brought a horse to the 120 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY door, and offered the use of it to Jogues, to earry hini to the Jesuit college in that town. He grate- fully accepted it ; and on the morning of the fifth of January, 1644, reached his destination. "He dismounted, and knocked at the door of the college. The porter opened it, and saw a man wear- ing on his head an old woollen nightcap, and in an attire little better than that of a beggar. "Joguesi asked to see the Rector; but the porter answered, coldly, that the Rector was busied in the Sacristy. Jogues begged him to say that a man was at the door with news from Canada. The mis- sions of Canada were at this time an object of primal interest to the Jesiiits, and above all to the Jesuits of France. A letter from Jogues, written during his captivity, had also reached France, as had also the Jesuit Relation of 1643, which contained a long account of his capture; and he had no doubt been an engrossing theme of conversation in every house of the French Jesuits. "The Father Rector was putting on his vestments to say mass; but when he heard that a poor man from Canada had asked for him at the door, he postponed the service and went to meet him. "Jogues, without discovering himself, gave him a letter from the Dutch Director-General attesting his character. The Rector, before reading it, began to question him as to the affairs of Canada, and at length asked him if he knew Father Jogues. *' 'I knew him very well,' was the reply. ** 'The Iroquois have taken him,' pursued the Rector. *Is he dead? Have they murdered him?' " 'No/ answered Jogues; 'he is alive and at lib- erty, and I am he.' And he fell on his knees to ask his Superior's blessing. AMONG THE CANNIBAL AIOHAWKS 121 "That night was a night of jubilation and thanlts- giving in the college of Rennes. "Jognes became a center of curiosity and rever- ence. He was summoned to Paris. The Queen, Anne of Austria, wished to see him; and when the persecuted slave of the Mohawks was conducted into the presence, she kissed his mutilated hands while the ladies of the Court thronged around to do him homage. We are told, and no doubt with truth, . that these honors were unwelcome to the modest and single-hearted missionary. . . . "A priest with any deformity of body is debarred from saying mass. The teeth and knives of the Iro- quois had inflicted an injury worse than the tortures imagined, for they had robbed Jogues of the privi- lege which Avas the chief consolation of his life ; but the Pope, by a special dispensation, restored it to him. ' ' If one were writing fiction, the tale of Isaac Jogues 's heroism should end here. Surely this maimed and tortured priest had done his part for his Order. Surely, after his unspeakable torments and sufferings, after his long months of captivity, after his repeated escapes from death only by a series of veritable miracles, he had well earned the right to finish his days in the peace of some quiet French village or college, serving his Grod and car- ing for a Christian flock suited to his gentle and loving heart. But this mild scholar was a soldier of the Cross such as can hardly be paralleled even among the self-inunolating missionary Fathers of the Catholic Church. Amid the insidious flattery of reverencing great ladies, and the special veneration of his col- leagues and superiors, he had but one thought: to 122 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY return and carry on his work of saving the sonls of the fierce cannibals at whose hands he had suf- fered such unspeakable things. Hardly had the spring opened, when he sailed agaiji for Canada. On July 5 of the following year he was at a con- ference with the Iroquois chiefs (who did not know of his presence), among whom appeared to his in- finite delight his friend and faithful helper Guil- laume Couture from whom he had parted over two years before: instead of escaping, as planned, he had become a Mohawk in dress and appearance, had gained great influence in the tribe, and had virtually persuaded the fierce warriors to send the embassy of peace. Seated in the council on mats of spruce bark the painted and bedecked ambassadors indulged in flow- ery oratory and fair excuses and promises. When the famous leader Kiotsaton expounded the significance of his fifteenth belt of wampum, he de- clared it told that the Iroquois had always wished to send Jogues back to his friends, and had intended to do so, — ^but that the rascally Dutch had prevented this by stealing the Father from his Mohawk friends. "If he had but been patient," declared the in- jured innocent, Kiotsaton, "I would have brought him back myself. Now I know not what has befallen him. Perhaps he is drowned. Perhaps he is dead." Jogues turned to the Fathers beside him with a rueful smile : * ' They had the pile laid to burn me. They would have killed me a hundred times, if God had not saved my life." The supply of wampum belts, and of oratory, was at last exhausted. The mutual presents were ac- cepted. The pipe of peace was smoked. Kiotsaton AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 123 departed, loaded with gifts, conjuring his brothers to obey "Onontio" (the Governor) and the French. The thankful Jesuits and officials watched band after band of Indians from many other widely dis- tributed tribes — Montagnais, Nipissings, Atticame- gues, Algonquins of the Ottawas, Hurons in the sixty canoes of their fleet — ^paddle up to Three Eivers, which "swarmed like an ant-hiU with savages," to conclude a solemn covenant of enduring peace with the French and with the Five Nations. ' ' There was peace in this dark and blood-stained wilderness. The lynx, the panther, and the Avolf had made a covenant of love; but who should be their surety? A doubt and a fear mingled with the joy of the Jesuit Fathers ; and to their thanksgiving to God they joined a prayer, that the hand which had given might still be stretched forth to preserve. ' ' Well might they doubt that the panther had changed so suddenly into a house-eat. Nor was it long before the essential and cherished peace began io demand their best care lest it perish. The intrepid Couture had gone back to winter with the Iroquois, mainly to hold them to their pledged faith ; and his reports made it evident that, sincere as the dreaded warriors of the Five Nations had been in their desire for peace, an agent of influ- ence was needed among them. Naturally enough, Jogues was chosen. "No white man, Couture excepted, knew their lan- guage and their character so welL His errand was half political, half religious ; for not only was he to be the bearer of gifts, wampum-belts, and messages from the Governor, but he was also to found a new mission, christened in advance with a prophetic name, — the Mission of the Martyrs. 124 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY "For two years past, Jogues had been at Mon- treal ; and it was here that he received the order of his Superior to proceed to the Mohawk towns. At first, nature asserted itself, and he recoiled involun- tarily at the thought of the horrors of which his scarred body and mutilated hands were a living me- mento. It was a transient weakness; and he pre- pared to depart with more than willingness, giving thanks to Heaven that he had been found worthy to suffer and to die for the saving of souls and the greater glory of God. "He felt a presentiment that his death was near, and wrote to a friend, 'I shall go, and shall not re- turn. ' An Algonquin convert gave him sage advice. 'Say nothing about the Faith at first, for there is nothing so repulsive, in the beginning, as our doc- trine, which seems to destroy everything that men hold dear; and as your long cassock preaches, as well as your lips, you had better put on a short coat. ' *' Jogues therefore exchanged the uniform of Loy- ola for a civilian's doublet and hose, 'for,' observes his Superior, *one should be all things to all men, that he may gain them all to Jesus Christ. ' It would be well if the application of the maxim had always been as harmless. "Jogues left Three Elvers about the middle of May (1646), with the Sieur Bourdon, engineer to the Governor, two Algonquins with gifts to confirm the peace, and four Mohawks as guides and escort. He passed the Eichelieu and Lake Champlain, well-re- membered scenes of former miseries, and reached the foot of Lake George on th eve of Corpus Christi. Hence he called the lake *Lac St. Sacrement'; and this name it preserved until, a century after, an ambitious Irishman, in compliment to the sovereign AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 125 from whom he sought advancement, gave it the name it bears. "From Lake George they crossed on foot to the Hudson, where, being greatly fatigued by their heavy load of gifts, they borrowed canoes at an Iroquois fishing-station, and descended to Fort Orange. Here Jogues met the Dutch friends to whom he owed his life, and who now kindly welcomed and entertained him. After a few days he left them, and ascended the river Mohawk to the first Mohawk town. "Crowds gathered from the neighboring towns to gaze on the man whom they had known as a scorned and abused slave, and who now appeared among them as the ambassador of a power which hitherto, indeed, they had despised, but which in their present mood they were willing to propitiate. "There was a council in one of the lodges; and while his crowded auditory smoked their pipes, Jogues stood in the midst and harangued them. He offered in due form the gifts of the Governor, with the wampum-belts and their messages of peace, while at every pause his words were echoed by a unanimous grunt of applause from the attentive con- course. Peace speeches were made in return; and all was harmony. When, however, the Algonquin deputies stood before the council, they and their gifts were coldly received. The old hate, maintained by traditions of mutual atrocity, burned fiercely un- der a thin semblance of peace ; and though no out- break took place, the prospect of the future was very ominous. "The business of the embassy was scarcely fin- ished when the Mohawks counseled Jogues and his companions to go home with all despatch, saying that if they waited longer, they might meet on the 126 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY way warriors of the four upper nations, who would inevitably kill the two Algonquin deputies, if not the French also. Jogues therefore set out on his re- turn ; but not until, despite the advice of his Indian convert, he had made the rounds of the houses, con- fessed and instructed a few Christian prisoners still remaining here, and baptized several dying Mo- hawks. Then he and his party crossed through the forest to the southern extremity of Lake George, made bark canoes, and descended to Fort Richelieu, where they arrived on the twenty-seventh of June. ' ' His political errand was accomplished. Now, should he return to the Mohawks, or should the Mission of the Martyrs be for a time abandoned? "Lalemant, who had succeeded Vimont as Supe- rior of the missions, held a council at Quebec with three other Jesuits, of whom Jogues was one, and it was determined that, unless some new contingency should arise, he should remain for the winter at Montreal. This was in July. Soon after, the plan was changed, for reasons which do not appear, and Jogues received orders to repair to his dangerous post. "He set out on the twenty-fourth of August, ac- companied by a young Frenchman named Lalande, and three or four Hurons. On the way they met Indians who warned them of a change of feeling in the Mohawk towns, and the Hurons, alarmed, re- fused to go farther. Jogues, naturally perhaps the most timid man of the party, had no thought of drawing back, and pursued his journey with his young companion, who, like other donnes of the mis- sions, was scarcely behind the Jesuits themselves in devoted enthusiasm. **The reported change of feeling had indeed taken AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 127 place ; and the occasion of it was characteristic. On his previous visit to the Mohawks, Jogues, meaning to return, had left in their charge a small chest or box. From the first they were distrustful, suspect- ing that it contained some secret mischief. He there- fore opened it, and showed them the contents, which were a few personal necessaries; and having thus, as he thought, reassured them, locked the box and left it in their keeping. The Huron prisoners in the town attempted to make favor with their Iroquois enemies by abusing their French friends, — declaring them to be sorcerers, who had bewitched, by their charms and mummeries, the whole Huron nation, and caused drought, famine, pestilence, and a host of in- supportable miseries. Thereupon, the suspicions of the Mohawks against the box revived with double force ; and they were convinced that famine, the pest, or some malignant spirit was shut up in it, waiting the moment to issue forth and destroy them. There was sickness in the town, and caterpillars were eat- ing their corn ; this was ascribed to the sorceries of the Jesuit. Still they were divided in opinion. Some stood firm for the French; others were furious against them. Among the Mohawks, three clans or families were predominant, if indeed they did not compose the entire nation, — the clans of the Bear, the Tortoise, and the Wolf. Though by the nature of their constitution it was scarcely possible that these clans should come to blows, so intimately were they bound together by ties of blood, yet they were often divided on points of interest or policy ; and on this occasion the Bear raged against the French, and howled for war, while the Tortoise and the Wolf still clung to the treaty. Among savages, with no government except the intermittent one of councils, 128 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY the party of action and violence must always pre- vail. The Bear chiefs sang their vmr-songs, and, followed by the yonng men of their own clan, and by sxich others as they had infected with their own frenzy, set forth in two bands on the war-path. ' ' The warriors of one of these bands were making their way through the forests between the Mohawk and Lake George, when they met Jognes and La- lande. They seized them, stripped them, and led them in triumph to their to^wm. "Here a savage crowd surroimded them, beating them with sticks and with their fists. One of them cut thin strips from the back and arm of Jogues, saying as he did so. " 'Let us see if this white flesh is the flesh of an oki' (a magician). " '1 am a man like yourselves,' replied Jogues, 'but I do not fear death or torture. I do not know why you would kill me. I come here to confirm the peace and show you the way to heaven, and you treat me like a dog.' " 'You shall die to-morrow,' cried the rabble. 'Take courage, Ave shall not burn you. We shall stril?:e you both with a hatchet, and place your heads on the palisade, that your brothers may see you when we take them prisoners.' "The clans of the Wolf and the Tortoise still raised their voices in behalf of the captive French- men; but the fury of the minority swept all before it, "In the evening, — ^it was the eighteenth of Octo- ber, — Jogues, smarting with his wounds and bruises, was sitting in one of the lodges, when an Indian entered, and asked him to a feast. "To refuse would have been an offense. He arose AMONG THE CANNIBAL MOHAWKS 129 and followed the savage, who led him to the lodge of the Bear chief. Jogues bent his head to enter, when another Indian, standing concealed within, struck at him with a hatchet, "An Iroquois, called by the French Le Berger, who seems to have followed in order to defend him, bravely held out his arm to ward off the blow, but the hatchet cut through it, and sank into the mis- sionary's brain. He fell at the feet of his mur- derer, who at once finished the work by hacking off his head. Lalande was left in suspense all night, and in the morning was killed in a similar manner. The bodies of the two Frenchmen were then thrown into the Mohawk, and their heads displayed on the points of the palisade which enclosed the town. "Thus died Isaac Jogues, one of the purest ex- amples of Eoman Catholic virtue which this Western continent has seen. The priests, his associates, praise his humility, and tell us that it reached the point of self-contempt, — a crowning virtue in their eyes ; that he regarded himself as nothing, and lived solely to do the will of God as uttered by the lips of his Superiors. They add that, when left to the guidance of his own judgment, his self -distrust made him very slow of decision, but that when acting un- der orders he knew neither hesitation nor fear. With all his gentleness, he had a certain warmth or vi- vacity of temperament ; and we have seen how, dur- ing his first captivity, while humbly submitting to every caprice of his tyrants and appearing to rejoice in abasement, a derisive word against his faith would change the lamb into the lion, and the lips that seemed so tame would speak in sharp, bold tones of menace and reproof." A srtperb figure, this gentle martyr who dared 130 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY all — save to fail in giving all, including life, for his Cause ! Isaac Jogues, Lalemant, Bressoni, Brebceuf, Gar- nier, Chaumont, Chabanel and the others of that in- trepid band — ^they go far indeed to blot out Torque- mada, the horrors of the Inquisition in Spain and the West Indies and Spanish America, and the other black pages which have been emphasized in the history of the Society of Jesus. CHAPTER Vin THE DEEVISHES AT OMDUEMAN On the last day of August, 1898, Kitchener's army of 22,000 British and Egyptian troops came within, sight of Omdurman, the last stronghold of Mahdism, where the pale yellow dome of the Mahdi's tomb rose above a vast purplish splotch of mud houses by the side of the Nile, close to Khartum and nearly 1,400 miles up the Nile. This was the climax of the campaign in which the Sirdar had been wiping out sixteen years of English humiliation : the loss of the Sudan, the massacre of Baker's levies, the annihilation of Hicks Pasha's force, the death of Gordon. He had taken heavy vengeance at the Atbara, crushing Mahmud's army, and capturing the redoubtable Mahmud himself. Now he had penetrated to the stronghold of the Khalifa, who still had 50,000 fanatical desert Bag- gara followers (Kipling's "Fuzzy-wuzzy," the only one who ever "bruk a British square"), all eager to die in this holy war against the infidel. The following night, the British camp lay along the Nile beside the little village of Agaiga, seven miles below Omdurman; and by the first streak of dawn the cavalry was abroad, the gunboats lay in the river with steam up, and the troops, who had spent the night under arms, were in position for the culminating act of the drama. 131 132 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY G. W. Steevens, the correspondent of a London newspaper on this campaign, saw what followed : "Light stole quietly into the sky behind us; there was no sound from the plain or the hills before ns; there was hardly a sound from our own line. Every- body was very silent, but very curious. Would they be so mad as to come out and run their heads into our fire? It seemed beyond hoping for; yet cer- tainly they had been full of war the day before. But most of us were expecting instantly the order to advance on Omdurman. *'A trooper rose out of the dimness from behind the shoulder of Gebel Surgham, grew larger and plainer, spurred violently up to the line and inside. A couple more were silhouetted -across our front. Then the electric whisper came racing down the line ; they were coming. The Lancers came in on the left ; the Egyptian mounted troops drew like a curtain across us from left to right. As they passed a flicker of white flags began to extend and fill the front in their place. The noise of something began to creep in upon us ; it cleared and divided into the tap of drums and the far-away surf of raucous war- cries. A shiver of expectancy thrilled along our army, and then a sigh of content. They were com- ing on. Allah help them! they were coming on. ' ' It was now half-past six. The flags seemed still very distant, the roar very faint, and the thud of our first gun was almost startling. It may have startled them too, but it startled them into life. The line of flags flung forward, and a mass of white flying linen swung forward with it too. They came very fast, and they came very straight; and then presently they came no farther. With a crash the bullets leaped out of the British rifles. It began THE DERVISHES AT OMDURMAN 133 with the Guards and Warwicks — section volleys at 2,000 yards ; then, as the Dervishes edged rightward, it ran along to the Highlanders, the Lincolns, and to Maxwell's Brigade. The British stood up in double rank behind their zariba; the blacks lay do^v^Li in their shelter-trench ; both poured out death as fast as they could load and press trigger. Shrap- nel whistled and Maxims growled savagely. From all the line came perpetual fire, fire, fire, and shrieked forth in great gusts of destruction. "And the enemy? No white troops would have faced that torrent of death for five minutes, but the Baggara and the blacks came on. The torrent swept into them and hurled them doAvn in whole companies. You saw a rigid line gather itself up and rush on evenly; then before a shrapnel shell or a Maxim the line suddenly quivered and stopped. The line was yet unbroken, but it was quite still. But other lines gathered up again, again, and yet again ; they went down, and yet others rushed on. Sometimes they came near enough to see a single figure quite plainly. One old man with a Avhite flag started with five comrades; all dropped, but he alone came bounding forward to within 200 yards of the 14th Sudanese. Then he folded his arms across his face, and his limbs loosened, and he dropped sprawling to earth beside his flag. "It Avas the last day of Mahdism and the greatest. They could never get near, and they refused to hold back. By now the ground before us was all white with dead men 's drapery. Rifles grew red-hot ; the soldiers seized them by the slings and dragged them back to the reserve to exchange them for cool ones. It was not a battle, but an execution. "In the middle of it all we were surprised to find 134 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY that we were losing men. The crash of our own fire was so prodigious that we could not hear their bul- lets \vhistle; yet they came and swooped down and found victims. The Dervishes were firing at their extreme range, and their bullets were many of them almost spent ; but as they always fire high they often hit. So that while you might have thought you were at a shoot of rabbits, you suddenly heard the sharp cry, 'Bearer party there, quick,' and a man was being borne rearward. Fcav went down, but there was a steady trickle to hospital. Bullets may have been spent, and Captain Caldecott, of the Warwicks, was one of the strongest men in the army; but that helped him nothing when the dropping ball took him in the temple and came out through the jugular. He lay an hour unconscious, then opened his eyes with 'For God's sake, give me water!' and died as he drank. All mourned him for a smart officer and a winning comrade. Most of all the two Highland battalions dropped men. The zariba behind which they were unAvisely posted obliged them to stand, besides hampering them both in fire and when it came to movement ; a little clump of enemy gathered in a hole in front of them, and by the time the guns came up to shell them out, the Camerons had lost some twenty-five and the Seaforths above a dozen. "But loss on this scale was not to be considered beside the awful slaughter of the Dervishes. If they still came on our men needed only time and ammunition and strength to point a rifle to Idll them off to the very last man. Only by now — small won- der—they were not coming on. They were not driven back ; they were all killed in coming on. One section of fire after another hushed, and at eight o'clock the village and the plain were still again. The last THE DEEVISHES AT OMDURMAN 135 shell had burst over the last visible group of Der- vishes; now there was nothing but the unbending, grimly expectant line before Agaiga and the still carpet of white in front. "We waited half an hour or so, and then the sud- den bugle called us to our feet. 'Advance,' it cried; 'to Omdurman!' added we. Slowly the force broke up, and expanded. The evident intention was to march in echelon of brigades — the Second British leading along the river, the First British on their right rear, the Maxwell's, Lewis's, and Macdonald's, with CoUinson's still supporting. Lewis and Mae- donald had changed places, the latter being now out- ermost and rearmost ; at the time few noticed that. The moment the Dervish attack had died down the 21st Lancers had slipped out, and pushed straight for the Khalifa's capital. "Movement was slow, since the leading brigade had to wait till the others had gone far enough in- land to take their positions. We passed over a cor- ner of the field of fire, and saw for certain what slaughter we had done. The bodies were not in heaps — ^bodies hardly ever are; but they spread evenly over acres and acres. And it was very re- markable, if you remembered the Atbara, that you saw hardly a black ; nearly all the dead had the high forehead and taper cheeks of the Arab. The Bag- gara had been met at last, and he was worth meeting. Some lay very composedly, with their slippers placed under their heads for a last pillow; some knelt, cut short in the middle of a last prayer. Others were torn to pieces, vermilion blood already drying on brown skin, killed instantly beyond doubt. Others, again, seemingly as dead* as these, sprang up as we approached, and rushed savagely, hurling spears at 136 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY the nearest enemy. They were bayoneted or shot. Once again the plain seemed empty, but for the advancing masses and for the carpet of reddened white and broken bodies underfoot. "It was now twenty minntes to ten. The Brit- ish had crested a low ridge between Gebel Sur- gham and the Nile; Maxwell's brigade was just ascending it, Lewis's just coming up under the hill. Men who could go where they liked were up with the British, staring hungrily at Omdurman. Sud- denly from rearward broke out a heayy crackle of fire. We thought perhaps a dozen men or so had been shamming dead; we went on staring at Om- durman. But next instant we had to turn and gal- lop hot-heeled back again. For the crackle became a crashing, and the crashing waxed to a roar. Der- vishes were firing at us from the top of Gebel Sur- gham, dervishes were firing behind and to the right of it. The 13th Sudanese were bounding up the hill ; Lewis's brigade had hastily faced to its right west- ward, and was voUe^ydng for life; Macdonald's be- yond, still facing northward, was a sheet of flashes and a roll of smoke. "\^Tiat Avas it? Had they come to life again? No time to ask; reinforcements or ghosts, they were on us, and the battle was begun all over again. "To understand, you must hear now what we only heard afterwards. The dervish army, it ap- peared, had not returned to Omdurman on the night of the 1st, but had bivouacked-^0,000 to 50,000 of them — behind Gebel Surgham, southwestward from Agaiga. The Khalifa had doubtless expected a sud- den attack at daybreak, as at Firket, at Abu Aamed, on the Atbara ; as we marched by night to our posi- tion before Omdurman, he must have designed to THE DERVISHES AT OMDURMAN 137 spring on our right flank. When day broke and no enemy appeared he divided his army into three corps. The first, under Osman Azrak, attacked the village; the second, with the green banner of Ali Wad Helu — ^with him AbduUahi's eldest son, the Sheik-ed-Din, moved toward Kerreri Heights to envelop our right ; the third, under Abdullahi him- self and his brother Gakub, remained behind Sur- gham, ready, as need might be, to envelop our left, or to act as reserve and bar our road to Om- durman. "What befell the first you know; Osman Azrak died with them. The second spread out toward our right, and there it fell in with the Egyptian cavalry, horse-battery, and camel-corps. When Broadwood Bey fell back before the attack, he sent word of its coming to the Sirdar, and received orders to remain outside the trench and keep the enemy in front, in- stead of letting them get around the right. Accord- ingly, he occupied the Heights of Kerreri. But the moment he got to the top he found himself in face of Wad Helu's unsuspected army corps — 12,000 to 15,000 men against less than 2,000 — and the moment he saw them they began SM^arming up the hill. There was just a moment for decision, but one moment is all that a born cavalry general needs. The next his galloper was flying with the news to the Sirdar, and the mounted troops were retreating northward. Th_e choice lay between isolation, annihilation, or retreat on Agaiga and envelopment of the right. Broad- wood chose the first, but even for that the time was short enough. The camels floundered on the rocky hillside; the guns dragged; the whole mass of der- vishes pursued them with a pelting fire. Two guns lost all their horses and were abandoned ; the camel- 138 THE BOOK OF BKAVEEY corps alone had over sixty men hit. As for the cav- alry, they went back very hard pressed, covering their comrades' retreat and their own by carbine fire. If the Egyptian army but gave Victoria Crosses, there were many earned that day. Man after man rode back to bring in dismounted officers, and would hardly be dissuaded from their endeavor when it was seen that the rescued were plainly dead. It was the great day of trial — the day the pick of our cavalry officers have worked for through a weary decade and more — and the Eayum fellah fought like a hero and died like a man. One or two short of forty killed and wounded was the day's loss; but they came off handsomely. The army of the green flag was now on Kerreri Heights, between them and the camp; but with Broadwood's force unbroken be- hind it, it passed from the meditated attack on the Egyptian right. In the pause three of the five gun- boats caught it, and pepper-castered it over with shell and Maxim fire. It mthdrew from the river towards the centre again; the instant a way was cleared the outpaced camel-corps was passed back to Agaiga. The cavalry hung upon the green flag's left, till they -withdrew clean westward and inland; then it moved placidly back to the infantry again. "This much for the right; on the left the British cavalry were in the stress of an engagement less perfectly conducted, even more hardily fought out. They left the zariba, as you heard, the moment the attack burned out, and pricked eagerly off to Om- durman. Verging somewhat westward, to the rear of Gebel Surgham, they came on 300 Dervishes. Their scouts had been over the ground a thousand yards ahead of them, and it was clear for a charge. Only to cut them off it was thought better to get a THE DERVISHES AT OMDUEMAN 139 little west of them, then left wheel, and thus gallop down on them and drive them away from their sup- ports. The trmnpets sang out the order, the troops glided into squadrons, and, four squadrons in line, the 21st Lancers S'WTing into their first charge. "Knee to knee they swept on till they were but 200 yards from the enemy. Then suddenly — then in a flash — they saw the trap. Between them and the 300 there yawned suddenly a deep ravine; out of the ravine there sprang instantly a cloud of dark heads, and a brandished lightning of swords, and a thunder of savage voices. Mahmed smiled when he heard the tale in prison at Haifa, and said it was their favorite stratagem. It had succeeded. Three thousand, if there was one, to a short four hundred ; but it was too late to check now. Must go through with it now! The blunders of British cavalry are the fertile seed of British glory; knee to knee the Lancers whirled on. One hundred yards — fifty — knee to knee "Slap! 'It was just like that,' said a captain, bringing his fist hard into his open palm. Through the swordsmen they shore without checking — and then came the Khor. The colonel at their head, riding straight through everything without sword or revolver drawn, found his horse on its head, and the swords swooping about his own. He got the charger up again, and rode on straight, unarmed, through everything. The squadrons followed him down the fall. Horses plunged, blundered, recov- ered, fell ; dervishes on the ground lay for the ham- string cut ; officers pistoled them in passing over, as one drops a stone into a bucket ; troopers thrust till lances broke, then cut ; everybody went on straight, through everything. 140 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY "And through everything clean out the other side they came — those that kept up or got up in time. The others were on the ground — in pieces by now, for the cruel swords shore through shoulder and thigh, and carved the dead into fillets. Twenty-four of these, and of those that came out over fifty had felt sword or bullet or spear. Few horses stayed behind among the swords, but nearly 130 were wounded. Lieutenant Robert Grenf ell's troop came on a place with a jump out as well as a jump in; it lost officer, centre guide, and both flank guides, ten killed and eleven wounded. Yet, when they burst straggling out, their only thought was to rally and go in again. 'Rally, No. 2!' yelled a sergeant, so mangled across the face that his body was a cas- cade of blood, and nose and cheeks flapped hideously as he yelled. 'Fall out, sergeant, you're wounded,' said the subaltern of his troop. 'No, no, sir; fall in ! ' came the hoarse answer ; and the man reeled in his saddle. 'Fall in, No. 2; fall in. Where are the devils ? Show me the devils ! ' And No. 2 fell in — four whole men out of twenty. ' ' They chafed and stamped and blasphemed to go through them again, though the colonel wisely for- bade them to face the pit anew. There were gnash- ings of teeth and howls of speechless rage — things half theatrical, half brutal to tell of when blood has cooled, yet things to rejoice over, in that they show the fighting devil has not, after all, been civilized out of Britons. Also there are many and many deeds of self-abandoning heroism ; of which tale the half will never be told. Take only one. Lieutenant de Montmorency missed his troop-sergeant, and rode back among the clashes to look for him. There he found the hacked body of Lieutenant Grenfell. He Out of the ravine there sprang instantly a cloud of dark heads THE DEEVISHES AT OMDUEMAN 141 dismounted, and put it np on his horse, not seeing, in his heat, that life had drained out long since by a dozen channels. The horse bolted under the slack- ened nrascles, and de Montmorency was left alone with his revolver and 3,000 screaming fiends. Cap- tain Kenna and Corporal Swarbrick rode out, caught his horse, and brought it back; the three answered the fire of the 3,000 at fifty yards, and got quietly back to their own line untouched. "Forbearing a second charge, the Lancers dis- mounted and opened fire ; the carbines at short range took an opulent vengeance for the lost. Back, back, back they drove them, till they came into the fire of the 32nd Battery. The shrapnel flew shrieking over them; the 3,000 fell all ways, and died. "All this from hearsay; now to go back to what we saw. When the Sirdar moved his brigades south- ward he knew what he was doing. He was giving his right to an unbeaten enemy; with his usual dar- ing he made it so. His game now was to get between the dervishes and Omdurman. Perhaps he did not guess what a bellyful of beating the unbeaten enemy would take; but he trusted to his generals and his star, and, as always, they bore him to victory. "The blacks of the 13th Battalion were storming Gebel Surgham. Lewis and Macdonald, facing west and south, had formed a right angle. They were receiving the fire of the Khalifa's division, and the charge of the Khalifa's horsemen; behind these the Khalifa's huge black standard was flapping raven- like. The Baggara horsemen were few and ill- mounted — perhaps 200 altogether — ^but they rode to get home or die. They died. There was a time when one galloping Baggara would have chased a thousand Egyptians, but that time is very long past. 142 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY The fellaheen stood like a wall, and aimed steadily at the word ; the chargers swerved towards Macdon- ald. The blacks, cool as any Scotsmen, stood and aimed likewise ; the last Baggara fell at the muzzles of the rifles. Our fire went on, steady, remorseless. The Remington bullets piped more and more rarely overhead, and the black heads thinned out in front. A second time the attack guttered and flickered out. It was just past two. Once more to Omdurman. ''Two minutes' silence. Then once more the howling storm rushed down upon us; once more crashed forth the answering tempest. This time it burst upon Macdonald alone — from the northwest- ward upon his right flank, spreading and gathering to his right rear. For all their sudden swiftness of movement the Dervishes throughout this day never lost their formation; their lines drove on as rigidly as ours, regiment alongside regiment in lines of six and eight and a dozen ranks, till you might have fancied the Macedonian phalanx was alive again. Left and front and right and rear the masses ate up the desert — 12,000 unbroken fast and fearless warriors leaping round 3,000. "Now began the fiercest fight of that fierce day. The Khalifa brought up his own black banner again ; his staunchest die-hards drove it into the earth and locked their ranks about it. The green flag danced encouragement to the Allah-intoxicated battalions of Wad Helu and the Sheik-ed-Din. It was victory or Paradise now. ''For us it was victory or shredded flesh and bones unburied, crackling under the red slippers of Bag- gara victors. It was the very crux and crisis of the fight. If Macdonald went, Lewis on his left and CoUinson and the supporting camel-corps and the THE DEEVISHES AT OMDURMAN 143 newly returned cavalry, all on his right or rear^ must all go too. The Second British and Second Egyptian Brigades were far off by now, advancing by the left of Surgham Hill; if they had to be re- called the Khalifa could walk back into his strong- hold, and then all our fighting have to begin anew. But Hunter Pasha was there and Macdonald Bey was there, born fighting men both, whom no danger can flurry and no sudden shift in the kaleidoscope of battle disconcert. Hunter sent for Wauchope's first British Brigade to fill the gap between Mac- donald and Lewis. The order went to General Gat- acre first instead of to the Sirdar : with the soldier 's instinct he set the brigade moving on the instant. The khaki columns faced round and edged right- ward, rightward till the fighting line was backed with 3,000 Lee-Metfords, which no man on earth could face and live. Later the Lincolns were moved farther still on to Macdonald 's right. They dispute "with the Warwicks the title of the best shooting- regiment in the British army; the men they shot at will dispute no claim of the Lincolns for ever. "But the cockpit of the fight was Macdonald 's. The British might well avenge his brigade; it was. his to keep it and kill the attack. To meet it he turned his front through a complete half -circle, fac- ing succesisively south, west, and north. Every tac- tician in the army was delirious in his praise : the ignorant correspondent was content to watch the man and his blacks. 'Cool as on parade' is an old phrase ; Macdonald Bey was very much cooler. Be- neath the strong, square-heA\Ti face you could tell that the brain was working as if packed in ice. He sat solid on his horse, and bent his black brows toward the green flag and the Eemingtons. Then. 144: THE BOOK OF BRAVERY he turned to a galloper with an order, and cantered easily up to a battalion-commander. Magically the rifles hushed, the stinging powder smoke wisped away, and the companies were rapidly threading back and forward, round and round, in and out, as if it were a figure of a dance. In two minutes the brigade was together again in a new place. The field in front was hastening toward us in a whity- brown cloud of dervishes. An order, Macdonald's jaws gripped and hardened as the flame spurted out again, and the whity-brown cloud quivered and stood still. He saw everything; knew what to do; knew how to do it ; did it. At the fire he was ever brooding watchfully behind his firing-line; at the cease fire he was instantly in front of it: all saw him, and knew that they were being nursed to triumph. "His blacks of the 9th, 10th, and 11th, the historic fighting regiments of the Egyptian army, were worthy of their chief. The 2nd Egyptian, brigaded with them and fighting in the line, were worthy of their comrades, and of their own reputation as the best disciplined battalion in the world. A few had feared that the blacks would be too forward, the yellows too backward; except that the blacks, as always, looked happier, there was no difference at all between them. The Egyptians Sprang to the ad- vance at the bugle; the Sudanese ceased fire in an instant silence at the whistle. They were losing men, too, for though eyes were clamped on the dervish charges, the dervish fire was brisk. Man after man dropped out behind the firing-line. Here was a white officer with a red-lathered charger; there a black stretched straight, bare-headed in the sun, dry-lipped, uncomplaining, a bullet through his THE DERVISHES AT OMDUEMAN 145 liver ; two yards away a dead driver by a dead bat- tery mule, his whip still glued to his hand. The table of loss topped 100— 150— nearer 200. Still they stood, fired, advanced, fired, changed front, fired — firing, firing always, deaf in the din, blind in the smarting smoke, hot, dry, bleeding, blood- thirsty, enduring the devilish fight to the end. ''And the Dervishes'? The honor of the fight must still go with the men who died. Our men were perfect, but the Dervishes were superb — ^beyond per- fection. It was their largest, best, and bravest aTvaj that ever fought against us for Mahdism, and it died worthily of the huge empire that Mahdism won and kept so long. Their riflemen, mangled by every kind of death and torment that man can devise, clung round the black flag and the green, emptying their poor, rotten, home-made cartridges dauntlessly. Their spearmen charged death at every minute hopelessly. Their horsemen led each attack, riding into the bullets till nothing was left but three horses trotting up to our line, heads do'WTi, saying, 'For goodness' sake, let us in out of this.' Not one rush, or two, or ten — ^but rush on rush, company on com- pany, never stopping, though all their view that was not unshaken enemy was the bodies of the men who had rushed before them. A dusky line got up and stormed forward: it bent, broke up, fell apart, and disappeared. Before the smoke had cleared, an- other line was bending and storming forward in the same track. "It was over. The avenging squadrons of the Egyptian cavalry swept over the field. The Khalifa and the Sheik-ed-Din had galloped back to Omdur- man. Ali Wad Helu was borne away on an angareb with a bullet through his thigh-bone. Gakub lay 146 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY dead under his brother's banner. From the green army there now came only death-enamored des- peradoes, strolling one by one toward the rifles, turning aside to recognize a corpse, then, caught by a sudden jet of fury, bounding forward, check- ing, sinking limply to the ground. Now under the black flag in a ring of bodies stood only three men, facing the three thousand of the Third Brigade. They folded their arms about the staff and gazed steadily forward. Two fell. The last dervish stood up and filled his chest; he shouted the name of his God and hurled his spear. Then he stood quite still, waiting. It took him full ; he quivered, gave at the knees, and toppled with his head on his arms and his face toward the legions of his conquerors." CHAPTER IX THE MISSIONAEY WHO SAVED A CITY A MISSIONARY to savagG or semi-civilized lands would not get very far without courage ; and every religion has sent out men who considered their own safety as naught beside their work. John C. Lam- bert tells the story of a Scotch Presbyterian in China, A. Macdonald Westwater, whose deeds im- pressed the soldiers of several nations. "The Boxer madness had swung up to Manchuria from the south, and had raged across the country with the swift destructiveness of a prairie fire. Hordes of Chinese soldiers joined the anti-foreign movement, and everywhere there was 'red ruin and the breaking up of laws.' Christian missions and native Christians suffered most, for they had to bear the full brunt of the savage hatred stirred up against the 'foreign devils.' But the rioters did not stop short with massacring Christians and destroying native property. Boxerism soon turned to indis- criminate brigandage. And by and by the great city of Mukden, the capital of the three provinces of Manchuria, was looted, while for a distance of 500 miles the marauders marched along the railway lines, tearing up the rails, destroying stations, plun- dering and burning houses and villas on either hand. "But the avengers were soon on the trail. Rus- sian troops were poured into Manchuria, and a terrible work of reprisal was begun. Advancing 147 148 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY simultaneously from south and north, the Eussians simply wiped out any village in which they found any railway material, and left the country behind them black and smoking on either side of what had once been the railway line. "The terror of their name traveled before them. As they drew near to Hai-cheng the people fled en masse, though the better-off among them, in the hope of securing some consideration for their property, took the precaution of leaving caretakers behind in their houses and shops. But the troops of the Czar treated Hai-cheng as they had already treated many a meaner place. Of the numerous caretakers left in the city only six escaped from the pitiless mas- sacre that followed the military occupation. Hai- cheng itself was looted and left absolutely bare. And then the Russians moved onwards, still de- stroying as they went, and making their way now towards the important city of Liao-yang. "In Liao-yang, previous to the Boxer outbreak, a splendid work had been carried on for years by Dr. Westwater, an agent of the United Presbyterian, now the United Free Church, of Scotland. His 'Free Healing Hall,' as the name of his mission hospital ran in Chinese, had become a place of note in the city. In this hall, as one of the citizens, not himself a Christian, expressed it, 'the blind saw, the lame walked, the deaf heard ; and all were coun- seled to virtue.' "Compelled by the Boxer fury to lay down his work in Liao-yang for a time, the doctor sought and obtained permission to accompany the Russian puni- tive field force as a member of the Russian Red Cross Society with General Alexandrovski at its head. He was present in every battle fought during MISSIONARY WHO SAVED A CITY 149 the campaign, and immensely impressed the Eussian officers by his surgical skill, which quite surpassed that of any doctor of their own. In this way he gained the good opinion and respect of the general in command, and was able to do something towards checking the frightful excesses of which, at first, the army was guilty. "When the advancing troops reached Liao-yang, a small engagement was fought in which the Chi- nese were defeated. Following up their victory, the Russians were just about to enter the suburbs, when they were fired upon from the city walls and so brought to a halt. Meanwhile from the Korean Gate the inhabitants were pouring out in crowds, endeavoring to make good their escape before the Russians should take the city. Numbers of people were trampled to death in the panic-stricken rush, many were pushed into the river and drowned. To crown the horror of the scene, the Russian gunners got on to this black mass of struggling fugitives, and began to throAV shells into the thick of it. "It now seemed certain that Liao-yang would share the fate that had already befallen Hai-cheng — ^the fate of being deserted by a terrified popula- tion and given up to massacre and loot at the hands of native brigands as Avell as of Russian troops. Only one man stood between it and destruction, but that man had the soul of a hero, and proved himself equal to the occasion. "Before the general had ordered an assault upon the city. Dr. Westwater had obtained an interview with him. His words were brief but to the point. " 'I undertake,' he said, 'to enter Liao-yang by myself, and to persuade the people to surrender peacefully, but upon one condition.' 150 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY " 'What is that?' asked the general. " 'That I have your solemn word of honor that no harm shall be done to the person of man or woman within the walls, and that there shall be absolutely no looting.' "To a Russian commander this was a new way of dealing with an obstinate Chinese town. But Dr. Westwater's personality by this time had made a strong impression on him, and he at once gave his word of honor to observe the stipulated terms. The doctor then mounted his pony, and rode on all alone toward the walls of this lately Boxerized city — which, you will remember, he had been compelled to leave even when it was comparatively orderly and when there was no besieging army to rouse the fierce hate of any but the fanatics against foreigners. "Obtaining entrance by one of the gates, and riding on through the streets, he could see no sign of any living creature. It looked at first as if the whole population had vanished, though most of them, he afterwards found, had simply shut them- selves up within their houses. At last a Christian schoolboy approached, who had recognized him and come out to meet him. From this boy Dr. West- water learned that at that very time the members of the Guild — the City Fathers of Liao-yang, as they might be called — ^were gathered together to take counsel regarding the city's fate. "Riding on, he came to their hall of meeting, and introduced himself, as one whom most of them knew as a Christian doctor, but who was now come as an ambassador of peace from the head of the Russian army. And when he went on to inform them that the general had passed his deliberate word of honor to himself to do no harm to the place if it was quietly MISSIONAEY WHO SAVED A CITY 151 surrendered, a thrill of astonishment and relief ran through the meeting. The word was quickly carried through the streets, and the confidence of the city- was restored as if by magic. The people no longer thought of abandoning Liao-yang to its fate, but prepared with perfect calmness to receive their conquerors. "The Eussian general, on the other hand, was absolutely loyal to his word. To secure that his promises should be observed to the letter he ap- pointed, not sergeants merely, but commissioned of- ficers to go about the streets with the patrols. And this was the altogether unexampled result. During the whole of the Eussian occupation of Liao-yang there was not a single instance of crime committed by the soldiery against the person or property of any inhabitant of the city. "This gallant deed of the Scotch missionary doc- tor has been described by Mr. Whigham, the well- kno^m Eastern traveler and war correspondent, as 'a fine thing done by a white man all alone,' and as the bravest deed of which he knows. And it was this that gained for Dr. Westwater from the people of Manchuria his enviable name of 'The savior of Liao-yang.' " When he went home to Scotland on a furlough a year later the whole city turned out to honor him with a triumphal procession : with banners and bands the dignitaries escorted him to the railway station and bade him farewell. When the great struggle between Eussia and Japan convulsed the East, Dr. Westwater remained in Liao-yang with his family and witnessed that memorable week of battle from its walls. Presently his hands were full. A military correspondent de- 152 THE BOOK OF BKAVEEY scribes Mm in these tense days: "Brave as a lion. Dr. Westwater went abont alone, regardless of sbell- fire and bullets, succoring the wounded and doing good" — sheltering the homeless, feeding the starv- ing, performing scores of critical operations, yet always ready to help any fresh case which came to him. "I saw the doctor just after he had completed seven amputations, and a score or more of cases remained to be dealt with. . . . He had no assistant — ^his only helpers a few Chinese who served as nurses. ' ' No wonder that his name became a password of safety even with the wild bandits — who released at least one traveler and gave him back his money upon hearing that he was associated with Dr. West- water of Liao-yang. CHAPTER X THE WOMAN WHO TRIED FOR LHASA Eemote, high and inaccessible; guarded by the "Abodes of Snow," where tower the loftiest moun- tains of the globe, as well as by a rigorously en- forced policy of isolation, the city of Lhasa has ever been a lodestone to adventurous spirits. Italian monks reached it at the beginning of the 17th century; a Roman Catholic legate got there in 1732 — ^but was promptly sent back; Manning made his way in from India in 1811, and two French Abbes, Hue and Gabet, had a brief glimpse of it in 1845. The veil was lifted again for a moment when Younghusband's expedition crossed the Karo- la Pass and were received at the capital in 1904. But the marvels described by these adventurers — ^the amazing mountains, the state of the Dalai Lama (the "Priest Ocean," Buddha reincarnate), the incredible cliffside monasteries, some having 7,000 monks in a single group, the strange customs — all these romantic tales have been so fragmentary as merely to whet the world's appetite for more facts about this unique land, which shares perhaps with Abyssinia the distinction of containing the most picturesque race in all the world. Especially has the missionary zeal of every de- nomination been aroused by the thought of these five million moimtaineers, priest-ridden to such an 153 154 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY extent that in some parts one man in seven is a monk, deluded by pretended miracles, supporting in ignorance and poverty a horde of hungry mon- asteries. To be sure, there must be another side: witness that altogether lovable figure of "Kim's" lama searching for his arrow, who would surely not suffer by comparison "wdth the priests of any re- ligion. But enough remains .to make the strongest appeal both to religious fervor and secular curiosity. Yet it is an odd fact that no Protestant mission- ary has ever set foot in Lhasa; and the one who came nearest to it was a woman, quite alone, except for a couple of Chinese attendants. In 1884, Miss Annie R. Taylor was the represen- tative of the China Island Mission in Tau-chau, far up in the northwest of China and close to the border of Tibet. She did her work with quiet effectiveness, giving no outward sign of the larger ideas growing in her mind, which would have seemed absurd had they not sprung from such childlike confidence. These crystallized three years later when she paid a visit to the celebrated Lama monastery of Kum- bum, where Father Hue nearly half a century be- fore had spent some months learning the Tibetan language. She gazed out to the westward into that mountain chaos, behind which lay Lhasa. It was, by all the dictates of common sense, impossible to reach that centre of this benighted land ; trebly im- possible for a woman, alone and without influence. But there is something in that boyish definition of "faith" as "believing things you know ain't so": she experienced that impelling sense of being called upon to meet an emergency, which has ever urged human beings to achieve the impossible. From that WOMAN "WHO TEIED FOE LHASA 155 day she resolved to devote herself to the attempt to penetrate to the "Foi-bidden City." "Her first idea was to make India her point of departure, for Lhasa lies much nearer to India than to China, though the comparative shortness of this route is balanced by the fact that it leads right over the Himalayas. She went accordingly to Darjeeling, pressed on into Sikkim, which had not yet passed under British rule, and settled down near a Tibetan fort called Kambajong, with the view of mastering the language thoroughly before proceeding any far- ther. From the first the Tibetan suspicion of all strangers showed itself. The people would often ask her, in an unpleasantly suggestive manner, "what they should do with her body if she died. Her answer was, that she had no intention of dying just then. The intentions of the natives, however, did not coincide with her oAvn, and they next resorted to a custom they have of 'praying people dead.' Their faith in the power of prayer did not hinder them from giving Heaven some assistance in getting their prayers answered. One day the chief's Avife invited Miss Taylor to dinner, and set before her an appetizing dish of rice and eggs. She had not long partaken of it when she fell seriously ill, with all the symptoms of aconite poisoning. On her re- covery she wisely left this district, and settled down to live the life of the natives themselves in a little hut near the Tibetan monastery of Podang Gumpa. "After a year spent in this way, for ten months of which she never saw the face of a white person, she realized the impracticability of making her way to Lhasa by the Himalayan route, which is far more jealously guarded than the one from the frontiers of China. She decided, therefore, to return to China, 156 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY and to make it her starting-point. Her time in Sik- kim had not been wasted. In the first place, she had not only learned Tibetan thoroughly, bnt had ac- quired it in its purest form as spoken at Lhasa. In the next place, she had gained a friend and attend- ant who was to prove of invaluable service to her in her future wanderings. A young Tibetan named Pontso, a native of Lhasa, had met with a serious accident while traveling on the frontiers of India. Some one directed him to the white lady for treat- ment. He had never seen a foreigner before, but the kindness and care with which Miss Taylor nursed him in his sufferings completely won his heart. He became a believer in the religion which prompted such goodness to a stranger, devoted him- self thenceforth to the service of his benefactress,, and justified the trust she placed in him by his un- failing courage and fidelity. "Taking Pontso with her. Miss Taylor now sailed to Shanghai, made her way up the Tang-tse for 2,000 miles, and then on to Tau-chau on the Tibetan frontier. By way of preparing herself still fur- ther for her projected march into the interior, shfr visited a number of lamaseries in that region, made friends with the lamas, and learned everything she could about the Tibetan religion and ways of life and thought. "About a year after her return to Tau-chau the opportunity came for which she had been waiting. Among her acquaintances in the town was a Chi- nese Mohammedan named Noga, whose wife, Er- minie, was a Lhasa woman. Noga was a trader, who had several times been to Lhasa, and on his last journey had brought away this Lhasa wife. Ac- cording to a Tibetan custom, he had married her WOMAN WHO TEIED FOE LHASA 157 only for a fixed term, and as the three years named in the bond were now fully np, Erminie was anxious to return to her native city, and Noga quite willing to convey her back. The only question was one of ways and means, and when they found that Miss Taylor wished to go to Lhasa, Noga made a proposal. He would himself guide her all the way to the capi- tal, provided she supplied the horses and met all necessary expenses. Miss Taylor at once agreed to his terms, which, if the Chinaman had been honest, would have been advantageous to both parties. But Noga was a deep-dyed scoundrel, as Miss Taylor soon discovered to her cost. **It was on the 2nd of September, 1892, that this brave Englishwoman set out on her heroic enter- prise. She was accompanied by five Asiatics — Noga and his wife, her faithful attendant Pontso, a young Chinese whom she had engaged as an additional servant, and a Tibetan frontiersman, Nobgey by name, who asked permission to join the little com- pany, as he also was bound for Lhasa. There were sixteen horses in the cavalcade, two mounts being provided for most of the travelers, while there were several pack-horses loaded with tents, bedding, cloth for barter, presents for chiefs and provisions for two months. "They had not proceeded far into the wild coun- try which begins immediately after the Chinese frontier is left behind, when their troubles com- menced. They came suddenly upon a group of eight brigands who were haunting the mountain track for the express purpose of relieving passengers of their valuables. Fortunately the brigands had not no- ticed their approach, and were seated round a fire enjoying the favorite Tibetan meal of tea — a meal in 158 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY more senses than one, for Tibetans thicken the bev- erage with a handful of barley-meal, so that it be- comes a kind of gruel. Moreover, the robbers were armed with old-fashioned matchlocks, the tinder- boxes of which it took some time to light, and as Miss Taylor's party, though weaker in numbers, were better armed, they succeeded in beating off their assailants. ''Three days later they overtook a caravan of friendly Mongols traveling in the same direction as themselves, and in view of their recent experience, thought it wise to amalgamate their forces. Their satisfaction at being thus reinforced was not long- lived. Almost inmiediately after, a band of brig- ands, 200 strong, swept down upon the caravan, en- tirely surrounded it, and began firing from all sides. Two men were killed and seven wounded ; resistance was hopeless, and the whole company had to sur- render. The Mongols and Nobgey were robbed of everything and had to turn back, but as the brigand code of honor forbids war upon women. Miss Taylor and her four attendants were allowed to pass on their way, not, however, without being deprived of two of the horses and a good part of the luggage. "The next stage of the journey lay through the land of a strange people known as the Goloks. This is a fierce and warlike race, bearing some resem- blance both in habits and dress to the Scotch High- landers of other days. They draw up their sheep- skin garments by a girdle so as to form a kind of kilt, and leave their knees bare, while covering the lower part of their limbs with cloth leggings fas- tened with garters of bright-colored wool. Like the Highlanders of long ago, they have a great contempt for law and authority, and acknowledge neither WOMAN WHO TRIED FOR LHASA 159 Tibetan nor Chinese rule. The chief delight of their lives is to engage in forays upon people of more peaceful tastes and habits than themselves. Issuing in large bodies from their mountain glens under some fighting chieftain, they sweep down upon the people of some neighboring tribe, and carry off as booty their cattle, horses, sheep, tents, and other belongings. Among the Goloks Miss Taylor would have fared even worse than she had already done at the hands of the brigands but for the fact that the part of the tribe with which she first came in contact was ruled by a chieftainess, a woman named Wachu Bumo. On discovering that this white trav- eler was also a woman, Wachu Bumo took quite a fancy to her, and not only saw to it that she was treated courteously so long as she remained in the Golok valleys, but insisted on furnishing her with an escort of two Golok horsemen to see her safely on her way for some distance after she had left the country of these marauders. *'It is characteristic of Miss Taylor that in her little book. Pioneering in Thibet, she says hardly anything about her own hardships and sufferings in that long march through one of the wildest regions of the world. For a great part of the way, it must be remembered, the route ran among mountains cov- ered with perpetual snow. Rivers had to be crossed which knew neither bridge nor ferry nor ford. Win- ter, toOj was coming on, and they had often to ad- vance in the teeth of blinding storms of sleet and snows. In England Miss Taylor had been consid- ered delicate, but a brave spirit and a strong will carried her through experiences which might well have broken down the strongest physique. Shortly after they had left the land of the Goloks the cold 160 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY and exposure proved too much for her Chinese serv- ant, a tall, powerful young man. Miss Taylor does not dwell upon the circumstances of his death, but a glimpse like the following is suggestive by its very reticence: 'We buried him at noon. A bright sun lightened up the snow-clad hills when the men dug up a few hard sods in some swampy ground close by, laid down the body in its shroud of white cot- ton cloth, and covered it as best they could with the frost-bound earth. At night the wolves were howling round the grave. This was in the Peigo country. ' "In a little mountain town called Gala, Miss Tay- lor made the interesting acquaintance of a couple, Pa-tegn and Per-ma, whose marriage had a flavor of romance unusual in Tibet. From infancy Pa-tegn had been dedicated to the priesthood, and had been brought up accordingly in a lamasery. But when about twenty years of age he suddenly fell in love with Per-ma. The course of his true love could aot possibly run smooth, for celibacy is as binding on a Buddhist lama as on a Eomish priest. But 'one fine day,' as Miss Taylor puts it, 'this Tibetan Abe- lard disappeared, and in company with Per-ma made his way to Lhasa.' Here he discarded his priest's robe and became a tailor. After a child had been borne to them they decided to return to Gala, and by means of a judicious present succeeded in sooth- ing the outraged feelings of the local chief. In the house of this couple Miss Taylor stayed for some time to rest from her fatigues, and when ^he was setting out again persuaded Pa-tegn, who was an experienced traveler and knew Lhasa well, to come with her in place of the Chinese attendant she had recently lost. It was fortunate for her that she WOMAN WHO TRIED FOE LHASA 161 secured his services. He proved a capable and de- voted follower, and it would have gone ill with her, as she soon found out, but for his presence and help. "They were now in the very heart of the moun- tains, and Noga, the Chinese guide, feeling that Miss Taylor was thoroughly in his power, began to ap- pear in his true character. Both he and his wife had behaved very badly from the first, but it now became evident that his real purpose all along had been to Tob and murder his employer before reaching Lhasa. More than once he made deliberate attempts on her life, but on each occasion the vigilance of Pontso and Pa-tegn defeated his villainy ; and at last he contented himself Avith deserting her altogether, carrying off at the same time, along with his wife, a horse, a mule, and the larger of the two tents. "The little party of three — Miss Taylor and two Tibetans — ^was now reduced to such straits for lack of food that the only remaining tent had to be bar- tered for the necessaries of life ; and though it was now the middle of December in that awful climate, they had henceforth to sleep in the open air. When night fell they looked about for holes in the ground, so that they might have a little shelter from the high and piercing winds which in those elevated regions are constantly blowing. A march of several days brought them to the Dam-jau-er-la Pass, one of the loftiest and most dreaded passes in Tibet. Here the cold is so paralyzing that it is not uncom- mon for some travelers in a caravan to be completely overpowered by it, so that they drop down helpless by the wayside. There they are simply left to per- ish, since any halt on their account might mean death to others of the party. 162 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY "At length the waters of the Bo-Chu were crossed^ the boundary of the sacred province of tl, in which Lhasa stands, and the goal of their journey seemed almost in sight. But alas for their hopes ! In the middle of a deep gorge through which the path ran, two fuUy armed Tibetan soldiers sprang out from behind the rocks, ordered them to halt, and took them prisoners. This was on January 3, 1893. Miss Taylor soon learned to what this arrest was due. Noga, after deserting her, had hurried on in front for the purpose of lodging information that he had met two Tibetans conducting a European lady toward Lhasa. Guards were accordingly placed at all the approaches, and Miss Taylor had walked into a prepared trap. For several days she was kept a prisoner, surrounded by about twenty soldiers, and having no better shelter by day or night than a narrow coffin-shaped hole in the ground. At last she and her two attendants were brought before some chiefs who had been summoned from Lhasa, and a trial was entered into which lasted for days,, communication with the capital being kept up all the while by special messengers. Word came from Lhasa that the white lady was to be treated cour- teously, and this injunction was carefully attended, to. But the issue of the trial was never in doubt. When only three days ' march from the Sacred City, nearer than any of the later European travelers had succeeded in getting. Miss Taylor had to turn back and retrace every step of the weary way from the frontiers of China. "The return was even more trying than the ad- vance, not only because hope was now turned to dis- appointment, but because winter in all its rigor now lay upon the land. The Tibetan authoritieSj though WOMAN WHO TKIED FOE LHASA 163 firm, were not unkind, and supplied Miss Taylor with provisions, some money, and two horses. But the Tibetan climate made up for any gentleness on the part of the Lhasa chiefs. The cold was almost unspeakable, and the food they tried to cook over their dung fires had often to be eaten half raw and little more than half warm, since at the great ele- vations of the mountain passes water boiled with very little heat. For twenty days at a stretch they had to sleep on the ground in the open air, the snow falling around them all the while ; for tent they had none and there was no sign of any human habita- tion. Their greatest difficulty, however, was to keep their horses from starving in that frozen land. In Tibet the emergency ration for horses in winter is xaw goat's flesh, which they eat greedily; but Miss Taylor could not afford to buy goats. All that could be spared to the poor steeds was a little tea with cheese and butter stirred into it, with the result that the animals ate the woolen clothing of their riders whenever they got a chance." After a frightful journey lasting more than seven months. Miss Taylor reached China safely. She had put six years of effort into her attempt to reach the Forbidden City, Avith such pluck as few women have ever displayed. And she had failed. But instead of repining, she at once took advan- tage of a new trading treaty between England and Tibet. Associating with her two women friends, she went up into the Chumbi Valley of the Himalayas, and established at Yatung a station where her trad- ing gives her a regular status under this treaty and enables her to heal and teach among the Tibetans to whom she determined so long ago to devote herself. PART III VALOR AND MAGNANIMITY Among the Cheyenne Indians {and probably the Arapahoes) there ivas a custom which had been bind- ing from times immemorial* If a brave were not prepared to accept this obligation, he declined his election to the position of chief. If he failed to live up to it, he might still be the nominal leader, but his influence and prestige were gone: he was a true chief no longer. This unwritten code prescribed that a chief must care for the widows and orphans, that he must act as peacemaker in his own tribe, and that his dig- ITITY rOEBADE HIM TO TAKE PERSONAL, VENGEANCE FOR ANY INJURY COMMITTED AGAINST HIMSELF. He might be abused, or even struck, but until this had hap- pened four times he could not even show resentment. If a brave stole his wife, it was disgraceful to re- ceive the usual payment. He was a chief. I have found no other case of what might be called enforced magnanimity — the formal obligation, be- cause of official rank, to be great-minded — though an undefined noblesse oblige was a very real impulse among the aristocracy of Europe. And magnanimity , of course, has marked the fine spirits of the world in all ages, and in the most un- likely surroundings. Autocrat as he was, and descendant of bloody Tamerlane and Genghis Khan the "Scourge of Asia," — Akbar, the Mogul conqueror of India, had it: he used his boundless power to win for himself * George Bird Grinnell's original studies of the Cheyennes. 167 the title of "Guardian of Mankind"; he abolished slavery as a result of war; he galloped on his sivift- est charger to forbid personally the' sacrifice of a lucMess tvidoiv by the fiery Suttee; he erected a splendid memorial to his vanquished enemy. This great-mindedness is the expression of a large nature which contains strong, lofty places not ac- cessible to pettiness, jealousy or egotism. Such a man is apt to be valiant because he is impelled by some high conviction that grips him. Whatever he is thinhing about, it is not chiefly his own safety,, glory or profit. There is no room in the mind of a Bayard or a Mishitch for personal tremors. And since it is surely the source of a man's driv- ing impulses which give form and character to his courage, as they do to every other expression of him- self — there is a particularly impressive quality about the acts of those ivho live on this plane of loftiness. Robert E. Lee had this Olympian elevation of feeling. A brilliant and audacious general, skilfully contending for years against overwhelming odds, his desperate case never produced in him that secret panic which lies at the root of most cruelty and re- prisal. He could issue to his ragged army that mem- orable General Order when, in June, 1863, they crossed into enemy territory: "The Commanding General considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the innocent and defense- less that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. Such proceedings not only dis- grace the perpetrators and all connected with them, 16ti but are subversive of the discipline and efficiency of the army, and obstructive to the ends of our present movements. It must be remembered that %oe make ivar only on armed men, and that ive cannot take vengeance for the wrong our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemy, and offending against Him to ivhom ven- geance belongeth and without whose favor and sup- port our efforts must all prove in vain." In these tales of the Cid, Bayard, Napier — and in dozens not printed here — the special deed narrated may be less significant in itself than for what it im- plies. It surely must make a reader feel: "That is a man to have Tcnown, to have reverenced, to have followed." 169 CHAPTEE XI THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN About a hundred and fifty years before stout Bishop Absalon to the north was herding his heathen flock with sword and crozier,* and just about the time when Northmen who had sailed to far-off Greenland were following their home folk in forsaking Odin for the "White Christ, — the Chris- tian land of Spain lay under the paynim's heel. Many generations grew up to own the Moor their master, after a chance raid by Tarik, from Africa across to Tarik's Eock (Djebel Tarik — Gibraltar) had grown, through the overthrow of Eoderick, "Last of the Visigoths," into the conquest of a whole nation. But always there had been a sturdy, unsubdued remnant of mountaineers up in the Pyre- nees, the men of Asturia, Cantabria, Navarre and Aragon; and while these fought each other almost as fiercely as they did the Mohammedan invaders, when the Mussulman central power broke up in wars of rival caliphs, the chance came for a warrior-king of the ancient blood. In 1037 Ferdinand became King of Castile and of Leon, thus laying a foundation in the building of Spain. To his east Avas fair Navarre and four other little states. Southward, more than half of the Pen- insula was split into independent Emirates- — Sara- gossa, Toledo, Valencia, Cordova, Grenada, Bada- *See "Three Musketeers of the North," Part II, page 67. 171 172 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY joz, Seville — ^where Moorish chieftains still held sway. It was a time when the Spanish knight did not need to look toward the east to find incitement to a crusade. The enemy of centuries was in his own habitation. The Moorish governments which hemmed him in on the south made stout men-at-arms as surely as an abundance of game makes good hunters. "In those days arose Rodrigo of Bivar, who was a youth strong in arms and of good customs; and the people rejoiced in him, for he bestirred himself to protect the land from the Moors. ' ' Descended on one side from one of the two judges chosen by the people to rule them when the counts of Castile were deposed, and on the other from the ancient line of the counts of the Asturias, he had the true Spaniard's pride in his lineage. He soon showed that as a young man he had also the old Spanish idea of family honor. There was strife between Diego, Rodrigo 's father, and the Lord of Grormaz ; and the latter insulted his neighbor and gave him a blow. "Now Diego was a man in years and his strength had passed from him, so that he could not take ven- geance, and he retired to his home to dwell there in solitude and lament over his dishonor. And he took no pleasure in his food, neither could he sleep by night, nor would he lift up his eyes from the ground, nor stir out of the house, nor commune with his friends, but turned from them in silence as if the breath of his shame would taint them. "Rodrigo was yet but a youth, and the Count was a mighty man in arms, one who gave his voice first in the Cortes, and was held to be the best in war, and so powerful that he had a thousand friends THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 173 among the mountains. Howbeit aU these things ap- peared as nothing to Eodrigo when he thought of the wrong done to his father, the first which had ever been offered to the blood of Layn Calvo. He asked nothing but justice of Heaven, and of man he asked only a fair field ; and his father seeing of how good heart he was, gave him his sword and his bless- ing. This sword had been the sword of Mudarra in former times, and when Eodrigo held its cross in his hand, he thought within himself that his arm was not weaker than Mudarra 's. "And he went out and defied the Count, and slew him, and smote off his head and carried it home to his father. The old man was sitting at table, the food lying before him untasted, when Eodrigo re- turned, and pointing to the head which hung from the horse's collar, dropping blood, he bade him look up, for there was the herb which should restore to him his appetite. The tongue, quoth he, which in- sulted you is no longer a tongue, and the hand which wronged you is no longer a hand. And the old man arose and embraced his son and placed him above him at the table, saying, that he who had brought home that head should be the head of the house of Layn Calvo. "After this, Diego being full of years fell asleep and was gathered to his fathers. .And the Moors entered Castile, in great power, for there came with them five Kings, and they passed above Burgos, and crossed the mountains of Oca, and plundered Car- rion, and Vilforado, and Saint Domingo de la Cal- zada, and Logrono, and Najara, and all that land; and they carried away many captives, both male and female, and brood mares and flocks of all kinds. "But as they were returning with all speed, Eod- 174 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY rigo of Bivar raised the country, and came np with them in the mountains of Oca, and fell upon them and discomfited them, and won back all their booty, and took all the five Kings prisoners. "Then he went back to his mother, taking the Kings with him, and there he divided the whole spoil with the hidalgos and his other companions, both the Moorish captives and all the spoil of whatever kind, so that they departed right joyfuUy, being well pleased with what he had done. And he gave thanks to God for the grace which had been vouchsafed to him, and said to his mother, that he did not think it good to keep the Kings in captivity, but to let them go freely ; and he set them at liberty and bade them depart. So they returned each to his own country, blessing him for their deliverance, and magnifying his great bounty; and forthwith they sent him tribute and acknowledged themselves to be his vassals." Later there came messengers from these five Kings. And they came before Don Rodrigo, he being with King Ferdinand, and called him Cid (Seyd), signifying Lord, and would have kissed his hand in token of fealty ; but he bade them first kiss the hand of his sovereign, and he rendered to King Ferdi- nand a fifth of the tribute they brought. The monarch .would not accept it, but commanded that from that time Ruydiez should be called the Cid. And as his fame grew the people dubbed him el Campeador (because his duty was to select the en- campment for the host) ; wherefore Cid Campeador is his name to this day. Now there came to King Ferdinand, Ximena, the beautiful youngest daugh^r of that Lord of Gor- mez whom the Cid had slain in his father 's quarrel. THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 175 She prayed the sovereign to grant her Don Eodrigo as husband, that the blood feud might thus be blot- ted out, avowing her love, honor and faith for this young champion. The Cid received the suggestion gladly. With two hundred of his peers in arms, he came to Valencia in festival guise; the Bishop united him and Dona Ximena in the solemn old cathedral; and the King did them great honor, and showered upon him noble gifts, adding to his lands more than he had before possessed. Moreover, "he loved him greatly in his heart, because he saw that he was obedient to his commands, and for all that he heard him say," — as well as for his deeds against the invaders. Eodrigo brought his young bride home. His very love for her drove him to an act of knight-errantry. Delivering her into the care of his mother, he vowed a vow that he would never again see her till he had won five battles in the field. And with that he de- parted for the Moorish frontier. First he overcame in the lists the champion of the King of Aragon, with whom his own monarch was contending for the city of Calahorra. Though Don Martin Gonzalez was esteemed the best knight in all Spain, and boasted that his opponent would never again see his fair lady Ximena, Eodrigo first wounded him shrewdly as they ran with lances, and then despite his own sore hurts, hewed him from his horse, maintaining Ferdinand's right to Calahorra. Envy bred enemies as his renown increased. The Counts of Castile secretly plotted with the Moors to engage in battle on the day of the Holy Cross, and contrive that Eodrigo should be slain. But the Moorish kings who were his vassals betrayed the treason to him. King Ferdinand empowered him to 176 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY carry out sentence of banishment against these false noblemen, chief among whom was Count Don Garcia, and himself went on a pilgrimage to Santiago. There came before the Cid, Dona Elvira, wife of this Garcia, and fell upon her knees. Rodrigo took her by the hand and raised her np, declaring he would not hear her till she was arisen. "I beseech you, cousin," said she, rising, "since you have banished me and my husband, that you would give us a letter to some king who is one of your vassals, enjoining him to befriend us, and give us something for your sake whereon we may live. ' ' So the Cid gave her a letter to the King of Cor- dova, who received her and her husband well for the love of Eodrigo, and gave Don Garcia the city of Cabra that he and his people might dwell therein. The people of Estremadura sent to Rodrigo pray- ing that he would come to their aid against the Moors who were ravaging their land. Not only did he smite the invaders and recover booty, including a thousand horses, worth a hundred thousand mara- vedis — "dividing the whole among his people with- out covetousness" — ^but he carried sword and fire into the heart of the enemy's country, storming the strong city of Visen after an eighteen-day siege, in face of fierce resistance, and adding that town, Lamego and, after a mighty struggle lasting five months, the stronghold of Coimbra to the dominions of King Ferdinand. In the great mosque of Coimbra, now consecrated to Saint Mary, the Cid received his reward for these valorous achievements. "With his own hands, the King girded upon him the sword of knighthood, and welcomed him to the Order by a kiss. To heighten the honor, the Queen THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 177 presented him with his charger; and the Infanta fastened on his golden spurs. Then, at the King's bidding, the new knight, now called Ruydiez, knight- ed nine noble squires. And finally before the high altar King Ferdinand took his naked sword and be- stowed upon him the accolade. The German Emperor complained to the Pope that the King of Spain did not acknowledge his sovereignty and pay him tribute as did all other kings ; and Pope Victor II, being a German, rebuked King Ferdinand, admonishing him that if he did not submit, he would proclaim a crusade against Spain and turn loose France, Germany and all other Christian countries against her. Overawed by this prospect, King Ferdinand's honorable counselors advised him there was no help for it but to submit, bitter as this alternative was. The Cid had not been present at this Coimcil : hav- ing performed his vow, with battles to spare, he had hastened as a bridegroom to his home and his young wife. When he heard what had passed, he was grieved to the heart. He came to King Ferdinand in the midst of Ms nobility: ' "In an ill day. Sir, were you born in Spain," quoth he, "if it be in your time to be made tributary, which it never was before; for all the honor which God has given you, and whatever good he hath done to you, is lost if it should be so. "And, Sir, whoever hath given yon this counsel is not a true man, neither one who regardeth your honor nor your power. But send to defy them, since they will have it so, and let us carry the war home to them. "You shall take with you five thousand knights, 178 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY all of whom are hidalgos, and the Moorish Kings who are your vassals will give you two thousand knights; and, Sir, you are such a one as God loves, and he will not that your honor should perish." Whereat the Spanish monarch swore he was well counseled by him, "for the King was of a great heart. ' ' So letters were despatched His Holiness praying him not to launch the thunders of the Church, but stating stoutly that Spain and her sons who had conquered the land had never been tributary, and rather would every man die than be so ; others went to the Emperor and his vassal kings, defying them to commit this gross injustice : if it were attempted the Spanish knights would not await their coming but would go seek them where they were. Whereupon they set forth, eight thousand and nine hundred knights with the Cid leading the ad- vanced guard; and they harried the hostile land of Aspa so that all men trembled. Then there came against them Count Raymond of Savoy, with twenty thousand knights of France. Advancing beyond Tolosa, he made ready to block the road against the Spanish King. But the Cid, going ahead to prepare the royal lodgings, attacked him with his advance fragment of the force, utterly defeated the great army and took Count Raymond prisoner. The Savoyan Lord besought his captor to release him, offering as ransom his daughter "the which Avas right fair." The Cid granted his prayer, and set him free, handing over the maiden to King Ferdinand. Stirred by this defeat, the whole mighty power of France swept down upon them. Again without wait- ing- for the main army, the Cid charged at the head From " wan Spurs of Gold," by F. N. Greene and D. W. Kirk. Little, hrown and Company King Ferdinand took his naked sword and bestowed upon him the accolade THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 179 of his knights against these overwhelming numbers, driving them in headlong rout from the field. The German Emperor had no taste for more of this sort of tribute. His Imperial Council, daunted by the tales of the irresistible Campeador, "the conqueror of battles," once more appealed to the Pope — this time to intercede for them, and to beg the Spaniards to turn back as they ' ' did not require tribute" any longer. By the Cid's counsel, Ferdinand replied that if the Pope would send a Cardinal empowered to cov- enant that this demand should never again be made upon Spain ; and if ambassadors from the Emperor and his subject kings would come and ratify this solemn covenant, he would consent. Meanwhile, he would remain with his victorious army beyond To- losa. His Holiness was much dismayed, but his good and honorable councilors advised him he must submit, "for none was so hardy as to fight against the good fortune of the Cid." So there came Master Eoberto, and representa- tives of all the Christian monarchs, and signed this treaty, which was presently confirmed by the Pope and the Emperor and the other Kings "and sealed with their seals." Whereat the King of Spain returned with great honor to his own land. "And from that time he was called Don Ferdinand the Great, the Emperor's Peer." And the pillar of his greatness was the Cid Campeador. There came a day when the great King waxed old. His building up of the kingdom, his wars upon misbelievers, his foundings of churches and monas- teries, his honorings of saints and martyrs, were at an end. And he devised within himself how to so 180 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY dispose of Ms realm as to avoid contention among his sons when he was gone. It seemed to him best to divide the kingdom — most of Castile and part of Navarre to his eldest son Sancho ; Leon, Asturias, and Campos to Alfonso the next ; and Galicia and Portugal to the youngest, Garcia. Even the two daughters received each a portion of the realm. So, commending his soul to God, and the Cid his bulwark to the Infante Don Sancho, he died, and "was buried with his fathers in the Church of St. Isidro. But this which Ferdinand the Great had thought best "proved to be the worst, and great evil came thereof. ' ' For contention bred speedily betwixt the three rival young kings. King Don Sancho of Castile had speedy need of the Cid. Under this irresistible leader his army «oon defeated his namesake of Navarre, who had laid claim to a part of his dominions, subdued the Moor- ish Emir of Zaragoza, and completely conquered the King of Aragon, establishing that land as tributary and bound to appear at the Cortes. "In all these wars did my Cid demean himself after his wonted manner; and because of the great feats Avhich he performed the King loved him Avell, and made him his Alferez; so that in the whole army he was second only to the King. ' ' But the young sovereign's proud heart was in- flamed by these conquests, and he cast covetous eyes upon his brother's dominions, so recently united with his OAvn under his father. A pretext came soon. His youngest brother Garcia seized by force the greater part of the lands bequeathed to one of the sisters. That helpless lady THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 181 lamented aloud over this injustice and prophesied an evil end to the oath-breaker. King Sancho assembled his Ricos-omes (gran- dees) and knights. From his throne he addressed them : "The King my father divided the kingdom which should have been mine, and therein he did unjustly ; now King Don Garcia my brother hath broken the oath and disherited Dona Urraca my sister. I be- seech ye therefore counsel me what I shall do, and in what manner to proceed against him, for I will take his kingdom away from him." The Cid and other honorable noblemen urged him not to forswear himself, but he vowed that noth- ing in the world should prevent him but death. Alfonso of Leon refused to join him, but permitted his forces to pass through those dominions. His first thrust was defeated by the Knights of Portu- gal; he gathered a great army, and taking the Cid with him, met Don Garcia 's force before Santarem. Through the valor of Don Eodrigo Frojaz, "one of the worthy knights of the world," King Sancho 's immediate host was defeated and he was captured, but a sally of a small body released him. Then in this crisis, while his excellent brother was chasing the flying Castilians, up came the Cid, who had been in the battle, with three hundred knights. When the anxious monarch with his handful of followers saw that green pennon advancing, his heart rejoiced. "Now let us descend into the plain," he cried, "for he of good fortune cometh. "Be of good heart, for it is the will of God that I should recover my kingdom, for I have escaped from captivity, and seen the death of Don Eodrigo 182 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY Frojaz who took me, and Ruydiez the fortunate one Cometh. ' ' So they spurred down to meet the green banner, and the King welcomed him right joyfully: ' ' In happy times you are come, my fortunate Cid ; never vassal succored his Lord in such season as you now succor me, for the King my brother had overcome me." "Sir," replied the Campeador, "be sure that you shall recover the day, or I will die ; for wheresoever you go, either you shall be victorious or I will meet my death." Upon the victorious Don Garcia, returning from pursuit and singing full joyfully, the knights behind the green banner fell like a thunderbolt ; the Portu- guese knights were cut to pieces or routed; Bjng Garcia was captured and imprisoned; and Sancho added to his realm Galieia and Portugal. No scruples could stay him now. He called upon Alfonso to deliver up Leon to him. Upon his re- fusal he attacked him; and on the second attempt my Cid and his green pennon again snatched victory from defeat when Sancho had fled the field. Bid- ding the dismayed King take heart since "to fail or to prosper is as God pleases," he rallied the panic-stricken fugitives and early in the morning surprised the Leonese in their boastful security, destroying the army before it could fairly arm itself. Alfonso was taken. But a rally of his men re- sulted in the capture also of King Sancho. Thirteen Leonese knights took him in ward, and galloped off to secure their prize which might balance all they had lost. The Cid beheld his master's plight. Alone and THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 183 having no lance, since his had been broken in the melee, he set spurs to his charger and galloped after them. His impetuous pursuit presently brought him up to them. "Knights," he called, "give me my Lord and I will give you yours." "Kuydiez," they replied (all knew those arms), "return in peace, and seek not to hinder us, other- wise we will carry you away prisoner with him." At that the Campeador waxed wroth: "Give me but a lance and I will, single as I am, rescue my Lord from all of ye : by God's help I will do it." In scorn of his single effort against them all, they gave him a lance. But so fierce was his onslaught, that presently he had laid eleven of the thirteen low, had subdued and granted mercy to the remaining two, and had changed Don Sancho from a captive to a conqueror, the ruler of all the kingdoms held by Ferdinand, though "his beard was but just com- ing. ' ' Alfonso was permitted to become a monk. He seized his chance and fled to the Moors of Toledo. The ambitious young Sancho was still not satisfied : he sent the Cid to demand of his sister Urraca her town of Zamora, offering her various possessions in exchange, and threatening to take it by force if she refused. The ambassador returned with the reply that she would rather die with the men of Zamora than give up the town for price or exchange. The King was exceeding wroth. "You have given this counsel to my sister," he raged, "because you were bred up A\dth her." "Faithfully have I discharged your bidding, and as a true vassal," declared the Cid proudly. "How- 184 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY belt, King, I will not bear arms against the In- fanta, your sister, nor against Zamora, because of the days which are past ; — and I beseech you do not persist in this wrong." King Sancho swore a mighty oath: "If it were not that my father left you commended to me, I would order you this instant to be hanged. But for this which you have said I command you to quit my kingdom in nine days. ' ' The Cid went to his tent in anger, and made ready to depart. But all the grandees and counts pro- tested to the King at the sentence of banishment, and pointed out what might happen if the Cam- peador should take his green pennon to the deposed Alfonso among the Moors. Eepenting his unwisdom, Sancho despatched Don Diego Ordonez to overtake the Cid and beg him to forget the words spoken in temper. Taking the counsel of kinsmen and friends, who thought it far better to remain in their own land than go among the Moors, the Cid turned back. King Sancho met him with five hundred knights, confirmed all his messenger had promised, and re- stored his Alf erez to his dignities and power as his right hand — to the loud rejoicing of the army and the open sorrow of them at Zamora, who had counted themselves safe when they heard of his banishment. "Nevertheless, my Cid would not bear arms against the Infanta, nor against her town of Za- mora, because of the days which were past." King Sancho attacked Zamora hotly. So des- perate was the resistance that when over a thousand were slain in a three-day assault, he drew off and laid siege. Famine did surer work. "WHien it was THE NOBLE CHAMPION OP SPAIN 185 decided by those within that the city must submit in nine days more, one Vellido Dolf os went to Dona Urraca and undertook to relieve the city. "I do not bid thee commit any evil thing, if such thou hast in thy thought," said the hard-pressed Princess; "but I say unto you that there is not a man in the world to whom, if he should relieve Zamora and make the King my brother raise the siege, I would not grant whatsoever he might require." Secretly Vellido went forth, rode straight to King Sancho, and offered to show him how to gain the town. So securely did he gain Sancho 's confidence, by having had an altercation with his own leader just before leaving, in which he had urged surren- der, that open warnings of his treachery failed to shake his position. Presently taking the King alone under pretext of pointing out the secret postern by which his forces might enter, Vellido suddenly thrust htm through from behind with the gilded royal hunt- ing spear. The Castilians found him wounded unto death. They brought him back, not daring to withdraw the spear lest he die instantly. But a master of Burgos, well skilled in these things, sawed off the ends of the spear, and bade the attendants call a confessor, as his time was short. "Sir," said the formerly exiled Don Garcia de Cobra, "the curly-haired one" of Granon, "think of your soul, for you have a desperate wound. ' ' "Blessed be you. Count," said the dying ruler, "who thus counsel me, for I perceive that I am slain; the traitor Vellido has killed me, and I well know that this was for my sins, because I broke the oath which I made unto the King my father." 186 THE BOOK OF BEAVEET The Cid came forward and knelt beside him. "I, Sir," said he, "remain more desolate than any of your vassals, for, for your sake, have I made your brethren my enemies, and all in the world who were against you, and against whom it pleased you to go. The King your father commended me to them as well as to you, when he divided his Kingdom, and I have lost their love for your sake, having done them great evil. Now then, Sir, remember me before you depart." And King Sancho bade his grandees and Counts and Bishops and Archbishops to present the matter to King Alfonso and assure him that if he would ever listen to the Campeador he would be well advised. Then they all kissed his hand, and he advised them to beg Alfonso to forgive him the wrong. "And when he had said this he asked for the candle, and presently his soul departed." Don Alfonso came to Zamora, and the subjects of Sancho received him for their Lord and King on condition that he would swear he had not plotted his brother's death. All kissed his hands in homage save only Euydiez, my Cid. * ' Since now ye have all received me for your Lord and given me authority over ye," demanded Al- fonso, "I would know of the Cid Euydiez why he will not kiss my hand and acknowledge me; for I would do something for him, as I promised unto my father King Don Fernando, when he commended him to me and to my brethren." At that the Campeador arose. "Sir," said he, "all whom you see here present suspect that by your counsel the King Don Sancho your brother came to his death ; and therefore, I say THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 187 unto you that, unless you clear yourself of this, as by right you should do, I will never kiss your hand, nor receive you for my Lord." "Cid," replied the King, "what you say pleases me well; and here I swear to God and to St. Mary that I never slew him, nor took counsel for his death, neither did it please me, though he had taken my kingdom from me. And I beseech ye therefore all, as friends and true vassals, that ye tell me how I may clear myself." So it was settled that he and twelve of the knights who had come with him from Toledo should take this oath before the high altar of the Church of St. Gadea in Burgos. Thither rode they all. Upon the appointed day King Alfonso heard mass in St. Gadea. Before his sisters, his knights and all the nobility of the land, he came forward on a high stage that the people might see. Taking the book of the Gospels, my Cid opened it and laid it upon the altar. The King laid his hands upon it. "King Don Alfonso, you come here to swear con- cerning the death of King Don Sancho your brother, that you neither slew him nor took counsel for his death ; say now, you and these hidalgos, if ye swear this." And the King and the hidalgos answered and said : "We swear it." The Cid continued: "If ye knew of this thing, or gave command that it should be done, may you die even such a death as your brother the King Don Sancho, by the hand of a villain whom you trust; one who is not a hidalgo, from another land, not a Castilian. ' ' 188 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY "Amen," said the King and the knights. But the King's color changed. A second time the Cid repeated the oath. In like manner the King and the twelve knights said "Amen." And again the King's countenance changed. For the third time the Cid pressed the oath upon him. A third time the King and knights repeated "Amen." But the wrath of the King was exceed- ing great: "Euydiez, why dost thou thus press me, man? To-day thou swearest me, and to-morrow thou wilt kiss my hand." And from that day forward there was no love towards my Cid in the King's heart. For some years, nevertheless, the Campeador was the King's right hand as he had been to the Kings his father and brother. Always, however, there lurked in the monarch's mind that scene of humiliation; and there were not wanting envious enemies among the Counts, ever working against my Cid. King Alfonso had befriended the Moorish Emir of Toledo. It chanced that Ruydiez, in driving back a great power of Moors who were laying Gormaz waste, pursued them right to Toledo, taking seven thousand prisoners. The grandees who hated him for his good fortune told the King his vassal had broken the royal oath, and with design to stir up the Moors against them. Alfonso went with all speed to Burgos and summoned him to appear before him. Answer came that Ruydiez would meet him betw^een Burgos and his own castle of Vivar. They met on the road. The Cid approached, and THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 189 would have kissed his hand, but the King Avithheld it. "Ruydiez," he broke out, hotly, "quit my land." At that the Cid clapped spurs to his mule and jumped into a field of his own inheritance. "Sir, I am not in your land, but in my own." "Go out of my kingdom without delay," com- manded the King, beside himself. "Give me then thirty days' time, as is the right of the hidalgos." But the King swore he would not ; and that if he were not gone in nine days, he would come and look for him. The people of the land were exceeding sorrowful at these happenings; but the Counts rejoiced. The Campeador summoned his friends and kins- men and vassals, told them of his banishment, and asked who would follow him. Up spoke Alvar Fanez : "Cid, we will all go with you, through desert and through peopled country, and never fail you. In your service will we spend our mules and horses, our wealth and our garments, and ever while we live be unto you loyal friends and vassals." All confirmed these words. Thanking them, the Cid made ready to depart. The Lady Ximena and his two daughters he placed in the Monastery of St. Pedro. All else that was his which could be taken he carried with him into exile. As he left his ancient home, he turned and looked back. The doors were open, the hall deserted; there were no cloaks hanging up, nor seats upon the porch — ^nothing but empty, gaping chests; the hawks' perches were bare. Tears came into his eyes: 190 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY ' ' My enemies have done this, ' ' said he. . . . ' ' God be praised for all things." Praying to Holy Mary Mother that he might have strength to subdne the paynim and wrest from them enough to requite his faithful followers, he set forth. Wlien the Cid entered Burgos with sixty stream- ers in his company, the folk wept at their windows to see him going ; but the King had forbidden them to give him so much as a lodging, on pain of losing all their gear and their eyes as well; so that none dared even to speak to him, or reply to the calls of his people when they knocked upon the fastened door of the inn. The Cid rode up to the door, took his foot from the stirrup, and gave it a kick. Still there was no sign of life within. A little girl of nine years came out of a house near by. "0 Cid," said the child, "the King hath forbidden us to receive you. We dare not open our doors to you, for we should lose our houses and all that we have, and the eyes in our head. Cid, our evil would not help you, but God and all his Saints be with you. ' ' With that she disappeared again inside the silent house. The Cid turned aAvay. He rode to St. Mary's Church, alighted, fell on his knees, and prayed fervently. Then he who had been its buckler against the Moors rode out of Burgos, the chief city of his native Castile, to the lonely sands by the Eiver Glera. The King's right hand, the Campeador who chose the encampment for the host, pitched his tent in this solitude, since there was no Spanish roof to THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 191 shelter his head. Only by a stratagem did he obtain money from two usurers with which to purchase food and to pay the Abbot of St. Pedro's for the care of his wife and little children. He set his face southward. Crossing the wild ridges of the Sierra, he sought what fortune and his right arm would bring him among his enemies the Moors. Better had it been for the paynim of those lands had a pestilence been loosed upon them. Across the country ruled by the Emirs of Toledo and Valencia he fought his way, taking vast spoil of captives, horses, flocks and apparel ; and there was none might say him nay. Every foot soldier received his due share in the silver into which this booty Avas trans- formed by sale to Moorish merchants. All were rich. The banished leader sent back word to King Alfonso that he and Ms companions would yet do him service upon his heathen foes. Alcala on the Henares he took, and the strong town of Alcocer. And when Alcamin of Valencia sent three thousand horsemen under two kings to take him alive and bring him to make atonement for these conquests, his knights spurred after his banner into the press of the followers of Mahound and smote half of them to death, while the Campeador, crying "I am Ruy- diez, the Cid of Bivar !" cut through many a cuirass and wounded King Fariz with the last of three mighty strokes, so that he fled, nor drew rein till he reached his mountain castle of Teruel. Thirty horses of the best of the famous Arabian steeds, being a fifth of what he had taken, each sad- dled and bridled with a sword hanging from the saddle-bow, the Cid sent back by the faithful Alvar Fanez to King Alfonso in Castile; and a wealth of 192 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY captur^ed banners to hang in the cathedral at Burgos with a great bag of gold and silver to pay for a thou- sand masses; also fifty marks to the Abbot of St. Pedro 's, besides much to Dona Ximena, with a mes- sage that if he lived she and their daughters should be rich. "This country is all spoiled," were his parting words to his messenger, "and we have to help our- selves with sword and spear. You are going to gentle Castile; if when you return you should not find us here, you will hear where we are." A broad trail he blazed. "V\Tiile Alfonso was re- marking that it Avas "betimes in the morning for a banished man to ask favor of his Lord" — ^but ac- cepting the thirty caparisoned steeds, because they were won from the heathen, he gave back Alcocer to King Fariz upon payment of three thousand marks of silver ($10,000), and went forth to carve himself a new dwelling-place mth his sword. They of Zaragoza knew but too well where he was. When Alvar Faiiez returned to him at the high knoll above Monte-Real, ever after known as the Knoll of the Cid, Medina and Daroca and Molina and all the country along the river Martin paid him tribute. ' ' God, how joyful was my Cid with the fleecy beard that Minaya had purchased the thousand masses, and had brought him the biddings of his wife and daughters! God, what a joyful man was he!" Half of all the kingdom of Zaragoza was placed under his protection, and he held it against Moors and Frenchmen; and presently Ms own King had to call upon him. For Alfonso 's castle of Rueda far to the west was taken from him by treachery, and his son the Infante Don Sancho, with fifteen knights and grandees, foully murdered. THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 193 He sent for his banished Alferez, and told him he xnight return from exile. The Cid replied he would only accept this favor if the King would swear in future to give a banished hidalgo the full thirty days which were his right, andto proceed against none till he had been lawfully heard, and to honor the privileges and charters of the towns and impose no tax against their rights. Alfonso assented to all. Then Ruydiez said he would never return to Castile until Rueda was taken and justice done upon the traitors. Which he did. Also he crushed the King of Aragon who had allied Iiimself with the Moors. Then he went back to Cas- tile, and the King granted him many lands and ionors, and confirmed all his Moorish conquests, present and future, as his and his children's forever. For him he fought many enemies. For him he cap- tured Toledo, in the year of Christ 1085, and became the first Christian Alcayde of that famous city. And after many mighty deeds, he besieged even Valencia, far do\\Ti on the eastern sea-coast, and brought the people therein ''into the waves of death" from fam- ine, and took the great city for his own, having as sovereign only King Alfonso. Wisely and firmly he ruled it, "my Cid Campea- dor, Lord of Valencia. ' ' He brought from the Mon- astery of St. Pedro Dona Ximena his wife, and his daughters Dona Elvira and Dona Sol, noAV tall maidens whom grandees were shortly to seek in marriage, sending great sums to the Abbot, and to provide fitting splendor for the ladies. With a great and glittering retinue of knights they ■crossed the mountains and came to Valencia. When -they were within three leagues, the joyful tidings -were brought to the Cid. 194 THE BOOK OF BKAVEEY "Two hundred knights did he order out to meet them, others he bade to keep the Alcazar, and the other high towers, and all the gates and entrances. "And he commanded that they should bring him Bavieca. It was but a short time since he had won this horse ; my Cid, he who girt on sword in a happy hour, did not yet know if he was a good goer, and if he stopt well. The Bishop Don Hieronymo, he pricked forward and entered the city. He left his horse and went to the Church, and collected all the clergy; they put on their surplices, and with crosses of silver went out to meet the ladies, and that good one Minaya (Alvar Fanez). "He who was born in happy hour made no tarri- anee ; they saddled him Bavieca and threw his trap- pings on. My Cid wore light armor, and his surcoat over it : long was his beard. He went out upon this horse and ran a career with him; Bavieca was the name of the horse, and when he was running all marveled at him : from that day Bavieca was famous all over Spain. "At the end of the course my Cid alighted and went toward his wife and his daughters. Who can tell the joy that was made at their meeting? They fell at his feet and their joy was such that they could not speak. And he raised them up and embraced them, and kissed them many times, weeping for joy that he saw them alive. "You dear and honored wife, and ye my daugh- ters, my heart and my soul : enter with me into Va- lencia; — this is' the inheritance which I have won for you. ' ' Many and great were the rejoicings of that winter day, "throwing at the board and killing bulls." "My Cid led them to the Alcazar, and took them THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 195 up upon the highest tower thereof, and there they looked around and beheld Valencia, how it lay before them, and the great Garden with its thick shade, and the sea on the other side; and they lifted up their hands to thank God." "With spring the Lord of Valencia had to defend his title. King Yussuf, son of the Emperor of Mo- rocco, came against him with an army of fifty thou- sand Moors. The Cid made all ready like a careful general. Then he took Dona Ximena by the hand and led her and his daughters up to that same highest tower of the Alcazar. "And they looked toward the sea and saw the great power of the Moors, how they came on and drew nigh, and began to pitch their tents round about Valencia, beating their tambours and with great uproar. "And Ximena 's heart failed her, and she asked the Cid if peradventure God would deliver him from these enemies. *' 'Fear not, honored Lady,' said he; 'you are but lately arrived, and they come to bring you a present, which shall be a marriage portion for your daugh- ters. Fear not, for you shall see me fight by the help of God and Holy Mary Mother ; my heart kin- dles because you are here! The more Moors the more gain!'' "The tambours sounded now with a great alarum, and the sun was shining. " 'Cheer up,' said my Cid. 'This is a glorious day.> "But Ximena was seized with such fear as if her heart would have broken ; she and her daughters had never been in such fear since the day that they were born. 196 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY ''Then the good Cid Campeador stroked his beard and said: " 'Fear not; all this is for your good. Before fifteen days are over, if it please God, those tam- bours shall be laid before you, and shall be sounded for your pleasure, and then they shall be given to the Bishop Don Hieronymo, that he may hang them up in the Church of St. Mary, Mother of God.' " This vow he made, and kept with many days to spare. From that tower the very next morning the trembling Donas watched the green pennon, as, cry- ing "God and Santiago!" the Cid charged the foe at the head of his knights, mounted upon Bavieca "in whom he had great pleasure." Four thousand lacking thirty were they against fifty thousand ; but their spirit was that of the Bishop Don Hieronymo, who prayed of his lord : " A boon, Cid Don Rodrigo ; I have sung mass to you this morning : let me have the giving the first wounds in this battle!" Such mortality did the Campeador himself make among the Moors "that the blood ran from his wrist to his elbow"; three times he came up with King Yussuf as they pursued the fleeing Moors; and while the thrice-wounded Saracen escaped at last to the castle of Gueyra, three-fourths of his host lay dead upon the field or were made captive, and the frag- ment that remained fled away in the ships. "And the spoil was so great that there was no end to the riches, in gold and in silver, and in horses and in arms, so that men knew not what to leave and what to take." Back into Valencia galloped the conqueror with a hundred knights. "His wrinkled brow was seen, for he had taken THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 197 off his helmet, and in this manner he entered, upon Bavieca, sword in hand. "Great joy had Dona Ximena and her daughters, who were awaiting him, when they saw him come riding in ; and he stopt when he came to them, and said: " ' Great honor have I won for you, while you kept Valencia this day! God and the Saints have sent us goodly gain, upon your coming. Look, with a bloody sword, and a horse all sweat, this is the way that we conquer the Moors! Pray God that I may live yet awhile for your sakes, and you shall enter into great honor, and they shall kiss your hands. ' ' Two hundred horses and Yussuf 's royal tent went to Alfonso this time from his vassal; and the sight of this wealth at court brought two of the proudest princes of Spain as husbands for the conqueror's daughters. Then after three years of peace came Bucar, brother of Yussuf, w^ho had died of chagrin over his defeat, to perform the oath he had made to take vengeance on the Lord of Valencia. Twenty and nine Kings were among the captains of his host, so vast was it. The Cid was glad of their coming. A messenger from King Bucar, after a long si- lence of fear as he looked upon his dreaded counte- nance, bade him surrender Valencia and return to Castile, else would he, his wife and his daughters be taken by the Emperor's son and his nine and twenty Kings, and so tormented that Christians should whisper thereof forevermore. "Go tell thy Lord King Bucar," replied the Cid, "I will not give him up Valencia: great labor did I endure in winning it, and to no man am I behold- ing for it in the world, save only to my Lord Jesus 198 THE BOOK OF BEAVEET Christ, and to my kinsmen and friends and vassals who aided me to win it. "Tell him that I am not a man to be besieged, and before he expects it he shall meet me in the field ; and would that even as he has brought with him twenty and nine Kings, so he had brought all the Moors of all Pagandom, for, with the mercy of God in which I trust, I should think to conquer them all. "Bear this answer to your Lord, and come here no more with messages, neither on this account nor on any other." Hardly had the messenger left when the Cid or- dered the great assembly bell to be sounded, and bade his knights to be in readiness to attack the enemy- at the first cockcrow in the morning. Confessed and having taken the communion, they sallied forth at dawn, two thousand horsemen in coats of mail and five thousand five hundred foot soldiers. ' ' That honorable one of the shaven cro^wm, ' ' Bishop Don Hieronymo, was, as before, at his own prayer foremost in the fray. He pricked forward; "two Moors he slew with the first two thrusts of the lance ; the haft broke and he laid hand on his sword. God, — ^how well the Bishop fought ! two he slew with the lance and five with the sword; the Moors came round about him and laid on a load of blows, but they could not pierce his armor. "He who was born in happy hour had his eyes upon him, and he took his shield and placed it before him, and lowered his lance, and gave Bavieca the spur, that good horse. With heart and soul he went at them, and made his way into their first battle; seven the Campeador smote down, and four he slew. "In short time they joined battle in such sort that many were slain and many overthrown, on one side THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIN 199 and on the other, and so great was the din of strokes and of tambours that none could hear what another said, and they smote them cruelly, without rest or respite." Twenty and nine Kings were all too few to stand against these paladins. Soon the Moorish bodies were so piled about the field that the horses could scarce make their way among them. Eight through their camp the Cid's knights chased the flying enemy. "Seven full miles did the pursuit continue. And while they were thus following their flight, the Cid set eyes upon King Bucar and made at him to strike him with the sword ; and the Moorish king knew him when he saw him coming. " 'Turn this way, Bucar!' cried the Campeador. *You who come from beyond the sea, to see the Cid with the long beard. "We must greet each other and cut out a friendship!' ** 'God confound such friendship,' cried King Bu- car, and turned his bridle, and began to fly towards the sea, and the Cid after him, having great desire to reach him. "But King Bucar had a good horse and a fresh, and the Cid went spurring Bavieca who had had hard work that day, and he came near his back ; and when they were nigh unto the ships, and the Cid saw that he could not reach him, he darted his sword at him, and struck him between the shoulders ; and King Bucar being badly wounded rode into the sea, and got to a boat, and the Cid alighted and picked up his sword." The poorest man among the Christians was made full rich that day upon the Campo del Quarto. The fifth share of the spoil that fell to the Cid was six hundred horses, twelve hundred prisoners, great 200 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY numbers of snmpter beasts and camels, and gold, silver, pearls and precious stones of which no man could give full account. Even in Morocco across the sea the Moors trem- bled at his name. The lord of Valencia went long unmolested. The Great Soldan of Persia sent messengers with rare gifts of myrrh and balsam in golden caskets, and wrought vessels of gold and silver, and cunning stuffs, and a chess-board ''which was one of the noble ones in the world: it was of ivory riveted with gold, and with many precious stones round about it ; and the men were of gold and silver"; and he prayed for his friendship and aid. At the end of five years, Bucar, now Emperor of Morocco and still smarting under his disgrace, stirred up the whole paynimry of Barbary, even as far as Montes Claros to cross the sea and take ven- geance upon Valencia. A vision came to the Cid in the night, telling him he must leave the world in thirty days, but that being dead he should still win the coming battle. And he sickened of a fatal malady. On the twenty- ninth day he gave his commands to Bishop Don Hieronymo and Alvar Fanez and to other trusty knights. He died; and they anointed and embalmed his body. Three days afterward arrived King Bucar, with thirty and six Kings and a Negro Amazon Queen, besides an innumerable host, ringing the city about with fifteen thousand tents. As they had been commanded, the Cid's knights fastened his body securely upon the saddle so that it sat upright on Bavieca. So cunningly had it been embalmed that his countenance looked natural, his THE NOBLE CHAMPION OF SPAIX 201 eyes were open, and no man who saw him and knew not the fact would have thought him aught but alive. His shield was hung round his neck, and his good sword Tizona was fastened to his hand, even as he had wielded it. With his green banner fluttering, these hidalgoes charged upon the Moors, their leader's body riding Bavieca into the thick of the melee. And they shat- tered the enemy, and killed twenty and two of those thirty-six Kings, and slew the Negro Amazon Queen, and tens of thousands besides. "And King Bucar and those who escaped with him hoisted sails and went their wa;*', and never more turned their heads. ' ' Ten years did the dead Cid sit in the royal ivory chair, clad in Persian purple, the sword Tizona in his hand, before the altar of San Pedro of Cardeiia. Then, seated as he was, they placed him in a vault, dug before the altar, beside the grave of Dona Xi- niena, and his shield and green banner they hung upon the walls. CHAPTEE XII WITHOUT FEAE AND WITHOUT EEPEOACH Foe four centuries one Frencliman has been kno"Wii to the world as "The Chevalier, without fear and without reproach." And there was something about Pierre Terrail, Seigneur de Bayard, which makes him stand out to-day even as he did to the chron- iclers of his own time. There were many knights WT-thout fear: small chance had the coward in the Middle Ages, save in the cloister. But the combi- nation of personal daring, cool, skilful leadership, and generous magnanimity which the Chevalier Bay- ard displayed, render him a sort of embodiment of the best in the age of chivalry. His Loyal Servitor, who wrote the ' ' Very Joyous, Pleasant and Eefreshing History" of his master's "Feats, Exploits, Triumphs and Achievements," thus summed up the object of his devotion: "He loved and feared God above all things; he never swore or blasphemed; and in all his affairs and necessities he ever had recourse to Him; being fully persuaded that by Him and His infinite good- ness all things are ordered; nor did he ever leave his chamber without recommending himself to Him in prayer. He loved his neighbor as himself, and never possessed a cro^ai but it was at the service of the first who needed it. He Avas a great alms- giver, and gave his alms in secret; he succored 202 WITHOUT FEAR AND REPROACH 203 widows ill distress, and during his life had given in marriage a hundred poor orphan girls, gentlefolk and others. If a gentleman under his command was dismounted, he remounted him, and in a manner not to offend his delicacy, often exchanging a Span- ish charger worth two or three hundred crol^^ls for a nag worth but six, and giving the gentleman to understand that the latter was just the horse to suit himself. So graciously did he confer his gifts. He was a sorry flatterer ; and never swerved from speak- ing truth, were it to the greatest of princes. "He looked with contempt upon this world's Avealth, and was at his death no richer than at his birth. "In war none excelled him. In conduct he was a Fabius Maximus ; in enterprise a Coriolanus ; and in courage and magnanimity a second Hector. Dreadful to the enemy; gentle and courteous to his friends. Three qualities marked him for a perfect soldier : he was a greyhound in attack, a wild boar in defense, and a wolf in retreat." Let us follow this generous, kindly, large-minded warrior through one of his most noted adventures — his defense, single-handed, of the bridge over the Garigliano River. This happened about fifteen years before he threw himself into the little town of Me- zieres with 1,000 men, successfully beat off the Em- peror 's army of 35,000, and saved France which lay defenseless; but his saying on the latter occasion well expressed the man himself from the beginning of his career: "No place is weak," he declared to those who said Mezieres must be abandoned, "which has good sol- diers to defend it." That one stout heart made strength he showed 204 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY on the present occasion, during the endless Italian Wars. WiUiam Gilmore Simms gave the story from the old chronicles: The troops of the French were posted somewhat disadvantageonsly on the marshy banks of the Gari- gliano, over which they had succeeded in throwing a bridge, which would facilitate their marching upon Naples. This beiag passed, it was calculated that the whole intermediate tract of country between them and the capital would lie open to the invaders, with no greater obstacles in their way than the presence of Gonsalvo. This itself was something of an obstacle. He with the Spanish forces lay in waiting, the river only separating the opposing armies. His troops were in high spirits from recent and continued successes. The French from the same cause were doubtful and dispirited. Besides, they lacked confidence in their leader, the Marquis of Mantua, who was a foreigner of small talents and no enterprise. Gonsalvo was not unwilling to give his enemy battle. There were two ways of crossing the river: by the bridge which the French had raised, and of which they were in possession, and by a ford at some distance from it, which they also guarded. It was determined that a feint should be made at the ford, while a strong body of men should attempt the bridge. The passage of the ford was entrusted to one Pedro Paz. This was, in several respects, a very remarkable person. Though one of the most fear- less and sagacious warriors, he was yet scarcely more than half the height of an ordinary man; a WITHOUT FEAR AND REPROACH 205 hunchback to Avhom Richard Crookback was a model of manly beauty ; of whom, when he was mounted on horseback, you could see little above the saddle save an enormous head and pair of shoulders. But never did character more completely give the lie to out- ward seeming. Don Pedro could use his lance and steed with any of his comrades; and, admitted to council, it was acknowledged that none surpassed him in the exhibition of a judgment at once bold and circumspect, adventurous and sage. This doughty warrior, the preparation of the coop- erating parties being all completed, proceeded some- what ostentatiously to effect the passage of the river by the well-known ford. He had under him a couple of hundred horsemen, each of whom carried a foot- soldier behind him. The ruse was so far successful as to draw upon Senor Pedro the attention of the whole French army. At the first alarm — on the first wild intimation that the van of the whole Spanish army was about to cross the river at the ford — the French, turning out simultaneously, hurried to pre- vent the passage. They apparently succeeded in doing so, and, satisfied that no further danger was to be apprehended from this quarter, they retired to their tents, fully believing that they would be vexed with no more alarms this day. Bayard alone was wary and suspicious. He knew and felt, quite as painfully as any other person, the inferior abilities of the generals by whom the French troops were sacrificed rather than commanded. For- tunately he was well armed, mounted, and near the bridge when the more serious attempt was made in that quarter by the Spaniards. He had with him but a single companion, one Pierre de Tardes, sumamed Le Basque, an equerry 206 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY to tlie King of France; and not a single follower. These two, hearing the tread of horse, looked forth to the Spanish side of the river, and discovered about two hundred horsemen making directly for the bridge. The danger was imminent, for the loss of the bridge at that moment involved the safety of the whole army. To sound the alarm and fly would have been the probable course, under such circumstances, with nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thou- sand. To dream of arresting the torrent by the single will and resistance of one man would scarcely be thought of by one person in the million. Yet such was the instinct of our chevalier. It does not seem to have been a matter of reflection with him. It was a thing of course that he should keep the post at all hazards. "Speed you, my friend," he said to the equerry, ' ' and gather some of our men to maintain the bridge, or we are all ruined. I Avill endeavor to keep the enemy in play till you return ; but hasten, for there is no time to be lost." The equerry disappeared on the instant ; and Bay- ard, crossing the bridge, upon the other end of which the Spaniards were about to pass, chose his position with care. Putting his lance in rest, he charged the head of the advancing column at the very threshold, tumbling two of them headlong into the river, from whence they never emerged, and two more upon the banks, at the very first thrust of his weapon. This brought upon him a host ; but their very numbers, impeding their progress in the narrow gorge which he de- fended, contributed somewhat to his security. Never Courtesy ofDodd, Mead and Company. He charged the head of the advancing column, . . . tumbling two of them headlong into the river WITHOUT FEAR AND REPROACH 207 were charges more desperate or more successful than those Avhich he made that day. Great was the surprise of the Spaniards to behold one man thus furiously darting upon their squad- rons. At first they regarded him as one delivered up and devoted to destruction ; but not so when they sank beneath his assault, and were hurled, by his adroit exercise of horse and lance, by threes and fours, headlong into the stream. Astounded, almost appalled at first, they recoiled before him; but soon recovering, they gave him enough to do. With his back to the railing of the bridge, so that they might not assail him from be- hind, he confounded them by the rapidity, the dex- terity, and the force of his movements. As many as might do so assailed him at the same moment. These he not only had to encounter and resist as well as he was able, but he had to do this and keep his position at the same time, so that none of them might contrive to get between him and the bridge. This was no easy performance. But Bayard was not only a brave and skilful warrior — skilful beyond his time — ^but he was one of those wondrous horsemen whose powers of managing the steed is a mystery, such as the Arab possesses but ordinary riders can- not understand. With an eye that seemed to look out from every part of his body at the same time, and a hand and weapon that seconded his every glance, he beheld, and foiled his assailants, crowding in on every side. The powerful, but docile and well-trained animal that bore his weight, seemed imbued with his own spirit; and the two together wrought so admirably and so successfully that the Spaniards were per- suaded of a miracle — such as they themselves so fre- 208 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY quently beheld wrought in their own behalf on the field of battle, when their patron saint took up the cudgels of war, and eame to their rescue at the lucky moment. They could make no impression on our chevalier — could advance no footstep; and, looking upon him as a fiend rather than &s a mortal, were compelled to admire the skill and courage which promised still to baffle their best attempts. How long a conflict so unequal might have been maintained, it is not easy to conjecture. Reason as- sures us that it must terminate at last in the ex- haustion and overthrow of the single champion, however gloriously endowed with ability and strength. In sheer desperation and shame the baffled host would press upon him and bear him for- ward as a leaf borne by the storm, by the very impulse of their headlong weight and movement. But he was relieved before it was too late. Smiting fiercely with his sword (his lance having long since been shivered) he heard the approaching gallop of his companions. The war cry of his faith- ful men-at-arms rose behind him, and crowned his defense with triumph. As they came thundering down across the bridge, he assumed the offensive; the Spaniards yielded before him; and, leading his comrades, the exulting chevalier pressed fiercely upon them in pursuit. This was an error. The party that came to the relief of Bayard, and which Pierre de Tardes had hastily collected in the emergency, consisted of only a hundred men. They were soon encountered by a large body of the Spanish horse, seven or eight hun- dred in number, hurrying forward to support their comrades, or to make secure the post which it was WITHOUT FEAR AND EEPROACH 209 supposed they had acquired. At sight of these, Bayard arrested the pursuit. "We have done enough, my comrades," said he, "in having saved the bridge. Let us now retire, keeping as close together as we can." But they were not permitted to retire so quietly. The retreat was begun in an orderly manner, but soon became a flight. Bayard, who usually led into action, in a retreat always brought up the rear. Such was his position now. But, in taking it, he had not allowed for the hard service which his horse had already endured that day. The faithful animal soon showed signs of distress and exhaustion, and the knight presently found it impossible to keep up with his companions. As the Spaniards pressed more closely upon them they began to scatter, and a concentrated rush of their battalions tumbled several of the Frenchmen from their saddles, and drove the survivors out of sight — all but Bayard. His steed was the first to falter. He had wheeled about to do battle as the enemy drew nigh, and was forced backward in the shock, his horse sinking up to his haunches in a ditch. Surrounded by twenty or thirty assailants, fettered as it were by the situa- tion of the animal, the chevalier continued to bear about him bravely, giving hard blows, and never thinking of surrender. "Yield, Senor!" was the cry of the Spaniards. *'I fear I cannot choose but yield," replied Bay- ard, "since alone I cannot well withstand you all." They deprived him of the battle-axe with which he had been fighting, leaving him in possession of his sword. Had they conjectured the name and qual- ity of their prisoner, they would not have been guilty 210 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY of this error. But lie had kept his secret. His face concealed by his visor, his person in armor, — they only knew that they had captured a very powerful and valiant knight, but had no idea that he was the man of all others whom they most desired to make captive. Bayard knew the danger to himself, to his life probably, of letting his name be knoAvn. He had long been the terror of their cavalry, and had no reason to think that his life would be spared when he fell into their hands in the heat of battle. When questioned of himself, accordingly, he gave them an- other name for his own — then considered a perfectly proper ruse de guerre. They never thought to exact from him his parole of honor. Secure of their prize and confident in their numbers, they scorned to betray any doubts that they could keep him safe among them, and rode slowly away with their captive on their return to camp. The party having him in charge brought up the rear of their battalion, the greater body having withdrawn from the ground after the dispersal of the French, and when they learned that the advance force had failed to secure the bridge. But the good knight was not abandoned by his comrades. When they reassembled at the bridge, and found that he was not among them, the alarm was given instantly. The first to speak was the Chevalier Guiffray, a gentleman of Dauphiny and near neighbor of Bayard. ''Ah, gentlemen," said he, "we have lost every- thing since the good Captain Bayard is not with us. He is either slain or taken. Aiid shall we, whom he hath led so well, and for whom he hath won such honor this very day, — shall we not see what has become of him? I vow to God that I will have tid- WITHOUT FEAR AND REPROACH 211 ings of him, at all hazards, though I return alone to seek them!" The resolve of the knight Guiffray was that of all. All were equally afflicted and equally resolute. ' ' We will all return!" was the cry, and each man alighted to tighten the girths of his horse. They were soon remounted and speeding away at a great gallop after the Spaniards who were carrying away the flower and perfection of all gentility. They were successful in overhauling the retiring enemy before they had regained the camp. Their first cry, as they rushed upon them, informed them of that which the wary Bayard had kept secret : "Turn ye, Spaniards, turn; and think not thus to carry off with ye the flower of all knighthood!" The Spaniards did face about, and being still nu- merous, received the shock of the assault with spirit and firmness. But in this shock several of them were dismounted. In the moment of rush and struggle which followed, Bayard freed himself from his guards and threw himself from his jaded steed to the ground. At that fortunate moment, the equerry, Le Basque^ succeeded in tumbling out of his saddle a brave Spaniard, named Salvador de Borgia. This man had been well mounted. To seize upon the bridle of the freed horse — to leap into the seat without touching the stirrup — to draw his sword and lay about him among the enemy, was for the chevalier the work of a single moment and impulse. His well-kno-v\Ti battle-cry, "France! Bayard! Bayard who was late your prisoner!" struck terror into the Spaniards, and sufficiently taught them who had been their captive. They lost heart as the French gained it, by this discovery. 212 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY "Let us away to camp," was the cry among them. "We shall do nothing great to-day!" This cry struck a panic through their ranks. They fled shamefully from a contest in which their num- bers and previous successes should have insured them a complete victory. The approach of night found the French safe in camp, overjoyed at having helped to extricate their "guidon of honor" from the hands of the enemy. Here, for a week, nothing was spoken of but the prowess of the chevalier. It was at this period and because of his defense of the bridge that he received for his device a porcu- pine with the appropriate motto : "One alone is equal to an army." This gallant chevalier fell before the stone bullet of an arquebus while generously striving to extri- cate the army from the dangers of which he had warned his unheeding general. "My life is my country's," said he, as he went to certain death. "My soul I commend to God." His sorrowful men-at-arms thus apostrophized the cruel Death which had claimed the best of their time as they left him by his command : "Yet, though thou hast deprived him of life, and we of him as our shepherd, knoAV from us, Death ! that thou canst not play thy part so cunningly as to take from him the glory he hath won. "Thy stroke which hath taken him from this life hath but rendered his memory safe through all suc- ceeding ages. "He shall survive to the satisfaction and delight of the valiant and true men that shall come here- after!" CHAPTER XIII THE CONQUEKOE OE THE UNHAPPY VALLEY The sun rose red and hot over the desert of Scinde. The golden clouds floating upon a crimson sky lost their superb heralding colors. As far as the eye could reach there was naught but sand — calm and level like the sea, or wrinkled into waves like the sea, or leaping high into steep ridged hillocks as does the sea when scourged by a mighty hurricane. Here and there the blankness was broken by the whitened bones of camels or horses that had perished in this baking waste; and there was something in- exorable and overwhelming about the monotonous repetition that met eye and mind. Even the wilder- ness of naked, blistering rocks, haunted by the Giant Face whose eyes of terror no traveler might escape, seemed preferable to the man who gazed southward : and as for the forlorn cracked earth and straggling stunted mimosas bordering the last difficult stream- bed, — those seemed like a garden of delight by comparison. He looked again over his straggling company, whose novel aspect became grotesque in the long shadows that bobbed and jerked over the sand in the level rays of the threatening sun. The mirage played monstrous tricks : those in advance were dis- torted into hugeness; bodies and loads seemed to float in air; a shining blue lake appeared where all was parched and dry. 213 214 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY There were nearly two hundred camels, most of them carrying a pair of soldiers apiece. The natives who led the pack beasts were in picturesque costumes of every shape and hue. Fifty horsemen plodded along in the light blue of the British cavalry. And, most incongruous of all, there were two field how- itzers, which a cluster of men were straining to haul up a steep bluff, where the binding sand held the wheels as in a vise. It all seemed far more unreal in that desert solitude than the mysterious Giant Face itself, at thought of which the Scinde herdsmen or even the swashbuckling Afghan raider cowered in fear. But one look at this leader 's face would have con- vinced the most ignorant observer that there Avas a very definite purpose in this seemingly mad excur- sion into the desert land of Scinde. He was about sixty years old; his hair was iron-gray; he wore spectacles ; every line of his body showed the wear and tear of many years of hard work and hard knocks. In point of fact, it was a third of a century since he had been left for dead on the battlefield of Corunna, with five terrible wounds; he had added to these scars at Busaco the following year ; and only a few months before this desert expedition he had received a severe injury to his leg while reviewing his troops. There was no suggestion of weakness or frailty about him, however. The dark eyes behind those spectacles were alert, piercing, resolute. His hawk nose, and his whole lean frame had' an expression of tense nervous energy. He was not only a com- mander but a man, ready for a man's utmost. This English officer was Sir Charles James Na- pier, and in this first week of January, 1842, he was CONQUEROR OF UNHAPPY VALLEY 215 engaged in what the Duke of Wellington pronounced one of the most remarkable military feats on record. This was the situation. There was trouble in the border state of Scinde, and with an army penetrating into Afghanistan, England could take no chances there. So after ten years of inaction and suppressing Chartist riots, the veteran general had been sent out to this northwest corner of India to meet whatever might develop. Arriving at Kurrachee after a perilous voyage on a cholera-scourged vessel, with victims dying by scores, to be instantly tossed overboard amid the storm — he had soon obtained a clear view of his dif- ficult task. Three sets of Ameers, descendants of the original Belooehee conquerors, ruled Scinde ; and they did their part in making it deserve its nickname of the Unhappy Valley. The million or so mixed n^atives of this forlorn and fever-poisoned land were virtually slaves, pitilessly taxed, delivered over to venal officers, forced to act as beaters for their sport- loving rulers, who valued their great hunting pre- serves, or sMTcargdhs, as much as their wives and ■children. There had been bad feeling for some years between the Ameers and the British authorities; and after the English disaster to the north at Cabul, these princes began active intrigue with their neighbors against the foreigners. Napier was a soldier; he found again surging up in him that craving for mili- tary glory which he had censured in himself, but he had never lost his warm sympathies and generous feelings for the weaker. "The wild beast only thrives here," he wrote, ^'and the Ameers torment even him: their diversions are destruction, their sole business to hoard gold! 216 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY Their extortions impoverish their own treasury, they kill the goose for the golden eggs ; but the last egg, I suspect, is laid. My object will be to resuscitate the goose ; but while doing so the Ameers may go by the board ; if so, it is their own fault. Did God give a whole people to half a dozen men to torment? I will strive to teach the Ameers a better use of their power; and if they break their treaties the lesson shall be a rough one. ' ' Matters grew worse. The new treaty was not signed. Napier believed the Ameers were about to attack. Feeling in himself "a spring that defied all difficulties," this man of sixty moved swiftly to meet the outbreak. He reached Khyrpore, up the Indus, to find that the younger Ameers had fled with their followers to the impregnable desert stronghold of Emaumghur. He could get no information about the route, or the watering-places; poisoned wells and elusive sharp- shooters might well defeat him without the desert and the fortress. But he determined to give the chiefs a swift example of what they might expect. So at midnight of January 5 he had set out into the trackless desert with only five hundred men, — and had found it necessary to send back three-fourths of his handful of cavalry for lack of forage. For six nightmare days the little column had toiled over rock and sand, undaunted by heat, thirst, the difficulties of travel, the expectation of attack from an unseen foe. When the animals failed, they dragged their cannon by hand. But always the hawk-nosed leader held them straight as an arrow for the mysterious citadel. He was filled 'now with the gravest anxieties. They were short of water. They must reach Emaumghur CONQUEEOR OF UNHAPPY VALLEY 217 soon or combat a worse enemy than the Beloochee hordes. And "when they did reach it: if it were a quarter as formidable as report made out, how could he hope to carry it with his two howitzers and his tiny force ? There was only one answer : they must push on ; and they must capture the fort when they got there. He had the resolute man's satisfaction of having left himself no alternative but the impos- sible thing that needed doing. A shout went up from the leaders of the column. The general spurred his tired horse forward. There was exultation on those haggard faces, in spite of parched lips and bloodshot eyes and the grimness that comes of grappling with the Indian desert. For there ahead, sparkling in the sun's rays, rose a cluster of eight round towers from above a massive four-square wall. It was Emaumghur, the boasted sanctuary of the Ameers. Without a moment's delay, Napier formed his little troop for the attack and advanced upon the citadel. His two cannon were placed in readiness, but awaited the result of this reconnoitring effort. Nearer and nearer they drew. And still there was no shrill defiance from those walls, no crack of sharp- shooters, no murderous volley. The ponderous gate stood wide. They marched in, wondering, alert, ready for anything. But Emaumghur was empty and deserted. Overawed by the resolute advance of the "Feringhees," the Ameer and his followers had abandoned their strong- hold a few hours before and fled across the desert. When he looked at the great walls and realized what would have been his position if the garrison had stood a siege, Napier felt his escape had been narrow indeed. It was no wonder that the natives 218 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY had considered the place impregnable. He deter- mined to destroy it, both for the effect upon the enemy, and lest some future turn of the conflict should require another march upon it which might have a different ending. Three busy days were spent in mining the walls and setting explosives. Then one morning the desert silence was shattered by an appalling roar. A swirling cloud of smoke arose, shot through by leaping flames, while a vol- cano of stone and wood fragments filled the air. Then the wastes without rolled in on what had been Emaumghur. The refuge of the Ameers was no more. Hurrying back to the valley of the Indus, Napier spent some weeks in negotiations with the Ameers,. though he did not agree with Major Outram, the Resident, that these chiefs were earnestly desirous of peace. Finally he felt he could, as the responsible officer, delay no longer in breaking up the forces which were concentrating against him. Thirty thou- sand Beloochees, he heard, were at Meeanee, ready to crush his three thousand, two-thirds of whom were native troops. Adopting a maxim of Wellington's he resolved never to retreat no matter what the odds. "Not to be anxious about attacking such immensely superior numbers is impossible; but it is a delightful anx- iety," he wrote. He had striven earnestly to de- cide, without any thought of himself, what was his duty. Now the matter had been settled. After forty years' stern service as a soldier he was to fight his first battle as an independent commander. The odds were more than ten to one, and the result would decide his reputation as a general. But he had no doubts. CONQUEEOR OF UNHAPPY VALLEY 219 " I am as sure of victory, ' ' he remarked, " as a man who knows that victory is an accident can be." Outram, attacked by the enemy at Hyderabad, had joined him, and went ahead to burn the woods on the road to Meeanee. Before day Napier 's army set forth. At eight o'clock they sighted the Beloochee camp at a great horseshoe of the FuUailee River, then dry. Their position was strong. Two dense woods (hunt- ing preserves or "shikargahs" of the Ameers) guarded each wing. On the right was a mud wall, lined with matchlock-men. The high river bank made a strong rampart for the infantry, and their cannon were in two masses in front of this. Behind these defenses were thirty-five thousand warriors, drunk Avith bhang and fanaticism, and eager to annihilate the foreigner. Careful study of the ground convinced Napier there was but one chance of success — a bold, frontal attack. Forming his baggage in a circle, guarded by the Poonah Horse and some infantry companies, he drew up his column in battle array within three hundred yards of the wall — infantry in the centre, artillery and sappers on the right, the Scinde Horse and Bengal Cavalry on the left. Then he moved forward his guns, under a heavy cannonade, and silenced the enemy's artillery. Rid- ing close to the Shikargah he noticed at an opening in the wall that there were neither loop-holes to fire through, nor scaffolding on the top. He ordered Captain Tew with his 22nd Grenadiers to hold this opening at any cost, thus bottling up six thousand of the enemy with a few hundred of his own force. Hardly had Tew taken his position when he was 220 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY shot dead ; but the Grenadiers had been told to stay, and they stayed. That opening was sealed through- out the battle. "And now the infantry regiments, advancing in echelon under a galling fire, were approaching the enemy 's front. Encouraged by the rattle of the gren- adiers ' musketry, the 22nd marched past the wall. A hundred yards from the FuUailee they caught sight of the fierce, dark faces of the Beloochees above the bank, bending over their leveled matchlocks. The General gave the word : the bugle sounded ; and Avith a wild yell the British soldiers charged. Up the bank they rushed, and were about to leap down, when they saw a myriad swaying swords flashing in the sunlight before their faces, and in amazement started back. But in a moment they pressed on again, and with fixed bayonets hurled themselves upon their ter- rible enemies ; and now, one after another, the sepoy regiments came up and plunged into the thick of the fight. Again and again, as the British guns roared out, a hail of grape-shot flew down the river bed, and hurtled through the dense masses of the Beloochees ; yet, heedless of the slaughter, many leaped upon the guns only to be blown away, while along the bank the shouts of the striving multitudes were mingled with the frequent clash of the bayonet and the sword. Twice or three times, in spite of the example, in spite of the passionate entreaties of their officers, the sepoy regiments shrank back ; and even the Brit- ish swerved before the onset of their desperate foes. Officers and men were falling fast; and it seemed doubtful if the British could win the battle. "Then, conspicuous among the thronging com- batants, appeared the eagle face of the British Gen- eral; he drove his horse through the ranks of the CONQUEROR OF UNHAPPY VALLEY 221 :22nd, and, waving his helmet, called upon the men to make one conquering charge. Still it was all in vain. The bayonet alone could not decide the battle. But soon the British, planting themselves almost on the edge of the bank, fired into the striving mass with such swiftness that, as their foremost enemies rolled ■over dead or dying, those behind could hardly spring ■clear of the corpses and strike before a fresh volley hurled them back. "In the narrow space, barely five yards wide, that separated the contending hosts, Napier slowly walked his horse up and down, more than once scorched by the fire, though never struck, and always at hand to rally the wavering. "Writhing heaps of bodies were lying close under the bank; and still the Beloochees would not give way. Moreover, the officer commanding the Bombay Grenadiers, misunderstanding his instructions, had neglected to storm Katree, the village on the enemy's right, and kept his men in a position where they were of little use. "The crisis had arrived: now or never, Napier saw, the battle must be won. Exhorting his men to hold on, he sent an order to Colonel Pattie, his sec- ond-in-command, to charge with all the cavalry on the Beloochee right. But the order had been antici- pated. Captain Tucker, of the 9th Cavalry, had already persuaded the colonel to allow the cavalry to act. While the third squadron drove masses of the enemy into and along the river, and the second expelled numbers from the village enclosures, the first, with the Scinde Horse, rode straight for the further bank. As they galloped across the plain near the village, some fifty of the Scinde horsemen, failing to clear the ditches that intersected it, were 222 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY flung from their saddles ; but the rest, spurring on, dashed over the high bank of the river and across its bed; and then, while the Scindees charged the camp of the Ameers, the Bengal troopers swept down upon the enemy's rear, and threw the whole line into disorder. "Distracted by this unexpected onslaught, the Beloochees hesitated; the British infantry saw the wavering of their line, and, springing forward with a triumphant shout, forced them from the bank, till the battle was renewed in the middle of the river- bed. Driven out of the wood, the thousands whom Tew's grenadiers had held in check joined the left of the line. With desperate fierceness the conquered Beloochees still fought on, but at last they knew that they were beaten, and turning, though still glanc- ing grimly around, with a swinging stride they slowly stalked away. Large bodies, indeed, still lingered near the village, and looked as though they would make another rush; and it was not until the whole of the British guns had been turned against them that they too sullenly dispersed." They left over five thousand of their warriors on the field of Meeanee. Napier's loss was two hundred and fifty-six killed and wounded. At midnight, when all his weary men were resting, Napier rode alone over the battlefield. His feeling was not one of exaltation, but gratitude at having avoided defeat. And the finest part of the man de- manded an answer to one urgent question as the soldier gazed upon the horrible groups, lying stiff and cold, of what had a few hours before been reso- lute manhood. It got an answer from a conscience which never hesitated to face the truth: "This blood is upon the Ameers, not on me," CONQUEROE OF UNHAPPY VALLEY 223 Next morning came messengers asking what terms the victor would grant the Ameers. "Life and nothing more," was the reply. "And I wish your decision before twelve o 'clock, as I shall by that time have buried my dead, and given my soldiers their breakfast." The foe had had enough. Came presently to camp Nusseer Khan, Shahdad, and young Hoossein of the Ameers. They would surrender Hyderabad. They were beaten. They were the General's prisoners of war. And they laid at his feet the jeweled swords which were among their most treasured possessions. Now Charles Napier had always burned to achieve glory and renown and material recognition. Forty years he had waited while spending his utmost strength and blood. There was something about those gorgeous swords that seemed to typify and embody his long-deferred success. They were his, by all the rules and customs of war. Only one who has been deprived for most of a lifetime of the material rewards of honest work can realize how tremendous this seems when it does come at the eleventh hour. Moreover, he detested the whole brood of Ameers as one of the main causes of the misery of the Un- happy Valley, as well as treacherous enemies to his own government. Yet his large spirit was touched at the abjectness of these who had yesterday been potentates. He could not bear to gratify his own triumph at the cost of adding even to a defeated enemy's misery. Telling them that the Governor General must de- cide upon their fate, he assured them that they should be treated with respect as befitted princes. And for his personal part, he handed them back 224 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY their jeweled swords, to save them this final humil- iation. For the first time, too, in the long history of Brit- ish wars, Napier's report of his victory personally named a number of private soldiers for heroic con- duct in the action. Small wonder that his men were fond and proud of him! He wrote in his journal the day after Meeanee: "The Twenty-second gave me three cJieers after the fight and one during it. Her Majesty has no honor to give that can equal that." PART IV COURAGE OF MIND AND CHARACTER Thoughtful people have always recognized a dif- ference between courage of hody and that of mind. The old myth of "primitive hardihood," the delu- sion which we feel has driven the Teuton race into ^inthinkahle crimes against humanity, holds that we must preserve something of the unreasoning, fero- cious readiness to attach of the cave-man in order to avoid becoming over-sensitive, weak, coivardly. Yet there is a mass of testimony from the Great War, as from a myriad other sources, to show that even when it comes to physical bravery, it is the men of "refinement," the high-strung, sensitive students, artists, ivriters and poets ivho have particularly shotvn the supreme contempt for danger and death. It is true, too, that much of the conspicuous bodily courage is due to habit: the particular risk has be- come commonplace. Another kind of chance may cause the reckless soldier to hesitate. Alan Breck, with his feet on the heather and a sivord in his hand, was ready for a troop: in a storm at sea his fortitude vanished. The quality that causes one to contem- plate ALL dangers calmly surely comes from the mind. And this manifests itself in a thousand ways less shotvy than charging a hostile battery. No one ivho beholds Thomas Carlyle resolutely setting out to re- write his burned manuscript. Grant conquering his besetting iveakness, Palissy pursuing his ideal 227 through those hitter years of tvant and discourage- ment — no one can douht the result had these men been tested in some other ivay. The root of the matter ivas in them. The tree and- fruit could he no other. 228 CHAPTEE XIV A SERBIAN VOIVODE The whole world marveled during the first months of the Great "War at the success of little Serbia against Austria. The armies of Franz Josef were forced to give up the attempt to capture Belgrade. Deciding that the Serbian capital was impregnable, they concentrated their forces on the northwest and advanced proudly into the land, expecting to con- quer it completely in a couple of weeks. Two attempts were beaten back by the aroused mountaineers ; but the superhuman efforts required exhausted the defenders, and the invaders captured the important centre of Valievo. Convinced now that they held Belgrade in the hollow of their hand, the Austrians began an enveloping movement. Though Serbia had won practically every battle where the forces were anywhere near equal, many of the stoutest-hearted patriots now began to feel further resistance was useless. But the headquar- ters staff sent a man to meet the emergency — ^largely under the urgency of the man himself. He was nearly sixty years old, this General Mis- hitch. Born as the son of a peasant near this very to"v\Ti of Valievo, he had gone through the Military Academy, fought gallantly in the earlier war with Bulgaria, and so distinguished himself in the Balkan War of 1912 that he had reached the rank of general with an important position on the general staff. 229 230 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY Always he had remained a simple man with peas- ant virtues. A tremendous worker and fighter, tire- less, calm, methodical, he still had in him a fire that blazed out fiercely when aroused. And he was nota- ble for his confidence even among a people "with whom optimism is a national characteristic." Nat- urally the soldiers worshipped him and believed him invincible. Through all the anxious days of that fall when those in authority debated the part of wisdom, he had counselled a vigorous offensive as the true pru- dence. When things looked most critical and the council of war was divided, he turned to the Crown Prince : "Sire," he exclaimed, "do not seek salvation in retreat." The staff decided to strike as he advised. He himself was detached and placed in command of the First Army. A correspondent saw his setting out. "It was a night in late November, 1914. The Serbian arsenal town of Kraguievatz was knee deep in slush and refuse. Through the darkened streets there passed eastward a constant stream of fugi- tive peasants, their worldly chattels piled high upon creaking oxen wagons. Hospitals had been already evacuated, the dismantling of the arsenal had com- menced, the air was filled with the unceasing rumble of ever-nearing Austrian guns, and we sat in the only passable cafe taking what all the world thought would be our last solid meal in the national "Wool- wich. "Truth to tell, events were going ill for Serbia. Fatigued by incessant warfare, almost without ammunition, the armies of King Peter had been A SEBBIAN VOIVODE 231 retreating steadily for six weeks, and now came the news that the First Army had lost the impregnable mountain range of Suvobor, bringing the enemy within cannon-range of our dinner-table. In the circumstances, circumstaces which afforded justifi- cation for pessimism a I'outrance, it was a merry enough party — you will never quite crush the opti- mism of the Serb — and a close friend of mine, who succeeded in forgetting the horrors of the Albanian retreat in a couple of days and has since discovered a wealth of humor 'neath that tragedy, whispered that one never knows one's luck and nodded signifi- cantly across the table at General Mishitch. "General Mishitch had then been released from his position of sub-chief to the general staff and ordered to take command of the First Army. That night he was leaving for the front, and I well re- member the words with which I bade him adieu: 'It smacks of mockery to wish you luck, General, but I hope that when next we meet it will be my privilege to call you Voivode (Field Marshal).' "In a few days he accomplished wonders. A gen- eral with a genius for command, he inspired rank and file with renewed courage, and when that re- markable (almost impertinent) order to counter- attack arrived from headquarters, he sent his men forward and stormed and recaptured the heights of Suvobor. The whole line then advanced and speedily flung the Austrian hordes into a panic from which they never recovered until the remnants who escaped were miles inside their own frontiers. Thus did 200,000 war-worn, hungry, and ill-equipped Serbian soldiers — the demoralized of yesterday — in- flict upon 300,000 Austrian invaders one of the most striking and decisive defeats of the World "War. It 232 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY had taken the 'Swabos' a month and a half to reach Suvobor from the Drina Eiver. It took them ex- actly 10 days to get back again. They left behind 60,000 killed and wounded, 40,000 prisoners, and an enormous war-booty, and the Austro-German at- tempt to join up with Bulgaria and Turkey was set back for 10 months. "Five days after our farewell at Kraguievatz, I met General Mishitch in the midst of the battle of Valievo, half-way to the Drina, and having seen a telegram from the Crown Prince at the corps head- quarters, I was able to greet him as Voivode (Field Marshal) Mishitch. "Our re occupation of Valievo was touching, if not imposing. Some faded flags here and there ; an incomplete battalion with one bugler; a group of old men representing the municipality — this was what the victorious general found as he rode in. It resembled the return to a bereaved house after the funeral. The chaos of the roads, although indica- tive of the enemy's total collapse, finished by being depressing. The gleam of blue uniforms lying in the mud amid the countless battered tins of pre- served food, made us avert our eyes. We dared think of nothing but the immediate work before us. Thus we rode past dismantled artillery, broken guns, children's photographs strewn in the mud amid scraps of shrapnel, half-empty cartridge cases. Bibles, broken gourds, and splendid, new top-boots. The climax of confusion seems to have been our firing on them with their own cannon from Suvobor heights. They must have recognized the purple-red- white smoke of their own shells. We learned from prisoners that the officers pretended we had Greek ammunition originally purchased from Austrian f ac- A SERBIAN VOIVODE 233 tories; but the men were not deceived. "We found shovels sticking in their badly dug trenches — ■ trenches that were viewed with contempt by our practised diggers of three consecutive wars. Their graves were better done, and almost each had a cross, while sometimes there was one huge cross about 12 feet high near a crowd of little mounds. We coaxed to us easily numbers of stray horses, and Tyrolean mules never seen in these parts before. They are strong, sturdy animals, better than buffaloes for artillery purposes. Cabs, such as we had seen in the streets of Trieste and Agram, lay about, their shafts pointing desolately skywards. Everything had a hopeless air. "At Mionitza I saw our general again, after he had cleared all the Kolubara district, including his native village, Struganik. He was talking with the peasants, one of whom, in fustian, fur cap, and san- dals, was unmistakably his brother. The two Mis- hitches have the same erect carriage, sparse mous- tache, and clear blue eyes. At this moment both had their hands in their pockets, one in his peasant (chakshir), the other in his uniform pantaloons. There was nothing to choose between the attitude of the men. Both were free in speech and move- ments, simple, workmanlike, confident. They had not been reared on 'white coffee and yeast rolls,* but their easy manner came from love of freedom and determination to remain free. Finer types of the gentle, manly Southern Slav you could not see ! "There was a great smashing of crockery when the housewives of Valievo regained their homes, and a burning of bread-troughs, for the legend ran that socks and shirts had been washed in these. Know- ing the scrupulous care with which food vessels are 234 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY kept apart in Serbia — in remoter regions the women are more pedantic on this point — it is easy to un- derstand that the country is suffering from lack of ware after the invasion." But this well-earned success was followed by dis- aster. Allied reinforcements did not arrive, Bel- grade fell before the Austrian guns. Food and sup- plies were unobtainable: a pair of boots cost sixty or seventy dollars; a pound loaf of bread sold for eight. The leaders of the three Serbian armies were cut off from all communication with headquarters. "It devolved upon the field commanders to decide as to the final abandonment of Serbia. Their con- ference lasted two days, and, according to all re- ports, was stormy. General Mishitch was for an offensive even at that date. With those emaciated regiments out there in the frozen fields, killing their transport-beasts for food, burning their transport- wagons for fuel, and having enough of neither, with most of his ammunition gone, together with a great part of the very insufficient artillery which the army had possessed, he still felt that there was a chance, and that is all that is necessary for the Serbian soldier. They are not fools, they do not die need- lessly, as the Montenegrins are popularly reported to do ; but if there is a chance, life counts nothing to them. During the months that I lived with them, slept with them on the ground, ate their bread, saw their battle-lines, I learned this beyond all else: soldier for soldier, I believe them to be the best fighters in the world. Most soldiers are brave men ; the Serb is also a marvelous stoic, a rare optimist, and built of steel. But the odds there were too great. The other two generals favored the course which A SERBIAN VOIVODE 235 was carried out with a very remarkable degree of success — a general retreat through the mountains with as many of the smaller guns and as much am- munition as possible. So the evacuation of Ipek was announced." As ever, Mishitch accepted the facts. Still in command of the First Army, the Voivode led his battered regiments in that terrible march across the mountains of Albania and Montenegro. Even in his most dashing forward movements he was never greater than as leader of this heart-break- ing march into exile; and his personal example through the unspeakable hardships suffered by the ragged, hungry, shivering Serbians was an inspira- tion to all. Nor did he lose heart even then when all seemed over. The disorganized army was built up again at Corfu. With all his energy Mishitch worked to re- store their morale and the fighting spirit which had so often disregarded crushing odds. He knew his countrymen; it was "the army that cannot die." How well he succeeded was shown in the fall of 1916, when his re-created force, in conjunction with the Allies, attacked along the Macedonian frontier, and the Serbians by a series of reckless assaults cap- tured the city of Monastir — the first success of the Macedonian expedition in nearly a year. Once more the Serbs stood upon their native soil. Through it all the peasant field-marshal was the "genius of the campaign. ' ' A magnificent fighter and man, this Voivode Mis- hitch! And the great spirit he always showed may be recognized in a single glimpse of him in the flush of victory — for that is the moment which often be- trays the real man. 236 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY It was in the earlier campaign against his ancient enemy the Turks, so ardently hated by their Balkan neighbors. A former military attache at Constanti- nople was with Greneral Mishitch as he swept hotly forward. ' ' A Turkish company held up our advance on one occasion. They held the high ground and fought desperately. I do not know how many of our men were killed, but when we got into the trench, there were but four Turks of the company left alive. "By a miracle the Turkish captain was unhurt. His clothes had been pierced in seven places by bul- lets, but he had not been touched. He was brought before Voivode Mishitch. " 'Give him his sword,' shouted the Voivode. 'How dare you bring such a soldier as this before me when he is not wearing his sword!' "That night we started back for headquarters, and General Mishitch called for his car. " 'The Turkish captain rides with me,' said the general. 'No doubt he is tired.' " CHAPTEE XV A SEAECH THAT LASTED SIXTEEN TEAES About the year 1540 a man named Bernard Palissy was living in the crooked-streeted town of Saintes, in southwestern France. He was a painter of glass-windows, when he could get any to paint; a modeller of images and general draughtsman on occasion; and when these artistic trades failed to produce a living for his young wife and two babies, he was glad to exercise his professional skill as a land surveyor. He had reached the age of thirty. His intensely active mind had absorbed all sorts of knowledge from his apprentice years of wandering : with small education, he was a keen naturalist, and an observer who combined both the artist's enthusiasm and the scientist's love of exact facts. And he was begin- ning to feel that there was something in him, calling for use, which was being starved by the drudgery of making surveys of contested boundaries. Even at that he could barely earn enough to pay for the food and clothing and poor house on the outskirts of town where at night he heard the dogs barking on one side and the owls hooting on the other. There was less and less demand for the glass- painting which did give some scope of expression; 237 238 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY he had tried painting portraits, but without influ- ence or patronage from the nobility these commis- sions were few and paid for at starvation wages; yet there was a natural buoyancy in the young artist, and an unrealized sense of inner power, that kept up his hope, and enabled him to cheer his thrifty peasant wife when she fell to worrying because they were not "getting ahead." He came home one day in such a state of excite- ment that Madame Palissy at first thought he must have received some most profitable order. It was something of a struggle for her to sympathize when she learned that all this enthusiasm and talk was about an "earthen cup" he had seen. But he ex- plained it was such a cup, or vase, as one could not imagine — shaped so delicately and enameled with so wonderful a glazed surface. Never in his travels had he beheld such a piece of earthenware ; the man did not live in all France who could make enamel like that; in Italy, some was produced, to be sure, but nothing like this. It must have come from the miraculous East, as people said. It was a marvel of beauty. If only he could find out how that glazed surface on the clay was secured! All this did not appeal very strongly to the good lady. But when her Bernard explained that if he could discover how to make such enamels, he would have a secret which would bring all people to him for his wares instead of the coarse jars and pipkins and Beauvais stoneware vessels which were almost the only products of French pottery, — the thing be- gan to seem a little more worth Avhile. As for Bernard himself, he was like a man who has met his fate. Here was a scientific secret to be solved, a new art to be developed, a bountiful SEAECH LASTING SIXTEEN YEARS 239 source of fame and money for his family if he suc- ceeded. He was a good designer, draughtsman, modeller. He had no fear of being able to handle all that side. But the glaze ! That was the crux of the thing. "Thereafter," says he, "regardless of the fact that I had no knowledge of clays, I began to seek for the enamels as a man gropes in the dark." In a fever of eagerness he started in that very day, without the least knowledge or any suggestion as to materials or processes. "On that day I pounded up all the materials I could think of, and, having pounded and ground them, I bought a quantity of earthen pots, and break- ing them to pieces, I covered them with the sub- stances I had ground, making a memorandum of the drugs I had used in each ; then having built a furnace according to my fancy, I put these pieces to bake to see if my drugs would give any color. "Now, because I had never seen earthenware baked, I never could succeed, even when the mix- tures were good, because sometimes the work was too much heated, and at other times not enough. . . . So, being oftentimes thus disappointed, with great cost and labor, I was all day pounding and grinding new materials, and building new furnaces at a great expense in money, and much consumption in wood and time. . . . "When I had imprudently spent several years in these attempts, with much sorrow and sighing be- cause I could not succeed in my desire, I again bought several earthen vessels, and, having broken them up, covered three or four hundred of the pieces with experimental enamels, and carried them to a pottery distant a league and a half from my resi- 240 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY dence, with, a request to the potters to allow me to bake these experiments therein. "God willed it that thus, as I was beginning to lose courage, and, as a last attempt, had gone to a glass-house, having with me a man loaded with more than three hundred different samples, there w^as found one of these samples which became melted -within four hours after being in the furnace; the which gave me such joy, that I thought I had become another creature, and believed that I had then dis- covered the perfection of white enamel. But my thoughts were still far from the truth, this trial being very successful in one point of view, and very bad in another: successful, in so far as it gave me an insight into the knowledge I have since attained ; bad, in that it was not in proper dose or measure. "I was so great a fool in those days, that, as soon as I had produced the white, I set about making earthen vessels, although I had never learned the earthenware manufacture ; and, having spent seven or eight months in constructing these vessels, I began to build a furnace like a glass-furnace, the which I built with unspeakable toil, for I had to do the masonry by myself, and to mix my mortar, and draw the water for tempering the same; also I had to carry the bricks on my own back, for that I had no means of keeping a man to assist me in the said business. "I baked my ware for the first firing, but at the second firing I had such sorrow and such work as no man would believe; for, instead of resting from my past labors, I had to work for the space of more than a month, night and day, to grind the materials of which I had made this beautiful white at the glass-house ; and when I had ground these materials. search: lasting sixteen years 241 I covered therewith the vessels that I had made; which done, I lighted my fnrnace at the two doors, as I had seen the glassmen do ; but it was ■unfortu- nate for me, because, although I was six days and six nights at the furnace without ceasing to throw wood in at the two mouths, I could not make the enamel melt, and I was reduced to despair. Yet, although I was exhausted with fatigue, I began to consider that in my enamel there was too little of the material which was to flux the others; which seeing, I began to pound and grind the same mate- rial, without, however, allowing my furnace to cool ; wherefore I had double labor, pounding, grinding, and heating the said furnace. "When I had thus mixed my enamel, I was obliged to go and purchase more pots, in order to try the said enamel, inasmuch as I had consumed all the vessels I had made; and having covered the pots with the enamel, I put them into the furnace, still keeping up the full heat of the fire. But thereupon I met with another misfortune, which gave me great vexation; for, my wood having run short, I was obliged to burn the stakes from my garden fence, which being consumed, I had to burn the tables and boards of my house, in order to melt my second composition. I was in such anguish as I cannot describe, for I was all shriveled and dried up with the work and the heat of the furnace. It was more than a month since I had had a dry shirt on. Then, for my consolation, my neighbors laughed at me, and even those who ought to have helped me reported about the town that I burned my flooring-boards, and by such means they made me lose my credit and pass for a fool. "Others said that I sought to coin false money, 242 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY which was an evil report that made me shake in my shoes; and I would then walk through the streets stooping, like a man that is ashamed. I was in debt in several places, and had usually two children at nurse, without being able to pay the wages. No person helped me, but, on the contrary, they laughed at me, saying, ' Serve him right to die of hunger, for he neglects his business.' All these news came to my ears when I walked through the streets. Never- theless, there remained some hope which encouraged and sustained me, inasmuch as the last trials had turned out pretty well; and I then thought that I knew enough to gain my livelihood at it, although I were very far therefrom (as thou shalt know hereafter) ; and think it not amiss if I discourse thereof at length, in order that thou mayest attend to what may be of use to thee. "When I had rested for some time, regretting that BO one had pity upon me, I said to my soul, What saddens thee, seeing that thou hast thy desire? Work now, and shame thy detractors. But, on the other hand, my mind would say. Thou hast no means of pursuing thy object : how, then, wilt thou keep thy family, and buy the things necessary for the four or five months that must pass before thou canst enjoy the fruits of thy labor? "Now, while I was in such sadness and hesitation of spirit, hope gave me a little courage ; and, having thought that I should be far too long in making the whole charge for the furnace with my own hands — in order to gain time and bring out more quickly the discovery which I had made of the secret of this enamel — I hired a common potter, and gave him some drawings for him to make vessels from, to my order; and while he was doing this, I worked at SEARCH LASTING SIXTEEN YEARS 243 some medallions. But it was a wretched affair ; for I was obliged to keep the said potter at a tavern on credit, becaiise I could not have him in my house. "When we had worked for the space of six months, and the work we had got through was ready to be fired, it became necessary to build a furnace and dismiss the potter, to whom, for want of money, I had to give some of my clothes by way of payment. "Now, as I had nothing with which to build my oven, I set to work pulling down the one that I had made after the fashion of a glass-furnace, that the materials might serve for the new one ; but whereas the said furnace had been so very hot for six days and nights, the bricks and mortar thereof had fused and vitrefied in such manner that, in breaking it down, my fingers were cut and gashed in so many places that I was obliged to eat my porridge with my hands wrapped in a cloth. When I had pulled down the furnace, I had to build the other, which was not done without great trouble; and the more so, because I had to carry the stones and mortar without any assistance or rest. "This done, I gave the aforesaid work the first firing, and then, by borrowing and otherwise, I found means to procure the materials for the enamels to cover it, as it had borne the first firing well. But when I had bought these materials, there remained a work which had wellnigh made me give up the ghost ; for, after having tired myself during several days by pounding and calcining my ingredients, I had to grind them, without any assistance, in a hand- mill, which usually required two powerful men to turn it. The desire which I felt to succeed in my undertaking made me do things which I should have otherwse thought impossible. 244 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY "When the colors were ground, I covered all my vessels and medallions with the enamel; then, hav- ing arranged the whole of it in my furnace, I began to heat it, expecting to make a fortune of three or four hundred livres by the charge. I continued the firing until I had some sign and hope that my en- amels had melted, and that the baking was going on well. Next day, when I came to draw the charge, having first extinguished the fire, my grief and sadness were so increased that I lost all com- mand, for, although my enamels were good and the work soimd, nevertheless an accident had happened to the furnace which had spoiled all. . . . "It was because the mortar with which I had cemented my furnace was full of pebbles, the which, feeling the heat of the fire, split into several pieces, making sundry detonations and reports in said oven. Now when the splinters of the said stones flew against my work, the enamel which had already melted and become sticky, held these stones, and fastened them all over the said vases and medallions, which would otherwise have been beautiful. "I was more vexed than I could tell thee, and not without cause, for my charge cost me more than six score crowns. I had borrowed the wood and mate- rials, as I also had a part of my household neces- saries, while I was doing this work. I had kept off my creditors with the hope of payment from the money to arise from the sale of the goods, wherefore several of them came in the morning when I was going to take the goods out of the oven, thereby redoubling my vexation, because in taking out the work I gained nothing but shame and confusion; for every article was sprinkled with little bits of flint, which were so strongly fastened round the vessels, and stuck in SEARCH LASTING SIXTEEN YEARS 245 by the enamel, that when I rubbed my hand over it, the said flints cnt like razors ; and although the work was in this manner spoiled, yet some desired to purchase it at a low price. "But because this would have been a disgrace and cheapening of my credit, I completely destroyed the whole of the said articles, and went to bed for very sadness, seeing that I had no means of sup- porting my family. I met with nothing but re- proaches at home; instead of consolation, I found curses. My neighbors, who had heard of the busi- ness, said I was a madman, and that I might have received more than eight francs for what I had broken. And all these remarks were added to my troubles. "When I had lain some time in bed and had con- sidered with myself that, if a man falleth into a ditch, it is his duty to try to get out of it ; such being my case, I betook myself to painting, and by several means was at pains to earn a little money; then I said to myself that all my losses and risks were past, and that there was no longer any thing to prevent my producing good articles : so I set to Avork, as before, at the former art. "I had a great number of earthen crocks made by certain potters to inclose my vases when I put them into the oven : the idea proved a good one, and I have adhered to it up to the present time. But I was such a novice that I could not distinguish be- tween too much and too little firing: when I had learned to guard against one danger another pre- sented itself, which I should never have thought of. At length I found out how to cover vessels with divers enamels mixed like jasper : this supported me for some time. But when I had discovered the 246 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY means of making rustic pieces, I was more troubled and confounded than before; for, having made a certain number of basins, and fired them, some of my enamels turned out beautiful and well fused, others badly fused, and others burnt, because they Avere composed of various materials which were fusible at different heats; the green of the lizards was burnt before the color of the serpents was melted; also the color of the serpents, tortoises, cray-fish, turtles, and crabs was melted before the white had acquired any beauty. "All these defects caused me so much labor and sadness of spirit, that, before I could make my enamels fusible at the same degree of heat, I thought I should have passed even the doors of the grave; for, from working at such matters, in the space of more than ten years I had so fallen away in my person that there was no longer any form or ap- pearance of calf to my legs or roundness in my arms, insomuch that my legs were all one thickness, in such manner that, as soon as I began to walk, the strings with which I fastened the bottom of my hose dropped about my heels, together with my stock- ings. "I frequently used to walk in the meadow of Saintes, considering my vexation and my afflictions ; and, above all, that I could meet with no peace in my own house, or do any thing that was thought right. I was despised and scorned by all. Never- theless, I always contrived to make some ware of divers colors which afforded me some sort of a living. The hope which supported me gave me such a manly courage for my work, that oftentimes, to entertain persons who came to see me, I would en- SEARCH LASTING SIXTEEN YEARS 247 deavor to laugh, although within me I felt very sad. . . . "I was all night at the mercy of the wind and rain, without having any succor, help, or consolation, un- less from the owls screeching on one side, and the dogs howling on the other. Sometimes there arose storms and tempests, which blew in such manner up and down my furnaces that I was obliged to leave them altogether, with loss of my labor. And it has happened to me several times, that, having left my work, and having nothing dry about me, on account of the rain which had fallen, I would go staggering about without a light, and tumbling from side to side, like one drunk with wine, full of great sorrow, inasmuch as, having been long at work, I saw my labor lost. Now, going to bed thus dirty and wet, I found in my room a persecution worse than the first, which now makes me wonder that I did not die of vexation." But in spite of his wife's reproaches and all his other bitter trials, Palissy persisted. Nor was he satisfied when at the end of sixteen weary years he had won enough knowledge to make his work sought after by the wealthy connoisseurs. He had in him an ideal, a passion for perfection, that ever drove him on to fresh labors. Success and fame came, though he never accom- plished what he had set out to do. He had accom- plished a greater work : the manufacture of his own character. "What an excellent piece of craftsmanship this was was shown when the aged Huguenot (he had for many years been a convert to the new faith), after passing safely through the terrors of the St. Bar- 248 THE BOOK OF BRAVEBY tholomew massacre, was arrested and sentenced to death, in a fresh, outbreak of religions persecution. Though, over eighty lie faced his fate calmly. Friends secured a stay of sentence, but for four years he remained a prisoner in the Bastille. Then one evening be fell asleep and did not wake. CHAPTER XVI OLIVE'S DUEL In the year 1743 a young Englishman named Eobert Clive sailed for India to take a position as clerk with the East India Company. He was in his eighteenth year; his school record was that of an incorrigible idler at his books, a rebel against au- thority, a daredevil delighting in startling the towns- folk by climbing the church steeple, or forming a gang of his fellows to levy tribute from the shop- keepers on pain of having their windows broken. The ship was detained nine months in Brazil, and the youngster spent all his money. He landed at Madras penniless, and speedily acquired a reputa- tion in his small circle as a difficult, insubordinate, moody, passionate young man who would never rise in the service. He was miserable, homesick, in poor health, and took to gaming in desperation. All the wise elders predicted he would lose his post presently and be sent home in disgrace. Twice he attempted to shoot himself. The pistol each time missed fire. Yet eight years later, the great Pitt was pronounc- ing him a "heaven-born general," and all Europe was ringing with his unparalleled exploit in defend- ing Arcot — the first real British victory over their French rivals in the struggle to control India. In another ten years he was Baron of Plassey in com- memoration of his dashing victory in this, one of the 249 250 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY decisive battles of the "vvoiid. And in a few more years, as governor and commander-in-cMef , he prac- tically completed the addition of this vast empire to the British Crown, established a government which justified the conquest, and completely reorganized the army there. Throughout this almost incredible twenty-five years, the name of Clive became a synonym for a daring personal courage which hesitated at nothing, when occasion demanded. He was soldier and leader as well as general; and it was largely his flaming personal heroism which attached his sepoys to him, with a devotion, as Macaulay said, which "surpassed anything that is related of the Tenth Legion of Caesar, or of the Old Guard of Napoleon." It was, however, in a half -forgotten and somewhat sordid episode of those early unhappy years that Robert Clive seemed to reach a pinnacle of resolu- tion. Browning seized upon the hazy facts for his searching poem of the "unique" occasion, fit for a museum of "mind-freaks," when Clive felt fear. The lonely young "writer," lacking any proper outlet for his energies, had become a devotee of the card-tables, where the play, though for compara- tively small stakes, was intensely earnest. Most of the gamesters were officers, and the arro- gant military caste of that day considered a young factor as a hopeless social inferior: since it was necessary to have some outsiders in the game he was tolerated so long as he kept his place and paid his losses; but these high-colored, domineering cap- tains and majors took little pains to hide their feel- ing that it was a condescension on their part to admit him even thus far to their pastimes. This was galling enough to an ambitious and re- OLIVE'S DUEL 251 pressed young man ; and Clive himself had a haughty pride which was intensified by his laclv of money and position. Clashes would have been far more fre- quent but for the coolness with which the civilian met each situation, and his self-possessed smile wihen fortune ran against him. One evening he was playing with a ruffling, scarlet- clad bully who embodied all the worst faults of the soldier clique. His contempt for Clive was expressed in word and manner. Even his anger, as he con- tinued to lose, was that of one towards an intruder of a lower class. The young civilian met everything with a con- trolled, sardonic appreciation of the situation. Pres- ently, however, as the cards were cut, his alert gaze caught a movement of the hand beneath the ruffles — and sensed the insulting fact that the fellow hardly cared whether he were observed or not, trusting to his confidence of browbeating this out- sider. The civilian rose: "Captain, you forced a card. You cheated, sir!" Purple with rage and hardly believing his ears, the officer sputtered out: "Just repeat what you said." "I said you forced a card, and cheated." "Possibly clerks make these jokes to each other," remarked the captain in a deadly tone. "You are among gentlemen now and even your ignorance can- not save you. Down on your knees, sir, and beg my pardon this instant — or we shall see if a bullet can let some first ideas of manners into you." "You cheated," replied Clive, in a voice that car- ried through the room. The dozen men present sprang to their feet, up- 252 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY setting tables and crying out at this gross insult to the uniform. "Here, pistols! That must be wiped out on the spot, Captain. Give the scoundrel a lesson he '11 not forget. ' ' Tables and chairs Were tossed aside to make a clear space. In a few moments the two antagonists stood facing each other across the room. They were to shoot at will; when one had fired, the other was free, if able, to advance and make sure work. Young Clive found himself possessed with a burn- ing desire to annihilate the cowardly, swaggering ruffian, a hatred which shook him to the centre. In- deed, his anger was so overpowering that it was his undoing: a jerk of his nerves caused him to press the trigger before he meant to. The ball buried itself harmlessly in the wall. It was his ovnci death-warrant. No shadow of a doubt about that. He was completely at the officer's mercy. The Captain strode forward with a savage chuckle of triumph, claiming his right to make a certain thing of it. One step away he halted, and levelled his weapon till the muzzle almost touched the young man's forehead. "Now, you miserable hound of a clerk, — ^withdraw your charge, or I'll blow the lie out of you." Clive looked him in the eye. "You know you cheated. You know it now. Shoot! That will fit the rest." The man's face became distorted. Tmce he pressed the pistol actually against the civilian's temple, and seemed to try to pull the trigger — ^while every other man present stood in breathless antici- pation. OLIVE'S DUEL 253 Then, to the amazement of his friends, he threw the weapon on the floor. "God!" he muttered, thickly. "I can't do it. The boy didn't wink an eye. Well, then — I did cheat." And he stumbled out of the room. The thunderstruck company recovered their senses when he had disappeared. Then there was a chorus. The fellow was a disgrace to the service ; he should be drurom^ed out to the Eogue's March. As for Mr. Clive, the best amends they could make, on behalf of the army, was to certify the full facts in public with the testimony of all present that no officer could have behaved better than had this civilian. Young Clive listened to all this, and looked them up and down. ' ' One moment, please, ' ' came his cold voice. ' ' Not one of you gentlemen suggested, when I made my accusation, that I might possibly be, not necessarily correct, but even mistakenly in good faith. When that man held my life in his hand, not a voice was raised in protest. Whatever he is, he spared me. "No living soul but us twelve Imows what has happened. If it is ever mentioned, I shall know from what group it came. If any man here ever refers to it, by word or gesture, he has me to deal with. And I promise not to show any such mercy as your friend did." That was all. It is said the secret was kept. Even the name of the captain was never disclosed. But I fancy there was little surprise among that group of spectators when, a few years later, the civilian Eobert Clive proved to the world his power of domi- nating circumstance and his fellow-men, and his capacity for large-minded justice even to his enemies. CHAPTER XVII THE TESTING OE A WEITER'S COUEAGE A HACKNEY-COACH drove up to an old-fashioned brick house in Great Cheyne Eow, near the river in Chelsea, London. It was well filled by three people, one of whom held a bird-cage in her lap, and all sorts of parcels, while the roof was piled high with a miscellaneous assortment of battered luggage. The passengers got out in this street of flagstones, sunk stories and iron rails. It was a damp, cloudy day; but at the fresh June air, and the sight of the row of sturdy old pollarded lime trees, the little canary in the cage broke into song. The man — tall, thin, angular, straight — turned to his wife at this outburst, and a smile lit up his rugged face with its resolute chin and projecting lower lip. They went inside number 5. Furniture, just moved in, was scattered about in wild disorder. Seated on two trunks, master and mistress looked around with a kind of cheerful solemnity, while Bessy the Scotch maid "did" a fire; and having thus "raised a reek" and made formal household sacrifice, they presently spreak a towel on a box lid and took their first dinner in the new home. This man's name was Thomas Carlyle. He was nearing forty years of age. He had just "burnt his 254 TESTING A WRITER'S COURAGE 255 ships behind him" and taken the plunge from "a six years' imprisonment" in a gaunt and lonely farm house on the Dumfriesshire moors to the tumultuous activity of London — resolved to make here one final effort at the literary life which had for fifteen years denied him more than a mere skimped existence in return for his grinding labor. His boyhood had been bare enough, in all except family affection and the mental inspiration of books. While he was not forced like his father to "scraffle for food and clothes," shooting hares Avith a crazy gun to get meals, and skins to barter for a coat, — there was little luxury in the two-family house where his stone-mason father and imcle lived. They were barefoot days, of oatmeal, milk and potatoes, of care- ful thrift, in a taciturn family, whose head was a stern "walled in man," inspiring respect, admira- tion, fear — ^but never free intercourse or love. School and college brought education, but little relief in material matters, fie Avalked a hundred miles to Edinburgh University just before his four- teenth birthday, and spent nearly five years in humble lodgings, receiving food supplies from home, managing his life with the utmost economy. At 19 he was trying to support himself by tutoring at $300 a year, while continuing at the six years' studies remaining before he could be ordained. He had taken no prizes, had made few friends, and was con- sidered too sarcastic for his years. But he had be- gun to read and think far more widely than most of his companions. There had followed years dreary and disappoint- ing. He felt work with his hands would be less hate- ful than schoolmastering ; yet he plodded along at it as the one way of making a living. He had barely 256 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY reached manhood when he began to suffer with tor- turing dyspepsia, "like a rat gnawing at the pit of his stomach," and this disorder made life's difficul- ties the more unbearable. The ministry proved to be not for him; he turned to law; he patiently drudged through the dull grinding out of encyclo- paedia articles, glad to earn ten dollars a week; he translated a geometry and German classics, tried his hand at poetry, wrote biography, spent himself on articles and essays for the magazines — Shaving no inconsiderable success from time to time, yet driven to conclude after ten years of it that "magazine work is below street sweeping as a trade"; he had tried dozens of times to secure positions in some established line of industry, ready to throw all of his exceptional powers into an5i;hing that would afford an honest living — A^dthout getting the chance ; he had helped both his brothers when rare good fortune brought him well-paying pupils, advancing a large proportion of his earnings to get them started in life. He had married, and added to his mental strains the intolerable burden of finding himself barely able to scrape along, even thoiigh his Avife, who had had all that money could buy, was condemned to slave and cook and Avash and scour and mend, while the. hard work and loneliness — and his o"«ti difflciilt na- ture — seriously affected her spirits and health. Sick of hack-Avriting and scrappy articles, he had put his whole heart into a book, "Sartor Resartus," AA'hich his most exacting critic pronounced a work of genius: not a publisher aa'ouM take the risk of issuing it ; and AA^hen parts appeared in a magazine, the prevailing verdict was that the author Avas in- sane, AA'^hile people AA^rote to cancel their subscrip- TESTING A WRITER'S COURAGE 257 tions if any more of that stuff was to be inflicted on them. Yet in spite of everything, he had kept up cour- age and held grimly to work at whatever came to mind and hand. Though he saw even his friends felt that nothing could be made of him, practically speaking; though the failure of his first books and his uncompromising radicalism had almost de- stroyed the small market for his writings; never- theless he was possessed with the conviction that there was in him something large and significant, to which the world must hearken. All employment seemed closed to him except what he could make for himself : he accepted the challenge and would offer the world the best there was in his mind. Though it looked as if writing would yield him "neither bread nor stomach to digest bread," write once more he woitM since that was the only work in sight. So in this June of 1834 he was putting his fortune to a final test. He had sold all his belongings at Craigenputtock except enough to furnish this Lon- don house. The thousand dollars in hand Avould with strict economy keep them going for a year. By that time he must finish the book he had decided on for his supreme effort, the French Revolution. If it succeeded, his years of persistence Avere justified. If not, he had resolved to cut loose from it all, abandon literature, and with spade and rifle seek happier fortune in some frontier region of America. In this mood of "Do or perish" he pkmged into the study of his subject. He was a most conscien- tious writer and terribly in earnest : every fact must be verified, every conclusion sustained. The subject 258 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY was "high and huge." Hundreds of books and pamphlets, borrowed from friends or at the Museum library, had to be studied and digested. Days were spent in looking for authentic pictures. This relentless and taxing research was carried on with almost no relief of friendly intercourse, under a crushing sense of the gravity of the situa- tion, where not a sixpence was coming in, and each week saw their little capital dAvindle. Months of reading and making notes and thinking left his elusive subject still vague and perplexing in his mind, yet time was flying and he must get ahead. In September he wrote that after ''two weeks of blotching and bloring" he had actually produced — two clean pages of manuscript! As he went on he began to ' ' crush the secret ' ' out of the facts he had gathered about that "wild tor- nado." It loomed larger and more meaningful than ever. He threw all his energies, the ripe thoughts of many years into the story. Through sickness and depression he stuck to it like a bur. And in spite of occasional depression, he knew it was good, his best so far, without falsehood or triv- iality so far as in him la}^ His genius recognized itself. This Avas a real thing, a work of true literary art that was so painfully shaping itself beneath his pen. On February 7 the first volume was finished. Seven months of his year were gone. Over half his capital was spent — and for practically two years his writings had brought him nothing. He had put the chapters of this precious manu- script as finished into the hands of a friend, John Stuart Mill — "the nearest approach to a real man that I find here" — for criticism and suggestion. TESTING A WRITER'S COURAGE 259 Then, wiping it clean out of his mind, he girded up his loins and attacked the second volume. This in- volved a new mood, a new approach. But he suc- ceeded in achieving the change from the opening book, and, always mindful that he was running a race against unfaltering Time, he pressed forward with his story. A month later Carlyle was sitting with his wife one evening in the Cheyne Row house. All day he had been working "like a nigger," in his own Avords, at the "Feast of Pikes" in his second volume. As was apt to be the case after these hours of fierce concentration, his one hope Avas to get the book done, his one satisfaction the thought of completed sec- tions. They heard a rap at the front door. Hurried footsteps came up the stairs. The door of the sitting-room was thrust open and their good friend Mill entered. Deadly pale, he tried to speak, but no sounds came. "Why, Mill," said Carlyle, "AAiiat ails ye, man? What is it?" The visitor staggered, and Carlyle supported him with his arm. Presently he managed to gasp out a request that Mrs. Carlyle Avould go doAATi and speak with someone in his carriage. Husband and wife had often discussed a misfor- tune they had feared in connection AAdth their friend. Thinking this had come to pass, Mrs. Carlyle Avent out. Carlyle led Mill to a seat. The picture of despera- tion, the latter informed him in broken sentences that the manuscript of the first volume entrusted to him had been destroyed. Left out in too careless a manner, it had been torn up as waste paper by a 260 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY servant and burned: nothing was left but four or five bits of leaves! Ruskin once said to Froude that Carlyle was "born in the clouds and struck by the lightning." The literal fulfilment of this expression would hardly have been a more terrific shock than this neAvs. He had put his very soul into that manuscript, months of steadfast, excessive, sickly toil. He had used up half of his allotted year, in the face of the difficulties briefly referred to. As was his custom, even his notes had been destroyed. The whole thing was just wiped out. And the end of his money was but a little way ahead. But irritable as Thomas Carlyle often was under the pin-pricks of the daily routine, when it came to great matters he had the bigness and resistance of a mountain. His first thought seemed to be of what Mill him- self must be going through. He minimized the loss, and presently led the conversation to other topics. Sending the carriage away, he embarked on one of his volcanic and fascinating conversations. Few men could listen to his talk unmoved. For two hours he kept his distressed friend, as he had often kept him before, chatting, philosophizing as if nothing had occurred. Mill finally left about midnight, still in a pitiably relapsed state. As they heard the front door close, Carlyle said to his wife: "Well, Mill, poor fellow, is terribly cut up; we must endeavor to hide from him how very serious this business is to us." That was a bad night for Thomas Carlyle. He knew only too well that he had forgotten the whole TESTING A WRITER'S COURAGE 261 structure of this first section, that it would be im- possible to regain the same white-hot spirit that had given it birth. He seemed the plaything of malignant powers. Trjing to sleep, strange dreams of horror haunted him; something seemed to grip his heart tight, with hard, cutting pressure. Next day he wrote in his Journal : "I have determined so far that I can still write a book on the French Revolution, and will do it. Nay, our money wiU still suffice. It was my last throw, my %vliole staked in the monstrosity of this life — for too monstrous, incomprehensible, it has been to me. I will not quit the game while faculty is given me to try playing. I have written to Eraser to buy me a 'Biographie Universelle' (a kind of in- creasing the stake) and fresh paper : mean to huddle up the Feast of Pikes and look farther what can be attempted." Brave words are easy. But he did it. Mill, knowing his financial state, insisted on mak- ing good the money loss. Carlyle refused his offer of two hundred pounds, but finally accepted one hundred as a fair valuation of his half year's work. He was approximately as weU. off for money as if the accident had not occurred. He drove himself to the task of re-creating his lost volume. It was even harder than he had anticipated. His eyes, his digestion, his ideas suffered from the crush- ing toil, labor without joy, threshing over old straw, to which he held his thoughts only by sheer will. He had to stop work altogether for two weeks at a time — an unheard of thing for him. He wore him- self "to the hue of saffron." He felt like a man who was "killing himself in accomplishing zero." But there was in this homely Scotchman some 262 THE BOOK OF BEAVEET fibre of those Heroes whom he was to make live again for his dazzled readers. By September 23 he could write "that unutter- able MS." was finished, and wrapped up to lie till the other two volumes were completed. Fifteen months later, on a damp January night, the last word of Volume III was penned. He him- self declared that, worth anything or not, for a hun- dred years no book had come "more direct and flamingly from the heart of a living man." And the world confirmed this and more. Mill had the satisfaction of hailing the book in his Westmin- ster Review as a work of genius, above all rules, and a law to itself. Surely the public responded to this new prophet. The "History of the French Eev- olution" gave Thomas Carlyle at one step his unique position in English literature. Well had he earned it. And earned a position likewise among the truly valiant souls. It is such as he that remind men fainting under discouragements that no honestly exerted force can be utterly lost; that in the "still death-defiance" of the utmost pressure of ill fortune lies the "most ab- solute sovereignty conceivable by the mind." CHAPTER XVIII A CHAMPION OF THE POOE Something less than fifty years ago there was riding around San Francisco on a mnstang pony a little erect man, carelessly dressed, with a fnll sandy beard, a big head, and alert blue eyes looking keenly out from beneath a broad and generous forehead. His name Avas Henry George. For a man of thirty- two years he had had a varied experience in the stern realities of a workaday world. Growing up in a Philadelphia home where there was close living but no question of some living, he had started to work in a store for $2 a week at fourteen. At sixteen he had gone to sea, to discover in a cruise before the mast to Australia and India that sea-sickness and picking oakum and laying out on a yard-end in a howling gale were by no means the worst of the things that made a sailor's life re- semble that of the proverbial dog. Then in 1858 he had worked his passage to California, helping to jettison coal to save the ship in a hurricane off Hatteras, and going through an outbreak of yellow fever after leaving Rio. The Golden Land had not been very kind to his young hopes. He had been seaman, miner, prospec- tor, pedlar, job printer, tramp, reporter, and news- paper owner — finding "this working on a daily paper, the hours that we do, harder than digging sand or wielding a sledge," yet becoming involved 263 264 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY in debt despite his labors, Ms sleeping on a folding cot in the type room, his wearing of clothes till they were rags, and of shoes till his toes stuck through the holes. Harder times still had come when, with the re- sponsibilities of a wife and baby urging him on, he had made a desperate effort to "get his nose ont of the space-box" by cleaning up on a copper mine, being cleaned out instead. He had tried to peddle clothes-wringers from door to door, and had can- vassed for subscriptions — failing utterly. He had bumped against the bottom of humiliation for a vig- orous, hard-working, intelligent, self-respecting man one dark morning of January, 1865, when, after all sorts of shifts for money, after nearly killing him- self through lack of food, with his wife and a new baby in bed, he had been told by the doctor : "Don't stop to wash the child; he is starving. Feed him!" — and wildly walking the streets he had stopped a stranger and begged five dollars to save his precious three from hunger, feeling in his heart that if the man refused he would have to kill him. These worst days were past. He was beginning to be known as an able newspaper man, a telling speaker, a writer of power, a possible member of the legislature, and, above all, a fighter for his beliefs. But he had developed a burning conviction that these hard knocks of fate merely served to give poignant expression to a message which he must- blazon before the eyes of the multitude in his loved land of democracy, to Avit: "In the long run, no na- tion can be freer than its most oppressed, richer than its poorest, loiser than its most ignorant." This "fiat of the eternal justice that rules the world" he felt compelled somehow to impress upon the self- A CHAMPION OF THE POOR 265 absorbed and heedless crowd, and to suggest to the multitude who alone could do something, the way in which to remedy the extremes of grinding poverty which seemed to him like foul blotches on the white robe -of Liberty. It was rather an ambitious plan for an obscure, almost penniless, self-educated young newspaper man, whose utmost efforts could barely support his wife and children. But Henry George was a born fighter for the truth, especially a truth which appealed so vitally to his warm sjnnpathy for his fellows. Moreover, as his devoted wife once said in a talk with him, he had preeminently that courage "that impels a man who sees his duty to follow it, though it mean to make sacrifices — to stand up against the world." He had shown his mettle when he attacked the Central Pa- cific Eailroad, then the invisible power that domi- nated all California, — ^banks, courts, press, politics, and legislature, — which made men's fortunes with a word, or ruined those who protested against its secret dictatorship. Not satisfied with its vast sub- sidies, this "Octopus" was scheming to wrest more public lands and money from the people. As editor of the Sacramento Reporter, George fought this per- nicious force tooth and nail. He laiew well that any man of ability enough to make himself dangerous to the railroad could get some fat position within its circle; but he continued to denounce its illegal acts and to explain mth telling clearness just what its coming had meant to the people of California. Unable to buy him, the railroad quietly bought the Reporter — and there was nothing for the powerless editor but to resign. He had proved himself again in his battle with 266 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY the monopoly built np by the Associated Press, though the owner of his own Herald preferred to let the paper die, and all the other Coast newspapers were against him in the hopeless struggle. He had faced bitter enmity and abuse for his stand on the Chinese question then becoming an acute issue. He had antagonized every liquor dealer of the state, and seen advertisements and subscriptions melt awaj^, by outspoken rebuke of election-time rowdyism around the saloons. Harder still, he had resolutely faced the naked truth about himself and resolved to combat his own failings. One of his earliest attempts at writing anything but news was an essay on ' ' The Profitable Employment of Time," in which, amid his blackest days, he set down his conclusion that "I have not employed the time and means at my coramand faith- fully and advantageously as I might have done, and ■consequently that I have myself to blame for at least a part of my non-success" — and laid out rules for improving his habits. So the young crusader had at least that primary requisite of going in with his head do-v\Ti against any odds. He had some technical equipment too. If he had not studied political economy at college, he had studied life at first hand, which is better yet if there are eyes to see and a brain to reason. In addition, hard pressed for money as he had usually been, he had managed to pick up a considerable library on subjects of social and political science, history and biography, philosophy and science. AVhat's more, he had read these hundreds of books and tested their conclusions in the light of his own observations and experiences. A CHAMPION OF THE POOR 267 Finally, he was possessed with a genuine moral fervor. Long afterwards in accepting the mayoralty nomination of New York City, he said : "Years ago I came to this city from the West, unknown, knoAving nobody, and I saAV and recognized for the first time the shocking contrast between mon- strous Avealth and debasing want. And here I made a vow from which I have never faltered, to seek out and remedy, if I could, the cause that condemned little children to lead such a life as you know them to lead in the squalid districts." As he confided to a friend, a priest : ' ' Once, in day- light, and in a city street, there came to me a thought, a vision, a call — give it what name you will. But every nerve quivered." His nerves had quivered again one day eighteen months before the time indicated. He loped out on his tough little broncho through the suburbs of the rapidly growing city. The last, golden spike of the trans-continental railroad had been driven only a few months previous. It was proposed to extend the line from Sacramento to Oakland. A wild scramble for land began in con- sequence around the latter town. Speculators mort- gaged everything in sight or in prospect to secure all the acres they could in anticipation of the rise in value. Prices had gone skyward. Greorge was as usual absorbed in his problems: why does poverty increase with increasing prosper- ity? And how to remedy it? Urging his lively pony on unconsciously, he gal- loped through the Oakland hills till the horse was blown. A passing wagon brought him to himself. PuU- 268 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY ing up to rest his broncho, he idly asked the driver of the team what land was worth around there. The fellow pointed to some cows "grazing so far off that they looked like mice": "I don't know exactly," said he, thoughtfully, "but there's a man over there who'll sell some land for a thousand dollars an acre." The incongruity of such a sum in that remote farming country seemed to light up his puzzled mind like a flash of lightning. He had seen this land but a few years before when it was almost valueless; he had lived through the pioneer days when men tacitly acted on the principle that no one should take up more land than he could actually use; he had witnessed and fought the enormous grants of many square miles to the railroad; now these farms were held at a thousand dollars an acre, removed from production, out of reach of all except speculators. Here he felt was the answer that explained the city slum and the hopeless laborer : the natural order had been set aside — ^nature's generous storehouse locked up — it was the taking of the land out of the poor man's hands that had made him poorer still. The cure absorbed his thoughts for eighteen months. On a March Sunday night in 1871 his ideas focussed themselves. He sat down in his work room in his Stevenson Street house and fired the first gun in his life's campaign by beginning to write "Our Land and Land Policy." He finished it in four months and managed to scrape up enough money to put it into fine type and print a small edition of a 48-page pamphlet, with a folding map of California to show that the state had squandered the primal heritage of its sons. The book was quiet and unimpassioned, but A CHAMPION OF THE POOR 269 straight from the shoulder. It showed how the im- pelling cause of the settlement of the United States had been the "inexhaustible" stretches of fertile lands; how with such lavish grants as more than 25,000 acres for each mile built in the states, and half as much in the territories, to the Northern Pacific Railroad, and all the other outpourings of the na- tion's holdings, there would be no more arable land left of this "inexhaustible" store by 1890 (and, by the way, it was just about that time when we had to slice off Oklahoma from the territories allotted to the dispossessed Indians) ; how huge California with only 600,000 people in all its length and breadth, thus no longer offered the immigrant a chance to make a living from the soil without paying a tax to a middleman ; how the only wealth is the product of labor; and how it was the speculative price of land, above what it was worth to use, which helped to clamp the poor beneath an iron band. He maintained that freedom included the right of any man to the use of so much of the free gifts of nature as is necessary to existence, and that the increasing monopoly of land destroyed this right. His remedy was to give what public lands were left only to actual settlers and to present them with- out charge ; and to crush speculation by raising the government's expenses through a tax on land and not on the improvements. This he argued would cause millions of acres, held idle for a rise, to be abandoned, when they could be handed over to those who would actually work them. About a thousand copies of the pamphlet were circulated, but it attracted little attention save as a novel and cranky notion. A few letters from east- ern readers commended his idea. Clearly he had 270 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY failed to produce the revolution he had hoped for. His comment was characteristic : "I saw the work must be done more thoroughly." Eight years followed of study, of thinking, of ac- tive spreading abroad of his ideas through the Daily Evening Post which he and a fellow printer started with a total capital of $1,800. In these columns he hammered away incessantly at what the other joiir- nals used to ridicule as "George's fad." As was inevitable, he speedily found himself a storm centre, through his championing of the rights of any un- fairly treated class. The Western reformer of those days needed nerve. Once he attended an investigation of the House of Correction, where the manager's brutalities had through George's efforts created a scandal. "At the gate stood the redoubtable Harris, with his hand on his pistol, looking more like a pirate than the superintendent of a public institution. Without the least hesitation Mr. George walked right up to him, looked the burly ruffian in the eyes, and passed into the yard without a word. All through that investigation Harris avoided the steady, indig- nant gaze of the brave little man who pressed his charges of brutality and drove him from his posi- tion and out of the city." Again, when a wealthy scoundrel named Tarpey had murdered a woman neighbor with whom he had quarreled over some land, George stoutly insisted that his influential friends must not be permitted to save him from punishment, though letters came in threatening his life. Presently there appeared a big, husky chap named Donnally, demanding menac- ingly of George if the previous day's editorial rep- resented his sentiments. The editor at once replied A CHAMPION OF THE POOR 271 that not only did it do so, but he had written it. Donnally broke out into abuse, calling him a liar — Avhereat the little reformer went for him and pum- melled him until the bystanders had to save the bully. In 1873 he denounced Crowley, the chief of police, for not carrying out the law and closing the gam- bling-houses and the vicious dens of Chinatown. In a restaurant a former detective named Gannon called George aside: "You let up on Crowley," he whispered, "or there'll be trouble." "AVhat do you mean?" demanded the editor. At that, Gannon caught hold of his neck with one hand and struck him in the face. George struck back vigorously. Gannon drew a revolver, and only prompt action by friends prevented his shooting. Yet through all these stormy scenes the Post never failed to assail lawlessness and corruption, until Henry George became much the same sort of power as James King of William had been eighteen years previous. The financial panic of 1875 wrecked the enterprise. At the time when the Bank of California had sus- pended payment, and money was so scarce that one man could get only $1,500 on a gold ingot worth $9,000, the holder of the newspaper's notes for machinery demanded payment. George lost every dollar he 'd put in and four years ' work. But he knew he was beginning to make himself felt, and he toiled away at the "doing more thor- oughly" task which was the fruit of his first attempt. He was made inspector of gas meters; he gave lec- tures; he busied himself in public library work; he lost the opportunity of representing the working- 272 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY men in the Constitutional Convention because at the last moment he refused flatly to subscribe to what he considered the false platform of Denis Kearney's doctrines; but always the pile of blue- ink manuscript, revised and rewritten over and over, was growing into what he believed to be his message to the world. He was in debt; he couldn't afford to buy a parlor carpet : yet he was utterly absorbed by gen- erous emotion for his unfortunate fellow-men and was spending himself, in every spare hour of the day or night, to put their case and its betterment before the great public. When, in the dead of one March night of 1879, he finished the last page, he dropped down on Ms knees and cried like a child. The manuscript was promptly shipped to a pub- lishing house whose founder had been associated with George's father forty years earlier. In three weeks it came back with a few lines saying that though, written with great clearness and force, the book was "very aggressive": there being little chance anyhow for such a book, the publisher must decline to risk any money on it. For a month he and his friends made the dreary round from one publisher to another. Nobody would touch the work — unless plates were furnished to print from. So Henry George, who had no money, decided he was going to make plates for somebody to print from. His old printer-partner declared he had enough faith in him to take the risk of setting anything he wrote. Again he went over the manuscript, altering and revising it, paragraph by paragraph. A CHAMPION OF THE POOR 273 Then on Maj- 17 lie began the type-setting with his own hands. By September 15 he was able to send his old father in Philadelphia a printed copy of "Progress and Poverty," making enough from the sale of a small "author's edition" to pay part of the initial cost. Finally Appleton agreed to issue the book from his plates. A cheering letter came soon from Sir G-eorge Grey, in far off New Zealand, expressing fervent admiration for the book. Other famous critics and economists confirmed presently his hope that this time the work had been done more thoroughly. Though his own state almost ignored it, in the east and abroad one voice of authority after an- other proclaimed it one of those truly great books which occasionally have a profound influence on the world's thought. And after it had been issued a little more than a year the Appletons began to realize that it had the possibilities of an enormous sale, while English publishers, instead of contemp- tuoiTsly declaring they wouldn't bring it out if the plates were presented to them, were clamoring for "more copies" and arranging a cable code for re-orders. To be sure, many scholastic professors sneered at this gas-meter inspector and sensational news- paper man who was trying to upset the tenets of their faith. But people like Francis Shaw (father of the Colonel Shaw commemorated by Saint Gau- dens) felt compelled to buy a hundred or a thou- sand copies and send them around to libraries and acquaintances, such a revelation did the book seem to them. In short, no matter whether Henry George was 274 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY right in his cure for social ills or not — ^he had done the first part of what seemed so impossible. This book is still alive and selling to-day, after much more than a million copies have been circulated — far the most widely read book on economics ever published. And his valorous championing of the cause of the very poor certainly produced results, even where people did not accept his plan for a single tax on land and none on improvements. In 1897 Henry George was in Brooklyn, after going through a severe illness. The chance he had long dreamed of came to him: the Independents offered him the nomination for the position of mayor of New York. He felt he might do great things there along the lines of his life-work. He had often wished for riches and power, like most ardent men; and there had been plenty of oppor- tunities for a man of his ability to attain both by merely compromising a little 'th his convictions. Here was the opening of a great office to be at- tained honestly, where he could do good. But his condition of health was dangerous. He Avalked along the Shore Road with his doctor. "Tell me," said he, "if I accept, what is the worst that can happen to me?" "Since you ask, you have a right to be told," replied the physician. "It will most probably be fatal." "You mean it may kill me?" "Most probably, yes." "Dr. Kelly says the same thing, only more posi- tively," remarked George. "But I've got to die. How can I die better than serving humanity? Be- sides, so dying will do more for the cause than A CHAMPION OF THE POOE 275 anything I am likely to be able to do in the rest of my life," So he made his last fight and he made a good one. In the very thick of the campaign, after an exhausting day, he died suddenly. And a hundred thousand people, rich and poor, filed past his coffin while he lay in state, like some European monarch, in the Grand Central Palace — ^while as many more crowded outside in the effort to do honor to his memory. CHAPTEE XIX THE SOLDIEE WHO CONQUEEED HIMSELF Three years after the first great gold-rush to California there arrived at Fort Vancouver, twenty miles from the tiny town of Oregon City, Oregon, an officer of the United States army named G-rant. His fellows knew him as Sam Grant, and there were some odd incidents in connection with this. "\Mien he, the first baby, had arrived in his father's Ohio home thirty years before, there was a great controversy in the family over the name Avhich should be given to this new scion of the Grants. A devout aunt insisted on Theodore, since it meant "gift of God"; Grandpa Simpson vowed Hiram was the handsomest name ever; the young mother had a longing for Albert, after one of her heroes, Albert Gallatin; each member of the clan had a positive choice, and did not hesitate to express it. So fierce waxed the r.ivalry that some diplomat, fearing the baby would have no name at all, pro- posed that every contestant should write his or her suggestion on a slip of paper, and that the first two names draA^m blindfold from a hat should be taken as of destiny. This was accepted — the first point on the subject that had been agreed to. Now it chanced that Grandma Simpson had been reading a translation of Fenelon's "Telemachus." With her head full of the romantic adventures of the wise Greek hero, she promptly set down Ulysses 276 SOLDIER WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 277 as her contribution to the lottery. Grandpa stuck stoutly to his "handsome" Hiram. And Fate or- dained that "Hiram" and "Ulysses" should be drawn first. Hiram Ulysses the baby was chris- tened ; to the scorn and ridicule of practical-minded neighbors; and "Lys" and "Lyssus" or even "Useless" the boy was to his playmates. But when Hiram Ulysses Grant decided at seven- teen that his father's tanning business was not for him, and in spite of an actual dislike for guns and hunting and tales of war, got an appointment to West Point Military Academy (to the huge disgust of the neighbors, who demanded why "they didn't appoint a boy that would be a credit to the dis- trict!") — ^he got him a proud new trunk to carry his outfit, with his initials studded on the top in brass tacks, after the fashion of those days. His cousin, Jim Marshall, helped him to carry the trunk home from the local maker's shop. They looked at the staring letters : H. U. G. "I won't have that," declared the embryo cadet. "It spells Jiug. The fellows would plague the life out of me." So the brass tacks were shifted to U. H. G., and the new "plebe" registered himself as Ulysses Hiram Grant. But other folks were still to have a finger in this very personal matter. The friendly congressman who asked for his appointment, knowing his Grand- father Simpson well, and being hurried and unsure of the boy's middle name, had applied and secured an appointment for Ulysses Simpson Grant. The young man asked the authorities if it could not be corrected, but was told this was impossible without getting the consent of the Secretary of War! 278 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY "Very well," said he; "I came here to enter the Military Academy, and enter I shall. An initial more or less doesn't matter." So after trying obvious christenings of "United States" and "Uncle Sam," the other feUows at the Academy promptly settled down to Sam Grant. He was a silent, almost sombre, rather awkward, undersized man (only five feet seven, and weigh- ing 117 pounds), with reddish-brown hair and gray eyes. He didn't dance, had little conversation, and did not "show off" well at all. But he had had a peculiar understanding and mastery of horses al- most since he could toddle, and could ride anything on four legs; indeed people in Detroit knew him as the chap who used .to race a lightning-fast little trotting mare out Fifth Avenue; he was resource- ful in all practical matters and staunchly persistent to a degree which expressed an inner conviction that having once tackled a job it was "fatal" to give it up till it was done; he could handle a com- pany of men as shrewdly as he could horses; and through the Mexican War, as elsewhere, he had gained the reputation among his fellows of fearing nothing on earth — except having to make a speech! Called on at a banquet once for a toast, he rose trembling in voice and body and remarked: "I can face the music, but I can't make a speech." A comrade used to tell how they two had lain out together one night on the Texas prairie, and had been kept awake by the howling of what seemed like a whole pack of wolves close to the camp. "Grant, not used to the ways of these animals, was seriously alarmed. His companion smiled, and said: " 'How many do you think there are?' SOLDIER WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 279 *' *0h, about a dozen.' *' 'Let's go and see,' suggested the other. **They charged upon the fearsome pack, and lo! •one wolf had made all the noise ! "Grant laid this by in his mind, and when some ■enemy made loud clamor he thought of the solitary wolf's manifold yelping." It was one more reason for always "putting a thing through" no matter how formidable the difficulties or dangers seemed. While the few companions who had really become intimate with this aloof personality, had a profound admiration for his stalwart courage, his relentless insistence on absolute truth, his horse sense and ability to "get there," his almost superstitious obligation to "do the job" whatever it was, his wise ways with men and horses, even his usually •concealed sense of fun, — it was inevitable from his "Very temperament that he should be a solitary man. And there were special reasons why Lieutenant Grant should be even more withdrawn and silent than usual at this outpost in the wilderness of the Oregon territory. He had left behind at Sackett's Harbor — as far away then as Africa is to-day — a wife whom he loved devotedly, a two-year-old son, and a new baby born since he left on the long, roundabout, dangerous journey to the Coast via Panama — during which thirty-seven men of his reg- iment, including the Major, had died of cholera in a single day, and Grant, then quartermaster, had showed a cool courage and skill equal to that needed ior a severe Indian campaign, proving himself also ^s one of the sick men declared "a ministering angel to us all." An army post on the frontier offers a dreary life at best. To a naturally reserved man, longing 280 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY for his little family and unable to solace himself ■vvith the jesting or brutal diversions so common, absorbed in the problem of eking out his scanty pay by some outside work which would furnish money to bring his wife and children to him, it becomes a sort of nightmare. For months, just when his anxiety was greatest, he was cut off from all news of his wife, as no letters came through. His only amusement was to ride with one friend twenty miles to Oregon City, Portland being then too small to attract even a bored officer. In winter this is a "land of rain, of moss, of dripping trees; the mists rise from the sea, float inward, break against the Cascade Range of mountains, and fall in unending torrents on the steaming earth; there are weeks -s^'hen the sun is scarcely felt, when the glorious mountains are hidden, and the world is of the color of gray moss and falling rain." Few men can resist such gloom of nature, even if their personal affairs are smooth and full of in- terest. To Lieutenant Grant, lonely, troubled about those dearest to him, anxious about money, it was a sort of slow torture. His thoughts were shut in. They grew the color of the enveloping fogs. His mind became dull, hopeless, morbid. Nature appeared determined to thwart his strug- gles as well as to depress his thoughts. Potatoes were worth eight or nine dollars a bushel. Here seemed a way to achieve his hopes and bring on the wife and son and the new baby he had never seen, but the outline of whose little hand, traced in a letter by the mother, had brought tears to his eyes. With Lieutenant Wallen as a partner, G-rant rented a piece of ground from the Hudson Bay SOLDIER WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 281 Company, bouglit a team from an emigrant, ploAved, and planted a big patch with potatoes. Earnestly the young officers toiled in all their spare time to keep down weeds and pests. Their hard work was rewarded by a famous crop — ^but alas! everybody had gone into groAving potatoes and there was no sale for the hundreds of bushels of magnificent tubers at any price. As a final touch, the gray old Columbia River came down in a mighty flood, swept over the field, and carried most of the laboriously produced crop out to sea. Lieutenant Grant took another partner, and started in to cut ice and ship it to San Fran- cisco. Head winds held up the brig carrying their •cargo; a whole fleet of ice carriers came in just as they finally managed to make port; the price of ice went close to zero. That effort too was foiled by nature's vagaries. He tried buying up cattle and hogs for the San Francisco markets. The result was disaster. "We continued in this business," said his associate, "until both of us lost all the money we had. He was the perfect soul of honor and truth, and be- lieved every one as artless as himself. I never saw a stronger or better man." His rare quality with men, and his quiet, thorough mastery of his job, brought him promotion — for, as a Detroit business man had remarked, "he may be no good with papers, but he's h — 1 with a regi- ment." But this well-earned captaincy could not dispel the gloom that settled down upon him more oppres- sively after the successive failure of each ardent ■effort. He wanted his own; he felt that natural shame of a man of thirty at not being able to work 282 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY out his family financial problems; and neither the honor nor the slightly increased pay of a Captain conld lighten the discouragement that spread it& sable wings of melancholy over his mind. Moreover, he was transferred to Port Humboldt,, near the primitive settlement of Eureka, which con- sisted of a sawmill and twenty houses. San Fran- cisco was distant tAvo hundred and forty miles of wilderness. Mails came by sailing ships and were most irregular and uncertain. He was separated from the one or two friendly acquaintances he had slowly made during his year at Vancouver. His usual timidity at going out into the small social gaieties of army society was intensified by the gnawing mortification at his failures to make money in his outside ventures. Worst of all, the constant exacting routine de- tails of the quartermaster's work were replaced by duties of a line captain which left his vigorous energies with much more spare time to be occupied somehow. And he had no taste for dancing, hunt- ing or fishing which formed the main resources. The result was natural but tragic. Life began to seem futile and hopeless anyhow. He was in the constant company of men who found one of their chief pleasures in drinking. He had learned in the Mexican War to "take his tot" like everybody else. He began more and more to look for that momen- tary oblivion of troubles which drinking offers — concealing till too late the ruinous price. It was the young Captain's peculiar misfortune to have a physical organization extremely sensitive to the toxic effects of alcohol. A single glass of liquor visibly affected him. He drank much less SOLDIER WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 283 than many a fellow officer who kept his reputation for temperance and efficiency spotless ; bnt his little was too much, for him. In fact, this striking sen- sitiveness to alcohol had before this brought him into warning difficulties; and he knew and recog- nized the special danger of his susceptibility. An acquaintance reports having heard him in Detroit, after the Mexican "War, decline to join a party of roisterers, saying he had just heard John B. Gough lecture and he was convinced there was no safety from ruin by drinking except by stopping it alto- gether. Under the pressure of this lonely frontier life his resolutions weakened. Excess became habitual. More than once the post Commandant had been obliged to reprimand him. Presently his superior officer, as a last resort, threatened to report the captain's intemperance to the War Depa^ianent, as destructive of discipline and efficiency. This meant disgrace — dismissal from the army. But the insidious habit had gripped him by this time, and he had no wife or children at hand to call upon his affection for a supreme effort at self-control. Night sprees, and even the scandal of incapacity when on duty, continued, till these finally overbalanced the Commandant's friendly interest and his realization of the young officer's sterling qualities as a soldier. The report of censure was drawn up. But before it went to Headquarters, friendship prompted the Commandant to give the offender a chance at least to lessen the open disgrace; word was privately passed to Captain Grant that he could only avoid dismissal by rushing in his resignation before the report reached Washington. 284 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY Accordingly, by an odd and sorrowful chance, the following two letters were forwarded to the adju- tant-general : "Colonel S. Cooper: I have the honor to ac- knowledge the receipt of my commission as captain in the 4th Infantry, and my acceptance of the same. I am, Colonel, "Very respectfully, your obt. servt., "U. S. Grant, "Capt. 4th Infantry." "Ft. Humboldt, Humboldt Barracks. "April 11, 1854. "Colonel: I very respectfully tender my resig- nation of my commission as an officer of the army and request that it may take effect from the 31st July next. I am, Colonel, "Very respectfully, your obt. servt., "U. S. Grant, "Capt. 4th Infantry." This resignation endorsed by his immediate su- periors and Major-General Scott, Commander-in- Chief, was accepted on June 2 — ^by Jefferson Davis I Little did this Secretary of "War dream what re- lation he was to bear but a few years later to this virtually cashiered and obscure captain. Here, then, was Ulysses Grant, at thirty-two, barred by his own slavery to an appetite from his life's profession, without a hundred dollars in the world, with a wife and two children dependent on him — and the shocking realization that all men looked upon him as an irreclaimable drunkard. He walked the streets of San Francisco, striving SOLDIER WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 285 to collect small sums due him from elusive debtors, shunned by acquaintances, a prey to black despair of life and of himself. Robert Allen, chief quartermaster on the Coast, heard someone speak of his being in the city. He at once looked him up. *'He found him, at last, in a cheap little miner's hotel called the 'What Cheer House.' Grant was up in a small garret room which contained only a cot, a pine table, and one chair. "There he sat, a young man of thirty- two, in utter misery. His head was bowed, and as his friend entered he lifted a haggard and sorrowful face. " 'Why, Grant, what are you doing here?' asked Allen of the shattered, gloomy young man. " 'Nothing,' he replied. 'I've resigned from the army. I'm out of money, and I have no means of getting home.' " 'Well,' said Allen at once, 'I can arrange for your transportation without trouble, and I guess we can raise some money for you.' " Thus aided by friendly charity, and borrowing in New York from a former class-mate (afterwards General Buckner of the Confederate Army), the future national hero managed to make his humil- iating way back to his father's Ohio home. Jesse Grant showed but too clearly his grim disappoint- ment at this shameful failure of the son of whom he had boasted ; but the mother played a true moth- er's part; and after some weeks of rest, U. S. Grant went down to St. Louis to face the bitterest fight of his life. After ten years of commanding men, he began as a common laborer on a farm, without money. 286 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY tools or horses. His father was a hard and close man, though a just one: it was strictly up to the wandering Ulysses to support himself and his fam- ily unaided. He plowed, bound wheat, cut corn and husked it, did chores, built a cabin in a woods clearing made by his own axe. Only four rooms had *'Hardscrabble," as his dry humor christened this dwelling, but it was distinctly better than most of the new cabins being put up in that region. Presently he got a team and became established in hauling, surprising the neighbors by his feats with the pair of horses he understood so well. "Captain Grant used to come almost every week to my mill," says the local miller, "to get corn and wheat ground. The first time I ever saw him was at a sale. He was a small man, then, with a close- cropped bro-ftTi beard. He had no overcoat, I re- member, and he wore tall boots, quite unlike any in the neighborhood. He was living with old man Dent at that time, and his cabin had not been built. I think he was at the sale to buy some hogs." People soon got to know that it wasn't safe to "start anything" with this insignificant-looking little farmer. "A fellow came to a dance one night in his shirt sleeves, and set about being noisy and vulgar. Grant asked him what he meant by it. He started to make back talk. Grant told him to be quiet, and when he refused, kicked him out of the door and clear out to the gate. He was a little giant physi- cally, and a man of no words — all action. "Another time he was going to Big River, in company with a man by the name of Bowman, with a load of props and one of hoop-poles. They met a string of Big River teams, whose drivers crowded SOLDIER WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 287 Bowman and Grant into the diteli. Grant grabbed a hoop-pole, and said to Bowman: 'Come on!' He was captain of that fight and the Big River fellows didn't repeat the trick." So he toiled at the narrow round of heavy drudg- ery of farming and teaming, till his shoulders began to stoop and his hands grew stiff and hard. Suc- cessful men looked down on him as a failure. All considered him a dreamer, unfit for practical af- fairs, always easy to impose on by an appeal to his generosity. This sordid battle brought a living and a little improvement each year under his -wife's close man- agement. His mother-in-law died and Colonel Dent went to St. Louis to live. Grant took charge of the larger farm, making none too good a hand at slave- driving. Many a cord of wood he unloaded with his own hands in the back yards of St. Louis aristocrats, to whom he was a day laborer. Keen were his pangs when in his rough farmer clothes, his jeans tucked into old military boots, "with an all-pervading air of hard luck and vain regrets," he would pass on the street some spruce army officer whom he had known as comrade or subordinate in the old days. And these meetings had a worse side still. For his grinding battle to make a living was easy com- pared Avith the constant struggle against the fatal appetite which had been his downfall. While ex- ternally he was a man "who endures and waits," within he was fighting the wiliest, deadliest enemy a man ever meets : his own besetting weakness. And while he was yarning over old Mexican campaigns with his good friend and future opponent on a bloodier field, James Longstreet, he was secretly 288 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY withstanding the insidious temptations to join in a convivial glass. It took a peculiar kind of moral force to be a teetotaler in those days. Every gentleman took his glass with friends, and was apt to be proud of his ability to "put them under the table." Especially among army men or any adventurous frontier workers, it was considered effeminate or canting and hypocritical for a man to refuse liquor alto- gether. A real man didn't make himself absurd by any such fuss over a trifle. A good fellow couldn't be a sour kill-joy or spoil-sport when a jolly crowd got together. The impulse was almost irresistible, under the urging of these gay friends of happier days, to a man who had once let himself be mastered by the appetite. Nor did Grant always succeed in resist- ing. But there was in him that dogged quality that made it necessary for him to see a thing through. He didn 't know when he was beaten — and that kind of man seldom is beaten. Doomed he might be; but he always came to time again, "groggy" liter- ally perhaps, but never with any notion of throwing up the sponge. And his hard muscular labor out- doors helped to toughen the physical fibre of his resistant nerves, while the home affections which chiefly made life worth living, and the sight of his staunch wife Avho made the best of whatever came and ever believed in his ultimate victory, were con- stantly at hand as backers 'and seconds to his re- solve. One success he gained from the start: he man- aged to control his lapses so that nobody in the neighborhood (and most personal facts are matters of current knowledge in a country community) con- SOLDIER WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 289 sidered him a drinking man. There was no gossip or scandal going around concerning his use of whiskey. Moreover, his resistance to the imperi- ous desire grew steadily. At the end of a few years he had practically retrieved his command over himself. There seemed no future for him in farming. He moved to St. Louis and tried business, real estate, a custom-house clerkship — anything that offered. He was unfit by temperament for civilian life. Re- peated failures in spite of earnest, hard work, due to the dishonesty of others, politics, lack of fluency and pleasing presence, brought him to desperation. Moreover, he was against slavery; and now that the North and South were approaching the open conflict, St. Louis was an unhappy place for a "black Re- publican Abolitionist." ' ' One day in the spring of 1860 he met his friend Fishback on the street and stopped him. He was shabbily dressed, his beard was unshorn, and his whole manner denoted profound discouragement. " 'Fishback,' said he, 'I Avant to sell or hire one of my wife's house-servants. She's an excellent woman, and has been in the family for years ; but she's a slave and I can't take her North.' " 'So you're going North?' " 'Yes,' he replied with a sigh; 'I can't make a success of it here, and I'm going to Galena. My father has offered me a place in the leather busi- ness with my brother, and I've accepted.' " Fishback was fighting slavery. He didn't buy or hire the woman. Grant made other arrange- ments, pulled up stakes, and took his family home, once more returning defeated, to work at fifty 290 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY dollars a month in Jesse Grant's leather store at Galena, Illinois. As always, he did. his best, drudging away at clerical routine with patient accuracy from early morning till eight at night. It was as if he had never been, nor would ever be, anything but a book- keeper and unimportant man-of -all-work in a small store. Only the worn blue army cloak, seven years old, which he always donned on winter Sundays, betrayed a deep, carefully hidden longing for the profession that was his by training and fitness. How sensitive he was about revealing this clinging sentiment was shown by his saying to a friend on the street one day: "I suppose people think it strange that I should wear this old army coat, but the fact is I had this coat, it's made of good material, and so I thought I'd better wear it out." Suddenly the storm clouds gathering over the nation were rent by a flash of lightning. Fort Sumter was fired on. The Civil War, which alone could decide the right of the Southern states to secede, summoned each side to establish its con- tention from the cannon's mouth. War meetings in Galena, like everywhere else, followed this first gun which had electrified the nation. At the second one the almost unknown leather-dealer was made chairman. Steps were taken to organize an Illinois company of volunteers. Chairman Grant knew this job. He gave them cold, disagreeable facts about what awaited their enthusiasm in the training-camp and on the battle- field — adding that he himself intended to enlist in the service. Having put in four years at West Point and eleven as a regular, and knowing him- SOLDIER WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 291 self fit to command a regiment, he declined a cap- taincy in the volunteer force. The orators, job-hunters, political colonels, and incompetent officials whom he found in possession of the state capital, when he went to offer his serv- ices, discouraged his hopes of active work. The best he could get was a maddening repetition of regrets and "call again 's." His slender supply of money ran low. On the evening of the very day when he was about to leave in despair and return to his hides and leather and accounts, the governor, to whom he had applied again and again, chanced to pass him on the steps of the hotel. "Captain Grant, I understand you are about leaving the city." "That is my intention." "I wish you'd remain overnight, and call at my office in the morning." The result was a desk in the office of the adjutant- general, an insurance agent who had no earthly fitness for the position. But the military visitors who floundered about in this quagmire of incompe- tence soon discovered they had firm ground under their feet when they trusted their affairs to the silent little man doing an office boy's work at a three-legged table. He was soon the unofficial mili- tary adviser of the whole disorderly state organi- zation. Then he became muster officer, and "colonel" by compliment. But his effectiveness received no rec- ognition. Just as he was again ready to give up in despair, and suggesting that he turn army baker, in order to live and serve his country, he received simultaneously a commission as colonel of the Twelfth Ohio, and a telegram from Governor Yates 292 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY offering him the Seventh District Begiment of his own state. He found the new regiment in a bad way. An incompetent commander had permitted undisci- plined disorders till the soldiers were a mutinous mob, a terror to officers and to the neighboring farmers. As an old sergeant remarked, "there wasn't a chicken within four miles of us." Grant took charge at Fort Yates, near Spring- field. Congressman John A. Logan accompanied him to the camp. "Colonel," said he, "the regiment is a little unruly. Do you think you can manage them?" "I think I can," said the new Colonel quietly. Logan made the men an impassioned oratorical address. They cheered him wildly, laughing at his jokes, responding to his patriotic appeals. For two hours he thundered forth his periods, while the imperturbable little man on the platform beside him sat motionless and silent. At last the orator wiped his brow, turned to his companion, and wound up: ^* Allow me to present to you your new com- mander, Colonel U. S. Grant." Those thousands of eyes all focussed on the un- impressive figure, to which nobody had paid the least attention. "Many of the soldiers observed him for the first time. They were astonished and disappointed. Logan towered majestically erect, powerful, hand- some, with coal-black hair and flashing eyes; by his side Grant, in plain citizen's clothes, seemed poor and weak. He looked like a grave and thought- ful country doctor, who had been weather-beaten in storms and saddened by scenes of human suffer- SOLDIEE WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 293 ing, and was lacking in martial bearing. However, some enthusiast raised a cheer, and there were loud calls for a speech. "'Grant! Grant!' "'Grant! A speech!' "He walked a step or two toward them, and the men became silent. They were accustomed to speeches, to bombastic appeals, and were eager to test his quality. At last he spoke, not loud, but clear and calm, and with a peculiar quality and inflection which surprised and impressed every officer, and gave the whole regiment a new sen- sation. " 'Meh, go to youe quarters.' "The men sat dazed, astounded. It took time to grasp its entire significance. In the clip of this man's lips, in the clear-cut utterance of his com- mand, and in the subtle inflection of his voice was made manifest the natural commander of men. The time for oratory was past. The period of action had come. "As for the veteran of Monterey and Cheru- busco, a thrill of exultation ran through his blood. He was poor, — too poor to buy -a uniform, — ^but he was in command again, and serving the United States. Everything now took on direction and cer- tainty. He knew the essentially fine quality of his men, and felt confident of his power to bring them under control. "As he stepped to the centre before the regi- ment that night, the men looked at one another in amusement, and some were so bold as to jest in low voices concerning him. He wore nothing military save a pair of gray trousers with a stripe running down the outside seams, and an old sword. 294 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY which he had found at the arsenal, such as the officers wore in the Mexican War. "It had been the habit of Colonel Goode" (his predecessor) "to seize upon the closing moment in daily parade to make a speech, and almost invari- ably to end by saying: 'I know this regiment, men and officers alike, would march with me to the cannon's mouth; but to renew and verify that pledge, the regiment will mov.e forward two paces.' "The regiment now expected a speech from Colonel Grant. ' He returned the salute of the adjutant, and said to the aligned officers: " 'A soldier's first duty is to learn to obey his commander. I shall expect my orders to be obeyed as exactly and instantly as if we were on the field of battle.' "That was all, but again those who stood nearest him felt a little thrill of the blood. His voice had certainly precision and command in it. "As the men turned back to quarters, discussion broke forth. Rustic jokes were passed upon him, and one young fellow made insulting gestures be- hind his back.. Another daredevil slipped up behind him, and flipped his hat from his head. Grant turned and said, 'Young man, that's not very po- lite,' and walked on to his quarters. " 'What do they mean by sending down a little man like that to command this regiment?' asked an indignant private. 'He can't pound dry sand in a straight hole.' " 'He may be like a singed cat, more alive than he looks,' said another. " 'Nonsense! He can't make a speech. Look at him! Look at the clothes he wears! Who is he, anyhow ? ' SOLDIER WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 295 " 'Boys, let me tell you something,' said a ser- geant. 'I stood close enough to him to see his eyes and the set of his jaw. I'll tell you who he is: he's the colonel of this regiment.' "In less than twenty-four hours Colonel Grant was called a 'monster,' a 'fiend.' The picnic, the filibustering expedition, had become a military reg- iment under military discipline. "A man of action, of discipline, of war, of expe- rience, had assumed command. His lightest word was to be considered. He did not threaten, nor wheedle, nor persuade; he commanded; and in the quiet glance of his blue-gray eyes, in the line of his lips, and the quick downward inflection of his voice, there was something inexorable. He was never angry, never vindictive, but he was master. "He stopped all drinking. He made the picket- line a reality. He put an end to foraging, arrest- ing every insubordinate, and making him under- stand that lawlessness was past. Colonel Goode appeared that first night in the ranks, and there were camp rumors of insubordination brewing ; but Grant arrested all that by ordering Goode from the regiment, and he slipped away into obscurity, to be seen no more. "A big, worthless cur resisted arrest and defied the officers. Grant appeared, serene as ever. " 'What is the matter?' " 'This man persists in bringing liquor into camp, and refuses to give it up.' " 'Put him in the guard-house.' " 'He resists arrest.' "The man began to swagger. Grant bore down upon him. There was something in his unwavering 296 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY eyes and in his unfaltering step wMch made the bully hesitate. "Grant seized him by the collar and gave him a quick jerk which made him spin like a top. Be- fore he had gathered his faculties together he was hustled to the gate and kicked into the road. " 'Get out of my regiment,' said the Colonel. 'I don't want you in it. You're not worth disciplin- ing. If you come back I'll have you shot.' "The second morning there were nearly a score of men tied up for leaving camp against orders, and for drunkenness, among them a dangerous man called 'Mexico,' who cursed his commander and said: 'For every minute I stand here I'll have an ounce of your blood.' " 'Gag that man,' said Grant quietly. "One by one, as the hours passed, the other of- fenders were released by the officers of the guard; but Grant released Mexico himself. He considered it well to let his men know that the braggart was harmless. "This ended all question of Grant's power to command both himself and his men. Recalcitrants still read books of military regulations, and denied his right to do this or that; but the great majority of the regiment, being excellent men and good sol- diers, welcomed a colonel who knew his duties and the limits of his command." How this cashiered officer, farm laborer, tanner, book-keeper, failure, unable to collect the money due him by the state borrowed money for his per- sonal outfit; how he welded the Seventh Hlinois into a unit ready to charge to death at his word; how he lost his first battle at Belmont, after cap- turing his objective, through the uncontrollable SOLDIEE WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 297 disorder of his green troops intoxicated with their first taste of victory and loot, though he had his aide fire the tents they were plundering; how he leaped into national fame and a nation-wide nick- name by his brilliant capture of Fort Donelson and his curt insistence upon the "unconditional surren- der ' ' of his old friend General Buckner — afterwards returning the generous help which the latter had given him in his dark days a few years before ; how he presently became accepted as the military genius the Northern armies had been needing, and was given supreme command; how his terrible, simple, inexorable '^ hammering" finally overcame the more brilliant leader of the Confederate forces and ended the war; the superb magnanimity with which he met Lee at the surrender and agreed to permit all the Southern officers to retain their side arms, the cavalry to keep their horses, all to have their pri- vate baggage, and all to return in peace to their homes; his election to the highest honor of the nation as President; his tour abroad, when foreign potentates did him such honor as was never before or since vouchsafed to an American; — all this is an absorbing, but another, story. As was inevitable, no sooner had he taken a fore- most place on the stage which held every eye than his unfortunate past was raked up by scandal- mongers. Sceptics sneered at any excuse of his peculiar susceptibility to drink, at the idea of his having fought his weakness and virtually con- quered it. The evidence as to how completely he had mas- tered this craving during the years of the war is conflicting. One of his generals saw him so over- come that he fell from his horse while reviewing 298 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY troops in New Orleans. But one thing is certain: he no more gave up this personal fight after any one momentary defeat than he abandoned his big campaign when Lee foiled his thrusts in the earlier bloody struggles of the Virginia "Wilderness. And of his final victory we have the testimony of a witness who saw through human pretences with the penetrating gaze of the Avise humorist — that most trenchant of jesters, Mark Twain. The famous saying in which Lincoln silenced slanderers with an adaptation of the English Duke 's statement that if "Wolfe were mad, as alleged, he wished he would bite some of his other generals — "if Grant's a drunkard, I'd like to find out his brand of liquor" — ^was more witty than just. In 1885, Mark Twain, then deeply interested in furthering the writing of Grant's world-read "Per- sonal Memoirs," which Mr. Clemens 's Hartford publishing firm was to issue as soon as the seriously ill ex-President could finish the book, wrote to Henry "Ward Beecher: "The only time General Grant ever mentioned liquor to me was about last April, or possibly May. He said: " 'If I could only build up my strength! The doctors urge whiskey and champagne; but I can't take them; I can't abide the taste of any kind of liquor.' "Had he made a conquest so complete that even the taste of liquor was become an offense? Or was he so sore over what had been said about his habit that he wanted to persuade others and likewise himself that he hadn't ever had any taste for it? It sounded like the latter, but that's no evidence. "He told me in the fall of '84 that there was SOLDIER WHO CONQUERED HIMSELF 299 something the matter with his throat, and that at the suggestion of his physicians he had reduced his smoking to one cigar a day. Then he added in a casual fashion, that he didn't care for that one, and seldom smoked it. "I could understand that feeling. He had set out to conquer not the Mbit but the inclination — the desire. He had gone at the root, not the trunk. It's the perfect way and the only true way (I speak from experience). How I hate those enemies of the human race who go around enslaving God's free people with pledges — to quit drinking instead of to quit wanting to drink," You couldn't fool those keen eyes and that shrewd brain of Mark Twain's about a man he'd met and studied. Grant had won. He had conquered himself — in the same complete, root-and-branch fashion with which he carried through his campaign. Every man who has met life knows how much harder it is to apply the principle of "Thorough" to his inner enemies than to external foes — as iron- handed Cromwell did to Ireland. Surely this almost unnoticed triumph was a greater achievement than the most famous victory of the great general. For mightier is he who conquereth himself than he who taketh a walled city. CHAPTER XX A STATESMAN WHO THEIVED ON rAILTTEE An extraordinary scene took place in the English House of Commons on the evening of December 7, 1837. The occasion was commonplace enough: a new member, who had been sworn in three weeks before, made his maiden speech. Ordinarily that occurrence is exciting only for the new member. This maiden speech, however, became historic in the annals of English politics. The new member's name was Benjamin Disraeli. Already he had succeeded in attracting a surprising amount of attention, such as it was. He had writ- ten some novels of society and politics which showed an almost insolent brilliance and eccentric disregard of public opinion. The conventional men of Lon- don thought him beneath contempt as an affected and vulgar cad. The brother of Buhver Lytton, the novelist, tells of a dinner party gotten up by the latter to introduce young Disraeli to his sceptical friends : "There was my brother, Alexander Cockburn, myself and (I think) Milnes ; but for a considerable time no Mr. Disraeli. Waiting for Mr. Disraeli did not enhance the pleasure of meeting him, nor when he did arrive did his appearance predispose us in his favor. He wore green velvet trousers, a canary-colored waistcoat, low shoes with silver buckles, lace at his wrists, and his hair in ringlets. 300 THEIVED ON FAILURE 301 . . . "We sat down. Not one of us was more than five-and-twenty years old. We were all — if you will allow me to include myself — on the road to distinc- tion, all clever, all ambitious, and all with a perfect conceit of ourselves. Yet if on leaving the table we had been severally taken aside and asked which was the cleverest of the party, we should have been obliged to say 'the man in the green velvet trou- sers.' " That was the impression made everywhere by the, young man : he was frightfully clever, but his arrogance, his use of perfumes and wearing of laces, with rings over his gloves, and a hundred other foppish extravagances, were unpardonable and un-English. Moreover, he was a Jew, though baptized; and in an England ruled by aristocrats there seemed small political chance for a "vulga- rian" of that race. It had probably taken all of young Disraeli's be- lief in his own powers, all his fervent and un- bounded ambition to land him in the House at all. He had made a first attempt in 1832, as a Radical candidate for High Wycombe — ^making a charac- teristic "circus parade" entry, much over-dressed, in an open carriage drawn by four horses with a band and a foUoAving crowd carrying banners. He had been defeated. A second attempt at the same seat brought a second failure — on top of a dismal fiasco in his last literary venture which met with ridicule and condemnation everywhere. But this young Jew had taken for his motto "Nothing is difficult to the strong," — and he was quite convinced that the strong meant himself, no matter what evidence came from the rest of the world. 302 THE BOOK OF BRAVEET "I am not at all disheartened," lie said publicly after this misfortune. "I don't in any way feel like a beaten man. Perhaps it is because I am used to it. I can say almost with the famous Ital- ian general, who being asked in his old age why he was always victorious, replied it was because he had always been beaten in youth." A third and a fourth time he offered himself: the electors would have none of him. So after five years' earnest effort he could find little he had gained except humiliation — plus a cer- tain notoriety and some bitter enemies. Chief among these was Daniel O'Connell, the "Libera- tor," head of the Irish party in the House and one of the dominating political figures of the time. He had sponsored Disraeli's first Radical attempt; but when Disraeli later attacked him for his policy, O'Connell was filled with indignation and vindic- tive anger. He declared in a speech which was filled with violent abuse of the young aspirant that "he possesses just the qualities of the impenitent thief who died upon the cross, whose name, I verily believe, must have been Disraeli." Disraeli chal- lenged his son to a duel. This was declined and the defeated candidate could only defy his power- ful enemy. He wound up: "I expect to be a representative of the people before the Repeal of the Union. We shall meet again at Philippi; and rest assured that, confident in a good cause, and in some energies which have not been altogether unimproved, I will seize the first opportunity of inflicting upon you a castiga- tion which will make you at the same time remem- ber and repent the insults that you have lavished upon Benjamin Disraeli." THRIVED ON FAILURE 303 This was really somewhat "cheeky" from a thrice-rejected candidate to the man who headed and controlled the whole Irish movement in Par- liament. And neither had forgotten the matter two years later when Disraeli at last succeeded in being elected to the House as a Tory member from Maidstone — ^beginning his career exactly at the start of the long reign of Queen Victoria. O'Connell was a magnificent popular orator, a great, powerful, biirly figure, with a tremendous voice and an inexhaustible flow of language and ready wit. He was at his best in a personal en- counter, like most Irishmen who have had to deal with the rough-and-ready audiences of that country. It happened on this particular night that the subject before the House was an appeal for sub- scriptions to support the Protestants against the Catholics in contested Irish elections. A long and bitter debate followed, and one of the Tory speak- ers attacked O'Connell. The Irish leader responded with vigor. He was to have been answered by Lord Stanley, but while O'Connell was talking, Disraeli went to Stanley and asked permission to have his maiden speech follow the cutting retort of his old enemy. Now, the career of many a man has been made or marred by his first utterance in Parliament. It is a critical moment for the new member: success or failure count for ten times as much as on an- other occasion. Disraeli felt no doubts, so sure of himself was he. There were a dozen influential men on the floor whom he had antagonized by his writings; O'Connell and his whole "tail" of Irish- men would stop at nothing to ruin him, and the Celtic blood was up this evening. It was a rash 304 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY time to choose for a first appearance before this most critical audience. But in his conceit the young Jew had told his sister he could "floor them all"; secure in his sense of mental power he longed only for this sort of conspicuous opportunity to prove to his sister, his backers and his enemies whom they had to deal with. He got it. O'Connell sat down, his followers cheering his patriotic eloquence. Up stood the new member from Maidstone, to put his fortune to the test. His appearance would have handicapped even a tried speaker. He wore a green coat, a waistcoat fairly covered with gold chains, a black neck-scarf in folds in place of a collar. His long black hair was in careful, oily ringlets about a pallid face with pronounced Hebraic features. Altogether his get-up, the very man himself, was about as execra- ble "bad form" as could well be imagined; and hardly anybody accustomed to "good society" could restrain a smile at the sight. It seemed to confirm all the gossipy stories characterizing the new mem- ber as a poser and charlatan. Those who had no animosity against him were quite ready to take him' as a joke. "I hope," began Disraeli, — "I will even venture to believe — that the House will extend to me that generous indulgence rarely refused to one who so- licits their attention for the first time, and for which I can say without the slightest affectation, that I have already had sufficient experience of the critical spirit which pervades this assembly, to feel that I stand much in need of it." This seemed to some of his auditors funnier than ever, for they felt that he showed the most amazing THRIVED ON FAILURE 305 lack of realization as to just how much indulgence he did need. His voice had an unusual quality and the unusual is apt to be ridiculous to us. There were ironical cries of "Hear, hear," from various quarters which brought a spot of color to the speak- er's pale cheeks. With characteristic audacity, he started straight at his real object of attacking O'Connell: "The honorable and learned member for Dub- lin," said he, "has taunted the honorable baronet the member for North Wilts with having made a long, rambling, feeble, wandering, jumbling speech. I can assure the honorable and learned gentleman that I have paid the utmost attention to the remarks which have fallen from him, and I must say, with- out intending to make any reflections upon the hon- orable baronet by any invidious comparison, it seems that the honorable and learned member has taken a hint of the style and manner of the honorable bar- onet in the oration which he has just addressed to the House; for it appears to me that there was scarcely a subject connected with Ireland that could possibly engage the attention of Parliament, that he has not introduced into his oratorical rhetoric. ' ' Open laughter broke out at this. The members still found Disraeli's appearance and mannerisms absurd, and this was certainly not a very happy defence of his own colleague or attack on the enemy. But the true source of the merriment was the in- congruity of the speaker who thus challenged the Irish leader and O'Connell himself: the latter sat right opposite, looking like some Hercules by com- parison, his hat over one ear, a broad grin on his face, as if he found his opponent irresistibly funny. 306 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY It was like a carefully bartered French poodle who had ventured to provoke a battered bull terrier with a fighting record. Everybody expected O'Connell presently to "eat him alive," and the absurdity of the challenge was irresistible. The Irish leader's adherents at once grasped the situation. They saw there was a memorable chance to down an opponent and to have some of the fun they loved best. When Disraeli presently referred to some movement of O'Connell's as a project of "majestic mendicancy," they began adroitly to use the general humor as a cloak for all sorts of disorder. It was easy to swell the laughter into crushing ridicule, to boo and hiss. These hostile manifestations made the young member break off: "I shall not trouble the House at any length," said he. "I do not affect to be insensible to the difficulty of my position, and I shall be very glad to receive indulgence even from the honorable mem- bers opposite. If, however, the honorable gentlemen do not wish to hear me, I will sit down without a murmur. ' ' There was a momentary lull. Then a charge that corruption Avas Avorse than under the Reform Bill, set loose a perfect storm. The Irishman groaned, hooted, drummed, catcalled, roared with laughter. The graver members became convulsed at their an- tics and at the same quality in the young Jew which had just made them smile. Thereafter, nearly every sentence was greeted with an hysterical burst of laughter. Disraeli kept his temper. He had made up his mind to speak out his allotted time and to take what- ever came. But his voice sharpened, and his natu- THKIVED ON FAILUEE 307 rally violent gestures grew almost grotesque, under these withering bursts of ridicule. "I wish," he pleaded, "I could induce the House to give me five minutes more." The House's response was to howl as if a great humorist had told his best story. In a quick instant, remembering his efforts to get satisfaction from O'Connell, he unfortunately stig- matized the latter as a coward who dared not look his opponent in the face. With Celtic appreciation of the dramatic retort, the Irishman, without a word, heaved up his imposing hulk, and stood looking down with humorous contempt at the outlandish, sharp- faced little fop who made the statement. The crowd went off into peal after peal of uncontrollable laughter. Still Disraeli stood erect, trying to continue, though what he said was almost unintelligible even when heard between the bursts of mirth. Presently he embarked upon an elaborate and grandiose simile, with classical allusions, which his literary training had led him to think would fitly crown his oratory. He reached a point where he pictured *'the noble lord from his pedestal of power waving in one hand the keys of St. Peter, and wav- ing with the other " Again he was cut off by an overwhelming outburst of laughter. His allotted time was about over and he saw it was useless to try further. "Now, Mr. Speaker," he broke off, ''see the philo- sophical prejudices of men. That image, I should have thought, when I was about to complete it, might have been much admired. I would have cheered it heartily if it had come from the lips of a political 308 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY opponent: and I would gladly hear a cheer, even though it should proceed from such a party, ' ' He concluded : "I hope I may thank the honorable gentlemen opposite for the sincerity of their expressions of approbation as well as disapprobation. I am not at all surprised at the reception I have experienced. I have begun several things many times, and I have often succeeded at the last — though many had pre- dicted that I must fail as they had done before me. ' ' Fresh disorder interrupted him, cries of "Hear, hear!", "Question, question!", ironical cheers, shouts of ridicule. Then he broke out, in a voice which dominated even that clamor : "I sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me. When I rise in this Assembly here- after a dropped pin shall be heard." He took his seat. "The waves of ridicule closed over him." Never had there been such a fiasco, siich a crushing joke in that dignified Hall. "With all his seeming conceit and arrogance, young Disraeli was extremely sensitive. All this fell upon him like whip-strokes on a bare skin. Probably most men in his place would have considered their careers closed after such an introduction — and have found this to be a fact. What Disraeli did was to study the blunders he had made, and say nothing in public. Then, ten days later, he rose and made a few clear, concise, matter- of-fact remarks on the Copyright Bill. These were well received, for there was no chance to find fault Avith them, either in manner or matter. He stuck to this line. Three months later, he ven- tured to let himself out a little in an important THRIVED ON FAILURE 309 debate on the Corn Laws, and received universal applause. Steadily his influence grew as his tre- mendous natural abilities asserted themselves. In ten years he was the leader of the Tory Party. Then for a quarter of a century he dominated the con- servatives : Chancellor of the Exchequer three times, Prime Minister twice, there was no man except Mr. Gladstone who could compare with him in power during all that period till his death in 1881. It would be hard to find a more notable case of a tremendous career which would have been strangled before it was fairly begun but for a tenacity of mind such as few men could equal. PART V MORAL COURAGE When Jonas Hanway, knoiving that he loould be mobbed for it, walked the streets of London carrying one of the newly contrived umbrellas, because lie had decided it was common-sense — he shoived that cour- age of mind which resists strong popular opinion. Yet what a wide range this quality may have is shoivn by comparing this persistence ivith the tale that folloivs of the fine old Onondaga chief, Scanda- wati, to whom life offered nothing ivhen his honor was besmirched. Or with his Roman prototype, Begulus, unmoved by the opinion of his friends and the entreaties of his family in the face of the inner necessity to keep his ivord, even to a savage foe. "He could not fail to see the specious appearance of expediency," says Cicero the eloquent. "His apparent interest was to remain in his oivn country, to stay at home ivith his ivife and children, and to retain his rank and dignity as an ex-consid, regard- ing the defeat ivhich he had suffered as a misfortune which might come to anyone in the game of loar. "Who says that this ivas not expedient? "Greatness of soul and courage say that it was not. Can you ask for more competent authorities?" 313 CHAPTER XXI A SOMAN'S WOED The eentnry-long struggle between Rome and Carthage had begun. The Mediterranean Sea was far too narrow to permit the existence of two such vigorous rivals on opposite shores. More arrogant than ever after a success against the Greeks, Car- thage claimed dominion over the western Mediter- ranean, and seized all ships they found between Sardinia and the Pillars of Hercules. Rome was not slow to meet the challenge. Her galleys defeated the enemy at Myl^e. Then, deter- mining to carry the war into the enemy's country, a great fleet of 350 vessels was despatched in 256 B. C, with an army of 30,000 men under the Consul Marcus Atilius Regulus, to force a passage through the guarding fleet and, if possible, attack Carthage itself. The descendants of the seafaring Phoenicians were quite willing to stake the issue on a naval battle. Their fleet was about the same size as the Roman one. This vast collection of 700 ships, with two or three hundred thousand soldiers and seamen, pres- ently engaged off the mountain of Ecnomus on the southern coast of Sicily. Even the much-fought- over Mediterranean had hardly ever seen such a spectacle when the hollow triangle of the Roman armada bore down upon their African foes. The latter endeavored to draw off the Roman van and 315 316 THE BOOK OF BKAVEEY separate it; but this held firmly on and descended upon them with irresistible force. In a short while the Carthaginian fleet was in full flight, and nearly a third of its galleys had been sunk. Eegulus swept on with his conquering force and landed on the African coast. Stopping only to gather provisions and make a few repairs, he laid siege to Clypea on the promontory east of Carthage itself. His troops, terrified at the thought of penetrating into this land of monsters, of which they had heard such awe-inspiring tales, became mutinous ; even the tribune Manlius murmured at such rashness, but the general threatened him with the axe and aroused in all a fear of himself greater than their super- stitious dread. With almost no opposition from the beAvildered enemy, they spread over these fertile lands, which had not seen an invader for over half a century. In a short time they had taken some hun- dreds of towns, twenty thousand prisoners, and vast booty of all sorts. Feeling that their chief trouble was the lack of a skilful general, the Carthaginians had sent to Sparta for a leader and for mercenaries. When Regulus, after defeating their army in a pitched battle, de- manded of them the abandonment of Sicily and Sardinia, annual tribute, the destruction of their fleet, and other humiliating terms, they resolved to hold out until this aid should come. Xanthippus, the Spartan, arrived, took command, and began to drill the infantry, horsemen and ele- phants still left to the African power. The fanati- cism of all was aroused by the customary human sacrifices. A supreme effort was to be made as soon as the wily Xanthippus found a field of battle which suited him. A EOMAX'S WOED 317 Meanwhile the Eoman invaders had had other diffi- culties to contend with besides the human enemy. The old chroniclers tell how a vast serpent, "born as it were to avenge Africa," came upon them in their camp on the muddy Bagrada River and spread terror throughout the army. In fact, between the actual ravages of this python and the superstitious fears it aroused, the soldiers were fast falling into a panic when Eegulus went out to meet the snake and drove a javelin through its head — whereupon some of the bolder of his followers set upon the rep- tile and despatched it with their swords and lances. It is one of the more cautious historians who declares the creature was 120 feet long ; and its head, sent to Eome, was still preserved there more than a century later. More important still, the Eoman Senate complete- ly misunderstood the situation on account of the sweeping advances made at first : they recalled Man- lius, the other consul, with about half ,the force. Eegulus himself had asked to return, because he had liad word that the little farm which was the sole support of his wife and children was being mis- managed : indeed, the farmer had run off and taken the plow and oxen with him. It was time, any- how, that a successor should replace him. The Senate replied that his lost property should be replaced, his fields cultivated, and his family cared for, at the public expense. His sweeping vic- tories made them naturally unwilling to release him from the task. So he stayed in command of the ex- pedition, with an army reduced to fifteen thousand anen and five hundred horses. All still went well for a time. The Eoman force ^as threatening Carthage itself. Xanthippus con- 318 THE BOOK OF BKAVEEY tinned his drilling and reconnoitring. He seemed no more formidable than the commanders who had been fleeing before the Eomans. Suddenly, however, the Spartan general took the field in earnest. Skilfully he brought about a battle on the level plain instead of on the heights. Here his cavalry and elephants had full chance to operate. Eegulus had marched around a lake and crossed a river in the face of the enemy, expecting the latter to fly as usual. The men were greatly exhausted with heat and thirst, and fatigued from the weight of their armor ; and they had been much harassed by skirmishers who dashed do^m at them from the hills. Noting their condition and the favorable nature of the ground, Xanthippus, instead of retreating, drew up his forces and made a sudden charge. The great elephants thundering down on them threw the tired Romans into confusion; before they could re- cover, the whole of the Carthaginian cavalry was hurled upon them. The lines Avere broken. Fresh foes pressed forward 'to the attack as Xanthippus perceived the success of this first effort. The dis- order became a retreat, the retreat a rout, the rout a panicky flight, such as had never before disgraced a Roman legion. A mob of two thousand stragglers reached the camp at Clypea. All the rest of the army was killed or captured. Regulus himself was made a prisoner. Carthage breathed freely again. Rich rewards were granted to Xanthippus. Though the invaders' headciuarters at Clypea repulsed all attacks, and their fleet was again defeated off this coast, the disaster to Regulus' army, and a vast catastrophe whereby 275 galleys were destroyed in a storm, de- termined the Roman Senate to give up the African A ROMAN'S WORD 319 adventure. The -war was merely transferred back to Sicily. It continued "with varying fortunes for another five years. Then the Roman pro-consul won a SAveep- ing victory over Hasdrubal with his 30,000 men and 140 elephants, capturing most of those they did not slay. The Carthaginians expressed themselves by crucifying their own general, Hasdrubal. Presently they despatched Regulus to Rome as an envoy, to propose an exchange of prisoners and to offer terms of peace. He gave his word to return if Rome should not accept. And his captors did not fail to impress upon him that success in his mission meant his own safety. In this strange capacity the former consul re- turned to his native land. He was at first unwilling even to enter the city, and sternly refused to don the toga that marked the proud Roman freeman. "I am no longer a citizen," he declared. Faithfully he delivered to the assembled Senate his message as ambassador, refusing to vote on the issue while bound by an oath to the enemy. Scru- pulously he put before them the arguments of the Carthaginians. Then, having discharged this obligation, he be- came again a son of Rome. Earnestly he advised the Senators against the pro- posed exchange and the peace. Did they fancy, he demanded, that soldiers who had shamefully given up their swords and submitted to Carthaginian slavery would stand firm in the next Punic assault? Let them meet the fate they had earned. It was the very existence of Rome that was at stake, and her legions must be built up of men who knew not how to submit. 320 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY As for himself, he was old: it would be a poor bargain to return to the enemy for him the active young men and gallant officers demanded for his freedom. Let Eome reject all terms and bend her utmost powers to destroy this threatening and treacherous foe. His words could hardly fail to carry conviction. The Senate voted to reject the offer. Loud were the protests of all his friends when Regulus announced that he must return to Carthage as he had agreed. They argued that such an extorted oath was not binding, that no faith need be held with those who had so often proved themselves faithless. They reminded him of his duty to his country, to his wife and children. Their reasoning and entreaty fell like spray against the rock of his immovable resolve. His weeping wife brought their children to him, imploring him in agony to alter his decision. He would not even embrace her, lest his determination waver. Back he sailed, well knowing his reception. En- raged at hearing of his action, the Carthaginians enclosed him in a sort of cage, studded Avith sharp- pointed spikes which would not permit him to rest or sleep, hoAvever exhausted he became. Then they inflicted on him every cruelty that barbarous hatred could devise. In this refinement of torture he finally perished — leaving to the world a new measure of stark fortitude and unconquerable honor. CHAPTEE XXII THE HONOE OF AN IROQUOIS CHIEF The North American Indian had physical bravery above all things. Courage and endurance were al- most a religion with him. The young Indian had to undergo most searching ordeals, had to pass pre- scribed and traditional tests before he could count himself a brave, worthy to associate on equal terms with the tribe of hunters and warriors. Till then he had no voice in the solemn councils; no maiden of spirit would cast a second glance at him. Among the northern Sioux, for instance, the un- tried aspirants who took part in the sun dance had cuts made behind the great muscles of their backs ; through these were passed strips of rawhide; and the savage knight must win his spurs by hanging uncomplaining from these suspended ropes till the flesh tore away and he dropped to the ground. Eain- in-the-Face, who led the Indians against the ill-fated Custer, gained his supreme influence over the Unc- papa Sioux by a notable feat of such endurance: "In the sun dance he had hung for four hours. The incisions behind the great back muscles, through which the rope was threaded, had been cut too deep, and the flesh failed to give way when Rain-in-the- Face was suspended. For some time he hung in mid- air, his whole weight depending from the loops of torn muscles, the-blood streaming over his limbs, and the hot sun beating down upon his face. Then the 321 322 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY chief attempted to cut him down, but Rain-in-the- Eace refused to permit it. Four hours later the flesh rent away from his bones and he fell. That day made him the idol of the Sioux nation. ' ' In hundreds of cases the supreme stoical control of face and muscles sho'WTi by Indian captives, under ■unspeakable tortures of fire and knife and splinters, attested the heights to which this worship of forti- tude carried them. But among his many virtues the Indian rarely numbered magnanimity or certain forms of moral courage. Trickery and deception were recognized weapons in warfare — and he was generally at war. The finer sensibilities of honor, the nohlesse oblige impulse could hardly be counted as characteristic. There is one case, however, almost unique in the gloomy annals of the red man since the whites descended upon his hunting-grounds, which is so remarkable, so like that magnificent Roman Regulus of old, that we might hesitate to believe it except that all the facts were kno\^^l to a Jesuit priest, Pere Raguenau, who was an eye-witness of part of these happenings. That admirable narrator of happenings among the French and Indians during the century and a half from the first settlement of Canada to the Revolu- tion, Francis Parkman, gives the Jesuit's account which shows the Indian at several pinnacles of bravery. The first meeting of white men with the Hurons found them at blows with the Iroquois; and from that time forward the war waged with increasing fury. Small scalping-parties infested the Huron forests, killing squaws in the cornfields, or entering villages at midnight to tomahawk their sleeping in- THE HONOR OF AN IROQUOIS 323 habitants. Often, too, invasions were made in force. Sometimes towns were set upon and burned, and there were deadly conflicts in the depths of the" forests and the passes of the hills. "The invaders were not always successful. A bloody rebuff and a sharp retaliation now and then awaited them. Thus, in 1638, a war -party of a hundred Iroquois met in the forest a band of three hundred Huron and Algonquin warriors. They might have retreated, and the greater number were for doing so; but Ononkwaya, an Oneida chief, refused. " 'Look!' he said; 'the sky is clear; the Sun be- holds us. If there were clouds to hide our shame from his sight, Ave might fly; but, as it is, we must fight while we can. ' "They stood their ground for a time, but were soon overborne. Four or five escaped; but the rest were surrounded, and killed or taken. This year Fortune smiled on the Hurons ; and they took in all more than a hundred prisoners, who were dis- tributed among the various towns to be burned. These scenes, with them, occurred always in the night; and it was held to be of the last importance that the torture should be protracted from sunset till dawn. "The too-valiant Ononkwaya was among the vic- tims. Even in death he took his revenge ; for it was thought an augury of disaster to the victors if no cry of pain could be extorted from the sufferers; and on the present occasion he displayed an unflinching courage rare even among the Indian warriors. His execution took place at the town of Teanaustaye, called St. Joseph by the Jesuits. The Fathers could not save his life, biit, what was more to their pur- 324 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY pose, they baptized him. On the scaffold where he was burned, he wrought himself into a fury which seemed to render him insensible to pain. Thinking him nearly spent, his tormentors scalped him, when to their amazement he leaped up, snatched the brands that had been the instruments of his torture, drove the screeching crowd from the scatfold, and held them all at bay, while they pelted him from below with sticks, stones, and showers of live coals. At length he made a false step and fell to the ground, when they seized him and threw him into the fire. He instantly leaped out, covered with blood, cinders and ashes, and rushed upon them, with a blazing brand in each hand. The crowd gave way before him, and he ran towards the town, as if to set it on fire. They threw a pole across his way, which tripped him and flung him headlong to the earth ; on which they all fell upon him, ciit off his hands and feet, and again threw him into the fire. He rolled himself out, and crawled forward on his elbows and knees, glaring upon them with siTch unutterable ferocity that they recoiled once more, till, seeing that he was helpless, they threw themselves upon him and cut off his head. "When the Iroquois could not mn by force, they were sometimes successful with treachery. In the summer of 1645, two war-parties of the hostile na- tions met in the forest. - The Hurons bore them- selves so well that they had nearly gained the day, when the Iroquois called for a parley, displayed a great number of wampum-belts, and said that they wished to treat for peace. The Hurons had the folly to consent. The chiefs on both sides set down to a council, during which the Iroquois, seizing a favor- able moment, fell upon their dupes and routed them THE HONOE OF AN lEOQUOIS 325 completely, killing and capturing a considerable number. "The large frontier town of St. Joseph was well fortified with palisades, on which at intervals were wooden watch-towers. On an evening of this same summer of 1645, the Iroquois approached the place in force; and the young Huron warriors, mounting their palisades, sang their war songs all night, with the utmost power of their lungs, in order that the enemy, knowing them to be on their guard, might be deterred from an attack. The night was dark, and the hideous dissonance resounded far and wide ; yet, regardless of the din, two Iroquois crept close to the palisade, where they lay motionless till near dawn. By this time the last song had died away and the tired singers had left their posts or fallen asleep. One of the Iroquois, with the silence and agility of a wild-cat, climbed to the top of a watch- tower, where he found two slumbering Hurons, brained one of them with his hatchet, and threw the other- doAATi to his comrade, who quickly despoiled him of his life and his scalp. Then, with the reeking trophies of their exploit, the adventurers rejoined their countrjrmen in the forest. "The Hurons planned a counter- stroke ; and three of them, after a journey of twenty days, reached the great town of the Senecas. They entered it at mid- night, and found, as usual, no guard ; but the doors of the houses were made fast. They cut a hole in the bark side of one of them, crept in, stirred the fading embers to give them light, chose each his man, toma- hawked him, scalped him, and escaped in the con- fusion. "Despite such petty triumphs the Hurons felt themselves on the verge of riiin. Pestilence and war 326 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY had wasted them away, and left but a skeleton of their former strength. In their distress, they cast about them for succor, and, remembering an ancient friendship with a kindred nation, the Andastes, they sent an embassy to ask of them aid in war or inter- vention to obtain peace. This powerful people dwelt on the river Susquehanna. The way was long, even in a direct line ; but the Iroquois lay between, and a wide circuit was necessary to avoid them. A Chris- tian chief whom the Jesuits had named Charles, together with four Christians and four heathen Hurons, bearing wampum belts and gifts from the council, departed on the embassy on the thirteenth of April, 1647, and reached the great town of the An- dastes early in June. It contained, as the Jesuits were told, no less than thirteen hundred warriors. The council assembled, and the chief ambassador addressed them : " 'We come from the Land of Souls, where all is gloom, dismay and desolation. Our fields are cov- ered with blood ; our houses are filled only with the dead ; and we ourselves have but life enough to beg our friends to take pity on a people who are drawing near their end.' "Then he presented the wampum belts and other gifts, saying that they were the voice of a dying country. "The Andastes, who had a mortal quarrel with the Mohawks, and who had before promised to aid the Hurons in case of need, returned a favorable answer, but were disposed to try the virtue of diplo- macy rather than the tomahawk. After a series of councils they determined to send ambassadors, not to their old enemies the Mohawks, but to the Onon- dagas, Oneidas, and Cayugas, who were geograph- THE HONOR OF AN IROQUOIS 327 ically the central nations of the Iroquois league, while the Mohawks and Senecas were respectively at its eastern and western extremities. By inducing the three central nations— and, if possible, the Sen- ecas also — to conclude a treaty with the Hurons, these last would be enabled to concentrate their force against the Mohawks, whom the Andastes would attack at the same time, unless they humbled themselves and made peace. This scheme, it will be seen, was based on the assumption that the dreaded league of the Iroquois was far from being a unit in action or counsel. "Charles, with some of his colleagues, now set out for home, to report the result of their mission; but the Senecas were lying in wait for them, and they were forced to make a wide sweep through the Al- leghanies, western Pennsylvania, and upper Ohio to avoid these vigilant foes. It was October when they reached the Huron towns, and meanwhile hopes of peace had arisen from another quarter. "Early in the spring, a band of Onondagas had made an inroad, but were roughly handled by the Hurons, who killed several of them, captured others, and put the rest to flight. The prisoners were burned, with the exception of one who committed suicide to escape the torture ; and one other, the chief man of the party, whose name was Annenrais. Some of the Hurons were dissatisfied at the mercy shown him, and gave out that they would kiU him ; on which the chiefs, Avho never placed themselves in open op- position to the popular will, secretly fitted him out, made him presents, and aided him to escape at night, with an understanding that he should use his influ- ence at Onondaga in favor of peace. After crossing Lake Ontario, he met nearly all the Onondaga war- 328 THE BOOK OF BEAVERT riors, on the march to avenge his supposed death; for he was a man of high account. They greeted him as one risen from the grave; and, on his part, he persuaded them to renounce their warlike purpose and return home. On their arrival, the chiefs and old men were called to council, and the matter was debated with the usual deliberation. "About this time the ambassador of the Andastes appeared with his wampum belts. Both this nation and the Onondagas had secret motives which were perfectly in accordance. The Andastes hated the Mohawks as enemies, and the Onondagas were jeal- ous of them as confederates; for, since they had armed themselves with Dutch guns, their arrogance and boastings had given umbrage to their brethren of the league, and a peace with the Hurons would leave the latter free to turn their undivided strength against the Mohawks, and curb their insolence. The Oneidas and the Cayugas were of one mind with the Onondagas. Three nations of the league, to satisfy their spite against a fourth, would strike hands with the common enemy of all. It was resolved to send an embassy to the Hurons. Yet it may be that, after all, the Onondagas had but half a mind for peace. At least, they were unfortunate in their choice of an ambassador. He was by birth a Huron, who, having been captured when a boy, adopted, and naturalized, had become more an Iroquois than the Iroquois themselves; scarcely one of the fierce confederates had shed so much Huron blood. When he reached the town of St. Ignace, which he did about midsum- mer, and delivered his messages and wampum belts, there was a great division of opinion among the Hurons. "The Bear Nation — the member of their confed- THE HONOR OF AN lEOQUOIS 329 eraey which was farthest from the Iroquois, and least exposed to danger — ^was for rejecting overtures made by so offensive an agency; but those of the Hurons who had suffered most were eager for peace at any price, and, after solemn deliberation, it was resolved to send an embassy in return. At its head was placed a Christian chief named Jean Baptiste Atironta; and on the first of August he and four others departed for Onondaga, carrying a profusion of presents, and accompanied by the apostate envoy of the Iroquois. As the ambassadors had to hunt on the way for subsistence, besides making canoes to cross Lake Ontario, it was twenty days before they reached their destination. When they arrived, there was great jiibilation, and for a full month nothing but councils. Having thus sifted the matter to the bottom, the Onondagas determined at last to send another embassy with Jean Baptiste on his return, and with them fifteen Huron prisoners, as an earnest of their good intentions, retaining on their part one of Baptiste 's colleagues as a hostage. "This time they chose for their envoy a chief of their own nation, named Scandawati, a man of re- nown, sixty years of age, joining with him two col- leagues. The old Onondaga entered on his mission with a troubled mind. His anxiety was not so much for his life as for his honor and dignity; for while the Oneidas and the Cayugas were acting in concur- rence with the Onondagas, the Senecas had refused any part in the embassy, and still breathed nothing but war. "Would they, or still more the Mohawks, so far forget the consideration due to one whose name had been great in the councils of the League as to as- sault the Hurons while he was among them in the 330 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY character of an ambassador of Hs nation, whereby his honor would be compromised, and his life endan- gered? "His mind brooded on this idea, and he told one of his colleagues that if such a slight were put upon Mm, he should die of mortification. " 'I am not a dead dog,' he said, 'to be despised and forgotten. I am worthy that all men should turn their eyes on me, while I am among enemies, and do nothing that may involve me in danger. ' "What with hunting, fishing, canoe-making, and bad weather, the progress of the august travelers was so slow that they did not reach the Huron towns till the twenty-third of October. ' ' Scandawati presented seven large belts of wam- pum, each composed of three or four thousand beads, which the Jesuits call the pearls and diamonds of the country. He delivered, too, the fifteen captives, and promised a hundred more on the final conclusion of peace. The three Onondagas remained, as surety for the good faith of those who sent them, until the beginning of January, when the Hurons on their part sent six ambassadors to conclude the treaty, one of the Onondagas accompanying them. "Soon there came dire tidings. The prophetic heart of the old chief had not deceived him. The Senecas and Mohawks, disregarding negotiations in which they had no part, and resolved to bring them to an end, were invading the country in force. "It might be thought that the Hurons would take their revenge on the Onondaga envoys, now hostages among them; but they did not do so, for the char- acter of an ambassador was for the most part held in respect. "One morning, however, Scandawati had disap- THE HONOE OF AN IROQUOIS 331 peared. They were full of excitement; for they thought that he had escaped to the enemy. They ranged the woods in search of him, and at length found him in a thicket near the town. He lay dead, on a bed of spruce-boughs Avhich he had made, his throat deeply gashed with a knife. He had died by his own hand, a victim of mortified pride. 'See,' writes Father Ragueneau, 'how much our Indians stand on the point of honor. ' "We have seen that one of his colleagues had set out for Onondaga with a deputation of six Hurons. The party was met by a hundred Mohawks, who cap- tured them all and killed the six Hurons, but spared the Onondaga, and compelled him to join them. Soon after, they made a sudden onset on about three hundred Hurons journeying through the forest from the towTi of St. Ignace ; and, as many of them were women, they routed the whole and took forty pris- oners. "The Onondaga bore part in the fray, and cap- tured a Christian Huron girl; but the next day he insisted on returning to the Huron town. " 'Kill me if you will,' he said to the Mohawks, 'but I cannot follow you; for then I should be ashamed to appear among my countrymen, who sent me on a message of peace to the Hurons ; and I must die with them sooner than seem to act as their enemy. ' "On this the MohaAvks not only permitted him to go, but gave him the Huron girl whom he had taken ; and the Onondaga led her back in safety to her countrymen. "Here then is a ray of light out of Egyptian dark- ness. The principle of honor was not extinct in these wild hearts." CHAPTER XXIII TOO PROTJD TO FIGHT Saw Francisco was in a ferment of excitement in July, 1855. The city, which had sprung into being almost over night with a population increased from 2,000 to 20,000 six years before, was still a sort of overgrown mining camp. Handsome dwellings, banks and business blocks were sprouting up like mushrooms, after the three fires which had almost wiped the place off the map in 1850. But everybody who was anybody still knew the private affairs of every other body; and the whole town buzzed with personal gossip as vehemently as it did with tales of gold strikes, and expanding business, and flagrant steals of politicians, and grim doings of silent Vigi- lance Committees. So King, the banker (James King of William, in patrician old Maryland style), who had gone broke through a "dirty deal" of his agent at the mines; who had turned over everything he possessed in the world to another big banker for his creditors ' bene- fit — only to have that firm too "go up the flume"; who had been foreman of the grand jury two years back which tackled the stiff problem of the thugs and desperadoes daily defying every law of God and man ; — James King's private and public affairs were better known to some hundreds of prominent citizens than they were to his own wife. At dozens of bars men were telling of King and 332 TOO PEOUD TO FIGHT 333 Alfred Cohen. The latter had been exhibited in an unenviable light by King's public explanation of the reasons for his financial sacrifice to business honor, had met the former banker on Montgomery Street, and after high words had sent John Hackett to him with a challenge to a duel. Of course, a challenge meant a fight. The city swarmed with gunmen and cutthroats, drawn thither from the four quarters of the earth — -as far as the penal colonies of Van Diemen's Land, — and a man's life still depended on carrying a gun and getting it into action the fraction of a second before the other fellow. Besides, even among the more sober and law-abiding folk, the old tradition of personal honor held rigorous sway, as it did in the South. Anyone who wanted trouble -with a gentleman must get it — promptly and unhesitatingly. The merest hint, an insulting look, must be taken up instanter, said this inexorable code, under penalty of being branded in the eyes of friends and foes as a coward unworthy to associate with real gentlemen. So everybody was agog. Any hour might bring absorbing details of what the newspapers would later decorously chronicle as "a regrettable occur- rence among prominent citizens." On the morning of July 18 there was a rush for newspapers that exhausted the supply. A few mo- ments of absorbed silence. Then the readers broke into conflicting clamor. Loud voices were heard proclaiming the foundation principles of conduct, without which Honor hid its abased face. For this "busted flush," as some did not hesitate to describe the challenged citizen, had not only re- fused to fight, but had actually attempted to excuse himself by challenging the Code itself. 334 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY There it was, printed in black and white to pro- claim his shame to all the world, an open letter in the morning papers : "Sir: "I now proceed to give you my reply to the note you handed me last night. First, waiving other in- superable objections to the mode indicated pt set- tling such difficulties, I could not consent to a hostile meeting with Mr. Cohen. The public have already been fully advised of my estimate of his character. The relative positions of Mr. Cohen and myself are entirely unequal in worldly fortune and domestic relation. He is understood to be possessed of an abundant fortune. In the event of his fall, he would leave ample means for the support of his Avife and child. Eecent events have stripped me entirely of what I once possessed. Were I to fall, I should leave a large family without the means of support. My duties and obligations to my family have much more weight with me than any desire to please Mr. Cohen or his friends in the manner proposed. "I have ever been opposed to duelling on moral grounds. My opinions were known to Mr. Cohen, and when he addressed me the note which you had the impudence to deliver, he was well aware that it would not be accepted or answered affirmatively. That fact is sufficient to demonstrate his contempti- ble cowardice in this silly attempt to manufacture for himself a reputation for 'chivalry'. "While nothing could induce me to change my principles upon the subject of duelling, my con- science is perfectly easy as to my right and the pro- priety of defending myself should I be assaulted. "Do not flatter yourself, sir, that this communica- TOO PROUD TO FIGHT 335 tion is made out of regard either to yourself or Mr. Cohen. I write this for publication in the news- papers. I avow principles of which I am not ashamed, and shall abide the result. "James King of "Wm." Loud was the condemnation and bitter the jeers from the self-constituted authorities on gentlemanly- deportment who discussed this document that morn- ing. "Pen fighter," and "hider behind petticoats and pinafores ' ' were the mildest of their comments. They were devastated with public-spirited humilia- tion : never before had the glorious commonwealth by the Golden Gate been so disgraced, sir. Never even among the lowest riffraff had it been recorded that a man had actually declined a challenge to fight. And now this contemptible fellow who had been accepted as one of themselves, who had moved in the best circles, who had actually held public office — ^now he must try to cover up his spineless crawfishing by whining about the morality of a gentleman's first duty. Pah ! Many drinks were needed to wash away the bad taste from the mouths of these fire-eaters. Their disgust was deeper presently. The very foundations of life shook beneath their feet more upsettingly than from an earthquake. For, it often happens that when one man is bold enough to challenge a hoary and tyrannical lie, the humbug shrivels up. Many impregnable walls have fallen like those of Jericho at the clear blast of a trumpet. James King's letter evoked a chorus of enthusiastic approval from a small circle of the most influential men in San Francisco. Letters and messages began to pour in,. upholding his stand. The newspapers caught the drift of sen- 336 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY timent and applauded him editorially. Seventy men, whose signatures carried weight beneath checks or defiances or expressions of opinion, met formally, passed a resolution expressing complete admiration for his "moral courage and sound prin- ciple," and blazoned their belief that a very large majority of substantial citizens would approve what he had done. The fire-eaters were utterly silenced by this broad- side. From being a matter of constant occurrence, duels were from that day frowned upon. And Avhile the code still lingered in the life of some obstinate adherents, never again was a man in San Francisco forced to the choice between personal combat and the scorn of society. That was one case where a man could really be proud that he had been "too proud to fight." But James King was a fighter, for and within the law, who was stopped by no personal risks. Three months after he had thus given a barbarous custom its death-blow, he started a newspaper. His six years in the seething vortex that was San Francisco, and especially his service at the head of the grand jury had given him an appalling knowl- edge of the crime, fraud and corruption with which the town was reeking. With the first issue of his little four-page Daily Evening Bulletin, he turned all the guns of his straightforward honesty and indignation upon the piratical crew who were misusing the offices of city and state for the most unblushing steals and op- pressions. He did not seek the protection of generalities or minor offenders : names, dates and specifications, chapter and verse, were given in full ; big financiers. TOO PROUD TO FIGHT 337 business men, bosses, judges, congressmen, senators — it made no difference where the trail led. King plastered the facts before his readers, and called ■upon them to put a stop to this municipal debauch- ery. He put the issue squarely before every man who could read : "Will the San Francisco public sustain a truly independent journal — one that will support the cause of morality, virtue and honesty, whether in public service or private life, and which, regardless of all consequences, mil fearlessly and undauntedly maintain its course against the political and social evils of the day?" And then he proceeded to try them with a stiff dose of unpleasant hard facts about themselves and their elected or permitted rulers. Since those days, and before, I suspect, this at- titude has been a favorite one with many a bun- combe reformer, thinking really of the main chance for his own power and pocket. The difference was that this man Avas honest. He meant what he said — and said what he meant. As before, his ringing utterance was a magnet that drew all the honest metal from the rubbish. The decent folk were just waiting for some leader. The Bulletin at once jumped into the firing-line with a growing army of resolute men behind it, who were determined to restore decency and honesty. Never had a youthful newspaper wielded such potent in- fluence. It is far from the least praiseworthy fact about James King of William that he used this sudden power, this thunderbolt forged by conditions and his own boldness, with an undeviating eye to the 338 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY public interest. The gambler, the swindler, the grafter, the shyster lawyer found no mercy. But, never did he use his paper as a weapon in personal enmities — though his attacks on wrong-doing raised him a healthy crop of violent enemies. The under- ground alliances of crooked bankers with politicians and officials, whose slimy trails he had studied dur- ing his own financial disasters, were brought to the light with the special knowledge of bitter experi- ence. And the men higher up, who saw their illegal incomes threatened, the carefully erected screens of their reputations and safety being torn down, — these dominant personalities began to develop strong emotions toward this "scandal-monger" who was attacking the very pillars of business and society. It is hard to realize the shameless wide-openness of the San Francisco of that period. Just as later it was proclaimed, "there's never a law of God or man runs north of 53" — so people had accepted cynically as fact, that "God doesn't hold men re- sponsible for what they do after they cross the Mis- souri River." For instance, a gambler named Charles Cora openly defied laws and authorities. He was "next" to some of the richest men in town; he had open relations with a very wealthy woman who claimed a high social place ; every effort to close him up got lost and was strangled somewhere in the secret mazes of practical politics. One afternoon newsboys rushed through the streets yelling, "Wuxtry! Wuxtry!" at the top of their leather lungs. Charlie Cora had assassinated Richardson, the United States marshal. It was a deliberate, planned, cowardly murder. TOO PROUD TO FIGHT 339 The man was killed because he was an officer who threatened Cora's illicit business. Every informed person realized that the gambler had slapped the respectable community in the face, had coolly slaughtered his enemy in full confidence that his never-failing pull would protect him. King at once spread the disgraceful facts before his reader, with no mincing of the ugly truth. The ring back of Cora replied with actions suited to their usual bribing tactics : in spite of evidence that no one disputed, four members of the jury voted for ac- quittal. The murderer went scot free. But the powers behind him were becoming nerv- ous at the smashing attacks of the Bulletin on this flagrant perversion of justice. Quiet consultation brought out a general sentiment that unless this fel- low King were "put out of the way" for good and all, there was disaster ahead for their cherished sys- tem. The men at the top watched eagerly for the safe chance they knew the tense situation must bring sooner or later. It was not many months before this opportunity showed itself. A man named Bagley was slated for the choice grafting ground of the customs house. King at- tacked the appointment, citing as one ground for disqualification that Bagley had recently fought a duel with one of the supervisors named Casey, him- self a scalawag. "It does not matter hoAV bad a man Casey has been," proclaimed the editorial in its author's sledge-hammer style, "nor how much benefit it might be to the public to have him out of the way, — we cannot accord to any citizen the right to kill him, or even beat him, without sufficient justifiable provocation. The fact that Casey has been an in- 340 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY mate of Sing Sing Prison in New York is no offense against the laws of this State ; nor is the fact of his having stuffed himself through the ballot-box, as- elected to the board of supervisors from a district where it is said he was not even a candidate, any justification why Mr. Bagley should shoot Casey, however richly the latter may deserve having his neck stretched for such fraud on the people." These outspoken words, upholding as always the majesty of the law, spelled James King's deatL warrant. The leaders of the pirate gang were delighted.. Casey was just the kind of instrument they needed. It did not need much encouragement from members, of the "right crowd" to drive him to extremes- when he heard his record in this denunciation being: quoted far and wide. He called on the editor in the newspaper office,, and demanded a public retraction and apology. King ordered him out. Whereupon Casey pulled out a revolver and shot him down in cold blood. The news flashed through the to"wm. King lay for six days between life and death. Then, with the memory of Cora's escape fresh in all minds, San Francisco arose in her might, in one of her last, and most excusable, takings of the flouted law into her own hands. The Vigilance Committee, which had purged the city of some of its most notorious desperadoes in 1849, was quietly called together. A force of men, of the best in town, organized itself in orderly companies of a hundred each;, armed with muskets and flashing bayonets, one gi- gantic Nantucket whalingman carrying his favorite TOO PEOUD TO FiaHT 341 liarpoon and several fathoms of rope, they inarched to the jail under the shadow of Telegraph Hill. The leaders of these Vigilantes demanded of the sheriff the persons of Cora and Casey. They were surrendered by that alarmed officer, and were lodged in an improvised lock-up. On the following Tuesday, as Cora was being for- mally tried before these citizens, word came that James King was dead. The gambler was found guilty after due process of super-legal law. Casey's conviction followed. Both were hanged two days later, while King's funeral was taking place. Thus passed on James King of William, having given to the uttermost for the cause of laAv, justice ^nd civic honor. CHAPTER XXIV A CRUSADING JOURNALIST Shortly after the close of the American Civil War the owner of a small newspaper in a town of northern England found himself without an editor. Being a person of discernment, he did not hesitate to go quite outside the ranks of the profession, and selected a young man, in the Russian consul 's office, who had done some free-lance writing for the local press and who had impressed him by a certain fervor and vigorous opinions on public matters. This un- kno^^^l youth was the son of a poor minister. He did not even have a university education; but he had ideas, and he had tremendous enthusiasm and energy. The Northern Echo was an average provincial sheet, practically unknown outside of its o^rni lim- ited radius, and withoxit any great influence even at home; but it was not long before its readers realized that a fresh and strong personality was ad- dressing them through its columns. There was no anonymous "We" about these utterances: it was W. T. Stead, the new editor, who was talking. More- over, he had not only most positive convictions on a variety of subjects, but he did not hesitate to ex- press them, no matter what important "interests" were involved, in a racy style that startled conserva- 342 A CEUSADING JOURNALIST 343 tives and made his editorials a leading topic of discussion among the citizens of Darlington and the neighboring city of Newcastle-on-Tyne. They take their politics seriously in the North Country; there was no lack of opportunity for con- troversy. The Northern Echo speedily became a sort of storm-centre. The great London papers and the reviews began to quote its striking re- marks. In a few years it was hated, feared, ad- mired — ^but rarely ignored. It was generally rec- ognized that if Stead thought a thing was wrong he was going to proclaim the fact openly, without the least regard for the position or authority of those concerned. Nor would he confine himself to general statements: embarrassing details, intimate personalities, and facts discreetly suppressed were spread abroad, in the single-minded resolve to drive home his point. Since the young editor's notions were frequently idealistic and diametrically op- posed to those of the practical men who managed affairs, he made many hot enemies; but men like Carlyle, Froude and Gladstone recognized his cour- age and ability and admitted him to their friend- ship. He supported Gladstone with the utmost vigor in his protests against the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria; and his eloquent appeals for these persecuted Christians made him known through all England as one to be reckoned with. In 1874 Lord Beaconsfield came back into power. The Russians had captured Khiva the preceding year, and the old sore spot of Afghanistan was troubling imperial John Bull mightily. Lord Salis- bury and the other "forwards" of the Beaconsfield ministry were bent upon settling the matter, once for all, with a sole eye to the protection of India; 344 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY and Stead found Mnmself in violent opposition to this summary disposal of a brave people's country. His attitude was unpopular, to say the least, but he fought to the bitter end for his ideas. His ef- forts culminated in the publication one day of a copy of the Northern Echo entirely devoted to a "Political Catechism," in Avhieh he attacked the whole government policy in Afghanistan from be- ginning to end. There was no possibility of changing public opin- ion on a matter considered so vital to the Em- pire; but oddly enough Stead's radical utterances brought him the editorship of one of the most conservative of the London journals. The Pall Mall Gazette was an afternoon paper of small size and circulation which had always lived up to Thackeray's description of a journal "written by gentlemen for gentlemen." Under John Morley it had had a political influence quite out of proportion to the number of its readers, but it was distinctly a class appeal. When Morley went into Parlia- ment, Stead moved up from assistant to editor of the paper. He made it a power. Lord Milner declared thirty years later that no newspaper in any country had ever exercised such influence on public affairs. The- "P. M. G." "dismissed Ministers, radically altered the first Home Rule Bill, and . . . immensely strengthened the Navy." Earl Grey said after Stead's death: "I remember how in the early eighties he forced by his articles, 'The Truth About the Navy by One Who Knows,' Mr. Gladstone, the most powerful minister of our time, to spend most grudgingly an additional £6,000,000 on the strengthening of our A CEUSADING JOURNALIST 345 navy. I remember how he forced the same re- luctant minister to send out Gordon to Khartoum, and I never shall forget his heroic exertions to secure the expedition of a relief column to Gor- don's assistance at a time when there was good reason to believe it would have been successful." He originated the modern "interview" in a series of talks with celebrities "from the Tsar to the Pope," where the searching questions of the writer were as interesting as the answers. Stead soon knew everybody, and his quick imagination and tremendous vital energy made him a person of con- sequence in all circles. An old member of the Pall Mall staff tells as an evidence of its position in the public mind, how a marked-up copy arrived at the office one morning, in which Ruskin had taken the pains to suggest changes in type, arrangement, headings, and almost every detail of make-up and matter. Stead had now won for himself the sort of posi- tion which nearly ahvays makes a man cautious and conservative. It was characteristic of him that he did not hesitate to risk the whole personal struc- ture he had built up when a needed reform excited his sympathy. The House of Commons had refused to pass a bill aimed at abuses which had produced most vicious conditions. Though his friends warned him that he was destroying the Pall Mall and his own career. Stead promptly began the publica- tion of a series of articles so frank in their revolt- ing details that the respectable folk were shocked and horrified as London had never been before. His reply to criticism was that he was stating facts, and he believed society needed this nauseous 346 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY draught. The paper lost practically all of its ad- vertising; the newsdealers refused to handle it; financial ruin seemed imminent. But the editor continued to spread the horrible conditions abroad in his columns, without sparing those responsible or his readers. It was a bitter fight. For a while Stead edited the "P. M. Gr." from a prison cell. But this time he won. The truths he forced upon reluctant pub- lic attention were such as called to Heaven for action. The House of Commons felt the pressure of altered sentiment. The new criminal law pro- posed by Stead was passed. The man's whole active life was occupied with, similar crusades on behalf of some idea or reform — always for what he believed to be true progress, and with apparently no thought of himself or of any private interest. When he became convinced that Psychical Research needed the championship of some well-known man, he promptly risked ridi- cule and loss of reputation by espousing its cause and publishing a magazine. Borderland, entirely devoted to it. During the first Peace Conference he moved to The Hague and started a peace paper to further this movement, besides placing his ideals before the world in his "United States of Europe." Perhaps the severest test of his quality came with the Boer "War. He had started a monthly magazine called the Bevieiv of Revietvs, to give him a wider public than that of a daily paper ; and this new venture had proved very successful, especially in its American issue, in which he held a large in- terest; so that it looked as if his brilliant ideas and indefatigable labor were at last going to bring him some adequate financial return. ' A CEUSADING JOURNALIST 347 Moreover, Cecil Rhodes had become his warm friend and admirer. He said one day to Lord Escher: "Stead is the greatest patriot I know; England is his home, and every foot of ground over which the British flag flies is his native land." A colleague declares that Rhodes had willed the whole of his vast fortune to Stead, in the convic- tion that the latter would make a more far-seeing use of these millions than he could work out him- self. In fact, the journalist had planned a great, progressive, independent newspaper, freed by this fund from the necessity of advertisements, through which he could do the work he felt called to un- dertake. It was a dream very dear to his heart. And Stead also was an ardent Englishman. But his very love of his country made him more resolute to protest when he felt she was falling below his ideal of justice and fairness to others; and, right or wrong, he was entirely convinced that this was the case in the controversy with the Boers. When Jameson's raid precipitated the conflict, Stead spoke out with no uncertain voice regarding his friend Rhodes and the Chartered Company, which he considered mainly responsible for the trouble. During the dark days when every Eng- lishman felt so keenly the disgrace of the failure in South Africa, the dogged resolve to mpe out this shame intensified the general tendency to con- sider any one a traitor who questioned the justice of the national course. The feeling was so high that both readers and advertisers forsook Stead's magazine, and it received a setback from which it never recovered. This Bevieiv was the child of Stead's OAvn brain, 348 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY and there are few things more searching than to watch the destruction of such a personal expression by one's own act. But neither this nor the knowl- edge that Rhodes so resented his stand that he had altered his will could make Stead alter his course. He continued to express his views in season and out of season; he started a new publication, War Against War; in short, as he had done all his life, he spoke out his protest and set forth his ideal with a magnificent disregard of personal conse- quences. The final results were the virtual extinction of the English Revieiv, the complete loss of Rhodes 's colossal fortune, and the failure to change by a hair 's-breadth the nation's course towards the war. On the other side can be set an example of moral eou-rage which any man might be proud to leave as his memorial. And that this was not without effect was evi- denced when some years after he met death on the ill-fated Titanic as bravely as he had met life, journalists from all over the wlorld combined to place a portrait medallion of him on the Thames Embankment in London. CHAPTER XXV A PATTEEN OF CHIVALRY "The truly valiant dare •everything hut doing any other hody an, injury." "The truly great man is apt to forgive as his power is able to revenge." "It is greater greatness to give a hingdom than to get a kingdom." "It is no less vain to wish death than it is cowardly to fear it." These were sayings of a man whom all his fel- lows pronounced a very mirror of chivalry — Sir Philip Sidney. Grandson of a duke, godson of the King of Spain; linguist, and intimate of continen- tal dignitaries while in his teens; favorite of his own Virgin Queen, ambassador and friend to em- perors; scholar, critic, author and poet; valiant soldier and skilful leader; he seemed to embrace the whole round of human perfection. Yet to after times he lives pre-eminently as the hero of an act of self-sacrifice when in his last extremity. Fulke Greville, who was a boy with him, says: "Of whose Youth I will report no other wonder but this: That though I lived with him and knew him from a child, yet I never knew him other than a man; with such staidness of mind, lovely and familiar gravity as carried grace and reverence above greater years. His talk ever of knowledge, and his very play tending to enrich his mind. So as even his teachers found something in him to observe and learn, above that which they had 349 350 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY usually read or taught. Which eminence by nature and industry made his -worthy Father style Sir Philip in my hearing (though I unseen) the Light of his Family — lumen familicB sucb." It was at the very end of a short life that this Light burst into its brightest blaze. Queen Eliza- beth had at last decided to send aid to the dis- tressed Protestants in the Netherlands, hard beset by the mighty power of Spain. In 1585 the Earl of Leicester went across as Commander of the English forces there, and Sidney, his nepheAV, then thirty-one years old, joined him as Governor of Flushing and general of the horse. "The Earl told me," says GreviUe, "that when he undertook the government of the Low Countries he carried his nephew over with him as one among the rest, not only despising his youth for a Coun- sellor, but withal bearing a hand over him as a forward young man. NotMdthstanding, in short time he saw this Sun so risen above his horizon that both he and all his stars were glad to fetch light from him. And in the end acknowledge that he held up the honor of his casual authority by him whilst he lived, and found reason to withdraw himself from that burthen after his death." Sidney had risked Queen Elizabeth's wrath by his efforts to join Drake on his cruise against the Spaniards; the post in the Low Countries had seemed a poor substitute to him for this dashing adventure ; and when he reached his charge he had more reason still to regret the substitution. For the garrison was weak and ill paid when paid at all; the citizens were discouraged; and he was obliged to correct many abuses as well as to strengthen inadequate defences whose importance A PATTERN OF CHIVALRY 351 those at home seemed to underestimate, for Flush- ing was the key to the Scheldt and therefore com- manded the sea approach to Antwerp. Moreover, Leicester seemed far more interested in the pomp and dignity of his position than in taking active steps against the enemy, who had con- quered Antwerp and threatened to overrun the whole country. For months the young man strove to get supplies, to secure just treatment for his soldiers, to com- pose quarrels between the Dutch officers and his own, to punish wanton cruelties that were only too common, to arouse his uncle from his absorption in his quarrel with Elizabeth to his own ambition to "make a noble war." "If the Queen pay not her soldiers, she must lose her garrison," he wrote home. (And in point of fact he exhausted his own scanty means in de- fraying necessary expenses.) "There is no doubt thereof. But no man living shall be able to say the fault is in me. What relief I can do them I will. I will spare no danger if occasion serves. I am sure no creature shall be able to lay injustice to my charge ; and for further doubts, truly I stand not on them." His insistence finally triumphed against all jeal- ousies and inertia : in the July following his arrival he was permitted to carry out a plan for assaulting the Spanish stronghold of Axel, twenty miles from Flushing. On a dark night a thousand men, headed by him- self and Lord Willoughby, rowed up and across the river and joined Coimt Maurice with two thousand Netherlanders. They marched cautiously up towards their desti- 352 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY nation, the men being aroused to the highest pitch by a speech from Sir Philip, which "did so link their minds that they did desire rather to die in that service than to live in the contrary." Continuing in the strictest order and in utter silence, they came before Axel about two in the morning. Sidney headed a party of thirty or forty picked men, who sAvam the moat, scaled the wall with ladders, overcame the sentries, and opened the gate to the main body. Though completely taken by surprise, the Span- iards fought bravely wlhen they realized what was happening. Sidney posted a reserve in the central market-place, to give assistance wherever it might be needed, and then sent companies to each quarter of the city. All opposition was beaten down. Im- mense spoil was taken, besides destroying enemy property that could not be carried off. Rewarding his men who had distinguished themselves out of his own purse, Sidney left a strong garrison in the captured town and returned to his headquarters, to receive the plaudits of all at having revived the spirits of the Netherlanders by this brilliant stroke. He continued to distinguish himself for personal gallantry and consummate leadership during the year following. Then in September, 1586, he found himself in attendance on Leicester, whose army was proceeding against Zutphen, the strongest to^w'ii of Gelderland. Entrenchments were thrown up and the siege began. The cavalry were stationed on a command- ing hill a mile from the east gate, and Sir Philip was one of the three leaders of this force. A week passed in preparations for an assault. Then tidings came that a great quantity of pro- A PATTEBN OF CHIVALRY 353 visions was to be smuggled into Zutphen by the enemy during the night. The report failed to state, however, that these supplies were convoyed by two or three thousand of the best fighting men of the Spanish army, under orders to cut their way from the south into the beleaguered city. So Leicester sent only a small force to intercept the convoy: Sir John Norris with two hundred horsemen, and Sir "William Stanley with about three hundred pikes. When Sidney and the other cavaliers heard there was a fight in prospect, they hastened to the scene without any orders, some fifty in all, including dar- ing spirits like Essex, Willoughby, Pelham and Eussell. Such was their headlong desire to get there in time that Sir William Pelham dashed off without his leg-armor; and when Sidney beheld him riding up in this condition, he rashly threw off his own cuisses that they might be on a perfect equality. It was one of those exaggerated acts of chivalry which challenged disaster — and brought it about. As Languet wrote to Sidney himself: "It is the folly of our age that most men of noble birth think it more honorable to do the work of soldiers than that of leaders, and would rather be praised for boldness than for judgment." It was a thick morning of fog. The eager little company could not see a dozen steps ahead as they waited for the provision train which they proposed to intercept. Tense with expectation, the cavaliers reined in their steeds, while all strained their ears for any hint of their prey. At last there came through the dense mist the noise of trampling horses, the rumble of loaded wagons, the cracking of whips and low calls of 354 THE BOOK OF BKAVERY drivers. Suddenly the fog curtain rolled away as if before a stage in the theatre. There, confronting them, was the provision convoy. But it had teeth: guarding it was a force of Spaniards and merce- naries five times as large as the whole English detachment. To make the situation worse, they were within range of the cannon of the fortress, and the muskets of the soldiers in the trenches, which opened a galling fire upon them. They were the game instead of the hunters. Retreat would have been prudent and brought no loss of honor. But retreat was the last idea of these hotheads. "Follow me, for the honor of England!" shouted Essex; and he spurred straight for the grim line of enemy cavalry, a thousand strong. The rest were scarcely behind. Dashing into the Spaniards with set lances, they presently dropped these and laid about them with their axes so fiercely that they broke the Spanish cohimns and drove them back. Five to one was heavy odds, but thrice the Eng- lish knights charged irresistibly, leaving almost a quarter of their number dead upon the field. Sid- ney's horse was killed under him at the second onset. He straightway mounted another and plunged into the melee again. The battle had become a series of desperate per- sonal encounters, where one man might find him- self fighting a whole company. Looking ahead, Sir Philip saw that Lord Willoughby had forged ahead so impetuously that he was far in advance of his companions, completely surrounded by the enemy. But he was still the knight of the old ballad : "The brave Lord Willoughby, Of courage fierce and fell, Who would not give one inch of way Por all the devils of hell." A PATTERN OF CHIVALEY 355 Though hard beset and with much of his armor hacked away, he had cleared a space about him with his curtle-axe, and shouted defiance at the Spaniards who thronged upon him. Seeing the plight of this "very friend and valiant and frank gentleman," Sidney hastily gathered a sniall party, charged through the ring, and rescued Willoughby from his dangerous situation. His impetuous rush carried him a long way towards the town. Suddenly a musket-ball from the trenches struck him in the left thigh, which should have been protected by his armor. It was a bad wound, the bone being shattered. But he attempted to fight on, and was only pre- vented by his untrained charger, which became frightened and galloped away from the battlefield with him. By the time he approached the camp, where Leicester and the main body of the troops were safely ensconced, Sir Philip was almost fainting from pain and loss of blood. He called for water — the one fiercest craving of the wounded man. Somebody ran and fetched him a bottle. Just as he was raising it shakily to his fevered lips, his eye met the glance of a foot-sol- dier who was being carried by. The man's face was ghastly; his wound was desperate; there was in his eyes a greedy longing for the precious liquid. Sidney stopped in the act of drinking, and handed him the flask. "Thy necessity is greater than mine," said he. Now it is a fact that acts almost identical with this have been performed by many men, during the centuries since that day, on many battlefields. This fine self-sacrifice is, however, one of the ear- 356 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY liest cases of just its sort on record; and it should be remembered that a vast gulf indeed separated the private soldier of 1586 from the noble general, the favorite of Elizabeth. Most people about him would have valued his life and comfort above that of an army of such insignificant fellows; and it would have been small wonder if such a feeling had affected the mind of the general himself. But all who knew him felt that the incident was a true expression of the very thing that made Sir Philip loved by all. And still to-day it seems to bring up a distinct image of him in our minds. The wounded Sidney was carried on to Arnheim. Great was the grief of Leicester: "Oh, Philip! I am sorry for thy hurt," he ex- claimed. "My lord," answered Sidney, "this have I done to do you honor, and her Majesty service." Sir William Eussell, who had seen all as he fought bravely, came to him and kissed his hand while tears ran doAvn his cheeks: "Oh, noble Sir Philip, there was never man at- tained hurt more honorably than ye have done, or any served like unto you." He lingered for sixteen days, in extreme agony. This did not prevent him from grave converse on immortality, from the writing of Latin epistles and poetry, from hearing music, or from calmly making his will, with exact thought for others. He had no wish to die, yet he was content, for he held that his life could not have been better spent than in such an exploit. And on October 17, in serene confidence that withstood all pain and weakness, this Light van- ished from earthly eyes. A PATTERN OF CHIVALRY 357 England gave him the most splendid funeral ever commemorating a private subject. The whole nation mourned him as a personal loss: "It was accounted a sin for any gentleman of quality for months after to appear at court in any light or gaudy apparel." But perhaps the greatest tribute were the words of his laoyhood friend: "There was no man living that could say he ever did him harm ; whereas there be many indeed that would thankfully acknowledge the good they had received." CHAPTER XXVI ■ THE FIEST CIVILIANS TO WIN THE V. C. The most coveted decoration in the British army or navy is a little bronze Maltese cross, whose in- trinsic value is about ten cents. For it bears upon its face a lion and a crown, and the words' "For Valour." And on the back is the name of him who won it, with the date to be commemorated. This is the famous Victoria Cross. It was insti- tuted by the Queen in 1856, the Charge of the Light Brigade and the other exploits of the British sol- diers in the Crimean campaign having created a general feeling that some such order of bravery was called for. The medals are cast from guns captured at Sebastopol, and they are open to any one in either service, no matter what his rank. During the first half century, in nearly forty wars and campaigns all over the globe, about five hun- dred men received this prize. This is the story of how the gallantry of three civilians changed the original condition by which it was offered only to men of the army and navy. These three who thus forced themselves into this distinguished company were Ross Lewis Mangles, William Fraser McDonell, and Thomas Henry Kav- anagh, — all members of the Civil Service in India. One of the many outbreaks of the Indian Mutiny was at Arrah, a town of Bengal. Word came in 358 TO WIN THE V. C. 359 hot haste to Dinapur that the sepoys there had revolted, and that two thousand of them Were be- sieging a dozen Englishmen and a few Sikhs, who had taken up a position in a two-storied house and had for some days beaten off their infuriated assailants. Their fate was certain unless relief arrived promptly. An expedition was hurriedly organized. Four hundred men from the 10th and 37th Eegiments set out under Captain Dunbar, accompanied by a num- ber of civilian volunteers. Mangles and McDoneU were among these latter, both having been magis- trates and having a knowledge of the district which made their services as guides invaluable. "All went well with the expedition in its journey up the Ganges and, on landing, it marched several miles without serious molestation. But when with- in a few miles of Arrah, it was obliged to pass through a thick piece of jungle in which the sepoys had laid an ambuscade. Darkness had fallen as the soldiers pushed their way through the maze of trees and dense undergrowth, and the murderous fire that suddenly broke out threw them into con- fusion. "All through the night the unequal fight went on, but the loss on the British side was so heavy that when morning dawned the surviving officers saw it would be impossible, or at least unwise, to continue the advance. Captain Dunbar, unfortunately, had been among the first to fall. Very reluctantly, therefore, the order to retreat was given, and the little force, still firing on its foes, slowly fell back. Other sepoys had arrived on the scene in the mean- time, and the exhausted soldiers now found them- selves compelled to run the gauntlet between two 360 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY lines of lire. In these conditions something like a panic at last set in ; the ranks broke up in disorder. "But, disastrous as was the retreat, it was not all disgraceful. There will always be acts of indi- vidual heroism when Englishmen go out to battle. It may be a soldier or it may be a civilian, in whom the irrepressible warrior instinct manifests itself in some act of conspicuous gallantry and devotion, but it is sure never to be wanting. "In this instance it was the civilian who rose to the occasion. Early in the engagement Mr. Man- gles had been hit by a musket-ball, but the shot had luckily only stunned him. Quickly recovering, he lent a hand in helping the w'ounded, and on the retreat commencing, he played an active part in beating off the sepoys. With a number of men round him to reload and supply him with muskets, he shot sepoy after sepoy, the sure eye and hand which had made him a noted tiger shot not failing him in this hour of need." The especial act for which he was awarded the Cross, however, was the gallant rescue of a wounded private of the Hampshires (the 37th Foot). At the man's piteous appeal to his com- rades not to leave him there helpless to be hacked to pieces by the sepoys. Mangles rushed to his side, bound up his wounds, and then lifted him onto his back. With this heavy burden the brave civil- ian trudged on among the others. "It was rough going for the greater part of the six miles to the river, the ground being very swampy, and overhead was a broiling July sun. Despite these disadvantages, and the fact that he had not slept for forty-eight hours. Mangles bore the helpless private the whole of the way, only TO WIN TtlE V. C. 361 stopping now and then to place his charge on the ground and take a pot-shot at the pursuing rebels. 'I really never felt so strong in my life,' he used to say afterwards, in referring to this incident. When the waters of the Ganges were reached he plunged in and swam out to the boats with his now unconscious burden. Then, when all the survivors AA^ere aboard, the flotilla started on its sad return journey. "Mr. McDonell all this time had been ever to the front, assisting the officers to keep the men together. An excellent shot, like his fellow-magis- trate, he accounted for many a rebel ere the river- side was reached, but he did not escape unscathed. A musket shot had lodged in his arm. "In the wild rush for the half-dozen country boats moored close to the river bank, McDonell gave no thought to himself. There were several men very badly hit, and it was not until he had seen these safely over the thwarts that he jumped in and cast the mooring adrift. He was the last man aboard the boat, which was crowded with thirty-five soldiers. "Out into the stream they floated, but now a fresh danger faced them. The rebels had removed the oars from the boat and lashed the rudder tightly, so that the little craft was helpless. To their horror it began to drift back again to the southern bank, on which the sepoys were clustered in joyful expectation of emptying their muskets into the boatload of sahibs. Something had to be done at once, or they were doomed. "To show his face above the gunwale was to court instant death, but McDonell took the risk. With a knife in his hand, he climbed outside on 362 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY to the canvas roof, worked his way to the stern and with a few deft slashes cut the ropes that held the tiller fast. Bullets pattered all round him as he lay outstretched there, and one passed clean through his helmet, but he was otherwise un- touched. Having regained his seat safely, he steered the boat and its precious freight to the opposite bank, where they landed — three men short. The sepoys' fire had not been all in vain. "While both Mangles and McDonell received the V. C. for their bravery on this occasion, it is a remarkable fact that the former's exploit would have passed unnoticed by the authorities but for a happy chance. The private whose life he had saved and who had passed some months in Dinapur Hospital before being invalided home had told the story of his rescue to a surgeon. This worthy noted it down in his journal, and just twelve months later made the true facts public." Kavanagh, too, won his renown in that red year of the Mutiny. He was in the office of the Chief Commissioner of Oudh, and while Lucknow was being besieged he did yeoman's service in the trenches and at the guns before and after Have- lock and Outram had fought their way in to rein- force the hard-pressed garrison. "Early in November, 1857, Sir Colin Campbell, marching with a large army to the relief of Luck- now, got as far as the Alumbagh. To save the General from having to make the perilous passage through the narrow streets and lanes which had cost him so many men two months earlier, Outram by means of a native spy sent plans of the city and its approaches to Campbell, and suggested the TO WIN THE V. C. 363 best route to be followed. There was still the dan- ger, however, of some dreadful blunder being com- mitted, and Outram expressed a wish that he were able to send a competent guide. "This coming to Kavanagh's ears, he promptly went to Outram 's Chief of Staff, Colonel Eobert Napier, and volunteered his services in this ca- pacity. The colonel stared at him in blank aston- ishment, as well he might, for of all men in Luck- now Kavanagh looked to be the one least suited to play the role of spy. He was a tall, big-limbed man with fair complexion, aggressively red hair and beard, and uncompromisingly blue eyes. To transform this healthy specimen of an Irishman into a native seemed an utter impossibility. ''But Kavanagh persisted that he could get through to the British lines. He would be disguised, of course, and his knowledge of Hindustani and local dialects was perfect. He persisted more stren- uously still when, on his being ushered into Out- ram's presence, the General refused point-blank to consent to his going. After much arguing, he at length persuaded Outram to listen to his plan, and extorted a half-hearted permission to make the at- tempt. It remained for him to convince his chief of the impenetrability of his disguise. "The same evening, with face, neck and arms blackened with lamp-black, his red hair hidden be- neath a cream-colored turban, and the rest of his person disguised in the si\k trousers, yellow hoor- tah, or jacket, white cummerbund, and chintz man- tle of an irregular native soldier, he sauntered with sword and shield into Napier's quarters. "The experiment was an immense success. See- ing what was evidently a hudmasJi (a worthless fel- 364 THE BOOK OF BKAVERY low) thus insolently thrusting himself upon them, the officers present bade him begone, and a very- pretty squabble in low-class Hindustani ensued. In the midst of it Sir James Outram entered the room, and having sufficiently tested his disguise Kava- nagh made himself known. To his joy, no opposi- tion was now raised to his plan. "Half an hour later, with the native spy Kunou- jee Lai, who was returning to the Alumbagh with a letter from Outram, he bade good-by to his friends, forded the river Goomtee, and started on his perilous mission. " 'My courage failed me,' he confesses, 'while in the water, and if my guide had been within my reach I should perhaps have pulled him back and abandoned the enterprise. But he waded quickly through the stream, and, reaching the opposite bank, went crouching up the ditch for three hun- dred yards to a grove of low trees on the edge of a pond, where we stopped to dress.' "His confidence having returned, Kavanagh went boldly forward, tulwar on shoulder, and even dared to accost a matchlock man near a hut with a re- mark that the night was cold. A little farther on they were pulled up by the officer of a native picket, and Kunoujee Lai, acting as spokesman, explained that they had come from Mnndeon ('our old can- tonment') and were making their way to their homes in the city. This satisfied the sepoy officer, and they passed on with no little relief. "Recrossing the river by the iron bridge, they safely negotiated the streets of Lucknow, though the place swarmed with sentries and armed men, and issuing at last from the city on the other side, breathed more freely. From " The Red Book of Heroes," by Mrs. Lang. Longmans, Green and Com,- pany They safely negotiated the streets of Lucknow, though the place swarmed with sentries and armed men TO WIN THE V. C. 365 *' 'I was in great spirits when we readied the green fields into which I had not been for five months,' says Kavanagh, 'Everything around us smelt sweet, and a carrot I took from the roadside was the most delicious I had ever tasted.' "A wrong turning now led them astray into the Dikusha Park, where the rebels had a battery. Much against his companion 's will, the daring Irish- man insisted on inspecting these guns, and Kunou- jee Lai was in considerable trepidation until after two hours' weary tramping across paddy fields and canal cuttings they regained the right road. "At two o'clock in the morning, after several alarms from suspicious villagers who chased them some distance, they stumbled upon a picket of twenty-five sepoys on the outskirts of the city. Kavanagh was for the bold course of going up and questioning the men, but Kunoujee Lai lost heart and threw away the letter entrusted to him for Sir Colin Campbell. Kavanagh kept his still concealed in his turban. "The picket was in some alarm at their approach, but it proved to be fear lest the pair were Eng- lishmen from the Alumbagh camp, only a mile or tw^o in advance of them! With this cheering news, the two spies pushed on, a friendly sepoy having put them on the right road on hearing that they were 'walking to the village of Umroula on a sad errand, namely, tc inform a friend that his brother had been killed by a ball from the British en- trenchments at Lucknow.' "A nasty tumble into a swamp, which washed the black from Kavanagh 's hands, was their next most serious contretemps. For some time they waded through it waist-deep, having gone too far 366 THE BOOK OF BKAVERY to recede before they discovered it was a swamp. An hour afterwards they stole unobserved through two pickets of sepoys and gained the shelter of a grove of trees, where Kavanagh insisted on having a good sleep. Kunoujee Lai, by no means assured that they were out of danger, kept a fearful watch, but nobody came near them save some flying na- tives, who stated that they had been pursued by British soldiers. "Kavanagh having been roused, the two went on once more. Another mile or so was traversed, and then (it being about four o'clock in the morning of the 10th) the welcome challenge '"\¥ho goes there?' rang on their ears. It was a mounted pa- trol of Sikhs. They had reached the British out- posts. "Two men of the patrol guided Kavanagh and his companion to the camp, where they were im- mediately conducted into the presence of Sir Colin Campbell. T^Hien he learned that Kavanagh had come through the rebel lines, the Commander-in- Chief could not find enough words to express his admiration. 'I consider his escape,' he wrote in his despatch, 'at a time when the entrenchment was closely invested by a large army, one of the most daring feats ever attempted.' "For his part Kavanagh paid a generous tribute to his fellow-spy, Kunoujee Lai, who had displayed wonderful courage and intelligence in their trying journey. "When they were questioned it was the native who did most of the speaking, and he always had a ready answer for the most searching inter- rogation. "The news of Kavanagh 's arrival was signaled to Lucknow by means of a flag from the summit of TO WIN THE , V. C. 367 the Alumbagh, and Outram's mind was set at ease. In dne course the plucky Irishman guided Sir Colin into the city, being present through all the fierce fighting at the Secunderabagh and the Moti-Ma- hal, and further distinguished himself by saving a wounded soldier's life. Nor does this close the tale of his adventures, for he passed through many exciting experiences in rebel-hunting ere the Mutiny was suppressed." PART VI DYING, AND LIVING, FOR OTHERS The biologists tell us the most deeply rooted in- stinct ive have is to save ourselves from danger. The profound bodily changes ivhich tahe place when fear masters a man are all directed toivards pre- paring him to fly from tvhatever threatens him. Anger is the same inherited motive protecting the individual hy attach instead of flight. These are beyond volition; due to the very organism's will to live; an expression of our deepest selves as made by our ancestors for countless generations. Yet the material philosopher would be hard put to it to explain all human conduct on this basis. For every day we see men voluntarily doing things that are difficult, dangerous, excruciating, fatal. That is what we call bravery, in its myriad forms. What causes them to fly in the face of this in- stinct ivhich has become "second nature" to the race through tens of thousands of years? It lUould be absurd to try to tveigh or measure courage exactly. Its springs are too complex, too elusive. And even the simplest emotion defies pre- cise valuation. But as one studies the matter these motives that drive us against the current do seem to arrange themselves in some sort of order. There is a scale from loiver to higher, differ as ive may regarding special details of it. Obviously, the obstacles overcome {internal ob- stacles as tvell as external) are a measure of the QUANTITY. The QUALITY must differ ivith the urging impulse. The latter has as wide a range as human nature. 371 One may say, for instance, that these are the dominating emotions that make a man meet or seek hardship and danger: Love op his own life. Love of treasure, money — that is, material poiver. Love of fighting — the innate pleasure at con- quering obstacles. Love of reputation — among one's fellows. Love of knowledge — a higher sort of poiver. Love of his job — ivhat we call a sense of respon- sibility. Love of someone belonging to him. Love of humanity. Christian, Jeiv, Mahometan, Parsee, Shintoist and agnostic alike agree that the man ivho thinks of others before himself has reached the highest plane to which human nature can attain. And fortu- nately for the world, the sight of human misery seems always to rouse in some luckier human the resolve to alleviate it, at ivhatever cost. Thus John Hoivard, known to his country gen- tlemen neighbors as an eccentric miser, spent his fortune and most of his working years in visiting loathsome and infected jails in order to improve the treatment of prisoners. Probably no one born in the last half century can realize the kind of nurses ivho ivere considered good enough for the sick before the time of Flor- ence Nightingale. Dickens's immortal Sairey Gamp is a joy to read about — yet the type from ivhich she ivas drawn must have made illness a tragedy. Miss Nightingale's superb devotion to the hospitals of the Crimea broke her down, but it revolutionised 372 the care of the sicJc and tvounded. Our ivJiole mar- velous system of trained nurses and Bed Cross nurses has been an outgroivth of her pioneer ivorlc, and that of Clara Barton in the Civil War. There is many another which it ivas hard to omit from this little collection: Dr. Grenfell, bringing comfort to the bodies and minds and souls of the poor fishermen on the bleaJc Labrador coast; General Booth and his work ivith the city hopeless; and the scores of heroic tales that have someivhat lightened the tragedy of the Great War — like those magnifi- cent Irish nuns ivho stayed quietly in their ancient monastery at Ypres amid the battle horrors, offer- ing shelter to all; and Corporal Angus {to name one of hundreds on hundreds), ivho cratvled seventy yards to the enemy trenches ivlien every inch was sivept by shells and bullets, and returned tvith his wounded lieutenant and forty ivounds; and Osmond K. Ingram {the first enlisted man to have a United States ivarship named for him), ivho saved the lives of the entire creiv of the destroyed Cassin, — and lost his oivn — during an attack by a submarine, through rushing to a pile of munitions and dumping them overboard. Nor is the flood-tide of war's excitement, or the moral fever against public outrage, needed to arouse this devotion wJiich can defy such deep primal instincts. When all is said, it's often easier to die, than to live, for another. Anybody ivould choose to have the tooth out, rather than that the dentist should day after day explore quivering nerves. The truly amazing thing is, hoio many such stories as the following homely one come to light if a man but pause in the swirl of to-day 373 long enough to look beneath the surfaces of the lives about Mm. A group of husky country boys stood outside the store in a little New England town. Along came a boived, shambling , gaunt, saturnine old man, lips clamped tight, face resentfully brooding, solitary clearly by his own choice. The boys grinned at each other as he passed with- out paying any attention to them. One of the croivd mimicked comically old Josh's crabbed, drag- ging shuffle. Snickers applauded him. Somebody threw a peanut shell — whereat bent Josh turned on them so fiercely that they fell back in haste. His touchy anger was all the more joke. So funny ivas it that one of the youngsters could not refrain from trying to reproduce the humor at home that night. To his surprise, the jolly, powerful, big uncle, who was his boyish idol, did not respond as usual. On the contrary, his face grew solemn. "Yes," said he, "Josh isn't much to look at noiv- adays. A bit short in his ivays, too. Still, it isn't hardly surprising when you come to think of it. "He ivas different once. "When I was a few years older'n you, and con- siderable stouter I will say, there ivasn't a fellow in this toivn that coiXld out-jump, or out-run, or out-chop Josh Wheeler. Nor keep up ivith him in the hay field, neither. And as for handling a break- ing-plow behind two yoke of steers — ivhy, folks got to leaving such jobs till he could come. "He was thrifty, like his old man; got a farm of his oivn before the rest of us, and started in at it like all-possessed. 374 "There was a reason, of course. Josh liked to shoot and fish and play round just like all of us. The reason's name ivas Molly Crofts. A good one, too. 'Tivould have been good enough for me and half a dozen others. Big and strong and quick she %vas, and pretty! I can see her yet that picnic day in her starched pink frock. But she couldn't see nobody else ivhen Joshua ivas round. And that was nat'ral enough, to most of the boys. "They ivere engaged quite a spell: took some years for Josh to get the farm up, and fix the old house nice, and scrape together furniture. "At last, though, the time came. One nice Sun- day Josh ivent over to the Crofts place to tell her he was ready. Planned to get married that spring, he did. Everything ivas all ivorked out. Felt pretty good that morning. Josh did. "He saw the doctor driving along the road in his gig as he cut across lots, but that didn't worry him none. Molly hadn't never complained none, and she always looked like a real farm girl. "She ivas alone when he ivent in. He told her ivhat he come for. And then she turned white and said she couldn't never marry him, because the doc- tor had just said she was going to be paralyzed. "I don't know what he called the trouble, but it was a hind of creeping paralysis, and it'd been coming on some time. Warn't no doubt at all, the doctor declared, that very soon she couldn't walk; and after that the thing would go right on. She might live a long time, what was left alive of her; and so she said of course she ivasn't going to marry Josh and be just a burden. "Josh just listened, saying nothing. Always was 375 a hinder quiet customer. Josh ivas. When she was all through, he says: " 'Molly, we been in love with each other a good many years. Are still, I guess. I can't see that this thing changes anything. We'll he married early next month.' "She hrohe down and cried at that. Vowed she couldn't do it. But of course Josh had his ivay. Generally did when he set his mind on it. "So they were married, and moved into the neiv place, and Josh tvorhed harder than ever. "The doctor %vas right, right to a dot. 'Tivarn't long ivhen Molly couldn't walk. "Josh tvorhed for two then, inside the house and out. Besides that, he cared for her as if she was a baby. He'd lift her in his arms and set her in a chair ivhere she could look out and see him in the fields. He cooked and did the houseivork most of the time, and nursed her; for she hadn't any women folks to help, and there ivasn't hardly no- body to hire even if he'd had the money. "Of course, the farm suffered, spite of all he could do. One man against a farm is odds enough without having a hand tied behind his back. He had to mortgage it. But he hung on. Folks still really worked in those days, but I don't knoiv's I ever did see anybody %vork like Josh Wheeler. You try it. Then you'll see. "And all the time, ivhenever he was with her, I'll swear you'd have thought he had money in the bank and not a trouble in his mind. "I know, for she kneiv and she told me one day. You couldn't fool Molly. She understood, every- thing. Used to pray to die, she did. 'Stead of 37f> that she lived on, lived for year after year unahle to move hand or foot, everything dead it seemed lihe, except her mind and her heart. And Josh kept right along, 'sif everything ivas going fine. "Must have heen all of tivelve years, I guess. Then Molly died, at last. "So you see Hain't hardly to he ivondered at, 'tout Josh." But the hoy has ivondered at Josh a good many times. 377 CHAPTER XXVII THE SICK MAN WHO SLEW THE WOLF It is long indeed since the days when charitable Englishmen built strongholds where travelers might take refuge at night from the dread at- tacks of wolves, and the King of Wales rendered yearly tribute to his Saxon overlord in the shape of 300 wolfskins. To be sure, the wolf is still a terror like that of old in parts of northeastern Germany, Russia and Siberia; and but a few years back even France paid annual bounty for the de- struction of a thousand of these savage marauders. In western Europe and the United States, how- ever, the wolf has been outnumbered and attacked by a more dangerous and cunning animal than himself — man. And he has passed from the frozen wastes where his packs ruled by terrifying ferocity, into — "Red Riding Hood." The wolf of fear is no more in these parts: instead we count his dog de- scendants among our dearest household friends, or use their vigor to make travel possible to Alaskan gold mines, even to reach the North Pole. But civilization not yet completely civilized brought its own wolf — the horrible, ravenous, in- sidious Lupus (as the Romans called the four- footed brute), which attacks the face by choice, which long defied alike the unguents and the harsher burnings and cuttings of the doctor's art, murder- ing its victim by slow, relentless torture. 379 380 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Happily this loathsome disease is comparatively rare in the United States. In northern Europe, however, centuries after man had gained the upper hand of Canis lupus, this face lupus of the invisible bacilli of tuberculosis was an even more hopeless scourge. Guns and traps were useless against these swarming myriads of minute invaders; use- less also the accumulated skill of physician and surgeon: "once the wolf had buried its fangs in its victim, he was doomed to inevitable death." Then, twenty-five years ago, came a Norse wolf- slayer. By the fishing settlement of Thorshavn in the Faroe Islands, far up above Scotland's most north- ern cape, a small boy sat one day, just about the time when the German armies were entering con- quered Paris, carving his name on a rock. "His rough-coated pony cropped the tufts of stunted grass within call. The grim North Sea beat upon the shore below. What thoughts of the great world without it stirred in the boy he never told. He came of a people to whom it called through all the ages Mith a summons that rarely went un- heeded. If he heard he gave no sign. Slowly and laboriously he traced the letters N. R. F. When he had finished he surveyed his work with a quiet smile. 'There!' he said, 'that is done.' "The years went by, and a distant city paused in its busy life to hearken to bells tolling for one who lay dead. Kings and princes walked behind his coffin and a whole people mourned. Yet in life he had worn no purple. He was a plain, even a poor man. Upon his grave they set a rock brought from the island in the North Sea, just like the other that stands there yet, and in it they hewed the let- THE MAN WHO SLEW THE WOLF 381 ters N. R. F., for the man and the boy were one. And he who spoke there said for all mankind that what he wrought was well done, for it was done bravely and in love." This N. R. F., who was to receive the Nobel Prize for the heroes of peace for his deeds, whom Kings were to honor after death, was Niels Ryberg Finsen. Rugged Iceland folk were his forebears, and in the school of Reykjavik the quiet, self-contained boy spent seven years without impressing anybody as a person who Was apt to slay wolves or do any- thing else particularly stirring. It was a school that would have pleased the modern Montessori educators, for the pupils, some of them nearly gro'ftTi, devoted nearly all their energies to the special subjects that interested each; in the summer vacations they herded sheep or went out in the fish- ing fleet, or ran wild over the island hills. Nine years more of concentrated hard work at Copenhagen were needed to give Niels Finsen his coveted sheepskin of a physician; and while at twenty-three he was already gripped by the dis- ease which was to hamper his efforts for twenty years,* he was an indefatigable sailor, and a cham- pion rifle-shot, — as well as an ardent partisan of the people in the struggle then going on over the government's tax prerogatives. His outdoor life, his sturdy heritage, his slow, resolute, persistent attack on every subject, his remarkable faculty of bringing embalmed science from books back to bear on matters of every-day life — these made him a man of power in his pro- *A slow hardening of the heart memljranes, involving all the vital organs and causing a sort of dropsy for which he was "tapped" twenty times. 382 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY fession. Teaching and tutoring to make a scanty living, he planned to use his steady hand in that most delicate field of eye-surgery. But by what seemed the merest chance, his study of sight and action of light led him to a great discovery, which was to determine his work in the world. "In the yard of Regentsen there grows a fa- mous old linden tree. Standing at his window one day and watching its young leaf sprout, Finsen saw a cat sunning itself on the pavement. The shadow of the house was just behind it and pres- ently crept up on pussy, who got up, stretched her- self and moved into the sunlight. In a little while the shadow overtook her there, and pussy moved once more. Finsen watched the shadow rout her out again and again. It was clear the cat liked the sunlight. "A few days later he stood upon a bridge and saw a little squad of insects sporting on the wiater. They drifted down happily with the stream till they came mthin the shadow of the bridge, when they at once began to work their way up a piece to get a fresh start for a sunlight sail. Finsen knew just how they felt. His own room looked north and was sunless; his work never prospered as it did when he sat with a friend whose room was on the south side, where the sun came in. It was warm and pleasant; but was that all? Was it only the warmth that made the birds break into song when the sun came out on a cloudy day, made the insects hum joyously and made himself walk with a more springy step? The housekeeper who 'sunned' the bedclothes and looked with sus- picion on a dark room had something else in mind; the sun 'disinfected* the bedding. Finsen THJ^] MAN WHO SLEW THE WOLF 383 wanted to know what it was in the sunlight that had this power, and how we could borrow it and turn it to use. "The men of science had long before analyzed the sunlight. They had broken it up into the rays of different color that together make the white light Ave see. Any boy can do it with a prism, and in the band or spectrum of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet that then appears he has before him the cipher that holds the key to the secrets of the uni- verse if we but know how to read it aright ; for the sunlight is the physical source of all life and of all power. The different colors represent rays with different wave-lengths; that is, they vibrate mth different speed and do different work. The red vi- brate only half as fast as the violet, at the other end of the spectrum, and, roughly speaking, they are the heat carriers. The blue and violet are cold by comparison. They are the force carriers. They have power to cause chemical changes, hence are known as the chemical or actinic rays. It is these the photographer shuts out of his dark room, when he intrenches himself behind a ruby-colored window. The chemical ray cannot pass that ; if it did it would spoil his plate." This much was known, and it had been suggested more than once that the "disinfecting" qualities of the sunlight might be due to the chemical rays kill- ing germs. Finsen, experimenting with earthworms, earwigs and butterflies in a box covered with glass of the different colors of the spectrum, noted first that the bugs that naturally burrowed in darkness became uneasy in the blue light. As fast as they were able, they got out of it and crawled into the red, where they lay quiet and apparently content. When the ,384 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY glass covers were changed they wandered about un- til they found the red light again. The earwigs were the smartest. They developed an intelligent grasp of the situation, and soon learned to make straight for the red room. The butterflies, on the other hand, liked the red light only to sleep in. It was made clear by many such experiments that the chemical rays, and they only, had power to stimulate, to "stir life. ' ' Finsen called it that himself. In the language of the children, he was getting "warm." "That this power, \\ke any other, had its perils, and that nature, if not man, was awake to them, he proved by some simple experiments with sunburn. He showed that the tan which boys so covet was the defence the skin puts forth against the blue ray. The inflammation of sunburn is succeeded by the brown pigmentation that henceforth stands guard like the photographer 's ruby window, protecting the deeper layers of the skin. The black skin of the negro Was no longer a mystery. It is his protection against the fierce sunlight of the tropics and the injurious effect of its chemical ray. "Searching the libraries in Copenhagen for the records of earlier explorers in his field, and finding little enough there, Finsen came across the report of an American army surgeon on a smallpox epidemic in the South in the thirties of the last century. There were so many sick in the fort that, every available room being filled, they had to put some of the pa- tients into the bomb-proof, a great inconvenience to all round, as it was entirely dark there. The doctor noted incidentally that, as if to make up for it, the underground patients got well sooner and escaped pitting. To him it was a curious incident, nothing more. Upon Dr. Finsen, sitting there with the sev- THE MAN WHO SLEW THE WOLF 385 enty-five-year-old report from across the sea in his hand, it burst with a flood of light : the patients got well without scarring because they were in the dark. Eed light or darkness, it was all the same. The point was that the chemical rays that could cause sunburn on men climbing glaciers, and had power to irritate the sick skin, were barred out. Within a month he jolted the medical world by announcing that small- pox patients treated unden red light would recover speedily and Av'ithout disfigurement. ''The learned scoffed. There were some of them who had read of the practice of the Middle Ages of smothering smallpox patients in red blankets, giv- ing them red wine to drink, and hanging the room with scarlet. Finsen had not heard of it, and was much interested. Evidently they had been groping tow'ard the truth. How they came upon the idea is not the only mystery of that strange day, for they knew nothing of actinic rays or sunlight analyzed. But Finsen calmly invited the test, which was speedy in coming. ' ' They had smallpox in Bergen, Norway, and there the matter was put to the proof with entire success ; later in Sweden and in Copenhagen. The patients who were kept under the red light recovered rap- idly, though some of them were unvaccinated chil- dren, and bad cases. In no instance was the most dangerous stage of the disease, the festering stage, reached; the temperature did not rise again, and they all came out unscarred. "Finsen pointed out that where other methods of treatment such as painting the face with iodine or lunar caustic, or covering it Avith a mask or with fat, had met with any success in the past, the prin- ciple was involved of protecting the skin from the 386 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY light, although the practitioner did not know it. He was doing the thing they did in the Middle Ages, and calling them quacks. ''It is strange but true that Dr. Finsen had never seen a smallpox patient at that time, but he knew the nature of the disease, and that the sufferer was affected by its eruption first and worst on the face and hands — that is to say, on the parts of the body exposed to the light — and he was as sure of his ground as was Leverrier when, fifty years before, he bade his fellow astronomers look in a particular spot of the heavens for an unknown planet that dis- turbed the movements of Uranus. And they found the one we call Neptune there. "Presently all the world knew that the first im- portant step had been taken toward harnessing in the service of man the strange force in the sunlight that had been the object of so much speculation and conjecture. The next step followed naturally. In the published account of his early experiments Fin- sen foreshadows it in the words, 'That the beginning has been made with the hurtful effects of this force is odd enough, since mthout doubt its beneficial force is far greater.' His clear head had already asked the question: if the blue rays of the sun can pene- trate deep enough into the skin to cause injury, why should they not be made to do police duty there and catch and kill offending germs — in short, to heal? "Finsen had demonstrated the correctness of the theory that the chemical rays have power to kill germs. But it happens that these are the rays that have least penetration. How to make them go deeper was the problem. By an experiment that is, in its simplicity, wholly characteristic of the man, he dem- THE MAN WHO SLEW THE WOLF 387 onstrated that the red blood in the deepest layers of the skin Avas the obstacle. He placed a piece of photographic paper behind the lobe of his wife 's ear and concentrated powerful blue rays on the other side. Five minutes of exposure made no impression on the paper; it remained white. But when he squeezed all the blood out of the lobe, by pressing it between two pieces of glass, the paper was black- ened in twenty seconds. "That night Finsen knew that he had within his grasp that which would make him a rich man if he so chose. He had only to construct apparatus to condense the chemical rays and double their power many times, and to apply his discovery in medical practice. Wealth and fame would come quickly. He told the writer in his own simple way how he talked it over with his wife. They were poor. Finsen 's salary as a teacher at the university AA^as something like $1,200 a year. He was a sick man, and Avealth would buy leisure and luxury. Children Avere grow- ing up about them who needed care. They talked it out together, and resolutely turned their backs upon it all. Hand in hand they faced the world with their sacrifice. What remained of life to him was to be devoted to suffering mankind. That duty done, AA'^hatever came they Avould meet together. Wealth never came, but fame in full measure, and the love and gratitude of their felloAA^-men. . . . "One day Finsen annoimced to the world his sec- ond discovery, that lupus (the most dreadful of all the forms in which the white plague scourges man- kind) was cured by the simple application of light. "It was not a conjecture, a theory, like the red- light treatment for smallpox ; it was a fact. For two years he had been sending people aAvay whole and 388 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY happy who came to him in despair. The wolf was slain, and by this silent sufferer whose modest es- tablishment was all contained within a couple of shanties in a corner of the city hospital grounds, at Copenhagen. "There was a pause of amazed incredulity. The scientific men did not believe it. Three years later, when the physician in charge of Finsen's clinic told at the medical congress in Paris of the results ob- tained at the Light Institute, his story was still re- ceived with a polite smile. The smile became aston- ishment when, at a sign from him, the door opened and twelve healed lupus patients came in, each carry- ing a photograph of himself as he was before he •underwent the treatment. Still the doctors could not grasp it. The thing was too simple as matched against all their futile skill. "But the people did not doubt. There was a rush from all over Europe to Copenhagen. Its streets became filled with men and women whose faces were shrouded in bandages, and it was easy to tell the new-comers from those who had seen 'the profes- sor.' They came in gloom and misery! they went away carrying in their faces the sunshine that gave them back their life. Finsen never tired, when show- ing friends over his Institute, of pointing out the joyous happiness of his patients. It was his reward. For not 'science for science's sake,' or pride in his achievement, was his aim and thought, but just the wish to do good where he could. Then, in three more years, they awarded him the great Nobel prize for signal service to humanity, and criticism was si- lenced. All the world applauded. ' ' ' They gave it to me this year, ' said Finsen, with his sad little smile, 'because they knew that next THE MAN WHO SLEW THE WOLF 389 year it would have been too late.' And he proph- esied truly. He died nine months later. "All that is here set down seems simple enough. But it was achieved with infinite toil and patience^ by the most painstaking experiments, many times repeated to make sure. In his method of working Finsen was eminently conservative and thorough. Nothing 'happened' with him. There was ever be- hind his doings a definite purpose for which he sought a way, and the higher the obstacles piled up the more resolutely he set his teeth and kept right on. 'The thing is not in itself so difficult,' he said, when making ready for his war upon the wolf, 'but the road is long and the experiments many before we find the right way.' "He took no new step before he had planted his. foot firmly in the one that went before; but once he knew where he stood, he did not hesitate to ques- tion any scientific dogma that opposed him, always in his own quiet way, backed by irrefutable facts. In a remarkable degree he had the faculty of getting down through the husk to the core of things, but he rejected nothing untried. The little thing in hand, he ever insisted, if faithfully done might hold the key to the whole problem ; only let it be noiv to get the matter settled. "Whatever his mind touched it made perfectly clear, if it was not so already. As a teacher of anat- omy he invented a dissecting knife that was an im- provement on those in use, and clamps for securing the edges of a wound in an operation. As a rifle shot he made an improved breech; as a physician, observing the progress of his own disease, an effec- tive blood powder for anaemia. At the Light Insti- tute, which friends built for him, and the govern- 390 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY ment endowed, he devised the powerful electric lamps to which he turned in the treatment of lupus, for the sun does not shine every day in Copenhagen; and when it did not, the lenses that gathered the blue rays and concentrated them upon the swollen faces were idle. And gradually he increased their power, checking the heat rays that would slip through and threatened to scorch the patient's skin, by cunning devices of cooling streams trickling through the tubes and hollow lenses. "Nothing was patented; it was all given freely to the world. The decision which he and his wife made together was made once for all. When the great Nobel prize was given to him he turned it over to the Light Institute, and was with difficulty per- suaded to keep half of it for himself only when friends raised an equal amount and presented it to the Institute. "Finsen knew that his discoveries were but the first groping steps upon a new road that stretched farther ahead than any man living can now see. He Avas content to have broken the way. His faith was unshaken in the ultimate treatment of the whole organism under electric light that, by concentrating the chemical rays, would impart to the body their life-giving power. He himself was beyond their help. Daily he felt life slipping from him, but no word of complaint passed his lips. He prescribed for him- self a treatment that, if anything, was worse than the disease. Only a man of iron will could have carried it through. "A set of scales stood on the table before him, and for years he weighed every mouthful of food he ate. He suffered tortures from thirst because he would allow no ^uid to pass his lips, on account of THE MAN WHO SLEW THE WOLF 391 liis tendency to dropsy. Through it all he cheerfully kept up his labors, rejoicing that he was allowed to do so much. His courage was indomitable; his op- timism under it all unwavering. His favorite conten- tion was that there is nothing in the world that is not good for something, except war. That he hated, and his satire on the militarism of Europe as its supreme folly was keen and biting. "Of such quality was this extraordinary man of whom the world was talking, while the fewest, even in his own home city, ever saw him. Fewer still knew him well. It suited his temper and native mod- esty, as it did the state of his bodily health, to keep himself secluded. His motto was: 'Bene vixit qui bene latuit' — 'he has lived well who has kept himself well hidden' — and his contention was always that in proportion as one could keep himself in the back- ground his cause prospered, if it was a good cause. When kings and queens came visiting, he could not always keep in hiding, though he often tried. On one of his days of extreme prostration the dowager empress of Russia knocked vainly at his door. She pleaded so hard to be allowed to see Dr. Finsen that they relented at last, and she sat by his bed and w^ept in sympathy mth his sufferings, while he with his brave smile on lips that would tmtch mth pain did his best to comfort her. She and Queen Alexandra, both daughters of King Christian, carried the gospel of hope and healing from his study to their own lands, and Light Institutes sprang up all over Eu- rope. "In his o^\Ti life he treated nearly nineteen hun- dred sufferers, nearly two-thirds of them lupus pa- tients, and scarce a handful went from his door imhelped. When his work was done he fell asleep 392 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY with a smile upon his lips, and the 'universal judg- ment was one of universal thanksgiving that he had lived. ' He was forty-three years old, "When the news of his death reached the Rigsdag, the Danish parliament, it voted his widow a pension such as had been given to few Danes in any day. The king, his sons and daughter, and, as it seemed, the whole people followed his body to the grave. The rock from his native island marks the place where he lies. His work is his imperishable monu- ment. His epitaph he wrote himself in the speech another read when the Nobel prize was aAvarded him, for he was too ill to speak: " 'May the Light Institute grasp the obligation that comes with its success, the obligation to main- tain what I account the highest aim in science — truth, faithful work, and sound criticism.' " Of old, men prayed to Apollo the Sun God that lie would dart his piercing spears against their en- emies, and refresh themselves with his life-giving beams. Nils Finsen grasped the sun-god's power and turned it against the common enemy of mankind, the cunning myriad-fanged wolf, and brought the sick from death to life. CHAPTEE XXVIII A CALL FEOM GEEENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS Picture to yourself an iron-bound coast. A wall of wrinkled rocks, cold, stark, duU-hued, through which the tearing claws of the sea have pierced jagged rents, twisting far into the bowels of deso- lation. Behind, a great rising rampart of gashed and scooped-out hills, black save in the white hollows levelled by the snow, scourged for centuries by the keen and mighty breath of polar winds. And bul- warking the hard crest-line, — resembling a threat- ening boundary mark drawn by some cold-hearted pole demon with one giant stroke — a vast ice-cap, covering the land 's stone framework half a mile deep' with its colossal frozen deadness, where is no hint that life has ever come into the world save a few tiny patches of red protoplasmic plants, like drops of blood upon the infinity of blankness. A clumsy little vessel worries its way through a narrow lane of -open water into the mouth of the deep-gashed harbor, her oaken sides grinding and crunching against the floating ice-cakes. At her bow and gazing raptly inland is a spare figure in long black Danish pastor 's gown. He pays no heed to the noise and jarring of the ship, shoul- dering the floating obstructions out of its path, nor to the noisy robber jaeger gulls, with long, sharp tails like two-tined forks, nor to the seals staring 393 394 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY round-eyed from rock and ice at the intruder and then plopping into the water as became prudent, peaceful bourgeois, nor even to that moving spot on yonder floe which the captain's telescope reveals as a ten-foot polar bear, alert for either food or feeders on bear-steaks. His eyes and thoughts are absorbed in that one velvet green patch upon the cloak of black and white that garbs tliis melancholy land. It is a lush meadow, where the brief summer sun draws forth from congealed barrenness, with the speed of the Hindu conjurer evoking a mango treelet from be- neath a handkerchief, deep emerald grass all be- sprinkled with forget-me-nots and anemones and wild geraniums, and hyperborean snowflakes looking like white tulips wafted by the breeze across a spring garden, instead of winged creatures bursting with songs of mating. His toil-roughened hands grip tight and a smile illumines the pale, earnest, draAvn face, as there floats across the water the familiar thrilling bobo- link's carol of the Lapland longspurs, sounding like the treble voices of gay children at play in the fields, which had so often lifted his heart free from the dreary round of toil among the poor fisher-folk of the remote Lofoden Islands. It seems like the ac- cents of some cheerful friend from these daunting shores. This tremulously eager venturer is Hans Egede. Two thousand miles he has voyaged, from far-off Bergen in Norway, following a dream that will not let him rest content even in the most isolated fringes of the fatherland, and while spending his uttermost self upon the souls and bodies of his pinched and ignorant people. FROM GREENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS 395 An avid, brilliant scholar, he has gulped down the whole undergraduate course at Copenhagen Univer- sity in a single year; following in the footsteps of father and grandfather clergymen, he has made him- self comrade and guide to the simple fisher-folk of the upper Norwegian coast, where the fabled mael- strom opens its whirling funnel to the nether waters beneath the unwary keel ; but even while ministering to the myriad needs of his flock and rebuilding their church with his own hands, he has been haunted by the thought of westward journeying vikings of the dim past. From sagas, from folk-tales, from old manuscripts, from logs of forgotten whaling-ships he has gath- ered the tale : how the banished Jarl, Eric the Red, seven hundred and thirty-five years before, pressed across the narrow sea from Iceland to that Green- land once sighted by Ulf the Dragon; how he and his house built them dwellings there, were joined by other hardy Norse men and women, founded the Eastern and the Western Building {Oster Bygd and Vester Bygd) ; how th^ built churches and had priests froin the homeland after Norway bowed to the mild sway of the White Christ, paying Peter's Pence to Rome in walrus teeth and sending back to the mother country treasures of blubber, furs, seal- skins, ivory and eiderdown; how when the Black Death in the fourteenth century swept over Europe and left two- thirds of Norway's folk dead before it folded its wings of pestilence, communication with this furthest colony (changed from the original re- public to a fief of King Hakon's in 1261) was utterly cut off; how the native Eskimo had come down upon the remnant that remained and annihilated them in one last Ragnarok battle; and how from that day 396 THE BOOK OF BKAVEEY to the present the Greenland Northmen were but a memory. The scholar has thrilled with the vitality and ro- mance of the tale. The priest has burned with an ever-deepening conviction that he has been predes- tined to carry the gospel once more to the descend- ants of these furthest roaming vikings, now perhaps plunged again into heathen darkness. Obsessed with the belief that this Norse blood is calling from afar, he has galvanized his worldly- minded bishop into urging a trading-missionary set- tlement ; he has squeezed a yearly pittance from the royal treasury, adding as much from his own meagre savings; he has overcome the fioutings of friends, the fears of his wife; and with a pitiful band of forty-six settlers has sailed into the unknown North- west seas on the sturdy little Hope. A whole month after sighting the Greenland shore they have floundered about amid drift ice and bergs sweeping down on the Spitzbergen stream, in mo- mentary peril of being crushed by the towering dere- licts, shivering in the very shadow of death. And now on this bright July 3 of 1721, delivered from the jaws of the ice-pack as by a miracle, he sees the scene of his dream at hand. Eomance and mystery and adventure and missionary zeal throb into an expectation that is sharp as pain : what will he find? "What answer will come to him from the shadow of these icy mountains, whither a fancied ■cry for help has drawn him? Will some stal- wart voice from shore hail him in his own familiar tongue ? Some answer comes. A flock of skin canoes, decked over till the paddler seems but a human water spider, skims out from the cove, by which FEOM GREENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS 397 clusters a group of low huts like natural earth mounds. All on board gather at the rail to see what sort of beings these are among whom they have come so far to live and work. Northlanders they are, but different enough from the men of his o-\vn blood that Pastor Egede has seen in his visions. The story has been told with peculiar understand- ing by a writer of Danish blood: "The Eskimos came out in their kayaks, and the boldest climbed aboard the ship. In one boat sat an old man who refused the invitation. He paddled about the vessel, mumbling darkly in a strange tongue. He was an Angekok, one of the native med- icine-men of whom presently Egede was to know much more. As he stood upon the deck and looked at these strangers for whose salvation he had risked all, his heart fell. They were not the stalwart North- men he had looked for, and their jargon had no homelike sound. But a great wave of pity swept over him, and the prayer that rose to his lips was for strength to be their friend and their guide to the light. "Not at once did the way open for the coveted friendship with the Eskimos. While they thought the strangers came only to trade they were hospit- able enough, but when they saw them build, clearly intent on staying, they made signs that they had better go. They pointed to the sun that sank lower toward the horizon every day, and shivered as if from extreme cold, and they showed their visitors the icebergs and the snow, making them understand that it would cover the house by and by. When it all availed nothing and the winter came on, they retired into their huts and cut the acquaintance of 398 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY the white men. They were afraid that they had come to take revenge for the harm done their people in the olden time. There was nothing for it, then, but that Egede must go to them, and this he did. "They seized their spears when they saw him com- ing, but he made signs that he was their friend. When he had nothing else to give them, he let them cut the buttons from his coat. Throughout the fif- teen years he spent in Greenland, Egede never wore furs, as did the natives. The black robe he thought more seemly for a clergyman, to his great discom- fort. He tells in his diary and in his letters that often when he returned from his winter travels it could stand alone when he took it off, being frozen stiff. "After a while he got upon neighborly terms with the Eskimos; but if anything the discomfort was greater. They housed him at night in their huts, where the filth and the stench were unendurable. They showed their special regard by first licking off the piece of seal they put before him, and if he re- jected it they were hurt. Their housekeeping, of which he got an inside view, was embarrassing in its simplicity. The dish-washing was done by the dogs licking the kettles clean. Often, after a night or two in a hut that held half a dozen families, he was compelled to change his clothes to the skin in an open boat or out on the snow. But the alternative was to sleep out in a cold that sometimes froze his piUow to the bed and the tea-cup to the table even in his own home. Above all, he must learn their language. "It proved a difficult task, for the Eskimo tongue was both very simple and very complex. In all the things pertaining to their daily life it was exceed- FROM GREENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS 399 ingly complex. For instance, to catch one kind of fish was expressed by one word, to catch another kind in quite different terms. They had one word for catching a young seal, another for catching an old one. When it came to matters of moral and spiritual import, the language was poor to desperation. Egede 's instruction began when he caught the word 'kine' — what is it"? And from that time on he learned every day; but the pronunciation was as varied as the workaday vocabulary, and it was an unending task. "It proceeded with many interruptions from the Angekoks, who tried more than once to bewitch him, but finally gave it up, convinced that he was a great medicine-man himself, and therefore invulnerable. But before that they tried to foment a regular mu- tiny, the colony being by that time well under way, and Egede had to arrest and punish the leaders. The natives naturally clung to them, and when Egede had mastered their language and tried to make clear that the Angekoks deceived them when they pre- tended to go to the other world for advice, they de- murred. " 'Did you ever see them gof he asked. " 'Well, have you seen this God of yours of whom you talk so much?' was their reply. "When Egede spoke of spiritual gifts they asked for good health and blubber : ' Our Angekoks give us that. ' Hell-fire was much in theological evidence in those days, but among the Eskimos it was a failure as a deterrent. They listened to the account of it eagerly and liked the prospect. When at last they became convinced that Egede knew more than their Angekoks, they came to him with the request that he would abolish winter. Very likely they thought 400 THE BOOK OF BEAVERY that one who had such knowledge of the hot place ought to have influence enough with the keeper of it to obtain this favor. "It was not an easy task, from any point of view, to which he had put his hands. As that first winter night wore away there were gloomy days and nights, and they were not brightened when, with the return of the sun, no ship arrived from Denmark. The Dutch traders came, and opened their eyes wide when they found Egede and his household safe and even on friendly terms with the Eskimos. Pelesse — the natives called the missionary that, as the nearest they could come to the Danish prdst (priest) — Pe- lesse was not there after blubber they told the Dutch- men, but to teach them about heaven and of 'Him up there, ' who had made them and wanted them home with Him again. So he had not worked altogether in vain. But the brief summer passed, and still no relief ship. The crew of Haabet (the Hope) clam- ored to go home, and Egede had at last to give a re- luctant promise that if no ship came in two weeks, he would break up. His wife refused to take a hand in packing. The ship was coming, she insisted, and at the last moment it did come. A boat arriving after dark brought the first word of it. The people ashore heard voices speaking in Danish, and flew to Egede, who had gone to bed, with the news. The ship brought good cheer. The Grovernment was well disposed. Trading and preaching were to go on to- gether, as planned. Joyfully then they built a big- ger and a better house, and called their colony Oodt- Jiaah (Good Hope). "The work was noAV fairly under way. Of the energy and the hardships it entailed, even we in our day that have heard so much of Arctic exploration TEOM GKEENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS 401 can have but a faint conception. Shut in on the -coast of eternal ice and silence, — silence, save when in summer the Arctic rivers were alive, and crash after crash announced that the glaciers coming down from the inland mountains were 'casting their calves,' the great icebergs, upon the ocean, — the col- onists counted the days from the one when that year's ship was lost to sight till the returning spring brought the next one, their only communication with their far-off home. In summer the days were some- times burning hot, but the nights always bitterly cold. In winter, says Egede, hot water spilled on the table froze as it ran, and the meat they cooked was often frozen to the bone when set on the table. Summer and winter Egede was on his travels between Sun- days, sometimes in the trader's boat, more often the only white man with one or two Eskimo companions, seeking out the people. When night surprised him with no native hut in sight, he pulled the boat on some desert shore and, commending his soul to God, slept under it. Once he and his son found an empty hut, and slept there in the darkness. Not until day came again did they know that they had made their bed on the frozen bodies of dead men who had once been the occupants of the house, and had died they never knew how. Peril was everywhere. Again and again his little craft was wrecked. Once the house blew down over their heads in one of the dreadful winter storms that ravage those high latitudes. Often he had to sit on the rail of his boat and let his numbed feet hang into the sea to restore feeling in them. On land he sometimes waded waist-deep in snow, climbed mountains and slid down into val- leys, having but the haziest notion of where he would land. At home his brave wife sat alone, praying 402 THE BOOK OF BKAVEEY for his safety and listening to every sound that might herald his return. Tremble and doubt they did,. Egede owns, but they never flinched. Their work was before them, and they never thought of turning back. "The Eskimos soon came to know that Egede was their friend. "When his boat entered a fjord where they were fishing, and his rowers shouted out that the good priest had come who had news of Grod, they dropped their work and flocked out to meet him. Then he spoke to a floating congregation, simply as if they were children, and, as with Him whose mes- sage he bore, 'the people heard him gladly.' They took him to their sick, and asked him to breathe upon them, which he did to humor them, until he found out that it wae an Angekok practice, whereupon he refused. Once, after he had spoken of the raising- of Lazarus from the dead, they took him to a neAV- made grave and asked him, too, to bring back their dead. They brought him a blind man to be healed^ Egede looked upon them in sorroM^ul pity. " 'I can do nothing,' he said; 'but if he believes. in Jesus, He has the power and can do it.' " 'I do believe,' shouted the blind man: 'let Him heal me.' "It occurred to Egede, perhaps as a mere effort at cleanliness, to wash his eyes in cognac, and he sent him away with words of comfort. He did not see his patient again for thirteen years. Then he was in a crowd of Eskimos who came to Godthaab. The man saw as well as Egede. " 'Do you remember,' he said, 'you washed my eyes with sharp water, and the Son of God, in whom I believed, He made me to see?' "Children the Eskimos were in their idolatry, and. FROM GREENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS 403 ■children they remained as Christians. By Egede's prayers they set great store. 'Yon ask for us,' they told him. ' God does not hear ns ; He does not un- derstand Eskimo,' Of God they spoke as 'Him up there. ' They believed that the souls of the dead went up on the rainbow, and reaching the moon that night, rested there in the moon's house, on a bench covered Avlth the white skins of young polar bears. There they danced and played games, and the northern lights were the young people playing ball. After- ward they lived in houses on the shore of a big lake overshadowed by a snow mountain. When the waters ran over the edge of the lake, it rained on earth. When the 'moon was dark,' it was down on earth catching seal for a living. Thunder was caused by two old women shaking a dried sealskin between them ; the lightning came when they turned the white side out. The 'Big Nail' we have heard of as the Eskimo's Pole, was a high pointed mountain in the Farthest North on which the sky rested and turned around with the sun, moon and stars. Up there the stars were much bigger. Orion's Belt was so near that you had to carry a whip to drive him away. "The women were slaves. An Eskimo might have as many wives as he saw fit; they were his and it was nobody's business. But adultery was unknown. The seventh commandment in Egede's translation came to read, 'One wife alone you shall have and love. ' The birth of a girl was greeted with wailing. When grown, she was often wooed by violence. If she fled from her admirer, he cut her feet when he overtook her, so that she could run no more. The old women were denounced as witches who drove the seals away, and were murdered. An Eskimo who was going on a reindeer hunt, and found his aged 404 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY mother a burden, took her away and laid her in art open grave. Returning on the third day, he heard her groaning yet, and smothered her with a big stone. He tried to justify himself to Egede by saying that 'she died hard, and it was a pity not to speed her.' Yet they buried a dog's head with a child, so that the dog, being clever, could run ahead and guide the little one's steps to heaven. "They could count no further than five; at a stretch they might get to twenty, on their fingers and toes, but there they stopped. However, they were not without their resources. It was the day of long Sunday services, and the Eskimos were a restless people. When the sermon dragged, they would go up to Egede and make him measure on their arms how much longer the talk would be. Then they tramped back to their seats and sat listening Avith great attention, all the time moving one hand down the arm, checking the preacher's progress. If they got to the finger-tips before he stopped, they Avould shake their heads sourly and go back for a remeas- urement. No wonder that Egede put his chief hope in the children, whom he gathered about him in flocks. "For all that, the natives loved him. There came a day that brought this message from the North: 'Say to the speaker to come to us to live, for the other strangers who come here can only talk to us of blubber, blubber, blubber, and we also would hear of the great Creator. ' Egede went as far as he could, but was compelled by ice and storms to turn back after weeks of incredible hardships. The disappoint- ment was the more severe to him because he had never quite given up his hope of finding remnants of the ancient Norse settlements. The fact that the; FROM GREENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS 405 old records spoke of a West Bygd (settlement) and an East Bygd had misled many into believing that the desolate east coast had once been colonized.* Not till our own day was this shown to be an error, when Danish explorers searched that coast for a hundred miles and found no other trace of civiliza- tion than a beer bottle left behind by the explorer Nordenskjold. ' ' Egede 's hope had been that Greenland might be once more colonized by Christian people. When the Danish Government, after some years, sent np a handful of soldiers, with a major who took the title of governor, to give the settlement official character as a trading station, they sent with them twenty un- official 'Christians,' ten men out of the penitentiary and as many lewd and drunken women from the treadmill, who were married by lot before setting sail, to give the thing a half-way decent look. They were good enough for the Eskimos, they seem to have thought at Copenhagen. There followed a ter- rible winter, during which mutiny and murder were threatened. 'It is a pity,' writes the missionary, 'that while we sleep secure among the heathen sav- ages, with so-called Christian people our lives are not safe.' As a matter of fact they were not, for the soldiers joined in the mutiny against Egede as the cause of their having to live in such a place, and had not sickness and death smitten the malcontents, neither he nor the governor would have come safe through the winter. On the Eskimos this view of "the supposed fruits of Christian teaching made its own impression. After seeing a woman scourged on shipboard for misbehavior, they came innocently * We know now that both the West and East Buildings were on the west coast of Grreenland, not far from Litchenfels. 406 THE BOOK OF BEAVEKY enough to Egede and suggested that some of their best Angekoks be sent down to Denmark to teach the people to be sober and decent. "There came a breathing spell after ten years of labor in what had often seemed to him the spiritual as well as physical ice-barrens of the North, when Egede surveyed a prosperous mission, with trade established, a hundred and fifty children christened and schooled, and many of their elders asking to be baptized. In the midst of his rejoicing the summer's ship brought word from Denmark that the King was dead, and orders from his successor to abandon the station. Egede might stay with provisions for one year, if there was enough left over after fitting out the ship ; but after that he would receive no further help. "When the Eskimos heard the news, they brought their little children to the mission. 'These will not let you go,' they said; and he stayed. His wife, whom hardships and privation and the lonely wait- ing for her husband in the long mnter nights had at last broken down, refused to leave him, though she sadly needed the care of a physician. A few of the sailors were persuaded to stay another year. ' So now, ' Egede ^Tote in his diary when, on July 31,. 1731, he had seen the ship sail away with all his hopes, ' I am left alone with my wife and three chil- dren, ten sailors and eight Esldmos, girls and boys, who have been -with us from the start. Grod let me live to see the blessed day that brings good news once more from home.' His prayer was heard. The next summer brought word that the mission was to be continued, partly because Egede had strained every nerve to send home much blubber and many skins. But it was as a glimpse of the sun from be- FROM GREENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS 407 hind dark clouds. His greatest trials trod hard upon the good news. "To rouse interest in the mission Egede had sent home young Eskimos from time to time. Three of these died of small-pox in Denmark. The fourth came home and brought the contagion, all unknown, to his people. It was the summer fishing season, when the natives travel much and far, and wherever he went they flocked about him to hear of the ' Great Lord's land' where the houses were so tall that one could not shoot an arrow over them, and to ask a multitude of questions: Was the King very big? Had he caught many whales? Was he strong and a great Angekok? and much more of the same kind. In a week the disease broke out among the children at the mission, and soon word came from islands and fjords where the Eskimos were fishing, of death and misery unspeakable. It was virgin soil for the plague, and it was terribly virulent, striking down young and old in every tent and hut. More than two thousand natives, one-fourth of the whole popu- lation, died that summer. Of two hundred families near the mission only thirty were left alive. A cry of terror and anguish rose throughout the settle- ments. No one knew what to do. In vain did Egede implore them to keep their sick apart. In fever delirium they ran out in the ice-fields or threw them- selves into the sea. A wild panic seized the surviv- ors, and they fled to the farthest tribes, carrying the seeds of death with them wherever they went. Whole villages perished, and their dead lay unburied. Utter desolation settled like a pall over the unhappy land. ' ' Through it all a single ray of hope shone. The faith that Egede had preached all those years, and 408 THE BOOK OF BKAVERY the life he had lived with them, bore their fruit. They had struck deeper than he thought. The suf- ferers crowded to him, all that could, as their one friend. Dying mothers held their suckling babes up to him and died content. In a deserted island camp a half -grown girl was found alone with three little children. Their father was dead. When he knew that for him and the baby there was no help, he went to a cave, and covering himself and the child with skins, lay down to die. 'Before you have eaten the two seals and the fish I have laid away for you, Pelesse mil come, no doubt, and take you home. For he loves you and will take care of you.' At the mis- sion every nook and cranny was filled with the sick and the dying. Egede and his wife nursed them day and night. Childlike, when death approached, they tried to put on their best clothes, or even to have new ones made, that they might please God by com- ing into His presence looking fine. When Egede had closed their eyes, he carried the dead in his arms to the vestibule, where in the morning the men who dug the graves found them. At the sight of his suffering the scoffers were dumb. What his preach- ing had not done to win them over, his sorrow did. They were at last one. "That dreadful year left Egede a broken man. In his dark moments he reproached himself with having brought only misery to those he had come to help and serve. One thorn which one would think he might have been spared rankled deep in it all. Some missionaries of a dissenting sect — Egede was Lutheran — ^had come with the small-pox ship to set up an establishment of their o"wti. At their head was a man fu.ll of misdirected zeal and quite devoid of common-sense, who engaged Egede in a wordy dis- FROM GREENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS 409 piite about justification by faith and condemned him and his work unsparingly. He had grave doubts whether he was in truth a ' converted man. ' It came to an end when they themselves fell ill, and Egede and his wife had the last word, after their own fashion. They nursed the warlike brethren through their illness Avith loving ministrations, and gave them back to life, let us hope mser and better men. "At Christmas, 1735, Egede 's faithful wife, Ger- trude, closed her eyes. She had gone out with him from home and kin to a hard and heathen land, and she had been his loyal helpmeet in all his trials. Now it was all over. That winter scurvy laid him upon a bed of pain, and, lying there, his heart turned to the old home. His son had come from Copenhagen to help, happily yet while his mother lived. To him he would give over the work. In Denmark he could do more for it than in Greenland, now that he was alone. On July 29, 1736, he preached for the last time to his people and baptized a little Eskimo to whom they gave his name, Hans. The following week he sailed for home, carrying, as all his earthly wealth, his beloved dead and his motherless children. "The Eskimos gathered on the shore and wept as the ship bore their friend away. They never saw him again. He lived in Denmark eighteen years, training young men to teach the Eskimos. They gave him the title of bishop, but so little to live on that he was forced in his last days to move from Copenhagen to a country to\ATi, to make both ends meet. His grave was forgotten by the generation that came after him. No one knows now where it is; but in ice-girt Greenland, where the northern lights on wintry nights flash to the natives their messages from the souls that have gone home, his 410 THE BOOK OF BRAVEKY memory will live when that of the North Pole seeker whom the world applauds is long forgotten. Hans Egede was tKeir great man, their hero. He was more, — he was their friend." Upon the blank stretch which the map of Green- land even now, long after the Pole has given np its secret, shows over most of its half million square miles, you will find the word "Egede Land." That is the only physical trace of the apostle to the icy mountains. But I think there is an indelible record wrought into the hearts of courage-loving humanity by this Viking of the Cross. What he did must live. The story of his quest and his fifteen-year-long deed makes high thoughts flame up to-day in the mind of him who hears. Whatever our diverse fancies about * ' Him up there, ' ' so far we know : such a spirit is im- mortal. And beyond, we believe — confident that man even unconsciously ever builds an unseen world be- side that growing from his restless progress in knowledge, power and culture : a structure of gallant self-sacrifice which slowly transforms the world of history and the individual's very being. CHAPTER XXIX "AFTER YOU, PILOT" When Admiral Farragut steamed into Mobile Bay in defiance of the torpedoes and the dreaded ram Tennessee, there was in his fleet a single-turreted monitor, the Tecumseh, commanded by Tunis A. M. Craven. This officer had a record of thirty-five years ex- cellent work in the service, having taken part in the conquest of California, in the suppression of the slave-trade, and in the chase after Confederate cruis- ers during the first years of the Civil War. His monitor had the honor of firing the first shot at 6:47 on the morning of that eventful fifth of August ; as the vessels passed the forts, the armored ram Tennessee came out from behind apparently with the intention of attacking the fleet one by one ; then, upon receiving several broadsides, she changed her course and ran back again. Craven followed in hot haste in his Tecumseh, pounding away at the Confederate ironclad with fif- teen-inch solid shot. Farragut 's orders to all the fleet had been to pass eastward of a red buoy directly under the guns of Fort Morgan, in order to avoid the line of torpedoes which his scouts had located just inside the entrance of the bay. *By half-past seven, the Tecumseh, still ahead of the flagship, was opposite the fort and slowly over- hauling the Tennessee, passing her on the port beam. 411 412 THE BOOK OF BEAVEEY The following vessels poured their broadsides into the fort, but the main thought of all was on the two ironclads, which they expected to see engaged, as soon as the Tecumseh should pass the intervening line of torpedoes. Anxious only to have the honor of meeting this most formidable foe, Craven could not wait. He feared that something might still happen which would prevent his coming to grips with her, and the shot showered on her seemed to have so little effect that it was clearly a case of attacking at close quarters. ' ' Hard a-starboard ! " he signaled. The Tecumseh spun about and dashed straight at the shapeless bulk that was so tantalizingly close. In doing so her course took her to the westward of the warning red buoy. Those on board the Tennessee awaited the onset. The bow gun of the ram, loaded with a 140-pound shot, was trained steadily upon the approaching monitor. "Do not fire, Mr. Wharton," cried the Confeder- ate Captain Johnston, "till the vessels are in actual contact." ' ' Aye, aye, sir, ' ' replied the lieutenant. He stepped with outward nonchalance to the breech of his bow gun, expecting a muzzle-to-muzzle fight like those of the olden days. Suddenly the oncoming Tecumseh reeled to port as if she had been struck by lightning. She had run into a floating cask torpedo Avhic}i had torn a hole in her bottom over twenty feet square. Even those who had been ready to do their u4;- most to destroy her were horrified at the instanta- neousness of the catastrophe. A few black figures "AFTER YOU, PILOT" 413 were seen to leap wildly from the turret. For a sec- ond or two her screw was visible, revolving in the air. Then she disappeared, and there was no evi- dence that she had ever existed, save a small boat washed from her deck and some specks of half- drowned men struggling in the water. One hundred and ten out of the hundred and twenty men on board went dowai with her. The chief engineer was afterwards found by divers, still with his hand on the engine bar, while in the other he held a letter from his bride of two weeks before. Commander Craven was in the pilot house with the pilot, John Collins. When the explosion came, both rushed instinctively for the ladder, leading by a narrow opening, where only one at a time could pass, to the top of the turret. They looked at each other. Both understood. "After you, pilot," said Craven. Collins scrambled up. "There was nothing after me," he said after- wards. "When I reached the top round of the lad- der, the vessel seemed to drop from under me." A buoy swings to and fro with the tide in Mobile Bay to-day. It marks the spot where Tunis A. M. Craven went down eight fathoms deep to immor- tality. For in the stirring tale of Mobile Bay the true hero was this man who could say calmly: "After you, 'pilot." CHAPTER XXX ON MOLOKAI THE GEAY While the American Civil War was entering its bloodiest phase, there arrived at the Catholic mis- sion in Honolulu a young Belgian named Joseph de Veiister. Though educated for business, he had taken his vows with the Picpus Fathers at the age of eighteen, and had reached the stage of minor orders as Brother Damien when an unforeseen oc- currence hurried him from training to actual labor : his elder brother was a priest of the same "Society of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary"; he had been destined for the Hawaiian missionary field; but just as his call came, a severe illness made it impossible for him to go; and, with the impetuous devotion characteristic of him, Brother Damien vol- unteered to take his place. He was of the peasant type, somewhat ignorant and uncouth. But scholarship, elegance and refine- ment were not the qualities most called for in that rough work among a primitive people. It was of far more importance that he was filled with religious zeal, had plenty of shrewdness and good humor, and, above all, was a skilful worker with his hands. The bishop ordained him as a priest a few months after his arrival, and Father Damien became kno-wm as a faithful laborer and as the "boss carpenter" of tlie mission. During the next nine years he built 414 ON MOLOKAI THE GRAY 415 at least half a dozen churches and chapels with his own hands. There Avas at jnst that time an alarming increase of leprosy in the Hawaiian Islands. This disease is perhaps the most terrible of all that mankind suffers from : it kills its victims by inches — a linger- ing, painful, loathsome, incurable malady, that ren- ders the sufferer a menace to all who approach and an object of disgust to himself and others. It has existed back into the remotest times; but its rapid spread had aroused the authorities and the first steps towards segregating those afflicted with it had been taken the very year of Damien's arrival. A little later on, a separate colony was established on the isolated tongue of land at the north end of the island of Molokai. Here all the lepers were collected and held. The man, woman or child who developed the dread disease was hurriedly sent thither — and did not return. It chanced one day in 1873 that the Bishop went to the island of Mauia to dedicate a ngw church. Father Damien was among the priests who attended him. Mauia is not far from Molokai and the talk natu- rally fell upon the miseries of these poor creatures shut up in this living grave. To these zealous churchmen the most aAvful thing of all was that these sufferers should be without hope for eternity as well as for their years of wretched life, through having no representative of the Church to care for their souls. Damien's "boundless compassion" was stirred to the depths. Both as man and priest he felt that the call of human misery left him no choice. He at once volunteered to go to the leper colony. 416 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY Permission was granted, and he set out immedi- ately on a chance boat carrying a load of lepers who were being deported. It was a forbidding shore upon which this vessel deposited its load of human misery and the kind- hearted priest. Along its northern front Molokai meets the sea in a gray wall of "pali," or cliff, two thousand feet high. In one spot alone "there pro- jects into the ocean a certain triangular and rugged doAvn, grassy, stony, windy, and rising into the midst into a hill with a dead crater : the whole bear- ing to the cliff that overhangs it somewhat the same relation as a bracket to a wall." Nature herself seemed to have shut off this bare, bleak promontory, between the mighty precipice and the profound sea, from the light-hearted world of beauty and ease where dwell the inhabitants of the South Seas. Gloomy as was the prospect at the first glance, it seemed a thousand times more so when the visitor beheld what man had made of the place. The lepers were huddled about in all sorts of crazy shelters, the settlement forming a sort of disorderly camp, where seven or eight hundred wretched crea- tures awaited death, too hopeless to undertake any betterment of their condition even if they had not been too ignorant. The sights that met the Father 's eye on that first day were beyond words. Only a man who had ut- terly forgotten himself in devotion to his work could have failed to flee to some corner and escape at the first chance. What Damien did was to start in at once to alleviate the worst case of neglect he came across. That night he slept under a stunted tree, alone in this abode of pestilence, haunted by the ON MOLOKAI THE GEAY 417 harrowing memories of his first introduction to his chosen abode. Next day he began in earnest. Everything was to be done. His was almost the only hand to do it, absolutely the only mind to plan it or the only heart with courage to make the attempt. The water was bad, the food supply poor ; the sufferers were dirty, ill clad, wretchedly housed ; sanitation did not exist ; these maimed men and women had forgotten God even as He seemed to have forgotten them. Damien was doctor, nurse, teacher, magistrate, gardener, cook, grave-digger, and priest. Gradually some order began to rise from the chaos. He got the people to work, he badgered the authorities till they remedied some of the worst abuses, he com- forted the most despairing with the promises of religion. Largely with his own hands he built a little church at Kalaupapa, one of the two "towns" into which the settlement was divided. For five years he labored all alone. Then another Father joined him. Gradually there was formed a little group of priests, lay brothers and nuns who toiled day and night under his direction to ease the hopeless suffering all about them. Damien was im- petuous and energetic, but impatient of details and far from a "born manager"; often he had to bribe his own Kanakas to have his wishes carried out. He Vas set in his own ways and domineering in manner. But he met all personal difficulties with smiling good nature. And with the exception of a few brief visits to other parts of the island and to Honolulu, chiefly in the colony's interest, he gave his whole time and strength for twelve long years to the lepers of Molokai. Then one July day he made a discovery. It was 418 THE BOOK OF BRAVEEY with deepened solemnity that he faced his congrega- tion from the pnlpit the following Sunday. "We lepers" was the opening of his sermon. He had contracted the fatal disease. There was no hope. But that made no differ- ence. For nearly four years more, regardless of his own torments, he served his afflicted fellows with the same whole-heartedness he had shown from the beginning of his mission. Then death had pity on him. Small wonder that when his memory was attacked Eobert Louis Stevenson should have published, in a blaze of generous indignation, his famous "Open Letter." "A man, with all the grime and paltriness of man- kind, but a saint and hero all the more for that," wrote he. And he thus summed up the practical results : "It was his part, by one striking act of martyr- dom, to direct all men's eyes on that distressful country. At a blow and with the price of his life, he made the place illustrious and public. And that, if you will consider largely, was the one reform needful; pregnant of all that should succeed. It brought money; it brought (best individual addition of them all) the Sisters ; it brought supervision, for public opinion and public interest landed with the men at Kalawao. If ever any man brought reforms, and died to bring them, it was he." Nor were the results of Damien's work confined even to the transformed colony of Molokai. Far away in India and South Africa the tale of his self- sacrificing fortitude aroused men 's minds and hearts to better care of similar sufferers there. If ever a man of human weakness showed higher ON MOLOKAI THE GRAY 419 bravery than Joseph de Veiister, Father Damien, I have not come across his story. Hardly had Father Damien gone on, when a worthy successor to him appeared in South Africa. George Turner, an Australian doctor, was in the Transvaal medical service at this time. He was an enthusiastic bacteriologist and had won notice by developing a serum with which he had stamped out two epidemics of the devastating rinderpest. Dr. Turner became absorbed in the study of lep- rosy, hoping to discover the cause of this mysterious disease as the first step towards finding a cure. "There was then a leper asylum at Pretoria with about fifty Dutch and forty native patients. He gave up all his spare time to work among the lepers, doing all he could to alleviate their lot, and prosecuting a tireless research into the nature of the disease. For three years he labored at this work without extra pay of any sort. He saw the lepers early in the morning, and again when he came home in the eve- ning. Saturday and Sunday he gave to them entire. In addition to this he made as many post-mortem examinations as possible in his laboratory, rising at dawn in order to have time for the work. The asylum contains a large number of lepers, European as well as native, and a visitor who watched Dr. Turner moving amongst them in the asylum bears witness to the passionate devotion with which he was regarded by all its inmates." For nearly twenty years this hard-worked physi- cian thus gave up his leisure, and made time outside of his exacting routine, to attack this ghastly enemy of the human race in its strongholds. Then, having reached the age of 60, he was retired from active service. But nothing could make him 420 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY stop Ms earnest scientific investigation and his com- passionate labors. Returning to England, he worked as hard as ever. In 1911, as he was shaving one morning, he noticed a white spot on his hand. It was the triumphant banner of the foe he had been fighting, who had come upon him unawares. It was an inexorable notice of a horrible fate. His response was in keeping with his record : he resolved to go to a leper colony in the East and devote the tortured years that were still his to a final effort to master the disease. The king made him a knight : Sir George Turner he was until he died in 1915. But he is enrolled in a higher knighthood — that Round Table of the mod- ern world which heeds no pain, nor wounds, nor death itself in defending the poor and miserable against more deadly invisible enemies than the dragons and giants of romance. And finally — A CHEERFUL FAILURE CHAPTER XXXI A CHEEEFUL FAILUEE After some years of reading and thinking and writing about these hundred brave men and women, — and hundreds more, from the beginnings of history to the end of the Great War, from the cradle of the human race to America, from the North Pole to the South; after striving to list them at least roughly in accordance with their quality, from Morgan the buccaneer up to Damien the martyr; at the end of all this, the narrator finds himself with a notion which must be absurd, but which demands expres- sion, anticlimax though it seem. This is, that his friend Billings is perhaps the bravest man he ever heard of. Nor does this seem to be because he's known Bill- ings since he was a boy at school: in fact, that's apt to produce quite the opposite result. He's not exactly the person you'd pick out at first glance as a hero, is Billings. He's little, and gray, and timid, and rather shabby in spite of a careful neatness about his clothes. As one atom of the stream of thousands upon thousands of human be- ings who flow into the city from every point of the compass each morning, and flow out again every night, there's nothing that would make your eye dwell on him a second, except possibly a certain brightness of face. That is unusual, when you come 423 424 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY to observe closely: cheerfulness and serenity are somewhat conspicuous by their absence among the mass of city workers. Externally the tale of Billings's career is brief and commonplace enough. His father was killed by an accident, and Jim, then a boy of fourteen, had to forget his dream of college, leave high school, and start to work to help support his mother. Some friend got him a place as office boy and messenger in the bank, at a salary, I believe, of three dollars a week. That was — yes, thirty-six years ago. For the last few years he's been a sort of third assistant cashier, getting something like twenty-three hundred a year. He's worked hard to achieve that, too. He went to night school and studied boolikeeping at first ; and men in the bank have told me that there never was a more faithful- or willing fellow. But he always lacked initiative, they added. When he was about thirty and had risen to be a bookkeeper, at eighteen or tAventy dollars a week, he got married. His mother had died, and though his wife had been brought up in a good deal of lux- ury, she Avas a plucky little Avoman, and she settled down to make a home on what they had. She did it, what's more. They even came to oAvn the little place in an out-of-the-Avay New Jersey toA\m, Avith enough land for a garden, which they made fur- nish them practically all of their vegetables through- out the year. They had chickens, too ; and by lots of hard AA='ork and the most cheese-paring management they made ends meet. It AA^asn't easy Avhen the children came — four of them in all. And if the problem was puzzling Avhen these Avere babies, it became well-nigh insoluble A CHEEEFUL FAILURE 425 with four big boys and girls to feed, clothe, educate, amuse, and give a start in life. Billings did his full half, and perhaps a bit more. Many a time he cooked and cleaned up and washed dishes to give his hard-driven wife a breathing spell. And of course when there were not ashes, and a fur- nace, and snow to shovel, there was a lawn mower, and a garden crying out for attention, besides the perennial thousand little jobs needed to keep a house in running order. Apparently he carried on this exasperating round of unending littlenesses as if he enjoyed it. It was just one year after another, mind you, always some extra personal effort to save a dollar here, or a few cents there ; all piled on top of the dreary day's work at the office. It seems to be a biological fact that human nerves demand change and excitement once in a while to keep healthy: the Italian day laborer has more variety and lift in his ditch-digging than the middle-aged clerical drudge in a great business machine. There was never any relief to it, in this case. Even the missionary who devotes his life to savages or outcasts gets some excitement; and of course the "hero" who plunges to death for some- body is keyed to high pitch. Surely the most terrific strain of all is that continuing one — on slack nerves. It would have been more sensible, you say, if he'd devoted that energy to making money for paying a servant and having some recreating pleasure? True enough. But it happened in Billings's case that he couldn't turn his "spare" time into money. Knowing it, it was a fact. The only alternative was to make every hour count in saving. Nor, unfortunately, is Billings unique in this re- spect. Sorting out all the failures who could be more 426 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY successful by an effort of will (see the fervent assur- ances of the correspondence courses in Culture of Will Power!), there remains a sad residue, hard to explain, but all too evident to discern. There 's some lack of aggressiveness, business instinct — something, often elusive. Occasionally it seems just plain luck: your successful man frequently recognizes the part that plays. Anyhow, there are thousands upon thousands en- rolled in this drab army. In fact, as was said of "the common people": "the Lord must have loved them, — he made so many of them." But there are not a great many who look the truth in the face, and finally accept the verdict — and still make a shining success of living, as Billings has done. He said once, in an unusual moment of personal allusion, that looking back over the years he didn't see how they had managed it : his only explanation was that his wife is a miracle. It's been almost harder of late years, in spite of the larger income. The oldest girl has been too deli- cate to help in the family support; the second is working her way through college ; the other boy and girl are still in school. And whatever it may be in other places, $43.50 a week around New York City for a family of six on the fringes of gentility isn't exactly riotous living. In fact, since war prices arrived, it's just the next thing to not living at all. On this pinched side, however, Billings's story could be duplicated, or exceeded, in only too many thousands of examples. It happened that by the merest chance lately we were thrown together in circumstances which led him to talk confidentially. He didn 't complain. He spoke in a matter-of-fact A CHEERFUL FAILURE 427 way, even with a certain sense of quiet humor. Yet one got glimpses between the words. First of all, he recognized that he was a failure. He knew he lacked some driving quality, some ele- ment of self-assertiveness that would have carried him further in all those years of faithful slaving; and he had to admit that he had done his best ; yet he was haunted by a feeling, away down in the bot- tom of his heart, that somehow he ought to have done better — for his family. "I never could sell anything," said he. "And unless a man can sell things, or produce something that sells itself, he doesn't get very far financially." It was perfectly evident from a few chance words that the man had before him, year in and year out, the thought of the little comforts and pleasiires and luxuries he was perpetually wishing to give his wife and daughters — ^what any real man wants to do first for the woman he cares for — then, almost more still for the daughter who is not only his flesh and blood but whose fresh young beauty in some mysterious way embodies for him those ecstatic dreams of his youth, who makes him live over again those mo- ments when life was keenest. For a normal man it's a necessity to make her happy, to give her pretty things and little luxuries and girlish pleasures of any sort. And when a man feels this powerfully and finds himself unable to do it because he can't make enough dollars — I tell you it is not a pleasant sen- sation. The very fact that Mrs. Billings never complained, never gave the slightest intimation that she had ever expected any more, made it all the harder. Of course, he realized, too, that their complete devotion to each other and to their brood was some- 428 THE BOOK OF BRAVERY thing better than these material comforts. But the years of grinding, the lack of the pleasures and the new clothes and furniture and such trifles Avhich bring some color and relief into a stupid routine — all this was a daily reminder to him that he had failed in protecting what was dearest to him. He could see other women who had been schoolmates of his \\T.fe : they looked ten years younger, still at- tractive. He told himself it was his fault. Life gets black amid these thoughts. A good many men, after the topsy-turvy fashion of human nature when moved, "take it out" on the very members of their owm family for whom they are concerned. I had frequently thought about the little man, vaguely wondering at the amount he seemed to get out of a pinched existence; and I was startled to discover how poignant M^as this realization he carried concealed within him. He had quite abandoned all hope of advancing further, but was nevertheless plugging away just as he had done when the future lay all before him. Indeed, it was worse than that : he was confidently looking forward to being dropped — he was growing old at fifty-odd — or being crowded out by a consolidation of which there had been ru- mors for some time. He had never had to get a new job in his life, and the idea, under such conditions, fairly terrified him. There are few things that take the savor out of work and life so completely as the loss of hope for the future. When a man realizes that, inadequate as his earnings are to his needs, he can probably look forward to no more as long as he's able to toil away; and that the moment he can't keep up, there is nothing — ^his state of mind is more than apt to show itself externally. A CHEERFUL FAILURE 429 Yet some unobtrusive investigating showed that Billings's wife and children, who fancied they knew every thought of his simple mind, had never dreamed of this gnawing thing he endured. He went about his treadmill routine, wore his five-year-old. clothes and patched shoes, never saw the inside of a club or theatre or restaurant more lively than the dairy lunches, — all wdth his unfailing good-humor, his little home jokes, his lively interest in everything that interested his small circle. If that does not seem to you a very notable feat compared wdth risking one's life on the battle-field, just observe the people you know, and see how many you find who are capable of it. As for me — the more I think of sheep-like little Billings, the more convinced I am that the courage of the Cheerful Failure who 's done his best is about the highest there is. Lots of men have failed temporarily and then gone on to success. Some writer once gathered together a series of ' ' Fifty Failures Who Came Back. ' ' That shows stamina. But it's a small matter compared to the quality of the man who 's failed permanently, and knows it, yet keeps on, smiling, so that even his nearest never suspect.