Arthur D. Howden Smith

“ I like fine the clutch of the earth on my feet and the whispering of the trees. Men may be cruel on the land, but faith, they're never so cruel as the cruelest of the seafarers. And all my days when I hear the rumble of the surf and the suck of the tide running out I'll be thinking of himself that lies so far and lone under the Spyglass—and of Master Murray, God rest his poor bones, and many another. The sea had them all! Ah, Holy Virgin, what a hunger it has for men!"
But Peter shook his head solemnly. ”

“ A great guide is old Bartolommeo!"
The black guards closed around them, and once more Hugh found himself in the draughty passages under the Palace. But presently they ascended a flight of stairs, and emerged into a narrow, high-walled courtyard. Overhead the early stars were twinkling frostily in the wintry sky.
"Look your last on Heaven, Messer Hugh," counselled Bartolommeo as they hurried along. "Ay, by Bacchus, His like to be your last look! Tarry a moment—I do not grudge it to you!—'tis a fair sight, is it not? To be young, and to have the stars to look upon! ”

“ The forecastle was dense with spearmen and archers. Overhead the sun shone brightly, and the wind thrummed like a skald picking at harpstrings in the cordage and the huge, straining hollow of the sail.
Gradually, as they drew nearer, Olvir's fleet formed into a sort of hasty order. The four dragons, two of twenty-four and two of twenty oars, became its nucleus. On either side of them clustered a pack of barges and fishing-boats, small in size, but overflowing with men; and they surged forward, using their oars perforce, as the wind was against them. ”

“ At times, when the pressure of the cohort jamming the mouth of the pass became so severe as to threaten to burst the fragile opposing line like a stream in freshet, he would spring forward alone, the gray sword darting and leaping, swooping and hovering, agleam with dreadful life and hunger, slashing gaps in the Roman ranks that slowed the steady tread of the legionaries and gave his men time to regain their wind. ”

“ There arrived a day when the river looped north, and we abandoned it for the third time, squaring our backs to the westering sun and entrusting ourselves to the open plains. The grass here was still short of its midsummer luxuriance. Cover was negligible, and the land rolled evenly in gigantic swells. We were climbing one of these, weary and anxious to reach a water-supply, as a war-party rode over the crest, fifty painted warriors in breech-clouts and moccasins, long hair stuck with feathers, white shields and lance-points glistening, quivers bristling with arrows. ”

“ If I strove to guard Thorbiorn now Swain would turn his sword against me, and the outcome of that I should not care to estimate.”
“Then do you yourself slay me,” said Thorbiorn, “for I would rather my punishment came at your hands than from Swain, who is my enemy.”
“I can not, Thorbiorn,” denied Jarl Harald. “I have not the heart to kill you or to order your death. Flee, and you may get off safe.”
Thorbiorn rose slowly to his feet.
“You have as good as ordered my doom, kinsman,” he said, “for the spear thrust that Jomar gave me found its way to my entrails and I can not run far.” ”

“ The seventh hill—for like Imperial Rome, Imperial Constantinople boasted her seven hills—was in the southwestern quarter.
It was impossible for the eye to take in everything, but Hugh saw all that he could. What caught his attention first was the walls, ponderous, girt with hundreds of towers. To the landward they rose tier above tier, three lines of impenetrable bulwarks, fronted by a moat as broad and deep as a river. On the seaward face they were built at the water's edge with ledges of boulders to guard their foundations from the dash of the waves. ”

“ I SWAIN OLAF'S son stood on the battlements of Lambaborg and stared down at the gray North Sea and the single, bluff-bowed craft that was scudding before the Spring gale out of the north. For a moment he thought of ordering his own men into the dragon, Deathbringer, that tugged impatiently at taut moorings in the cove beneath the headland, but a second glance assured him of two things—the stranger was neither large enough to be a menace nor rich enough to warrant a sally in such a sea, and in any case, she was edging into shore with the obvious purpose of making the shelter of the cove. ”

“ The stallion whinnied at me, asking reassurance, and I stroked his muzzle.
"It is long coming," said Tawannears.
"Yes," answered Kachina, "and when it is here we shall be fortunate if we can breathe."
Suddenly, the moaning roar became a deafening scream; the blackness mantled the earth like a garment, and we, huddled close to the ground, felt the shock of a great arm sweeping just above our heads. It was the wind. There was no rain, but a shower of objects began to fall against the opposite wall of the gulch. Shapes, indistinct in the mirk, crashed formless into the bed of the rivulet. ”

“ A beam of sunlight from the roof trickled across the gaunt features, revealing the lips parted in a sinister grin of derision.
“They know more than we, the dead,” murmured the Greek, awe turned to superstition. “Zeus guard us! Is it us he mocks, by any chance?”
No man answered him, but the four stole silently from the temple's echoing emptiness. It was as if a chill had fallen in the full tide of sunny noon.
BARAKA was a wispy, leathery bit of a man, with a white kilt around his loins and a tangled mass of lank black hair through which his eyes smoldered like hot coals. ”

“ It is no use, Swain. I shall save you the trouble. I choose to die by my own act, if die I must. But do not think that this is the end of the tale. There is more to come, much more. I have seen Gunni dead, and Asleif dead; and at the far end of all I think you, too, will die with victory in your grasp. The riches you win and the honors you gain shall taste sour in your mouth; and all your life Olvir shall be a marsh-light dancing ahead of you to divert you from the greatness you otherwise might win. When you are dead men will say of you, ‘He was Swain Olaf’s son, who might have been a Jarl ”

“ But your shaven-head is human, even as you and I, Hugh, and there be a-many shaven-heads will cry 'Out! Harrow!' for such an understanding, with thought of fat abbacies, bishoprics and even cardinal's caps in mind."
Hugh would have answered him, but at that moment the great galley Pilgrim, flying the gonfalon of St. Mark, swept by, her oars beating the sea to foam, and all eyes were riveted upon the splendid pageant on her decks. The fore-castle was a mass of gleaming armour and waving pennons. The waist was thick with foot-sergeants and Venetian bowmen. ”

“ What do any of us care for the Spaniards, who have not been men enough to live up to their declarations of support of the Stuarts? Why, this girl you mouth about would cheerfully suffer death, dishonor, any torment, to win for her king the means of power we shall afford him. And this treasure, which the Spaniards have wrung from the lands they stole from the poor Indians, we wring from them as remorselessly that we may apply it to a purpose infinitely higher than the placating of royal favorites and mistresses, which is the way 'twould go in Madrid. ”

“ Swain's laughter shook the roof-beams.
"You are a better man than he who got you!" he shouted boisterously. "You should go far, boy. Perhaps I shall use you, after all—if Jarl Paul is unreasonable. But first we will try if he has his wits left free of Frakork's spells."
Maddad came closer to him.
"I have no men to spare," he said; "but if gold——"
Swain shoved him away against the table.
"Keep your gold! I am fighting for myself, not you. What? Do you think I'll pull your apples from the fire for you? By the old gods! Not I! I am one who uses others; I have no liking for others' using me." ”

“ But we watched him enthralled, the while the shadows blackened on the mountain's lower flanks and a pink glow flooded the peak around us, shooting a miniature rainbow through the steam-clouds. Tawannears tossed out his arms in one final appeal, proudly, as though he had a right to ask, then turned, with a light of exultation in his eyes, and walked back to us.
"I think Hawenneyu opened His ears to me," he said simply. "My heart that was sad commenced to sing bravely. It grows strong. All fear has left me." ”

“ Thorbiorn turned reluctantly, holding his ax as if to parry a blow.
“I fear the reproaches of my followers,” he answered. “What will they say of me if I do not punish the man who slew Thorkell?”
“And what will I do to you if you do not presently sing a milder tune?” retorted Jarl Rognvald.
“You have no right to come between me and the man who slew my tenant,” persisted Thorbiorn.
“I have every right,” rejoined the Jarl. “Aye, even the right to slay you for broiling in my presence and upsetting the peace of my stead. What, fellow, are you become greater than we who are your lords?” ”

“ But your soul is immortal; save that, I conjure you!"
"Aye; but do you think it Christian to permit a fellow-man, whether he be of your faith or not, to be tortured by savages?"
The contempt died in his eyes, and was replaced by a dreamy ecstasy.
"Death? What is death?" he replied. "And what matters the manner of death? Look at me, monsieur."
He fixed my gaze on each of his infirmities.
"I am but the wreck of a man. These poor, ignorant children of the wilderness have worked their will with me, and because it was best for me God permitted it. Torture never hurt any man. ”

“ All it seeks is the slaughter.”
“So that it slays our enemies, why should we care?” replied Hamilcar. “It is like a woman, a lustful maid, ever hungry, never content. Feed its wants, and it will be faithful to you.”
But as he picked his way among the weary Gauls and Iberians of the rearguard he found himself thinking otherwise.
“So Colchus talked—yes, and Norgon said much the same. But neither of them did it serve so long as me. Phaugh, I am an old woman from the cold and hunger and toil of the fighting! A sword is a stout friend to the man who wields it with skill, no more. ”

“ Paul hung one of his knights with his shield around his neck as a lesson to other marauders, and sergeants and camp followers were flogged.
So complete was the triumph of the host that men were bewildered by it. They wandered through the miles of streets of the city, gazing at the public parks, the cisterns like lakes, the hundreds of stately churches, the baths fitted up with a luxury unknown in the West, the palaces of the nobles and merchant-princes, the schools and colleges, and most of all at the tremendous walls. It was size and grandeur which impressed these rude Frankish warriors. ”

“ I thought you were— Is that Peter?"
"Ja," said Peter.
"And what will ye have on your shoulder? A dead man? Is it him I shot a few minutes back?"
"'Tis Captain Murray," I answered, making way for Peter.
"Oh, Queen of Heaven! Sure, we're in bad case."
"We are," I assented grimly as I followed Peter inside. "Have you a light?"
She took a lanthorn from under a cloth, and its scanty rays played hide-and-seek with the shadows over the rude log walls and the piles of rum barrels and kegs of hard-tack and the clumsy stack of treasure.
"Where are Ben Gunn and Scipio?" I asked. ”

“ Tall, thick-thewed, wide-shouldered, their clothing tattered and salt-stained, their armor and weapons rusty, they were men who had dared death in every form too frequently to be affected by the ordinary perils of the storm.
On the poop beside the steersmen, who fought with the steering-sweeps to keep the vessel on her course, stood Swain Olaf’s son, and there was a kind of fierce pride in his bleak gaze as he conned Deathbringer homeward. He knew the dragon as a rider knows his horse. He knew his picked crew of viking-farers, most of them Hebrides. ”

“ Tawannears caught her hand.
"But see, you who are almost my mother," he said. "I have brought back to you the daughter who was lost to you. We will be son and daughter to you in your loneliness."
Guanaea would not be comforted.
"Who am I to scorn the generosity of Hawenneyu?" she cried. "Who am I to doubt the deeds of great warriors? I am only a woman, only a mother whose offspring left her, only a widow whose man went ahead of her into the land of shadows. Yet I cannot take this new Gahano to my breast. She is not to me as the child I suckled or the maiden whose waywardness I curbed. ”

“ Here men count it not against me that I am a jongleur or that my birth was unhallowed by wedlock.
"There is a rift in my heart at thought of losing you; but certes, you will treasure me in your memory, as I will treasure you in mine. And I will make a chanson of your deeds that men shall sing all the way from Outremer to the land of the Scots. Mayhap you will tell your sons of Matteo, and if you have friends who voyage to Outremer, you will bid them seek me out that I may know you are in life. And always, Hugh, there will be none other in my heart save you." ”

“ The four who stood over him eyed one another uncertainly.
“But if we fight, Hanno,” said Colchus, “it will be as much of a gamble for the sword as if we pitched knuckle-bones.”
“You can not afford to sacrifice your lives in that fashion.” The faint voice became stern. “It is for you four to carry your men safe out of Italy. And that will require the wits and craft and weapon-skill of every one of you.”
“But how?” queried Hamilcar.
“Take to the mountains—the Numidians know every byway. Ride like the wind—and always north and west. Fight when you must, but flee when you can. ”

“ The ax he had flung sang over his head as he saw daylight through the dissolving haze of the smoke. He stumbled to the door, fell out and banged it after him. Osbiorn and a dozen others ran to aid him, eyes popping in their bearded faces.
“Has she spelled you, Swain?” “Can you speak?” “Are you whole in your body?” “Are your wits with you?”
Swain found his feet and waved them all to silence.
“We will burn her,” he said grimly. “Yes, she would have put a spell upon me. But for Osbiorn’s call she would have succeeded, She has stronger magic than I thought. But any witch will burn in fire. ”

“ The distorted bodies of a man and a horse lay against the opposite bank of the depression—'twas they, doubtless, had stampeded our mounts. Apparently they had been hurled there by some caprice of the wind. I had a vision, too, of the strained faces of my comrades—Peter's little eyes very wide, Kachina's hair all tumbled about her face, Tawannears grimly watchful. Then darkness again, and the steady, monotonous roar of the wind, no thing of puffs or gusts, but a stupendous, overpowering blast of sheer strength that no living being could stand up to. ”

“ But you English lords consider me a travelling minstrel, to be seated below the salt and called upon for a song to pay for my meat.
"Your story hath interested me strangely, Messer Hugh. As you have heard, 'tis one not altogether new to me. I have seen your father and applauded him from afar—ay, ridden at the tail of his charger in more than one shock with the Paynims. It is my thought that I may be of use to you on a path sure to be set with pit-falls at every step. All the reward I seek is leave to turn your deeds into a romaunt that shall endure whilst men sing of brave ventures." ”

“ Hamilcar looked questioningly at Norgon.
“My ship can do without me,” said the sailor slowly.
“And so can my Gauls,” affirmed Hamilcar. “We shall soon be bound fast to your decks, eh? And there should be luck in this sword.”
“Luck?” grumbled Norgon. “Humph, if to be crushed by an elephant is luck! But I own to a wish to see so strange a blade. And at the least, a man may say with truth that he would be honored to possess the sword of Hanno.”
“Honor is often luck, and luck is usually honorable,” said Colchus, chuckling. ”

“ Then, a mile nearer earth's level, stood the timber-line; first, straggling dwarf growths, bent and gnarled and twisted by the winds; behind these the massive bulwark of the primeval forest, stout cedars and cumbrous firs, the least of them fit for main-mast to a King's ship, a green frame for the many-colored miracle of the flower-fields and the white splendor above.
"Do you think to climb higher, brother?" I questioned Tawannears, standing with arms folded, his eyes fixed upon the summit that seemed so near in that radiant atmosphere. ”

“ Hugh drew back to the rail.
"In you we are not interested," he answered civilly. "You have most foully wronged me and mine, lady. Certes, you deserve death. But we do not war on women. You are free to go whither you will outside of Constantinople. Here you may not stay. But as for you—" he turned upon Comnenus—"you, knave that you are, base-born for all your high estate, ingrate who turned against the hand that saved him, coward withal, you shall we deliver up to the lords of the host for judgment. Perchance they will see that you taste of the torment you devised for others." ”

“ Norgon ran his tongue over sun-dried lips.
“Now, that is a suggestion surpassing all else you have said, Greek,” proclaimed the sailor. “Wine? By the Ram, let us seek it out!”
“A man never knows when he may drink again,” said Hamilcar. “Lead, Colchus. We must take all we can with us. Bah! What else is left to us but to drink?”
“You are not happy,” answered Colchus, with a shrug. “He who is unhappy should drink deep. But let me post my Iberians. They will keep the sword safe for us. And afterward we can decide who shall have it. He must be a deep drinker, for the sword has drunk deep. ”

“ A wind like a giant's sickle howled out of the northwest, and the snow reared a dense, white, fluttering wall a hand's-breadth from our eyes. It was all a man could do to lean against the blast and keep his footing. A yard apart we were lost from each other. Our voices might not carry through the soft, bewildering thickness of it and the shrieking of the wind overhead. ”

“ The burden grows over-heavy, and I could wish my Lord Boniface would come to take it from my shoulders."
"An honest man," said Hugh, as he walked away.
"Ay, but he nor any of them is the match of Dandolo," returned Matteo. "That man is power incarnate. By Our Lady of Tortosa, what a king he would make—or, perchance, a Master of the Templars! Ninety-two, Hugh, and in the prime of his years!"
Whilst the comrades watched from the poop of the Paradise, the domes and towers of Venice faded against the western sky. Only the low marshes of the coast remained to show the host that land existed. ”

“ How long it lasted I do not know, but I remember noting the lessening of the downpour, its swishing away in the East and the frosty twinkling of the stars. We were all too exhausted to think of anything except rest and we cowered beneath the tree-trunk, huddling close for warmth, and somehow slept. When we awoke the sun was rising, and the air was fresh and clear. The sky was cloudless and a soft blue. But all around us was strewn the wreckage of the storm. ”

“ Pride cometh before a fall! Ay, there is to be a fall for the proud—such a fall as will shake the world."
Ranulphio cackled shrilly in applause, and the two scoundrels left the dungeon arm in arm.
"Now what meant he by that?" said Sir James wonderingly. "But, certes, 'tis strange enough they should trust another with me—the first time in all these years. They must be very sure of us."
"There is some deep villainy afoot," replied Hugh. "Doubt it not, fair lord. Bartolommeo is the chief rogue of Mocenigo, and Mocenigo is the chief rogue of—well, whoever it may be hath paid him most. ”

“ The inanimate ferocity of nature lacks the dramatic quality of men's individual hates and struggles, but no achievement of my comrades and I can compare with the battles we fought against mountain, forest and stream. Mark you, a living opponent, man or animal, you can touch, hurt, visibly overcome. But what satisfaction can you wring from nature after beating her? None, I say, unless it be the right to live. You do not even know for sure that the victory is yours until the zest of combat is long forgotten. ”

“ No woman may be so proud as I am of you, for none was ever served so nobly. Art my own knight and lord, faithful and always true."
For the second time she raised her lips to his, and Hugh's heart hammered so that it seemed it must burst through gambeson and hauberk. The domes and towers of Constantinople danced before his eyes. But he cast down his sword and caught her to him, straining her in his mailed arms until she sobbed:
"Oh, Hugh, have done! Prithee! I may not breathe." ”

“ Is Corlaer, whose fat belly is dreaded by every squaw from Jagara to the mouth of the Mohawk, fearful lest he wet his moccasins? You have dared all manner of perils over hundreds of leagues, and now you wince at a few leagues of water! Pluck up your courage! I am the wreck of what was a man, yet I am not afraid. Will you let me daunt you?"
"Black Robe does not know what he says," replied Tawannears stiffly. "A silly little bird has whistled idle thoughts in his ear. He knows well that Tawannears does not fear even the Master of Evil, Hanegoategeh, whom Black Robe serves." ”

“ Man, I tell you you know not what awaits you. What I have done will mean nothing. 'Tis but the beginning."
"You have betrayed a friend," replied Hugh steadily. "Certes, that is naught to boast of."
Again she laughed, shrilly, almost hysterically.
"Oh, you fool! What do your Western notions of chivalry mean to me? I am a Greek! I am a woman! When they decided to trap you, I bade them let me try other means first. I thought to save you—ay, to put you in the way of power and might above all other men. And you—you—poor blind worm that you are!—you scorn me—scorn Helena Comnena!" ”

“ Others might be deceived by the rolls of fat, the huge paunch, the stupid simplicity of the broad, flat face, with insignificant features dabbed here and there, the little mild blue eyes that blinked behind ramparts of loose flesh, but I knew Peter Corlaer for the strongest, craftiest forest-runner of the frontier. Beneath his layers of blubber were muscles of forged steel and capacities for endurance that had never been plumbed. ”

“ On the north side rose the Palace of the Senate, its broad flights of steps and columned porch, which had seen eight hundred years of history, jammed with curious Greeks, who watched the hurried passage of the little knot of Frankish warriors.
Ahead of them, as they emerged from the forum, loomed the white dome of St. Sophia, floating like a bubble above the houseroofs. To their right the stone walls of the Hippodrome, bristling with statues, cut off the view. Sir James turned here from the Mesè into a meaner street running southward. ”

“ Tawannears, too, dashed a flux of blood from his nose and collapsed on the snow.
"Tamanoas is displeased," he muttered as I stooped beside him. "Otetiani was right! We die."
His bronze face was ghastly pale, and for a moment I feared he would faint; but he rallied when I shook him by the arm. I was worried more for him than for Peter, in which respect I erred.
"'Tis not Tamanoas," I urged. "At least, brother, 'tis no more than ordinary mountain sickness I have often heard men tell of. Up here, above the world, the air is lighter than we are wont to breathe. We have gone too fast. ”

“ Bethink you how much worse would be our lot, an we were separated in our captivity."
"Well spoken, Hugh! The true knight never falters. Let it be so. We will proclaim ourselves unconquered, and hope to the end. To say truth, 'tis only this feeling which hath kept me alive. I have said to myself that I would not yield, that I would keep my body strong and my heart clean and my head clear, so that if God in His infinite wisdom saw fit to recall me to the world, I might take my place without men saying: 'He was James de Chesby.'"
"But how have you kept your body strong?" asked Hugh. ”

“ Of all the tribes we had seen these men were the handsomest and most imposing. Tall, broad-shouldered, their bronze bodies shining with grease, they sat their pad-saddles, stirrupless, as though they were part of the horses under them. Their heads were shaven, except for a narrow ridge from forehead to scalplock, which was stiffened with paint and grease until it stood erect in semblance of a horn. Their faces were fierce, but intelligent. ”

“ Tawannears walked up to the priest.
"We go," he said quietly. "If we die, remember that you urged us forth."
One of those rare reflections of a personality long submerged shone in the Jesuit's face. He dropped his hand upon the Seneca's bare shoulder.
"There is naught to fear," he said gently. "God watches over us on the water as on the land. If He has ordained for you to die, you will die. The good warrior thinks not upon death, but upon his mission." ”

“ But we did not feel the want of it, for the heat was terrible on the unshaded savannahs. All day the sun had been beating down upon the earth, and all day the earth had been drinking in the heat—to exude it through the night like a dry sweat.
Peter and I came to envy Tawannears his nakedness, and in the morning we stripped off our leathern shirts and rolled them in bundles to sling from the thongs of our food-pouches, suffering the Seneca to coat us with bear's-grease which he carried in a horn-box, a precaution which diminished notably the ardency of the sun's rays. ”

“ Will you desert the Lost Soul who has been true to him in death, who returns with him from the land beyond the sunset, she who has traversed the Halls of Haniskaonogeh, the Dwelling-place of Evil, she who has passed with us through the lodge of Gaoh, lord of the winds, she who has defied Hanegoategeh?
"Oh, Tharon the Sky-holder, Tawannears calls upon you to uphold him! But if death must come, then, oh, Hawenneyu, let Tawannears and his Lost Soul die together! Let the white brothers go with us to the Halls of the Honochenokeh! Let us take with us the spirits of many warriors! ”