Arthur D. Howden Smith

“ THE Iberian sentries stood aside from the temple door with a dry rattle of missile-pouches as the four officers tramped across the pillared porch.
“A gloomy place to die,” grunted Mago, then corrected himself at sight of the interior, lofty and spacious, the altar opposite the door bathed in sunlight that flooded down from an opening in the roof, “but a soldier could find a worse tomb.”
“A tomb it is become,” said Hamilcar, pointing to the still figure that lay on a heap of cloaks and hangings at the foot of the altar-steps. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And now I sail back to Carthage, captain of some four hundred Gaulish infantry—I, who was to be general over armies and Hannibal's right hand!”
The sailor's teeth showed in a wolfish grin of appreciation.
“Youth's ambitions! Who realizes them? There was a day I saw myself leading squadrons in a battle that should sweep Rome from the sea. And what happens? I sail a trireme to Bruttium to ferry Hamilcar's Gaulish infantry in the fleet that fetches home the wreckage of Hannibal's army to stand betwixt Carthage and Scipio. The gods will have none of us, old friend.” ”

“ He says he is thinking of the lives it has taken. 'I accustom myself to the company of ghosts as I wait to hail Charon's bark.' He has as pleasant thoughts as Hamilcar.”
“He knows a man's death is not worth considering when a whole nation drifts toward death,” replied Hamilcar.
“He knows death is the surest of messengers,” said Norgon. “Yes, yes, he would be a good shipmate, this Hanno. Why fear the unescapable? If the sword could not protect him—”
“Yet the three of us seek the sword,” jeered Colchus. “For myself, comrades, I hold that no man welcomes death before he must. ”

“ Hamilcar shook his head, annoyed.
“This is a bad spirit for men in our position,” he declared. “By Tanit, Colchus, our lot will not be improved if Norgon is slain. Forget the sword!”
Mago, the little, bow-legged Numidian, wagged his black face at the others.
“Who can forget the sword?” he reminded them. “It is like a god, for we trust in it and fear it—and my experience is that the gods are as likely to deal harm as good. That is the trouble with them: they do not act like men, so you can never be sure of them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hamilcar peered closer as a cresset of pine-knots on the quay alongside flared up in a sudden burst of yellow light.
“Norgon! Cast back, Norgon. Once, when you were a youth, there was a lad named Hamilcar, who rode with you in the armored horse. But that was before Hannibal marched from Spain—or before Hamilcar had sailed from Carthage—or before you captained a trireme. Is it too far gone in the years for memory?” ”

“ Why, Norgon had it scarcely a day, eh? Ah, yes, it was intended for me.”
“Take care, lest it leave you as swiftly as it left Norgon,” snarled Hamilcar.
“No, no,” retorted Colchus cheerfully. “I intend to be careful. It is all very well to have a wizard-sword, but I don't mean to place too heavy a burden on it. The gods will do much for a man, but they expect him to do something to save his own head. ”

“ Hannibal sails away without even a thought for me!”
“I might say as much,” returned Mago. “My Numidians were forgotten.”
“Who would have expected you to hide yourself with a beast that had gone must?” demanded Colchus. “It serves you right.”
The hot eyes sparked at the Greek.
“Nobody interfered when I calmed the Big One, and led him off before he might trumpet his way down the quay,” retorted Baraka. “But that is the old story: A man is given respect while he is needed. Hannibal returns to Carthage, and the Captain of the Elephants is no longer necessary.” ”

“ Hamilcar waited until he judged his missile-troops were likely to reveal their weakness, and shouted to Baraka to rush the bridge with the elephant. The ankus tickled the beast's tough hide, his master's voice urged him on, and the Big One lumbered down the road in the midst of a cloud of dust that might have been stirred by a thousand men. Simultaneously, the slingers abandoned their long-range weapons, and took to the clumsier slings they employed for short-range work, casting stones the size of a clenched fist with a drive that knocked armored men completely off their feet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Norgon stooped quickly, and offered him a little amphora of wine which rested on the altar-step. The dying man sipped a swallow, then motioned it away.
“There is no luck in the sword unless it comes to you of its own accord,” he resumed. “So my father said, and he had it of a Roman in the sea-fight of the Agates Isles; and the Roman had it of a Cretan pirate, and the pirate had it of a drowned man. But he—the Cretan—had known of it before, or so he said. It has a long history, old as human fife, I think. Men have slain each other with it for ages. ”

“ Colchus cursed openly, but Hamilcar clapped Norgon on the back.
“You win. Ha, a sailor, you shall command soldiers! The hills shall be your sea, old friend. Take up the sword. Go on! Hanno would have wished it so.”
Mago nodded approval of this.
“Luck won him the sword, whether it be good luck or bad luck. But what happens if Norgon is slain? Who has the sword, then?”
“Why, we can draw again,” offered Hamilcar.
But Colchus objected vigorously
“Not so. Let whoever first reaches the dead man's side take the sword. That is the fairest way to permit the sword to choose a master.” ”

“ They stood aside readily enough, courage spurred afresh by the presence of the commander they believed invincible and the sword whose fabulous powers were debated at every camp-fire. Hamilcar took his place in the rear rank of four men, stepping over the body of a dead Carthaginian infantryman who had been impaled by a Roman pilum. On his right hand an Iberian and a Gaul fought with long, straight swords similar to his own; on his left a Carthaginian cut and thrust with a shorter broadsword not unlike the weapons of the Roman legionaries, who crowded into the pass behind their convex shields. ”

“ Hamilcar slung his big shield on his back with a resounding clang.
“A soldier can follow anywhere a sailor he has ridden with of old,” he growled.
A moment afterward they were striding together up the quay, threading a path between parties of soldiers, slaves loading stores and troops of frightened horses. Away in the distance they heard again the angry trumpeting of the elephant.
“After all,” quoth Norgon, “a wizard sword can not keep a man from death for ever.” ”

“ From Gaul you may reach Spain. Or, if Carthage is beaten, you might do better to take to yourselves wives in some far country of the North beyond reach of the Roman eagles. The sword will see you safe.”
“Safe?” queried the Greek eagerly. “Did you say it would see us safe?”
Hanno's eyes lighted up once more with a gust of vitality.
“Not all. No, no, my Colchus, be reasonable. Men must die to carry some of you safe, but safe some of you will be—if you follow the sword.”
Hamilcar bent closer to the general.
“Give it to one of us,” he urged. “Give the sword to one of us for a sign.” ”

“ So Hanno was left to command us? That's not so bad. He—”
“No, no,” exclaimed Hamilcar impatiently. “He is dying—or dead. An elephant crushed him, and Hannibal ordered him left in the temple. It was his wish.”
“Was that why Baraka, the Captain of the Elephants, was left, too?” demanded Mago. “He waxed sullen when I called to him as we passed the barracks, said something about one of his beasts being mad.”
“How should I know?” answered Hamilcar. “Gods, what a mad business! Is it to be wondered that an elephant should go must?” ”

“ Gamble for it, said Hanno.”
“What harm to try its balance?” scowled Colchus. “But have your way. How will you gamble for it?”
“So,” answered Hamilcar, and he plucked a handful of floor-rushes from the folds of the Greek's kilt. “Here, Mago, you will have none of the sword, you say?”
“The sword is not my weapon,” returned Mago doggedly. “And whatever you say or Hanno thought, I think there is bad luck in this sword.”
“What you think is of no account,” Colchus snapped ill-temperedly. “This affair lies between us three. We—we are white men.” ”

“ HAMILCAR allowed an ample time for Norgon to reach the cart-track which paralleled the river, and then sent forward his slingers and a half-dozen Cretan archers he had dug from the wine-shops and brothels of Bruttium along with a few score mingled spearmen and sworders, Carthaginian heavy infantry, Gauls, Iberians, Libyans. The slingers, from the river-bank, employed their long-range slings, casting leaden balls at the enemy on the hill-slopes, while the archers raked the approaches to the bridge. ”

“ They say it is a lucky sword. Well, of that you must judge. True, it kept me safe from steel's edge, as it kept my father and the Roman, and the Cretan and the man who was drowned. But all of us came by death in the ordinary course. Still, every man has his own idea of luck. But the sword's luck goes only to him who comes by it naturally. Fight for it, if you will. One of you will win, but the sword will not stay with him for that reason. ”

“ What else is there to do?”
“And that is what Mago advised, although in more considered terms,” remarked Hamilcar.
“It is all any man can advise,” said the Numidian. “We are the spoil of luck, subject to the whims of that sword. It would be folly to plan far ahead. Talk to Baraka, Norgon, and if he agrees, then we can leave the town.”
“And—this?”
Norgon pointed to the body of Hanno.
“Leave him,” said Hamilcar. “It was his wish to receive the Romans when they enter.”
“He mocks them as he lies,” exclaimed Colchus in sudden awe. ”

“ He was a gallant enemy, that Carthaginian. His sword should be a lucky one. May it carve you a path to command of a legion!”
The centurion received back the sword.
“We took some prisoners,” he answered. “For information. They say that is a magic sword. Who carries it can not be slain by steel.”
“Such superstition is Punic, my Valentius,” returned the tribune indulgently. “Bethink you, he who carried it last is dead, and how he came by his death matters little. Man lives while the gods indulge him. When they will he dies.” ”

“ It will seem like old days when we lured Sempronius to the shambles at the Trebia.' He—Hannibal—could have wept, I think.”
“A man to share deck-room with, this Hanno,” remarked Norgon.
“Honor to him,” rumbled Hamilcar. “He is luckier than we, who may live to wear Roman chains.”
“He who lives, lives,” said Colchus cynically. “Better be a horse-boy alive than a king and dead. But as to this sword—”
“No, no,” protested Hamilcar, “I will be first to defend Hanno's right to it. Tanit send me a like death!”
The Greek shuddered.
“A poor prayer, my friend. Death comes, in any case. ”

“ What I would say is that Hanno's life ebbs fast. By morning he will have no more need for his sword, and then—”
“Why, then,” rasped Norgon, “the best man who claims it will have it.”
“Something like that,” agreed the Greek. “But by Hercules, three claimants are enough. We shall do nobody a service if we spread the news. Now, I suggest that we tarry patiently against the morning's coming, and when the gods have accepted Hanno's spirit we poor mortals, betwixt us, one way or another, can arrange who shall inherit Hanno's sword.” ”

“ I marked Colchus hungering for it—last night.”
Hamilcar swallowed hard.
“Any man would wish to have Hanno's sword,” he said stiffly.
“Humph! An honest man. But there are four of you.”
“Mago says the sword is no weapon of his,” replied Hamilcar. “We others— Well, when three men desire the same thing there is always a way to settle it.”
Hanno's head shook ever so gently; his bloodless lips quirked into a smile.
“No man gains anything by fighting for this sword; it goes where it will. It is a wanderer.” ”

“ We take the village or we perish. And it will be hard if after all the perils we have survived some of us do not escape.”
“There are not so many of us even to perish,” replied Mago grimly, eying the wide intervals in the ranks of the slingers. “Well, may the gods have their will of us!”
And he rode away to accost Baraka, and lead the Big One up the rough slope of the pass, while Hamilcar turned his attention to the withdrawal of the Iberians as unostentatiously as possible. But the pursuing Romans were wily antagonists ”