Cahors

“ As the red light of the torches fell on steel caps and polished hauberks, on the serried ranks of pikemen, and the circle of white-faced townsmen, the picturesque old square looked doubly picturesque. Every five minutes, with a clatter of iron on the rough pavement and a shower of sparks, a horseman sprang away to tell the news at Montauban or Cahors; and every time that this occurred, the captain, astride on his charger, felt a new sense of power and triumph. ”

“ There is also a statue of the poet Clément Marot, born at Cahors in 1496. Cahors is the seat of a bishopric, a prefect and a court of assizes. It has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. There are also training colleges, a lycée, a communal college for girls, an ecclesiastical seminary, a library, museum and hospital. The manufacture of farm implements, tanning, wool-spinning, metal-founding, distilling and the preparation of pâté de foie gras and other delicacies are carried on. ”

“ I went to Cahors, where I remained six months, and made the acquaintance of an old man, who was commonly known to the people as ‘the Philosopher;’ a name which, in country places, is often bestowed upon people whose only merit is, that they are less ignorant than their neighbours. ”

“ Matters went so far at Cahors, that two battalions which were there had great difficulty in holding the town against the armed peasants; and troops intended for Spain were obliged to be sent there. It was found necessary to suspend the operation of the tax, but it was with great trouble that the movement of Quercy was put down, and the peasants, who had armed and collected together, induced to retire into their villages. In Perigord they rose, pillaged the bureaux, and rendered themselves masters of a little town and some castles, and forced some gentlemen to put themselves at their head. ”

“ Here may be the place to remark that the stock of the ancient Cadurci appears to have been much less impaired here in an ethnological sense by the mingling of races than in the country round Cahors. The peasants, generally, have nothing distinctively Southern in their appearance, although they speak a dialect which is in the main a Latin one, the Celtic words that have been retained being in a very small proportion. ”

“ There are several hundred of them in the Quercy; and the peasants, who call them pierros levados (raised stones) , also 'tombs of the giants' and caïrous, in which last name the Celtic word cairn has been almost preserved, treat them now with indifference, although it is recorded of one of the early bishops of Cahors that he caused a menhir to be broken to pieces because it was an object of idolatrous worship. Those who have been to the trouble of excavating have almost invariably found in each dolmen a cella containing human bones. ”

“ Homage being refused, Henry invaded the county, captured Cahors, where he left Becket with a garrison, and thence proceeded to reduce the other strongholds. Roc-Amadour appears to have offered little if any resistance. The Quercy was formally made over to the English in 1191 by the treaty signed by Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur-de-Lion; but the aged Raymond V. of Toulouse protested, and the Quercynois still more loudly. These descendants of the Cadurci found it very difficult to submit to English rule. ”

“ The Cahrocs have, as we already know, some conception of a great deity, called Chareya, the Old Man Above; he is wont to appear upon earth at times to some of the most favored sorcerers; he is described as wearing a close tunic, with a medicine-bag, and as having long white hair that falls venerably about his shoulders. Practically, however, the Cahrocs, like the majority of Californian tribes, venerate chiefly the coyote. Great dread is also had of certain forest-demons of nocturnal habits; these, say the Eurocs, take the form of bears and shoot arrows at benighted wayfarers. ”

“ Cahal snatched a wine-flask that hung at the soldier's girdle and emptied it at one draft.
"Lead me to the patriarch," he gasped throatily. "Doom rides on swift hoofs to Jerusalem--ha!"
From the people a thin cry of wonder and fear had gone up--Cahal wheeled and felt fear constrict his throat. Again in the east he saw flying flame and drifting smoke--the gigantic tracks of the destroying horde.
"They have crossed the Jordan!" he cried. "Saints of God, when did men born of women ride so madly? ”

“ I will brush them aside. But the shaman prophesied a strange thing--that a dead man's sword will deal me a grievous hurt when the Franks come up against us--"
From the corner of his eye Cahal saw that his apparently aimless strides had taken him close to the table on which stood the great candle. He lifted the goblet toward his lips, then with a lightning flick of his wrist, dashed the wine onto the flame. It sputtered and went out, plunging the tent into total darkness. ”

“ The Cauvery Brahmins, as persons of that caste are called in Coorg, wear the sacred thread, and perform poojah to Amma, the goddess of the river. They number about forty families, but are fast dying out. They are often very rich, and are employed in the pagoda, or as clerks in the Superintendent's office. The Coorgs themselves, the inhabitants of this mountainous district, are divided into thirteen castes. [470] They generally retain the old devil-worship of the Scythic or Dravidian race from which they are descended, and are addicted to the use of charms and sorceries. ”

“ Thus, then, Chaucer had passed away;—whether in good or in evil odour with the powerful interest with which John of Gaunt's son had entered into his unwritten concordate, after all matters but little now. He is no dim shadow to us, even in his outward presence; for we possess sufficient materials from which to picture to ourselves with good assurance what manner of man he was. ”

“ The patriarch had bunched his pitiful force of men-at-arms, knights, armed pilgrims and Moslems, at the Damascus Gate. Useless to man the ruined walls. There they would face the horde and give up their lives, without hope and without fear.
Cahal, his weariness half-forgotten in the drunkenness of anticipated battle, reined beside the patriarch on the great red stallion that had been given him, and cried out suddenly at the sight of a tall, broad man on a rangy Turkish bay. ”

“ From the dust, it is a whole horde that is riding upon us."
"Flee without striking a blow? Not I!" snapped Cahal. "Go, if you fear."
Akbar swore loudly. "By Allah and by Allah! A man had better place his head beneath an elephant's tread than call me coward! I'll stand my ground as long as any Nazarene!"
Cahal turned away shortly, irritated by the fellow's manner and by his boasting. Yet for all the soldier's wrath, it seemed to the Gael that a vagrant twinkle lighted his fierce eyes as though he shook with inward mirth. Then Cahal forgot him. ”

“ And simultaneously Cahal ripped a hidden dirk from under his arm and like a steel spring released, bounded toward the place where he knew Baibars sat. He catapulted into somebody in the dark and his dirk hummed and sank home. A death scream ripped the clamor and the Gael wrenched the blade free and sprang away. No time for another stroke. Men yelled and fell over each other and steel clanged wildly. Cahal's crimsoned blade ripped a long slit in the silk of the tent-wall and he sprang into the outer starlight where men were shouting and running toward the pavilion. ”

“ If Cæsar would go when he was hailed conqueror, they would call him conqueror that hour. If he wanted hostages for their friendship, they could find him a thousand hostages and never ask for them again.
In the plundered town of Dur Gwern Caradoc called his tribe to council. In lean, war-worn ranks they mustered, and their women gathered about them with wistful eyes. It was a chastened Dubnovellan and humbler Druids who stole to the low seats on either side the King. But there was a lilt in Caradoc's voice. “Men of Dur Gwern! ”

“ His sword was red to the hilt, his soul ablaze with the battle-lust, his brain sick with fury and horror as the cries of the butchered city smote on his ears.
"I'll leave my corpse before the Sepulcher," he growled, and wheeling, spurred up the alley. He raced down a narrow winding street and emerged upon the Via Dolorosa just as the first Kharesmian came flying along it, scimitar dripping crimson. The red stallion's shoulder brushed the barbarian's stirrup and Cahal's sword flashed like a sunburst. ”

“ Lord Cahal, shall we sit supine until Baibars comes up out of Egypt and cuts all our throats, or shall we cast the dice of chance to loot the eagle's eyrie under the nose of Moslem and Mongol alike?"
Cahal's cold eyes gleamed and he laughed aloud as the lurking madness in his soul responded to the madness of the proposal. His hard hand smote against the brown palm of Renault d'Ibelin.
"Doom hovers over all Outremer, and Death is no grimmer met on a mad quest than in the locked spears of battle! East we ride to the Devil knows what doom!" ”

“ It so befell when this Cambinskan hath borne his diadem twenty winters, that he bade cry—as, I trow, was his yearly wont—the feast of his nativity throughout his city Sarray, on the last Ides of March when they came around. Full joyous and clear was Phœbus, the sun, for he was nigh his exaltation in Mars' face, and in his mansion in Aries, the sign hot and choleric. Full lusty was the weather and mild, so that the birds, against the bright sun, what with the season and the young green, sang full loud their affections. It seemed they had got them shields against the keen, cold sword of winter. ”

“ The heathen may thank you, but your brothers scarcely will, when the raiders smite them suddenly! The horsemen are all dead or hemmed in the alleys. Only you and I escaped that charge. Who will carry the news of the raid to the Frankish barons?"
"You speak truth," said Cahal shortly. "Let us go."
The pair wheeled away and galloped down the street just as a howling horde came flying up the other end. Beyond the shattered walls Cahal looked back to see a mounting flame. He hid his face in his hands.
"Wounds of God!" he groaned. "They are burning the Sepulcher!" ”

“ The thrill of the Renaissance has not yet swept across Europe. The gods still sleep, before awakening to their strange sweet Indian summer of life. Classical mythology serves Chaucer as an additional storehouse of story and illustration, but it no more intoxicates him with rapture than does the Gesta Romanorum. ”

“ Still will the jealous Queen pursue our race? Cadmus is dead, the Theban city was: Yet ceases not her hate; for all who come From Cadmus are involved in Cadmus' doom. I suffer for my blood: unjust decree, That punishes another's crime on me. In mean estate I serve my mortal foe, The man who caused my country's overthrow. This is not all; for Juno, to my shame, Has forced me to forsake my former name; Arcite I was, Philostratus I am. That side of heaven is all my enemy: Mars ruined Thebes ”

“ But if Chaucer is ill at ease within four walls, and takes but scant pleasure in looking at tapestries and pictures, the moment he slips out of doors he becomes a different being. He is no Wordsworth noting each twig and leaf, or watching with mystic gaze the shadows fall on the silent hills. ”

“ Convincing their wild Kuran Shah that his only safety lay in conversion and alliance!
"I do not fully trust the wolves, and have pitched my camp apart from them--but when the Franks come up, they will find our hordes joined for battle--and should be horribly surprized, if that dog di Zaro does his work well!"
"Your treachery makes me a dog in the eyes of my people," said Cahal bitterly.
"None will call you traitor," said Baibars serenely, "because soon all will cease to be. Relics of an outworn age, I will rid the land of them. Be at ease!" ”

“ These allusions place it beyond doubt [?] that the drie see of Chaucer was the Great Sahara, the return from whence [sic] homewards would be by the chain of the Atlas or [sic] Carena.' On the writer's own shewing, the Carena was not the Atlas, but a chain stretching thence towards Egypt; not an obvious way of returning home! Whereas, if the 'dry sea' were the lake of Czirknitz, the obvious way of getting away from it would be to take ship in the neighbouring gulf of Quarnaro. And how could Chaucer come to hear of this remote chain of mountains? ”

“ Then he gave a welcome to Caoilte. "Well, my soul" he said "who is that well-looking dark-eyebrowed curly-headed young man that is with you, having a harp with him?" "He is Cascorach son of the musician of the Tuatha De Danaan, that is come to find news and knowledge of the Fianna from me." "It is a good road he has chosen" said Patrick. "And O Caoilte" he said "it is great good you yourself have waited for, the time of belief and of saints and of holiness, and to be in friendship with the King of Heaven and earth. And play to us now Cascorach" he said "till we hear your music and your skill." ”

“ In the slave markets of El Kahira I was sold for three pieces of silver, by Allah, and my master gave me to the Bahairiz--the slave-soldiers--because he feared I'd strangle him. Ha! Now I am Haroun the Traveler, making pilgrimage to the holy place. But once, only a few days agone, I was man to Baibars--whom the devil fly away with!"
"Men say in the streets that this Baibars is the real ruler of Cairo," said Cahal curiously; new to the East though he was, he had heard that name oft-repeated.
"Men lie," responded Haroun. "The sultan rules Egypt and Shadjar ad Darr rules the sultan. ”

“ John of Gaunt was born in 1340, and was, therefore, probably of much the same age as Chaucer, and like him now in the prime of life. Nothing could accordingly be more natural than that a more or less intimate relation should have formed itself between them. ”