3210 
 
 THE CARNIVAL 
 OF DESTINY
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 . SAN OIEQO 
 
 ^-- a
 
 
 3 1822 01107 3210
 
 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY
 
 Her t vc> were- sK-adv and hard"
 
 THE CARNIVAL 
 OF DESTINY 
 
 BY 
 
 VANCE THOMPSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "DRINK AND BE SOBER," "EAT AND GROW 
 THIK," "THE EGO BOOK," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 
 1916
 
 Copyright, 1916, by 
 MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY
 
 TO MY WIFE 
 
 Lady, what of lovers true, 
 When they lie down, two by two, 
 Under linen bands and rue, 
 Dead who loved so truly? 
 
 In the dim earth lie they low, 
 Side by side, and do not know, 
 With the worm for bedfellow, 
 Dead who loved so truly. 
 
 Through the shroud and linen band 
 They can touch nor knee nor hand, 
 Give nor take nor understand, 
 Dead who loved so truly. 
 
 Over them the dim years flow ; 
 Life calls to them "Live !" and, lo, 
 They are flower and flower, and know- 
 They who love so truly. 
 
 So they pass the cycle through 
 Love and die and live anew, 
 Side by side ; for lovers true, 
 Love but once : forever.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 He in whom life is potent has journeyed 
 long through the years, acquiring, attaining, 
 perfecting the machine which is his Ego. 
 
 For him, as for others, existence is a closed 
 door, behind which mysterious silences stretch 
 away. Yet now and then he hears faint sound 
 in the corridor shadowy steps and voices. 
 But does he hear? He does not know. 
 
 Walking in a crowded street he sees a face; 
 and it haunts him, he knows not why. And 
 he says to himself: 
 
 "Yes, I have seen that face before, but not 
 as now I did not see that face in a crowded 
 street." Suddenly an inevitable memory rises 
 in him. The sight of that face has created a 
 vision of a wet roadway, of swords, of torches, 
 of blood. And he knows. Nor does it seem 
 strange to meet, thus, in a crowded street, him 
 whom he killed in the gray mist of time. 
 Again and again in the centuries he shall meet 
 and know him as when first he saw him in the
 
 PREFACE 
 
 torchlight, his enemy. Life is so long, so long 
 and there is no end- 
 Men and women I know passed in their in 
 terminable journey down the years; in the 
 darkness. Now and then I saw them as night- 
 farers see the word on a sign-post by the light 
 of a carriage-lamp, held high. So they stood 
 for a moment, urgent and proximate, in a wav 
 ering circle of light ; they stepped back into the 
 shadow of the years ; then darkness and silence. 
 I shall not see them again ; and if I see them, 
 shall I know? They have vanished into the 
 Presence. 
 
 To-morrow on the bridge by the old church 
 I may meet a haggard man who has come sin 
 ning down the years; and though once he lay 
 in the reeds with his black brother, the bull, and 
 dwelt once in the tenement of black fumes, I 
 shall not know him as he passes, cloaked in his 
 unfamiliar life. And he will go his way down 
 the long road that has no end, faring as men 
 must, in the peril and presence of love. 
 
 For no man journeys alone. Always love 
 is with him. Persistent and terrible as life, the 
 love that cannot die and will not change in all 
 the years. And now it is something white- 
 toothed and hairy and vehement ; and now it is
 
 PREFACE 
 
 a gray thing huddled by a tomb ; but when he 
 touches it on the shoulder it turns its eternal 
 eyes upon him and smiles and he knows the 
 smile and the eternal eyes. 
 
 "Is it you?" he whispers. 
 
 And love says : "It is always I."
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I THE PASSING OP THE HERDS 13 
 
 II THE LADY OF MAGDALA 43 
 
 III " MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA " . . . .85 
 
 IV THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 109 
 
 V THE KING OF SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER . .151 
 
 VI MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 191 
 
 VII THE EMPEROR S GIFT 235 
 
 VIII A TENEMENT OF BLACK FUMES . . 277
 
 THE PASSING OF THE HERDS
 
 THE CARNIVAL OF 
 DESTINY 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE HEEDS 
 
 I 
 
 IT began this way: Ahi, who was slim and 
 young, had captured the black bull-calf. He 
 had spread a snare for him weeks before; 
 many dawns he watched and nothing hap 
 pened. Then one morning, before the sun had 
 killed the mist, he was lying by his trap of 
 woven reeds, there where the cattle came down 
 to drink. They passed one by one and two by 
 two, the bulls leading; the cows with their 
 calves trailing after. Ahi was afraid, for the 
 sun was coming up and he felt safer by night 
 than by day. So this dawn the cattle came 
 from the drink, tossing their horned heads high, 
 
 13
 
 14 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 and taking the air into their wet nostrils. The 
 black bull-calf came last, wobbling on his 
 young legs, and Ahi caught and pulled him 
 down. The cattle passed. The boy and the 
 bull-calf were left together and so they became 
 friends. They spoke to each other in their own 
 fashion and life was not wholly unkind to them. 
 Ahi had a way with him that the bull-calf un 
 derstood. It was a sort of rough tenderness 
 a knowledge of life that made them broth 
 ers. They wandered together in field and for 
 est. Alii knew where the clumps of greenest 
 grass grew, and thither he led his friend, the 
 black bull-calf. While the beast ate, Ahi 
 squatted there, watchful and unafraid, rubbing 
 a flint against the stone, for even then he 
 thought it would be well for him to have a 
 weapon. 
 
 All this of course happened in the long ago. 
 It was so long ago that there was still fog on 
 the earth and men were not quite men. They 
 went about sleepily. They had not yet 
 learned to band themselves together in order 
 to exterminate their milder kinsmen, who went
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 15 
 
 on all fours. That was to come. It was Vah 
 who taught men that they were too intelligent 
 not to be cruel. He was a big man who stood 
 quite erect. He had a broad, hairy breast, and 
 quick-moving, hairy hands that he used like 
 tools. There was no one who could stand 
 against him. Indeed, no one tried ; Ahi sharp 
 ening his splinter of flint, dreamed of the day 
 when he might be as strong as Vah but he 
 knew the day would be long in coming, so he 
 made a strange little rhythmic song and sang 
 it to his brother, the black bull-calf, as they 
 ranged the swamp together. 
 
 In these foggy days of the long ago, the ani 
 mals still ruled the world. The cattle held the 
 fields as the birds held the air. The great 
 herds roamed, to and fro, over the green hills 
 and the fat plains, quite undisturbed, for man 
 had not yet developed his brain and that fine 
 fruit of his intelligence cruelty. At night 
 when the sun went down, the herds gathered, 
 lowing; it was an evening hymn; bulls and 
 cows and calves, they lay down on the thick 
 grass, fearing nothing. Man, the eternal en-
 
 16 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 emy of all that sleeps, was not born until Vah 
 came. Vah s brothers who lived in the reed 
 huts feared him first. Then the brotherhood 
 of herds knew that fear had crept among them. 
 At first it was all very vague. They saw the 
 deer pass, these night-wanderers, with wounds 
 in their flanks. They saw the timid hares run 
 by, limping on broken feet. They asked them 
 selves, "Who is the enemy?" Then one night 
 a young heifer came home to the meadow where 
 they pastured. She had seen strange things. 
 She had been in the hands of this new, cruel 
 race the race of men. She had escaped, but 
 she had seen others there the brothers they 
 had missed from the herd harnessed to curious 
 tools, whipped on to labor; and she had seen 
 the night-fires whereon her brothers were 
 roasted, while the race of men gathered round 
 and tore at the hot flesh with ringers and teeth. 
 Strange things this heifer of the herd had 
 seen. The men had built sleeping-places for 
 themselves, queer huts of sticks and clay; and 
 round about they had erected a barrier of wood, 
 so that none might come near them. And
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 17 
 
 always behind their fragile ramparts they 
 watched, keen-eyed and alert. When they 
 heard these things the cattle rose, lowing and 
 timorous, for the sense of fear and the knowl 
 edge of man had come to them. And the bulls 
 marshaled them and led them away, across the 
 little river and beyond many valleys, until they 
 came to a quiet green place among the hills. 
 Here they rested. They had not waited to 
 rescue their brothers who had been captured 
 by the race of men. They regretted the friends 
 who had been captured, but the regret died 
 away as they thought of their own freedom. 
 Far as they could see no smoke from a man s 
 fire clouded the horizon. About them were 
 the green hills and not far away was the run 
 ning water. As the sun went down the old 
 bulls, strong and gentle, led the way to the 
 stream. Before they drank they lifted their 
 heads and lowed, as those who should say, 
 "We are free." 
 
 Only there was one cow who lifted her 
 horned head and sniffed toward the dark hori 
 zon of the east; thrice she lifted her head and
 
 18 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 lowed plaintively calling her black bull-calf 
 who had been trapped by man. As for the 
 others, they had already forgotten the perils 
 from which they fled. In their serene republic 
 they had nothing to do but browse and love 
 and sleep. Forgetting man they recovered 
 their old-time confidence, and feared neither 
 the night-wind nor the little moon sailing over 
 head. 
 
 n 
 
 VAH S camp was near the brook in the little 
 valley, between steep hills. The huts were 
 of wattled reeds and clay, and on three sides 
 for one side gave on the water was a stiff 
 fence of tree-stems. Vah came home angry 
 this night, for he had failed to kill. He had 
 cast his pointed stone or perhaps the first 
 javelin at a running doe, and the slim beast, 
 though bleeding from the side, had outrun him. 
 Twilight had come and the women and children 
 were drowsing when he entered the stockade. 
 He roused one of them with his foot and called 
 for food. In a moment there were a dozen
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 19 
 
 there to do his bidding. An old woman 
 heaped twigs on the dying embers and blew 
 up a fire. Other women brought him meat 
 and water. When he had filled his stomach, 
 Vah lay by the fire, stretching his hairy limbs 
 and yawning. He had not learned to think, 
 but vaguely he watched the forms of the 
 women, flitting against the firelight, and got 
 a certain physical satisfaction from the pic 
 ture. He was quite at ease; he was digesting 
 his food; his relaxed muscles gave heat and 
 comfort to his body ; his eyes followed the busy, 
 humble women as they went here and there; 
 what there was of mind in him spun round on 
 the pivot of his own importance he was Vah, 
 of the strong arm, lord of this wooden strong 
 hold, master of all the men and women about 
 him. He stretched his hairy carcass, letting 
 his big muscles play over each other, like a coil 
 of snakes. 
 
 Marj passed against the background of the 
 flickering fire. 
 
 She was a slim, brown girl, with quick eyes 
 and the swift, furtive gestures of a wood ani-
 
 20 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 mal. She stepped lightly and held her head 
 high. Vah. had never noticed her among the 
 women. He might not have noticed her this 
 night had it not been that Marj had invent 
 ing coquetry draped round her waist a tangle 
 of rabbit skins. She was so slight and young 
 that Vah s eyes would never have rested on her 
 twice had it not been for this unusual orna 
 ment. But now he watched her closely. He 
 liked the way she threw up her head and looked 
 from left to right, like a squirrel. He liked 
 the flash of a smile that lit up her face and 
 showed her teeth when she stooped and played 
 with one of the squirming children. As Vah 
 lay there, warming his stomach at the fire, it 
 came to him that he cared for nothing so much 
 as he cared for that slim girl. 
 
 He had a vague intention of calling to her; 
 but his dim brain was slow to act, now that the 
 torpor of food and fire was on him. He saw 
 her approach the stockade. With a little 
 curiosity he watched her. The girl peered 
 through the crevices of the fence. Nothing. 
 She came again toward the fire and Vah no*
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 21 
 
 ticed how thick the red hair grew on her head 
 a tangled mane of red hair falling on her 
 back. He was heavy with food or he would 
 have stretched out his hand to take her, as he 
 might have picked up a bright stone that glit 
 tered in his path. 
 
 Still he followed her with his eyes as she 
 went toward the brook. Here there was no 
 fence, for the swift stream was barrier enough. 
 The girl crouched down as one who waits. 
 She would have been quite in the shadow had 
 it not been that the moon wheeled up into the 
 sky over the hill-top just then, and made a 
 white light about her. Her knees to her chin, 
 she sat there looking across the stream. Per 
 haps certain thoughts stirred in her; perhaps 
 there was only a vague warmth about her heart 
 and in her blood-vessels, as she crouched there, 
 looking for Ahi. She rocked herself backward 
 and forward, making little guttural cries that 
 gradually shaped themselves into Ahi s name. 
 Ahi Ahi Ahi she repeated ; it was a mono 
 tone of sound that may have had no meaning 
 to her, and yet it may be at that moment she
 
 22 
 
 invented love. It was night now, and Ahi, 
 who was a son of the night, should come. 
 
 "Ahi, Ahi," the girl repeated, and Vah, who 
 lay by the fire, understood and woke from his 
 torpor. He sat up and a slow anger began 
 to burn in him. (Perhaps, he too, had in 
 vented love.) He looked at the young girl s 
 red hair and the curve of her young back. He 
 began to understand why he was master of 
 men. His strength seemed beautiful to him. 
 He stood up, giving play to bone and muscle. 
 Even the brain in him seemed to waken; he 
 remembered or discovered, that the girl s name 
 was Marj. He thought of going to her. As 
 he stood there she gave a little cry. Ahi came 
 up dripping from the stream. The bulk of a 
 beast, his brother the black bull, came after 
 him, shaking the water from its hide. And 
 Ahi touched the head of his brother, the bull, 
 as one who says, "Good friend," before he 
 turned to the girl. 
 
 "Marj," he said. 
 
 "Ahi," she answered. 
 
 They had not many words ; they sat together
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 23 
 
 digging their feet into the same hole in the 
 gravel, touching each other s hands and rubbing 
 their cheeks together. Sin and shame were 
 not invented yet and so they fondled each other 
 in the moonlight. The stream was chattering 
 by them, and Ahi learned from it a little song 
 that he told her as he rubbed against her and 
 sniffed the masses of her red, tangled hair. 
 
 Ahi was small and lean like a fox, but hand 
 some in his way. He had too much brain to 
 be quiet with. He knew many words and 
 strung them into songs. His hands were five 
 fingered and wonderfully adroit. He knew 
 how to grind the flint to a point and he it was 
 who had bound it fast to the end of a rod, so 
 that he could stand in a thicket and send death 
 from afar. He had two things besides his love 
 for Marj hate and theory; His hate was for 
 Vah. He had felt the weight of Vah s hand 
 too often not to hate him, and he hated him 
 patiently, persistently, furtively. Young as 
 he was he had lived long enough to know that 
 time was fighting for him. Some day Vah s 
 strength would crumble and then Ahi would
 
 have his hour. When the hair falls from a 
 man and his shoulders sag forward with age 
 and that would come to Vah some day was 
 the time to strike him. His theory was that 
 what is done by day is done and over with, 
 but what s done in the night lasts forever. 
 And so by day he hid himself in the forest, 
 wandering aimlessly with his black brother, 
 making fugitive little songs fierce rhythmic 
 cries of love and hate for Marj and the man 
 he hated. Daily he dreamed of killing Vah in 
 curious and cruel ways. Nightly he swam the 
 little stream to be near the girl who made him 
 forget his hatred. 
 
 Marj listened to Ahi s voice ; she did not un 
 derstand the meaning of the rhythmic words 
 he said, but there was a bright look on her face, 
 as though she knew; she put one arm around 
 his neck and leaned closer against him. Ahi 
 ran his fingers through her thick hair; whis 
 pering words that had as yet no meaning ; then 
 suddenly he drew her toward him and kissed 
 her on the mouth. Perhaps he invented the
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 25 
 
 kiss. They looked into each other s eyes, won 
 dering and a little afraid. 
 
 "Marj," he said. 
 
 "Ahi," she answered. They had not many; 
 words. 
 
 Now Vah standing by the fire had seen and 
 heard; a sort of anger stirred in him, and he 
 ran toward them with a hoarse cry. Ahi 
 started to his feet, and before he could turn 
 Vah struck him and he went down, his face 
 in the gravel. The fear of Vah was on him 
 and for a moment he did not move. Then sud 
 denly, stronger than fear, the passion of hate 
 surged through him and he struggled up. 
 Vah faced him, showing his big white teeth 
 and laughing. The two men looked at each 
 other; slowly Ahi s eyes dropped; he babbled 
 something and stepped back a little. Vah 
 struck the crouching girl on the shoulder. 
 
 "Come," he said. 
 
 She got to her feet whimpering. 
 
 "Come," he said again and he took her by the 
 arm; and as he led her toward the hut she
 
 26 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 cried, "Ahi, Ahi," until the words were 
 strangled in sobs. 
 
 Ahi did not move. Blood was dripping 
 from his face, for Vah had struck hard, and he 
 tried to staunch it with his hands. Always he 
 kept babbling meaningless words. He felt 
 the heart in him burn for a moment and then 
 go cold with fear. He tried to force himself 
 to call out her name, but even that he dared 
 not do. Fear was on him the fear of Vah 
 and the fear of men; the fear of the lighted 
 fire and the clustered huts; and where fear is 
 love seems but a little thing. Fear and hate 
 are twins. And through Ahi s veins as he 
 stood there wiping his blood-dabbled face- 
 fear and hate ran swift and dark. He did 
 not move. 
 
 From Vah s hut a cry came to him, "Ahi! 
 Ahi!" that cry again and again. He tried to 
 force himself toward the hut, but the will in 
 him was sick with fear. With a groan he 
 wrenched himself away and ran toward the 
 stream. Beyond was the forest, and the night 
 and the safety of the dark. He swam swiftly,
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 27 
 
 dipping his hot and bloody face in the water, 
 and side by side with him as he swam, went 
 his black brother, the bull. 
 
 Now this was the flight of Ahi, the maker 
 of songs, and that night he invented shame. 
 
 Ill 
 
 WEEK after week Ahi watched the camp 
 from afar. He saw Vah go to the hunt when 
 dawn came up; he saw Marj passing, patient 
 and dull, from the hut to the water, or to the 
 fire; he saw them both from his coign in a 
 tree-top on the other side of the stream. The 
 men of the camp were busy these days. Ahi 
 saw them driving in cattle. One day it was 
 a wounded heifer, with a foreleg broken and 
 hanging; the next day three calves and after 
 that a little herd of heavy or wounded cows. 
 Ahi spoke of these things to his brother the 
 black bull, but the black bull had no words of 
 that language. When he heard Ahi s voice 
 he could but look up at him with great, tender 
 eyes; eyes sweet and strong as those of a 
 woman who loves and is not afraid of love.
 
 28 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 And so Ahi was alone. And being alone he 
 invented thought. Day after day he lay out 
 in the sunlight, brooding. Sometimes Marj 
 would haunt him. As though she had been 
 beside him, he could see her dark little face, 
 her tawny shoulders and the mass of red, sun- 
 stained hair that crowned her head. He could 
 remember her kiss. Gradually it became a 
 habit to remember things. He could call back 
 the pain of the blow when Vah struck him. 
 He could evoke Vah s great sneering mouth, 
 full of white teeth, laughing at him. So he 
 lay out in the sunlight and fed his hate. The 
 habit of remembering things carried him far 
 ther. He recalled the days when Vah had 
 built the stockade. Aye, that was long ago, 
 before he had captured his brother, the black 
 bull. In those days the men feared the ani 
 mals. They housed themselves in for fear of 
 the great nomadic herds. Ahi remembered all 
 this, for it was part of his youth. Then the 
 herds had migrated beyond the rim of the hills. 
 The men behind their barriers of wood had
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 29 
 
 grown bolder. They had taken up the chase 
 again. Ahi kept the tally of the cattle. 
 Vah s men drove home the wounded, dragging 
 the dead. He heard the shouts and noise of 
 the feasting at night, when the huge fires were 
 built. He wondered if Marj were there and, 
 when he thought of her, her voice went wail 
 ing through his brain and he would waken to 
 a new hatred of Vah. And, "I will kill Vah," 
 he would say to himself and his black brother. 
 
 "We will kill Vah," he repeated. 
 
 His brother, the black bull, looked at him 
 questioningly, for he did not understand the 
 menace in Ahi s voice. 
 
 Then Ahi laid his arm over the neck of his 
 black brother and pointed toward the stock 
 ade, and he said : 
 
 "Do you hear? Do you hear the noise and 
 the cries? These are your friends calling to 
 you. These are the cattle of your race. They 
 are calling to you. They are wounded. 
 Blood is running from them. They are to be 
 killed and roasted on the fire. Do you hear
 
 30 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 them call to you? My race, the race of men, 
 torture and kill them; oh, my brother, hear 
 them call to you!" 
 
 Faint but ceaseless came to them the sound 
 of the captured cattle bellowing with pain and 
 fear. Ahi s black brother, the bull, pawed the 
 earth feverishly ; then he rubbed his black muz 
 zle against Ahi s cheeks, as one who would say : 
 "You are my race and my kin, and since you 
 are man, men cannot be bad." 
 
 "Listen, listen," cried Ahi. 
 
 Always the bellowing of the tortured ani 
 mals came to them on the wind, but what Ahi 
 heard was a wailing of a small voice a girl s 
 voice calling to him when he dared not answer 
 it. 
 
 "My brother," he said, "you are strong- 
 strong. Kill Vah for me. Kill him." 
 
 The black bull, his brother, gazed at him 
 softly, and in his eyes was the look of one who 
 loves mankind. Ahi read the meaning in his 
 brother s eyes, and sat himself down under a 
 tree and thought. Three thoughts spun 
 around in his brain: The kiss of Marj and
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 31 
 
 her hair, the killing of Vah and, lastly, his 
 brother, the black bull. 
 
 Suddenly all these thoughts became one. 
 Under his hand he found one of the flints he 
 had sharpened and bound with green withes 
 to a stick. He poised the weapon until it set 
 tled well in the grip of his hand. Then he 
 jumped to his feet and thrust the flint into his 
 brother s side. The black bull bellowed with 
 pain and lowered his head, his long horns glanc 
 ing right and left. Then he saw AM, the 
 bloody spear in his hand. In the black 
 brother s brain there was only wonder. Ahi, 
 shouting strange words, drove the spear into 
 the bull s shoulder. So deep the hurt was that 
 the bull went to his knees. With an effort he 
 dragged himself up and looked at his white 
 brother, the man. There was neither fear nor 
 anger in his eye, but they were filmy with pain. 
 He took a step toward Ahi, lifting his black 
 muzzle in the old familiar way. His brother, 
 the man, struck him again with the flint. 
 With a cry that was half human, the black bull 
 fled away through the forest and Ahi, watching
 
 32 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 him, saw him breast the hill and vanish into the 
 horizon. 
 
 Now here there were two things invented. 
 The black brother, the bull, knew only that Ahi 
 had invented ingratitude, but his white 
 brother, the man, knew that vengeance was 
 born. 
 
 IV 
 
 IN the great valley beyond the rim of the 
 hills the cattle slept, deep in the dewy grass. 
 Now and then an old bull raised his head, 
 stared at the moon, browsed a moment and 
 slept again. Sometimes a young calf called 
 plaintively, wakened from sleep by hunger; it 
 would nose for a while and sleep. In this se 
 rene republic it was very quiet. The stars 
 wheeled slowly out of sight; dawn came. As 
 the cattle stretched themselves and rose they 
 faced the east. Now over the rim of the hills 
 they saw a bull come running. Even as he 
 approached he bellowed to them, and his cries 
 were fierce and sharp. Blood ran from his 
 sides and he was foul with sweat and dirt. He
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 33 
 
 was not of their republic; not even the oldest 
 bull knew him. Cautiously the bulls went for 
 ward to meet him, but he pressed on into the 
 thick of the herd. For a space he gasped for 
 breath, while his kinsmen looked fearfully at 
 his gaping wounds, and then he spoke to them 
 in their own tongue and he said : 
 
 "Up, my brothers, up ! Hear me, for I am 
 your brother. I have crossed the mountains 
 and streams to bring you warning. I have 
 run for hours. Everywhere on my way I saw 
 brothers of ours wounded as I am, dying. 
 Man is coming man. He who kills is com 
 ing. The white brother who speaks soft and 
 kills." 
 
 The black bull shook the bloody froth out of 
 his mouth; his torn sides swung in and out as 
 he gasped for breath. There was an old bull, 
 very old, who remembered the years gone by 
 when they had fled from man. 
 
 "Let us move on," he said, "to the new wil 
 derness beyond." 
 
 "And man will follow," cried the black bull, 
 in their speech; "he who strokes with one hand
 
 34 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 and kills with the other. No ; turn back. One 
 and all, let us rush upon him and trample him 
 and his sharp stones and his fire under our feet ; 
 and rip his belly with our horns. What have 
 we to fear ? Die if we must die it is better to 
 die killing." 
 
 The black bull threw back his great head, 
 superb, fierce, calm as one who leads. The 
 young bulls rallied to him; the old bulls yielded 
 to him; the cows crowded close to him; their 
 eyes lit with admiration. 
 
 "Forward." 
 
 From all sides the cattle pressed in; fierce 
 and high rose the bellowing thousands upon 
 many thousands of voices; and the march be 
 gan. Gradually the captains marshaled them. 
 They went in order as troops march to a holy 
 war. The great republic swept on. It was 
 the first crusade of the serene republic. 
 
 "Forward." 
 
 The black bull was in the lead ; he tossed his 
 great head as he ran ; his blood-shot eyes looked 
 straight in front of him forward! A cluster 
 of huts, something that might have been a vil-
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 35 
 
 lage, rose before them on the hill-side ; the flood 
 of furious hoofs swept down on it ; a few cries 
 and the flood passed; then silence. There was 
 blood on the horns of the leaders and their 
 hoofs smoked with blood; the army swept on. 
 The sun had set when they breasted the last 
 hill. The black bull was the first to top the 
 ridge, but his bellow of triumph was drowned 
 in the noise of the myriad hoofs. Below them 
 in the valley was a little stream and beside it 
 was Vah s village. The flood of flashing horns 
 and ringing hoofs poured down upon it. 
 
 V 
 
 VAH lay by the fire torpid with food. The 
 girl Mar j sat by him ; her knees were drawn up 
 to her chin and she stared at the fire, brooding. 
 A little wind was blowing and the sparks ed 
 died up, brief and quick, to spin for a moment 
 and then die against the blue of the night. 
 She noticed that the sparks were curiously like 
 stars; she wondered for whom the fire burned 
 over head if some one lay and warmed him 
 self among the stars even as Vah lay here
 
 36 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 among the embers. And though she knew it 
 not, perhaps she had discovered the great 
 truth. She looked down at her man. He lay 
 sprawled out broad on his belly, his face in the 
 sod. His huge ribs rose and fell with his 
 breathing. Marj touched him with a sense 
 of content. It was something that she was his, 
 for he was the strongest of his race. But al 
 ways the sparks from the wood-fire flickered in 
 her eyes, and in her mind there flickered brief 
 and shining thoughts of Ahi. She remem 
 bered a song he made a little rhythm of 
 fierce and loving sounds and crooned it to 
 herself. Ahi and Marj, it was the chant of his 
 name and hers. 
 
 The night was full of strange sounds. 
 Though the wind was small and feeble, there 
 was a bluster of storm in the air. Vah raised 
 himself on his elbows, his eyes bright with ap 
 prehension. 
 
 "Get up," said Vah, and he touched her with 
 his foot. 
 
 She rose slowly, but even as her legs straight 
 ened under her, an arm was swept around her
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 37 
 
 waist and Ahi s voice was in her ears crying: 
 "Come, come!" He was wet from the stream 
 he had swum. His voice came faint and 
 strangled to his lips. He babbled. "Come, 
 come," and "Marj, Marj 1" for his fear and his 
 love were battling to get control of his will. 
 Savage in his cowardice, sobbing, furious, 
 whimpering, he dragged her toward the safety 
 of the running water. Vah turned and looked 
 at them. A hoarse snarl of laughter came 
 from his mouth. He shouted one word of con 
 tempt and rushed toward the stockade 
 toward the unknown horror sweeping down 
 the valley. He wrenched at the tree-stems 
 with his huge hands and made a passage. For 
 a moment he hesitated, glancing back at the 
 woman near the stream. His dull brain 
 rocked between two impulses. Marj was 
 swifter of thought. She broke away from 
 Ahi s slim arms and ran to Vah. For an in 
 stant her hands clasped him and she gave him 
 the kiss Ahi had taught her in days gone by. 
 Then she passed him, running swiftly into the 
 twilight and tumult of the plain.
 
 38 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 He who followed and overtook her was Ahi, 
 the maker of songs, for Vah stood dazed, the 
 taste of her kiss on his mouth. Out of the 
 West the army of wild herds poured down into 
 the twilight ; and it was an army, and it was an 
 ocean, wave after wave, a rushing tide. The 
 noise of the hoofs was like the noise of many 
 thunders. The sharp horns glanced and rang 
 like sabers. Over all rose the cries, fierce and 
 exultant, as of those who sweep on to venge 
 ance. 
 
 Far ahead, swifter than all the others, raced 
 the black bull, all foam and blood, his red eyes 
 swollen in the sockets, his head low, his bright 
 horns set for the charge. And to him there 
 came running, hand in hand, a slim girl and 
 Ahi, his white brother. The girl s eyes shone 
 gloriously and her breath came quick and true, 
 but Ahi was screaming new words of terror, 
 though he would not loose her hand. 
 
 "It is I," cried Ahi. "It is I, my brother, 
 the bull ! It is I, your man-brother, Ahi, your 
 brother!" 
 
 And as though he had heard, the black bull
 
 PASSING OF THE HERDS 39 
 
 swerved aside a little, but as he passed he thrust 
 at the girl with his horns. And the horn 
 ripped open the flesh of her side and snapped 
 her rib-bones as though they had been dried 
 twigs. The black bull did not pause. With a 
 toss of his head he threw her twenty feet away, 
 a dead thing, crumpled on the turf. And Alii, 
 though he ran, did not reach her, for the 
 avalanche of the wild herds was upon him, and 
 the life and the love and the fear were ground 
 out of him under the rushing hoofs. 
 
 The army swept on. The wooden barriers 
 fell and vanished, and somewhere in the ruin 
 Vah died, the taste of a kiss upon his lips. The 
 army passed; where once the village had been 
 there was only trampled clay and blood, and 
 silence ; overhead the stars flickered like sparks 
 from a fire.
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA
 
 O Mary of Magdala, the alien merchants came, 
 Across the shining, somber sands, that stained their 
 
 feet like flame. 
 To lay down at your portals their gifts of gold and 
 
 nard, 
 Of quaintly chiseled ivory and diamonds, white and 
 
 hard; 
 You loved them for the journey they made through 
 
 fearful lands, 
 You loved them for the peril of the bandits and the 
 
 sands ; 
 And you loved them for the spices, the gems, the bars 
 
 of gold 
 (So soft you looped them round your wrist!) these 
 
 wayfarers of old. 
 But I? I have come further than your old lovers 
 
 dared, 
 
 Mary of Magdala ! With sword-arm red and 
 
 bared. 
 
 1 have fought my way back grimly through all the 
 
 serried years 
 
 (0 Mary of Magdala, the peril of the years !) 
 To bring to you the guerdon of my verses and my 
 
 tears.
 
 II 
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 
 
 I 
 
 IT was a strange story; it happened this 
 way: 
 
 There was an old man, the head of a rough 
 tribe, living in the Gaulinitish hills. Because 
 he was a strong chieftain, they called him 
 "Abba," which is "father" in the language 
 spoken in those parts. This old man had a 
 son, who came upon earth in evil days. Sad 
 days they were, for the Romans had pushed 
 their power across the "Great Sea" into the 
 land of these Jews. Now, as the son of the old 
 chief grew to years, there grew with him, day 
 by day, a hatred of these Romans who had 
 come into his land. He was a lusty lad. Be 
 fore he was eighteen there was hair on his 
 breast, and the hair clustered thick round his 
 square chin. So the men in the Gaulinitish 
 
 43
 
 44 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 hills had faith in him, trusting his strength. 
 They called him Bar- Abbas, because he was 
 the son of his father. But what could he do 
 for them, in these days when the Roman camp 
 ran northward as far as Caesarea Philippi? 
 The boy was but a straw in the wind. 
 
 The Lord Sirus, who kept the stronghold of 
 Magdala, which, with all its towers, looked 
 eastward over the Sea of Galilee, took the 
 young lad into his service and set him to tend 
 the goats and sheep. For a little while the lad 
 bent himself to this service and was meek and 
 calm. He saw the children of the house pass 
 the little pampered children of Lord Sirus, 
 who was the Roman deputy for that province. 
 Always the boy s heart was sour as acid, with 
 his hatred for these Roman masters who were 
 not of his race. There on the hills at night, 
 when he watched his flocks, he would build a 
 fire and lie by it studying the flickering 
 sparks and wondering whether or not a venge 
 ful God lay sleeping among the embers of the 
 stars that shone in the sky overhead. 
 
 One day a little girl came down into the
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 45 
 
 shadow of the plane trees, where he watched. 
 
 She was not very pretty, she was too yellow, 
 sunburned and thin; the hair on her head had 
 too much red in it. In an odd way she sucked 
 her thumb and smiled at him. Now the son of 
 Abba, who was called Bar-Abbas, looked at 
 her, and he felt the heart in him rise and flutter 
 as a bird that is ready to fly. She came 
 straight to him on her little bare feet that were 
 the color of pale gold; she looked in his face 
 and laughed, and said: 
 
 "Tell me your name!" 
 
 Bar- Abbas gave her his name. 
 
 The little girl went close to him and stroked 
 the soft, thick beard on his chin. 
 
 "I love you," she said. 
 
 This half -savage lad, weary of labor and 
 irked with strange thoughts of the springtide, 
 knew not what to say ; he reached for her little 
 brown fist, but she said "Don t!" and drew it 
 away. 
 
 "See!" she said, opening her hand. "I ve a 
 baby lizard I got it from the wall." 
 
 She did not know, nor did the lad know, that
 
 46 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 this was the symbol of her role in life her mis 
 sion of unconscious cruelty and unwitting de 
 struction; he swept his arm around her and 
 kissed her, crushing her lips. 
 
 "I love you," she said. 
 
 "And I love you," said the lad; with an im 
 pulse he could not control he laid his head in 
 the dust and kissed her little naked feet. 
 
 The child laughed ; she flirted away her foot 
 with a cruel and futile gesture. 
 
 "Will you always love me?" she asked. 
 
 "Until God takes my life away," he said; the 
 poor fool was kneeling before her and she, 
 bright and ironic, studied his excited face. 
 Such a child she was, too a mere child, too 
 yellow and sunburned and thin, with the red 
 hair round her face. 
 
 "Then I ll kiss you," said the little girl. 
 
 She went close to him and put her hands in 
 his hair and pulled his face up to her face ; then, 
 still laughing, she set her young full lips to his 
 and kissed him. And this kiss, did we but 
 know it, was invented that one man might die 
 and that those who believe in Him might live.
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 47 
 
 II 
 
 IT was in the old tower of Magdala. A bent 
 serving-man went up the twisted stairs to the 
 chamber, which had been the room of state. 
 As he went he fought against darkness and 
 dust gray dust out of the old walls and dark 
 ness that dripped from the decayed timbers. 
 He pushed open the wooden windows of the 
 great chamber. The gold sunlight of the aft 
 ernoon streamed in. The woven curtains and 
 Tyrian tapestry showed gray against it, so 
 bright the sun shone. The old man looked 
 from the window; he saw the village and the 
 sea ; he shrugged his bent shoulders and threw 
 out his hands in a racial gesture. 
 
 "Wife," he called, "wife wife!" 
 
 An old woman came up ; she was timid and 
 faint; there was hardly a sign of life in her, 
 save the dark Semitic eyes that shone with un- 
 quenched hope. 
 
 "See to the couches," said the man shortly; 
 he pointed to the silken mattresses varnished 
 with dust.
 
 48 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "It cannot be true, Hakkoz," said the old 
 woman, timidly, "that she is here, my husband 
 it cannot be true." 
 
 As she spoke one could see that the great 
 hope was urgent as flame in her poor, old, faded 
 body. 
 
 "It cannot be true, Hakkoz," said she, "that 
 she is really here the little girl I fed at my 
 breast that she has come home again!" 
 
 The old man grumbled, shaking the dust 
 from the thick curtains over the bed. 
 
 "Aye, she s here but what brought her?" he 
 asked harshly. 
 
 "It is home for her," said the old woman; she 
 was wrinkled and very yellow, as are all the 
 women of her race when age comes upon them. 
 
 "Her home? Aye! Now God be thanked 
 her father, the Lord Sirus, is dead," said the 
 old man, "our God be thanked he is five years 
 in his grave. The old good lord; he never 
 knew what she made of her life! The brave 
 old lord ! He loved her best of all. Twas the 
 best part of his fortune he left her." 
 
 "This old castle the ruined house and the
 
 old tower," his wife said, "nay, you forget the 
 house in Jerusalem and all that went to her 
 brother! Aye, and the fat estate in Bethany 
 that went to her sister, Lady Martha. The 
 poor child had but this old tower by the sea." 
 
 "And the lands, woman, the farms," said old 
 Hakkoz, sharply, "the broad fields that run 
 north for leagues. What more could a man 
 do for the daughter he loved ? The tower and 
 the fields he gave her! What more could he 
 give ? And she left it all. You know her life 
 in Egypt, old woman, and what she did in 
 Rome; and what she is in Jerusalem. Why 
 comes she here? The tower of Magdala is no 
 home for her now. The red woman !" cried old 
 Hakkoz, "the red woman she whose ankles 
 tinkle as she walks, bah !" and he spat upon the 
 floor. 
 
 "I held her in my lap," said his old wife, 
 and always she was busy with the dusty silken 
 covers of the couch, "in my lap she lay no big 
 ger than that kicking and laughing and hun 
 gry for my breast. Lord Sirus called her his 
 hungry girl. Twas no sin to love her then.
 
 50 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 And now," the old woman added, "there 
 is none has a kind word for her not even 
 
 you." 
 
 "Kind words," said the old husband; he 
 straightened his bent back and showed her his 
 yellow face and his yellow teeth, "kind words 
 she s heard too many of them, the Lady of 
 Magdala. Too many kind words and too 
 many kisses." 
 
 Again he spat on the floor. 
 
 "God will have his vengeance on her for the 
 kind words and the kisses the red woman! 
 And she has dared to come back to the old 
 house, her father s house," said the old serving- 
 man. "That I should have lived to see it." 
 
 "See what, old Hakkoz?" 
 
 It was a little voice keyed to strange tones ; 
 scarlet and silver; there was laughter in it 
 and love. And the woman who spoke stood in 
 the doorway, swaying slightly from side to side 
 indolent, smiling, slim. The hair on her 
 head was red; it was bound up with silver 
 bands. She wore the Roman dress, falling 
 white to her ankles. There was a touch of yel-
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 51 
 
 low in her skin, as though in far-off days the 
 sun had burned it. Her lips were full and red. 
 Her eyes had a curious slant downward un 
 der the drooping lids one could not see whether 
 they were red or brown. Always, too, she 
 moved her slim fingers across her hair and eyes ; 
 it was a habit of hers ; perhaps in some other life 
 she had seen a squirrel play thus with hair and 
 brow. There were jewels round her throat 
 and a jeweled branch of them twisted down 
 between her stately breasts. Her fingers were 
 ringed to the second joint; and between the 
 thumbs of her feet thin bands of silver ran up 
 and circled her slight ankles. Indeed, the slim 
 lady of Magdala was gilded like the girls who 
 wore the saffron robe in Rome where she had 
 lived. 
 
 "Lived to see what, old Hakkoz?" she said 
 again, as she entered the room. "Do you mean 
 your mistress? Puh! What an odor of dead 
 things there is here. Burn some perfumes, 
 nurse, tis very foul. One would think some 
 one had died here." 
 
 "You were born here," the old nurse said.
 
 52 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 Twas here Lord Sirus, your father, died," 
 said Hakkoz; he lifted his face and looked at 
 her. 
 
 The Lady of Magdala did not answer them ; 
 she walked to the window and looked out; be 
 low her lay the little village, the fishing huts, 
 the narrow street where the naked children 
 played and quarreled; beyond was the sea 
 drowsing in the sunlight like an indolent cat; 
 and then to the north she saw the meadow, the 
 grove of plane trees, the lift of the hills, white 
 with browsing flocks of sheep. 
 
 The youth that had once been hers came back 
 to her bit by bit. She had played there be 
 tween sea and sand. She had known the se 
 crets of the grove; the green plane trees had 
 whispered to her. She had wandered with 
 sheep and shepherds. The memory of these 
 things came to her out of the long ago. She 
 was a very small girl then, for this was before 
 her father died. Indeed it was very long ago. 
 So many things had happened since. It all 
 came back to her. 
 
 Especially she remembered the bearded
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 53 
 
 shepherd a poor lad whom she loved for a 
 little while. They might have been happy to 
 gether for they had love. But the old Lord 
 Sirus patted her cheeks and laughed at her, 
 and her great sister, the Lady Martha, in 
 structed her in life, telling her that a Lady of 
 Magdala may not marry a rebel out of the 
 fields; so she had yielded, but love had not. 
 The old Lord Sirus died, and even before she 
 quarreled with her sister Martha for her poor 
 epileptic brother did not count in these family 
 affairs she was impatient for the new, far 
 life and the joy of alien songs. They would 
 not give her the shepherd lad she loved! No, 
 but there passed a Syrian merchant going 
 down to Egypt, and she went with him, giving 
 him the guerdon of her fifteen years and her 
 unreaped kisses. The Syrian merchant! 
 Then there was the young Greek poet, who car 
 ried her from Alexandria to Rome, singing the 
 while his maddening, alien strophes; then the 
 great Roman lord, grandson of the Pontius 
 who was the sea-farer, son of him who won the 
 name of Pilatus by casting the javelin, who
 
 54 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 carried her back to Palestine among his train 
 of girls. 
 
 He was a curious, subtle man, Pilatus; he 
 was gentle and had a singing voice. Did she 
 love him? Had she loved the Syrian mer 
 chant? Had she loved the Greek poet who 
 kissed her knees and chanted to her in the 
 moonlight, as they journeyed by boat from 
 Alexandria ? 
 
 She did not know. 
 
 Looking out upon the sea that crooned be 
 neath her old tower, the Lady of Magdala 
 asked herself if she had loved these men ; a red 
 anger stained her face and crept up into her 
 hair, for she did not know whether she had 
 loved them or not and the shame of it hurt 
 her. 
 
 "If my lady is served"; it was old Hakkoz 
 who spoke, and there was a sneer in his voice. 
 
 "Yes, you may go," said the Lady of Mag 
 dala, idly ; she was thinking as for many days 
 she had thought of a young shepherd who had 
 crushed his lips against hers, long ago when 
 she was very young.
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 55 
 
 "You may go," she said, "but nurse, wait. 
 I want to talk to you." 
 
 Old Hakkoz went out but before he crossed 
 the threshold he spat slyly upon the floor. 
 
 "Oh, Lady Mary," said the old nurse, "it is 
 good you ve come home." 
 
 "Tell me," said the Lady of Magdala, 
 "where is the Son of Abba?" 
 
 "Bar-Abbas," the old nurse repeated, 
 "surely he is with his flocks. 
 
 "Always the same?" 
 
 The old woman looked about her fearfully. 
 
 "Xo one hears but you?" she asked. 
 
 The Lady of Magdala went close to her. 
 
 "Tell me," she said. 
 
 "But you are a Roman lady now," said the 
 old nurse, "and I dare not." 
 
 As in the old days the bright girl slipped her 
 arm around her nurse s withered neck and 
 whispered to her with little kisses that broke 
 the words. 
 
 "Am I not my father s daughter?" she asked 
 softly; "and your foster-daughter, that cannot 
 change?"
 
 56 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 4 Bar- Abbas is stronger than your father 
 every one trusts him," said the old nurse. 
 "He is gathering the Galileans all the men of 
 the sea and the wild men of the Gaulinitish hills 
 . to make war upon the Romans who have 
 taken our city." 
 
 "To fight against Rome!" cried the Lady of 
 Magdala and laughed. 
 
 "To save Jerusalem," said the old Jewish 
 woman ; and there was a new light in her eyes. 
 
 Leaning there in the old window-space the 
 broad afternoon sunlight fell full upon the 
 Lady of Magdala ; it added fire to her hair and 
 sparkled on her jewels; slowly she turned and 
 looked at the old woman who had suckled her 
 when she was but a half -blind lump of sore and 
 irksome flesh. A sneer ran across her face it 
 was like a saber-cut and parted the lips, show 
 ing her white teeth. 
 
 "Save Jerusalem!" she said, and always the 
 sneer ran across her face. "You do not know 
 my Lord Pilatus. Jerusalem is his, as I," she 
 paused and caught her breath, "as I am his." 
 All this was bitter and hard ; when it was spent
 
 she ran again to her old nurse and kissed her 
 and cried brokenly: "But where is Bar- 
 Abbas ? I have come only to see him I loved 
 him first I love him now. Oh, nurse, nurse, 
 my mother, I have loved him always. Where 
 is Bar- Abbas, my shepherd boy he who gave 
 me the kiss. Send for him." 
 
 These words the Lady of Magdala said very 
 swiftly and between the words she kissed the 
 wrinkled face and neck of her old nurse ; more 
 over, as she spoke the nerves and muscles in her 
 twittered so that had Pilatus, her lover, been 
 there he would have sent speedily for his best 
 physician, the slave, Magnus whom he had 
 bought out of Gaul. 
 
 "Send for Bar- Abbas," whispered the Lady 
 of Magdala; "it was for him I came and he 
 only can save me." 
 
 "Hush," said the old nurse, for she had got 
 the girl in her arms and was rocking her to and 
 fro. "Save you from what, my baby?" 
 
 "From Pilatus from myself," the Lady of 
 Magdala said softly and there was fear in her 
 voice. "Oh, send for him,"
 
 58 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "Bar- Abbas?" the old woman said sooth 
 ingly. "I need not send for him. Day and 
 night he has watched at the gate, since we knew 
 you were coming home." 
 
 "Here?" cried the Lady of Magdala; she 
 threw her head back with a proud little ges 
 ture; her robe swayed sidewise and all the 
 jewels on her tinkled and glittered; then she 
 said again: "Here?" 
 
 She might have known he would be there. 
 While the old serving-woman went to bring 
 him in she made comely her hair and straight 
 ened the folds of her white robe. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE sun was going down behind the tower 
 of Magdala. It came slantingly into the win 
 dow of the room where the Lady Mary stood 
 and made a mere yellow flicker against the 
 dusty wall. Westward the evening light lay 
 broad upon the sea. Where the road went 
 northward to split among the plane trees and 
 lose itself in the folds of the hills there were
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 59 
 
 great patches of light and shade curiously dis 
 tinct. 
 
 The Lady of Magdala, waiting, heard the 
 click of sandals on the stairs and the noise as 
 of one who drops his sandals at the door. 
 
 She did not turn. 
 
 The man who came into the room was black- 
 bearded, and the thatch of hair on his head was 
 coarse and brown-stained by the weather. He 
 wore the coat of his race, girded at the waist by 
 woven thongs of leather. His head and feet 
 were bare, but his breast was covered with 
 coarse linen cloth, fastened high up to his 
 throat. He was just as she had expected him 
 to be, strong, forceful, grim. He smelled of 
 the earth and the sea and the Lady of Magdala 
 felt neither fear nor repulsion ; it was as though 
 she had come back to her race and the salutary 
 life of old. 
 
 "You do not welcome me," she said with the 
 slow, mocking smile that men did not resist. 
 
 "I welcome you," said the man. 
 
 "You have forgotten, Bar- Abbas?" she asked 
 gently.
 
 60 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 Out of liis black beard he growled a mean 
 ingless word, but always his eyes were upon 
 her. 
 
 "You kissed me," she said with that slow, 
 strange smile of hers. 
 
 The man cleared his throat before he spoke. 
 With a movement that was perhaps involun 
 tary, he squared his shoulders and set his bare 
 right heel hard on the floor. 
 
 "God," he said and twice he repeated the 
 word; it sounded like the groan of a sick beast. 
 Then he turned on her and shouted a torrent 
 of words that finally shaped themselves into 
 this: "Go back to your Roman! What have 
 you to do with me? Go back to your mas 
 ter!" 
 
 "My master!" the woman echoed angrily, 
 for the word stung her like wine dropped on a 
 new wound. "My master!" 
 
 "I know," said Bar- Abbas with dull anger, 
 and as he spoke his big head swayed to and fro 
 like an angry bull, "I know. He s your mas 
 ter and mine. You are his slave in one way 
 and I am his slave in another w&y. All we
 
 who are Jews are his slaves. But our day will 
 come my day will come." 
 
 Bar-Ahbas tossed his big head up again and 
 said, My day will come." 
 
 His dull eyes brightened as he spoke; he 
 made cruel, brutal gestures with his clenched 
 and hairy hands. There was strength in him 
 and impulse. 
 
 From head to foot the Lady of Magdala was 
 but a wavering line as she threw herself against 
 him. 
 
 "How I love you," ghe whispered; "how I 
 love you!" 
 
 Bar- Abbas held her off at arm s length. 
 
 "And I love you," he said swiftly. Some 
 thing like a sob came through the man s set 
 teeth; he got himself together and added 
 quietly : 
 
 "Three things I love my father s God, my 
 country and you." Urgent and bright the 
 Lady of Magdala clung close to him. 
 
 "But for my life I would not touch your 
 lips," he said; and he pushed her roughly from 
 him.
 
 62 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 It was not thus that men had treated her ; a 
 sudden anger flamed in her. There was pas 
 sion in her eyes and her white teeth came to 
 gether. 
 
 "Bar- Abbas," she said softly, "men have 
 died for less than that nailed up to a cross 
 like slaves to die." 
 
 Bar- Abbas swept his hands through the air, 
 making the gesture of his race. 
 
 "It is better to die than to love you," he said; 
 "and I have known that truth for many years. 
 But if a man could die for you if it would 
 help you that I should die for you " 
 
 Bar- Abbas looked at the Lady of Magdala ; 
 he fumbled for words; then he went im 
 patiently to the door. She saw him put on his 
 sandals. She heard the rap of his sandals as 
 he descended the stone stair-case. In spite of 
 herself, for it was as though something had 
 driven her, she went to the window. She 
 watched him cross the courtyard. He took 
 the northern road that led toward the clotted 
 grove of plane trees. She ran swiftly down 
 the stair-case, through the court into the road.
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 63 
 
 She called his name aloud "Bar- Abbas! 
 Bar- Abbas!" 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 Then she heard a jangle of sheep-bells. 
 The flocks were coming down from the hills. 
 The silent shepherds, stilled by the twilight, 
 came down among the sheep. It was a slow 
 procession moving among the hills. 
 
 Now in front of it was a Man, dressed in a 
 seamless coat of white linen. He walked 
 slowly among the tree-stems and all about him 
 was the gray and sudden twilight. Very 
 slowly He approached, stopping now and then 
 to stroke the heads of the sheep or caress the 
 little lambs ; and always He stepped aside that 
 His feet might not crush the young spring 
 flowers in His path. 
 
 "Ho! Shepherd!" the Lady of Magdala 
 cried to Him, "have you seen the man Bar- 
 Abbas?" 
 
 The Man in white linen stooped and picked 
 up a little lamb, too weak for the journey 
 and held it against His breast. Then He 
 looked at the Lady of Magdala.
 
 64 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "Bar- Abbas," she said; "have you seen Bar- 
 Abbas?" 
 
 "Not yet," said the Man in white linen; and 
 He gave the answer very gently. 
 
 "Not yet," the Man in the white seamless 
 coat said; He lifted the lamb in his arms and 
 kissed it and whispered, "Hush, be still!" 
 
 And the lamb lay still and nestled against 
 His breast. He went His way through the 
 gray tree-stems, toward the sea, all gray. 
 And the Lady of Magdala returned to the old 
 Castle of Magdala and lay down on her bed: 
 but that night she did not sleep all night she 
 lay upon her bed and sobbed. 
 
 "Not yet." Now these words were mean 
 ingless, but as the dawn came faintly into the 
 great chamber of the tower of Magdala, the 
 Lady Mary murmured one name over and 
 over again in her sleep. But what name she 
 spoke the old nurse could not tell. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE sun came up over Magdala, faint 
 among the hills and red upon the old towers.
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 65 
 
 The Lady Mary waking from a troubled 
 dream, looked curiously about her then she 
 remembered. She saw her old nurse sleeping 
 at the foot of the bed. Very softly she rose 
 and drew on her outer garments. As she 
 stooped to tie her sandals it seemed to her that 
 she had risen quite in spite of her will. It was 
 not of her own accord that she had risen in the 
 pale dawn. Not because she wished it was she 
 robing herself and making fast her sandals. 
 
 The light that came in through the woven 
 windows was very dim, but she could see the 
 jewels she had stripped from, her arms and 
 ankles when she went to bed. She tied the 
 silken girdle round her waist a thing all yel 
 low silk and silver. 
 
 Then her fingers fell upon a little glass vase ; 
 so slight and filmy it was that it seemed less 
 like glass than frozen breath ; she remembered 
 as she slipped it into her girdle, that the Lord 
 Pilatus had given it to her between kisses a 
 flower-like vase, within which was a little clot 
 of the perfume for which fifty slaves might 
 have been bartered, Why she thrust this vase
 
 66 THE CARNIVAL OF, DESTINY 
 
 into her girdle she did not know. That morn 
 ing many things seemed strange to her. 
 
 Suddenly she felt that she must go away 
 very quickly without stopping to kiss her old 
 nurse at once, without waiting till the day 
 had come. So she went swiftly down the stair 
 case, across the courtyard and into the road; 
 the anklets tinkled round her little feet and 
 from her shining garments there fluttered a 
 perfume of nocturnal hours, but these things 
 she did not heed; something (and what that 
 something was she knew not) drew her on and 
 on, down the long highway that curved past 
 the sea, southward. She knew not whether 
 she walked or ran ; only this she knew, that she 
 must travel this long road. Her little gilded 
 sandals cracked and wasted under her feet. 
 She neither felt nor cared. Broad and hot the 
 sun wheeled up into the sky and burned upon 
 her. She did not notice the flare of the sun. 
 Always she hurried on, as one who is called and 
 needs must go. One thought she had of Bar- 
 Abbas; the thought flashed through her, leav 
 ing her cold at heart and chill ; she hastened on.
 
 Twilight came; night came. In the towns 
 she traveled through men leaned from the 
 windows and jeered at her, for she was a gilded 
 and perfumed girl. Once a woman stopped 
 her and gave her water to drink and bade her 
 stay, for the woman had seen the jewels on her; 
 once she thought a flesh weariness had come 
 upon her and she had slept by the roadside ; but 
 she did not know. Ceaseless, insistent some 
 thing urged her on. She saw the sun go down 
 again as she came up the steep street of a little 
 village. 
 
 Now what the Lady of Magdala said to her 
 self was this : "Here I am here !" 
 
 She knew every turn of the street, every 
 house front; the village had been one of her 
 father s possessions, ere he died and left it to 
 his elder daughter; and many a time she had 
 been there in the days of old long ago when 
 she and Martha were still sisters before she 
 had known the foreign laughter and the alien 
 kisses. 
 
 As she breasted the hill of Bethany, she 
 thought again of Martha though love had
 
 68 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 long been dead between them. Then she 
 thought of her brother. Always she had loved 
 Lazarus, and how bravely he had loved her, 
 this brother. A weak, helpless man he was, 
 for God had touched him with the evil of epi 
 leptic fits, but she loved him, she thought better 
 than anything upon earth. Even as this 
 thought came to her it was splintered. The 
 name of Bar- Abbas sang in her ears. Then 
 with a little shudder she feared she must not 
 love them any more. 
 
 An old dog came up growling; after a mo 
 ment he whined and rubbed against her. The 
 Lady of Magdala touched the old dog s head 
 softly. 
 
 She was at the door of Martha s House in 
 Bethany. In the courtyard there were three 
 asses, hobbled, standing meekly beside their 
 saddle-bags. Near them a servant lounged. 
 He had filched a leathern bottle of wine and 
 was drinking, tilting the skin up to his face. 
 The Lady of Magdala did not look at him, 
 but for a second he made a vague picture in her 
 mind; then she saw the great room beyond
 
 which was lighted with many lamps and where 
 guests sat at supper. She did not see her sis 
 ter, Martha, but even had she seen her she 
 could not have paused, this night, at the door 
 of the great room. As one who goes upon an 
 errand she crossed the threshold. 
 
 Some one was saying: "Four days I was 
 dead I lay in the tomb and He bade me come 
 forth"; the words came to her dimly and it 
 seemed to her that her brother Lazarus Kad 
 spoken, but she neither knew nor cared. 
 
 Again the voice : "See what he has done for 
 me, who was dead and am alive!" 
 
 The Lady of Magdala paid no heed. 
 
 Straight and swift she went to the Man, 
 dressed in a white seamless coat, and His face 
 was pale, very sad, wonderful; and His eyes 
 were quiet and firm. Now this happened. 
 When the Lady of Magdala looked into His 
 eyes she gave a little cry and sank at His 
 feet. 
 
 "Yes, Master," she said. Twice she said 
 these words: "Yes, Master!" 
 
 A new life stirred in her; it was as though
 
 70 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 spring had come with all its flutter and exuber 
 ance of life. And now she knew. There 
 among the plane trees He had called to her to 
 come to Him ; and she had come. 
 
 For the third time she said: "Yes, Mas 
 ter!" 
 
 She would have stripped the jeweled rings 
 from her wrist and ankles and laid them at His 
 feet, but they seemed mere dross. 
 
 She bethought her of the Egyptian vase in 
 her girdle. It was flower-shaped, fragile as 
 frozen breath. Within it, like a heart of gold, 
 was a rare perfume. She broke the vase in her 
 little hands. She moistened His feet with the 
 perfume and through the room the perfume 
 spread like music. Then the Lady of Mag- 
 dala dried His feet with her hair. 
 
 Among the guests was one who murmured. 
 
 " Twas Egyptian ware, very precious," he 
 said, "and the essence was worth a man s ran 
 som. Why was it not sold and the money 
 given to the poor?" 
 
 He was a pushing man with a scant-bearded, 
 evil face; he pressed forward noisily.
 
 "Let her alone," said the Man in white, and 
 He spoke very gently; "she has done this for 
 My burial." 
 
 Hearing these words the Lady of Magdala 
 raised her eyes upon Him, but even as she 
 looked she cried aloud, for on His pale fore 
 head she saw drops of blood and wounds as 
 though thorns had been bound there. But the 
 others did not see. 
 
 V 
 
 THE Lord Pilatus was angry and fearful; 
 all night his Roman soldiers had swept the 
 streets, but at daybreak news of a great insur 
 rection had been brought to him, and he had 
 sent Marcellus with fresh troops. Son of the 
 sea-f arer as he was, and of him who threw best 
 the javelin, the Lord Pilatus was not strong in 
 courage. A slight fear made the heart in him 
 sway like water. This day, as he crouched 
 among the pillows, there in the throne-room of 
 his palace in Jerusalem, his heart was sick with 
 fear. If the Jewish mob won it was death for 
 him, and if he escaped them he must face
 
 72 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 Cassar s vengeance, which was worse than 
 death. Fear-sick, mind and body, he wal 
 lowed among the pillows of his couch. The 
 two armed slaves Gauls they were, and brave 
 smiled as they guarded him. 
 
 There were swift clanging steps in the 
 marble hall without, and Lord Pilatus cried: 
 "Who is that?" It was a captain of his guard 
 who entered, crying: "We have crushed 
 them, my lord; the insurrection is crushed! 
 We have taken many prisoners, chief of them 
 all the leader of the mob." 
 
 "Ah, you have him," said Pilatus; smiling 
 and cruel he sat up, "the leader!" 
 
 "Yes, my lord." 
 
 "And he lives?" 
 
 "He is wounded, my lord, but he lives." 
 
 "A Galilean, is he not?" asked Pilatus, 
 slowly. 
 
 "From Magdala," the soldier answered. 
 "It was he who set the insurrection on foot. 
 He might have succeeded had not some of his 
 own people turned against him." 
 
 "His name?"
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 73 
 
 "Bar- Abbas they call him," said the captain 
 of the Roman guards; "a strong fellow." 
 
 Pilatus mused a little. 
 
 "Some of his own people turned against 
 him? Then they love us?" 
 
 "They fear another Jew, who fights not 
 against Rome but against Jerusalem. That is 
 what they say," the soldier replied. 
 
 "The insurrection is crushed," said the Lord 
 Pilatus. "Caesar shall reward you. And this 
 man Bar- Abbas? He is from Galilee? 
 
 "From Magdala, I know, yes," Pilatus said 
 softly, "there is a castle there. And this 
 man," he repeated, "is not yet dead? Bring 
 him here. It would not annoy me to look at 
 him before he died. He has troubled me. He 
 has broken my rest. Go ! Make haste t" 
 
 As the officer went away to bring him this 
 rebel, Lord Pilatus rose, feeling his manhood 
 come back ; but he bade his armed slaves stand 
 near him. 
 
 His eyes were on the door when a woman 
 came in and threw herself at his feet. For an 
 instant he did not know her, for she was draped
 
 74 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 in a rough blue cloak, and her face was hag 
 gard and worn with tears. Then he knew her 
 and smiled. 
 
 "My lord, my lord," she cried, "there is a 
 Man who must die unless you speak the word 
 to save him." 
 
 "I know," said the Roman governor and al 
 ways he smiled; "but why should I save him, 
 and why should you ask? There was a time 
 when you might have asked more than that, but 
 you threw your chance away. And now you 
 come and kneel and plead for a favor that you 
 might have commanded in those days. 
 Strange creatures, these women," said the Ro 
 man governor. He turned; a black girl 
 brought him wine and he drank. 
 
 "Think, my lord; He must not die," the 
 woman urged, trailing herself at his feet, "for 
 He has done no wrong. He brings life. He 
 brings love and life and peace for us all. The 
 Jews do not understand, my lord, because they 
 are blind. Be but patient, my Lord Pilatus, 
 and God will give them eyes to see. My lord, 
 my lord, give Him not up to the Jews!"
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 75 
 
 The Roman lord studied the woman at his 
 feet; her red golden hair had lost its bright 
 ness ; her face was disfigured with anguish, but 
 the eyes she lifted to him were steady with rap 
 ture and serenity; it was not thus he had seen 
 her last, riant with kisses and wine. Then he 
 thought of what she had said. 
 
 "Save what man?" he asked. 
 
 "The Prophet," she cried, "Jesus of Naza 
 reth; for the captain and officers of the Jews 
 have seized Him in the meadow there by the 
 brook of Cedron, and will have Him die." 
 
 The Lord Pilatus smiled; it was the quiet 
 smile of one whose brain turns to cruelty and 
 amusement. 
 
 "Ah, there is another prisoner going to die 
 to-day," he said. 
 
 "But the Prophet must not die," Lady 
 Mary whispered. 
 
 "It is a feast day of the Jews," said Pilatus, 
 "some foolish day of sacrifice, and on this day 
 it is an old habit to let one criminal go free. 
 Choose you, my dear," the Roman added 
 kindly, but the cruelty had crept into his
 
 76 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 eyes, "the Prophet as you call Him or the 
 other malefactor, the rebel. Which shall go 
 free?" 
 
 "The Prophet must not die," said the Lady 
 of Magdala. She stood up white and urgent. 
 "You will save Him?" 
 
 "Of course," said Pilatus, smiling, "let the 
 other die. Ho! Guards there! Bring in 
 the man." 
 
 The thanks that Mary would have spoken 
 faded on her lips, for there was thrust into the 
 white throne-room a man who was weak and 
 bloody and came stumbling in his irons. 
 
 The Lord Pilatus went to the prisoner. 
 
 "So, rebel," he said, "you fight against 
 Caesar and against us!" 
 
 He looked back at the Lady of Magdala. 
 "This is the man you have asked me to crucify 
 to-day." 
 
 For a moment the woman swayed to and 
 fro ; all her life was in her eyes as she looked at 
 the prisoner, chained there, foul with blood 
 and defeat; in a voice that she herself did not 
 hear she whispered, "Bar-Abbas, Bar-Abbas,
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 77 
 
 you!" Then with a great sob she threw her 
 self before Lord Pilatus and held his knees to 
 her breast and cried: "Not he, not he I did 
 not know it was he!" 
 
 Then first the son of Abba spoke. 
 
 "Stand up, woman," he shouted hoarsely. 
 "Oh, God! My Lady of Magdala, do not 
 kneel there!" 
 
 The throb of anguish in the prisoner s voice 
 pleased the Lord Pilatus, and indifferently as 
 one who thrusts away a tangle of grass, he re 
 leased his feet; he went toward the son of 
 Abba and smiled at him and said: "I prom 
 ised her I would kill you. I m not sorry for 
 it. I think you ve kissed her, and it irks me 
 that men like you," he shrugged his shoulders, 
 "should glean my kisses." 
 
 Now the Lady Mary had risen as he spoke ; 
 she laid her hand softly on the shoulder of 
 Bar- Abbas and said: "You know I do not 
 wish your death." 
 
 "I know," the son of Abba said gently; he 
 raised his poor manacled hands, as though he 
 would make a defense for her.
 
 78 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "And the other man," asked Pilatus smil 
 ing; "does He know?" 
 
 The Son of Abba threw up his head and 
 snarled; the cry that came from him was sav 
 age and hoarse as that of a wild beast; it 
 seemed to him that he was no longer himself, 
 but something hairy and sullen, lying angrily 
 by a camp-fire, somewhere in the long ago; 
 he felt a need of letting his muscles play across 
 each other of wreaking his strength and an 
 ger on this smiling man. A queer word came 
 stammering to his lips. It was a sound of 
 "Mar Mar," that had no meaning. The 
 haggard woman kissed his wrists all bloody 
 from the chains and stammered: 
 
 "Yes, yes," nor did she know the meaning. 
 Perhaps some old impulse out of the long ago 
 some touch of other days knit them to 
 gether at that moment. 
 
 "Then choose, my Lady of Magdala," said 
 the Lord Pilatus, who smiled always, "this 
 man or the other." 
 
 The Son of Abba went toward him shield-
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 79 
 
 ing as best he could with his ironed arms the 
 woman who clung to him and could not speak ; 
 grimy and fierce he was, but his voice was very 
 gentle; and he said: "It is I who choose, Ro 
 man!" and to Mary he said: "You know I 
 promised to die for you." 
 
 "And you shall," the Lord Pilatus said with 
 neat emphasis; "you shall." 
 
 "No, no," said the Lady of Magdala, al 
 ways with little sharp cries of pain; "no, no, 
 not you; no, no I" 
 
 "You will not conquer in my death, Pilatus," 
 Bar-Abbas said, and again he spoke gently, 
 "for the Roman tyranny shall perish from the 
 earth, and if it be not I who leads my people, 
 yet there will be a leader. You cannot kill 
 Jerusalem hark !" 
 
 Without there was the sound of tumult ; the 
 noise of arms was heard; always the cries of 
 many voices "the Son of Abba! the Son of 
 Abba! Set him free! Give us back the Son 
 of Abba!" 
 
 "My people have spoken," said Bar- Abbas,
 
 80 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "and you, my Lord Pilatus, you dare not set 
 me free; for if I go to them Rome perishes. 
 And that you know, coward." 
 
 The cries grew louder and fiercer without, 
 and Pilatus felt the heart in him rock like 
 water. He went to the window that gave upon 
 the street. 
 
 "Long ago I promised to die for you," Bar- 
 Abbas whispered to the woman; "what does it 
 matter, my Lady of Magdala, my Lady Mary, 
 if for this one moment you have really loved 
 me. Now that I know you love me I have the 
 right to die for your sake." 
 
 There came Marcellus, who was captain of 
 the guards of Pilatus, and he told him: "My 
 lord, we cannot hold the mob. The priests are 
 leading the people. Release this rebel to them. 
 They have given up another in his place." 
 
 "I will not," Pilatus answered, shaken with 
 anger and fear. 
 
 "There are not troops enough to guard the 
 palace," the officer replied. 
 
 Then the Lord Pilatus thought of himself; 
 for a second, too, he thought darkly of Bar-
 
 THE LADY OF MAGDALA 81 
 
 Abbas and the woman, whose castle was at 
 Magdala, but Cassar came across his mind and 
 his fear quickened. "Let this man go," said 
 he sharply. 
 
 The slaves struck the irons from the arms 
 and legs of Bar-Abbas and thrust him out of 
 doors; in the place that fronted the palace the 
 people thronged to him and bore him in their 
 arms. That day there was no more tumult. 
 A pale Man very white and wonderful, was 
 scourged and given up to the High Priests of 
 the Jews, for He said He was their King; but 
 the High Priests said they would have no King 
 but Csesar. So the Man was sent away to be 
 killed, after the fashion of slaves who revolt. 
 There was no stir, for this man had no follow 
 ers, save a few feeble folk. 
 
 Dawn had come up again in that part of the 
 world. It was a feeble dawn, very gray. It 
 made only a little light in a garden where there 
 was a new grave. There was a woman there, 
 and her eyes were dazed and fixed. 
 
 Now, this was the Lady of Magdala, but
 
 82 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 she knew not if she lived or were she dead. 
 She seemed to see a pale figure, that was not 
 quite real nor quite a part of the gray dawn 
 a vague figure, very wonderful. Then a voice 
 said: "Mary." She knelt, whispering, "Yes, 
 Master," and twice again did she whisper, 
 "Yes, Master." She heard the voice again, 
 but the words were very faint. A dim kind 
 of sleep gathered in her brain. She did not 
 hear the footsteps that came toward her. 
 Some one touched her head humbly; a rough, 
 dark face bent over her. 
 
 "Mary!" 
 
 "You! Oh, Bar- Abbas!" 
 
 "Yes," said the rough man, lifting her in his 
 arms, "come, come I, too, have seen Him." 
 
 Through the gray tree-stems of the garden 
 they went together; hand in hand they went, 
 wondering.
 
 MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA
 
 Ill 
 
 "MAKE THE BED FOE ATTILA" 
 
 IT was long ago. More than four centuries 
 had gone by since those in Jerusalem had 
 chosen between a man named Bar- Abbas a 
 grim rebel and Another, who was no rebel, 
 though He was to overturn the world. Over 
 the Roman Empire a new religion had crept 
 up stealthily as the creeping tide comes up the 
 sand. The idlers in the streets of Rome felt 
 its influence. The captains lolling in the baths 
 knew of it. Even the great Emperor Honor- 
 ius understood that a new idea had been born 
 among his people ; playing with his tame fowls 
 there in his poultry-yard in Ravenna, he would 
 say, "I trust I am a good Christian," and with 
 skeptical fingers he would cross himself. 
 
 "But what is a Christian?" Aulus would say 
 lightly, for he was a courtier and a poet. 
 
 85
 
 86 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 The Emperor used an exclamation which I 
 dare not translate into our modern speech. 
 
 "I am," said he. "I am a Christian." 
 
 With that he went out into the dull green 
 garden that lay to the westward of his palace 
 in Ravenna and fed his tame hens. Now it 
 was quite true that the Emperor Honorius 
 should be a Christian; but he was not such a 
 Christian as you and I are, for he kept the 
 creed only that he might hold the throne. In 
 deed, it is well known that he had bartered 
 away his own sister, Placidia, to Alaric, the 
 Gothic leader, in order that he might not lose 
 his crown. He was young then, but he had no 
 thought for this little sister, who was carried 
 away into barbarism to be the plaything of 
 a savage. He had saved his throne; why 
 should he care? For a little while he had 
 saved Rome and his own poultry-yard in 
 Ravenna. After many years Placidia came 
 back to him, bruised and broken with barba 
 rous love. 
 
 "You ve been long gone," said the Emperor
 
 MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA 87 
 
 Honorius. "It is many years since I ve seen 
 
 you." 
 
 "Alaric is dead," said the woman kneeling 
 to her brother, the Emperor. 
 
 "Dead?" said the Emperor. "Ah, yes, I re 
 member. My poor sister ! I thought my hen 
 Roma would die yesterday. She has the pip. 
 But she s well again. You should see her. 
 She eats corn out of my hand." 
 
 "Alaric is dead," said the woman; life had 
 bruised her and she was sad and quiet, "and 
 I have come home. You sold me, brother, to 
 him. I know it was to save the throne, and 
 Rome must not be pillaged by the barbarians. 
 But now let me live here in peace. I am tired 
 and very, very weary of life. Let me live 
 quietly here with my little girl." 
 
 "I remember," said Honorius, the Roman 
 Emperor. "You have a little girl the daugh 
 ter of the barbarian?" 
 
 "The daughter of Alaric," said the woman, 
 drooping; "she is now thirteen." 
 
 "His daughter, is she?" Honorius said
 
 88 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 sharply; then his voice dropped into good na 
 ture and he drank his wine and said: "Sister, 
 what is mine is yours only the Empire. 
 You and this little barbarian daughter of 
 yours. What s her name?" 
 
 "Honoria," said the poor woman, searching 
 a name to touch his vanity. 
 
 "Honoria!" cried the Emperor. "Ah, she 
 can be no common girl! You gave her my 
 name, sister!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And she is thirteen? You shall live here in 
 Ravenna, at the palace," Honor ius went on 
 blithely. "I ll give you rooms facing on the 
 poultry-yard." 
 
 At this moment there came up to them a little 
 savage girl; she was watchful and timorous; 
 her eyes were steady and hard ; round her head 
 was a circle of thick red hair; her short white 
 coat was muddied and torn the gold embroid 
 ery hanging in shreds; one small knee was 
 scratched and bloody. 
 
 "Honoria!" the Emperor s sister exclaimed 
 with calm authority.
 
 MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA 89 
 
 "I fell, mother," the child said, "but it wasn t 
 my fault I was running." 
 
 Honoria rubbed her little knee. 
 
 "A pretty child," said her uncle, the Em 
 peror. 
 
 The mother drew the child close to her and 
 fondled the little red head. 
 
 "We must take good care of this little bar 
 barian," the Emperor added, "and try and 
 make a Roman lady of her." 
 
 Placidia stooped and kissed the child. 
 
 "She is all Roman," her mother said; "her 
 father made her body, but I made her soul." 
 
 The Emperor, who was a philosopher in his 
 way, discerned a thought in her words; for a 
 moment he dandled it to and fro, then he said : 
 "Quite right. The mother is merely the soil 
 in which the seed is sown. Whether the flower 
 be rose or peony depends upon the seed, but 
 once the seed is sown, the soil shapes it and 
 makes the flower weak or strong. I ve studied 
 this problem a good bit. Now with hens 
 
 A man approached swiftly; it was Aulus, 
 and his sandals crunched the gravel as he ran.
 
 90 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "Rome has perished!" cried Aulus while he 
 was still afar. 
 
 "Roma!" the Emperor exclaimed. "Why 
 only an hour ago she was feeding from my 
 hand!" 
 
 "It is not Roma, your hen," said Aulus 
 sharply. "It is the Imperial city Rome!" 
 
 "Ah," said Honorius brightly, "why did you 
 frighten me so? I thought you meant my 
 hen!" 
 
 The little girl heard these things and won 
 dered; she was only a child, but she was the 
 daughter of Alaric. That night she slept 
 slimly in her little bed and dreamed of strange 
 warriors grim barbarians who rode down 
 upon Rome and sacked it and carried away the 
 women and girls. It was a fearful dream and 
 in her sleep she cried aloud. 
 
 The days went by over the little Lady Hon- 
 oria. Her red hair grew longer. The 
 thoughts in her eyes deepened. The slim child 
 ishness fell away from her body. She was 
 fifteen years old. And how dull life was, there
 
 MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA 91 
 
 in the sun-baked palace which lies along the 
 river in Ravenna how very dull. The Em 
 peror had no thought save for his tame fowls. 
 Always her mother sat brooding, staring into 
 the north, as though she were thinking of the 
 savage master she had known this Alaric, who 
 had taught her that love is slavery. 
 
 This afternoon the small Lady Honoria was 
 alone in the garden alone save for a chromatic 
 lizard that slipped down on the hot marble 
 bench beside her and lay there drinking the 
 heat. 
 
 Her thoughts went away into the land of her 
 father that wild land beyond the Alps. She 
 mused upon the fierce men who wandered there 
 hairy men who rode, clashing buckler and 
 sword, shouting to their maddened horses. 
 Again and again one name flashed across her 
 mind Attila, who hovered on the edge of the 
 Empire like a bird of prey. Attila Attila 
 the name rang in her ears. She knew how dan 
 gerous a man was he. Had she not read the 
 poets of the hour? He was not quite a man, 
 not wholly a beast ; perhaps a demon, the poets
 
 92 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 said, for the color of his skin was yellow. He 
 had come out of the East, they said, and the 
 new sun had stained his skin. From the far 
 steppes of the East he had ridden with his sav 
 age yellow warriors many a league, crossing the 
 sulky Danube to harry the rich lands of Gaul. 
 Even Rome feared him now; the great Em 
 peror, Honorius talked only of Attila of At- 
 tila and his tame fowls. Had he not swept 
 down upon Paris and Orleans? Had he not 
 won a great victory at Chalons, which is on the 
 river Marne? Attila Attila. 
 
 The little girl Honoria sat on the marble 
 bench in the sunlight with her brother, the 
 lizard, and dreamed of Attila. Through all 
 her little veins the blood of another barbarian 
 ran swift and hot. Vaguely she recalled the 
 camp-fire in the fields, the lust of battle and 
 the shock of weapons. What had she to 
 do with Rome? She took a wooden codex 
 smeared with wax and laid it on her knee. 
 With the stilus she made ready to write. 
 
 Pausing, the Lady Honoria ruffled her red 
 hair. She would write. But what should she
 
 MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA 93 
 
 write and to whom ? Always there rang in her 
 ears the music of that one name "Attila At- 
 tila!" It was music subtle and soft as the 
 purring of cats. Attila 
 
 The Lady Honoria wrote this letter: 
 
 Attila, my Lord: 
 
 I who write to you am Honoria, daughter of Pla- 
 cidia, who was wife to the great barbarian Alaric. 
 My Lord Attila, your fame is bright in the world. 
 It shines upon me like the sun. Come to me, my 
 Lord Attila, and take me. Here in the palace of 
 Honorius I die, for I am sick of this life. I have 
 kisses for you and you shall come and take them. I 
 am young and I love you. With this letter I send 
 you a ring of gold which I have taken from my fin 
 ger, and you, receiving this ring, will know I am your 
 promised wife Attila, my Attila. By a faithful 
 messenger I send this letter and this ring. 
 
 HONORIA. 
 
 When she had signed her name to the letter 
 she bade a slave who was near her summon the 
 poet, Aulus. 
 
 "This letter is for Atilla," she said to Aulus. 
 
 The poet s face paled. He looked at her 
 with angry impatience. 
 
 "Aulus," she said softly.
 
 94 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "I cannot take it," he said. 
 
 "For me you will," the girl said coaxingly; 
 and she went close to him, shaking her red hair. 
 
 "Attila," the man repeated. 
 
 "But if I ask you to take it " 
 
 "Give it to me," the man said. 
 
 A bitter smile went across his lips. 
 
 "It is not easy to come to Attila," he said. 
 
 "I know," said the girl, "that the Romans 
 do not care to meet him." 
 
 For a little while Aulus looked at her and 
 did not speak ; there was something about this 
 strange, wild girl s beauty that made his heart 
 sway like fluid in a shaken tube; many a lyric 
 night he had dreamed of her; perhaps he had 
 hoped that she would give him her love; for 
 poets are foolish folk; he had never dreamed 
 that she would give him death. 
 
 "The Romans do not fear Attila nor death," 
 he said quietly; "they died at Aquileia; they 
 died at Verona and Milan, and to-morrow 
 they may die at Pavia. And if I take your 
 letter to him 
 
 "You, too, may die?" Honoria interrupted
 
 MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA 95 
 
 him swiftly. "Ah, no you shall see Attila 
 and live." 
 
 "One of us only one of us will live," said 
 Aulus. He was a poet, and had moments 
 when his courage outran his fear. 
 
 "Then go," the girl said. 
 
 He stooped and kissed her young white 
 hand. 
 
 "And if I do not come again?" he asked. 
 
 "Then Attila will come," she answered, and 
 the barbarian blood in her flushed up into her 
 cheeks, and she shook loose the wanton glory 
 of her red hair. 
 
 Aulus thrust the letter into his girdle. 
 
 "I will carry this letter to the camp of the 
 Huns, and it shall be given to Attila," he said, 
 "and you, Princess " 
 
 "I!" cried Honoria. She turned away, 
 laughing, for this man s love seemed pale and 
 withered to her ; and her heart was far abroad, 
 among the swift horsemen and the sharp 
 swords that were sweeping down to harry 
 Rome.
 
 96 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 And there was fear in Rome. 
 
 The Roman lords lay shivering in their 
 couches; among roses and wine-cups and 
 dancing-girls, fear crept close to them and 
 hushed their laughter. The yellow warriors 
 from the far East who were coming down 
 upon them were more terrible than the bat 
 talions of Alaric, these savage horsemen who 
 rode bloodthirsty and savage, through the ease 
 ful Empire. And who could stay them? 
 They were not human men. Their skins were 
 yellow. Their eyes lay slanting under their 
 protuberant brows. Their black hair took the 
 wind. As they rode down upon the land their 
 swords clashed, and they shouted fierce, mean 
 ingless words to their lean horses. A wild 
 race Lord forgive us ! An impious and fore- 
 damned race! Like vermin they had crept 
 through all the Roman lands north of the 
 Apennines. Now they were crowding down 
 upon Rome itself. 
 
 Honorius fluttering about his fowl-yard 
 (for he was a hen rather than a man) knew not 
 whether Ravenna itself were safe. Upon all
 
 MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA 97 
 
 the Empire lay fear, white and sodden, like wet 
 linen bands. 
 
 They would have prayed, these Romans, 
 but they knew not to whom to pray. Not 
 even a ghost of Apollo haunted the evening 
 air. Venus was dead and Bacchus rode no 
 more even Pan lay dead among the green 
 brakes ; all dead the old gods, and the Romans 
 were not quite sure that the new God, who had 
 died that Bar-Abbas might live, would answer 
 them should they call upon him. Some priests 
 said yes, but the philosophers sneered. 
 
 Always that victorious horde, which was the 
 army of Attila, came riding down the sun- 
 stained valleys of Italy; and always round the 
 hearts of the Romans fear wrapped itself like 
 cold, wet bandages. 
 
 Now this afternoon the sun blazed hot and 
 full upon Ravenna. Even the hens in the Im 
 perial fowl-yard were irked by the heat; they 
 scratched deep holes in the soil and fluttered 
 their wings; the Emperor Honorius felt for 
 them, and bade the slaves bring water to cool 
 the soil. His sister, Placidia, all in white sat
 
 98 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 upon a marble bench near the fowl-house. 
 She was very calm and, save that her fingers 
 and eyelids twitched, was very still. Near her 
 a girl in a saffron-colored gown lolled, one foot 
 drawn up under her knee. The sunlight made 
 strange plays of light and shade in her loose 
 coils of red hair. Her eyes were dreamy. It 
 may be that her thoughts were far away in 
 forest glades, in glimmering prairies, among 
 the savage hills of another world in the North. 
 She was not beautiful, this girl; as she lay 
 there, curled like a cat, brooding with green 
 ish eyes, the hair of her thick and red, she 
 looked more than woman ever should look- 
 like the daughter of Alaric. 
 
 A messenger came, spoke to Honorius, 
 bowed low and w^ent. He was ill-tempered, 
 the Emperor, for fear and anger are always 
 close together. 
 
 "Is there no one to do anything?" he asked 
 sharply. "And the priests where are the 
 priests? We have a religion, have we not? 
 We ve a new God? Eh? The priests are
 
 MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA 99 
 
 paid. We ve bishops and lords of the church. 
 We all do our duty to them. Then let them 
 save us now from this yellow demon. Attila! 
 Attila! Attila!" 
 
 Three times he spoke the name ; the first time 
 he was thinking of the barbarian chief of the 
 yellow Huns; but the second time and the third 
 he was calling a little Persian cock to which he 
 had given the barbarian s name. 
 
 "Well," he added, and he snapped out the 
 word like the crack of a whip ; a blond British 
 slave had come up to him gesticulating humbly. 
 
 "The Bishop Leo has arrived and craves an 
 audience," said the slave softly. 
 
 "Leo," cried the Emperor, "bring him in." 
 
 In spite of the blazing sunlight, the Lady 
 Placidia, all in white, shivered a little; some 
 thing cold ran through her veins and settled 
 about her heart, for she had known the Bishop 
 Leo. Had not he sold her to Alaric that 
 Rome might be saved? She laid her hand 
 upon her daughter s knee for a new terror came 
 to her.
 
 100 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "Honoria," she said. 
 
 The girl rocked to and fro, her foot under her 
 knee, and smiled. 
 
 "If it be the Bishop Leo, what then?" she 
 asked lazily. 
 
 Her eyes were dreamy and savage; it was 
 as though she knew. Her mother s face 
 blanched, for she was sure that her daughter 
 did not know and could not know this yellow 
 lord of the steppes; but she how well she 
 knew! She would have spoken but she found 
 no words ready, and as she sought for them 
 there came a cortege of people conducting the 
 Bishop Leo. He was an old man, very small 
 and faint and white, but he was robed in a 
 purple cloak that shamed the dress of the Em 
 peror Honorius. As he passed the Lady 
 Placidia he glanced at her and a little sneer 
 flickered up in his old and wrinkled face; per 
 haps he remembered the day when he had 
 pawned her to Alaric, the fierce chief, to save 
 Rome; perhaps he thought of her soul it 
 might have been that. 
 
 The old bishop got upon his knees and kissed
 
 MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA 101 
 
 the hand of Honorius ; then he rose and blessed 
 him abruptly with a certain air of celestial pat 
 ronage. 
 
 "I am an old man," said Leo the Bishop, "an 
 old man and twice it is to be my good for 
 tune to save Rome." 
 
 Saying this Leo looked at the poor Lady 
 Placidia; but she dared not meet his eyes and 
 fondled the red-haired girl at her side. The 
 Emperor Honorius clucked to his hens. 
 
 "There is a messenger from Attila," said 
 the Bishop. "He waits without." 
 
 There were three people who heard these 
 words of the Bishop. Each of the three acted 
 in a very different way. Placidia put one arm 
 softly round her daughter, but Honoria, with a 
 little ripple of laughter, drew away and sat 
 up, staring at the Bishop. As for Honorius 
 he babbled and repeated, "Attila! Attila!" 
 and then scratched the neck of one of his tame 
 hens. 
 
 "An Embassy from Attila?" said the Em 
 peror Honorius peevishly. "I don t want any 
 thing but peace. If they don t bring peace let
 
 102 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 them go again. I ll not hear them. What 
 credentials?" 
 
 The Bishop had not waited till the ruler of 
 the world had finished ; even as Honorius spoke 
 he had made a gesture of command to some of 
 his people and the seven yellow ambassadors of 
 Attila were introduced. They were small and 
 hardy men, battle-worn and rough. They ap 
 proached in two ranks of three each, leaving a 
 space for one who walked in the middle. The 
 men in the first rank saluted the Bishop and 
 then the Emperor; having made their gruff 
 salutations they stepped aside, that he who 
 stood in the space between the two ranks 
 might advance. He came forward slowly, this 
 barbarous man. He was short and small, and 
 the lank hair that fell about his face a yellow, 
 square face it was was black and coarse. 
 From ankle to knee, from waist to shoulder he 
 was naked, save for the leathern shield that 
 hung on his back. The quick little eyes with 
 which he looked from the Bishop to the great 
 Honorius were bright and mocking as the eyes 
 of a squirrel. Then he glanced at the Lady
 
 MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA 103 
 
 Placidia, and from her his eyes traveled to the 
 red-haired girl beside her. 
 
 "I am Attila s messenger," he said, speak 
 ing the Roman tongue, but with queer, harsh 
 intonations, as though a dog had barked it out. 
 "Attila s messenger am I. What words I say 
 he seals with this with this." 
 
 He threw down on the gravel path a bloody 
 head, a head with thick, brown curls on it, that 
 turned as it fell and showed the white face of 
 Aulus he who was once a poet. The Em 
 peror spreading the wings of an affectionate 
 hen, did not notice, but Honoria cried aloud 
 the man s name. 
 
 "Aulus," she cried and "Aulus ! Aulus !" 
 
 And Placidia whispered "O God! O God! 
 God!" A murmur of words that were a 
 prayer. The dead face stared up from the 
 gravel. There was a smile on the white face 
 of the thing, a tender smile very wonderful. 
 The girl looked at it. She had never known 
 before what life was. Now this dead face was 
 teaching her that life is death and that there is 
 no love which is not stronger than death. A
 
 104 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 thought like this rocked in her brain, but there 
 came to her lips only a sort of gasping cry 
 which was perhaps "Aulus! Aulus!" and al 
 ways that dead thing on the gravel staring up 
 at her dumb and white. 
 
 The Hun and the Bishop were talking to 
 gether. The great Emperor Honorius lis 
 tened idly. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "of course, yes the little 
 rogue yes." 
 
 "And the ring?" the Bishop asked with suave 
 insistence. 
 
 The Hun had tied the ring in his hair for 
 safe-keeping; he untwisted it and gave it to the 
 Bishop a thick ring it was of soft and virgin 
 gold, a nuptial ring, the little ring that Honoria 
 had sent to Attila. 
 
 "There it is," said the Hun; "it is the price of 
 Rome. Give me the girl for Attila and he will 
 turn back, leaving your lands unpillaged. 
 And she is willing; it was she who called him 
 she who sent the ring. Is this the maid?" 
 
 "No!" cried Honoria, for it was at her he
 
 MAKE THE BED FOR ATTILA 105 
 
 looked, "no, no!" always the white thing on the 
 gravel was staring at her "no!" 
 
 "She is like her mother," said Honorius 
 mildly, and he motioned up the slaves. 
 
 "Take her to Attila." 
 
 * 
 
 Now the strange thing is this: the slaves 
 thrust her into a litter and she was borne away 
 to the North, and at the side of the litter rode 
 seven yellow men, grim and fierce. Quite well 
 she knew she was going to Atilla the yellow 
 lord; always, too, she was haunted by a white 
 face dead on the gravel; yet she had no fear. 
 Perhaps in her was the soul of Marj, who loved 
 both brute and poet. Or it may be that in her 
 was the soul of Mary Magdalen.
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO
 
 IV 
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 
 
 For by diabolical arts, he assumed varied forms 
 and deceived many people by many occult tricks. 
 FROMAN. TRACT. DE FASCINATION. 
 
 I 
 
 IT was a chill autumnal night. Now and 
 then the rain came in sudden torrents, splashed 
 across the Mercato Vecchio, whistled along the 
 narrow streets, and stopped as suddenly as it 
 had begun. Though it was still early in the 
 night there were few people abroad, for that 
 day there had been a riot in which the Uberti 
 had killed their enemy and called half Florence 
 to arms. Quiet had come, but disquietude re 
 mained; the houses were shut and barricaded; 
 in all Florence there were only reckless folk 
 abroad vagabonds, soldiers and those who 
 hunt pleasure. 
 
 In the Mercato Vecchio, which in those days 
 
 109
 
 110 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 was not old, there was a little light. It came 
 from a lamp burning before the shrine of a Ma 
 donna at the corner where a convent stood. 
 Screened by the niche in which it was set, the 
 lamp, in spite of rain and wind, threw a lane of 
 light across the wet flags of the market place 
 and flickered on the bronze devil which 
 crouched at the door of the palace Cavolaio. 
 
 Toward this light a man went feebly. He 
 was a lean and drooping man, dressed in black 
 clothes that were worn and foul as though he 
 had slept in the sand-pits along the Arno. He 
 walked slowly. Every now and then he 
 paused and groaned ; then a cough would hack 
 at his lungs, shaking him like a rag; when the 
 fit of coughing passed he would drag himself 
 on again. Perhaps no more abject thing ever 
 crawled across the market place of Florence. 
 Yet in spite of his bent shoulders and wasted 
 face you would have said that he was a young 
 ish man thirty years of age, perhaps. He 
 had not the air of a rogue; he was far too 
 spiritless and broken for that; nor could he 
 have ever been a gentleman, for no matter how
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 111 
 
 low a man falls, the mark of blood and breed 
 ing is never quite obliterated. He might per 
 haps have been a poor scholar, though he wore 
 no dagger, or a broken priest. 
 
 Next to the convent stood a narrow house of 
 two stories, set back from the market place so 
 as to form an angle, wherein the poor wretch 
 sheltered himself from the gusts of wind and 
 rain. A cough shook his lean carcass to and 
 fro ; when he got his breath back he said softly : 
 This must be the end of it." 
 
 He was too weak to curse or pray ; he waited 
 for death to come dumb and cowed as a 
 trapped beast. Somewhere a bell began to toll 
 the hour very slowly, and the dull noise of it 
 boomed over Florence. It seemed to him that 
 the sound of the bell was like a flight of great 
 birds. One after the other, with huge slow 
 wings, these great birds soared through the 
 blue of the night. 
 
 "One two three. It must be ten o clock 
 they are striking," he said, and shivered as 
 though he thought how far he was from dawn 
 and the blessed heat of the sun. The dark,
 
 112 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 chill hours stretched before him and death 
 knocked at his heart. 
 
 Now, mark you, a strange thing: at that mo 
 ment he heard voices, the clank of steel, 
 laughter and the tripping of little feet, and out 
 of the darkness, into the lane of light shed by 
 the Madonna s lamp, there came three people. 
 One was a stark, soldierly man, so cloaked that 
 one could see little save the yellow curls about 
 his face; there came also an armed serving- 
 man, his long sword jangling at his heels; be 
 tween these two a woman. She was tall, lis 
 some and young; she was very beautiful the 
 starved and dying wretch crouching against the 
 house wall saw that she was very beautiful. 
 He saw the jewels in her red hair, and when for 
 a moment their eyes crossed, he saw the beauty 
 in her eyes. It was strange, too, that when the 
 woman s eyes met his it seemed that life flamed 
 up in him like a torch. His heart beat quick 
 and strong like a soldier s heart. His breath 
 went helpful and painless to his torn lungs. 
 His dull mind wakened; a thousand pictures 
 flashed across it scenes out of history men
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 113 
 
 dying for women and women cheating death 
 with a kiss. 
 
 The door of the narrow house was opened 
 from within. The yellow-haired soldier stood 
 aside that she might enter first. For one mo 
 ment she paused on the threshold and glanced 
 sidewise at the ragged figure by the wall. The 
 look of her stung him like acid, and he knew 
 not whether her message was life or death. 
 The door closed upon her. The market place 
 was dark save for the faint light that went 
 abroad from the lamp of the Madonna. The 
 man shuddered, clutching at the stone wall. 
 His legs swayed under him. There was a rip 
 ping pain in his side. He reeled ; he knew he 
 was falling and that when he fell he would 
 never rise again. Fighting for life, he fought 
 to keep his feet. 
 
 Always the bell rang somewhere, tolling the 
 hour very slowly. 
 
 The sound of the bell drifted heavily over 
 Florence, like some huge bird of the night. 
 
 How long his struggle lasted the ragged
 
 114 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 man did not know. An arm was swept round 
 him and held him up that was his first definite 
 sensation; the second was that of a voice say 
 ing: "Steady, there, my friend; don t give 
 way steady." The voice came dimly to him ; 
 as though from a great distance. Then he 
 knew that a flask w r as held to his lips, and some 
 thing fiery and helpful, like old wine, ran down 
 his throat. 
 
 "It is a rare wine. It will do you good." 
 
 The ragged man straightened up with a little 
 gasp, so potent was the drink. 
 
 "It has done me good," he said. Life came 
 back to him. He recognized the market place, 
 the lamp of the Madonna flickering in the wet 
 night, the bulk of the house wall; he saw the 
 man who supported him a small, dark, well- 
 fed man, dressed in doubtlet and hose of or 
 ange-colored cloth, a furred coat and a cap 
 with a galloon of tawny silk. 
 
 "Can you walk now? Good; good. Tis a 
 rare wine that, and might bring a man back 
 from the dead. Lean on me. We sup to 
 gether to-night, and this is our road."
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 115 
 
 The place whither they went was a tavern in 
 a small street near by. The man with the 
 furred coat pushed the door and entered, as one 
 who is sure of his welcome, and indeed the land 
 lord bustled up blithely. 
 
 "Signor Malesto," said the landlord, bowing 
 to the well-fed little gentleman, and glancing 
 askance at his ragged companion, "you ve come 
 at the nick of time. There is a capon on the 
 spit." 
 
 "Bring it to the table, man, and make 
 haste. This is no time for your talk. My 
 friend here is hungry. He has come from a 
 long distance," Signor Malesto said, and 
 added, half to himself, "aye, from the gates of 
 death." 
 
 Signor Malesto had the look of a gentleman. 
 He was an oily little man, overfat, red, yet he 
 did not lack distinction. His eyes were black 
 and dull, as though there were a thin film over 
 them. Indeed, it was quite impossible to read 
 the meaning in his eyes. His mouth was win 
 some. As he talked, pleasant and confidential 
 smiles flickered on his red lips. He wore
 
 116 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 neither beard nor mustaches. His hair was 
 black and thin on top, as is the case with men 
 who lead graceless lives. Withal he was a 
 merry and attractive man. I have said that 
 there was the air of a gentleman about him, and 
 that is quite true. Even as he lolled across the 
 table of the dingy tavern a little, bloated, 
 boisterous man in an orange doublet one 
 would have said that he was of good blood and, 
 it might be, of an ancient house. 
 
 Food and drink were served to them; the 
 ragged man tore at the fowl with wolfish teeth 
 and swallowed huge draughts of the landlord s 
 wine. Signer Malesto watched him with 
 shrewd but not unkindly interest. 
 
 "I m none of your purse-proud gentry," he 
 said. He had white, fat hands, carbuncled 
 with rubies, and as he spoke he waved them in 
 the air. "I can sympathize with those who are 
 down. What shame is there in an empty 
 belly? In the devil s name what shame is 
 there? Better men than you have dined on the 
 north wind. Eat, my friend nay, you ll not 
 leave the back of that capon on the dish. Tis
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 117 
 
 the best part. You ll notice, the cooks always 
 keep it for themselves." 
 
 The ragged man could eat no more. He 
 quaffed a cup of wine and wiped his bearded 
 lips. Then he looked across at his host, his hol 
 low eyes bright with gratitude. 
 
 "God s blessing on you!" he said earnestly; 
 "you ve done a good deed and the deed of a 
 Christian man." 
 
 Signer Malesto leaned back and laughed. 
 It was laughter so mad and joyous that the 
 landlord thrust his head from the kitchen door 
 and laughed out of mere sympathy. 
 
 "I do not see," the ragged man began with a 
 touch of anger, for food had emboldened him 
 "I do not see why 
 
 "Tut! tut! friend; never mind my laughter," 
 said Signor Malesto. "It is a whimsy of mine 
 to laugh now and then. You are a w r ell spoken 
 young man and I thank you. And your 
 name?" 
 
 "Guido," said his guest. "It is a name like 
 any other one may be called by it, damned by 
 it. It is a name like any other."
 
 118 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "That is a bitter word, Master Guido since 
 that is all of your name I am to know and 
 there must be a bitter life behind it," said Sig- 
 nor Malesto. 
 
 "Why should I turn over the ashes of the 
 past? They are cold and foul," the younger 
 man said. 
 
 "Another cup, Master Guido; drink," said 
 Signer Malesto; "and you need not tell me of 
 the past, Messer Guido. Think you I do not 
 know you? Ah, it was ill-done of the Holy 
 Father to put the ban upon a man like you, the 
 Aristotle of our age." 
 
 "You know me!" cried Guido, his pale face 
 flushing. 
 
 "Messer Guido, I heard your great discourse 
 upon the Pandects of Justinian which were dis 
 covered at Amain*. I am an ignorant gentle 
 man, having neither Latin nor Greek and 
 knowing nothing of the humanities. But that 
 was a fine discourse. I have loved you ever 
 since," Signer Malesto concluded, fluttering 
 his jeweled fingers and smiling. 
 
 The other man leaned across the table, his
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 119 
 
 haggard face, framed in a straggling beard, 
 twitching with almost hysterical excitement. 
 
 "And you know what came of it?" he said 
 hoarsely. 
 
 "Your book was burned at Rome," said the 
 little jeweled man lightly. " Tis a queer way 
 to answer an argument, that." 
 
 "They would not hear me," Guido went on 
 with sudden impatience. "When I went to 
 Rome they would not listen. I had said and 
 written only the truth. Why would they not 
 hear me?" 
 
 "They did hear you," his companion said, 
 always smiling; "that is the reason they excom 
 municated you. Tut! tut! tut! my good 
 friend, never start like that! The word does 
 no harm. Do I fear it? If I did would I be 
 here at table with you now? You have been 
 priest. Well, that is over. You are always 
 the great scholar the second Aristotle." 
 
 Praise was sweet to this weak and homeless 
 man. Not for a moment did he doubt Signor 
 Malesto s sincerity. He felt that all this 
 kindly host said was true. Banned by the in-
 
 fallible curse, outcast from church and so 
 ciety, he was still the wonderful scholar who 
 had set the Pisan and the Roman world astir. 
 Guido felt that justice had been done him, and 
 he thanked the little jeweled man. He drank 
 again. His thoughts slipped back on the trail 
 of his lif e. 
 
 He had been born in a kennel or a gutter, he 
 knew not where. A Pisan priest had found 
 him wandering like a homeless dog in the 
 streets; then for many years his life had been 
 that of the cloister and the study. Little by 
 little the fame of his learning got abroad in 
 Italy. The Holy Father called him to Rome. 
 There he had written his masterpiece this 
 book on the laws of the land which was to 
 topple over injustice and make of Christ s 
 spoken words the new laws of a new hu 
 manity. 
 
 His book had been seized and burned. He, 
 defrocked and excommunicated, had barely es 
 caped with his life, cast out to wander, roofless, 
 masterless, shunned by all. How this great 
 evil had come upon him he did not know. He
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 121 
 
 had studied and learned many things, but he 
 had never lived. He had gone shyly and 
 aloofly through life. He had never known the 
 flavor of the fierce sins of his age. He had 
 done no ill, if it be not an evil thing to study 
 and labor and write the truth as one sees it; 
 and here he sat, a beggar man, drinking an 
 other man s wine and eating food another man 
 paid for in a dingy tavern in Florence. 
 Shame and gratitude struggled within him as 
 he looked up and met the watchful eyes of his 
 new-found protector. 
 
 "Ah, master scholar," said Signer Malesto, 
 "it is wonderful that one man should know so 
 many things. Philosophy, medicine, law, the 
 verses of Lucretius, I dare say, not to mention 
 the learned works of the fathers of the Church ; 
 and here am I who can hardly spell out a clerk s 
 letter. And yet I am rich," Signor Malesto 
 fumbled his glowing rubies "while you ve not 
 a white piece of silver. Tis a silly world! 
 Now had I the making of it 
 
 Signor Malesto paused. 
 
 "But you, my learned scholar, perhaps you
 
 122 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 know who had the making of it," he said wag 
 ging his head and laughing. "But hark you, 
 not every man keeps the thing he has made. 
 One man builds a house and another man lives 
 in it." 
 
 With this he laughed and crowed so merrily 
 that Guido deemed there could be no great evil 
 in the words, though men had been burned for 
 less, and, crossing himself, he made no an 
 swer. 
 
 "You cross yourself, Master Guido, excom 
 municated as you are, what good can come of 
 it? I am an ignorant man, but you who have 
 been a priest can set me right." 
 
 "I know not," said Guido gloomily, for the 
 question was one he dared not face. 
 
 "And that is all your learning leads to a 
 mere I know not," asked Signor Malesto with a 
 mocking but friendly smile. "Why tis much 
 of a piece with my own learning. And yet, 
 and yet " 
 
 He made a fluttering gesture with his fat, 
 white hands. 
 
 "And yet," said he, "I wish I had your wis-
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 123 
 
 dom and you had my idle gold. Knowledge! 
 Ah, to know things ! books and lore ! What 
 wouldn t I give to have your learning!" 
 
 The ragged man leaned forward; his eyes 
 shone with a drunkenness that was not that of 
 wine it was the madness of one who has 
 reached the frontier of good and evil. He 
 tried to smile but his dry lips parted in a snarl 
 as he said : "What would you give ?" 
 
 Now this thing happened: Guido, his el 
 bow on the table, his eyes hot with impious fan 
 cies, stared across at Signor Malesto, who 
 lolled plumply in his chair, and as he looked it 
 seemed to him that Signor Malesto s fat face 
 shrank into a lined and haggard visage a 
 mask of gray steel out of which two eyes flamed 
 small and hard ; but even as he stared at it this 
 evil mask vanished, and Signor Malesto, ami 
 able and easeful, cried out : 
 
 "Tut! tut! I ll not bargain with you, 
 Messer Guido not I. But for all that learn 
 ing of yours I ll give you good gold in exchange 
 fair gold florins of our city here, stamped 
 with the lilies of Florence on one side and on
 
 124 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 the other with John the Baptist s head on a 
 dish. A round fortune, Messer Guido, that 
 would mend that ragged coat of yours, pad 
 your starved ribs and buy you, if you would, 
 the lands and palaces of the Buondelmonti and 
 all their enemies aye, and more! A fortune 
 that would buy you power and love and the 
 envy of others. 
 
 Guido lifted the wine-cup to his parched lips 
 and stammered : 
 
 "Other men s envy and power and love!" 
 His lean face brightened. In the dusk of 
 the tavern-room he saw & woman s imperious 
 eyes shining upon him; thoughts he had never 
 known in the cloister and had never unearthed 
 in moldly books quickened in his brain; the 
 thin blood in him ran fiery and swift, sweeping 
 away his old ideals, his old superstitions, his old 
 fears. Fear? He had had enough of fear! 
 It was night now and his courage sang to him ; 
 impulses out of savage woodlands, wherein sav 
 age men prowled with beasts, leaped in his 
 veins; he was a primeval man for whom the 
 lust of power and envy and love had of a sud-
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 125 
 
 den been invented. Grim and urgent he stood 
 up in his rags. 
 
 "And I would barter," he cried, "all I know 
 all I learned in the years let me but live !" 
 
 At the shrill sound of his own voice the ex 
 citement faded out of him. He glanced over 
 his shoulder fearfully and sank down in his 
 chair. Signor Malesto, with a smile, looked at 
 the young man, studying the haggard face and 
 the eyes that now were furtive and fugitive 
 as those of a wood animal. Suddenly he 
 stretched out his hand and said: "I ll buy." 
 
 "A bargain," said Guido with a nervous 
 laugh. He turned himself another cup of 
 wine and drank it at a gulp. 
 
 Signor Malesto pushed a thick leathern 
 pouch across the table to his guest. 
 
 "You will find the price there," he said. 
 
 II 
 
 THERE were two men in a sun-lit garden. 
 One of them lolled on a marble bench near the 
 fountain, playing with the rings on his white, 
 fat hands and listening indifferently to his com-
 
 126 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 panion, who walked the garden to and fro, talk 
 ing angrily. The latter was a stalwart, effi 
 cient-looking man. In spite of his yellow 
 curls, too long for the fashion of the hour, and 
 his fanciful effeminate dress, there was a mas 
 terful air about him that showed his use of war 
 fare. Indeed, in that day no one in Florence 
 cared much to face his sword, for he was Fari- 
 nata degli Uberti, and only a fortnight had 
 gone by since he killed Buondelmonti, his 
 enemy, and called half Florence to arms. A 
 bold, honorable and reckless man, this Uberti ; 
 men feared his sword as women feared his love. 
 As he walked the sun-lit garden up and down 
 he was saying : 
 
 "But tis not a man s name, Malesto! I tell 
 you he is an impostor! Cascioli is that a 
 man s name? I tell you it is the name of a 
 battle. Twas in my grandfather s time, dur 
 ing the reign of the old Countess Mathildis. 
 There was a battle of Cascioli, and we defeated 
 the imperial vicar and his knights. Who the 
 devil is this Cascioli? Surely you know, Ma 
 lesto?"
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 127 
 
 "I know what all the world knows," said the 
 suave little man, curling his legs up on the 
 marble bench and taking his ease. "He calls 
 himself Guido degli Cascioli and he came to 
 Florence a fortnight ago." 
 
 "Aye, and old Gian, the tavern-keeper, says 
 he came ragged and foul, with neither horse nor 
 man," Uberti shouted. "Devil take him! 
 Now he rides abroad with twenty gentlemen at 
 his heels." 
 
 Malesto grinned. "I should hardly say he 
 rides," said he, "for he straddles his horse as 
 though it were a barber s bench. But as for his 
 foul clothes tut! tut! He may have come 
 from afar and fallen among robbers. That 
 may happen to any man, Uberti. And he soon 
 bettered his dress and filled again his purse. 
 Now I ask you, dear friend, could he have done 
 that had he not been a man of substance and 
 credit?" 
 
 "I do not like these interlopers," said the sol 
 dier stoutly. "We want none of them in Flor 
 ence." 
 
 "I m not Florence-born," said Malesto, smil-
 
 128 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 ing up at Uberti with lazy mockery, "although 
 since I ve known you I feel at home here." 
 
 "Though you be not Florentine, you are a 
 man of race and blood," said Uberti. 
 
 "To be sure," said Malesto quietly, "I am of 
 an ancient house and no interloper. Eut this 
 Guido degli Cascioli, who sweats gold from 
 every pore of his skin you call him an inter 
 loper? Now may the devil send us a score 
 like him! And why should you care whence 
 he comes, from a battle-field or a kennel. He 
 is a lad of mettle yellow metal." 
 
 "He! a lean rogue who cannot sit a horse. 
 He has the hang-dog air. Were it not that he 
 has neither Greek nor Latin nor good fair 
 Italian, I would say (I hope tis no sin) that he 
 had the look of a broken priest. And he is to 
 flaunt it in Florence and shame us with his 
 raw wealth. I wonder if the rogue can hold 
 a sword," and Uberti, the best swordsman 
 of his day, laughed and patted the hilt of his 
 weapon. 
 
 "Cascioli? Why should he fight?" Malesto 
 asked. "Think you it is for nothing he rides
 
 abroad with twenty swordsmen at his heels? 
 You are no philosopher, Uberti. What are 
 Cascioli s lordship and name to you? As for 
 his Latin I did not know you had much your 
 self. And if he talk not like a Florentine and 
 walk with a hang-dog air, why I daresay it is 
 the fashion of his country." 
 
 "His sword hangs at his thigh like a distaff." 
 
 "The fashion of his country," Malesto said 
 again and always he sprawled easeful and list 
 less, twiddling his rubies. 
 
 "They say he has bought the palace of the 
 Buondelmonti," the soldier growled. "Now 
 this is a shame to Florence." 
 
 "I am glad you love your enemies," the little 
 jeweled man sneered, sitting up and nursing 
 his plump leg. "The priests advise it." 
 
 "The Buondelmontis are my enemies, yes," 
 Uberti said, "and their blood is only a fortnight 
 old on my sword ; but I ve a mind to do them a 
 good turn and rid them of this adventuring 
 rogue who would stable his painted girls in 
 their palace." 
 
 "That would be a good deed and the part of
 
 130 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 a Christian," Malesto said softly; "and indeed, 
 dear friend, it is a shame to the gentlemen of 
 Florence that he should have been able to buy 
 the Maddalena from them all. But these 
 women what says the Holy. Book? they 
 have impudent faces and their feet abide not in 
 the house. A pretty woman, this Maddalena, 
 though I like not these Venetians with red hair. 
 You were the last, were you not, Uberti, be 
 fore this golden lord came to Florence, in rags 
 as you say, and took her?" 
 
 All these things Signer Malesto said mus 
 ingly, as one who cares not whether he is over 
 heard or not, but speaks to himself; yet there 
 must have been something wicked in the words, 
 for Uberti started like a horse stung with the 
 spur. For a moment he fretted his sword in its 
 scabbard, then he laughed shamefacedly and 
 swore by his saint and answered shortly: "Do 
 you think I d fight for her?" 
 
 "Why not?" Signer Malesto asked. "Why 
 not fight for her? If a man jostles you in the 
 street you will fight him for it. If one lames 
 your greyhound you ll run him through for it.
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 131 
 
 And to be robbed of Maddalena and not fight 
 for that well, perhaps you are right. We all 
 have different ideals of honor." 
 
 Uberti came close and put his foot on the 
 marble bench. He looked down at Signer Ma- 
 lesto with blazing eyes. 
 
 "Honor?" he said, "now by my saint I 
 thought I had too much honor to fight a name 
 less adventurer for a woman like Maddalena. 
 If I loved her " he added. 
 
 "Xo one doubts your courage, Uberti," Sig- 
 nor Malesto said suavely, getting to his feet, 
 "but of course the world will talk. Our wicked 
 friends will always crack their wicked jests. 
 But you are right. She is only a woman, this 
 Maddalena, and since you do not love her, it 
 would be foolish to risk your skin merely to 
 stop the laughter of Florence." 
 
 Had Signor Malesto been wickedly inclined, 
 had he wished to bring about a quarrel between 
 the young soldier and Messer Guido Cascioli, 
 he could have chosen no apter words. Uberti 
 stared at him a moment in angry perplexity. 
 He was a gentleman and a loyal man; he was
 
 brave and true and simple ; but the fashionable 
 honor of his day was a dear thing to him, and 
 moreover he could express himself better with 
 his sword than with words; so when he had 
 gathered at last Signor Malesto s meaning, he 
 felt as though all Florence were mocking him 
 for an unworthy deed. This Maddalena? 
 Yes, for a little while he had owned her kisses. 
 It had been idly done, as a young man ties a 
 ribbon to his sword-hilt and swaggers abroad 
 with it. That was all. He was not at all dis 
 pleased that this adventuring rogue who had 
 come scattering his gold over Florence should 
 have bought her as he had bought his body 
 guard of hectoring swordsmen. But if men 
 said he, Farinata degli Uberti, feared if Flor 
 ence laughed 
 
 He went red then white with anger. 
 
 Signor Malesto touched him lightly on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 "It is only the gossip of an hour," he said. 
 "People will forget it. A man like you need 
 not care for the idle jests of a moment." 
 
 "I will give them something else to gossip
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 133 
 
 about," said Uberti grimly. "This Cascioli 
 where is he?" 
 
 "One need but ask for Maddalena," Signer 
 Malesto answered, smiling and twisting his 
 rings. 
 
 "You shall carry my message to him," said 
 Uberti, flinging out of the garden and hurrying 
 down the steep street that led to Florence. 
 "You shall take it at once. Come, Malesto." 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE day was nearly done. It had been an 
 autumnal day, bright with afternoon sunlight. 
 Now the shadows were creeping round the old 
 palace of the Buondelmonti, and the light that 
 entered the narrow windows was faint and 
 broken. 
 
 In the great hall, on the first floor, the lamps 
 and wax candles were flaring joj^ously over 
 white, sprawling women and men who shouted 
 to each other as they drank their wine. The 
 red-haired woman whom all Florence called 
 Maddalena lay on a couch of water-colored 
 velvet, laughing. She had reason to laugh,
 
 134 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 this girl who was then too beautiful, for in a 
 fortnight, by the mere expenditure of kisses, 
 she had gained a palace and a fortune in gold 
 florins, lily-stamped. Round her throat there 
 was a triple band of pearls, and somehow or 
 other the warmth of her body seemed to color 
 them with strange fires ; the pearl bands round 
 her neck glowed and shifted their colors like 
 lizards on a sun-stained wall. Her dress was 
 clinging and small. In color it was a green so 
 pale it might have been silver. So Maddalena 
 was very beautiful as she lay there, all her mus 
 cles relaxed, laughing. They were talking of 
 her lover ; always Maddalena laughed and fin 
 gered the pearls at her throat. 
 
 In the room above, where the dying day fell 
 slantingly through the narrow window, this 
 man who was her lover brooded in a great 
 wooden chair. In spite of the gems and silks 
 upon him, he was an abject figure of a man, 
 lean and haggard and frightened. He bit at 
 his finger-nails as he sat there in the dusk of the 
 room. Then for a little while he drummed on 
 the arm of the chair. His lungs hurt him and
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 135 
 
 he wanted to cough, but dared not. Somehow 
 or other there was a cold dread about him; it 
 was not exactly fear it was dread. Now 
 whether he dreaded life, or what comes after 
 life, he did not know. Slowly the dusk in the 
 room deepened into darkness. He could see 
 only the small, narrow window whence a little 
 light entered the room. It was cold and he 
 shivered. From below he heard the laughter 
 of men and women and their boisterous com 
 mands to the servants; once he heard Madda- 
 lena s voice, clamorous and merry. 
 
 "God!" he said and crossed himself. 
 
 You will understand that this lean and hag 
 gard man, sitting in a dusky chamber, crossed 
 himself and said : "God ! O God !" 
 
 Now it is quite true that this may happen to 
 any one. 
 
 Sometimes in the years we have all sat in 
 dark rooms and called upon Him who sleeps by 
 the camp fire of which the stars are the flicker 
 ing sparks. We have called to Him in the 
 night ; sometimes He has been abroad on other 
 business; sometimes He has answered us.
 
 136 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 Both you and I know what it is to cry out of the 
 dark to the God we need. But with Guido, 
 who had called himself Guido degli Cascioli, it 
 was another matter. He thought that God 
 would never answer him. Fear racked him. 
 He was afraid of God, this man who sat there 
 in the darkening room of the old palace which 
 looked out on the Condotta, for he feared he 
 could not repent. He looked back over the 
 sins of his life. They had been so insignificant. 
 He had tried to live straight and true. Per 
 haps when he was a vagrant child in the gutter, 
 searching slyly for food, he had sinned ; that he 
 did not remember ; the life he knew began when 
 the old priest had picked him out of the slime 
 and given him food and books. And then? 
 Then the cloister and the study ; the discourses 
 he had made, the books he had written, the 
 curse that had sent him, outcast and lost, to 
 wander in the world ; and Maddalena? He re 
 membered her eyes the colorful temptation in 
 her eyes. (Sometimes she would draw his 
 head down to hers and loosen all the wanton 
 glory of her red hair and shade their faces in it
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 137 
 
 as in a tent. It was very wonderful to kiss her 
 there in the perfumed shadow of that tent ; and 
 this he remembered as he sat there in the dusky 
 room cold with fear. ) 
 
 But was this a sin of which he could repent? 
 
 When he thought of Maddalena and her 
 kisses he was convinced that sin had never been 
 invented. 
 
 "It is not a sin to love her," he whispered, 
 crouching in the wooden chair in the dark room. 
 "Love is not a sin. God is mistaken." 
 
 Then of a sudden a swift fear struck at his 
 heart and at his mind; the old cold dread came 
 upon him. He glanced down, and the silk of 
 his dress and the gems of his sword-hilt mocked 
 him. His thought went back to Malesto and 
 the bargain he had made with him. All this 
 life of his and all this love of his was a lie and 
 based on a lie. Who was Maksto and what 
 was his gold? Was it not devil s gold, that 
 when the dream was over would be but wasted 
 autumnal leaves? And Maddalena s kisses- 
 were they real? Was it not all a trick of the 
 devil to cheat him?
 
 138 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 Guido stood up in the dark room. He could 
 feel the life in his body. No, it was not a lie ; 
 the tent of wanton hair that Maddalena spread 
 over his face when she kissed him was not a lie 
 no! And with that he brought his hand 
 down sharply on the hilt of his sword. The 
 gems and the crude-cut gold of it hurt his hand. 
 This physical pain was an antiseptic to thought. 
 
 Suddenly Now, suddenly Guido remem 
 bered that he must face a danger in which the 
 twenty bravos whom he had hired to ride at his 
 heels could not help him at all. The old fear 
 drew round him, close and chill as the air of a 
 cellar underground into which one walks from 
 the sunlight. He sank down again into the 
 wooden chair, shivering. Again he began to 
 beat vague marches on the arm of the chair, for 
 the fear that was on him now was physical 
 the fear of the naked sword. He set his teeth 
 and said : "I will not fight Uberti I will not ! 
 He is a coward to ask me to fight him I will 
 not!" 
 
 From the great hall below there came to him 
 the sound of laughter and merry words. It
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 139 
 
 was in the great hall that Maddalena sat with 
 gaming men and kissing girls. 
 
 Drooping with fear and shame, the man 
 Guido, who had once been a priest, hid his face 
 in his silken sleeve. 
 
 "I cannot live this life," he said aloud, "I 
 cannot." 
 
 "Why not live it? It is merely a matter of 
 habit." 
 
 Guido lifted his head. For a moment he 
 was not quite sure whether some one had really 
 spoken or whether he had imagined the voice 
 and the words. Signor Malesto stood by his 
 chair, smiling, easeful, jeweled, as he always 
 was. 
 
 "Is it you?" Guido cried "you ? I did not 
 hear you at the door. Indeed, the door is 
 locked fast." 
 
 "Doors and keys and locks!" said Signor 
 Malesto. He was a droll little man in tawny 
 clothes, and he glowed with rubies. "And you 
 think they can keep me out when I wish to 
 serve a friend?" 
 
 Although he did not know how Signor Ma-
 
 lesto had entered the room, and although he did 
 not like him, yet Messer Guido gathered com 
 fort and help from his mere presence. 
 
 "But what have I to do with this hectoring 
 swordsman?" he asked fretfully. "What 
 quarrel has Uberti with me?" 
 
 "Quarrel?" Malesto repeated softly. 
 "Why, tis a gentleman s quarrel. He does 
 not like you does not like the color of your 
 doublet or the shape of your chin, or," and 
 Malesto halted, "he likes Maddalena too 
 much." 
 
 His enemy was not near. In the dusk of the 
 night and the companionship of Malesto, 
 Guido found a sort of hectic courage and as 
 well hatred for this Uberti, who had braved 
 him. He said: "Now curse this man, and if it 
 is his life or mine I will kill him!" 
 
 "Brave lad!" said Malesto mockingly. 
 "And with what will you kill him! With yon 
 der toy of a gilt sword that dangles at your 
 side? Come, now, Messer priest, have you 
 ever drawn sword in your life? And Uberti is 
 the best swordsman in Tuscany. He would
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 141 
 
 make but two passes one across your face for 
 his mark and the second through your heart. 
 Then he would wipe clean his sword and come 
 blithely here to Maddalena. Tut ! man, never 
 talk of swords till you can use one." 
 
 "With my hands I will kill him!" Guido 
 cried with hysterical rage ; but even as he thrust 
 out his arms in a savage gesture a cough took 
 him, and when it passed he was weak and a 
 cold sweat was on him. 
 
 "You ve a brave heart, but a poor wit, 
 Master priest," Signor Malesto said more seri 
 ously, "but I m not one to go back on a friend 
 in need. You must fight the Uberti and yet 
 you cannot fight. Look you, I was always a 
 helpful man. I have a sword here that even 
 in a hand so weak and unskilled as yours car 
 ries death at its point." 
 
 Signor Malesto drew his sword and laid it on 
 the arm of the chair. 
 
 "It will kill," he said, "of its own good will 
 it can kill; no one can stand in front of it and 
 live. Take it, Master Guido ; you shall pay me 
 another time."
 
 142 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 Guido took the sword ; the hilt of it fitted his 
 grasp as though it had been the little hand of a 
 woman. 
 
 "You shall pay me another time," said Ma- 
 lesto. "Sign but this acknowledgment of your 
 debt write here your name." 
 
 "Write my name," said Guido. "But I 
 can no longer write. You best know that, Sig- 
 nor Malesto." 
 
 Yet he took the tablet from Signor Malesto s 
 hand, and as he did so the blood jetted from his 
 wrist. 
 
 "Awkward lad! Did you not see the pen 
 knife hanging to the tablet ? You ve cut your 
 wrist; luckily a mere scratch," said Signor 
 Malesto, probing the wound with the tip of an 
 ivory pen, "and the blood will serve for ink. 
 Now make a mark here not that, not a cross 
 no, my friend; a circle, like that so," said 
 Signor Malesto. 
 
 Guido did as he was bid heedlessly; he was 
 thinking of Uberti. But Signor Malesto gave 
 a little cry of triumph and fluttered his fingers
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 143 
 
 in the air. His eyes, usually black and dull, 
 flamed with light. 
 
 "It will kill?" asked Guido, weighing the 
 sword. 
 
 "Have no fear. What your heart bids it do 
 it will do," said Signer Malesto. He went to 
 the door and shot the bolt. 
 
 "Come," he added, "come now, Master 
 Guido; the other waits for us." 
 
 As they went swiftly down the stairs Guido 
 heard the laughter in the great hall and the 
 voice of Maddalena singing, but he did not 
 pause. Something and whether this was 
 Signer Malesto or the sword he did not know 
 was guiding him to his enemy. They 
 crossed three streets and came out upon the 
 Arno. The river in this autumnal time had 
 shrunk to a mere yellow ribbon of water. On 
 the broad sands Guido saw a man pacing to 
 and fro. Even in the dusk he knew him. 
 Hate and fear did so tug at him that he knew 
 this could be no other than Uberti, and casting 
 off his cloak he ran at him, sword in hand, with
 
 144 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 all a coward s eagerness to kill. There were 
 words on his lips as he ran. He stammered 
 "Villain!" and other names so foul he knew not 
 whence they came; and "Draw, Villain!" he 
 cried and spat on the ground. The face of 
 Uberti hardened into white anger. 
 
 "Fool," he said, "but have your way. I 
 strike but twice once to set my mark on you 
 and again to kill." 
 
 "I strike but once," shouted Guido, and their 
 swords crossed. 
 
 Now, it was even as Guido said, for his sword 
 went straight to the heart of the man he feared 
 went swift and implacable like a living thing 
 to Uberti s heart; and this one shuddered and 
 fell dead, a look of amazement more than pain 
 upon his face. Guido threw the sword down 
 on the sand. It seemed to him that the thing 
 twisted there like a snake. Then he looked at 
 the dead man and gasped, feeling a pain rack 
 ing at his side. Signor Malesto stooped and 
 picked up the sword. Perhaps the scene had 
 shocked him, for his face was no longer plump 
 and amiable ; it had shriveled into a lean mask.
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 145 
 
 There was something dark and malign about 
 him ; something mocking and obscene in the 
 haggard face and blazing eyes, and as he came 
 toward Guido he limped a little. 
 
 Then the great fear which is the fear of 
 death fell upon Guido, and he turned and ran 
 swiftly, and as he ran he babbled old priestly 
 words in Latin. "Retro Sathanas!" he cried. 
 He fled he know not whither. A narrow, dark 
 lane ; then he came out upon the market of the 
 Mercato Vecchio, at the corner where the 
 bronze devil guards the palace Cavolaio. He 
 paused to take breath; a fit of coughing 
 strangled him ; he went on feebly. 
 
 "This must be the end of it," he said softly. 
 
 Xow saying these words the ragged man 
 glanced at the squat bronze devil that guards 
 the Cavolaio palace. The broken priest looked 
 at the leering thing of bronze, and a great 
 temptation came upon him. Well he knew 
 what the devil does for his own ! Now, should 
 he, Guido, the priest and scholar, call upon the 
 devil, would he not give him all the joys of 
 life?
 
 146 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 The great temptation rocked in his mind. 
 
 Then, mark you ; a strange thing : at that mo 
 ment he heard voices, the clangor of steel, 
 laughter and the noise of little sandals on the 
 stone flags. A woman s voice said: "Do you 
 love me, Uberti?" "Unto death," a man s 
 voice answered lightly. 
 
 Then into the lane of light shed by the Ma 
 donna s lamp came three people. One was a 
 serving-man in armor. Then came Uberti, his 
 cloak about his face, so one could see only his 
 yellow hair and the love-knot in his cap. With 
 him the woman. She was tall, lissome, young ; 
 she was beautiful the dying wretch there by 
 the house wall saw that she was beautiful; he 
 saw the beauty in her eyes and the beauty in her 
 wanton red hair. 
 
 The door of the narrow house was opened to 
 these people, but the wanton-haired woman 
 paused for a moment on the threshold and 
 glanced down at the ragged figure by the wall. 
 Her eyes met his, and then with a little laugh 
 she entered the house. 
 
 Always the bell rang somewhere : the sound
 
 THE SOUL OF MESSER GUIDO 147 
 
 of the bell like some slow-winged bird drifted 
 over Florence; eight, nine 
 
 The dying man reeled; then he fell. His 
 breath came in short gasps ; he moved one feeble 
 hand, as though he would say "Retro Sath- 
 anas" feebly. The light of the Madonna s 
 lamp was in his eyes. The Madonna looked 
 down upon him and she was neither aloof nor 
 cold. 
 
 "Ave ave," the dying man whispered, "ave 
 Maria clara purissima 
 
 Saying this he died; ten the last stroke of 
 the bell ; it was ten of the clock in Florence. 
 
 When day came they found him dead there. 
 He was a broken priest and a man of no signifi 
 cance, so they buried him in a ditch and 
 thanked God that the scandal of his life was 
 ended. 
 
 Over the Mercato Vecchio the sunlight fell, 
 flattering the gilt attire of the Madonna and 
 shining on the bronze devil of the Cavolaio.
 
 THE KING OF SCOTLAND S 
 DAUGHTER
 
 V 
 
 THE KING OF SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 
 I 
 
 WHEN with his own hand King James 
 stabbed to death the Douglas in the small cham 
 ber of Stirling Castle, I fled oversea with what 
 speed I could, for Scotland was no home for 
 me. In those days there was little truth in the 
 proud saying that none might touch a Douglas 
 or a Douglas man without coming by the waur. 
 With the murder in Stirling Castle came the 
 downfall of that branch of the house of Doug 
 las to which I was sib. Within three years the 
 earldom was dead and Lord James, who might 
 have propped up his house, was a mumbling, 
 shaven monk in Lindores Abbey. 
 
 It was well I stayed not for kiss of sweet 
 heart or the stuffing of a purse, for those who 
 were sent to take me made short shrift of the 
 
 151
 
 152 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 Douglas men; indeed, my fellow, Robert of 
 Liddesdale was cut down in the streets before 
 he could draw sword or cry God s name. I 
 was not near in blood to the Douglas, but being 
 a clerk I stood closer to him than others. Thus 
 I knew many things it were better no man 
 should know, and had they laid hands on me 
 my life had not been worth an av e. 
 
 It was my purpose to make my way into 
 Burgundy, for it was rumored that Charles, the 
 young lord, was gathering troops to make war 
 on his father, Duke Philip, who was slightingly 
 called the Good. But this came to naught and 
 Charles sulked in the Low Countries. I 
 pushed on, however, toward Burgundy, for I 
 have always held that what I set out to do is 
 worth doing to the end. 
 
 I have often wondered in these later years, 
 when I have had time and liking for reflection, 
 why I did not make use of my scholarship, for 
 I was a good Latinist and able in the French 
 tongue. Withal I wrote a clerkly hand and 
 had a pleasant voice. At the expense of a 
 shaven pate I might have had comfort and an
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 153 
 
 easeful life, and gained, moreover, the salva 
 tion of my soul. I was but twenty years of 
 age, however, in that hard year when I fled 
 from Scotland. There was a strain of hot 
 blood in me, too, which did not much incline me 
 to prayer. Even as a boy I was fonder of 
 sword-play than the moral redes of Dionysius 
 Cato or the logic of Okam. 
 
 It was no small pleasure to find myself foot- 
 free in the world, landless and masterless, to 
 ride forth where I would. Though I had but 
 few crowns in my purse, yet I carried a good 
 sword and rode a stout Flanders mare, and had 
 little fear of the present or dread of the future. 
 Even then I was a big man, strong in the arms 
 and a cold fighter. As I rode along I dreamed 
 right pleasantly of the renown I should win in 
 the wars of Burgundy. And this pleasant 
 dreaming I have often held was my undoing. 
 My great misfortune though it led to good 
 fortune befell me in this wise : 
 
 The highway that comes into Poitiers runs 
 steeply down a hill, and that morning, it being 
 late in the year and rainful, this road was
 
 154 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 heavy with mire. I was riding down this road, 
 dreamfully and heedlessly, with loose rein, 
 when a villain started up by the wayside and 
 wailed or cried something to me. The great 
 Flanders mare I bestrid reared back fearfully, 
 floundered a space and then went down on her 
 neck as you have seen a struck bullock fall. I 
 had thrown myself out of the saddle as she fell, 
 and I dragged at her by the bridle to get her to 
 her feet. She was even then as good as dead, 
 for the blood ran from her ears and nostrils 
 and bubbled from her mouth. I have always 
 thought the cord of life (which runs through 
 the necks of beasts as of men) had snapped 
 from the weight of her fall. Be this as it may, 
 the poor beast was dead, and I stood there, in 
 sorry plight, staring at her limp carcass. Had 
 the bark which carried Caesar s fortunes come 
 to wreck, so might he have stared. 
 
 Him whom I have called a villain lounged 
 near by with a sort of grin, though not ill-na 
 tured, on his dirty, black-bearded face. When 
 I thought of the evil he had done me, the grin 
 on his face irked me and I plucked out my
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 155 
 
 sword. The villain, who watched me nar 
 rowly, skipped nimbly away, and cumbered in 
 my great boots I could not follow. When he 
 had put a ditch between us he made me a very 
 low bow and said: 
 
 "Quid fit, Domine, quid agitur?" 
 
 Somehow it pleased me to learn he was 
 clerkly and no common knave, so I put up my 
 sword. 
 
 "Cur curris?" I said grimly, but not un 
 kindly. 
 
 "Heus, heus," said the fellow smartly 
 enough. "Cur leus, ut aiunt, prae canibus." 
 
 I laughed outright, for indeed he had 
 skipped like a hare. When he heard my laugh 
 ter he came back readily and stooped and 
 twitched my mare s eyelids. 
 
 In all my life I had never seen so complete a 
 rascal as this fellow seemed to be as he stood 
 there, lazily kicking the belly of my dead mare. 
 From head to toe he was in rags, and he 
 looked none the smarter for the dirty cloak 
 that swung jauntily from his left shoulder. 
 He carried no sword, though there was a short
 
 156 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 stick in his hand. He had plentiful black hair 
 and a thick black beard. In his dirt and his 
 rags and his leanness he might have moved an 
 older traveler than I was to pity. 
 
 Withal his face was so bold and merry and 
 wicked that a young man could but like it. 
 
 "What s your name, fellow?" I said. 
 
 "I m a poor scholar, my lord," said he, grin 
 ning. 
 
 "And what business has a poor scholar on 
 the King s highway frightening good horses to 
 death?" I asked. 
 
 The fellow laughed. 
 
 "The highway is my room of state," said he. 
 "It is my great chamber and my small cham 
 ber par Dieu! It is my castle and my walled 
 town. Seigneur, I am Dimanche-le-loup, but 
 my friends I make you one of my friends- 
 call me Bar-sur-Aube. I am a gentleman, my 
 lord, like yourself. My titles are all inscribed 
 in the Liber Vagatorum." 
 
 With that he laughed, hunched up his ragged 
 cloak and again kicked idly at the dead mare. 
 The action did not please me much, and I bade
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 157 
 
 him strip off the bridle while I undid the girths 
 of the saddle. The saddle was heavy and I 
 was minded to make the fellow carry it, until I 
 bethought me that my money was in the flap, so 
 I threw it on my shoulder and bade him lead on 
 into the town. 
 
 The villain, or, to give him his name of a 
 rogue, Bar-sur-Aube, led me through a tangle 
 of streets to an inn which bore for sign a cul- 
 verin, the new invention of Master John 
 Bureau, the great engineer. There was a 
 small fire in the inn chamber, by which Bar-sur- 
 Aube, having drunk at my cost, lay down and 
 warmed himself into sleep. The ragged 
 knave ! 
 
 "Here," thought I, "I am in pretty com 
 pany!" 
 
 I bethought me who I was and who I had 
 been no mean person if I had my own in 
 Scotland and the black Stuart were not on the 
 throne. 
 
 "And here I sit," I thought, "in a dirty 
 tavern with a knave for fellow, not ten crowns 
 in my pocket and no horse a wretched foot-
 
 158 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 man at whom any scurvy groom may throw 
 mud." 
 
 Yet, I remember, I ate heartily and drank of 
 the best, and paid the score with my saddle and 
 bridle. And when Bar-sur-Aube woke and 
 had eaten, I played him at dice for my few 
 crowns and lost them blithely and with a sort 
 of desperate thankfulness. It was something 
 that I could be no poorer. As for the villain, 
 he clapped the money on the table to hear it 
 ring and bit it in his teeth, and laughed and 
 shouted and cursed the inn-keeper and called 
 me his brother and Ma3cenas. 
 
 "And now, brother," said he, "whither will 
 you walk on your legs?" 
 
 Degraded to the condition of a foot-soldier as 
 I was, I was still minded to go into Burgundy, 
 but "Verd et bleu!" said he, and "if it s fight 
 ing you want, brother, come with me and fight 
 the Poles." 
 
 He laughed his bold and merry laugh and 
 caught my hand in his, and swore so friendly 
 by the twenty-one devils that are on the dice 
 that I gave consent and said :
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 159 
 
 "Then I shall fight the Poles." 
 At this he laughed again and called me 
 brother. 
 
 II 
 
 IT is with shame and yet with shy regret, I 
 fear, that I look hack upon that year in my life 
 when I wandered the highway with Bar-sur- 
 Aube and his vagabonds, for his boast of fight 
 ing the Poles was but a trap. 
 
 There was a great band of these vagabonds 
 masterless scholars, homeless priests and 
 broken soldiers that dwelt in the lands about 
 Poitiers. They were great thieves and rogues. 
 They pillaged the countryside and even the city 
 paid them tribute. Then with full purses they 
 rioted in the taverns, playing dice and drinking 
 strong wines. Villains as they were they were 
 merry men. They would kill a man and take 
 his purse, and in the same moment sing a gay 
 song and even do a kindness to a beggar man. 
 
 There was one little dry, dark prudent man, 
 one Francis Villon, out of Paris, the merriest 
 knave and coward in the world, who would sing
 
 160 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 a song, either merry or sad, that you would 
 weep to hear it and think no more of evil; but 
 He all the while would be fingering for your 
 purse. 
 
 One night I came upon this broken student 
 as he lay under a tree weeping and praying 
 piteously. I thought him a good, penitent 
 man and would have comforted him, but he 
 broke away from me cursing. And that night 
 with John Cornet and Perrenet, the barber, 
 and other villains he robbed the church of Saint 
 Mary in Niort. It was for fear of being 
 thought a coward by his ragged fellows that 
 this poor wretch turned bravo to Heaven, 
 which I thought very strange, and it set me 
 thinking on my own way of life which was a 
 way of thieving, dicing, drinking and debauch 
 ing. 
 
 That I could not have been a good man 
 seems quite clear, for persons of radical integ 
 rity will not be so easily perverted as I was, 
 but when one is twenty and in a strange land, 
 hungry withal and horseless, virtue is not much 
 regarded. And since I lost home and friends
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 161 
 
 I was reckless and sad. Verily I turned 
 bandit as broken-hearted maids enter a con 
 vent. And there was a pleasure in the life I 
 w r ill not deny. To wander along the great 
 white roads, singing to be masterless, free as 
 the air of the hills, owing nothing to any one 
 but "good morning" and "good night"; to 
 quaff a cup and dance a round with ignoble 
 girls parbleu! it was life. But all this was 
 to end. It was not my fate to go to the fire 
 and the rogues death in the square at Poitiers. 
 Now, it befell this way. 
 
 Gloomy enough with empty pocket and 
 aching head, I sat one night in the tavern of 
 the Pomme de Pin, when this dark little poet, 
 Master Villon, came in, singing in a shrill voice 
 a song in which there was no great harm. He 
 was bold and swaggering, as he always was in 
 liquor. 
 
 "Serpe Dieu! but you have a hang-dog look, 
 my long Scot," said he, for it was his foolish 
 habit to talk of hanging. 
 
 I struck the table with my fist. 
 
 "If I hang," said I, "it will not be with
 
 162 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 French rogues. I ll back to Scotland and 
 die like a gentleman by the king s will." 
 
 With that Master Villon gave a quick look 
 about us as though he feared espial, and came 
 close and whispered : 
 
 "I, too, brother Scot, would fain escape from 
 all this. Serpe! I am a learned clerk; I am a 
 great poet moll" and he struck his forehead, 
 "what have I to do with these dogs? I have 
 a good mother poor old woman!" Saying 
 this, he began to weep and called for wine in a 
 voice of tears. 
 
 "Brother Scot," said he when he had drunk, 
 "I must escape from them; and you?" 
 
 "For good or ill," said I, "I shall wait no 
 longer on this devil s business." 
 
 For the word he spoke of his mother made 
 my heart beat quick and true. 
 
 "We must have horses," said he. 
 
 "But how?" 
 
 "Horses and money horses and money," he 
 chanted; "and then we shall lead honest lives," 
 and he crossed himself and murmured a dirige. 
 
 Now in his dark little mind Master Villon
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 163 
 
 had made a plan, of which I shall say no evil, 
 since it brought me my good fortune. In the 
 street of the Littlefields there dwelt one John 
 Legrant, a goldsmith, very rich, though he was 
 but a thief, insomuch as he bought stolen goods 
 and paid his poor brother thieves but ill. Still 
 he was a man of repute and had ridden abroad 
 this night to the house of the provost. 
 
 "It s God s will that a thief should be 
 robbed," said Master Villon, and though I 
 know not if that be good theology, yet, being 
 then young, I. consented. 
 
 It was after midnight and the moon had 
 gone down when Master Villon scrambled over 
 the garden wall, being light and nimble, and I 
 followed slowly. We gained entrance to the 
 house by a window which I burst open with 
 an iron tool called in our wicked speech King 
 David." We broke two doors before we came 
 to the strong-room. There we found the 
 treasure-box, with three great locks. There 
 was never a lock that could resist Master Vil 
 lon s slim, coaxing fingers, and within the half 
 hour he had picked them all three. When he
 
 164 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 raised the lid I saw but a pile of canvas sacks, 
 or I should say I felt them, for we were in the 
 dark. 
 
 With that, "Hist!" said Master Villon, and 
 pressed so close to me that I could feel him 
 trembling. I, too, listened and heard foot 
 steps, light and quick approaching. 
 
 The little poet, trembling and praying, fled 
 rapidly away. I heard the snapping of twigs 
 as he ran across the garden. I stood still. It 
 irked me that I should have periled my soul 
 and gained nothing by it and, as well, I was 
 too big a man to get nimbly through a window. 
 I snatched up one of the bags and drew back 
 into the blackness of the corner, and stood with 
 naked and angry sword, waiting. 
 
 First there came a little yellow quiver of 
 light and then the doorway was bright as day, 
 and I saw her standing there, the lamp held 
 high over her head. 
 
 I am an old man now and my blood is cold 
 and slow, but when I think of her standing 
 in the low doorway with the lamplight on her 
 face my old heart leaps and struggles like the
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 165 
 
 heart of a boy. (Dear lady with the blue eyes, 
 dear love of my youth, dear face and the ever 
 lasting April of your eyes!) 
 
 So she stood there with a strange wonder 
 and fear and courage on her young face. 
 
 Truly she was a silver girl, for she wore a 
 coat of cloth of silver, her little cap was wrapt 
 round her head with silver cords, and from her 
 girdle hung a silver pouch and dagger; and 
 on all these metal points the light flickered and 
 shone. There was a bright blackness in her 
 hair there was never hair so beautiful as hers ! 
 With a young man s recklessness I would have 
 given my life that night to bury my face deep, 
 deep in the blackness of her hair. She did not 
 see me then. Lightly and swiftly she went 
 forward to the treasure-box. She gave a little 
 cry when she saw it was open and looked fear 
 fully over her shoulder. No one could stand 
 with such a pretty air with such a curve of 
 the throat and light-poised head. For a mo 
 ment she stood watching and murmured some 
 thing which I could not hear, though the voice 
 was sweeter than any voice of woman, save the
 
 166 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 voice that sang to me when I was a little child. 
 Then she knelt by the treasure-box. One after 
 one she took up the canvas bags and read the 
 papers tied in the neck. And with all her fear 
 there came a little look of anger in her face. 
 Twice she scanned all the packets and at last 
 gave a little cry, "Oh! oh! oh!" very sweet, 
 but angry. 
 
 Now I know not what was in my heart at 
 that instant, but I threw my sword clanging to 
 the floor and stepped forward. 
 
 She rose with a scream, but controlled her 
 self quickly, for I could see the lines of her 
 sweet mouth harden as she set her teeth. I 
 swept her a bow with my old hat (seeing at the 
 moment how ragged the plume was and wish 
 ing it were new) and held out the canvas bag 
 which the rogue Villon had tempted me to 
 steal, and said in court manner: 
 
 "Your ladyship s humble servant. Is it this 
 you are looking for?" 
 
 Her hand stole down to the silver dagger 
 at her waist.
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 167 
 
 "Have no fear," said I. I am a knight s 
 son of Scotland and a Douglas." 
 
 Her hand twitched as it clasped the dagger ; 
 her eyes never left my face; she bore herself 
 with a pretty air of pride and bewilderment. 
 
 "A Du Glaz," she said, speaking my name 
 in the French way. 
 
 "Hue Douglas, a gentleman s son and bach 
 elor knight, your ladyship s servant." 
 
 "And what," said she coldly, "is a Du Glaz 
 doing in the goldsmith s strong-room?" 
 
 With that I stood and faced her. 
 
 "Stealing," said I. "And you?" 
 
 There came a flash in her eyes, but I looked 
 at her steadily and a smile broke over her face 
 a smile so bright and mystic and sw r eet that 
 my heart was like water and I trembled. 
 
 "I," she said, and the music of her voice 
 made my trouble none the less "I am no thief. 
 I have come to take my own. Though this 
 wicked Le Grant will not give it to me, still it 
 is my own. If it bears not my name I will not 
 take it. Read!"
 
 168 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 I held the writing to the lamp and read: 
 "The trust of Sieur Ogier de Vaucelles for his 
 daughter Catherine de Vaucelles, 1,000 livres." 
 
 "Now thank God!" she cried, "I have it at 
 last, for I have great need of it. It is the life 
 of a great lady, Sieur Du Glaz, that you hold 
 in your hand." 
 
 I picked up my sword and said: "I would 
 you had greater need of a man s arm and 
 sword." 
 
 Then she looked at me musingly. 
 
 "There is a Scot at court," she said, "his 
 name is Cande." 
 
 "A gray man with a blue scar on his brow?" 
 for I knew the man, though she spoke his name 
 in the French way. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "A true man, John Kennedy," said I. "He 
 put the first sword in my hand." 
 
 Again her eyes studied and questioned me. 
 
 "He came into France in the suite of my 
 gracious mistress, Margaret Stuart, Princess 
 of Scotland and France." 
 
 Saying this, I bowed like a loyal man.
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 169 
 
 The Lady of Vaucelles looked into my face 
 with true eyes and said : 
 
 "The Scots are leal men. Are you leal?" 
 
 "For life or death," I said, and dropped on 
 one knee as though I waited knighthood at her 
 hands. 
 
 "And will you ride in my service and in the 
 service of the princess of your land?" 
 
 "Through life into death, dear lady." 
 
 "Then come. Le Grant returns at dawn 
 and we must be well away ere then. There 
 are horses in the stable come." 
 
 It was thus I rode away with my lady into 
 the night, knowing not whither and caring not, 
 for I was with her. And the wind in my face 
 was like wine, and overhead the dear stars 
 shone, and in my heart was a little song that 
 sang itself to the rhythm of the hoof beats, and 
 the song was only this : "That I might love you 
 love was made, dear lady that I might love 
 you love was made" over and over again as we 
 galloped under the stars.
 
 170 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 III 
 
 HOUR after hour we rode along the great 
 highway or through the copsewood by green 
 rivers, and no man stayed us. The sun came 
 up and made a pleasant light in that part of 
 the world. For me it was joy enough to ride 
 by my lady s side, though it were to the world s 
 end, and watch her face and her curls ruffled 
 by the wind. 
 
 Now and then she would look at me in a 
 questioning, earnest way, and when I met her 
 eyes she would smile a little and say : 
 
 "If you are not a true man, Sieur Du Glaz, 
 it were better I died here." 
 
 And always I answered: 
 
 "Dear lady, your own hand is not truer to 
 you than I." 
 
 Nor was there anything else said between 
 us until we rode into Niort, a very wretched 
 village and half deserted, for the people in 
 these bad years had fled to the cities to die of 
 hunger and the plague. Yet in the high street 
 was a sturdy fellow in a cap who led two fresh
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 171 
 
 horses. At this sight my lady gave a little 
 cry of content, and from a small house or inn 
 (for I do not remember) there came out a man 
 whom I knew for my countryman, John Ken 
 nedy. And he, too, knew me, though I was 
 but meanly dressed and had neither armor nor 
 shield. He said little until my lady had gone 
 away to rest awhile and we were alone. Then 
 he laid his hand on my shoulder for big as I 
 was he was bigger, but lean and said: 
 
 "And now, Master Hue?" 
 
 So I told him how I had met my Lady of 
 Vaucelles, but not all, for I was not so scant 
 of news that I should tell him I was but a 
 bandit. 
 
 "I have known you since you were a boy no 
 taller than my thigh," said he when I had made 
 out my story, "and your father was a true man 
 and your mother was of my own blood." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But you have no cause to love the Stuart." 
 
 "So that is where it pricks, Master Ken 
 nedy," said I, "but you need have no fear. I 
 ride in the service of my Lady of Vaucelles."
 
 172 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY. 
 
 "And she," said he slowly, "is in the service 
 of Margaret Stuart, daughter of Scotland and 
 Dauphiness of Viennois." 
 
 "And where she serves I serve, and whither 
 she rides I ride to the end, John Kennedy." 
 
 "So be it," he said in a solemn way and gave 
 me his hand. 
 
 Now this great lady was but a little maid of 
 twelve when she was carried into France to 
 be the wife of the Dauphin, who to-day is the 
 eleventh Louis. He was a cold and wicked 
 youth, who never cared for father, mother or 
 wife. It was his pleasure to make the little 
 Scottish maid unhappy, and he sent away all 
 her friends, and when she wept and complained 
 (for she was but a child) he laughed and 
 mocked her manner of speech. Then he whis 
 pered evil stories of her Until she was brought 
 to despair. And she could no longer rest or 
 sleep, but sat on her bed weeping for those who 
 loved her oversea. Often she said to my own 
 dear maid, the Lady of Vaucelles, who was her 
 tire woman: "Were it not for my pledged
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 173 
 
 word I would fain And here she would 
 break off and sigh, dreaming of her own dear 
 land, the dark forests and the Castle on Stir 
 ling Hill. Now that her father, the king, was 
 dead, there was no hope for her in all the world. 
 Louis, her prince, had wearied even of baiting 
 her in his cold, evil moods, and there were those 
 who said boldly that she would suddenly die. 
 Then in her fear and loneliness she consented to 
 the plot that should bear her away. 
 
 As we rode on to La Rochelle, my Lady of 
 Vaucelles and John Kennedy made known to 
 me the plan they had laid to save the princess 
 and carry her to England. And it was clear 
 that I, being unknown in the town, would be 
 of great help. Their one hindrance had been 
 want of money, and this was now supplied, 
 and as well they had gained a stout heart and 
 a good sword. 
 
 We came to the town at night and they en 
 tered, but I lay without until dawn. When 
 the gates were opened I went boldly in, like 
 a stranger and asked for an inn. I made my
 
 174 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY- 
 
 dress better by a mail shirt and a silken doublet 
 and a new plume to my hat, and then went 
 down to the harbor. 
 
 Near the tower and just beyond the great 
 chain there lay a Spanish galley of sixty oars 
 that I hired to set us down on the English 
 coast. The master, who was a thrifty rogue, 
 knew there was something dark in the busi 
 ness, and made me pay him five hundred livres 
 of my lady s money. The sailing was for mid 
 night, when the tide served, and by reason of 
 the darkness the Spanish captain was to burn 
 a signal torch. 
 
 The day went slowly. 
 
 At dusk John Kennedy came to me. 
 
 "Come," he said, "there is one who would 
 see you." 
 
 I am very certain a man can carry two loves 
 in his heart and be the better for it, for though 
 I loved my own dear lady none the less, yet 
 when I saw Margaret of Scotland, right gladly 
 would I have laid down my life, like a carpet 
 under her feet. She was slim and small like 
 a child, with gloomy eyes and a little white
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 175 
 
 face, very sad, beneath a weight of thick red 
 hair. Of her dress I remember only that she 
 wore a surcoat of saffron-colored velvet set with 
 emeralds; and bright though it was, I think 
 of it always as a dress of mourning. There 
 was something watchful and timorous in her 
 manner that seemed familiar to me. Surely 
 I had never seen this hapless princess before, 
 yet as I looked at her there came to me vague 
 memories of dark forests, of windy camp-fires, 
 of savage cries and the shock of battle. AH 
 these things I recalled faintly as one who, wak 
 ened of a sudden, calls back a fading dream. 
 Her hands were little and pale, and upon one 
 of them she wore a ring, which was but in 
 itself a rough circle of gold, such as the bar 
 barians fashion, but to me it was more than 
 strange. How this could be I know not and 
 indeed I have spoken vainly of it to many 
 priests but the sight of that ring made a fierce 
 confusion in my brain. I could not think of 
 my duty to the princess, and forgot both my 
 Lady of Vaucelles and John Kennedy. 
 
 Staring at that ring of witchcraft, there came
 
 into my mind a tangled dream of warfaring 
 men who were yellow and small and wild, of 
 hot fighting and laughter and wine, of little 
 hands, a face dabbled with tears and kisses 
 and the dream ended blackly in death. It was 
 only for a moment that I let this vision trick 
 me. I looked at the princess with what courage 
 I could, and though her eyes were averted, yet 
 it seemed to me that she knew my thoughts 
 that she and I were together on some lawless 
 ride in forest glades and over glimmering 
 prairies among the savage hills of another land. 
 I write the thing as it seemed true to me then, 
 but I doubt if there be men wise enough to ex 
 plain it. 
 
 John Kennedy spoke my name and my gra 
 cious Lady of Vaucelles said : 
 
 "This is a leal Scot." 
 
 The princess looked at me with her great, 
 sad eyes, which were green and troubled as 
 the sea. Then she gave a kind of cry, but not 
 loud, and her face went white as a bleached 
 bone. There was silence for a while and none 
 of us dared speak, though John Kennedy
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 177 
 
 gripped his sword as though he feared I was a 
 traitor and no Scot. 
 
 "Leave us alone," the princess said at last. 
 
 Her voice made a strange trouble in my 
 heart. Had I been a man of an evil past, just 
 so I imagine I should have been troubled by 
 the sudden memory of a lady I had injured 
 and undone; but that sin I had never on my 
 soul. 
 
 "I never thought to see you," the Princess 
 Margaret said softly when my Lady of Vau- 
 celles and John Kennedy had felt the room. 
 "No, I knew not you were alive." 
 
 I will not deny that my first thought was 
 that, young as she was and cruelly used, her 
 brain had given way under her sorrow; but 
 upon second thought I knew that were she mad 
 I was mad no less, for the mere sound of her 
 voice was like remembered music to me. She 
 took a tablet from her girdle and gave it to me, 
 saying: 
 
 "See, I bave written to you again!" And 
 as I looked at it I knew the shaping of the 
 letters and knew that this was her writing and
 
 that I had read it before; yet withal I knew 
 this thing could not be. Was it a dream? The 
 princess spoke aloud the veiy word that was 
 in my mind. 
 
 "Yes, it is part of our dream," she continued. 
 "I dreamed it first and then I wrote it down 
 here. I have seen and known strange things 
 but not like this not like this. Listen. I 
 will tell you because it is you because you are 
 the dream." 
 
 She sank back in her chair, feebly as women 
 do, and covered her eyes with her pale hand 
 on which was the ring of savage gold the 
 signet of some great dead king, perhaps; then 
 she looked up at me earnestly. 
 
 "You are the dream," she repeated. "You 
 shall hear but surely you must know ! How 
 very wonderful that it should be you! And 
 that you should be what you are ! It is God 
 who has sent you to me now, for I have prayed. 
 Then I wrote my dream on the tablet. 
 
 "I was a little girl living in a palace, but it 
 was not in Scotland," here her voice quivered, 
 "but in a land like Italy, by the sea. This was
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 179 
 
 my dream. And my mother was there, but not 
 like my own mother, for she was a sad, worn 
 woman, who did not speak to me ; still she was 
 my mother. Then this land like Italy was 
 full of turmoil and fear for the barbarians had 
 come upon it." 
 
 "I know," I cried in spite of myself. "They 
 were the Huns. They had conquered Gaul 
 and here I paused shamefaced, for I had 
 spoken the maddest words man ever said and 
 knew not at all what they meant. 
 
 "Yes, it was because I sent you the letter 
 and the ring," the Princess Margaret said 
 softly, "and your messengers came and carried 
 me away in a litter ; but I did not want to go ! 
 There was blood on my dress. It is an aw 
 ful dream. And now I know. You have 
 come again. Do you remember that night?" 
 she cried leaning forward and staring at me 
 with her strange eyes. "The banquet. and the 
 men who shouted and the cries! And I who 
 wept! And when you took me to the tent I 
 went quite mad ; and when you lay there heavy 
 with sleep and wine I killed you. That is
 
 180 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 the dream," she whispered, "and you are not 
 dead. You have come out of the dream and 
 I did not kill you." 
 
 With this she began to sob very softly, but 
 so bitterly it would have gone to your heart. 
 I stood there silent, for I feared to be infected 
 with her own mad thoughts. Indeed there 
 were moments during her speech when I had 
 been quite as mad as she, convinced, I know not 
 why, that this dream was true and that we had 
 lived it together, she and I, in some night of 
 witchcraft. Now, I am not a learned man, 
 though I have more Latin than many priests 
 of these new-fashioned days, but I hold it for 
 true that I was so swayed with pity that hour 
 in the round chamber of La Rochelle that my 
 mind was not my own, but became merely a 
 mirror for her wild thoughts; and that this is 
 possible and has happened to others I could 
 prove from authentic writers. The pain of her 
 sobbing hurt me so that for a time I knew not 
 what I said or did. Then she smiled a sad little 
 smile and said : 
 
 "That it should be you that you should be
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 181 
 
 the dream and should have come to me! 
 And now I am not afraid, for I must pay for 
 the sin I did in the dream and then all will be 
 well." 
 
 And that was all, for I went away through 
 the small door that opened upon the harbor. 
 
 It was at this door that I lay waiting a little 
 before midnight in a row barge with two men. 
 It was very dark. I heard the men in armor 
 going to and fro on the battlements, and now 
 and then the challenge and answer of the bow 
 men on the bridge. 
 
 The hardest task that can be set a man is to 
 wait in the darkness, and it will pull down the 
 stoutest courage. It was not of failure that 
 I thought. The plot was well laid, for my 
 Lady of Vaucelles was free to come and go as 
 she pleased, and it was in her habit and veiled 
 that the princess was to come forth on the arm 
 of John Kennedy. So I had little fear for the 
 outcome. It was of my own little maid I 
 thought she who was to stay in Margaret s 
 place and bear the brunt of Louis cold and 
 cruel anger.
 
 182 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 IV 
 
 THE signal torch, small but clear, flickered 
 for a moment on the Spanish galley, and I 
 drew my sword and ran up the steps to the little 
 door in the tower. I pushed the door lightly, 
 but it did not yield. It may have been a few 
 moments, but to me, waiting in a hurry of hope 
 and fear, it seemed an hour, when the door was 
 opened craftily from within. 
 
 There was no word spoken; only the door 
 swung back noiselessly in the darkness. I 
 dared not advance, for it was my duty to stay 
 by the row barge. I could do nothing but 
 stand there, ready for what might come. 
 
 Suddenly as paper curls and crumbles in the 
 fire, the darkness crumbled away. Nor have I 
 ever seen a stranger thing. One moment the 
 black, silent stairs, and then everywhere light 
 and cries and the clang of steel. 
 
 He who came first at me was a Swiss, but I 
 ran him through and he fell screaming. Above 
 was John Kennedy. He came down sidewise, 
 shouldering the wall, and with his long sword
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 183 
 
 stood off two men in leather who fought him 
 from above. In his left arm he held the lady, 
 and by my own dear lady s silver dress I knew 
 it was the Princess. 
 
 All this I saw as one sees a picture lighted 
 up in a lightning flash. I shouted as I ran to 
 his aid, and when he heard my voice he cried : 
 
 "Thank God! Hue, take her and make 
 haste!" 
 
 I took the lady in my arms, and her figure 
 drooped like that of a dead fawn like one 
 
 without life. 
 
 
 
 "Haste, man, haste ! Save her and mind not 
 me." 
 
 And this word, the last I ever heard John 
 Kennedy, that true man, speak, came to me 
 harshly over the clang of the swords. Already 
 I had run down the stairs, bearing the lady on 
 my arm, but for one moment I paused and 
 glanced back. I saw the three men John 
 Kennedy fighting fiercely and like a wounded 
 man, and above them at the head of the stairs 
 I saw one who held a light and smiled ; and so
 
 184 THE CAKNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 cold and young and cruel was the face that I 
 knew I had seen Louis, the Dauphin of France. 
 With that Kennedy fell. Then we were in the 
 row barge, I know not how, and I held the lady 
 fast and my knaves rowed, for it was life or 
 death for us all. I heard the strings of the 
 arbalests ring and the bolts flew about us in the 
 water. Lights flamed everywhere in the 
 tower, and as we reached the galley the great 
 torchlights flared up on the battlements and 
 bridge. I leaped on the galley, bearing on my 
 heart arm the drooping lady, and with that 
 sixty oars took the water and the galley raced 
 out on the tide, a strong wind filling the sails. 
 Yet, swiftly as we went, we escaped the stones 
 thrown by the huge engine on the bridge but by 
 a man s length. 
 
 And now I have to tell the end of my for 
 tune, which was a strange fortune of good and 
 ill, and made, like a Scotch web, of many colors, 
 both gay and sad. 
 
 There was a little room built between the 
 two masts, and there I laid the lady gently on a 
 couch and knelt and spoke to her with great
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 185 
 
 respect. She, poor one, could neither hear nor 
 speak. I called for wine, and when it was 
 brought I sent the varlet away that he might 
 not hear. 
 
 "My lady the Dauphiness," I said softly. 
 
 My fear overcame the duty I owed her. I 
 raised her in my arms and loosed the silver 
 pins that fastened the veil about her head. 
 When it fell away a great sob shook me and I 
 kissed the white face for this was no princess, 
 but my own gracious Lady of Vaucelles. Nor 
 can I tell the tumult in my heart when I saw, 
 there in the dim light, not the red, thick hair 
 and unhappy eyes of Margaret of Scotland, but 
 her dear face and all about it the blackness of 
 her hair. 
 
 "Hue, Hue," she cried and hid her face 
 against me. 
 
 "There, there," I whispered as to a child and 
 as my mother used to speak. 
 
 "Hue, oh, Hue and she my lady she 
 
 And she shuddered and drew away from me 
 and covered her face and sobbed. 
 
 "I wanted to die for her, Hue, and I could
 
 186 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 not even die for her. No, not even that was 
 to be! And now it is too late to save her, too 
 late ! Ah, you do not know " 
 
 "It was Louis?" 
 
 "No ! no ! We were waiting, my lady and I, 
 until it should be time, and my lady was pray 
 ing. Suddenly she came to me and kissed me 
 and said: I have been very wicked. I gave 
 my pledge to my father and my God that I 
 would be the true wife of my lord, the Dauphin, 
 and if he kill me yet I will not break my 
 pledge. I prayed her by her peril and ours, 
 but she said: I will die a true wife. And 
 when Cande came she had no other word for 
 him." 
 
 "She would not go, and we " 
 
 "No, no," said my lady softly, "we must not 
 blame her. Oh, had you seen her, Hue ! My 
 God has spoken to me, dear friends, she said, 
 and I must not go. You and this brave 
 knight must go, and when you are in safety I 
 must tell my Lord, the Dauphin, I have sinned 
 against him in my heart. 
 
 "We knelt to her and even Cande wept."
 
 SCOTLAND S DAUGHTER 187 
 
 Once I have seen her and once I have seen 
 the Dauphin, and I would give my right arm 
 could my sword reach his heart. 
 
 Now, the story of my lady was this : Even 
 as they knelt there came a shrill voice, crying, 
 "Eh, mistress, why not now? Tell me now!" 
 and Louis was there, laughter on his evil face, 
 and men witli lights and weapons came running 
 up. 
 
 And John Kennedy with his brave heart and 
 true sword did fight his way out and bring my 
 lady to my arms and died. 
 
 It was long, long ago-, and though for many 
 years my dear lady made my life beautiful with 
 her love, yet we were never lightly gay like 
 other lovers. Always we were in sorrow for 
 that unhappy lady who died that night we 
 would have saved her, and though such things 
 are not said in courts, we knew it was by Louis 
 hand she died. 
 
 And this knowledge and the sorrow made us 
 very humble in our love and very close to each
 
 188 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 other. They are both in heaven now my 
 gracious lady and the princess she served. 
 And I am old and I wait, as on that dark night 
 at Rochelle tower, for the door to open.
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES
 
 VI 
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 
 I 
 
 ALREADY it was dark on the moors, the 
 brown slopes drifting away into the endless, 
 monotonous twilight. 
 
 Toward the little pass which even then was 
 known as Scarthe Nick a vagrom caravan 
 marched wearily. There were lean horses 
 plodding ahead, training low T -wheeled carts. 
 Certain dark men, dressed in bright-colored, 
 ragged clothes, spoke to the horses confiden 
 tially. Starved dogs hobbled faithfully under 
 the wagons. Women and their young, dumb 
 and watchful, in the wagons; women with 
 babies on their backs ; women with clinging chil 
 dren made up the end of the caravan. 
 
 There were perhaps twenty people in this 
 little company. Slow-footed, watchful, they 
 crossed the brown moorland toward the pass 
 
 191
 
 192 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 in the hills. There was something Oriental 
 about these people. In the first place, the 
 meager horses dragging the carts followed one 
 after the other as camels go across the desert 
 sands. Then, too, the men, who were small, 
 swarthy and sly of look, spoke to the horses 
 as though they were speaking to friends who 
 could understand. And the dark-eyed women, 
 their children trailing at their gowns or lying 
 on their shoulders, walked lightly on as those 
 who see in the naked night the mirage of palm 
 trees, spring water and a spreaded tent. 
 
 Of all this company it was plain neither man 
 nor horse, woman nor child cared for the rough 
 ness of the road across the moors or the menace 
 of the darkening twilight. They seemed to 
 face life as it was, caring not what might come 
 to them, content even though beyond the nick 
 in the hills toward which they journeyed death 
 waited. Perhaps death was a common thing 
 among them. Here, in their wayfaring, a 
 horse might fall in his rope harness or a woman 
 might drop dead, the baby still packed on her 
 back; a man might die from a knife stab or be
 
 hanged high on a gallows ; some old wife of the 
 little caravan might be tied to a green stake to 
 die among the flaming faggots, and all this was 
 neither life nor death it was destiny. 
 
 The little caravan crossed the moorland, took 
 the pass, trailed down slowly into the dale. 
 They were silent all. No one of the black-eyed 
 little children wailed ; the dogs did not lift their 
 voices ; the women, swaying as they walked, did 
 not speak; there were only soft sounds of the 
 horses footfalls on the turf, the creaking of old 
 wheels and the slight noise of the men whisper 
 ing to the horses. 
 
 A little moon came up in that Yorkshire sky ; 
 it was thin and small and curled like the cut 
 ting from a thumb nail ; still it made a flickering 
 light down the slope of Wensley Dale and fell 
 vaguely upon the four towers of Bolton Castle. 
 
 Now that the road ran down hill, the little 
 caravan went neither faster nor slower; always 
 the men whispered to the horses, and the 
 wagons creaked as they journeyed, and the 
 women went lightly but firmly as those who go 
 toward the mirage of tented rest. As they
 
 194 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 descended the hill the darkness of the woods 
 was all about them. The road they followed 
 was rough. One man went ahead with a torch. 
 He whispered back guiding words to his com 
 panions and to the horses. 
 
 So they came to the village. There were 
 only a few thatched cottages bordering the 
 green and huddled beneath the walls of the 
 castle as though for protection. It was a 
 rough and dreary little hamlet merely the 
 kennels for those who served the castle folk. 
 In every cottage save one the hearth fires were 
 covered and all was dark. The exceptional 
 cottage stood at the far end of the street against 
 the castle wall. The door was open and the 
 light came out of it through a red and smoky 
 fog. As the little caravan approached two 
 brach-hounds ran out, yelping angrily. Then 
 the lean dogs of the caravan gave cry. 
 
 The figure of a man showed in the foggy 
 doorway. 
 
 "Down, Blanche! down, Nell heel, you 
 bitch!" he shouted. 
 
 Slowly the two hounds, with drooping ears,
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 195 
 
 came to heel, while the four curs under the 
 wagon yelped and jeered at them. 
 
 "What s all this?" the man asked, striding 
 swiftty into the road and catching one of the 
 dark, vagrom men by the shoulder. "What 
 the devil is all this?" 
 
 He glanced back at the halted train of 
 wagons and beasts, of furtive men and child- 
 bearing women. 
 
 No one answered him, but the man who had 
 been the torch bearer stepped softly to the sec 
 ond wagon and lifted the cloth that tented it 
 round. 
 
 "Lady!" he said "lady!" 
 
 Now, he did not say lady, but a strange word 
 known in their tongue, which is Devla. 
 
 "Gula Devla," he repeated softly. 
 
 The little moon that shone upon Bolton 
 Towers and the cowering village beneath it was 
 still small, but the stars had come out to help it 
 and they made a brave light in that part of 
 the world. So one might see the small w r oman 
 who leaped lightly from the low-wheeled cart 
 and whispered to the man at the hub. Some-
 
 196 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 thing he said in his own speech by way of an 
 swer, and she smiled at him brightly. 
 
 While they were talking another man came 
 into the lighted square of the doorway. He 
 was small and dark and a black cloak hung 
 from his shoulders. He made a strange ges 
 ture and cried : 
 
 "Come within, Sir Richard! Have you no 
 fear of God that you talk to people in the 
 night?" 
 
 "People! Aye, I care not much for people 
 who go abroad o nights, but here are friendly 
 dogs and good honest hoofs," said the man who 
 had come first from the lighted cottage; "and 
 there is no witchery here! Is there, Blanche?" 
 he asked, with a huge laugh out of his deep 
 lungs. "Is there, lass ? Nay, heel ! heel ! I say. 
 Will you let that lean cur be? Down, Nell!" 
 
 This was a big-bodied man, thick and effi 
 cient through shoulder and breast; the hair on 
 his head curly and long, and he wore yellow 
 mustaches and a beard, short-clipped but 
 strong, on his chin. He had been fumbling his
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 197 
 
 bracli-hounds ears as he spoke to the short, 
 dark fellow in the doorway; now he added: 
 
 "These poor vagabonds man, you see 
 witches and devils everywhere! But that s 
 your business, isn t it, Hopkins? Well, every 
 man to his trade! Heel, Blanche Nell!" he 
 cried sharply to his wayward hounds, and as 
 they slunk to heel he said laughingly: "Ye 
 rogues ! tis plain ye were bred in France." 
 
 "My lord!" 
 
 "My lord!" repeated the big man, busy with 
 his hounds. "Nay, not yet. I am Sir Richard 
 Scrope, at your service," he added, for as he 
 raised his eyes upon the girl who spoke to him 
 there came back to him the breeding of the 
 court ; so he said again, "At your service," and 
 swept her a bow with his big hat. Now the lit 
 tle night wind in the valley lifted his yellow 
 hair and made him good to look upon. 
 
 The girl was slim and tawny ; her eyes were 
 very dark, the color of midnight water, which 
 is neither gray nor black nor blue, but all of 
 these colors ; and her hair was sun-stained, like
 
 198 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 blighted corn, which is at once yellow and red 
 and brown. Her dress also was red of hue, and 
 both at the waist and at the throat a faint light 
 sparkled as though it had fallen upon copper 
 or gold. The reddish dress about her was 
 coarsely woven, so that the straws whereon she 
 had slept still clung to it. The torch bearer 
 who had wakened her stooped and brushed the 
 straws away. She, unheeding, looked at Sir 
 Richard and at his crouching dogs; then she 
 said again as one who will not be gainsaid : 
 
 "My lord for lord you shall be ! Nay, we 
 are but poor folk, too poor for your great 
 courtesy. We are wanderers over the earth by 
 reason of our sins. But we know the future 
 ; and you shall be a lord!" 
 
 "Do you hear, Hopkins?" cried Sir Rich 
 ard, turning to the cloaked man in the door 
 way of the lighted cottage. Tis more than 
 you ever promised me, and you have burned 
 more witches than I have pipes of tobacco. A 
 lord!" he added gleefully, for the thought that 
 he was to be a lord pleased Sir Richard Scrope. 
 He looked at the girl and laughed.
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 199 
 
 "Sir Richard," said Hopkins softly, and he 
 came forward into the dark doorway, "go no 
 further into this talk. Tis the mad Papist 
 blood of you that draws you into this danger. 
 Your eyes are blinded and you cannot see. 
 This girl is a witch nay, see the dogs crouch 
 ing behind her! Tis of the mad dog s foam 
 she makes the witch draught, spuma canum. 
 All the ancients in witchcraft know it dog s 
 spittle and the spurging of a dead man s eyes. 
 Come away, Sir Richard." 
 
 All this the dark little man said eagerly, but 
 as though he were urging Sir Richard to do the 
 thing he bade him not to do. There be men 
 who can speak with this double urgency. It 
 may be that Sir Richard felt the treachery in 
 his words, for he turned on him and said with 
 only a slight laugh : 
 
 "John, John, my base-born cousin John, 
 how long would you weep if indeed I came 
 to evil to-night? Nay, man, never protest. 
 Bolton Castle is a good fee, but Cromwell s day 
 is over and the brewer s son is a poor twig to 
 hang to. Let be, man, let be. I came to you
 
 200 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 to-night in a good friendly spirit to drink a cup 
 and bid you to my wedding to-morrow, though 
 my Lady Greensleeves loves you not." 
 
 While these words were spoken Hopkins had 
 hunched his cloak about his close-cropped head. 
 He said calmly enough, but with a touch of 
 sneering sullenness, "I did not speak of my 
 Lady Greensleeves ;" and with this he held his 
 peace and warned Sir Richard no more, nor 
 did he look at the red-gowned girl who stood 
 watching them. 
 
 Now Sir Richard, both because he felt no 
 hate for any man and because the wine was in 
 him, touched his base-born cousin on the shoul 
 der in a friendly way and said : 
 
 "Man, you are witch-mad you should be 
 blooded," and with this he went gayly up to the 
 girl and took her hand. Tis a little hand, 
 mistress," he said, "and soft for a vagrom girl 
 of the night." 
 
 He laughed and would have kissed her, for 
 wine made him ever merry and kissf ul ; but the 
 girl drew back. There was fear in her eyes, 
 and wonder. She said, "Oh!" and then, with a
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 201 
 
 little shuddering cry, "no!" she covered her 
 face. 
 
 "You mad girl!" cried Sir Richard, for the 
 wine was in him, "you tell me I m to be a lord 
 and you will not kiss me!" 
 
 The lady for though her people called her 
 Gula Devla, which is as though one should say 
 Gracious Queen, yet the word lady is the sweet 
 est in the world the lady, I say, took her hands 
 from her face and threw back her head so that 
 the light shone upon her red hair and the cop 
 per jewels round her throat, and said certain 
 words. Her voice was soft and strange. It 
 was as though it were a voice of desert winds or 
 the voice of silver waters rippling down far 
 away hills. What she said was this : 
 
 "You must not mock me, for you do not 
 know. You will never know. I never 
 thought to meet you, and yet I knew it was to 
 be." 
 
 Sir Richard, seeing only folly in her words, 
 toyed with the ears of his brach-hound. He 
 was a slow-thoughted man, and if he gained 
 any meaning from her words it was but vague ;
 
 202 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 so he tugged lovingly at Blanche s ears, think 
 ing, it may be, of my Lady Greensleeves. 
 Hopkins, his lean jowls covered, glowered 
 blackly out of his cloak, now at the girl and 
 now at his high-born cousin. The man who 
 held the torch leaned against the wheel of the 
 cart; the lean dogs and the women and the 
 children and the dark little men watched, 
 huddled under the blanket of the night. 
 
 "It is very strange," said the girl softly. 
 She went close to Sir Richard ; she breathed so 
 quick that the copper coins jangled and clinked 
 at her belt. "You don t remember me?" she 
 added with slow entreaty. 
 
 "Remember?" Sir Richard repeated with a 
 slight effort at thought; then he laughed and 
 groped for her hand. "There are so many 
 pretty girls in the world. I m no saint, like my 
 Cousin Hopkins, but by our Lady herself I do 
 not remember. Where was it ?" 
 
 "No, no," she said dreamily. "I have 
 spoken too soon." 
 
 Hopkins watched her shrewdly, a sneer on 
 his cruel mouth.
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 203 
 
 "Down, Blanche! Heel, Nell! The dogs 
 are fey to-night," said Sir Richard. 
 
 The girl touched his wrist. The tenderness 
 had gone out of her. She was bright and 
 caressing and hard as a ruby or a woman who 
 knows she lies. There was a false and coaxing 
 flattery in her face ; in her voice there were un 
 real tears and sorcery. She went to her knees. 
 
 "Pity, my lord," she said. "We are but 
 poor wandering folk, homeless, masterless, 
 hearthless. Always we must wander. We 
 are unhappy Egj^ptians, and because when the 
 little Christ and His Mother came to Egypt 
 our fathers would not kneel to them we have 
 been sent forth to wander under their curse. 
 Pity, my lord for the gift of the future is 
 mine and lord you shall be pity and let no 
 harm come to us in your town. We are many 
 weak women and children at the breast and 
 men who do no harm. Let us tarry here and 
 pass on. Nay, my lord," she cried, for Hop 
 kins was whispering to his high-born cousin, 
 "have no fear, for I can see the fate above you. 
 Your fate has led me here. Listen, my lord:
 
 204 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY, 
 
 the golden hand in the cloud, and that is your 
 fortune! But mine I know not mine I do 
 not know!" 
 
 Sir Richard turned to her and swept her a 
 bow with his tipsy hat. 
 
 "Mistress, it was ill done of your ancestors," 
 he said, speaking more like a courtier than a 
 man, "to show no courtesy to our Lord and the 
 Lady His Mother when they came to your 
 country, but that is not an unusual fault. 
 There be Puritans here in Yorkshire," said he, 
 looking at Hopkins, "who are no better. Be 
 not afraid. Dwell here in peace." 
 
 "Thank you, my lord," she said, looking at 
 him with quiet eyes. 
 
 Sir Richard called for his horse and swung 
 himself into the saddle. The Egyptian girl 
 and Hopkins stood looking at each other. 
 They could hear the clatter of the horse s hoofs 
 on the stony road that mounted to the castle 
 and the baying of the home-going hounds ; over 
 all a blithe voice singing : 
 
 "For oh, Greensleeves is all my joy! 
 And oh, Greensleeves is my delight!
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 205 
 
 And oh, Grcensleeves is my heart of gold! 
 And who but my Lady Greensleeves !" 
 
 II 
 
 STILL singing, Sir Richard rode into the 
 courtyard of the castle. He spoke cheerily to 
 the old servant who took his horse ; right cheer 
 ily he greeted his old uncle, who sat over his 
 wine. 
 
 "And my Lady Greensleeves?" said Sir 
 Richard. 
 
 "You d not think of disturbing her to-night? 
 Sit down, Dick," the old man said. "The wine 
 grows better as the night wears on. And what 
 have ye been doing to disgrace me to-night?" 
 
 "I, uncle? I ve been trying to undo the sins 
 of your youth," said Richard, grinning at the 
 white-haired old gentleman. "Uncle! uncle! 
 Where did you learn your wicked ways?" 
 
 "You ve been to the village?" 
 
 "Aye. I went to see Master Hopkins, my 
 virtuous cousin." 
 
 "Cousin !" cried the old man angrily. "He s 
 no son of mine! Twas all a lie of that jade
 
 206 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 Moll Hopkins! An old story and an old 
 lie!" 
 
 "It was doubly kind of you," said Sir Rich 
 ard with a disbelieving grin, "to keep a roof 
 over her and send the whelp to the schools, 
 where they made a black Puritan out of him." 
 
 "Charity," said his uncle, emptying his glass. 
 
 "Cousin or not," said Sir Richard, "he s an ill 
 shoot ; but I bear no grudge, though he did his 
 best to oust us from the old home." 
 
 "Had Noll the brewer lived he might have 
 succeeded," his uncle put in; "but the bad days 
 are over and the king will come again." 
 
 "A glass of your wine, uncle ! To the king !" 
 Dick cried, and when they had drunk the toast 
 he added: "So I said to my cousin that I bore 
 him no ill will and bade him come to the wed 
 ding." 
 
 "Here!" 
 
 "Aye, he shall drink a cup. I would have all 
 the world merry to-morrow." 
 
 "You ll never make him merry, the crop- 
 haired rogue," said the old gentleman. "Wine 
 does a bad heart no good. They call him the
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 207 
 
 witch finder. Tis an ill trade, that of burn 
 ing old women, and shows a black heart. Son 
 of mine no!" 
 
 "Let be, uncle, let be," said Sir Richard, 
 "and drink to the bride. To-morrow all the 
 world shall be merry, witches and witchfinders, 
 too, if I have my way," and with that he laid 
 down his glass and, bidding the old man think 
 of the sins of his youth, went blithely from the 
 room. 
 
 Of the four towers of Bolton Castle there 
 were lights only in the one looking toward 
 Scarthe Nick. Up the winding staircase of 
 this tower Sir Richard went singing until he 
 came to a door, behind which he heard laughter 
 and the chatter of girls words. He knocked 
 and the door opened a hand s breadth. 
 
 Tis I," he said meekly to the old woman 
 who opened. 
 
 Tis he," repeated the old woman to those 
 within. 
 
 There were shrill cries and laughter and then 
 a voice : 
 
 "Sir Richard, indeed! Bid him begone,
 
 208 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 nurse. It is too late for a lover and too early 
 for a bridegroom." 
 
 "Nay, you do me wrong to treat me so dis 
 courteously," said Sir Richard, pushing the 
 door. "My pretty bride, may I not see the 
 finery and hey, what s all that?" 
 
 For Sir Richard had no more than stepped 
 into the room and caught a glimpse of his Lady 
 Greensleeves, gorgeous in silver and green 
 finery, than her maids fell laughingly upon him 
 and bustled him out as irreverently as though 
 he had been Tom of Coventry himself. Where 
 upon he betook himself to bed and slept as best 
 man may who awaits his wedding dawn. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Now, when Sir Richard, leaving the little 
 village, rode toward the castle singing, Hop 
 kins and the gypsy girl stood looking at each 
 other. The man lowered his eyes first; he 
 hunched up his black cloak and said : 
 
 "We must talk together, you and I. You 
 have said too much or too little, my girl. If 
 you know the future we must talk together."
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 209 
 
 "Yes," said the girl, and a smile was in her 
 eyes, as though she had indeed read this man s 
 future. 
 
 "Then come you in and sit by my fire," said 
 Hopkins. "You have nothing to fear, gypsy 
 though you be." 
 
 The man turned on his heel and went toward 
 the lighted cottage. 
 
 "I know I have nothing to fear," the girl 
 said. She glanced back at the little caravan. 
 The dark men were alert; the lean dogs, their 
 heads on their paws, drowsed watchfully; she 
 signed to them and followed Hopkins. The 
 cottage into which they entered was better than 
 its neighbor by reason of the wooden floor, the 
 open fire and the case of books hung upon the 
 wall. The girl s eyes went instinctively toward 
 the books. Yellow and somber they leaned 
 against each other blocks of mystery and ter 
 ror and power. She knew what things were 
 done with books. At York an old man in a 
 wig had read for a few moments out of them, 
 and three of her men were taken from her and 
 hanged. Why? Ah, that she did not know.
 
 210 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 The books had willed it. The books, too, had 
 willed that an old woman should be burned 
 as they journeyed through the Ayescarthe val 
 ley not a fortnight gone. Well did the gypsy 
 girl know her own power, for hers was the king 
 dom of the past and the future. What had 
 been was like a landscape across which she 
 could see men and the nations of men moving; 
 the future was like clay in her hands. But 
 the present in the present she walked as one 
 walks in a fog, searching; and how could she, 
 helpless to guide herself, guide the people of 
 her caravan? She was leading them through 
 an unknowable land, wherein strange things 
 happened to them and death caught them at 
 sudden turnings. 
 
 She did not fear the cold wind on the moors ; 
 neither did she dread the strangling blackness 
 of the nights nor the mobs who harried them 
 in the towns. She feared only one thing the 
 death that came by fire or water or rope when 
 men read to them out of books. 
 
 "And he shall be hangit; and she shall be 
 burned quick; and the child shall be drowned,"
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 211 
 
 the men set to judge them decreed, and be 
 cause it was written in the books, even so it 
 was. 
 
 Knowing these things, the gypsy looked side 
 ways at the case of books on the wall of Hop 
 kins cottage, and fear came upon her and she 
 knew she was afraid. 
 
 "Sit there," said Hopkins, pointing to the 
 settle by the fire. 
 
 The foreign girl took her place quietly, 
 though her eyes went from him to the books 
 and back again. 
 
 "You must not judge me by my reputation," 
 said Hopkins. Going to the door, he made 
 it fast with an oaken bar and came again. "If 
 I hunt witches tis my livelihood, but I ve swum 
 many a brave woman so that, sink or swim, 
 it was proved she was no witch. Witchcraft 
 is devil s work and very infamous," he added, 
 "and I have the lord protector s warrant to 
 search it out and bring it to punishment." 
 
 "It is in the books," she whispered. 
 
 "The law sleeps there, but it depends upon 
 me to waken it," said Hopkins he threw back
 
 212 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY, 
 
 his cloak and sat by the gypsy girl on the settle 
 "or to let you and all your people go from 
 here in peace." 
 
 "But the gentleman who rode away prom 
 ised us 
 
 "He he promise you safety when I say you 
 are a witch and give the word against you and 
 your Egyptians?" Hopkins said, wagging his 
 cropped head at her and frowning. "Nay, 
 mistress, you come of a cursed race. We have 
 heard of your people ere now. And blessed 
 work has been done. Two were burned at 
 Normanton and three were hanged at York 
 a blessed day," said Hopkins, and quoted Holy 
 Writ. 
 
 (Now, he who first quoted Holy Writ to 
 serve his turn was not called a Puritan, but the 
 Father of Lies.) 
 
 "They who work iniquity!" he said softly, 
 and rose and stirred the charred wood on the 
 hearth. 
 
 In his black clothes, with his black cropped 
 head and his black face, he had the look of 
 something evil that crawls out of dark corners
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 213 
 
 at night. The foreign girl drew back, shud 
 dering. 
 
 "Show me your power," commanded Hop 
 kins, leaning over her. "Tell me what you 
 told my cousin." 
 
 "Your cousin!" said the girl wonderingly. 
 "He is your cousin!" 
 
 Her eyelids fell and a little shiver ran over 
 her body. She brooded with shut eyes for a 
 moment ; then she drew herself up, laughing. 
 
 "You forget I know the past as well as the 
 future, Master Hopkins," she said and stood 
 up, a slim, autumnal girl, all darkly red and 
 yellow from hair to hem, as woodlands are when 
 summer is dead. "What would you have me 
 do? What would you have me read for you 
 in the future or the past ? Give me your hand, 
 Master Hopkins so so," she said, taking his 
 hand in hers. "Let me see the lines." 
 
 "You gypsy witch," Hopkins said quickly 
 and drew his hand away, "do you think I care 
 for such mummery!" 
 
 The foreign girl was watching him now with 
 keen and sudden understanding. She did not
 
 214 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 fear the somber books leaning against each 
 other in confidential mystery ; she feared noth 
 ing any more, for now she knew the man. 
 
 "There was a woman she was burned in 
 Essex," said Hopkins, going to and fro in the 
 little room. "I found her. She could send 
 death where she would. She used to beat the 
 ground with vipers vivo serpente and make 
 a circle. Then would she make a cross of larch 
 twigs and toss sand in the air, and out of 
 it" 
 
 Hopkins paused suddenly. 
 
 "What comes out of blown sand?" he asked 
 sharply. 
 
 "Death," said the gypsy; "death comes out 
 of the blown sand, but it falls here or there- 
 nay, who knows where it falls? That is the 
 wild death. We call it the death that cannot 
 see. It goes out blindly and strikes and kills, 
 but it knows not whom it kills or why. That 
 is death at hazard, Master Hopkins. The 
 blind death!" 
 
 It was growing cold in the little room. 
 Hopkins threw some logs on the fire and
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 215 
 
 waited until the flames caught them; then he 
 said to the Egyptian woman : 
 
 "Like the arrow that flyeth by night." 
 
 "That is not our way," the girl said. "We 
 send death where we will." 
 
 "There s a man has wronged me," said Hop 
 kins darkly. "He robbed me of my birth 
 right. To-morrow he will rob me of the 
 woman who should be my wife. And he is a 
 rebel and a papist a slave of the scarlet 
 woman. He were better dead." 
 
 The fire was very bright now and threw a 
 red color upon his face. The girl, studying 
 that face, did not know ( for she could not read 
 the present) whether this man lied or thought 
 he spoke the truth. She could see that he was 
 unhappy, and perhaps the unhappy man who 
 turns to crime is not wholly bad. It may be 
 that he was not wholly unjust. If the mar 
 riage laws had done him wrong before he was 
 born, had he not the right to take his revenge 
 where he found it? Life may have been given 
 to him merely to set things straight. Even 
 his dark, vindictive creed may have seemed
 
 216 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 true to him. He may have thought as he went 
 on from crime to crime he was doing not merely 
 the lord protector s work, but the Lord s as 
 well. There are men like this; indeed, there 
 are many men like this. 
 
 "He were better dead," Hopkins repeated, 
 "for he is predestined to damnation and 
 
 "That is beyond me," said the girl. "I 
 know only life and death." 
 
 "And to-morrow he marries this lady," said 
 he, "this green and silver girl his Lady 
 Greensleeves." 
 
 The gypsy girl stared at the fire. It seemed 
 to her that she saw a girl in silver and green 
 riding along a pleasant highway, laughing ; she 
 saw a man who had Sir Richard s eyes and the 
 man knelt to her not to the girl in silver and 
 green, but then he vanished into the dark and 
 came no more; all this the Egyptian girl saw 
 in a vision of the flaming logs. It seemed to 
 her that all her life and in many lives she had 
 loved this man, and she thought that perhaps 
 she might find him in some other life, where 
 they were both but nameless ghosts, adrift in
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 217 
 
 time. Then above all she knew that she hated 
 the girl in green and silver who had come be 
 tween them. She stood up feverishly. 
 
 "And to-morrow he marries this lady," said 
 Hopkins. 
 
 "I will do what you bid me," she said and 
 plucked at the wool of her gown; "but quick, 
 man, quick give me water and clay!" 
 
 Hopkins caught her wrist. 
 
 "You will kill him?" he asked, his voice 
 shrilling into eagerness. "You can do it? It 
 was done in Islington in Elizabeth s time. It 
 cannot fail!" 
 
 "It cannot fail!" the Egyptian answered, 
 looking straight into his flushed, dark face; "it 
 must not fail!" 
 
 Though the woman throbbed with a febrile, 
 quivering force, perhaps the man was the more 
 nerve-strung of the two; still with an effort 
 he got himself in hand and said quietly enough : 
 
 "If you do fail, my gypsy, I ll have you 
 burned within three days; and as for him, the 
 Lord s vengeance can wait." 
 
 Saying this, Master Hopkins went to the
 
 218 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 trough of water by the cottage door and 
 brought her water in a wooden dish. Then he 
 went again into the night and returned with 
 his hands full of reddish clay. As he entered 
 he said half to himself, as one learned man 
 speaks to another, "Now, Adam was made of 
 red-colored clay;" and in this phrase there was 
 no irreverence, only a steadfast belief in what 
 should be. Darkly evil as he was, this little 
 man had faith, and like the other one who had 
 faith, he trembled. 
 
 Standing there near the fire, the Egyptian 
 girl was flame-colored from head to foot hair 
 and gown and tawny feet. Her eyes were 
 closed and she was swaying to and fro a little, 
 repeating swift, mumbled words. There radi 
 ated from her such a force of light and heat 
 and will that the Puritan dared not come near 
 her. He laid the clay in the wooden dish of 
 water and drew back toward the darkness of 
 the door. 
 
 The girl began to knead the clay and water. 
 Always murmuring alien words, she sank down 
 by the settle and kneaded the clay. Then
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 219 
 
 when the clay was supple under her fingers she 
 shaped the figure of a man. 
 
 "See, I have made the man," she chanted 
 softly. "Man I make and he is man, and I 
 breathe into his mouth and he breathes, and I 
 kiss his lips and he loves and suffers, so now he 
 may die." 
 
 Having kissed the image and breathed upon 
 it, she held it toward the fire. 
 
 Hopkins came to her, his lips wide open, his 
 teeth clinched. 
 
 "He will die if you cast it in the fire?" he 
 asked harshly. 
 
 The lady of the Egyptians drew a knife 
 from the folded wool about her breast and 
 made with it a gesture of destruction. 
 
 "No. I must cut it here where the heart 
 is, and then he will die at once," she whispered 
 softly, "and dying, he will know / gave him 
 death." 
 
 "I would not have him die too soon," said 
 Hopkins. "He should have time for repent 
 ance. Tis always a chance of salvation." 
 
 "I know not these things," the vagabond
 
 220 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 woman said for the second time. "I know only 
 life and death and the mystery which is greater 
 than they." 
 
 "He will die slowly should you cast this im 
 age in the fire," said Master Hopkins. "It 
 was done in Islington." 
 
 "Yes," she said, and looked at him. 
 
 "Pain will creep over him eat into him 
 slowly then he will die," said Hopkins; he 
 caressed the dripping clay figure with his hand. 
 "It will be for his soul s good or a warning for 
 others. Lay it there by the embers, woman, 
 and little by little thrust it into the fire. And 
 as the fire eats the image it will burn away his 
 life. Is it true? Answer me, gypsy!" 
 
 "What you have said is true." 
 
 She lay the clay thing in the white ashes near 
 the fire. 
 
 Hopkins put on his black cloak and went 
 to the door. Without he saw the drowsing 
 caravan. Day was breaking. Already the 
 light flickered over the four towers of Bolton 
 Castle. Even as he stood there looking it was 
 day. The sunlight made a pleasant warmth
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 221 
 
 in his body, and he laid aside his cloak as he 
 entered the cottage. 
 
 "Slowly, my Egyptian witch," he said, 
 "slowly. I would not have him die too soon. 
 How long will it take?" 
 
 "How long* will the fire burn," the girl 
 asked, kneeling by the hearth, "and how long 
 will your hate last? Let his death begin now." 
 
 "Fire purifies," said Hopkins. "Let him 
 feel the fire, but do not cast the image into 
 the flames until you hear the bells ring the 
 wedding bells. Then let death take him," and 
 he went to the door, for the room seemed 
 clogged with heat. There was a grim look on 
 his face. He glanced up at the castle. There 
 was sunlight on the towers. The windows 
 looking toward Scarthe Nick glittered in the 
 morning light. The man s lips curled sensu 
 ously; there was a great hope in his sleepless 
 eyes. With the air of one who has life and 
 death in his hands he turned to the crouching 
 girl by the fire and said: "You heard me, 
 Mistress Witch? Do as I have told you and 
 you have nothing to fear."
 
 222 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "No," said the girl softly. "Now I have 
 nothing to fear." 
 
 "He must die with the ringing of the wed 
 ding bells. Wait you here till I come again," 
 said Hopkins, and he took the road to the 
 castle. He was a small figure of a man, all in 
 black, and he stooped a little as he went up the 
 castle road. 
 
 When he had gone the Egyptian girl picked 
 up the clay image and looked at it. It was 
 but a shapeless thing, rough with white wood 
 ash. Perhaps only Hopkins could have seen 
 perhaps only hate could have seen in it a 
 resemblance to Sir Richard Scrope of Bolton 
 Castle. Yet it was the image of a tall, stal 
 wart man. The gypsy flicked the white ashes 
 from it. The clay was hardly dry even at the 
 tips. For a moment she let the thing lie idly 
 in her little brown hand. She was thinking 
 of other things strange things: dim hills and 
 the rush of herds ; a strong man s kiss and the 
 thrust of a bull s horn that cut her like a scythe ; 
 and with that came a vision of clanging swords
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 223 
 
 and bright torches, cries and a man always 
 the man. 
 
 So often death had come to her and breathed 
 upon her and passed that she did not know 
 whether life were not the mere shadow of it. 
 Surely life was only the glimmering window 
 pane through which she saw the landscapes of 
 the past, where they had walked together, he 
 and she. She lifted the little image to her lips 
 and kissed it softly. Even as she held it to 
 her lips there came a sudden brazen noise in 
 the air the clamor of bells ringing. 
 
 The sound of the bells beat about her like 
 a storm, and she gave a little cry as of a woman 
 hurt. With this she crushed the clay thing 
 together in her hands. Deftly her ringers 
 molded it, making a darkling little effigy ; then 
 with quick mockery she blackened it with soot 
 from the chimney place. She scanned it in 
 the firelight. It was grewsomely like Hop 
 kins, more grimly like a man that once went 
 groping through the streets of Florence long 
 ago.
 
 224 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "Go!" she cried, with a shrill cry, and tossed 
 it among the flaming logs and ran from the 
 cottage. In the street her dark-faced people 
 came about her and spoke to her ; the lean dogs 
 crept close, whining comfort; and at that mo 
 ment the clay image crumbled into broken 
 shards and dust. 
 
 IV 
 
 THEY kept the old fashions at Bolton Cas 
 tle ; the wedding was in the young of the day. 
 
 "We ll have no new-fangled Puritan wed 
 dings here," Sir Richard s uncle had said. 
 "We ll keep to the old way of the house." 
 
 Sir Richard laughed and said yea, though 
 his Lady Greensleeves ruffled and strutted a 
 little, as ladies will, but was ready as he was 
 for the wedding morn. Now that Cromwell, 
 the brewer, had taken with him to the grave 
 his ignoble ambition and his ignobler fear, the 
 world went better in England. Men began 
 to feel that liberty was not put to bed for 
 ever. Though the dreary Richard Cromwell 
 was to maunder through a year or two of life,
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 225 
 
 folk took courage. The crop-head could not 
 rule forever. Clergymen and priests, who had 
 been hunted like foxes, came from their hiding 
 places. The good Father Clare came from 
 France twas a bold venture, too, as things 
 went to marry Sir Richard and his Lady 
 Greensleeves. So they were there in the great 
 hall at Bolton Castle, the old uncle fumbling 
 his ruffles, Sir Richard taking his morning 
 drink and humming the song he had made of 
 his lady, the old priest bent and brooding in a 
 great chair. 
 
 "Is the chapel prepared? Are there flow 
 ers?" asked the old gentleman. 
 
 "Chapel and priest are waiting," said Sir 
 Richard, "but the bride it lacks but five min 
 utes of the hour." 
 
 "The ignoblest moment in Cromwell s life," 
 said Father Clare out of the depths of some 
 reverie, "was when out of fear he refused to be 
 king." 
 
 "A king he!" cried the old gentleman, 
 catching fire. 
 
 "Come! come! To the true king!" cried
 
 226 
 
 Richard. "One cup to the true king and one 
 to the bride!" 
 
 As they set their glasses down my Lady 
 Greensleeves came into the room a tall girl, 
 with dark eyes and a laughing face. So bright 
 she was and the lace of her gown was so picked 
 up with silver points you would have called 
 her a silver girl. 
 
 The ladies and maids of her service flocked 
 about her as though she were something too 
 precious to be left alone. A few gentlemen 
 of the neighborhood completed the company, 
 for the marriage was private. Cromwell II 
 was not very terrible, but Sir Richard was 
 careful for the old priest who had come to 
 serve him in this need. The little company 
 went to the southwest tower, where then was 
 the chapel. Father Clare went first, then the 
 old gentleman, giving his hand to my Lady 
 Greensleeves, and Sir Richard followed. 
 There was very little light in the chapel. The 
 candles were lighted on the altar. The priest 
 took his place.
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 227 
 
 Sir Richard paused at the door, permitting 
 the gentlefolk to pass. 
 
 "Have you bid them ring the bells?" he asked 
 the old serving man, who had been long in the 
 house. 
 
 "There be four lusty lads at the ropes," said 
 the old man. 
 
 "Then, when Father Clare has said his last 
 word, let the bells ring, old John," said Sir 
 Richard. 
 
 Handsome, young, strong, gallant, he went 
 to his bride. He had loved her well and long. 
 There was not a thought in him save thoughts 
 of her as he went forward, knelt for a moment 
 at the altar and then rose to take his place by 
 her side. 
 
 My Lady Greensleeves slipped her hand 
 into his a little hand gauntleted far above the 
 wrist, with silver broidery on the glove. Still, 
 beneath the glove he could feel the warmth 
 and loving approach of her hand. He never 
 forgot that moment. It was as though some 
 dumb little animal had crept into his hand ask-
 
 ing for shelter and love and protection her 
 little gloved hand ! 
 
 The good priest was telling them their duties 
 to each other. All Sir Richard knew was that 
 the little hand was claiming him. Of what 
 Father Clare said he heard not a word, but 
 the little hand was eloquent; he could feel it 
 fluttering under his fingers like a nestling 
 bird. 
 
 "I love you," he whispered. 
 
 My Lady Greensleeves answered only by a 
 quiver of her imprisoned hand. Then they had 
 to speak the words that made them man and 
 wife and one flesh. 
 
 As they knelt there was a sudden commotion 
 in the hall without. The women shrank to 
 gether, the men put their hands to their swords, 
 but no one except a servant or two went out 
 until the service was finished. Of the gentle 
 men it was Sir Richard s uncle who reached the 
 hall first. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked angrily. "Now, 
 what is all this ?"
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 229 
 
 "Master Hopkins," said the serving man 
 respectfully. 
 
 "What s the matter with him?" the old gen 
 tlemen asked. 
 
 "He came to the chapel door laughing like a 
 madman," said old John, "but I would not let 
 him enter no, though Master Richard told 
 me he was our guest. Then he said the pain 
 was on him, and he fell to the floor as though 
 he were being crushed in a vise like that he 
 fell all crushed. So we carried him to the 
 chamber, your old chamber, where Moll Hop 
 kins used to come o nights long ago, that is 
 and now he lies there." 
 
 The old servant s eyes were on his master s 
 face ; the look was intent, reproachful, but not 
 unkind. 
 
 "Come and see him now," he said; "come 
 and see him now." 
 
 The old gentleman pushed him aside and 
 went first. A couple of louts kept guard at 
 the door, but old John dismissed them with a 
 gesture. Hopkins sat on a leather-covered
 
 chair near the door. He was bent double and 
 groaning. In spite of his pain he looked up at 
 the old gentleman and said with a sneering 
 laugh : 
 
 "You, father! You see that blood will tell. 
 I ve come to you at last." 
 
 Then he shrieked aloud ; finally words came : 
 "Let me alone! Who are you to torture me? 
 Twas God s word that no witch shall live. 
 And I had my lord protector s warrant. O 
 God!" he cried again and again, screaming. 
 
 He looked like a man who is being pulled, 
 stretched and molded on the rack. The old 
 gentleman looked at this pain-torn figure 
 crouching in the leathern chair, with the awful 
 fear that perhaps after all this was his own 
 son. He remembered the old days Moll 
 Hopkins and her red cheeks and her rousing 
 kisses; always, too, the old serving man stood 
 there like a reproaching conscience. 
 
 "Water I water !" cried Hopkins. Of a sud 
 den he leaped to his feet and stood bolt up 
 right, waving his hands. "Water!" 
 
 Even at that moment the bells began to
 
 MY LADY GREENSLEEVES 231 
 
 ring; cheerily the wedding bells, tugged at by 
 four lusty lads, pealed out over Bolton village 
 and the dale. The air rippled and sang with 
 the music of the bells. The noise of the bells 
 smote into the little chamber. The little cham 
 ber was filled with the clamor of the wedding 
 bells. And Hopkins, staggering, went to the 
 stone floor dead like the broken shards and 
 dust of clay that had been baked in the fire. 
 
 And an old man in that chamber got to his 
 knees and what he said belongs to God. 
 
 Always the bells rang, ringing in that wed 
 ding morning, ringing for the lover and his 
 Lady Greensleeves. These two stood upon 
 the terrace that looks northward over the dale. 
 
 "See, that is good fortune," she said, show 
 ing him a golden cloud that floated overhead ; 
 "that is our good fortune." 
 
 He kissed her and whispered a line of the 
 song he had made for her, and the words were : 
 
 "For oh, Greensleeves is all my joy! 
 And oh, Greensleeves is my delight ! 
 And oh, Greensleeves is my heart of gold ! 
 And who but my Lady Greensleeves !"
 
 232 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 So they looked at each other and their eyes 
 promised many things, and they were happy. 
 
 They did not see the little train of low- 
 wheeled carts, dragged wearily by lean ponies, 
 that crossed the dale and breasted the hill. 
 Why should they have seen or cared? It was 
 a dreary little caravan. There were dark-col 
 ored men dressed in gaudy rags, women stoop 
 ing under the weight of babies, creaking carts, 
 unfed dogs a caravan of homeless misery. 
 In the second cart lay the queen of all this 
 wretchedness. She might have been beauti 
 ful, so strange she was with her tawny skin and 
 her reddish hair; perhaps she was beautiful as 
 she lay there in the straw, moaning: 
 
 "Not yet not yet!" 
 
 There was a gleam of copper at her throat 
 and waist; her red hair was loose and wanton 
 about her. 
 
 "Not yet!" she whispered. 
 
 She sat up and pushed the hair away from 
 her face. Her eyes were wistful and intent, 
 but not sorrowful.
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT
 
 VII 
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 
 I 
 
 IN the year VIII of the Republic, toward 
 the end of Fructidor in the month of ripe 
 fruit, the enemies of the young Republic 
 ringed her round like wolves. Prussians, 
 Austrians, Swiss, Italians, Russians, prowled 
 and yelped at her frontiers. Napoleon was in 
 Syria. 
 
 But the nation lived. 
 
 The nation lived and the armies of the Re 
 public marched. Across Picardy and the 
 green Argonne and the hills of Lorraine to 
 ward Germany; toward south and east and 
 west the nation poured an avalanche of men 
 beardless little conscripts, their uniforms 
 ragged, their feet bleeding; grizzled veterans 
 who had fought in the wars of Louis the Well- 
 Beloved ; sons and fathers. 
 
 285
 
 They were no longer shopmen, prentices, 
 clerks, laborers, lords or hinds; they were no 
 longer brothers, husbands, sons ; they were the 
 nation, the Republic France; and they were 
 the soldiers of liberty. 
 
 Guerre aux tyrans! Vive la nation! 
 
 The armies of the Republic marched. 
 
 Shopmen, clerks, schoolboys, dreaming of 
 glory, they marched; peasants, gentlemen, beg 
 gars, they marched dreaming of the un 
 known, of fortune, of liberty, equality, fra 
 ternity. 
 
 Guerre aux tyrans! Vive la nation! 
 
 These were strange new cries in the Old 
 World. Not well pleased, the kings and rulers 
 of men heard them. England urged on the 
 royalist revolts in the Vendee, in Brittany and 
 in the seaboard parts of Normandy. 
 
 The emigres flocked home to this civil war. 
 In the wooded lowlands of the Manche, in II- 
 et-Vilaine, in the upland forests of Mayenne, 
 they lighted a fire that only blood could damp 
 down nameless, heroic blood. It was a sav 
 age, shifting warfare of ambuscades, murder
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 237 
 
 done in dark woodways, death sent from dusky 
 hedges, pillage and rapine and the brother s 
 blood on the sword of his brother an evil war 
 fare. Those who loved the royal wraith and 
 swore by the saints killed, in the name of 
 France, their brothers who loved the wraith of 
 liberty and swore by the Goddess of Reason; 
 being therefore a war of hollow-tinkling 
 phrases, it was savage above all others. 
 
 It was the twentieth day of Fructidor, a hot 
 September afternoon. In the narrow road 
 that wound through the woods from St. 
 Hilaire d Harcourt toward St. James the heat 
 la} T like a blanket. ]\ T o wind stirred the heavy 
 air; not a leaf fluttered. A dozen red hussars 
 in dirty white cloaks, their steel scabbards 
 clanking against the copper-bound saddles, 
 rode through the forest with what silence and 
 care they could. At any moment they knew 
 the enemy s fire might open on them from the 
 underbrush. They were not used to this war 
 fare. There seemed nothing glorious in it to 
 be picked off from behind a tree was not a sol-
 
 238 THE CARNIVAL OF DE STINT 
 
 dier s death; and they who would have died 
 blithely in the shock and tumult of open battle 
 feared the dusky woods. 
 
 "My orders are to reach St. James by night 
 fall," said Sergeant Jean Marie Lorin, turn 
 ing in his saddle. 
 
 He was a tall young man with gray eyes and 
 the yellow hair of the Gaul ; handsome, too, in 
 his brutal health and insolent youth. "We 
 must get on. We may find water." 
 
 The horses were fagged ; the hussars drooped 
 in their saddles they had fasted since dawn 
 and were throttled with thirst. Still at the 
 sergeant s words the little troop pressed for 
 ward at a trot and breasted the hill. From the 
 crest, where the forest fell away to right and 
 left, they saw Montjoie, the huddled village 
 and the old chateau. 
 
 "It seems quiet enough here," said Sergeant 
 Lorin after a quick inspection. "The lieu 
 tenant was right every hobnailed traitor in 
 the district is off to Fougeres. r Au trot!" 
 
 The hussars straightened themselves in their 
 saddles and lifted the jaded horses into a hob-
 
 bling trot. They grinned at each other: 
 "You ll drink with me, he, Marius? Water! 
 Vive la nation! " 
 
 Shouting with parched lips they rode into 
 the village. The huts were deserted. They 
 found neither food nor drink. In the village 
 well a dead beast lay, swollen and monstrous, 
 breeding pestilence. 
 
 "They have poisoned the water," said Ser 
 geant Lorin thickly. A fierce rage took him 
 a desire to kill. "To the chateau]" he cried. 
 
 Thirst gripped him so at the throat he could 
 hardly get out the words. His men answered 
 with shouts and hoarse curses. They rushed 
 their stumbling horses up to the castle. The 
 gates of wood and iron were fast. Lorin bat 
 tered with his saber and called. Within there 
 was only silence. A half dozen hussars threw 
 themselves against the gates until the rusty 
 hinges gave way. With yells of triumph they 
 stormed the courtyard. It was quite empty. 
 Sergeant Lorin stared about him, at the empty 
 stables and the blind facade of the chateau, at 
 the moss-grown pavement under foot. All
 
 was rotting, desolate, ignoble; yet it had the 
 pathetic dignity of death. Jean Lorin remem 
 bered an old woman whom he had seen lying 
 dead by the roadside during the Italian cam 
 paign. It was after the taking of Mantua. 
 She lay in the ditch, crumpled among the dusty 
 leaves; old, ignoble, dead like this. 
 
 The horses had found the water; it was a 
 spring that came up behind the north wall of 
 the carriage house. The horses drank; then 
 the men, trusting their beasts instinct, dipped 
 their faces in the warmish water and drank. 
 Water it was not water they sucked up; it 
 was life and it was courage and it was youth. 
 
 "He! sergeant!" 
 
 Jean Lorin heard quite well. He heard the 
 splashing in the water, the deep breathing of 
 the horses, the cries and laughter of his men. 
 His own mare tugged at the bit and threw her 
 self forward, and then looked round at him 
 with pain and reproach in her dark eyes. He 
 sneered and pulled her back, gave her the spur 
 and jerked her back again. He began to find 
 a pleasure in the thirst that tortured him, his
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 241 
 
 parched mouth and strangled throat, his burn 
 ing lungs and drifting brain. Men feel that 
 pleasure on the desert sands and die. His 
 belly was pinched for want of food; it burned 
 in him with acid fire ; men die of it. 
 
 "O guc, ma mie"- 
 
 He remembered a love song of Cahors; it 
 was a thing he remembered. Perhaps it is 
 difficult to explain what was in Jean Lorin s 
 mind as he dropped from his mare and struck 
 her on the flank, saying, "Go, drink." He 
 stood for a little while looking at the circled 
 walls, at the blind chateau,, at the red in the 
 evening sky, and thought of none of these 
 things. A dim sense that he was stronger than 
 other men came to him. He had fought with 
 ]N"apoleon in Italy. This dark, little oily man 
 had been made a general, but he, Jean Lorin 
 what might he not be! Life ran past his eyes; 
 it was a panorama of conquest and glory and 
 exultant personality. There was force in 
 him ; he felt it aye, with his own hand. 
 
 "Sergeant!"
 
 242 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY] 
 
 One of his men came up to him. This was 
 Marius of Aries in Provence, a joyous little 
 man. 
 
 "Drink, sergeant a la France!" said he, 
 holding up a bottle, the neck of which had been 
 knocked off. 
 
 Jean Lorin found he could get no words 
 from his parched mouth. He drank. The 
 splintered bottle cut his lips and the wine and 
 the blood ran down his throat together. 
 
 "Oh ! oh !" he said, breathing deep ; and drank 
 again. 
 
 "There s a cellar of it," said Marius. "Vive 
 la guerre! Drink, sergeant!" 
 
 Jean Lorin drank. The wine seemed good 
 as water to him. The fog lifted from his 
 brain. 
 . "No one in the chateau?" 
 
 "No one, sergeant." 
 
 "Have you found food?" 
 
 "We ve found the wine cellar, sergeant." 
 
 "Break down that door, Marius you re 
 a thick-shouldered man. So, both together. 
 Down with it!"
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 243 
 
 The door was a small one; probably it had 
 been a servant s entrance; it yielded to their 
 weight and finally fell. 
 
 "See to the horses, Marius. See to my 
 mare." 
 
 "You can trust man and horse, sergeant." 
 
 "All of you I know," said Jean Lorin. 
 "We must start in a few minutes. I ll look 
 through this hive where the aristocrats used to 
 swarm." 
 
 "Drink, sergeant." 
 
 Jean Lorin set the jagged neck to his lips 
 and drank; then he threw the bottle into the 
 dim place before him; it fell with a crash and 
 splintered on the stone. There was very little 
 light and he went forward cautiously. He 
 drew his saber and with a sense of comfort felt 
 the sweaty leathern hilt fit into his fist. First 
 there was a stone staircase. He counted the 
 steps in a dull way ; there were nine. Another 
 door, but it gave way as he touched it; then a 
 long chamber, with many shrouded windows 
 and pieces of furniture bulking dimly. Be 
 yond was another room. Indeed, the rooms in
 
 244 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 that half light seemed to fade away into an end 
 less vista. He went straight ahead of him, his 
 saber-hand a bit advanced. There was a curi 
 ous singing in his head a voice like that of 
 whispering trees but withal he felt life throb 
 in him tense and strong. He went forward 
 swiftly, and thinking of General Buonaparte 
 (for his mind went back to Mantua), he 
 thought of him as a rival in glory glory. 
 
 His spurs clattered and sang, so proudly he 
 walked. 
 
 Aye, while the rival was in Syria he would 
 win fame and power at home. He would be 
 lieutenant, captain, major, colonel. 
 
 He had entered, thrusting open the twin 
 doors of a little circular room that seemed to 
 be the segment of a tower. Even as he entered 
 there came a scream that was thin and angry 
 as the squeak of a trapped mouse, and some 
 thing came toward him in the twilight. His 
 saber was quicker than his will, and the thing, 
 cut half through, shuddered down on the floor. 
 He bent over it, curious, but not afraid. As
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 245 
 
 his eyes adjusted themselves to the light in the 
 room, he saw that what he had struck down was 
 an old woman. A droll, huddled thing she 
 was. Once or perhaps twice she beat her 
 hands on the floor; then death took her and 
 she lay very still crumpled, old, ignoble, dead. 
 He had seen a thing like that in a ditch by 
 Mantua. 
 
 "Bah!" he said, straightening up. 
 
 The blood was running from his cut lips ; the 
 taste of it was salt in his mouth. Mechanically 
 he ran his fingers down the saber blade, cleans 
 ing it of blood arid snapping the drops off in 
 the air. 
 
 "Bah!" he said again. 
 
 He would have slid his saber into the steel 
 scabbard had he not heard a little dull noise as 
 of a leathern door swinging back; and then 
 there was a light. 
 
 It was the flickering light of a candle held 
 high. By the small flame Sergeant Lorin saw 
 a slim girl, all in white. He had one glimpse 
 of the life in her eyes, and that was all, for
 
 246 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 with a little cry, "Oh! oh!" she let the candle 
 fall and ran with arms outstretched toward the 
 crumpled, quiet thing on the floor. 
 
 "Nurse! nurse! speak to me," she cried, fall 
 ing on the dead woman. "Nurse! nurse! 
 nurse !" and the girl repeated the word until it 
 became a mere rippling noise, as though sobs 
 and prayers and gasps for breath were all one 
 sound. She sobbed there in the dark room of 
 the tower. 
 
 "Get up!" The voice was thick and hur 
 ried. 
 
 Now, the man who spoke these two words 
 was big and young and yellow-haired. He 
 was Jean Marie Lorin, born in 1778 at Cahors, 
 sergeant of the Twenty-third Hussars, son of 
 the Republic, and he looked upon General 
 Buonaparte as his rival. His hand left a stain 
 of blood on the white silk stuff that covered 
 the girl s shoulder, his lips a stain of blood 
 where he crushed them against her mouth; 
 drunk with wine and murder and lust, he took 
 her in his arms, laughing she was the aristo 
 crat ; guerre aux tyrans; laughing
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 247 
 
 The soldiers of the Republic none save they 
 carried the torch of liberty into all lands and 
 made kings quake on their rotten thrones 
 the soldiers of the Republic drank off their 
 wine while they splashed with water the legs 
 and bellies of their horses in the courtyard of 
 Mont j oie. 
 
 "Where s the sergeant?" 
 
 "Drink to him!" cried Marius by way of an 
 swer. He was hung about the belt with bottles 
 of old wine. One he earned flushed to his lips. 
 
 A trooper who had been washing out his 
 horse s ears wiped his wet hands on the red of 
 his breeches and took the bottle from Marius. 
 
 "I ll drink," he said to the sergeant, and 
 gurgled down a pint of good wine. 
 
 "Drink, Chopin," said Marius, grinning. 
 "You are a Brittany rogue yourself. Drink." 
 
 Chopin, who was a lean, yellow man, with 
 hazy, cryptic eyes and a bearded face, handed 
 the bottle back to his comrade. Then he drew 
 his wet fingers over his eyes and said softly : 
 
 "I did not drink to the sergeant, though he s 
 a good man. I drink damnation to the Comte
 
 248 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTIXY 
 
 de Nemorin and all his race! I know Mont- 
 joie. Eleven years I lived in his hand. The 
 old count had a gallows back of the stables 
 there, but he did not hang me no." 
 
 "Drink, comrade," said Marius. 
 
 Chopin drank. 
 
 "He s in London now, the old count, eating 
 Pitt s gold," said Chopin, "but some day I ll 
 find him. Listen, Marius. It was my sister. 
 She was only a little girl, no older than his own 
 daughter. Marius, I swear by St. Anne that 
 if ever vengeance- 
 Sergeant Lorin stood in the little doorway. 
 He was white and stern. 
 
 "Where s my mare?" he asked. 
 
 His emphasis was dull and dangerous. 
 
 Marius brought up the sergeant s horse, 
 cleaned of sweat now and drinking in the air 
 through her wet, porous hide. She turned her 
 kind eyes on her master and shrugged up the 
 skin on her back and fore quarters, which is the 
 horse s way of saying, "I m in fine fettle." 
 
 "A cheval! A clieval!" 
 
 The twelve hussars, busied with their horses
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 249 
 
 or their wine, started into immediate form, so 
 harsh and meaning the voice was. They 
 swung themselves into the saddles and ranged 
 their horses. Sergeant Lorin looked at them. 
 Twas an ill-dressed troop, for wine bottles 
 dangled at their belts. He smiled grimly as 
 he threw himself across his mare s saddle. 
 
 "Forward!" he said, giving his mare a 
 twitch of the bridle reins. "We must be at 
 St. James before nightfall lieutenant s or 
 ders." 
 
 The little cavalcade swept through the castle 
 gates and took the hill road toward St. James. 
 The moon made a little light in the sky, and be 
 hind them the village of Montjoie smoldered, 
 red and smoky. 
 
 "Sergeant," said Chopin, riding up behind 
 Jean Lorin he was thick-bearded, bony, yel 
 low-faced and touching awkwardly his cap, 
 "there was no one in the chateau?" 
 
 "No one," said Sergeant Lorin. "Fall 
 back! Ranks forward!" he added sharply, 
 "forward! It is only a league to St. James, 
 and the road is good. Now, forward!"
 
 250 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY, 
 
 With one single rhythm, and the same, the 
 hoof beats rang on the road. 
 
 So they swept into the little town of St. 
 James. 
 
 Sergeant Lorin, having fulfilled his mission, 
 reported. 
 
 II 
 
 Au Monsieur Le Comte Lorin de Cahors, Colonel au 
 23E Regiment de Dragoons. 
 
 This day, the tenth of Fructidor, 
 in the year one of the French Empire. 
 Monsieur : 
 
 I beg to inform you that the Emperor has relieved 
 you of your functions and duties as Colonel of his 
 Twenty-third Regiment of Dragoons and that your 
 name will be stricken from the army list. You will 
 retire to whatsoever place you may choose for a re 
 treat, but on acknowledging the receipt of this letter 
 you will kindly notify the War Office of your resi 
 dence. I salute you. 
 
 (Signed) BERTHIER. 
 
 By Leduc, Sergeant-major. 
 
 Not a pleasant letter to read. Jean Marie 
 Lorin, Colonel of the Twenty-third Dragoons, 
 Count of the Empire, read it as he sat in a lit 
 tle cafe facing the house of Moliere. At first
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 251 
 
 he did not understand it. He had fought well 
 in Germany and Austria; he had brought 
 home wounds and glory. A big blond man, 
 broad-shouldered and handsome, he lolled over 
 the little wooden table of the Cafe Procope 
 drinking his chocolate. His thoughts harked 
 back over his career in life. Simple enough, 
 all this: born in Cahors, a trooper in the 
 Twenty- third, and then a sergeant; made a 
 lieutenant for deeds of valor in the wars 
 against the Chouans of Brittany; then a 
 captain, a colonel grades won on Rhenish 
 battlefields. Now it was all over and done 
 with. 
 
 "Why? why? why?" said the young soldier, 
 beating his fist on the table "why?" 
 
 Jealousy, envy. The rival hated him and 
 feared him this black little Corsican who had 
 made himself Emperor of France ; so the rival 
 had turned him out of the army. And yet 
 Buonaparte knew his worth had made him 
 Colonel of the Twenty-third and a Count of 
 the new Empire. Now, with a mere scrawled 
 letter from Berthier, this new Emperor broke
 
 252 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 his career and sent him back to the poverty of 
 Cahors. 
 
 "I ll see him," he said to himself, "and I ll 
 find out what the Corsican Emperor means by 
 this." 
 
 He set out briskly. From the Cafe Procope 
 to the Tuileries was merely a moment s walk. 
 He entered the garden. First the grenadiers ; 
 then a long double line of Mamelukes in their 
 gaudy uniforms; last the infantrymen in blue 
 and white, black-gaitered to the knee. The 
 Colonel, Count Lorin de Cahors, passed 
 swiftly, giving the salute of his rank. He met 
 men he knew gorgeous officers of the Hussars 
 in white capes set off with astrakhan ; broidered 
 cuirassiers in scarlet dolmans. They did not 
 answer his salute. Officers in gray, in blue, in 
 red, in white turned their backs on him as he 
 passed. They were men he knew, and Colonel 
 Lorin de Cahors set his teeth and a nasty sneer 
 cut his face. He went on and thrust himself 
 into a little group of men of his own rank and 
 higher rank. There were civilians there in
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 253 
 
 broidered coats; on the outskirts a hovering 
 flock of women. 
 
 Into this company there came a little man, 
 short, rather fat, very nervous ; he went swiftly 
 to the group of generals and colonels. He was 
 short-necked, this man, and the stiff collar of 
 his coat cut into his fat cheeks. His chin was 
 blue from over-shaving and there was a deep 
 dimple in it. His nose was white and thin. 
 His lips were pinched and mocking. A glum, 
 fat little man but there was fire in his eyes as 
 he glanced left and right at the people. He 
 muttered to himself, as men do who have the 
 habit of talking in their sleep. His hands be 
 hind his back, he sauntered up tow r ard Murat, 
 speaking words of this sort : 
 
 "The conscripts must be trained. I have 
 raised sixty thousand men. They must be 
 trained at once. And gloves you must see to 
 the gloves for my troopers. They must have 
 gloves." 
 
 His hands behind his back, the thick, dark 
 little man turned away. Always he talked :
 
 254 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "You forget the small things all of you 
 forget. Boots and gloves that is war. I 
 don t like it. My men must have boots. I 
 have given orders. See that it doesn t happen 
 again." 
 
 Usually this man went with bent head and 
 eyes toward the ground. Suddenly he lifted 
 his face and stared at his big cavalrymen and 
 saw the Count Lorin de Cahors among them. 
 A queer smile went across his face. Still talk 
 ing, he paced to and fro : 
 
 "You are too fond of money, all of you. 
 (You, Murat, you took the pictures and car 
 riages out of Milan. Lannes loves money, and 
 Augereau loves money, and Berthier you all 
 love money. But have a care. I ll put a stop 
 to all that. Every; one is stealing. I ll put a 
 stop to that." 
 
 The little man went to and fro, his hands be 
 hind his back. His eyes read men s hearts and 
 minds. Humble and silent the generals who 
 had won historic battles looked at him with the 
 mien of little dogs. 
 
 ".You are thieves, all of you all of you,"
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 255 
 
 said Napoleon, "and I will have probity. 
 You, Lannes you, Berthier you, Murat I 
 will make you honest. What do the English 
 newspapers say? You are rogues, all of you. 
 I will have honest men about me. You, 
 Murat," and perhaps a memory of old days 
 came to him, for he pinched the curly-headed 
 giant s ear and smiled at him, "you are the 
 worst of all." 
 
 He turned his back on Murat and paced the 
 circle, staring at the boots of his officers, angry, 
 grumbling, impatient as a bear. Suddenly he 
 lifted his meaningful eyes on Colonel Lorin de 
 Cahors. 
 
 "You?" said the emperor. "What are you 
 doing here?" 
 
 "Sire" 
 
 "Sire," repeated Napoleon with a grim little 
 laugh "Sire! Well, how come you here?" 
 
 The colonel advanced and saluted. 
 
 "Are you married?" 
 
 "No, sire." 
 
 "Good," said Napoleon, and he went round 
 the circle of his officers and he said dully :
 
 256 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "You are thieves you, too, Colonel de Ca- 
 hors," he added sharply. "I mean you. But 
 you shall pay for it, all of you. There is too 
 much politics. I will not have it. You hear? 
 Not married, eh?" said Napoleon, looking 
 at Colonel Lorin de Cahors. "You have 
 money?" 
 
 "I am a Colonel in the Twenty-third and a 
 Count of the Empire," said Lorin. He threw 
 up his head and stared boldly at the rival. 
 
 "Are you?" said Napoleon sharply. He 
 turned on his heel and cried shrilly : 
 
 "Talleyrand you!" 
 
 From among the courtiers there came for 
 ward a fat old man limping on one foot, dressed 
 in a snuff-colored coat and wearing a big 
 powdered wig. Approaching the emperor 
 he laughed with easeful and rosy good na 
 ture. 
 
 "Is that the man, Talleyrand?" Napoleon 
 asked. 
 
 Talleyrand looked at Colonel Lorin de Ca- 
 hbrs and said oilily : 
 
 "That is the man."
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 257 
 
 Napoleon, little, swift and dark, strode up to 
 Colonel Lorin, tapped him on the chest and 
 stared in his face. 
 
 "I will not have it," he said. "You disgrace 
 me. What story is this I hear of you? It is 
 in the English newspapers. I will crush you 
 as girls crush flowers in their hands. Talley 
 rand!" 
 
 "Where is the woman?" he ask ed abruptly. 
 
 "Here, sire. One moment," said Talley 
 rand. 
 
 He bowed, passed the line of generals and 
 the thin fringe of civilians and gave his arm to 
 a woman who stood with others on the out 
 skirts of the crowd. Then he came again, the 
 woman on his arm, toward Napoleon. The 
 Emperor was walking to and fro, his eyes on 
 the ground. Colonel Lorin looked at all the 
 actors in this little drama at Napoleon, at 
 Talleyrand, at the woman. What it all meant 
 he knew not, but like a brave man he straight 
 ened his spine and squared his shoulders. 
 
 As the woman came forward Napoleon faced 
 her in a sharp military way.
 
 258 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "La Comtesse de Nemorin," he said quickly, 
 "you are she and this is the man?" 
 
 The woman made the gesture which means 
 yes. She was young, almost a girl. The red 
 in her hair and the gray pain in her eyes made 
 her sad and beautiful. The dress she wore 
 added to her beauty; for in the first year of the 
 Empire ladies dressed themselves in the senti 
 mental gowns of Greece. So from head to 
 foot she was robed in white and yellow stuffs 
 of thin silk. She was girdled high up under 
 her breasts with a girdle of yellow ribbon. A 
 handsome, lithe, long-limbed girl she was, with 
 hair gloriously red, but her white face was 
 pinched and sad. 
 
 "This is the man?" asked Napoleon grimly. 
 
 "Yes," said the woman. 
 
 Talleyrand said yes and took snuff. 
 
 "Monsieur le Comte de Cahors," said Na 
 poleon, the emperor in a queer, soft voice, "this 
 is your wife, Mademoiselle de Nemorin of 
 Montjoie in Brittany your wife, you under 
 stand, or you are no longer the colonel of the
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 259 
 
 Twenty-third. See to it Talleyrand see it is 
 done." 
 
 The emperor turned to his generals. His 
 hands behind his hack, he stared at them gloom 
 ily- 
 
 "Rogues, all of you, but I ll put a stop to 
 it," he said, and again he went to Murat and 
 pulled the hairy giant s ear and slapped his fat 
 cheeks. "You are the worst rogue of all. 
 You waste women, and women must be re 
 spected. I ll not have it." 
 
 The dark little man fumbled in his brain to 
 find what he should say next. The words that 
 came were : 
 
 "Where s Talleyrand?" 
 
 He paced to and fro, his head drooping. A 
 servant, or perhaps a general, ran to bid Tal 
 leyrand come. But Talleyrand did not come. 
 At that moment he was busy in the chapel, lis 
 tening to the words which should make Colonel 
 Jean Marie Lorin, the Comte de Cahors, the 
 husband of Mademoiselle Marguerite de Nem- 
 orin of Montjoie in Brittany.
 
 260 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 With an easy gesture of farewell the Em 
 peror sauntered toward the palace. 
 
 ni 
 
 THE coach drawn by six gray horses 
 rumbled heavily along the forest road. Col 
 onel Lorin, who from the heat of the day and 
 the sullenness of his anger had dozed a little, 
 roused himself and looked out. He admired 
 the easy address of the postilion who guided the 
 leaders and the sure hand of the coachman who 
 held the reins over the Quadriga. The creak 
 ing coach took the hill slowly, the iron work 
 jangling, the coachman s whip cracking out in 
 numerable pistol shots to right and left of the 
 tugging grays, the postilion whistling to the 
 leaders. At the top of the hill the road opened 
 in the forest. Below lay a broad prospect of 
 wood and vale, the ruins of a village and above 
 it a darkling castle. As he looked out upon 
 this landscape other days and years came back 
 dimly to Colonel Lorin. He was quite sure 
 he had ridden this road before, but when? 
 
 He turned and looked at the slim mute
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 261 
 
 figure in the dusky corner of the carriage. 
 He saw only the white of her cloak, the profile 
 of a brooding face shaded by a flaring hood. 
 
 "Madame la Comtesse," he said, "this ride 
 might have tired a husband s patience, but this 
 day of all days I owe you obedience. Still, 
 may I ask whether we are near our journey s 
 end?" 
 
 The lady made no motion, save that her 
 hands fretted the folds of her cloak. 
 
 "Madame," he continued with formal cour 
 tesy, "the emperor has given me a gift above 
 my deserts. He has given me a wife from the 
 old nobility of France of Brittany, is it not? 
 and I, as you know, in spite of my new title, 
 am but a rough soldier. I do not know why 
 the emperor should have done me this honor. 
 Do you, madame?" 
 
 The lady, her chin in her hand, brooded in 
 the dusky corner of the carriage, as she had 
 done for many hours. 
 
 "Nor do I understand why Monsieur Talley 
 rand that great man should have my happi 
 ness so much at heart," Colonel Lorin added.
 
 "But I am a soldier. I obey orders. Ma 
 dame, you and the emperor and Monsieur Tal 
 leyrand have conspired to make me happy. A 
 wife above my deserts. Permit me once more 
 to thank you all of you." 
 
 It may be that the nagging irony in his 
 words stung the lady out of her resolute silence. 
 
 "You need not thank me yet," she said 
 coldly. 
 
 The coach was lurching swiftly down the 
 hill, but Colonel Lorin thrust his head from 
 the window and bade the postilion make haste. 
 ,The fellow turned in his saddle and looked back 
 a yellow, lean man with a bearded face and 
 hazy eyes. He touched his glazed hat and 
 gave the leaders the whip. 
 
 "I ve seen that fellow, but where where," 
 Colonel Lorin muttered. He sank back in his 
 corner, silent. The present he did not under 
 stand ; vaguely he felt that he was the victim of 
 the past a past that was not his own. 
 
 The squealing grays scrambled through the 
 ashen ruins of a village, mounted a short hill to
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 263 
 
 the castle and pulled up with a jerk. The 
 postilion dropped from his saddle and opened 
 the door of the carriage and let down the steps. 
 As the door opened on her side the lady stepped 
 out first; without a glance behind her she en 
 tered the courtyard of the chateau. There 
 were a dozen men or more about the gateway. 
 They were thick-shouldered men, dark and 
 bearded, dressed in rough garments and wear 
 ing heavy clogs. As he leaped from the car 
 riage Colonel Lorin scanned them with the 
 habit of his profession. The postilion ap 
 proached with a military salute. 
 
 "Chopin, one of your hussars when you were 
 sergeant of the Twenty-third, here in the old 
 Chouans days," said the fellow; "years ago, my 
 colonel." 
 
 "I do not remember all my men," the colonel 
 said brusquely, pushing him aside and entering 
 the courtyard, "and just now 
 
 "But I do remember," Chopin said, though 
 he said it to the colonel s back, "and if I had not 
 remembered well, tis not in my hands now.
 
 264 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 Tout se paye! The old count learned that in 
 London, and the colonel will learn as much 
 here." 
 
 The coach waited in the road; the peasants 
 about the gate slipped one by one into the 
 courtyard ; the gates were closed. 
 
 Colonel Lorin crossed the courtyard straight 
 to the white-cloaked figure standing near a 
 door of the old chateau a desolate old castle, 
 the blind windows stained red now with the 
 evening light. He may have heard the gates 
 close behind him; certainly he swept his eyes 
 round the moldy courtyard and along the front 
 of the naked stables ; but with a soldier s steady 
 stride he went straight to the lady, who had 
 paused near the small open door of the chateau. 
 He gave no sign that he knew that door, 
 though his heart jerked and pounded in his 
 breast. He saluted and stood waiting. The 
 lady entered the narrow passage and he fol 
 lowed. They climbed a stone staircase. 
 There were nine steps; then there were doors 
 and long dusky chambers opening one into the 
 other. An odor of decay ; dust started up from
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 265 
 
 the old floors and dripped from the rotting 
 tapestries. 
 
 Jean Marie Lorin followed the lady the em 
 peror had given him for wife until they came 
 to a small room in the tower. It was a circular 
 room, shuttered and dark. For a moment 
 they stood there silent, both. Suddenly the 
 man ran to the window and with a thrust of his 
 shoulder splintered the w r ooden shudders and 
 the dingy glass. The sunlight streamed in; 
 the red evening light made a path to the lady s 
 feet and shone upon her face and hair. With 
 a little gesture she threw back her hood and 
 faced the man who was her husband. Her 
 face and eyes were quiet and firm as stone and 
 very cold. 
 
 "It is here your wife should receive you," she 
 said. 
 
 Jean Lorin had known ; and yet a man may 
 know a thing and not permit himself to know 
 it. But now a great pain blinded him a swift 
 anguish struck at his brain. It seemed that his 
 throat was knotted with thirst, while on his lips 
 was the acrid taste of wine and the savor of
 
 blood. He seemed to be living once more a 
 black hour of the past, an hour of war a heat- 
 clogged road, thirst, a blazing village, an old 
 chateau, this room, this woman. With hag 
 gard eyes he looked up at the lady who was his 
 wife. 
 
 "Madame la Comtesse," he said hoarsely, 
 
 T J> 
 
 He found no other words. The lady waited, 
 slim and beautiful, and cold as the fate that 
 comes up out of the past to judge and con 
 demn ; and in her eyes scorn darkened slowly as 
 she looked at the wavering man by the win 
 dow. Then she spoke. 
 
 "It is here, sir, I should receive you, yes, now 
 you are my husband," and the scorn smoldered 
 like fire in her steady eyes, "and all my task is 
 done. All done," she added gloomily, glanc 
 ing at the decayed walls and ruin about her. 
 "My father is dead, my race is dead, the 
 France I love is dead, and I have no place in 
 this new world. All done !" 
 
 So slight and pale a girl she was, and yet she 
 stood there calm and proud, as though incarn-
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 267, 
 
 ating the splendor and beauty of the ancestral 
 past upon which she looked back, the glories of 
 the lords and ladies who had laughed and loved 
 once in Montjoie. 
 
 Doubtless for an instant this haggard man 
 in the window, this soldier of the Republic, was 
 very far away from her thoughts, but his 
 thoughts were all on her. Or were they 
 thoughts? Was it not rather that every fiber 
 in him throbbed toward her as sound throbs 
 out from a plucked harp-string? The brain in 
 him was the source of innumerable waves that 
 went to her one after the other billows of im 
 pulse the very well-springs of his life going 
 out to her in wave after wave. Why? But 
 how should he know why? These things hap 
 pen to a man as he goes through life. You 
 ride down a street and see a girl s face in a win 
 dow. When you have ridden on an hour s 
 journey something cries aloud in the soul of 
 you: That was she!" and you spur back and 
 come again to the house and there is no face 
 at the window. And evermore you go through 
 life, heedless and aloof, brooding.
 
 268 THE CARNIVAL; OF DESTINY 
 
 Now, Jean Marie torin riding down 
 through the years and through how many 
 gray years he and you and I must ride none 
 can say turned back, and, lo! the girl s face 
 was in the window. 
 
 > "Madame," he said, "my wife Mar 
 guerite !" 
 
 He was quite calm now. It was enough 
 that he had seen her again, that in this woman 
 he had met her once again in the years that he 
 knew her ; nothing else mattered. 
 
 Hearing these words, the lady drew back 
 with a startled look on her face, as though she 
 had heard a voice at once new and dimly famil 
 iar. 
 
 "Mjr wife Marguerite," he repeated 
 gently, but he did not approach her, "you have 
 misjudged me and you are right. I have con 
 demned myself. That, too, is right. I do not 
 mean that my life will pay my debt. Perhaps 
 it will perhaps it is all folly, the debt and the 
 life." 
 
 The lady took a step toward him, then 
 paused.
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 269 
 
 "Comedy now?" she asked coldly. 
 
 "If life is a comedy," he answered gently, "I 
 do not know. There can be no heroism in 
 throwing one life away when we have so many 
 when it is all an endless coming and going. 
 You know, Marguerite, this is not the first time 
 we have met." 
 
 She stared at him. 
 
 "N"or the second nor the third time we have 
 met. ]\ T o," he added softly, "nor will it be the 
 last time." 
 
 Always he stood by the window. She 
 joined him there and coldly she pointed down 
 into the courtyard. 
 
 "Look," she said, "and judge whether it be 
 the last time. Those men are mine, all faith 
 ful to me, the only faithful ones left. That 
 man yonder is Chopin. He does not hate you 
 but he hates your crime. It is for the last 
 time ; that is why they are here. Now, sir, you 
 understand." 
 
 "I understood long ago," said Jean Lorin 
 quietly. He took the traveling pistols from 
 his belt and dropped them from the window.
 
 270 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 They clattered down on the flags of the court 
 yard. "But for the last time? Perhaps you 
 mean for the last time in this life? Then you 
 are right, Marguerite. But in the other years 
 I shall come to you as I did in the past." He 
 drew his hand over his eyes and threw back his 
 head impatiently. Do you remember? You 
 must remember, Marguerite" the girl s face 
 was frightened, but she looked at him with 
 searching, helpful eyes "when I first loved 
 you when we loved each other together in the 
 dark world and then again and again. I have 
 always loved you. Why, you are the woman !" 
 he cried wonderingly, and took her hands and 
 stared into her eyes with amazed certainty. 
 "You are she! Don t you remember?" 
 
 The lady shivered a little when he touched 
 her and went back from him, crying "Oh! oh!" 
 and a hunted look came into her face as she 
 glanced about the room. Jean Lorin knelt 
 swiftly and kissed the rim of her white gown; 
 then he rose and spread his big arms with a 
 gesture of helplessness. He drew himself up
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 271 
 
 and laughed falsely, as one who gets himself 
 together. 
 
 "Madame la Comtesse, there must be ghosts 
 in your old castle and they have got into my 
 brain. Forgive me," he said with a strained 
 attempt at courtesy. "Will you permit me to 
 take my leave? I know my way to the court 
 yard." 
 
 He bowed and went to the door. There he 
 turned and looked at her with quiet and not 
 hopeless eyes, and his voice as he spoke a few 
 \vords was quite his own. 
 
 What he said was, "Good-by, dear one, 
 good-by!" 
 
 She heard his steady footsteps in the dusky; 
 rooms beyond. She swayed a little on her feet 
 and put her hands up to her temples. Her 
 thought was but no, neither you nor I know 
 her thought. Something ached in her; there 
 was a fluttering storm in her heart and in her 
 brain, and her mouth was parched and there 
 was a salt taste on her lips. So for a moment 
 she swayed there in the fading sunlight.
 
 272 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 Then of a sudden she knew that she heard no 
 longer his footsteps that he had gone. 
 
 With a strange little strangled cry of "Oh! 
 ohl" she sped through the dim chambers and 
 winding halls and ran down the stone staircase 
 and threw herself in front of a grim man who 
 stood in the doorway. 
 
 i "No! no! no!" she cried, gasping out the 
 words and making swift gestures with her 
 little hands. "No, Chopin no! no! This is 
 my husband! I " 
 
 The white lady staggered and the words 
 choked in her throat. Then she felt an arm 
 could it have been an arm that throbbed so 
 and gave her strength and life? the arm of 
 her husband about her, and she stood quite 
 erect and said with her pretty, stately air : 
 
 "Why, my dear friends, this is Monsieur le 
 Comte, my husband." 
 
 The sullen men pulled off their hats and 
 looked at each other, and smiles creased their 
 faces. 
 
 "And, Chopin," said the lady of Montjoie, 
 with pretty thoughtfulness, "you may put up
 
 THE EMPEROR S GIFT 273 
 
 the horses. We are not going on to-night. 
 We have decided to stay." 
 
 So the squealing grays were bundled into 
 the musty stables and there were lights in the 
 old chateau.
 
 A TENEMENT OF BLACK FUMES
 
 VIII 
 
 A TENEMENT OF BLACK FUMES 
 I 
 
 HE could not remember a time when he had 
 not loved her. He had watched her grow 
 from babyhood into childhood. She was still 
 a child, only fourteen when they were mar 
 ried. He was only a little further on toward 
 manhood at that time this slim, dark lad of 
 twenty-two. Even then, however, he had 
 written imperishable poems and had eaten of 
 the fruit of the tree of good and evil. He was 
 as one who walked upon the edge of life. 
 The ebb and flow of daily events did not in 
 terest him, for beyond them he saw mysteri 
 ous depths, haunted with shadows of the long 
 ago and the far-away vague phantoms of 
 beauty and horror. He led his child-wife with 
 him into this dark country, where the thing 
 that is seems only the shadow of what may be. 
 
 277
 
 278 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 They wandered there together. Hand in 
 hand they went through the Valley of Many 
 Colored Grass where the ruby-red asphodels 
 grow. They entered the desolate domain of 
 silence, where there was no shadow of sound; 
 and another time they found themselves in an 
 ebony chamber and a corpse-like thing stood 
 there, and this was Death. Once having 
 crossed this borderland of mystery, which lies 
 at the rim of human life, they came upon a 
 gray house by a black and lurid tarn; there 
 they dwelt for many days and their guest-fel 
 low was Fear. 
 
 Many and adventurous were their journey- 
 ings; strange shapes grew out of the twilight 
 and questioned them; bodiless voices went 
 shrieking past them; it was very terrible, and 
 the child-wife clung close to him very close. 
 
 Now and then they would hear music, so sad 
 and sweet intolerably sad that they would 
 weep together. Then hand in hand they 
 would grope their way back to the borderland 
 and come out again into daily life. At these 
 times the man was haggard and his wild eyes
 
 were dark with unspeakable thought; but the 
 girl-wife would lift to him a face serene and 
 quiet as a flower. So long they went hand 
 in hand she cared not though they journeyed 
 with chimsera. Always her eyes were con 
 fident and true, but in the years her face grew 
 very white and thin and the girlishness fell 
 away from her. 
 
 Not many years went by. Five of them 
 passed, and she had grown so feeble bodily 
 that she could scarcely walk the length of the 
 naked little house wherein they hid them 
 selves; then there were five more years, when 
 she lay upon the bed the blue veins hardly 
 throbbing in her wasted temples, the little 
 hands clay-cold and almost transparent, folded 
 on her breast. 
 
 During these long years he went out into 
 the world and fought as men must fight for a 
 crust. He fought madly as one who uproots 
 an oak that he may gather a few acorns and 
 bear them home. When he passed in the 
 street this haggard creature with the wild, 
 dark eyes respectable men, householders,
 
 280 THE CARNIVAL DP DESTINY 
 
 well-doers, self-respecting poets, shrugged 
 their shoulders and said: "He is mad!" 
 
 Others threw stones at him or spat slyly at 
 him as he went by. He, perhaps, would turn 
 upon them with curses that blistered them like 
 flame; or unheeding, would go his way fol 
 lowing a beckoning hand they could not see 
 home to the naked little house and the woman 
 who had been dying so long and who lived 
 only because they willed she should live. And 
 she would put her cold hand on his forehead 
 and whisper her love. Then the gloom would 
 fade from his eyes. The mask he wore to 
 front the world with would drop from his face. 
 
 He would read to her from an old book of 
 visionary and forgotten lore, until some sud 
 den phrase would leap out, compelling and 
 alive a mystic phrase that would open the 
 gates of ivory or basalt, and they would go 
 out through the gate into the misty mid-re 
 gion which floats between this life and the 
 next. 
 
 Always paler; the blue veins in the temples 
 beating more faintly, the woman struggled
 
 back into the daily world. Death came very 
 near to her many times ; again again, and yet 
 again death stooped to take her, but the man, 
 kneeling at her bedside, folded her in his love 
 and held her safe. 
 
 Ten years; they were more than man and 
 woman, more than man and wife; they had 
 journeyed so often across the borderland so 
 many times they had gone down into the val 
 ley where the shadows crowd each other to 
 gether they had entered so often the ebony 
 chamber, that neither knew where self began 
 and love ended. 
 
 One night he was brooding by her bedside; 
 for a moment his thoughts had gone out into 
 the streets and lanes the roaring workshops 
 of life. She was lying very quiet, the wan 
 hands folded, the big melancholy eyes half 
 shut. Even at that moment a wind blew out 
 of a cloud and chilled her, and that was death ; 
 but what of her could not die went otherwhere, 
 and highborn kinsmen who awaited her com 
 ing met her at the gates of the dim, new world 
 and led her in.
 
 282 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 In the little naked house the man was left 
 alone. He looked at the pallid, shrunken 
 thing on the bed and knew it was not she. 
 He cried aloud and rushed out into the 
 night. 
 
 In the black hollow of the night were wind 
 and wintry rain and the sound of voices wail 
 ing. 
 
 H 
 
 WOMEN wore crinoline; gentlemen wore 
 tight trousers, stocks and high-necked coats 
 with gilt buttons ; girl-babies were never short- 
 coated but went gowned through life; stage 
 coaches ran from Bowling Green up to Cor 
 poral Thompson s "Madison Cottage;" Union 
 Square was the site of a powder house and a 
 potter s field; the first telegraph line carried 
 fitful messages to Albany; elderly gentlemen 
 still took snuff and told reminiscences of the 
 war of 1812; shop-boys and pallid girls quoted 
 Longfellow in a word it was the year of our 
 Lord 1849, in the good city of New York, 
 William F. Havemeyer, mayor.
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 283 
 
 It was a warm evening a few days before 
 the Fourth of July. 
 
 Snug-waisted gentlemen strolled about the 
 shady walks of City Hall Park. Those who 
 had evil consciences looked askance at the 
 Bridewell and the gaol. The aesthetically 
 minded crossed the park toward John Van- 
 derlyn s Rotunda for this amiable little in- 
 grate was then exploiting the artistic educa 
 tion Colonel Aaron Burr had given him in 
 Paris and Rome; or sauntered southward to 
 the old Park Theater, or risked themselves in 
 the far wilds of Astor Place. 
 
 Down Broadway a bit and one street below 
 the park there was a broad, dingy basement, 
 with sanded floor and wooden chairs and 
 tables. It reeked with tobacco smoke. It 
 smelled of stale beer and faded alcoholic 
 drinks. The oil lamps flickered there over a 
 narrow bar, in front of which stood a stout, 
 rosy, gouty, slippered old German in a greasy 
 coat and bulging shoes a puffy old man, who 
 wore gaudy rings and a thick watch-chain. 
 
 Through the smoke he surveyed his clients.
 
 284 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY; 
 
 At one table to the right as you came 
 down the stairs three men were seated, 
 drinking whiskey and water. One of them 
 was a well-looking heavy- jowled man of forty, 
 with pleasant eyes and brown curling hair. 
 He was "quite the gentleman" as the saying 
 goes, which means just this: his manner was 
 so gentlemanly that it was evidently acquired 
 ten years later than it should have been. He 
 raised a deprecatory hand, and, with a win 
 ning intellectual smile, said : 
 
 "No, Stoddard, no really, I can t let you 
 say that. You know Poe is my friend." 
 
 "Bah!" said Stoddard. That was not the 
 word he used, but having made his exclamation 
 he spat on the floor and sucked his pipe. 
 
 He was a big-shouldered man, youngish, 
 bearded, with the hardy look of a peasant in his 
 cold, harsh face. Having blown out a cloud 
 of smoke he said: 
 
 "He s a damned villain. I m a poet, too, 
 you know it, Willis! Bayard Taylor knows 
 it! I came from a blacksmith shop well, 
 what of it?"
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 285 
 
 "All the more credit, dear sir," said Mr. 
 Willis with his gentlemanly air; "was not Gif- 
 ford a cobbler and Master Keats an apothe 
 cary?" 
 
 "Well, I pay my debts, don t I?" asked the 
 peasant-faced man, knocking his pipe against 
 his knuckles, "and do I bring ruin upon inno 
 cent women? Do I? I tell you, Poe is a 
 viper! Don t you argue with me! He s a 
 viper. When the women run after a little 
 black-visaged rogue like him, you can tell 
 there s something wrong about him. Think 
 of that poor woman up in New England the 
 one who writes verses and his own wife it s 
 my opinion he killed her." 
 
 "Really, Mr. Stoddard, you are too em 
 phatic," said the gentlemanly poet. "Now I 
 think Poe may perhaps lack the real poetic 
 fire, but as a man, as a gentleman," said Mr. 
 Willis, taking up his glass of whiskey and 
 water and sipping it prettily, "Poe is not to be 
 criticized though I admit that his manner is 
 a trifle Southern. Still, he s a gentleman 
 good blood good blood; he has it the real
 
 286 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 thing, the e Je ne sals quoi 3 the I dinna ken 
 the manner! As a writer, of course, well 
 I m afraid he s not quite sane." 
 
 "Sane!" said Stoddard. "He s a damned 
 drunken dog." 
 
 The third man at the table had not spoken, 
 though he seemed to be listening with an 
 amused air. He was a short fat fellow of 
 sixty, with a big, massive head and matted 
 gray hair falling over his neck and shoulders; 
 wise, piercing eyes looked out from under his 
 shaggy, gray brows. He threw back his big 
 head, expanded his chest and roared: "Poets 
 poets! Stop barking at my friend, the 
 poet!" 
 
 "My learned Dr. Francis," said Willis, "be 
 lieve me 
 
 "Me learned Theban," shouted the doctor, 
 slapping the table, "you are all the same. 
 You all hate each other. Every male and fe 
 male poet of ye! Here s you, Stoddard be 
 cause you write about stars and dead babies, 
 you won t admit that Poe can write about dead 
 women and the moon. And you, Willis, who
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 287 
 
 write everything from Shakespeare to Tom 
 Moore d ye suppose because I know Asiatic 
 cholera I ll not acknowledge that Dr. Hos- 
 sak, God bless him! knows more than I do of 
 yellow fever? You re children all of ye, you 
 poets. Let Eddie Poe be! Men, men but 
 he s in deeper water than you know!" 
 
 The man who had been a blacksmith spat 
 over his beard. 
 
 "That s what I think of him, Dr. Francis," 
 he said. "Did you read what he wrote about 
 my book? He s a drunken dog and a thief 
 and a blasphemer, Poe is and I shouldn t 
 wonder if he was an atheist." 
 
 As Stoddard spoke there had come down the 
 steps into the smoky room a slim, swift-footed 
 man, dressed in black. His long coat was but 
 toned snugly about his slight figure. He wore 
 a black stock doubled severely about his white 
 shirt-collar. In his gloved right hand he car 
 ried a small walking-stick. There was nothing 
 remarkable about this slight, youngish man 
 save his face it was pale and haggard and 
 wonderful; wild black eyes looked out of it
 
 288 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 wonderful eyes that may have seen the mystery 
 at which they who lie dead, wrapped in white 
 linen bands, stare evermore. A haggard, un 
 quiet face, framed in thick hair, soft and dark. 
 
 As he came down the staircase, Dr. Francis 
 hailed him with a merry shout. 
 
 "Poe !" he roared. "Oh, it s Poe come here, 
 lad! You never came at a better moment. 
 We re all sitting here blackening your char 
 acter. Come here, man I ve just learned ye 
 were no poet." 
 
 Talking nonsense of this sort Dr. Francis 
 rose and took Poe by the hand; always those 
 piercing old eyes of his scanned the young 
 man s face with a physician s rare insight 
 and a friend s tenderness; his hand even clung 
 to Poe s for a while as though he were sensing 
 the tides of nerve and blood that beat there. 
 
 "Sit down," he said. 
 
 "Glad to see you, Willis," said Poe, shak 
 ing hands with the gentlemanly poet. 
 
 "My friend, Stoddard," said Willis, intro 
 ducing the poet with the pipe. 
 
 "Ah," said Poe.
 
 "I m delighted to meet you, Mr. Poe," said 
 the blacksmith poet, holding out a ready hand, 
 "I ve often heard of you 
 
 "And talked of me," said Poe, taking a chair 
 next to Dr. Francis. "Yes, I heard you as I 
 came in. But that sort of thing doesn t mat 
 ter. How are you, Willis?" 
 
 "That play is killing me," said Willis, put 
 ting up a white hand to his heavy face. "It is 
 terrible work!" 
 
 "You are right, Willis," Poe said sympa 
 thetically, "I read your last play Tortesa 
 it was terrible work; why do you do it? " 
 
 "What will you drink, Edgar?" Dr. Fran 
 cis asked casually. 
 
 "Nothing! I? Nothing!" Poe answered. 
 "I m going up to Boston to-night a lecture 
 for the frog-ponders. I wanted to bid you 
 good-by, Doctor, for I thought I should find 
 you here. Oh, pay for the drinks and come 
 away," he added abruptly. 
 
 He stood up and shook hands with Willis. 
 
 "Wait, man, wait," cried the doctor. "I 
 move leisurely like a butterfly. You, deuce
 
 290 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 take you! are as direct and brief in your flights 
 as a bee." 
 
 "I ll stay," said Poe, with his sudden won 
 derful smile, "if Willis will let me recite those 
 Broadway verses of his. Willis, you ve never 
 done anything so good, and you will never 
 equal them no matter how long you live. 
 That s true poetry, Willis!" 
 
 Leaning against the table, there in the 
 smoky beer cellar while the author looked up 
 at him with a red, happy face Poe chanted 
 aloud, in his low-toned, silver voice, Willis 
 best poem : 
 
 The shadows lay along Broadway, 
 Twas near the twilight tide, 
 And slowly there a lady fair 
 Was walking in her pride 
 Alone walked she, yet viewlessly 
 Walked spirits at her side. 
 
 Peace charmed the street beneath her feet, 
 
 And honor charmed the air, 
 
 And all astir looked kind on her 
 
 And called her good as fair 
 
 For all God ever gave to her 
 
 She kept with chary care.
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 291 
 
 She kept with care her beauties rare 
 
 From lovers warm and true, 
 
 For her heart was cold to all but gold, 
 
 And the rich came not to woo. 
 
 Ah, honored well are charms to sell 
 
 When priests the selling do ! 
 
 Now, walking there was one more fair 
 
 A slight girl, lily pale, 
 
 And she had unseen company 
 
 To make the spirit quail 
 
 Twixt want and scorn she walked forlorn, 
 
 And nothing could avail. 
 
 No mercy now can clear her brow 
 
 For this world s peace to pray 
 
 For as love s wild prayer dissolved in air, 
 
 Her woman s heart gave way. 
 
 And the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven 
 
 By man is cursed alway. 
 
 A moment s silence ; it was broken by Stod- 
 dard blowing through his pipe-stem. Willis 
 heaved himself out of his chair and laid his 
 plump, white hand on Poe s shoulder; there 
 were tears in his eyes ; his voice choked a little 
 as he said : "I did think it was a true thing 
 but the way you recited it makes it truer." 
 
 "It s poetry, Willis," was Poe s answer; "it
 
 292 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 is quiet and true and real but the end is bad. 
 The identical rimes of way and alway are 
 weak. Why don t you take the two closing 
 lines and begin the last stanza with them. 
 Your climax would be stronger. Are you 
 ready, Doctor?" 
 
 Dr. Francis had paid the bill to the gouty 
 German by the bar; he roared good night to 
 the two poets and followed Poe up the stairs 
 to the street. It was dark there, for the twi 
 light had gone and there was no moon; a few 
 lamps flickered here and there among the 
 trees; the chief light came from the windows 
 of taverns and shops. Arm in arm the two 
 men went up Broadway. 
 
 Dr. Francis spoke first. 
 
 "Do you sleep better now?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes I sleep," Poe replied. 
 
 They walked on in silence for a few mo 
 ments, the doctor thrusting his boisterous 
 shoulders to right and left, Poe stepping nerv 
 ously. 
 
 "Turn here," said Poe abruptly, leading the 
 way down a dark street toward the river;
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 293 
 
 "there are too many people in Broadway I 
 don t like people to rub against me." 
 
 Silence again for a little while; the doctor 
 kept his hand locked on his friend s slender 
 arm he could feel the pulse of vein and nerve 
 in it. 
 
 "It s a queer thing sleep is a queer thing," 
 Poe said softly. "You know, Doctor, before 
 she died how I hungered and yearned and 
 fought for sleep ! Then it was darkness the 
 blank rest. Then I could sleep for a few 
 hours and forget her poor wasted body the 
 blue veins in her temples her terrified eyes. 
 But now when I fall asleep I go through every 
 waking hour that I lived with her. Can you 
 explain that, Doctor? There must be a scien 
 tific reason. You know I am not a fool. But 
 why is it, Doctor, I am alive now only when I 
 am asleep? Then she and I walk and talk 
 together you know she was my cousin as 
 we did when we were children. Last night 
 she came into my sleep just as when she was 
 fourteen years of age. And just as we did a 
 dozen years ago we went away quietly; to-
 
 294 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 gether through the sunny street to be married. 
 Her eyes were just the same sad and true, 
 full of fear and trust. She repeated the same 
 words: Edgar, we will never part! 
 
 "Now I am afraid to sleep. But I live only 
 when I dream. Here as I walk with you 
 Thursday when I lecture to them on poetry 
 the frog-pond people I shall be an eter 
 nity away from myself. I tell you," cried the 
 younger man, throwing up his arms with a 
 mad gesture, "that I live only in my dreams 
 and that is hell! It is hell, Dr. Francis," he 
 added. 
 
 "Don t walk so fast, Ed," said the doctor. 
 "I m not so young as I was in 1812. Hon 
 estly since you ask me, I think you ve been 
 brooding too much. You should not have 
 stayed in Fordham after your wife died. You 
 should have looked up your friends 
 
 "Friends," said Poe. "Griswold and Wil 
 lis and Graham and " 
 
 "And me," said Dr. Francis bluntly. 
 
 "Yes, I should have come to you," Poe an 
 swered gently, "but oh, John, I could not talk
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 295 
 
 to you. I wanted to lie down in the dark and 
 think." 
 
 "A bad thing, Ed." 
 
 "Is it ? That was what I said to myself. I 
 tried not to sleep. I wrote, wrote, wrote so 
 I might not sleep and find her in my dreams. 
 I bent all my mind to the work and I wrote 
 Eureka ; and I made science my handmaid 
 and she and I went out together in the uni 
 verse to find God; and w T e did not find God, 
 but we found the absolute, unconditional force 
 that creates the Eternal Power. And when 
 I had finished I knew that the last word had 
 been said, that I had proved all, that I had 
 found the truth which cannot die." 
 
 He paused a second and added slowly : "Or 
 if by any means it be now trodden down so that 
 it die, it will rise again to life everlasting." 
 
 "What science says is the only truth," said 
 Dr. Francis in his thick, honest voice, "and 
 if science was your handmaid 
 
 Poe turned his wild eyes on his friend ; then 
 he laughed aloud in the night. 
 
 "She who died wrote it, not I," he cried
 
 madly. "She not I! She was my hand 
 maiden not science, but she ! When the work 
 was done I said to myself: Now here is a 
 year s work and it is finished ; and she has been 
 dead for a year and that is finished. And so, 
 John, I lay down to sleep. Then she came. 
 I saw her awful eyes, and I knew that I had 
 written only what she knew; only that, John 
 Francis. She knew, and I was the scribe who 
 wrote. I think she is only in Fordham, John. 
 As a scientific man, isn t that what you think? 
 Or in Maryland she might be there, because 
 you know that was where we lived when she was 
 a little girl." 
 
 Poe s voice had sunk to a whisper; his slim 
 body shook as he leaned against the doctor s 
 shoulder. Doctor Francis spoke now and then 
 a mere commonplace word : 
 
 "Look out for the crossing, Ed there s a 
 step here," or "all this comes from too much 
 solitude." 
 
 Poe said : "The only thing I am afraid of is 
 that my dreams will come to me when I am
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 297 
 
 awake. That would be hell it would be a tor 
 ment worse than hell." 
 
 "Look here, Poe," said Doctor Francis, in 
 his matter-of-fact way but always he studied 
 his friend with observing, quiet eyes. "When 
 does that Boston lecture take place? Thurs 
 day ? And you take the boat to-night? Good. 
 I ll go with you." 
 
 Poe hesitated. 
 
 "That s tremendously good of you, Francis, 
 but I m not going direct to Boston," he said. 
 
 The old doctor slapped him on the shoulder 
 and laughed. 
 
 "What is it now?" he asked. 
 
 "I ve had a letter from Helen," the young 
 man said softly, as though he feared he might 
 be overheard. 
 
 They were in a muddy street and in front of 
 them was the dock where the packet lay. Not 
 until they were near the gang-plank of the boat 
 did Doctor Francis speak ; it was as though he 
 had been asked to diagnose a difficult case and 
 were waiting to study every symptom. Ab-
 
 298 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 ruptly he reached out and caught Poe s hand 
 in his. 
 
 "Good-by," he said, "the letter is a better 
 physician than I can be." 
 
 "Good night," Poe repeated. 
 
 In a few moments the boat was out on the 
 lift of the tide. Little by little the lights of 
 New York faded in the fog. Overhead the 
 sky was dark and hollow as a cup far up in 
 the dome of it one star shone faintly. 
 
 Ill 
 
 AN old tree-lined street in an old New Eng 
 land village; back among the trees a garden 
 with roses and a gabled house an antique 
 house that spoke of comfort and restful days. 
 
 In the warm twilight a young looking 
 woman went to and fro among the roses. She 
 was dressed all in white. Her face was hand 
 some rather than pretty; it was finely cut and 
 race and intelligence perhaps too much in 
 telligence showed in every outline of it. 
 There was a nimiety of thought in the large 
 gray eyes; an excess of feeling about the thin
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 299 
 
 lips and the delicate chin. She was either more 
 or less than woman. Her thoughts went away 
 from woman s affairs in the world. She 
 hunted the dream. So all her life she had writ 
 ten strange little verses in which the old 
 rhythms and the old men-made images rang 
 and shone; and this faculty of rhyme, she felt 
 had made her more or less than woman. She 
 had sung to her roses; she had chanted to her 
 canary birds; she had berhymed armored 
 knighthood and sonneted love ; and as the years 
 swept her on into youthlessness she had grown 
 pale and ghostly there in the old garden of the 
 old house in the old New England village. Her 
 poems got abroad into the world. Young girls 
 loved them : a few men as one might sweep a 
 bow with his plumed hat to Nell Gwynn in her 
 sedan-chair had praised her poems. So she 
 had the guerdon of an hour s fame. 
 
 Once in a midnight long ago she lay in the 
 moonlight among the roses, lifting her gray 
 unsatisfied eyes to the stars, dreaming of a love 
 that never was known in the old New England 
 village such love as knights and warriors and
 
 300 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 savage, blond men of the dead days might have 
 known; and she pictured to herself with sud 
 den sincerity how passionately she would have 
 welcomed the fierce and kiss-hungry knight 
 who should have ridden down out of the years 
 to claim her ; so thinking, she glanced with level 
 eyes across the garden and saw a slim, dark 
 man, who stared at her with dark, intense eyes. 
 She thought she saw love in his eyes; she 
 thought she read there a turmoil of savage pas 
 sion that Lancelot never knew ; but she started 
 up with maidenly fear and arranged her dis 
 ordered crinoline. 
 
 With hardly a backward glance she fled to 
 the shelter of the old house. 
 
 All that night she lay sleepless in her bed, 
 haunted, flushed perturbed as Susannah 
 when old men peered at her through the trees 
 wondering. 
 
 The next day brought her a letter. It was 
 written in a microscopic hand on small slips of 
 paper. The letter was in verse. 
 
 Reading the lines, life turned on its axis 
 for the lonely maiden poet in the old house in
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 301 
 
 the old town in New England ; she learned that 
 the poet was a dark, unhappy Poe, whose glory 
 was like the flicker of lightning in a black cloud. 
 He, going his way, might have forgotten the 
 midnight moment that had given birth to his 
 "Verses to Helen." Helen could never for 
 get. 
 
 She wrote to him strange letters in which 
 she exposed the facets of her soul. And when 
 Poe went down into the valley of the shadow 
 where he had buried the young wife he loved 
 and the world rocked under his feet she called 
 to him to come to her. 
 
 Now in the twilight she went to and fro 
 among the roses, waiting. 
 
 The garden gate clicked and then swung to 
 with a dull shock ; she did not lift her eyes ; not 
 until Poe stood before her with outstretched 
 hands did she raise her face. 
 
 "Helen!" he said. 
 
 A woman may have gone through thirty 
 years of life and volumes of poetry, always 
 there is some one who can speak her name in a 
 tone so intimate that the blood leaps in her and
 
 she is only the woman who loves. She wavered 
 toward him, a mere white thing of love and ab 
 negation. She whispered his name and gave 
 him her slim, white hands. 
 
 "Edgar," she said. 
 
 "Your eyes, Helen," he said, "they are my 
 ministers through these dark months they 
 have given me light and hope Helen, your 
 dear, gray eyes! It is good to love you. I 
 thought I could not live or love, for it is the 
 same thing any more; but now, Helen !" 
 
 She was very pale ; as he took her in his arms 
 she felt as though something dark and fiery 
 wrapped her round 
 
 "Helen!" he cried, and then, "Oh! Oh! 
 God!" and threw her from him. 
 
 He put his hands to his face and muttered 
 something. Then he drew himself up with 
 strenuous self-control and looked to right and 
 left, scanning the twilight. 
 
 Helen had staggered back a little space. 
 She stood quite still now, looking at him with 
 frightened eyes. He went up to her very, 
 gently.
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 303 
 
 "Forgive me," he said. 
 
 Then his eyes met hers. But they were not 
 her eyes. Were these Helen s gray, maiden 
 eyes looking at him in the twilight? Poe 
 steadied himself for it was only by an effort 
 that he kept control of his mind and said 
 again : 
 
 "Forgive me, Helen." 
 
 She said softly: "Edgar!" and then he 
 knew that it was not her voice that had spoken, 
 and that he was not looking into her eyes for 
 the voice and the eyes were those of the woman 
 who had gone out of his life and whose body 
 lay in the brown earth far away with worms 
 for bedfellows. 
 
 So he shrieked aloud to God (though he 
 knew there was no God) and fled away from 
 the old garden and the roses and the maiden 
 who stood there, a mere white line wavering, 
 until she fell on her face in the twilight. 
 
 Twilight and falling rose-petals, the wet 
 grass and a woman sobbing there, sobbing = 
 that was all.
 
 304 
 
 IV 
 
 THAT new invention the electric telegraph, 
 carried a message to Dr. John W. Francis of 
 New York. He shook his leonine, gray head, 
 growled anathema and obeyed. 
 
 The summons took him to the dock where the 
 Boston boat came in. 
 
 First of all the passengers Poe came running 
 down the gang-plank a mad-eyed, chalk- 
 faced, laughing figure of a man. 
 
 "Doc," he cried, "Doc! my Theban sana 
 mens I m glad to see a sane man. There is 
 no credit in a stupid fellow s being sane; but 
 you, John, are a wonderful chap you ve got a 
 brain and yet you are sane as a cabbage. I ad 
 mire you, Doc!" 
 
 Poe was full of gesticulation; every nerve 
 in him twitched. Another man than Dr. 
 Francis would have said he was drunk with 
 liquor or drugs. The old physician knew bet 
 ter. He was well aware that there are certain 
 nerve-centers that respond more readily to 
 stark emotion than to hashish or wine. He
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 305 
 
 locked his friend s arm under his own stout 
 hand and led him away, saying : 
 
 "Leave your luggage, Poe, you can get it to 
 morrow we ll walk and talk." 
 
 The street was dim and muddy ; the two men 
 went arm in arm; always Poe talked, in a high- 
 keyed voice singularly unlike his own his 
 words, too were coarser and more free than 
 usual. 
 
 "I ve thought it all out, Doc," he said; "when 
 I wrote Eureka I did not know now I know. 
 We are not men. We are hybrids. Listen 
 we are a cross between ghost and plant. The 
 Eternal Lie beckons to us and bids us come up 
 to the stars. We can t go we can t get loose 
 for our roots are down in the earth where the 
 worms crawl. We are neither the sedge nor 
 the firefly. We are the one discord in nature, 
 we men. We are neither beasts nor gods. 
 Unless we are sane, John then, damn it, we 
 are beasts. But to have the other thing in you ! 
 The firefly, John the ghost" 
 
 Near the river and not far from the old 
 church there was a dingy tavern known as "The
 
 Sailor s Snug Harbor"; as they came in front 
 of it, Poe dragged his friend in, and found a 
 place near the rickety table near the door. He 
 ordered some ale; a lurching fellow brought 
 them a jug and two glasses. 
 
 "I m thirsty to-night," said Poe, "I m on 
 fire" 
 
 At the back of the room a few longshoremen 
 were drinking and quarreling over cards. 
 Where Dr. Francis and his friend sat there was 
 a small zone of silence. 
 
 "You ve had exciting days of it," the doctor 
 said; "how did the lecture go?" 
 
 "I did them the confounded frog-pon- 
 dians!" said Poe. "I didn t lecture. The 
 mere expectation that I would was too good 
 for them. No." 
 
 Poe took off his mug of ale. 
 
 "And Helen?" Dr. Francis asked. 
 
 "I was waiting for you to speak her name," 
 Poe answered, drooping over the table, and 
 supporting his head with his left hand. "I was 
 waiting, Doc. Yes, I went to see her, John,"
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 307 
 
 he added with an abrupt toss of his head, "I am 
 sane am I not?" 
 
 "Saner than I am, Edgar," said Dr. Fran 
 cis, "because you see more than I do. Control 
 yourself, my boy what happened?" 
 
 "I went to Helen. You know if I love her, 
 John! Perhaps you don t know. Indeed I 
 don t know," said Poe; "no, I do not know. 
 But I thought I loved Helen. And I went to 
 her and said: Helen, I love you. 
 
 Poe paused and drooped again over the 
 table. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "It wasn t she," Poe answered in a dull 
 whisper, "it wasn t she her voice, her eyes, 
 they were my wife s eyes and her voice and 
 she is dead. You know she is two years dead, 
 John! But she spoke, and the eyes were her 
 eyes just as she looked that night when she 
 said forever forever! 
 
 The physician scrutinized the hands and 
 darkling face of the man, as one looks at a curi 
 ous pathological case.
 
 308 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 "That s not uncommon," lie began sooth 
 ingly. 
 
 "Uncommon!" his young friend cried, "no, 
 how can it be the resemblance of eyes and 
 voice that is common. Everything resembles 
 something else." 
 
 "You have been brooding over your wife 
 you have dreamed of her eyes and voice 
 
 "It was not that, John," said Poe softly, "she 
 looked at me and it was she who spoke to me 
 and she stood between me and Helen. I 
 couldn t tell this to any one but you, Francis, 
 could I ? Even you think that I have been de 
 ceived. I would to God I had! Don t you 
 see what it means to me? Ghost and plant 
 half of me trailing the sky with her and the 
 other half of me in the grave with her and the 
 worms." 
 
 He drank again; laughed and got to his 
 feet. 
 
 "Come," he said, "you re bad company to 
 night. Let us go to the cellar. I would 
 rather talk to Willis or any one." 
 
 Poe went out into the night, and Dr.
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 809 
 
 Francis, who lingered a moment to pay for the 
 ale they had drunk, looked vainly for him when 
 he turned into the street. He called his name 
 once or twice but there was no answer. He 
 passed the church and went through to Broad 
 way and dipped into the smoky cellar ; his 
 friend was not there, but he waited, smoking 
 interminable pipes and arguing interminable 
 nothings. 
 
 In the meantime Poe was abroad in the 
 night, abroad in the desolate town of New 
 York, abroad with his dreams. 
 
 Some time in those dark hours his mind 
 shaped itself to a settled purpose. He 
 laughed to himself as the purpose grew in his 
 brain he would kill the dead! He was 
 young; life might be his; love would be his 
 were it not for this dead wife who haunted him. 
 He had loved her. God knows how well he 
 had loved her ! 
 
 But now she was dead and had gone away. 
 Why should she come back to him and look at 
 him out of Helen s eyes? It was a terrible 
 thought to him that those who love once must
 
 310 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 love forever. Was it true that since life first 
 began to brood in the swaying plants of the 
 young earth, to dream in the formless animal, 
 to waken in the beast and man who howled in 
 cave and wood was it true that since then he 
 and she had crept or run or flown together? 
 God knows if he loved her this little cousin 
 who had been wife to him and with whom he 
 had gone adventuring in the world of dreams ; 
 but forever to be forever hers! That she 
 should look at him through Helen s eyes ! 
 
 He fled from the dead woman. 
 
 How he traveled and where will never be 
 known. He rode with chimera. Men saw 
 him in Philadelphia drank with him, spoke to 
 him. Of this he knew nothing. 
 
 One day he came into the city where he and 
 she had played at lovers, when they were chil 
 dren. He had not meant to come there. Yet 
 something beckoned to him something called 
 to him. With stumbling feet and haggard 
 eyes he obeyed the voice and summoning hand. 
 Almost everything was dead in him save the 
 courage and the will that were essentially his.
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 311 
 
 He had wayfared so long with the ghost of this 
 dead woman who loved him that hope had died 
 out of him and he was weary. He would have 
 been glad to lay his body down with her body 
 in the brown earth and keep his tryst with her 
 soul, but the will was alive in him and the cour 
 age. It seemed shameful to him that the dead 
 should be stronger than the living. What 
 right had she to throw a shroud over his heart 
 and his brain and the young life that was his? 
 All day he thought of these things, as he wan 
 dered through the city where he and his girl- 
 wife had loved each other first. 
 
 When night came down his will and his pur 
 pose met so flint meets steel. 
 
 He walked swiftly under the smoking lamps 
 down a narrow street and came to a wooden 
 porch and a lighted window. 
 
 A door opened and he went into a long, dark 
 hall. In the room at his left he heard the 
 clangor of a ruined piano and loud voices. He 
 went on. At the end of the hall a door opened, 
 and, framed in the lighted doorway, there 
 stood a woman. She was tall as a man; her
 
 312 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 face was colorless and bony the skin of it 
 drawn into deep, harsh wrinkles about the jaws 
 and temples; her eyes were expressionless as 
 stone. The woman was neither old nor young, 
 but she gave the impression of age of some 
 thing timeless and immortal as sin. As the 
 slim, dark man went toward her she stepped 
 aside and gave him passage into the back room. 
 A red-covered sofa ; a few red chairs, a table 
 cluttered with glasses and bottles, a lame nig 
 ger plucking a banjo; all this he saw as he en 
 tered. Three women stood up and waddled 
 toward him with ghastly welcome painted 
 things, perfumed things, dressed in blas 
 phemous white gowns, they came toward him. 
 N"o one of the three was young. They seemed 
 to be ageless, world-old in evil, bloated with an 
 tique sins, exiled from womanhood. Yet one 
 was more hideous than the others. Hers was 
 the puffed face of a gargoyle. The yellow 
 hair hung thin and weak on her thick neck and 
 shoulders. As her painted lips parted in a 
 smile of monstrous greeting, the poet could see 
 the mouth full of broken and discolored teeth.
 
 A TENEMENT OF FUMES 313 
 
 "I will kill the dead," he whispered, and went 
 toward this fearful mimicry of womanhood; 
 and even as he drew near her eyes were not her 
 own eyes they were luminous and dark and 
 melancholy, sad and very quiet, like the eyes of 
 one who has seen the gray world beyond the 
 borderland of life. And a voice and words 
 rang in his ears. He threw up his arms and 
 staggered from the house into the black night 
 and the mud of the street. 
 
 "I will come," he whispered again and again. 
 "Yes, yes, I will come." 
 
 Life seemed to him like a tenement of black 
 fumes and smoke. He was fain to open the 
 door and go out into the daylight where she 
 stood, waiting. 
 
 Hour after hour he wandered through the 
 streets of the city that had known their love; 
 then he fell, and men came and picked up the 
 slim, crumpled figure and carried it away for 
 he was dead. 
 
 
 
 In the Valley of Many Colored Grass there 
 are asphodels, ruby red, and pale primroses.
 
 314 THE CARNIVAL OF DESTINY 
 
 Those who go there hand in hand are true 
 lovers, who, when they were on earth, knew not 
 where self began and love ended. Now and 
 then in the ages when they are weary of happi 
 ness they kiss each other and part. And one 
 goes through the ivory gate and the other 
 through the gate of black basalt, but both go 
 down into the life of men. 
 
 There they yearn for each other and suffer 
 until they find each other ; then they die and re 
 turn to the Valley of Many Colored Grass, 
 where they walk hand in hand until they must 
 go again to earth. So there is no end of love ; 
 nor is there any change, forevermore. 
 
 THE END
 
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