Chapter 15

TWO CANDIDATES.

At the close of the April term, 1923, Judge Finch, member of the Court of Appeals from the Seventh District, resigned.

John Cornwall, though the district was overwhelmingly Republican, was persuaded by the State organization to make the race as the Democratic candidate. Not that he was expected to win, but, being a strong man, it was thought his name on the ticket would cut down the Republican majority of the district and thus help the Democratic candidate for Governor and the rest of the State ticket.

Mrs. Rosamond Clay Saylor, at home for the summer, read his announcement in the Pineville Messenger. When her husband came home she met him on the porch.

"I see John Cornwall is a candidate for Judge of the Court of Appeals."

"Yes, I knew that several days ago. He would make a good judge, but has no chance in this district. I'll have to vote for him and speak and work for the Republican ticket in some other section of the State."

"You will do nothing of the sort. You will make the race against him. Think what an opportunity you would have while on the bench at Frankfort to electioneer as a candidate for Governor in 1927. That is the way Judge Singer worked it when he was nominated and elected. Besides, the woman's suffrage organization wants a judge they can trust, and as long as you are married to me they can trust you."

"But I want to run for Congress next year in this district."

"Can't you see further than the end of your nose. You have been in Congress; there's nothing in that for you. You better let that drop. If you listen to me you will be elected Governor in 1927 if the Republicans win."

"But John is my brother-in-law; he's a much better lawyer and would make a good judge."

"When did they begin electing good lawyers as Judges of the Court of Appeals? You are standard judicial timber. And when did you develop such a sentimental family streak? You have not been to see your mother since you returned from Italy in 1919."

"Well, I will go down to Louisville and see what Searcy Chilton has to say about it. Let's have dinner."

Several days later he called on Searcy Chilton. After waiting a short while he was admitted to his private office. "Well! Hello Saylor! When did you get in? What do you want? How are things going in the Eleventh this fall? We must have thirty-five thousand in that district."

"I want the nomination for Judge of the Court of Appeals in the Seventh District."

"Against your brother-in-law?"

"Yes, he didn't consult me before he announced."

"You are too late. We have promised that to Judge Kash; though from the way he's shelling out, he had better change his name to Judge Tight Wad. Your nomination would hold some votes which otherwise Cornwall would swing for the State ticket. How do you stand with the miners? If I give you the nomination what will you do for the State ticket?"

"I will give five thousand dollars and finance my own campaign. I'm all right with the miners, if I do say so myself."

"Well, I will think about it and if my answer is favorable your announcement will be in the Sunday Post. If you see the announcement bring me down that five thousand in cash next week. I want no checks. No one need know what is spent this year. Goodbye. Call again when you come to town."

"In the Sunday Post Colonel Saylor read an excellent biography of himself, coupled with a declaration that he was a candidate for Judge of the Court of Appeals in the Seventh District, and was said to have the backing of the Republican State organization. Though, when Mr. Searcy Chilton was called up and asked, he stated; 'The organization has adopted an unbreakable policy of hands off in the district, and local races.'"

In due course, Colonel Saylor and John Cornwall were each nominated and entered upon an active campaign of the twenty-seven counties of the district.

In the beginning of the campaign it looked as though Colonel Saylor would be overwhelmingly elected. While nine-tenths of the lawyers favored Cornwall's election, Mrs. Rosamond Clay Saylor was making an active canvass and lining up the women in her husband's behalf; Luigi Poggi and several other miners were organizing Saylor clubs among the miners; and a majority of the American Legion, of course, favored the election of one of their charter members.

Slowly sentiment began to shift in favor of Cornwall. Some of the members of the Legion insisted that Colonel Saylor as a candidate was using his connection with their organization too strongly. He made an egregious blunder in an address to the Clear Creek miners and when his speech was reported he lost many votes.

Some of the lawyers in the face of his almost certain election, knowing that after his qualification, he would even scores with them, charged that he was unfit for the place; and that the politicians of the State would no longer permit a good lawyer to be elected Judge of that court.

Colonel Craddock, a retired lawyer of the local bar at Pineville, and eighty-three years old, published a statement in opposition to Saylor's candidacy. He said in part;

"Though an old man I am not a worshiper of ancientism. I think I can give to present-day men credit where credit is due. But when you are old and experience has taught you that no one is infallible and that every one at times is weak and therefore you should judge your neighbor compassionately, it has also given you the power to discriminate between the false and the true and to see through the shams of life with accurate insight.

"Exercising this faculty which comes with the loss of others, as the sense of touch is developed in the blind, and guided by it, though a Republican, I am forced to oppose the candidacy of J. C. Saylor as Judge of the Court of Appeals and advocate that of his opponent John Cornwall, a Democrat.

"In the election of a Judge, the standard of measurement of the conscientious voter should be one of fitness only.

"Shall not the Judge do right? And how can he do right if he is a crook?

"Shall not the Judge interpret the law with wisdom and understanding? And how can he do that if he is a fool?

"Shall not the Judge be free? And how can a coward or a tool, worn blunt in crooked service, be free or cut straight and true?

"What an execration when a Judge is a Jeffries and what a benediction when he is a Marshall or a White.

"A Judge's mind must be open to argument and he must have power to discern between the false and the true.

"The Lord, the First and Last Judge, alone will be able to set some judgments straight and straighten some judges. He in majesty and power upholds the law, which is never broken. It is man who is broken by the law.

"The great curse of Kentucky is that many of her Judges belong to that very common species of Judge. Judex apiarius. Their capacity for hearing the facts and declaring the right is blurred by the buzz of the bee of political aspiration and self-interest.

"A Judge who belongs to this species can usually be classed as of the family Judex timidus,--those whose ears are so great that they can never lift them from the ground, and when a mosquito hums in Covington their dreams of peace are disturbed in Frankfort.

"They are the secret enemies of the law's certainty and stability. Their decisions shift with the tide of popular opinion. They wash their hands like Pilate (not always to cleanliness) and permit the crucifixion.

"A year or so ago, Chief Justice Grinder, in an address before a men's Bible class, declared that the Court of Appeals upon an appeal to it would have reversed the Sanhedrin. There are more than several lawyers in this State, who, knowing the members of that court, have grave doubts about it, had that court sat in Jerusalem and the appeal been prosecuted A. D. 30.

"Saylor is worse. He would make a judicial tool. Judicial tools have generally been in politics for a number of years and, preceding their judicial service, a member of the legislature for several terms, like Saylor, where they are first tried out. This judge expects one day to be Governor and is willing to do any thing to further his political ambitions. By some hook or crook or pull he succeeded in obtaining his license to practice law and since has appeared in court occasionally; generally when a jury was to be influenced.

"He is more or less a wanderer and, when he changes his residence, changes his politics and votes with the majority. He is usually a candidate for office and spends more time on the street than in his office.

"He is a mere pawn on the political chess-board and his master occasionally has him elected to office. Then the master tells him how to decide, not all, but certain cases.

"His opinions are generally misstatements of the facts presented by the record and never mention an authority cited by counsel opposing his master's decree. His references are not complimentary to such counsel, his purpose being to make him appear ridiculous and to forestall all hope for modification by a petition for rehearing, because it is barely possible that another judge may then read the record, though it is not considered judicial etiquette to do so.

"He being the only judge who has read the record, is careful to so state the facts in the consultation room as to meet with no dissent from his colleagues or to make them curious about the record.

"All of these demerits Saylor has in full measure. He is known to all of you. He lives in this county and the county is none the better for it. He defends every bootlegger and crook that is indicted and they will vote for him as they respond to his demands when they are chosen for jury service, which is entirely too frequent for the administration of justice.

"Thirty years ago no man of his reputation and limited capacity would have dared run for this high office. Now it is another thing. If elected he will find some of his associates not much better qualified, so far as knowledge of the law is concerned. Instead of being learned in the law they are politicians, who know their district and how to fool the people.

"Conditions force comparisons. Until the Civil War, opinions rendered by the Court of Appeals were quoted and cited with respect in every State of the nation. The Court since in personnel has deteriorated. Its opinions are captious, partisan, uninspired oracles, which perforce decide the case in hand; but as an authority for future reference, so far as the reasons given are concerned, are mere chit-chat.

"When I was young, and began the practice of law, there were lawyers at the bar in this State and real Judges occupied the bench. There was Clay and Crittenden and Judge Robinson and Judge Underwood. Now who have we? Such lawyers as John Calhoun Saylor and such judges as Saylor will make when elected;--The Lord save us!"

* * * * *

At the November election Colonel Saylor was elected; but by a very small majority. He ran more than five thousand votes behind the head of the ticket, and in a district where little scratching is done. The State ticket pulled him through.

When the returns came in Searcy Chilton, commenting on the race, concluded his remarks by saying; "Next time we must throw that Jonah overboard."

A day or two before he qualified, Judge Saylor came to Frankfort, and visited the courtroom a few minutes after adjournment; he even went up and tried the chair of the Chief Justice, and found the seat was none too large. No one was present but Jake, the negro janitor.

"Jake, what do the lawyers and judges have to say about my election?"

"They don't say nothin, Boss; they jest laff."

NIRVANA.

We are told that at one time the British Isles were connected with the mainland of Europe; that Italy was at least within sight of the African coast; and that westward from Gibraltar, there was a continent which ultimately sank beneath the waves, leaving isolated mountain peaks, now islands and shoals, to mark its submerged position.

The Egyptian priesthood told Solon of the greatness of the civilization of this submerged land, Atlantis or Kami, even then, as of an ancient past; and Homer, Horace and Plato have whispered of its greatness.

The soul of one of its ancient inhabitants, yet wandering upon this earth, may through transmigration have become in part your own, and you, in reverie at odd hours and in company with it, live again a few scenes of those old days.

* * * * *

Near Winchester, Kentucky, driving out the Lexington turnpike you pass an old brick farmhouse of ante-bellum days; flanked on the one side by an old stone springhouse under two spreading elms and on the other by a large tobacco barn that looks extremely modern and out of place. Behind the house is an orchard of ancient apple and pear trees, all dead at the top, a negro cabin beside which are two black heart cherry trees, higher than the farmhouse and more than three feet through; and yet farther back, hemp and tobacco fields and a woodland pasture of oak and walnut trees. At least this was a description of my home thirty years ago.

I had just graduated from Center College, and having in mind to practice law in Lexington, had during the summer formed the habit of going down to the springhouse and under the shade of its eaves and the overhanging elms, sit and read Kent's Commentaries.

A negro family lived in the cabin, Mose Hunter, his wife and boy. Mose was as black as they grow them in Kentucky; but his wife was the color of my old volumes of Kent and had build and features which fixed the country of her ancestry in northern Africa and seemed to identify her as a desert Berber. Mose worked on the farm, his wife was cook at the farmhouse, and the boy, who was said to be half imbecile, was as harmless and shy as a ground robin. I do not know of his ever having gone off the place. He was probably fourteen, had never been to school, and wandered about like a lost turkey hen. We could depend upon him to pick up the apples, feed the cider mill, water the stock, gather the eggs and feed the pigs and chickens.

The boy had the habit of coming to the springhouse and taking a nap each day on the milk crock bench, which had been discarded since we had bought our new refrigerator. Every warm summer afternoon about three o'clock, he would run down the path, dodge behind a tree out of sight, if his mother happened to step out of the kitchen door, and slipping into the springhouse, lie down and sleep quietly in its cool moist shade for a quarter of an hour; then, still asleep, sit up and in a startled way, talk earnestly for some time, his features transformed by a look of tragic intelligence, which they did not possess at other times. Then he would lie down again and after a few minutes quiet sleep, awake and return to the cabin.

His speech did not disturb me; his voice was low, though tense, and his words unintelligible. Gradually his murmurings became a familiar sound, as the call of the lark from the pasture gatepost.

Finally I noticed that he spoke in an apparently strange tongue and even mentioned time and again names given in my ancient atlas. Many times he used the words, pehu, Kami, Theni, horshesu, hik, nut, tash, hesoph, and un.

I wrote Professor Fales of Danville about this time, sending him a small box of crinoids, and casually mentioned the boy and his strange habit, writing out the above list of words, with others, that he habitually repeated.

He wrote back that the words were Egyptian or a kindred Hamite tongue. Consulting the college library, he had discovered that the ancient Egyptian name for Atlantis was Kami. That Theni was the name of a very ancient prehistoric city, its location unknown. That pehu meant an overflowed land; un, uncultivated land; and the word tash, tribe; the others he was unable to translate.

He suggested that I find out from the boy's mother where she or her people were from; get a stenographer at Winchester to come out and make careful notes of his murmurings; and when made send a copy to him and one to----, a lawyer at Covington, who was an antiquarian and an Egyptologist.

The next day after the receipt of the letter I went to Winchester and inquired at the court-house for the official stenographer. I learned, as all courts in the district were adjourned for the summer, he had gone to Atlantic City for the month. So I went to Judge Buckner's office and borrowed his stenographer.

The Judge said the season was dull and except on county court day he could spare the girl for an hour or two almost any afternoon. He also asked if my father still had on hand that half barrel of Old Mock. The next afternoon when I went for the girl I brought the Judge a gallon jug of Dad's Old Mock, telling the folks I was taking him some cider.

When we returned, we found the boy asleep in the springhouse, but within five minutes of our arrival he sat up and went through the regular program. After he had talked for some time, he laid down and resumed his quiet slumber.

This program was repeated the next day except the girl brought out a slate and succeeded in making the boy write or draw upon it characters which were strange to us, and which he wrote from right to left with great ease, though he could not write his name.

The writings on the slate the stenographer carefully copied and after transcribing her notes gave me the copies, one of which I sent to Professor Fales, who forwarded it to his learned friend at Covington. He not only wrote but telegraphed for more.

Twice again the boy's words were taken down and twice he wrote again upon the slate. We might with patience and quiet have gotten a complete history of a generation of prehistoric people, but my mother, who still looked upon me as a young boy incapable of caring for himself in the company of a designing female person, and having noted our regular visits to the springhouse, rushed down unannounced with the boy's mother.

The two made such a racket when they came in they awoke the boy, who dropped the slate. He never again came to the springhouse to sleep; and though afterwards I sat many hours by his bedside in the cabin, he never again uttered a strange or unusual sound until just before his death, which occurred in the fall.

In the early fall his father and mother visited a negro family who had a child ill with scarlet fever. Within two weeks their own boy was taken with the same illness and a few days thereafter died. Shortly before his death I went into the cabin and found him raving in the strange tongue. He had been born on the place. I felt too sad to be curious or to go for the stenographer, but I remember very distinctly the sounds of the last few words he uttered, which were twice repeated. These I wrote down and sent away. I found the translation of the words was; "After a brief bird life I shall find Nirvana."

In a talk with his mother, which occurred some time before his death, she stated that it was a rare thing he ever talked in his sleep and then only used the most common expressions.

She told me her mother was born west of Timbuctu, belonged to a Berber tribe, and had been taken prisoner and sold to slave dealers of the west African coast.

Several weeks after the boy's death I received from Professor Fales a liberal translation of the boy's talk and writings, which at the suggestion of the professor and his friend I have kept a secret, as neither of us believed in transmigration, or desired to figure as in any sense encouraging such an outrageously absurd belief.

The translator and professor are both dead and I suppose their copies have been destroyed. I give mine to the public as a spooky flight of fancy unworthy of belief, aware that this declaration will cause a few half-crazy people to believe the tale is true.

THE TRANSLATION.

The city of Theni is the capital of Kami. The western and southern coast of Kami and the interior country to the central range is a pleasant land, where palm trees of many kinds grow and there is much tropical verdure because on these coasts there is a constant current of warm water, which comes through an untraveled sea lying west and south of us, and in which float endless paths of sargassum.

To the north and east beyond the central range, as also the land northeast of us across the sea, are barren wastes of ice and snow. It has not always been so. Our records show that centuries ago the whole land was as the south and west coast country, but each year the fields of ice swallow more and more of our sweet and fertile land, until now we have but little space for our teeming population and each year less and less to eat.

On the top of a mountain south of our city dwell a few strange people with a strange faith and who keep to themselves. For years they have been building a great ship well up the mountain side. They are directed and encouraged in this useless labor by a prophet who tells of the early destruction of our land by ice and water.

I visited the place recently; the great ship is nearly completed and they are beginning to sheet the hull with copper to protect it from ice floes.

For three nights past my sleep has been disturbed by strange, wild dreams. I see the warm ocean currents which wash our shores, shifted westward by some strange freak of nature, and a land far north of us, now ice and snow, turned into greenland; while our whole land is enshrouded in death dealing cold and ice and snow and preceding this, the waters creep up and engulf our city. The mountain on which the great ship rests sinks down to meet the rising waters and the ship sails off to the southeast, leaving us helpless victims to be engulfed by the rising waters or frozen by the creeping, numbing cold, or smothered under mountains of ice and snow. How long before this shall be I do not know.

I have told my dream to Nefert, the best beloved of my wives, and we have agreed to prepare against the portent of such catastrophes.

We have too many idle, too many to feed; it were better were our population reduced one-half.

We will gather all the provisions of the land into great warehouses, and only those shall eat who labor to build our great pyramid, within which the chosen shall find refuge from the rising waters and the destructive cold.

When the pyramid is completed, we shall store it with great quantities of grain and fuel and textiles to last for years; and as the waters rise, if they shall cover the eminence on which we shall built it, which seems impossible, we shall ascend from the lower to the upper chambers.

On the morrow we will begin our preparations, which will not be wasted, though the flood and cold come not, as it will make for us a most pretentious tomb.

I shall send a great force to gather grain and other foodstuffs, another to collect fuel, others still shall be put to work to weave heavy woolen textiles. Five thousand shall quarry stone for the pyramid of Theni, which shall be built upon the highest mountain near our city. Thirty thousand shall drag and carry great stones from the quarries to the site and fifteen thousand more shall shape and place the stones. Twelve thousand shall act as guards and task masters, to see that the work is done and speedily.

I shall tell the pyramid is for my tomb and until my death to be used as a great storage warehouse; else the people may grow frightened and desperate. They have not yet learned to fear storage plants. Those of the people who are too old or too young to labor shall die.

Dimly discernible from the city is the central high mountain range, extending from the eastern coast far to the northwest and there ending in a rugged promontory, jutting out into a frozen sea.

The country across these mountains, and even to their snow-capped, fog-bannered peaks, is a land of ice and snow, destitute of all life, except a few wild and hardy white-clothed birds and beasts. Even from the mountain peaks you may see the spires and walls of an ice-encased, long dead city.

Near the city is a lesser range, upon which to their very tops grow dense groves of palm and other fern-like trees. In the shelter of these groves are many villas of the rich.

Upon the highest of this range and near our granite quarries I have decided to build the pyramid. The task of building, beginning today, will be pushed with the utmost speed.

The road leading from the city to the top and from the quarries we broadened and regraded. The site was cleared and leveled and the basal walls, six hundred and eighty feet square, started. The height is to be three hundred and fifty feet and the wall angle is approximately forty-seven degrees.

During the building there was much sickness and many deaths from starvation and hardship, for all of which I was held responsible, and until the laboring-people swore at and called me Santa, The Terrible.

Each day the pyramid grew in size; and each night seemed slightly colder than the one preceding it. It was reported that the snow on the distant mountain peaks was deeper than ever before.

We now used the lower stories of the pyramid as a storeroom for fuel and grain and were forced constantly to maintain a heavy guard to keep the half-starved populace from stealing our supplies. I had executed more than a dozen who were caught attempting to steal food stored for their betters.

The warm ocean current shifted to the west. The sun was overcast by clouds. The earth trembled. The snow line crept down the mountain range. The land seemed slowly sinking into the sea. The people shook from fear and cold.

It was necessary to push the work, and, in their terror and to satisfy their hunger, the whole population labored on the pyramid.

One night, when the pyramid was three hundred feet high, a light snow, the first, covered pyramid mountain. A few weeks later there was another and the next morning there was thin ice.

A swift-running mountain river separated pyramid mountain and the city of Theni from the foothills of the distant range. Gradually the current disappeared. The river became a salt lake, then a bay of the great western sea.

One night there was an earthquake, in which we feared for the destruction of the pyramid, and in which a number of the houses of the city toppled over on their occupants.

In the morning it was observed that the mountain on which the prophet's people lived had settled until the place where the ship rested was but a few feet above the level of our new sea. The mountain on which our pyramid had been constructed and the adjacent plain on which the city was built had risen materially in altitude; at least such seemed to be the case.

Within ten days the ship rode at anchor. Then I knew that my gods had been good to me and had truly warned so I might make preparation. I determined on the morrow to seize the ship and retain it for my own use. All owners of boats had long since fled the land. The next morning when I awoke the ship was a distant speck upon the growing ocean. It seemed the gods of some few others were caring for them also.

The pyramid now was about completed and not having provisions for all, though we of the palace stinted not ourselves, having plenty for years, I directed the guards to issue only half rations to the people. They died by hundreds and were cast from the cliffs into the cold waters of the sea.

Noticing that great crowds gathered in the city and that they wept and swore and encouraged one another to assault the palace and tear their ruler to pieces, I thought it best to desert the palace and take possession of the pyramid, which was full of provisions, and had a guard of several thousand soldiers.

So we of the palace, some hundred persons, with a guard of more than three hundred, moved into the pyramid; and, with the stones prepared for that purpose, closed the entrance hall with fifty feet of solid masonry, telling the soldiers outside that we would feed them from our supplies, which we had no intention of doing, except as they might be of use. How easy it is to fool the common people.

That night it stormed and sleet and snow made the outer pyramid a thing of milky glass.

The half-naked, half-starved people came by thousands, and holding out their hands in supplication, begged for bread. But we, sheltered and fed and clothed and sitting by our fires, had no thought for and took no risk for others.

The pyramid in the winter sunlight, with its coating of milk-white ice, seemed an immense half-buried diamond; and we within its heart were not more considerate of the starving, surging mass at its base.

Through the narrow slit-like ventilators, we heard in the afternoon the sound of strife; and, climbing to the flat top, where there was a walled-in area about twenty feet square, looked down upon the soldiers struggling with and slaughtering the half-armed, starving, shivering populace.

For sport, not caring whether they killed soldiers or subjects, I had some of our guard bring a quantity of unused granite blocks about two feet square and slide them down the ice-smooth surface into the seething mass below.

After watching for some time, though clothed in a heavy woolen gown, I grew cold and tired of the sport and went below to the feast, the music and the dance. There I sat with Nefert and two other queens, not less beautiful.

One of the guards from the pinnacle came down and reported that the soldiers had ceased fighting the populace and, joining cause with them, were attempting to scale the pyramid by cutting steps in the icy surface. So again I went above and Nefert went with me.

Our guards collected small stone blocks and with them bowled off our desperate, slowly-climbing assailants. The boulders slid over the glazed surface with the speed of a swift-winged water fowl and when they found a victim precipitated him, a death-dealing catapultic charge upon the heads of his comrades. The effort to reach us was utterly futile.

For several days we found it great sport to shoot loaves of bread and a few tempting morsels of food down to the starving mass and watch them fight and struggle for possession.

At my suggestion, to make the game of greater interest, we took the bread from the crusts and stuffed the loaves with stones. Occasionally, one snatching for the bread lost his life from the stone loaf. So the days passed, not wholly without amusement.

The whole land was now white with snow and ice. Great white bears came out of the mountains of the north and feasted on the dead at the base of the pyramid. Nowhere in the land could we see a living man.

In our company was a beautiful young maid; and, thinking she might furnish amusement for a dull afternoon, I gave orders that she be brought to my quarters.

She was carried thence, struggling and in tears. With her came one of our captains, who said she was to be his wife, and asked me to spare her discourtesy for his sake. He had many times been of service, but no more so than a subject should be. I directed that he be thrown from the top platform, and took the girl with me, so she might see the spectacle.

The guards lifted him over the wall and gave a shove. He started slowly, bracing and resisting with hands and feet, but was soon speeding meteor-like down the icy incline. He disappeared, in the snow and debris at the base, but in a few minutes reappeared, with right arm swinging useless at his side.

The girl, giving a cry, leaped over the wall and skimming along the incline as a swallow might the face of a white slanting cliff, sped towards her lover. The man leaped to the edge to break her fall and she struck him with destructive force. They were thrown some distance and lay still in the snow, which was crimsoned by their bleeding wounds.

Two great white bears, smelling the blood, came forth from behind the cliffs and feasted upon the pair.

In a few more days the icy waters of a polar sea covered the city of Theni; and in tears we witnessed the great dome of the temple of our gods sink beneath its surface. The next week great icebergs were floating across the plain and above the site of Theni. It grew intensely cold and the inner walls of our great upper hall were coated with frost crystals.

The wind shrieked; great waves striking the mountain side shook our pyramid. The sight was blotted out by a blizzard of snow and ice.

* * * * *

The guards are kept busy with spears and spades trying to keep the ventilators and the pinnacle area free of snow and ice so we can have air. Several have been blown from the top.

We made a mistake in the construction of our refuge. We should have shielded our ventilators to keep off the snow. It is a hard struggle for air. Tomorrow we must start work opening the passageway for light and air. Nefert says I should have built a ship and sailed away, as did the prophet and his people.

* * * * *

Nefert awake. It is dark and cold. The air is foul. I hear rushing waters. It comes in the ventilators above our heads. It is salty. We are being swallowed by the icy sea. I have found you! O! How cold! How cold!

* * * * *

I know not how long it has been, nor how many different habitations my soul has tenanted since our pyramid sank beneath the icy sea and, holding Nefert in my arms, I lost consciousness.

I am now in India, near the city of Bombay. A city presenting a magnificent front, but reeking with filth and disease, where, through the year, cholera daily claims its victims. It is the year 1790.

On the top of a high hill in a beautiful garden are three Dakhmas or Parsee towers of silence. These towers, built like a windowless colosseum, are massive cylinders of hard black granite, open to the heavens.

The parapet supports a coping of motionless living vultures, waiting in patience to be fed. Here the death rate is high and there are many to die, so they do not suffer from hunger.

The vultures grow restless; they see a funeral cortege of black men in spotless white robes; they bear a black corpse in a white shroud. The body is hastily deposited within the area on its bed of stone and mattress of charcoal. The vultures swoop down to the feast. In a short while, satiated, they rise on heavy wing and lazily resettle upon the parapet.

* * * * *

All day long, my soul struggling for freedom or forgetfulness, is caged within the body of one of these vultures. I do not see the sun except through vulture eyes. I do not feed except upon the dead. My companions are vultures. I am never beyond the smell of the dead. I have no friendships, no hopes.

There are times at night when my vulture body sleeps. Then the soul seems to break forth; but it does not go out in freedom as of old. I may go into the hovels of Bombay in the form of an old black beggar.

Then it is my overwhelming desire to do some act of kindness, but my clothes are in rags; my face is a horrid mask, and I smell of the dead and am driven away.

I found a man dying by the wayside, too weak to move, too blind to see. When he asked for water, I thought now is my chance. I shuffled to the fountain and when I would dip up a cupful, it became as solid glass.

At a time of famine I found a child crying for bread without the city walls. At great strain upon my feeble limbs, I climbed a wall and stole from the kitchen of the enclosed villa a roasted fowl and carried it to the child. The child took it, but when he raised it to eat, it was the hand of a putrid corpse.

When I lift the head of the sick, they shudder and gasp and grow cold.

So I return to my vulture body, to my perch on the parapet, to breakfast on the dead and to my vulture consort.

(End of translation.)

* * * * *

I spent the next winter at law school, returning to the old farmhouse the middle of May.

The first time I went down to the springhouse, I saw a vividly-colored golden robin or hangnest restlessly flitting about the old elm trees and occasionally bursting into loud-noted song.

A few days later I heard and saw him again. He was not so restless, and his song was low-toned and had a rich and more pleasant refrain. His notes were of endless and individual variety.

When he ceased singing I heard an incessant warble of sweet, though feeble, notes and, looking above my head, saw the composer, his bride, dressed in olive and gold, weaving on the pendulous nest of moss and horse hair, near the tips of the overhanging limb. I then knew why his song had changed and understood the happy warble of the busy weaver.

They were so gaily colored, so happily situated, their home so far from harm, they were so exclusive, that I called the pair the little king and queen.

Bright pair of boundless wing and sweet song, did you first meet here? You did not come together. How did the king mark the way for his queen? Have you searched all the way from Panama, your winter home, for this old elm, to celebrate your bird marriage, pass your honeymoon and find much joy in nest-building and rearing a family? Do you know tears and night and nothingness? Or have you found and eaten of the fruit of the trees of life and eternal love?

In about three weeks all song ceased. They made incessant trips to the old orchard and returned with caterpillars to feed five cavernous yellow-throated mouths.

One warm sultry afternoon in June I sat in my old place by the springhouse, reading Story's Equity Jurisprudence and, closing the book, enjoyed the ease and peace of the lazy, if not the righteous.

I slept; and my mind jumbling the springhouse, the orioles, the dead boy and his strange tale, whispered that my little king and queen of the hanging nest were Santa and Nefert. Thereafter I called them as the dream had said.

The little nestlings grew apace and the nest made tight quarters. One, seeking room and adventure, climbed out and perched upon a twig. Growing careless or sleepy, or caught by a squall, he half flew, half fell from his perch.

The big black cat, who every week ate his weight in young birds, pounced upon the unfortunate one, who let out a squawk of terror.

Santa darted into the face of the cat with such fierce force as to rescue the baby bird, but lost his own life by his brave rashness.

Before the plumage of white, black and old gold had been marred I drove the cat away and picked up the little dead king.

In the corner of the old orchard, hedged about by a stone fence overhung with myrtle and honeysuckle, under three ancient cedar trees, were four graves; three of slaves long dead and the other of the half-witted boy.

Under the fresh green sod of the newer grave I buried the dead bird, and marked the spot with little cedar grave boards, on which I carved the name, "Santa." What a place to bury a king who had built a great pyramid for his sepulchre!

A CONSCIOUS MUMMY.

I sat under the old elm trees reading a work on Early Egyptian Civilization, which declared that the recorded history of that ancient people began when Menes was king, about 4300 B. C.

Placing the book, back up on the ground, I thought of their strange faith; the reverent care with which they embalmed the body to be again occupied by the soul, when, after many transmigrations from one animal to another, having expiated all sins done in the body, it should return purified to the old body. Assuming their belief true, where now might be those ancient believers in Osiris, Ra, Horus, Isis, Set and other nature gods, having ages before bowed in submission to Bes, the god of death?

How limited is sense; how weak intellect; how short bodily life. Yet the very frailty and uncertainty of life establishes the immortality of the soul and the soul, in turn, gives spontaneous testimony to God and of a life within which the body does not own.

Nature was enjoying her afternoon siesta. Over the hills so far away as to make it a picture, a threshing machine was eating wheat shocks and blowing forth a golden dust-like breath of straw. The incessant sawing of harvest flies, a heavy country dinner and the afternoon glow and heat conspired to drive me into the springhouse, where the coolness and peace of the place brought a bodily laziness, and, lying down on the old stone shelf, I slept.

Three walls of the springhouse grew as the palace walls of Aladdin; the front rolled up as the curtain for a drama; and between great columns of red granite and porphyry, chiseled with hieroglyphics and decorated with the symbols of Amun and Osiris, I looked out upon a grove of date palms, the pyramid of Sneferru, an island sea of yellow flood water, and yet beyond, the low hills of Arabia. A view seemingly as familiar as the one from my bedroom window.

It was the Nile valley at Meidoom; Aur-Aa was at flood stage, then nearly fifty feet above the normal level, Now, after centuries, the valley has been filled by river silt and the tide is much shallower.

The beauty and changefulness of that narrow valley by comparison with the monotonous lands which flank it gave promise of a happy people. Hemmed in on the west by the sand hills of Libya and on the east by the equally bare, dry, never-changing hills of Arabia; teeming with people as the channels of an ant hill with ants; intensively cultivated, some of the crops like the dhourra or millet, the principal food of the poor, returning to the sower two hundred and fifty times its seed; shaded by date palms which yield abundant and delicious fruit; a land with a delightful climate seasonably watered, fertilized by yearly tides and protected from invasion by wide deserts of soft sand; why should we not have been a happy people?

Because no one is free. We are enslaved by caste, a most merciless master, by the priesthood, by our king. We work continually, but for others. Happy he, who when life is done, after contributing to the priesthood and the king, after sacrificing to a hundred gods, leaves sufficient estate to pay for the embalming of and a safe resting place for his body.

This is the best of a short life, with the sad hope that after you have been many times a lower form of life, you may return to your old body if, perchance, it may be found. Far better off the unclean fish, which, when the flood recedes, gasp themselves to death in shallow pools, choked by the sand.

I rose from my couch and walked out where a better view might be had of the river and the valley.

Near a small eminence more than sixty feet above the flood tide was a great fleet of barges and rafts of logs, which had borne heavy blocks of cut stone from far to the southward down on the tide to construct our tombs and temples.

Upon the rafts and barges low caste humanity, driven by the lash to tortured effort, swarmed and sweated and groaned that some high priest or royal personage might in mummied grandeur await his soul's return to its foul, flinty, wrinkled and desolate home. Near, floating northward with the tide, was a great obelisk of granite weighing more than forty tons, held upon the surface by parallel rafts of buoyant logs and inflated skins.

I was head embalmer, one of the priesthood and, therefore, considered one of the fortunate ones.

The city of Meidoom was called the City of the Dead, because at that time, 3750 B. C., it was the place of burial of the royalty and priesthood of Men-nefu, which name means secure and beautiful, and which centuries later was changed to Memphis.

Meidoom's population, near forty thousand, consisted of more than two thousand priests with their families and retainers and twenty thousand laborers and overseers. The majority are engaged in the construction of temples and sarcophagi.

The people are firm believers in a future state and therefore very religious. The priests act as intercessors between the people and their many gods, look after the sacred animals of the temples, are professional embalmers, architects and custodians of the tombs.

The priesthood hold high social rank, are exempt from taxes, but do not practice celibacy or asceticism. Their ranks are recruited by heredity or from the nobility; and it is not uncommon for a prince to surrender his claim of succession to assume the office of high priest.

Had there been occasion for a test of power between the government and the priesthood, the priestly orders would have been found the real rulers.

Amun is the chief or spiritual god of the Egyptians. The name means The Hidden One; and he controls the conscience and the soul.

Rahotep is chief priest of Amun and the keeper of the Book of Death. He and all the priesthood of Amun wear a costume of white linen decorated with the blue figure of a man having the head of a ram and carrying in his hand a sharsh, the symbols of Amun. The chief priest in addition wears the royal symbol with two long feathers as a head dress.

Osiris is the god of good, in contradistinction to Set, the god of evil. He is the god of the Nile and the guardian and preserver of the human body after death. His symbol is a mummy wearing a royal crown and ostrich plumes. The god of the sun is the soul of Osiris. The white linen gowns of the priests of Osiris have a figured border of mummies in black, wearing crowns and ostrich plumes. Nefermat, chief priest, in addition wears the royal insignia.

At this time, besides many shrines, there are three temples at Meidoom, the temple of Amun, the temple of Osiris and the temple of The Dead. The two orders of the priesthood are presided over by Rahotep and Nefermat, the two sons of Sneferru, who, occupying their priestly positions at his demise, the succession passed to Khufa, a brother, who married Neferma, the widow of Sneferru.

As chief embalmer I had charge of the temple of the Dead, where both orders of the priesthood officiated, since the one god, Amun, having charge of the soul, and the other, Osiris, of the body, perforce met officially, though usually holding little communication with each other.

As I stood at the portal two processions of priests drew near, the one led by Rahotep, the other by Nefermat. These two, leaving their attendants, entered the temple.

As they passed I bowed low to earth and followed into the corridor, there they found seats, and I stood before them awaiting their commands.

Rahotep said, "Our mother, the queen, has just died; after her body is partly embalmed they will bring it here from Men-nefer, when you, because of your skill, are to prepare it to rest in the vault of the great pyramid beside our father Sneferru, in care of Osiris, until Amun shall see fit to surrender her soul again to her body."

(Nefermat) "You mean, until Osiris shall deem her soul sufficiently purified to re-enter her body."

"No, as Amun is the superior of Osiris, so is the soul master of its tenement, the body, though it is by the grace of Osiris that the body is preserved until Amun has purified the soul for another human existence."

"You are wrong; in all sacred animals human souls dwell; it is only when those souls are made pure that Osiris permits them to occupy a human form. * * * Tepti, priest of Osiris, embalmer of and dweller with the dead and custodian of the temple of the Dead, what say you as to the body and the soul?"

"Pardon, Most Exalted of Osiris, am I to look upon your question as a command?"

"Yes."

"My belief, of which I am not master, I have kept unto myself and if put into words is but spoken ignorance. To become an expert embalmer I experimented on the bodies of many animals not sacred to our gods and discovered that they were as easily preserved as the bodies of men. This forced the conclusion that if man was specially favored of the gods, it was not in bodily composition; therefore, it would seem, the body is not sacred and is unworthy of the great expenditure of time and wealth which we give it as priests of Osiris. The body after death is as the husk of a nut from which the kernel has been extracted and our people would be better off were it burned as the refuse of earth. We of Osiris, who say the body must not perish, know better than anyone else that it does perish. If there is a difference between the body of a man and an animal's, that distinction departs at death; therefore, the distinction is life or a part of life and the questions presented are: What is life? What is there in man besides matter? When an animate being dies, the body, the mortal, is left; life departs. I do not see it go; I know not where it goes. If it is a man who dies, we say the soul has left the body, because we are men; if it is an animal, we say life has left the body. What is the difference between life and the soul? All I know is that I have a body which perishes and that, distinct from the body, I have the power to think, which power troubles me more than my body, and which power I may lose when life leaves the body. My power to think is so limited that its indulgence is like pulling one's self up to the stars by one's toes. I know I cannot answer the following questions:

"'What is truth?' Though I once heard a child of five answer that truth is the right.

"'What is life?' Though I am told it is the principle of animate corporeal existence.

"'What is death?' This I do not know, since I cannot define life, as death is the cessation of life or the beginning of a higher life.

"Since animals think, some more than some men (the feeble-minded), do they have souls? If so, where do their souls go?

"Is the source of new life in the soul?

"It seems we believe souls have existed from the beginning, since they never die but are transmigrated. Is immortality a divine gift or an inherent property of the soul?

"And of you, Chief Priest of Osiris, head of our order, I would respectfully ask:

"'Does the soul assume a body akin to its own nature?

"'Should I live to be very old, dwarfed in limb and blind, when my soul returns to its preserved mummy, which you maintain it does, will I rise again, old and blind and weak? If not why preserve the body?

"'Will I know the friends of my former life if they return to their bodies in the same period?

"'Your still-born brother, whose body I embalmed, had he yet a soul, and when his soul returns to his body, will it have life?

"'There is a mummy in one of the old tombs with two heads and on one body; has that body one or two souls? And if two souls, will they be purified and return together to the body, though one be good and the other bad?'

"I believe not in Osiris; nor that my soul after many transmigrations shall find and reanimate its rejected tenement. Yet I know no other god or even if I have a soul. Can I by searching find out truth or the true God? Will there be a time when the truth shall be made clear? I know that error is spread over all things; that the race is not to the swift, neither the battle to the strong. That he who disdains ease and comfort, though poverty is a disgrace and misfortune a crime, recognizes that wealth consists not in great possessions but in few wants; looking upon ownership as a trusteeship and therefore a responsibility; content with what life gives; thinking himself and conceding to others the right to think; living and letting others live; believing there is nothing after death and death is nothing; is as well off as he who struggles to be a blind leader of the blind. Would I could believe that we shall live many lives and each a preparation for a higher one. Our religion, like our government, as it grows old grows complex and rotten. What we need is a simple government, a simple faith and one God."

(Nefermat) "What you say is the vilest sacrilege. Your belief, if general, would lead to chaos; to the destruction of our holy order. You shall find there is a hell for the unbeliever; your mortal life shall end and your immortal begin as soon as our mother's body is prepared for Osiris. You shall know the difference between soul and body and have your doubts as to a future state tested and dissolved."

(Rahotep) "I would not be too hasty with the death sentence. What matters it what Tepti may think! He is a good embalmer, reticent of speech and his belief in death and nothingness if expressed would neither find believers nor corrupt our faith. The thought of non-existence is not acceptable to the Egyptians; it lacks enthusiasm, it lacks certainty, it lacks hope; there is no appeal to pride or power."

(Nefermat) "I cannot overlook such utterances from a priest of Osiris; he must die."

(Rahotep) "He is one of your priesthood; you are sole arbiter of his life or death, but were he one of Amun's and I demanding his opinion had been so answered, and it was delivered as to stone ears, as his was to us, I would pass it by. However, if you are bent on his death, which I regret, I would ask his body, hoping by my intercession, Amun may convince him he has a soul."

(Nefermat) "As you like. I am through with the sacrilegious beast as soon as he is dead. I would not give his body tomb room in the temple of the dead."

Whereupon the two high priests departed, leaving me with very sober thoughts.

Within an hour, three priests of our order, the death watch, took up their abode in my chambers, which I was not permitted to leave, and this watch was continued to the end.

On the next day the body of the queen arrived from Men-nefer and I was directed to complete the embalming already begun. This occupied a fortnight.

The day the embalming was completed Rahotep came to my chamber and, sending the guards from the room, said:

"On the morrow at sunrise you will be strangled to death, after which your body will be delivered to me for disposition. When it is carefully embalmed I shall place it in a new tomb in the temple of Amun and it shall become sacred to him. The tomb is so constructed that light and air penetrates through slits in the portal and it may be entered from the temple by members of our order. Amun will permit your soul to occupy and grow in your mummied body. You have said you are not afraid of death. Neither you nor any other man knows what lies beyond. It is not the end of things as you declare but the beginning of the thought life. Living through the ages in your old shell you shall learn that the infinite is the author of all things and from the order and harmony of nature you shall deduce the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. You shall learn that the soul is an immaterial being which can go where the body can not and can live where the body cannot live and is so sometimes punished. That its controlling force is not the body nor even the mind but a power which pervades all space, which has existed from the beginning, looking after the universe and each creature therein. This is the infinite, the beginning, the end of all things, which, lacking a better name and light to discern, I call Amun, The Great, The Only One. The wind has not a body, yet you know the wind blows; light has not substance, yet you feel and see it and know it comes from the worlds in the skies. Your soul has existed from the beginning as a part of the infinite. It came into existence as the angels of light and darkness. It is of the size of the faith that is in you and yours is quite small. Yours shall grow during the ages, as Amun is about to begin its experience, which each soul is to have, though the experience given each is different, being judged and punished or rewarded according to the light given, which in every case is dim. You are first to be turned over to Phtha, the great father of beginnings. Your little seed of a soul, assuming the form of a beetle, shall remain in your mummified body. Your embalming robes shall be decorated with his sign, the scarabeus. Your body will be carefully watched by our priesthood to observe the growth of your soul and know that you finally believe in its existence and the infinite power of God. You shall pass through the valley of humiliation, living as the Chelas live upon your own soul. Your suffering shall bring improvement and growth until your soul shall prove sufficient unto itself, since it shall know God and itself. Finally it shall part company with your mummied body and become a part of the light of the world."

I arose at daylight the next morning and, after carefully bathing, rubbed my whole body with a preparation for closing the pores; then, retiring to a couch, drank a vial of most precious and potent embalming fluid, which, knowing death to be near, I had secreted when preparing the mummy of the queen.

I felt a contraction of my stomach, an icy chill, a gradual though rapid cessation of consciousness and being. For what period I know not I slept the sleep of death.

Sluggishly in my dead frame fluttered a something. For days or years, I know not, there was a mere sense of spiritual life or being and a fluttering of body as of a small numbed insect; was it a scarabeus? This was succeeded in time by an acuter consciousness, when I saw my puny soul in its bare weakness.

Then began the journey through the valley of humiliation and suffering, when soul lived upon and thought only of self and its escape. Through ages of suffering and loneliness and blackness, my only thought was a constant prayer for absolute non-existence. Within the heart of my tiny soul there began to grow a germ-like conception and reverence for God. With this thought the soul seemed to take unto itself strength to make feeble efforts to tear a way through its coffin of flinty skin and in feeble flight bounded and pounded incessantly on its case of parchment, as a drummer on his drum, with a ceaseless, monotonous, drum, drum, drum.

Finally, through the mummy eyes, there seemed to come dim rays of light. Then the feeble soul stationed itself immediately behind them and prayed only for light. And, after a thousand years, enough light was given to see crevices in the tomb and shifting grains of sand drift through. Life before had been so bare that the mere seeing of the flight of a grain of sand into that place of utter calm and monotony was as an angel visit to the disconsolate of earth.

Now the all-absorbing desire was for more light; for freedom to break through the prison walls of flinty skin and have one peep at earth and sun. Then, remembering how I had stolen our most potent embalming fluid and used it on my own body, I attributed continued imprisonment to its preservative properties and looked upon myself as my own jailer.

As the soul grew, reason discarded this thought and fixed upon my imprisonment as punishment for disbelief. Seemingly, ages went by; the soul passed through a period of great remorse; remorse grew to repentance, and repentance to hope and faith.

Then my soul seemed to fill the whole mummied frame and gained strength until it acquired the power of motion. I could shift position and look out upon the valley of Aur-Aa, now called Nilus, where, as time passed, I saw the maturity and wane of Egyptian power and the iron hand of Rome reach out in conquest.

The vandal hand of a conquering Roman tore loose the stone portal of the tomb, and mummy and imprisoned soul were carried across the great sea and with other husks of former life exhibited in the triumph of Octavius; then placed in a museum to be gazed upon by the curious of Rome.

One night robbers broke into the room, thinking the dead carried their treasures with them, and unwound our grave cloths. My soul pounded and tore at its case, hoping pantingly that they might break the parchment shell; but all they did was to remove a string of turquoise and porphyry beetle-shaped beads. When morning came the mummies were rewrapped and returned to the exhibit slab.

As the crowds passed by, if one, perchance, looked into my sunken eyes, the soul, watching hungrily beneath, looked out with an intensity and read his very inmost mind and most secret thought; and some there were who seemed to know the meaning of my look.

When I read thoughts of doubt, such as I had known in life, I sought with utmost soul strength to convey to them some warning and some hope; and as I struggled thus, there came rifts of light into my prison as from a higher life.

One day a noble Roman youth came strolling by with a companion and, stooping, gazed upon my form.

"See, Marcus! How much better preserved this man of ancient Egypt is than the others. Look! In his sunken eyes you may discern a glimmer as of intense life; of consciousness; I feel his look, as though he read me through and through and would speak in advice or warning."

"Oh! Come on! You have eaten too heavily or else departed from your stoical way and conscience has made you uneasy; else you could not attribute life to this foul shell, dead these three thousand years."

"I shall return alone tomorrow when the light is better and have a good look."

At noon the next day, when the sunlight rested on my slab, the youth returned and, bending over my black parchment face, peered into the hollow eye holes; and in some weird way I held communion with him. When he left, my soul seemed to go along, a companion of his own.

Lost in thought, he walked a long way into the poorer quarter of the city, where there was much squalor and suffering. He was aroused by the cries of women and children driven from their squalid homes by a band of Nero's condottieri, who then set fire to their deserted hovels.

He rushed to their rescue, remonstrating with the soldiers. They refused to desist, telling him that the people were of the new sect, the Christians; and their orders were to burn them out. He was assaulted by them, resisted, killed two and was himself slain.

His soul as a great white bird, with a brilliancy as of the sun, left his body and flew heavenward. My own returned to its mummied chamber. But the chamber had been reformed; it was of many hued crystal, of expansive wall and gave forth a light all its own. I settled upon a couch and drifted into a restful peace.

My own soul became as the tabernacle of God. All tears were wiped away by the conqueror of sorrow and pain and death. I had found the Father; the Father a son; and I entered into the place where God is the Light.

In the meantime Rome burned. The fire, started by Nero's soldiers near the Palatine Hill, spread from house to house and quarter to quarter until it reached my couch. The old shell parted and burned as tinder. Then the mortal put on immortality and the shackled darkness of the old soul gave place to light and liberty.

I awoke. It was near twilight; the world seemed new and fresh, but it was the old home place.

I bent over and examined my couch; it was the old slab shelf of the springhouse. Looking along its raised edge, which I had used as a pillow, I noticed for the first time crude strange characters or letters cut in the stone.

That night I asked my father the history of the slab. He said he had brought it from the Stoner Creek farm near Wade's Mill, where it had been plowed up in cultivating over a small Indian mound.

I came to the conclusion the slab possessed weird properties, making it a restless and unsatisfactory couch, and thereafter I called it the dream bench.

DOCTOR BROWN OF DANVILLE.

Incidentally I took up stenography, its usefulness having been impressed upon me by my inability to transcribe the narrative of the feeble-minded black boy.

The winter following his death, attending law school at the University of Virginia, I continued its study and practice and found it quite an aid in jotting down the lectures. By the following summer I had grown to be quite an efficient stenographer.

That summer, shortly after I had my disturbing dream as a priest of Osiris, the Kentucky synod of the Southern Presbyterian Church met at Winchester. My mother, a member of the First Presbyterian Church, entertained two of the visiting preachers, both of whom were personal friends of Doctor Chisholm. One was from the western portion of the State, I believe Owensboro, the other, Doctor Brown, of Danville.

Doctor Brown rarely smiled; his poise was indicative of the utmost self-control, his form lank, his hair heavy and graying at the temples, his general appearance giving evidence of a clean, active ascetic life and a strong moral and physical make-up. He was inclined to keep the light of his conversational powers under a bushel, and at times spoke only when aroused from apparent self-centered thought. His voice was deep and pleasant, his diction and expression perfect, his thoughts, clothed in finished sentences, were entertainingly expressed and at times exhibited a rich vein of the choicest humor. He was the leading member of the conference--certainly the brainiest--and it fell to his lot to deliver the most important address of the gathering.

He seemed to fancy the old springhouse, its quiet coolness and the spreading elms. Except at mealtime he did all his drinking from its cool fountain and out of the old gourd dipper, though mother insisted on sending a glass down for his service.

Several times I found him sitting in the rustic chair by the door jotting down notes for some address or sermon, but never seated on the old stone bench.

On Monday at breakfast, following a busy Sunday, on which he had preached two exceptionally good sermons, and, following the noonday service, greeted lengthily and cordially seemingly every member of the large congregation, I noticed his usually active manner had given place to a languorous calm.

So I went down to the springhouse, carried the rustic chair into the open beyond the shade and carefully loosened and removed one of the legs, placing the chair in such a position as to show it was unserviceable and undergoing repairs; then I returned to the house.

In about an hour Doctor Brown left the library for the springhouse, carrying a couple of books and a scratch pad under his arm.

When he saw the condition of the chair he walked within and found a seat on the old stone bench. After resting for some time he stretched his form on the cool smooth slab and was soon fast asleep.

Then I slipped in and preparing for business, sat down upon the floor with note book and pencils handy, heading the page with the name of our distinguished guest.

He began in a conversational tone what was apparently an introductory address to a gathering of primitive Christians. It was in Greek, which I was able to transcribe.

The translation undoubtedly is faulty, robbed of the thought and beauty of his smooth diction, and gives but imperfect meaning and interpretation to many idiomatic expressions.

* * * * *

"Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, servant of Jesus Christ, on the road to Damascus ordained of God and called to the apostleship; having been taken a prisoner at Jerusalem, charged with sedition; appealed to Caesar and now traveling to Rome for trial, is in Syracuse and will preach to us tonight.

"He took ship at Adramyttium, touched at Sidon, Cyprus and Myra. There a ship of Alexandria was found sailing into Italy. This he boarded and, sailing many days, passed near Chidus, Crete, Salmone and Fair Havens, near the city of Lascea. From whence he sailed, when the south wind blew softly, close to Crete. There a tempest arose. The ship was forced from her course and driven by wind until, days after, she was wrecked on the island of Malta.

"After an enforced stay of three months, he sailed away in the good ship Castor and Pollux and arrived in Syracusa this morning. He will remain with us for three days.

"The church knows his service. He has faced every crisis and danger with an iron will and with unfailing resolution has kept the faith. He is a most faithful worker in the cause of Christ and his field of service is, messenger unto the Gentiles.

"In his present troubles he has our prayers. We will now hear him."

* * * * *

"Brethren of the Church of Syracusa; grace be to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

"First, I thank God that your faith is spoken of and an example to all the Christian churches.

"I came first after landing to Sergius Publius of your church, to whom I bore a letter from his cousin Publius, the Roman ruler at Malta.

"We were at Malta three months waiting for a ship. During that time by prayer and the laying on of hands, the father of Publius was healed. For this and other things, the people honored us with many honors and when we departed they laded us with such things as were necessary, we having lost all by shipwreck on our journey from Caesarea to Rome.

"Not unwillingly am I sent to Rome for trial as fitting one born free and a Roman citizen, since Rome is mistress of the world and to Rome the Christian faith must be carried to be spread over the Gentile world.

"Being ordained an apostle to the Gentiles, it is but meet that I should assume the risks of the journey and take as personal the command to preach the Gospel in Rome or elsewhere and to every Gentile nation. A gospel of universal faith granting to Jew and Gentile alike repentance unto life and grace through the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"This work has been most successful and many strong Gentile churches have been established; but God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"After the establishment of a number of these churches, when I returned to Jerusalem I was falsely accused of teaching all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake the law of Moses; and of having brought Greeks into the temple and polluted the holy place. And after this charge I was cast from the temple and the doors closed; then set upon and beaten with staves and stones until Roman soldiers came to quiet the disturbance; and by them bound with chains was led towards the castle. When asking and receiving permission to speak unto the people, I did so in the Hebrew tongue saying:

"'Men, brethren and fathers, hear ye my defense, now made unto you, I am verily a man, a Jew born in Tarsus, in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers and was zealous towards God, as ye all are this day.

"'And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prison both men and women. As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders; from whom also I received letters unto the brethren and went to Damascus, to bring them which were bound unto Jerusalem for to be punished.

"'And it came to pass that as I made my journey and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me. And I fell unto the ground, and hearing a voice saying unto me, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"

"'And I answered, "Who art thou Lord?" And he said unto me, "I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecuteth."

"'And they that were with me saw indeed the light and were afraid, but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.

"'And I said, "What shall I do Lord?" And the Lord said unto me, "Arise and go unto Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do."

"'And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus.

"'And one, Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there, came unto me and stood and said unto me, "Brother Saul receive thy sight." And the same hour I looked up upon him.

"'And he said, "The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldst know his will and see that Just One, and should hear the voice of his mouth. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. And now why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins," calling on the name of the Lord.

"'And it came to pass that when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance; and saw him saying unto me, "Make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem; for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me."

"'And I said, "Lord they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed in thee; and when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by and consented unto his death and kept the raiment of them that slew him."

"'And he said unto me, "Depart; for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles."'

"When I had spoken thus far, the multitude would not hear me further.

"At the castle, the chief captain ordered that I be scourged, when, hearing the order, I said to the centurion standing by, 'Is it lawful to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned?' Thereafter no further indignity was offered me.

"Then the Lord appeared unto me saying. 'Be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also in Rome.' Then I was sent to Caesarea, unto Felix.

"Before Felix, I was accused by Tertullus, speaking for the priesthood, as a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among all the Jews and a leader of the sect of the Nazarenes.

"To which I answered, 'They can charge me with nothing unlawful though I confess that after the way which they call heresy so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets, and have hope towards God that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and the unjust. And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and men.'

"After a period of two years Porcius Festus succeeded Felix and willing to favor the Jews, asked, If I would go to Jerusalem to be judged, to which I answered; 'I stand at Caesar's judgment seat where I ought to be judged.'

"Then Festus after conference said, 'Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? Unto Caesar shalt thou go.'

"Shortly thereafter I was delivered to Julius, a centurion of Augustus' band, and we set sail at Adramyttium for Rome to be delivered for trial as a Roman citizen.

"What a privilege it is to be a Roman citizen; to have the protection of a strong and capable government; whose laws are stable and enforceable; a bulwark against petty strife and sect jealousies. Christ our Master declares the divine origin of government and the obligation of his followers to obey human law when not in conflict with the commandments of God.

"This, it seems, is the greatest obligation, next to our faith.

"What is faith? What are the teachings of our faith?

"Faith in God is more than the exercise of the understanding.

"Faith changed me from a persecutor, until now, I preach the faith I sought to destroy; hoping thereby you may rejoice the more in Christ because of my coming; while I rejoice at your patience and faith under all the tribulations which you now endure.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And Christ our Lord, is its author and finisher.

"For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.

"For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.

"We are troubled on every side yet not distressed; perplexed but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

"For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us but life in you.

"We have the same spirit of faith according as it is written, I believe and therefore have I spoken; we also believe and therefore speak; knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many rebound to the glory of God.

"For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish yet the inward is renewed day by day.

"For our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God, an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.

"I am told that some among you who live according to the law, say, 'There is no resurrection of the dead.'

"First of all--Christ died for our sins and was buried and rose again the third day.

"If the dead rise not then is Christ not raised; and if Christ be not raised your faith is in vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ and rest in these caverns are perished.

"But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive--But some men will say, 'How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?'

"Fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be--but bare grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body and to every seed his own body.

"The glory of the resurrection of man is, that his body sown in corruption is raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor is raised in glory; sown in weakness it is raised in strength; sown in the natural it is raised the spiritual body.

"So when this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory! The sting of death is sin, the strength of sin is the law. But thanks to God who giveth us the victory through Our Lord Jesus Christ.

"Do you seek strength in the Lord and the power of his might? Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

"Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loin girt about with truth and having on the breast plate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all taking the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all power and supplication in the spirit.

"Let us not be dismayed or overwhelmed by persecution, nor weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. Learning wheresoever God places us therewith to be content; seeking by prayer and supplication to know his will.

"The Father hath said; 'My grace is sufficient for thee; my strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore may we glory in our infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon us. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gifts.

"As we grow in strength, we may expect persecution to grow. Now Rome looks upon our faith as a Jewish sect. When it is understood that it is a religion distinct from Judaism, then persecution will begin in earnest. Then you will be blamed for pestilence, famine and other national calamities and be offered as martyrs for your faith. Then must we glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed about in your hearts.

"I speak to you but as an ambassador in bonds.

"Brethren, pray constantly for one another and for me, remembering that the prayers of a righteous man availeth much. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ, Amen."

* * * * *

Doctor Brown, growing restless, and I conscience-stricken, I thought it best to make a hasty departure for the house.

That night at supper I managed to turn the conversation to dreams, hoping to hear from him.

He finally said; "It is remarkable the way we fit familiar scenes or even places we have visited but once into our dream thoughts. Thus dressed they become quite realistic until we almost persuade ourselves that we have lived the experience.

"Some years ago I visited the city of Syracuse and was deeply interested by the catacombs on the island of Ortzgia, just a short way from the modern city, particularly as they had been used as a place of worship, of refuge from persecution and of burial by the early Christians.

"Among other things of interest therein are the frescoes, in which drawings of fish as religious symbols predominate, the Greek word for which furnished the initial letters for the Saviour's name and office; the tombs and an altar from which Paul is said to have preached, when sent by Festus from Caesarea to Rome.

"I rarely sleep in the daytime; but today the cool subdued light and quiet of the springhouse was responsible for a lapse.

"Having in mind to prepare a sermon on faith and the resurrection, and thinking of certain of Paul's letters in connection therewith, my dream thoughts were so assembled that while I slept I seemed to hear Paul preaching from the altar in the catacombs on that identical subject."

RICHARD HAWKWOOD.

I am home from the University of Virginia, having completed the law course. The restful peace of the old farmhouse is most enjoyable; but there is another blemish upon the landscape; my father is building a second tobacco barn, and the foreman in charge, a union carpenter, or nine-hour man, as we then called him, is a disturbing element, spending his time, when not at work, chewing tobacco and aggressively talking about the rights of labor and the danger to the world of concentrated wealth.

When thus engaged he is a typical nail-keg philosopher; just emerging from ignorance and materialism into the realm of reflective experience.

He has at his tongue's end all the platitudes of the socialist and possesses the knack of picking platitude and imperfect statistic to fit his theories, whenever he finds a victim.

He does not look upon our government as a government of the people; but a government of the few, who fool all the people all the time.

He is a firm believer in organized labor and the disorganization of everything else, particularly capital. He believes in the equal distribution of property every few years and that the masses should throw off the yoke, but can neither identify nor define the yoke.

Until I heard him talk, in my inexperience, I thought that the world was a reasonably comfortable place in which to live, in fact, I knew no better. We were getting ten cents for tobacco, eighty cents for wheat, fifty cents for corn, five cents for hogs and ten cents a pound for turkeys. We heard no talk of hard times except just before a presidential election.

We paid fifteen dollars per month for farm hands, three dollars a week to the cook; we bought sugar for six cents and flour for five fifty a barrel. We were paying the boss carpenter and chief representative of organized labor three dollars a day, and fifteen dollars per thousand for clear heart yellow pine lumber.

Hawkwood, the carpenter, spoke of the ideals of labor and how he would fight for them through this and other lives until his words, to my conservative and immature mind, seemed threats against organized society.

My views, in the main, he called old-fashioned. I believed a laborer who was thrifty, efficient and industrious did not need a union to help him, arguing the union only helped the inefficient, lazy and profligate.

I tried several times to get him to rest on the springhouse slab or dream couch, but his mind and temperament were too nervously active.

On Sunday he expected to go to Lexington for the day, but at train time a heavy shower caused him to abandon the trip. I asked him to go to Pine Grove church, but he very emphatically declined.

At dinner, with malice aforethought, I kept his plate heaped up and repeatedly filled his goblet with ice-cooled buttermilk. After dinner as it was a very warm day, I suggested we go to the springhouse and read, and from the library got for him Fox's "Lives of The Martyrs."

I took the lead and appropriated the rustic chair under the elms, forcing him to occupy the stone bench in the springhouse.

He made several efforts to start an argument on the labor question, which I carefully avoided. After awhile a sonorous snore announced that he had fallen victim to my plot.

His snoring was broken by a jumble of words in English and Italian, though his English, being of a very old form, was harder than the Italian to understand and transcribe. The first words I caught were; "Very well, Sir John, avanti!"

I took down his statement and give to the reader a liberal transcription of my notes.

* * * * *

"I was born in Essex, near Hedingham, on October 20, 1332. My father was a younger brother of Sir John Hawkwood, who was knighted for bravery by the Black Prince two days after the battle of Poitiers, where an English army of eight thousand men defeated a French army of sixty thousand and took King John prisoner.

"My uncle, commanding several companies and rendering most efficient service, was rewarded by being knighted by the King. I was present at the service and officiated as his squire.

"When the successful army returned to England, several hundred of us from Essex and Suffolk remained in France and organized 'The White Company,' which, with Sir John as commander, became famous as condottieri, or soldiers of fortune, and from 1360 to 1390 sold our services to various Italian powers.

"We served under the standard of Gregory XI, the Marquis of Montferrat, certain legates, the republic of Pisa, and, finally, the signory and council of Florence, from 1378 until the death of Sir John on March 17, 1394. At his death he was entombed with great ceremony in the Duomo. For years prior he had held the office of Captain General with the Florentines.

"From 1374 till 1378 I was captain of one of his companies. In 1378 I was made his aid, in which capacity I served until 1389, when, having been seriously wounded and the possessor of considerable wealth, I retired from service.

"For more than a year Sir John had been in the service of the Marquis of Montferrat at Casale, and as the season was dull and the pay light for our business, it was with pleasure he received word from the Pope to come to Avignon.

"Gregory occupied the papal chair from 1370 to 1378 and, like his immediate predecessors, resided at Avignon until 1376, when he terminated the Babylonian captivity by returning to Rome.

"During this period of exile the church government of Italy was conducted by proud and avaricious legates, who lived as dukes or provincial kings, and in the name of the church assumed to dictate the policy of government to many small potentates, maintaining a standing array of condottieri made up of English, Dutch and Breton recruits.

"Sir John, reasonably satisfied that he would be employed in Italy at some point east of Casale, left his soldiers behind, except thirty troopers, and set out for Avignon. Ten days later he came down the Rhone valley, into the 'City of Bells,' just as the sixth hour, or vesper bells, were ringing.

"We fed our horses, washed away the stains of travel, and, supper ready, took our places at a long table, Sir John at the head, I at the foot and fifteen troopers on either side. We refreshed ourselves, a very hungry and thirsty company, with red Rhone wine, macaroni, cheese, fish, mutton, brown bread and a salad.

"Sir John and I were assigned quite sumptuous quarters in the palace, while our soldiers remained at the inn.

"That night Sir John saw the Pope and was recommissioned in his service. His orders were that half of his company should report to the legate at Pisa, while I in command of the other half, about three hundred horsemen, should report to the legate at Bologna. An invasion of Tuscany was contemplated under the direction of these two legates, having in view the humiliation of the Florentines.

"The reason assigned for the campaign was that the Ricci faction had entered into a league with Barnabo of Milan against the church and the Albizzi party.

"The Pope thus expressed himself to Sir John; 'These plebeians are too ambitious. Let the nobility, not the populace, form a federation, living like brothers with the church at its head, an all-wise and benign father. Thus, by a combination of miter and helmet the church, first in Italy and then throughout the world, shall become not alone the spiritual but the temporal head of government. Instituting this plan, we intend to subdue the plebeian faction now in power at Florence.'

"Sir John, at the close of the audience, said to me; 'If it were not for the interference of the church, the republic of Florence and certain other Italian states might hope for the accomplishment of great things. What the Pope wants is the peace of decay and temporal and spiritual supremacy for the church throughout the land. Experience has taught me that adversity is a great teacher. It tolerates no compromises and rewards only patience and strength. Therefore a state is most fortunate that occupies a position of bare supremacy in arms, where it is punished for mistakes and grows strong from reverses.

"'On the other hand, if a government is too strong, the peace of strength brings repose, repose decay, and decay dishonor.

"'Florence, more than any other Italian city, is embarrassed by the natural enmities between the populace and the nobility. The nobility wish to command. The populace, aware of their numerical supremacy, are disinclined to obey, and insist upon ruling the city. Clashes between the two keep the city in a constant uproar and will eventually extinguish its greatness. The populace when in power drive the nobility from the city. When they lose out the banished nobles return and the populace are oppressed. Associated with the people, who are the usual conquerors, are certain adaptable nobles, who, styling themselves reformers, assume to live and think as the common people until they have acquired a sufficient following to control the city, then they assume the government and the nobles are recalled.'

* * * * *

"A member of the Connechi family was legate at Bologna. In the fall of 1374 I reported to him with my three hundred horsemen.

"The preceding summer had been extremely dry, causing a failure of crops through all of central Italy. The people suffered and many died of privation. The legate, aware of this, looked upon the time as auspicious for his invasion and instituted his campaign by seizing provisions in transit, purchased by the Florentines from the northern countries. The following spring he invaded Tuscany.

"The hungry inhabitants, seeing no hope for even the future harvest, offered but feeble opposition. Quite a few castles and small towns were taken and pillaged.

"Our army moved slowly, and despite the legate's commands, never followed up a victory. It mattered little to us that his enemies lived to fight another day; our business was to line our pockets with plunder. It was no serious affair to defeat our opponents whenever we met. They were untrained in war and were usually officered by mercenaries, who cared little whether they won or lost.

"One night a messenger from Sir John Hawkwood brought word that I should confer with the captains of the Dutch and Breton troops, and if they agreed, we were to mutiny and desert the legate's standard, when I should proceed with my men to Florence, where he would await us.

"At the conference I learned from the other captains that their commanders had made peace with the Florentines, having been paid one hundred and thirty thousand florins; and that Sir John, having quarreled with the legate at Pisa about our pay had referred the matter to the Pope, who responded; 'The affair is wholly within the discretion of the legate.' Whereupon he sent back word; 'Henceforth I am an opponent of temporal church rule in Italy and quit your service.' He then made a contract with the Florentines to assist them in repelling the legate's armies.

"On the next day, when the condottieri were ordered to attack a small town southwest of our camp, the inhabitants of which had treated us decently, knowing that we bore them no ill-will, we disregarded the order. By prearrangement, each captain at the head of his men assembled in front of the legate's quarters, when as spokesman I asked an audience.

"In a short while he came forth in his regalia, surrounded by a group of carpet knights and peremptorily demanded:

"'What do you want and why have not you and your comrades begun the assault as ordered?'

"'As spokesman for the English, Dutch and Breton condottieri, I am directed to inform you that we have concluded to sever our connection with your army and seek more satisfactory employment. Our sympathies are with the Florentines rather than the church.'

"'Those of you who refuse to execute my commands shall be put to death.'

"'Who will execute your order? Surely not your three thousand carpet knights, who can scarcely sit their horses and are coached by their squires. They know nothing of warfare; they but wear their swords as ornaments. Why, my three hundred horsemen alone are more than a match for your knights. They and you do your fighting by proxy. It takes something more than a jeweled sword, bright armor and a coat of arms to make a soldier, and something more than a miter, a string of beads and a colossal capacity for deception, torture and persecution, to make a commander whom men trust and obey.'

"'So it is your intention to quit my service?'

"'Yes, and immediately, we shall leave your camp today.'

"Whereupon I returned to my men. After a brief conference we raided the general stores and appropriated a week's supplies; then, loading our pack horses, mounted and by easy stages rode to Florence.

"The legate, finding himself deserted by his mercenaries, his forces reduced to less than three thousand undisciplined troops, with no one competent to command, hastily retreated to Bologna and sought to make peace with the Florentines.

"But they, justly resentful of his avaricious and unprovoked invasion, refused to make peace, and until his death, nearly three years thereafter, having entered into a league with Barnabo of Milan and certain cities hostile to the church, conducted a successful war against him.

"Three days thereafter we crossed through the pass and camped on the south mountain slope within sight of Florence. The city from the foothills as you look out upon it seems an island forest of tall towers, surrounded by a verdant plain.

"A wall 9350 meters in length, protected by a deep moat, surrounds the city. Every one hundred and sixty meters there is a tower forty meters high and fourteen meters broad. The twelve gates, six on the left bank of the river and six on the right, are strengthened by barbicans.

"No other city presents such striking contrasts or combinations of antitheses, adding much to its picturesque life and appearance. Within arms length of each other you see the noble in his brilliant attire and the laborer in rags; the prelate gorgeously arrayed and the monk in sober gown; almost next door to a cathedral or monastery and which has taken a century to build, and beneath its very shadow, is the hovel of some poor beggar. It is a city of violence, where dominion is maintained by force; yet the pilgrim, with thoughts on God and atonement, may pass in peace. Some are given over to lives of the vilest licentiousness, while their neighbors lead lives of frugality and sanctity.

"We came in by the gate north of the church of San Lorenzo and I found quarters at an inn on Via Por. S. Marcia, near the Ponte Vecchio. I spent several months at this inn, reporting each day to Sir John for orders.

"Sir John was the guest of Silvestro de Medici, the head of one of the noblest of the popular families. In this way I became acquainted with Marcella, the sister of Silvestro, and after a courtship of several months we were married.

"My savings amounted to more than eight thousand florins. The florin is a small gold coin with a lily on one side and the word 'Florentina' on the other.

"For sixty-five hundred florins I purchased a small but substantial house on Via Calimara, near the Arte della Lana, the guildhouse of the wool weavers. The armorial design of the art, embossed above the portal, is a lamb bearing a cross.

"Two of my friends, who lived on a side street in the neighborhood, were Michael di Lando, a wool-comber who had considerable influence with his guild, and Ser Nuto, a bailiff of the Signory.

"I had been in Florence six months and married more than a month when Sir John disposed of our services to the eight commissioners of war; when, with great unwillingness, I was forced to leave wife and home and resume command of my three hundred horsemen.

"After having been thus engaged for more than four months, I procured a furlough, expecting to have ten days of quiet at home. It was the month of May and the city at its loveliest. On the third night after my return, my wife and I were eating a late lunch, after a visit to her brother's palace, when the servant announced that a man was at the door with a message from Sir John, asking that I come at once to the inn of the Golden Hat on the Via de Bardi.

"Buckling on armor and sword, and telling the good wife not to wait up for me, I accompanied the messenger.

"When crossing the Ponte Vecchio in the darkness of its many butcher stalls, the messenger, walking behind, leaped upon my back, seeking to throw me to the floor. He was almost instantly aided by a half-dozen men wearing black robes and cowls covering the head, having eyeholes only; in other words, dressed as friars of the order of Misericordia. One of these struck me on the head with a heavy short sword, and when I regained consciousness I learned I was a prisoner in a dungeon under the cloisters of the monastery of Agnoli. My friend, Ser Nuto, had engineered the capture, which had been ordered by the Bologna legate for my gross insults to him and consequently to the church. My captors, who belonged to the Guelph faction, had cheerfully executed the commission because of my relationship by marriage with the Medici family.

"My dungeon was simply a cistern of huge stones beneath the floor of the cell of a friar of the order and the same size as his cell. The only aperture was in the floor of the cell above and closed by a heavy grating, the key to which, kept by the head of the order, was never entrusted to the friar, who was as powerless to open the grating as I.

"The walls of immense stone were made the more impervious by iron bars, which prevented contact with them, and made my prison an iron cage encased in a stone dungeon. Food was let down by a cord through the grating by a narrow copper bucket, and in the same manner each day the refuse of the cell was removed. The friar who occupied the cell above and who was my jailer was the only person I ever saw except when tortured.

"At the end of a week Ser Nuto came into the cell and, calling down through the grating, said; 'Climb up; you are to go before the holy tribunal.' The grating was opened, a ladder let down and I climbed up and was led across the open court through a long hall into a large room, where twelve men, laymen and ecclesiastics, sat, the prelate acting as presiding officer. It must have been near midnight. I remember when I crossed the court how brilliantly the stars shone.

"When I came into the room, the prelate said; 'You are charged with the heinous sin of sacrilegious utterances against the holy church, which you will confess and for which you will be tortured even after confession. Your torturing, because of your insults to the church and its high officials, will be a compound of duty and pleasure to us. Until you confess your sins, express sorrow for same and consent to serve the church with loyal and unselfish devotion in whatever tasks shall be assigned you, one of which will be to assist Ser Nuto in decoying Sir John Hawkwood to this monastery you will be tortured the limit of your bodily endurance once a week.'

"From the four corners of the room near the ceiling and extending to the center, were suspended four ropes rigged with pulleys. My hands and feet were tied to these, when they were drawn tight and I was suspended in midair; then I was repeatedly hoisted back and forth from the floor to near the lofty ceiling until my joints were dislocated from the strain and I lost consciousness from pain, though I am glad to say, not once did I utter a cry, give forth a groan or ask mercy of my tormentors.

"When consciousness returned I was on the pallet in my cell and lay there for several days suffering as from severe sprains.

"My jailer was not unkind. His life I felt was not a happy one. He seemed to enjoy conversing with me, though he was forced to lie on the floor and call through the grating.

"This encouraged the hope that in sympathy or for reward I might persuade him to carry word to my wife of my place of imprisonment, when she, through the influence of Sir John or her brother, would be able to procure my release.

"I knew how she must suffer and search for traces of me, fearing I had been murdered and my body thrown into the river or buried in some secret place.

"That night the friar lay down upon the floor and called;

"'Edward Hawkwood are you awake?'

"'Yes.'

"'Has the swelling and soreness left your joints?'

"'Yes, I feel about well.'

"'In a day or two they will torture you again and continue doing so each week until you confess, express repentance and do what they ask. This I advise you to do, else in the end they will torture you to death, or leave you forgotten to die in your dungeon.'

"'I at least have this to be thankful for that you are not unkind.'

"'If it were suspected that I treated you other than a caged beast your jailer would be changed and severely punished.'

"'Discovery is impossible, since you only talk with me at night.'

"'I am not so sure; there are always spies in our brotherhood and all, from the scullion to the prelate, are under surveillance.'

"'I am sorry to learn that, as I hoped to prevail upon you to deliver a message to my wife, telling her where I am confined.'

"'Were I caught in the effort, I should be tortured to death, or confined indefinitely in a dungeon. Should your friends attempt your rescue or ask your release you would be murdered and dropped into come deep secret pit to destroy all evidence, when all would deny that you had been held a prisoner.'

"'My wife will give you a hundred florins if you will but give her a note telling my place of confinement. I have been but a few months married; she loves me dearly and is no doubt crazed by my disappearance.'

"'I wear this cowl and robe and beg as a mendicant on the street yet have always wished to be a soldier fighting to free Tuscany from tyranny; the tyranny not only of the oppressing noble families, chief of whom at this time are the Albizzi, but of the church with whom they are allied. I have suffered too much in mind from disappointment to care for the physical discomforts of others; and had you not been a soldier of renown, fighting against those influences which I condemn, I would have looked upon your imprisonment as incidental and your suffering without sympathy. I know how little I can do and that little at great personal risk, which, if discovered, will be not only your death warrant but my own. I will not carry a written message to your wife, but will stand near your home, pretending to solicit alms, and if she should pass, will tell her your message, but not disclose your place of imprisonment. She will know you are alive and have a friend who at rare intervals will give her news of you and bring back messages from her which you must give me to destroy. That is all that can be done. As my reward, you shall teach me to use the sword so when the opportunity is presented I may do my part as a patriot to rid Tuscany of her oppressors.'

"'You will at least hand this ring to my wife when you deliver my message and await her answer?'

"'Yes, I will risk that much.'

"That night I slept in peace and had rapturous dreams of freedom.

"On the next day in the afternoon, when my wife left our home to go to her brother's seeking news of me, she was addressed by a mendicant friar, who had even to touch her arm before she took notice, as she walked as a woman asleep--mind lost in sorrow.

"'Do not start; pretend to give me alms and take this ring which your husband sends. He is alive and well but a prisoner. I am his friend and will take a written message to him. Should his friends seek to find his place of confinement he will be murdered. On each Tuesday at this hour, if you pass, I will bring you news of him. I must not be followed on his account.'

"'Oh! Where is he.'

"'I have told you all I dare. Return home and write him a brief message for which I shall wait; fold it closely and hand me as though it were a small coin.'

"Turning away the friar solicited alms of a passing merchant.

"In a few minutes my wife returned and when he again asked alms she dropped in his hand two florins and between them a note for me.

"That night at a late hour the friar called through the grating and when I answered told me of the meeting and dropped the two florins into my hand, stating he would read the note to me, which he did.

"'You cannot know how much I have suffered believing you dead. I hope and live again since you sent the message and the ring.

"'What shall we do to find or rescue you? If you are not permitted to write send me a piece of your clothing so I may know the messenger comes from you.

"'Use every effort to come home to me as life is worthless with you away. I dare not write more. Can I send you anything?'

"'Let me have the note so I may see my wife's handwriting.'

"'I will if you return it so it may be destroyed; your cell may be searched.'

"He dropped it down, then let down a cord to which I tied the note after having read it many times and held it to my lips.

"The succeeding night Ser Nuto came to the cell and I was again brought before the holy tribunal, where an officer stood to take down my confession and a surgeon to feel my pulse and estimate the amount of torture I could bear.

"As I came in a poor man was being tortured and I stood and looked on, a horrified witness, until he died upon the rack.

"Then I was called before the prelate and asked:

"'Will you confess your many sins, declare your repentance and help the Holy Church to secretly take and imprison Sir John Hawkwood?'

"Remembering Sir John's many kindnesses to me, my duty as a soldier to his commander, and thinking of my dear wife, I unhesitatingly answered; 'I will not.'

"'It is then my duty to subject you to torture. Reflect that what is done to your body is for the good of your soul and in doing this we are the servants of God. Have you anything to confess in mitigation of our severest torture?'

"'I have not.'

"I was seized and bound to the ropes and suspended in midair; eight husky friars repeatedly pulled with all their might upon ropes; they swung and jerked me back and forth from floor to ceiling until it seemed arms and legs must be torn from my trunk. I would have lost consciousness long before I did, except I thought of my poor wife rather than myself. Finally the relief of unconsciousness came and hers was the last face I saw.

"It was hours before I regained consciousness and more than a week before I was able to stand.

"A week after the second torture Ser Nuto came for me to be again tortured, but was forced to return and report that I was unable to stand, much less respond to torture.

"While I was on my pallet unable to move, the friar asked for my message to my wife. I told him to cut off the corner of my coat and give her, saying I was well and making every effort for release so I might soon be with her.

"He brought back a note full of hope and tender messages, some money and underclothing. We hid the money under the floor bars of my cell.

"About the time I was able to walk again the prelate of the order died and on the night which had heretofore been selected for my weekly torture the members of the holy tribunal were busy with the reception and entertainment of his successor.

"In some way Ser Nuto's message of my condition was misunderstood and entry was made in the register opposite my name that I had died from the torture, the friar having told Ser Nuto that I was near death. Thus I became and remained a forgotten prisoner in a dungeon without chance of escape, but for the time free from the dread of torture.

"Until I had been registered as dead frugal meals had been furnished from the kitchen. Now the supply from that source was cut off, except that the friar, by giving the cook a florin each week and telling him that he desired a lunch before retiring, had been able to procure something.

"This was cold and rather a short ration for a man whose appetite was always keen and who had boasted and demonstrated that he could eat a quarter of lamb or a hen at a single meal.

"The friar supplemented this by purchases of fruit and cakes, which he brought to the cell in deep pockets stitched on the lining of his robe, so while I was always hungry, I did not suffer or lose strength.

"He explained the situation to my wife and she filled his pockets with packages of bread, meat, cheese and sweets, so that on each Tuesday night I counted on quite a feast. She also kept him supplied with money to make such purchases as he could carry through the portal without detection by the watchful gatemen.

"We tried all sorts of keys in our effort to unlock the grating, but were unsuccessful. We even had a locksmith make a key from a defective wax impression, but this failed of purpose. The bars might have been cut out with hammer and chisel except the noise would have brought the watchman.

"The friar made a sword of heavy wood and at night when the others slept I would climb up the ladder to the grating and instruct him in its use.

"Could one of the order have seen him, in the brass lamp's flickering light, making passes and warding off imaginary thrusts with his wooden sword, prancing and jumping back and forth in his narrow cell, clothed only in his under garments, and heard a hollow voice as from a tomb, calling out orders and directing his movements, he would have been convinced that the ancient cloisters were tenanted by ghosts or evil spirits.

"I cannot understand how the swordsman, who for years had worn cowl and habit, could have developed the muscular strength he possessed; which, with his quickness of movement, eye and thought, at the very start of his training made him a dangerous antagonist. He seemed to have the combined strength of several men. It must have been the reward of a clean and regular life, or else a legacy handed down with his fiery spirit from some former churchman or crusader who had greater regard for the helmet than the miter or from a gladiator or soldier ancestry.

"He was always absent during the day and I, having nothing to do to occupy my time, and knowing the importance not only because of my calling but for my health of retaining my muscular flexibility and strength, spent several hours each day climbing around upon and swinging from the bars of the iron cage until finally the rust was worn away and they grew polished from contact with my hands and feet.

"After several months of this I grew so expert and tireless that in giving lessons to my soldier pupil I no longer found it necessary to use the ladder, but swung from the grating, easing first one arm and then the other through the long lesson. One night after he had gone through his sword manual without hesitancy, much less mistake, I said:

"'It is time to throw away that toy and practice with a real weapon, to accustom your arm and hand to the weight and feel of a real sword. When my wife passes you on Tuesday tell her to procure a heavy short sword for you from her brother and to send mine with body armor and helmets for both of us, piece by piece as you can bring it. After we are armed, if I can only get through this grating, we need have no fear of the gate guards.'

"If I am taken or caught you will starve in your dungeon.

"I have thought of that. We must procure the key from the prelate by some subterfuge. Let us first possess our swords and armor, then we will get the key and both escape.

"Within the week the friar made two visits to my house and each time when he left, beneath his outer robe, he wore a corselet and carried a heavy short sword and helmet. We discovered my wife had converted each helmet into a store room which I robbed for a substantial meal.

"The fear that my kind jailer might be removed or not appear from some casualty had caused me to store away a small supply of food and water in a corner of my cell.

"My sword and helmet the friar passed through the grating and when I placed the one upon my head and grasped the familiar handle of the other, new hope kindled in my heart. The corselets were concealed under the couch of my jailer, as mine could not be passed through the grating.

"When he returned that night I called to my companion of the upper story saying; 'Why not go to the custodian of the dungeon and ask for the key to my cell, stating it smells badly and you desire to clean it? He supposes it empty and will readily loan you the key.'

"Your suggestion is a good one and the odor of your cell will certainly confirm the declaration. I will do it; but will wear the corselet and buckle on my sword. If he refuses he is liable to lose both the key and his head.

"A few minutes later I heard him go out and in less than half an hour he returned with the key, which he had no trouble in procuring.

"He fitted it into the lock, I heard the bolts turn and a minute later I stood in the upper cell embracing this morbid, strong-armed friar, who had proven himself my most loyal friend.

"An hour later he returned the key the locksmith had made for us. I had the key to the grating in my pocket and felt in the humor to say; 'Friend, come to my home and dine tomorrow night,' though no one knew better than I that thick, high and well-guarded walls opposed our freedom. I felt satisfied, however, if not discovered, that within a few days opportunity would present itself for escape.

"Each night the friar and I, closing fast the outer door, donned our corselets and helmets, and descending into the noise-deadening dungeon, practiced at cutting, thrusting and slashing at each other with our heavy short swords.

"I was surprised at the natural aptitude of the man and his marvelous quickness and strength of wrist. He was a worthy opponent for me though for more than fifteen years I had been ranked the best swordsman of Sir John's army.

"One night we lost ourselves in the interest of our close contest and made such a noise that it reached the ear of a spy passing the outer door. He tried to effect an entrance but could not; then knocking, and so loudly that finally the sound reached us, and doubtless our neighbors.

"My friend, climbing out, closed the grating, put on his robe and opening the door admitted the spy. Looking around he discovered the key in the grating lock and stooping opened the door and peeped down. He saw nothing in the darkness but the top of a ladder; this he started down, calling for a light.

"I caught him by the ankles, jerked him to the floor and called to my friend to close and bolt the grating, which he did. Whereupon I turned to the spying friar and said; 'Hand me your robe and cowl.' With these and my sword and helmet I mounted the ladder to the upper cell.

"My friend said, 'What shall we do now?'

"'We will have to keep the spy a prisoner until we escape.'

"'But they will search for him in the morning and in doing so will visit this cell in my absence.'

"'I will don his cowl and habit over my armor and we will escape tonight.'

"'That is impossible, all portals are closed and guarded by watchmen stationed in the barbicans over each gateway. Nor can we scale the walls because the watchmen do not sleep, being put to the torture if found asleep. No one is permitted to leave after night.'

"'Then in the morning as you leave I will go wearing the garment of our prisoner.'

"'It is not possible; each face is scrutinized and no one leaves without a permit. I will leave at the regular time, procure from Sir John Hawkwood two horses, which his servant will hold for us outside the gate. When the horses are ready I will return; then we will leave together.'

"Our plans settled, I returned to my dungeon and, locked in with our prisoner, in a few minutes was asleep. The prisoner sat in one corner on the floor and, from his appearance the next morning, evidently passed an uncomfortable night.

"Before my friend left he passed down my sword, helmet, and the key to the grating. He also cautioned the prisoner not to call out if any one entered the upper cell.

"I set out a supply of food on which the prisoner and I breakfasted. Then, expecting that the upper cell would be visited by a searching party, I made the prisoner lie face down on my pallet, placing the edge of my sword across the back of his neck and telling him if he made the slightest sound I would cut off his head, I stood quietly waiting.

"These preparations were scarcely finished before two men entered the upper cell and looking around a bit and trying the grating, which of course was locked, they went on.

"About an hour later the friar returned and I climbed up the ladder, locking the door after me.

"We put on our metal corselets and swords and over them slipping cowl and habit, went out into the corridor and to the main portal. At the gate were three guards wearing metal helmets, leather jackets and each armed with sword and lance.

"My friend told the guard I was a visiting friar of the order and was to leave in his company. This statement satisfied two of the guards, but the third, more careful,--said; 'You must procure a permit from the prelate before I will open the gate.'

"While arguing with him we edged towards the gate and turning quickly started to open it, whereupon he thrust at me with his lance, but my corselet turned it aside.

"Quickly drawing my sword and throwing off the cowl and robe, I made a vicious thrust at him, piercing his leather jacket. He sank at my feet helplessly wounded.

"My companion and I then rushed the other two who turning fled, uttering loud cries of alarm. We ran and opened the small gate, when one of my men rode forward leading two horses, and mounting, the three of us rode rapidly away through a near gate of the city into the open country and by nightfall reached the camp of my horsemen.

"I immediately dispatched a special messenger with a note to my wife telling of my escape and promising within the week to come to her.

"These men were anxious to hear an account of our adventures, believing we had been to England or some distant country on important service; but I had to remain silent to hide the identity of my faithful friend. To their inquiries I answered; 'You must be satisfied with the little we have told; I will say further my experiences have not increased my love for the church, or the Pope.'

"At the monastery they were unable to learn who had escaped with the friar or what became of either of us. Their records showing me dead, made their investigation the more difficult. Of course, in time they learned that was a mistake and doubtless concluded that I accompanied the friar.

"On the following morning I resumed formal command and in a day or two things were moving along as though I had never been absent. The only persons to whom I ever disclosed the place of my imprisonment, were my wife, her brother and Sir John.

"On the third day after I resumed command we were ordered to take an old castle which the owner, though a Tuscan, more churchman than patriot, had voluntarily turned over to the Bologna legate.

"It was situated on the mountain side and made admirable headquarters for several companies of soldiers who acted as a guard for the mountain pass less than a mile distant, through which the legate's army procured supplies and beyond which we had, as yet, been unable to penetrate.

"To our force of horsemen were added one hundred English bowmen and more than that number of hardy native mountaineers, whom it was thought might render valiant service in scaling or undermining the walls of the castle if we were forced to take it by assault. These additional men made our forces about equal numerically to those occupying the castle. The ex-friar and several mountaineers were the only ones of our force who had ever been within its walls or had knowledge of its interior arrangements. These I sent for, seeking information which might he of value in perfecting our plans for its assault.

"Their description of the stronghold was such as to convince one that its taking was no easy matter.

"The structure was built on a spur which jutted out from the mountain side and which on three sides was too precipitate to be scaled. The overtopping main peaks were too distant to be used by our bowmen. The only approach was across a narrow neck of land which was intersected by a deep moat, crossed only by a narrow drawbridge and against which abutted the perpendicular walls of great height and thickness.

"The ex-friar said; 'A guard of six is always kept at the gate and several watchmen are stationed on the walls. I know of no way by which we can gain admission except, by deception or strategy, we first gain possession of the drawbridge and the gate.'

"'And how might that be done?'

"'This evening three of us dressed in the habit of the monastery of Agnoli, but wearing armor under our vesture, might approach the gate and ask leave to spend the night, stating we are traveling as messengers to Bologna and have gotten separated from two companions for whom we must wait. During the night you will bring your men to the chestnut wood that lies along the road as you approach the castle and place a dozen of your best archers in the trees nearest the walls. On the morrow just at six we will come to the gate as though leaving the castle and stop there talking with the watchmen. When you are ready our two companions will approach the drawbridge and join us. Then we will assault the six guards and your archers at the same time must kill the watchmen on the wall. While we hold the gate you with your men must cross the drawbridge and get to us. You know we can hold out but a few moments; there must be no delay.'

"'If we adopt this plan I want you and your companions to understand that the danger is great and you will probably be killed by the time we cross. I will force no man to assume the risk. It will be impossible for me to go as I must lead the assault. You will choose the two who go with you and I from volunteers will select two of my best men to meet you at the gate. You shall command the squad and, if successful, Sir John and your companions shall know to whom the credit is due.'

"That afternoon at four, three stalwart Italians left the camp, walking up the mountain. They were equipped in full armor and each carried a bundle under his arm.

"They crossed a rapid mountain stream near the headwaters of the Arno and were seen no more. Shortly thereafter three peaceful-looking friars came forth and took the trail leading to the castle and the pass, as they walked along chanting in a subdued tone the vesper service of their monastery.

"At twilight, dusty and sweat-stained from apparent long travel, they crossed the drawbridge just before it was raised for the night and the gates closed. When challenged by the guards they asked food and shelter for the night. The corporal of the guard interrogated them as to their business in the mountains.

"'We are three of five messengers sent by our order to Bologna. One of the other two was taken sick and forced to remain in the village overnight and a companion stayed with him; they will meet us here or in the pass on the morrow.'

"Reporting to the officer of the day, he was directed to let them in and to provide them with food and a bed of straw in the barracks.

"In the morning, just before six, they came to the gate and stood waiting. They were civilly greeted by the corporal who had let them in the night before, but who was being relieved by another corporal and guard.

"The new squad let down the drawbridge and opened the gate as was the custom when no danger threatened.

"The corporal in charge, who had little love for monks and friars, turning to them said: 'You are three big strapping fellows to be supported by charity. You should be working in the fields or else helping us fight for the church. Why they pay us to do their fighting instead of training you for that purpose I will never understand. Either one of you looks as strong as a bull and with that habit in the ditch, a helmet on your head, wearing corselet and sword you might pass as a soldier. Here come two more of your order; not only the cities but the mountains are full of you. No wonder there is so much poverty in Bologna and Florence.'

"'I have always wished to be a soldier. I would like to try on your helmet and sword and see how my companions and I look dressed as your squad.'

"'Let's see how the three beggars look in helmets, and you might just as well buckle on our swords. Let the other two across, they can join in the comedy.'

"So we found ourselves within the gates with the swords of the guards in our hands.

"'Remove your habits and stand forth as men.'

"And so we did and, giving the defenseless, surprised and chagrined corporal a shove, I threw him into the moat and my men forced the others to follow him, where, standing in water and mud to their arm pits and facing an unscalable wall, they yelled an alarm and hoarsely bawled for help.

"In the meantime, the castle and the neighboring wood were in commotion. The watchmen on the walls had been shot down by the archers as had also several soldiers who rushed to see what had caused the uproar. I had a glimpse across the draw of Captain Hawkwood and his soldiers within a hundred yards of the gate, when turning, I saw more than a hundred of the castle guard running towards and within a few feet of our archway.

"They took us for the gate guards and yelled to draw the bridge and close the gate, but instead, sword in hand, we stood at the entrance waiting for them. Then, seeing they faced foes, they came on, but too closely placed for free sword play.

"So the five of us held the gate; then four, then three, then but two, and then I stood alone and as I pitched forward wounded and bleeding in many places, you stepped over me, followed by your men and the battle raged in the court of the castle.

"(The above account was given me by the friar when he recovered. I have told it in his own words.)

"In a few minutes we were masters of the wall and court and our foes masters of the castle proper.

"I had reason to be thankful for our bowmen, who, ranged around and protected by the coping of the wall, made death certain for anyone daring to approach a window or port hole of the castle, else our quarters might have been most uncomfortable.

"Of our five masqueraders three were dead and the other two were sorely wounded in many places. I staunched and dressed the wounds of the ex-friar. In about an hour he opened his eyes and looking at me smiled then sank into semi-conciousness.

"Placing the bowmen on the walls so as to command every aperture of the castle I determined upon an assault of the main portal. The corporal and gate guards having been lifted from the moat were placed in the front line to shield us and we advanced against the great doors of the castle, using a heavy bridge timber as a ram, and in a few minutes effected an entrance, but found each foot of space which we gained a bloody conquest.

"Within an hour after effecting our entrance we were in possession of the ground floor, but our enemy held the upper stories and were too strong and well fortified to be ousted by assault.

"We felt certain they were without food and water, since our assault had been a surprise, and we had captured their storerooms, which were on the ground floor.

"That night we rested, having placed a heavy guard at the gate and on the wall and barricaded ourselves against the upper story. The next morning I sent off fifty men to guard the pass and a messenger to report our progress to Sir John.

"We saw nothing of our foes until afternoon, when we heard them carefully removing their barricades of the door; then it was suddenly thrown open and they stood ready for an assault, facing our barricade, which they had not expected to find.

"Our bowmen, brought in for the purpose, let fly a shower of arrows into their faces at close range, which wounded many. They quickly closed the door and replaced their barricades. More than a dozen of them had been killed or severely wounded by the archers.

"Shortly before sundown the barricade was again removed, the door opened a few inches and a conference asked. I consented that their commander with two aids might be admitted to our quarters.

"To see if they were hungry, a table was prepared with food and drink, at which I asked them to be seated, stating; 'I am about to dine, and after the meal we will discuss any matter you see fit to call up.'

"While the commander ate and drank quite sparingly, I was convinced by the way the two aids responded that they were without provisions.

"We finally agreed upon the terms of their surrender. All were to be liberated and their arms and horses returned, but not until they had retired from the castle and crossed through the pass into the valley towards Bologna.

"Our work, in less than two days, thanks to the ex-friar and his brave companions, was completed. We were the masters of the castle and the pass, which for two years had been held against repeated assaults.

"Shortly afterward we received word that the legate was dead and that his entire force had retired from Tuscany.

"The ex-friar, who now called himself Lorenzo di Puccio was not so seriously wounded as at first appeared. His armor and remarkable expertness as a swordsman had rendered such protection that of his more than thirty wounds only two were rated as serious; and even these, with a month's careful nursing, in my opinion, would be healed.

"He was placed in the living quarters of the owner of the castle and orders were issued that he should be cared for as a member of the family. In fact, dire punishment was promised the thoroughly frightened owner if he was not given the most careful treatment and nursing. He was even told that the lives of the inmates and the release of the castle depended upon the complete recovery of his patient.

"The result was that Lorenzo received the most solicitous attention from the wife and daughter of the owner. Throughout the day one sat constantly by his bedside and in time both grew quite fond of their patient, regarding him as a most important personage, since such particular orders had been issued for his care. Lorenzo and his fair nurse, the daughter, became lovers, and several months later were married.

"Everything having turned out to the complete satisfaction of Sir John--there being no longer an enemy to fight and the campaign practically ended--I made application for and was given leave to return home.

* * * * *

"Upon arrival in Florence I found the city torn asunder by jealousy and dissention. Such government as existed was one of gabble. All recognized and appreciated that a fiercer contest than the one just happily closed was impending.

"Criticism of the conduct of the war and the nature of the peace to be made appeared the principal issues but the real issue was factional rule. Though the five war commissioners, with the assistance of Sir John, had carried through the war without the loss of a single battle and had driven the Pope's legate from Tuscan territory, the campaign had not been conducted in accordance with the great courage and generalship of the stay-at-homes of the other faction.

"All this I perceived with great sadness, since I now claimed to be a citizen of Florence, and upon the enforcement of law and order depended the safety of my wife and property.

"During my imprisonment and absence, I had, reflectively at least, become a personage of importance; as my brother-in-law, Silvestro de Medici, was the head of the Ricci, or anti-Guelph faction, now in power. It was, therefore, incumbent upon me, when I moved about the city, to be attended by a squire and even a small guard of troopers. Next to Sir John, I was considered the most important military officer in the city.

"The Ricci faction was in control of the city. They had the support of the populace and the Alberti and Medici families.

"The faction opposing them was known as the Guelphs and, while not directing the government, had the power to admonish. They controlled the captains of the parts, and had the support of the church, the nobility and the Albizzi family.

"On St. John's day, when the gathering of their followers would go unnoticed in the vast holiday crowd, they had determined upon seizing the government.

"In the meantime, the government, or Ricci faction, learned of their purpose, and, over their opposition, elected my brother-in-law, Silvestro, Gonfalonier, or chief magistrate of the city.

"He was thoroughly familiar with their schemes for oppressing the people and, as steps towards diminishing their influence, resolved that laws should be enacted retrenching their powers.

"To do this he had first to obtain the consent of the colleague and the council and called together the two bodies the same morning for that purpose.

"When he presented his proposition to the colleagues he was surprised at the opposition encountered and, concluding that his purpose might be defeated upon a vote, excused himself from the colleagues and went before the council, to which body he tendered his resignation, declaring that since he could neither help the government nor the people he felt in duty bound to resign as chief magistrate.

"At this, his friends in the council gave voice to strenuous protest. They raised such a commotion that the colleagues and council, assembling together, demanded that he remain in office and the colleagues, in the midst of the greatest confusion, passed his proposed laws.

"Lorenzo, the ex-friar, now married and living in Florence, was present as a spectator. He became greatly incensed at the remarks of Carlo Strozzi and, seizing him by the throat, would have strangled him had not several of us torn his half-conscious victim away.

"The excitement increased until the whole city was aroused and in arms.

"The plebs, led by Benedetto degli Alberti and Lorenzo, who some time before had joined the wool-combers' union, and was an intimate friend and trusted lieutenant of Michael di Lando, the head of the strongest trade union or order in the city, were soon so wrought up as to be past restraint and were ready for any acts of violence.

"The merchants closed their doors, the nobles fortified themselves in their homes and many hid their valuables in the churches, the monastery of Agnoli, and the convent of S. Spirito.

"The captains of the parts, and the other forces of the Guelph faction, gathered to organize their deferred revolution and defend themselves; but learning of the action of the colleagues and the council and perceiving the opposition too great and dangerous, separated, each hunting safety for himself.

"A part of the trade unions, particularly the members of the wool-combers, joined the mob to avenge themselves upon the Guelphs. Led by Michael di Lando, Lorenzo and myself, they broke into, looted and burned the house of Lapo, but he escaped, disguised as a monk, into the Casentino. Piero and Carlo, two other of their leaders, hid themselves and so well we could not find them.

"Then we looted and burned the houses of other Guelphs and wound up our orgy by sacking and thoroughly looting the monastery of Agnoli, at which place we found great treasure in gold and jewels, knowing just where to look for it.

"Visiting my old cell in the cloisters we found in one corner of the dungeon a humped up skeleton, which led us to believe that the prison of the captive spy had never been discovered.

"The next day the trade unions appointed each a syndic and these, with the colleagues, sought to quiet the city, but without success.

"On the following day the unions appeared in force bearing the ensigns of their trades and, fully armed, took possession of the palace of the signory.

"Upon this the council in terror created a balia, giving general power to the Signory, the colleagues, the eight commissioners of war, the captains of the parts and the trade unions to reorganize the government of the city.

"The balia restored all privileges to the admonished, annulled all unpopular laws passed by the Guelphs, declared Lopo, Carlo and Piero traitors and outlaws, elected a new signory and appointed Luigi Guiccia, Gonfalonier.

"Still the disorders continued unabated. No business was done, the shops remained closed and the populace, no better satisfied, paraded the streets in armed bands and in a dangerous humor.

"The heads of the trade unions were called before the Signory, when Luigi, the Gonfalonier, speaking for the signory, asked; 'What do you yet want? At your request we have taken all power from the opposition; we have restored to the admonished the power to hold office. You demanded that those participating in the riots and guilty of robbery and arson be pardoned; even this to our shame, we have granted. Yet continuously you appear before us making new demands, continue rioting and by numbers and threats seek to intimidate our body. You have so terrorized the people that no business is transacted. Where will it all end? What more do you want? How will business be restored and peace brought about? What is to become of the city? Your vandalism destroys the very property which furnishes your unions with employment; your employers are powerless to continue in business or give the people work. Why do you not disband and return to work? Your requests, reasonable and unreasonable, have been granted. What better government can you expect than the one you enjoy? It is of your own choosing and based upon the fundamental principle that the supreme authority of the state is in the majority of the people.'

"His suggestions, which were fair and conciliatory, might have prevailed, except that I wanted greater concessions for our particular union; and for that purpose frightened the weakening and consenting ones who had participated in the riots to further violence by telling them that to save themselves they must burn and loot yet more; must commit other and greater wrongs and incite others to join them, saying:

"'If many commit wrongs few or none are punished; the petty criminal is chastised, but the great one is rewarded. When the whole people suffer, few seek vengeance. The government stands great and public wrongs with more patience and resignation than private and little ones. If we hesitate, or lose, or give ground, we will be punished; if we carry our rebellion through to the extent of forcing a reorganization of the government, we conquer and are glorious. Great power is acquired by force and great wealth by fraud; the faithful in service remain in service; and the reward of honesty is poverty; men, like fishes, feed upon one another. To save yourselves you must continue to destroy and excite the opposition to such fear for themselves and their property that they will pardon your offences and look upon you as saviors when you cease to oppress them. Shape your conduct by your desires; if you wish to be masters, continue to oppress; if you wish to be banished and punished as criminals, submit. What I suggest, though dangerous, is under the circumstances not only expedient, but your only course, your only salvation.'

"This reasoning, coupled with similar arguments from Lorenzo, seemed so conclusive that our auditors agreed to our suggestions, and Michael di Lando was chosen to command our organization. He was already head of the wool-combers union, the largest and most powerful in the city, supporting the plebs and the low class people.

"The second night thereafter was fixed upon to put our plans into execution. We bound ourselves in mutual defense and to undertake to gain possession of the republic.

"One of our men named, Simone, was arrested and, when put to the torture, disclosed the plot. While he was being tortured, Nicolo Friano, who was repairing the palace clock, saw it and heard a part of his confession. He fled to our meeting place and reported what he had seen and heard.

"Immediately we armed ourselves and, more than a thousand strong, gathered in the square of S. Spirito, and so the revolution began.

"The signory issued orders that the gonfaloniers of the people and their companies should assemble in the public square at daylight the next morning, but less than a hundred men appeared under arms in support of the government, while our forces had grown to more than three thousand.

"A body of the plebeians first assembled at San Pietro, but there was no force to oppose them. Then other trade unions gathered in various squares and market places, including the palace, or public square.

"They demanded from the signory that all prisoners be released, which was done, and these immediately joined our ranks.

"We took the gonfalon of Justice from its bearer and under the authority of that banner burned and looted many houses and killed many of our enemies. Any member of our companies who desired to punish any private enemy or satisfy his revenge had but to call out; 'Let us burn the house of Luigi Poggi; he is an enemy of the people and unfriendly to our order.' When leading the way he was followed by and had the assistance of the whole assemblage.

"Many a plebeian in rags was knighted during this period, and many a patrician was satisfied to lose all if he and his family but escaped with their lives.

"By night of that first day our numbers had increased to more than six thousand, and before the following morning we were in possession of all the trade ensigns, were using their headquarters as barracks, and practically controlled the city.

"The signory, assembling, asked our wishes. We named a committee of four to confer with them. They demanded new judges, and three new companies of the arts who should have representation in the signory, one for the wool combers and dyers; one for the barbers and tailors, and a third for the lowest class of the people, that is, the unskilled laborers. We demanded a cancellation of all debts and that our enemies be banished or punished. These demands we forced the signory to grant, and gave our promise that disorders should cease.

"The next morning, while the council was still considering the proposition, a tremendous mob of the trades entered the square carrying their ensigns and so intimidated the council and signory that the members fled with the exception of Alemanno and Niccolo. They were finally driven away by threats that if they did not leave their houses would be burned and their families murdered.

"Then we entered the palace, led by Michael di Lando, who bore the standard of the gonfalonier of justice. The most of our crowd were in rags.

"He took possession of the dias of the presiding officer of the Signory and, turning to his followers, said; 'You are now in possession of the palace and the council hall, in control of the city and in a position to constitute yourselves the governing authority in place of those who have deserted their posts; what is your pleasure?'

"'We wish you for our gonfalonier and that you govern the city as the representative of the trade unions and the people.'

"'I accept your command and shall proceed to restore peace and order in the city.'

"Though meanly clad, he was possessed of much good sense and was not without dignity and courage. With capacity and self-possession, he proceeded at once to exercise the authority he had assumed.

"Lorenzo and I, who all the time had acted as his lieutenants and advisers, to hold the mob in check and at the same time settle an old score dating back to my imprisonment in the monastery, suggested that Ser Nuto, then sheriff, be arrested and delivered to the mob. He had made himself very officious in oppressing the trades and the plebeians.

"While those deputized to find him were searching the city, others built a gallows in the palace square for his execution; we having determined that his execution should be the first to strike terror into those who had opposed our wishes.

"He was soon found and hung by the mob from the gallows by one foot. In less than five minutes he was torn to pieces, nothing remaining but the foot by which he had been suspended.

"The first order issued by Michael di Lando was that any one who burned or looted a house should be punished as Ser Nuto had been.

"He removed the members of the signory and the colleagues and deposed the syndics of the trades. The eight war commissioners who had assumed to set up a new signory were ordered to resign, which they did.

"He then assembled the newly-elected syndics of the trades and in conjunction with them created a new signory, composed of four members from the plebeians, two from the major and two from the minor trades. One of the four members of the plebeians was the ex-friar, appointed under his assumed name of Lorenzo di Puccio. No one ever suspicioned his former connection with the monastery of Agnoli.

"My brother-in-law was awarded the rentals from the butcher stalls of Ponte Vecchio; Michael di Lando retained for himself the provostry of Empoli; Sir John Hawkwood was made Captain General, and I was made his aid, knighted and placed in command of all mercenaries.

"No sooner had order been restored than certain of the trade unions, much incensed at the prospect of work, and a majority of the plebeians who seemed better satisfied with disorder, sought to incite violence by charging that Michael di Lando in reformation of the government had favored the higher or richer class citizens and neglected his associates, who had placed him in power; a charge which was not true. Whereupon many of them took up arms and started fresh disorders.

"They came before him a riotous multitude, demanding many changes. He ordered them to lay down their arms, stating that no concessions would be made to a show of intimidation.

"His answer but enraged them the more. They withdrew and, assembling at Santa Maria Novella, appointed eight leaders and prepared to storm the palace and make good their demands. They then sent a delegation to the signory, directing that they grant their demands.

"This delegation was so arrogant and threatening that Michael di Lando, losing his temper, drew his sword and, after wounding several, had them cast into prison.

"When this was reported, their organization marched towards the palace. Michael, in the meantime gathering his forces, started for their place of assemblage. The opposing forces, traveling different streets, passed on the way; the mob arriving at the palace about the time that his forces reached their place of assemblage.

"With his force, in which was the remnant of The White Company, he returned to the palace, where a fierce contest waged for its possession. Our opponents were vanquished and driven beyond the city walls or found safety by hiding within the city.

"Order was restored and for the first time in many months the city was quiet. Michael gave to the city a just and, for the time, a peaceful administration of three years. While he rescued the city from the lowest plebeians, his administration was artisan-controlled and governed. The signory was made up of nine members, of which the superior trades furnished four and the inferior trades five members.

"Shortly after restoration of order and reorganization new factions were organized between the artificers on the one side, called the plebeians, and the nobles and church on the other, called the popular party.

"It was discovered that certain members of the popular party were in conspiracy with Gianozzo da Salerno of Bologna, who had been prevailed upon to undertake the conquest of the city.

"Piero and Carlo were accused of connection with this conspiracy and Sir John Hawkwood, Tomasso Strozzi and Benedetto Alberti, with a strong force, prepared to resist this invasion.

"Piero was executed. Subsequently Giorgio Scali and Tomasso Strozzi made themselves offensive to the government. Tomasso fled, but Giorgio was made prisoner and beheaded.

"Beginning with this, one disorder followed another in the political struggles between the plebeians and the popular party and the major and minor trades.

"After many balias had been appointed for the reformation of the government and there had been two general assemblies of the people, a new government was formed, controlled by the opposition. They recalled all people banished by Sylvestro. All who had acquired office by the balia of 1378 were deposed. The Guelphs were restored to power and the plebeians and trades deposed. Michael di Lando and Lorenzo di Puccio were banished. The good they had done and the services they had rendered were quickly forgotten."

* * * * *

The boss carpenter, after more than an hour's steady talking, stirred and groaned; he opened his eyes and sat up saying;

"I have been dreaming of labor unions and fighting. I believe I will walk to Winchester, as I am expected to talk to some friends at a meeting tonight."

THE SEARCHLIGHT.

In the summer of 1918, I visited an Italian army hospital at Edelo. On one of the small white beds was a young soldier, horribly mangled by a bomb dropped from an Austrian airplane.

I learned that he had lived seven years in New York, having been carried there by his father when a boy of fourteen. When Italy entered the war, he returned to his native land and volunteered his services. At the time he was wounded he was operating a portable searchlight.

He was near death and, in unconscious monotone, spoke in English:

"A year ago it looked mighty blue; we were on the run at Caparetto. Now it looks as though we might win the war within the year. Things are mighty quiet with the enemy. I have not seen an Austrian plane for more than a week.

"I do love this old searchlight. How it makes the ice and snow of the mountain tops shine out in the night. When things are quiet like tonight I turn the light way down into the valley upon the house in the olive grove where Marcella lives.

"She has said her prayers and lies asleep; and I, ten kilometers distant, flash the light upon her shutters. It seems I might walk upon the beam as upon a bridge of silver to her very door.

"My God! Is the war to last forever? Is she to live on macaroni and chestnuts and break rock upon the road in sun and rain and snow, summer and winter, until she dies? Am I to stay up here within sight of her house but never within reach of her arms? When can we ever marry? On my pay it would take a thousand years to save a decent fee for the priest. Mother of God, be good to her!

"Let's take a look at those poor devils up there in that hell of ice. No wonder our great poet pictures a section of hell as such a place. They can have no fire and must sleep with the dogs to keep warm. It looks grand in the light; but it is the grandeur of eternal winter, and eternal winter is death. It is a lonely beautiful region ten thousand feet above the sea. God and those boys alone will ever know the heart-bursting strain of placing their big guns, which were raised a few feet, day by day. What a land to live and fight and die in. The chasms, the sliding snow and the Austrians each demand and receive toll. Are the dug-outs and trenches and tunnels, in solid ice and rock, lonely places for those boys from Naples and Palermo? When they look at the dolomite peaks which, too pointed to give the snow bedding, stick out from under the white spread of the mountain tops like big black horns, do they long for the azure sea and lemon groves? No wonder they call the peaks the 'Horns of The Old One'; or that when my light falls upon them I think of ebon fangs protruding from white guns, and call the place 'The Mouth of Hell.' If those boys but show their heads above the crest the awful silence is broken by the roar of guns. What a life! Always under potential fire and for three years within range of the deadly machine gun and hand-grenade.

"There seems little use for this searchlight tonight. The Austrians, if it be possible, are even more weary of the war, more discouraged and worse off than we. There's nothing doing; no airplane hovers above like a great hawk to be plucked out of the darkness and clothed in lucent raiment for destruction by my arrows of light.

"I will turn it down into the valley again. May it be a precursor of where I shall soon go. There's the house and her shutters and to the right on the spur of the Cima della Granite in the chestnut grove, the old church. How the gold cross on the spire stands out!

"Sometimes at night the light catches the spire so I see only the cross of gold. Then the thought comes that all there is in life for the poor, or me, or any one, is the cross; and that my lot may not be so bad, even though I die here, the death of a man for men.

"Since Christ had none to comfort him upon the cross, why should I have so much comfort here? Is it not enough to have the bar of light and the cross of gold! Can not I reach out along the bar towards the cross and say; 'Into thy hands, Father, I commend my spirit?'

"When the night is dark and still I flash the bar of light from this high point down the valley and I say; 'It is the eye of God, the shepherd, searching for a lost lamb.' And, in order that the sheep may know the way into the fold, I flash the light upon the door of the church and then slowly let it climb the spire until its rests upon the cross.

"Alone in the night, I have learned that the one great thing is light. With the light you may find the way. I have learned that all things bright and fair are from the Father; and understand why God first said; 'Let there be light!' I can partly measure his infinite love and compassion in offering to all, even those as poor as I, who cannot buy a postage stamp, light and the cross and the resurrection. In the light of this thought may I not in faith and peace, await the life eternal?"

+-------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent spelling in the original | | document has been preserved. | | | | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | | | | Page 5 occuping changed to occupying | | Page 11 automobil changed to automobile | | Page 21 Pittsburg changed to Pittsburgh | | Page 23 Cornwell changed to Cornwall | | Page 25 palid changed to pallid | | Page 52 unconciously changed to unconsciously | | Page 55 ecstacy changed to ecstasy | | Page 58 wierd changed to weird | | Page 63 hydrangias changed to hydrangeas | | Page 70 hydrangias changed to hydrangeas | | Page 73 suprise changed to surprise | | Page 79 arn changed to arm | | Page 80 Machavelli's changed to Machiavelli's | | Page 84 courtley changed to courtly | | Page 85 Loginus changed to Longinus | | Page 101 Rachel changed to Rachael | | Page 107 knew changed to new | | Page 141 sign changed to sing | | Page 143 Southhampton changed to Southampton | | Page 144 Claxon changed to Klaxon | | Page 145 Isco changed to Iseo | | Page 145 Innsbruk changed to Innsbruck | | Page 149 imprtca changed to impreca | | Page 149 benimeriti changed to benemiriti | | Page 149 Missaggio changed to Messaggio | | Page 149 perlare changed to parlare | | Page 150 acclamezioni changed to acclamazioni | | Page 150 silenzo changed to silenzio | | Page 150 banddiere changed to bandiere | | Page 152 Georgi changed to Giorgi | | Page 152 directore changed to direttore | | Page 153 Gorgi changed to Giorgi | | Page 163 domolite changed to dolomite | | Page 164 vareties chanaged to varieties | | Page 169 Saharah changed to Sahara | | Page 169 Giuseppi changed to Giuseppe | | Page 175 Excercising changed to Exercising | | Page 202 Naferma changed to Neferma | | Page 205 Egpytians changed to Egyptians | | Page 211 wierd changed to weird | | Page 212 wierd changed to weird | | Page 214 ever changed to every | | Page 216 Brethern changed to Brethren | | Page 217 brethern changed to brethren | | Page 222 firey changed to fiery | | Page 227 Duoma changed to Duomo | | Page 229 pebleian changed to plebeian | | Page 233 Veccio changed to Vecchio | | Page 234 Veccio changed to Vecchio | | Page 235 Misercordia changed to Misericordia | | Page 235 hugh changed to huge | | Page 236 Hawkwod changed to Hawkwood | | Page 237 tortue changed to torture | | Page 254 severly changed to severely | | Page 257 Strossi changed to Strozzi | | Page 264 Veccio changed to Vecchio | | Page 266 Strossi changed to Strozzi | | Page 266 Georgio changed to Giorgio | | Page 270 graudeur changed to grandeur | | Page 271 percursor changed to precursor | +-------------------------------------------------+