Part 5

At night, muffled in a zerape, Amalickiah passed the guard, and with sinister stride, made his way around the side of the mountain. When he was out of sight of the sentry, he stopped abruptly. The night was fitted for deeds of darkness, as it was so black one could not see the next step in advance. To the west the clouds were banked up and the wind was beginning to rise. The gaze of the man who stood amid the desolation was fastened on a moving object up the side of the mountain. A stone, becoming dislodged, rattled down and instinctively his hand sought his sword.

The next moment the figure accosted him.

"It is you, Tish? What does Lehonti say?"

"He returns the same answer that he has sent the past two nights. He will not come down to parley with you."

"Did you tell him it was of vital importance?"

"He said that if that was the case, that you could send the message up to him."

"You told him I would assure his safe conduct."

"He answered that a man who had betrayed two masters might do no better by an enemy."

Amalickiah showed sudden magnanimity.

"Go tell the coward dog that I come alone to confer with him. Bid him bring his guards and meet me at his own gate."

Swiftly the messenger sped off and Amalickiah picked his more deliberate way up the side of the mountain. When he reached the place appointed, he found that Lehonti already awaited him and that he had taken the precaution to bring his full body guard.

"What I have to say is for your ears alone," explained Amalickiah in a low tone.

Not to be outdone in generosity, Lehonti motioned for his men to fall back.

With the bluntness his crafty soul knew so well how to assume, Amalickiah came straight to the point.

"My policy is to unite the two divisions of the Lamanite army. If we fall on each other and shed blood my very purpose will be defeated. We need all the men for the common enemy."

"I too, am opposed to bloodshed," answered Lehonti, slowly. "It is not good for brother to fight against brother."

"I wish to put the whole Lamanite army under one head. If you bring your troops tonight and surround our camp, I will deliver it to you at daylight."

"The price? What do you want?" asked Lehonti looking the traitor straight in the eyes.

"That you make me second in command of all the forces of the Lamanites."

The Indian mistrusted how he might get along with such a lieutenant, but the proposition seemed fair enough on its face, and he agreed.

At dawn, when the soldiers began to stir, they found that they were completely surrounded by the army of Lehonti. Then they pleaded with Amalickiah that he would let them fall in with their brethren and not be destroyed. That was what he wanted. In direct disobedience to the commands of the king, he delivered his men to Lehonti. That noble but trusting general had taken a viper to his bosom, though he had to die to prove it.

From second in command to the office of commander-in-chief, was but one step. It mattered little to the unscrupulous Amalickiah that Lehonti stood in the way. He had slow poison administered in his food. When the latter sickened the Nephite took over his duties.

As the two sat at the table at dinner, one day, Lehonti collapsed and fell on the floor. Amalickiah shrugged his shoulders and indifferently remarked that he had taken a fit. When the physicians examined the prostrate figure and pronounced him dead, Amalickiah affected surprise. He ordered that Lehonti be buried with military honors, and that same day appointed himself to the dead man's place.

Slowly the great army began to make its way back to the capitol. Runners brought word to the king that the hosts covered the plains. Thinking that Amalickiah had gathered together so great an army to go to battle against the Nephites, he, with great pomp, accompanied by his guards, sallied out to meet the victorious general. He did not know that Amalickiah would fain advance another step and that the king himself this time stood in the way.

The advance scouts, the employed hirelings of the general, went ahead of the army and bowed themselves down before the king to do him reverence. Among them was Tish, noted for his dog-like devotion to his master. It was he, it was suspected, who had administered the poison to Lehonti. Whatever his faults, he was unswerving in his loyalty to his chief. It chanced that he knelt directly in front of the monarch. When the sovereign put forth his hand to raise him in token of peace, he leaned forward and buried his dagger to the hilt in the king's heart. So quickly had it happened as the two men stood together, so sure was the stroke, that not until the king went down on his back and the red spot on his robe slowly widened, did the dazed onlookers realize what had happened. The attendants, in abject terror that they would share a like fate, swiftly fled.

An accomplice, taking his cue from the fleeing servants came up and addressed the assassin.

"So his own guards have killed the king and are running away."

Tish, smiling sardonically down on his own blade drinking the life blood of the dying monarch, murmured, "It must be so."

The eye lids of the victim quivered accusingly an instant and then closed forever. Tish turned away his head.

The others closed in and raised a great shout, "Behold the servants of the king have stabbed him to the heart, and he has fallen and they have fled. Come and see."

They did not bethink themselves to pursue the refugees until Amalickiah, with the main division of the army came up.

When that doughty general had looked in silence on the king, lying in his gore, he worked himself up to a mighty wrath and ordered, "Whosoever loved the king, let him go forth and pursue his servants that they may be slain."

At this, those who loved the king, and they were many, started in hot pursuit of the renegades, but the latter, when they saw an army coming after them, fortified with the strength born of desperation, made good their escape.

Amalickiah, having won the hearts of the people with his valorous attempt to apprehend the supposed slayers of the king, marched into the city in triumph at the head of his troops. He had already sent messages to the queen, accompanied by the corpse of her husband. In her vigil over the bier she listened to the tramp of the numberless battalions, and replied by craving mercy for the inhabitants of the city. She asked the general to wait upon her and bring witnesses to testify concerning the death of the king.

Amalickiah, looking very handsome in full armor, went to the palace and presented himself before the queen as she sat in state upon the throne. He was accompanied by Tish and the other conspirators, who had killed her husband. They all solemnly swore that the king had been slain by his own servants. They added, "They have fled. Does not this testify against them?" While she received the report, Amalickiah kept his dominating gaze on the queen's face. When she felt him looking at her, she dropped her eyes. After the others withdrew, Amalickiah remained to adjust affairs of state with the queen.

For three days the widow shut herself up in her chamber to mourn. During that time Amalickiah surfeited her with embankments of flowers and baskets of fruit. His multiple gifts were accompanied by a glib-tongued messenger, who lost no opportunity to sound his master's praises.

The lady, overburdened with the affairs of state, came to rely more and more on the big, strong, councillor. They were thrown much together and people began to wonder if there had been another reason for the king's sending Amalickiah away to the wars. He was a Nephite with the charm and manners of his race, and the queen was but a pawn. Only, since he was to marry her to gain the throne, he gloried in the fact that she was so beautiful.

So the two were wed, and Amalickiah, seated on the throne by the queen's side, was crowned king. She salved her conscience for her undue haste by ordering a splendid tomb for the remains of her former husband. She had the funeral chamber decorated with leopards, the coat of arms of Amalickiah.

He gave himself over to the pleasures of the court, but still unsatisfied, desired to rule the earth. Slowly he began to plan the vast campaign which would again mark the clash of the two greatest generals of the age, Moroni, commander-in-chief of the Nephites, and Amalickiah, king of the Lamanites, only now the latter had the barbarian hordes behind him.

IV.

Nemesis Overtakes Amalickiah.

Moroni again sat at his study table, while Teancum walked the floor like a caged hyena. The former was haggard-gray like a blasted tree; the latter vowed vengeance, in harsh, inarticulate sounds. Thus the two men took their sorrow differently. Word had come that day that the city of Moroni on the Atlantic coast had been sacked by Amalickiah. For certain reverses that his troops had met with at first, that worthy had sworn to drink Moroni's blood. City after city had fallen under his attack, and ruin and destruction followed in his wake. Finally Moroni's home town was captured. When Amalickiah found that he was cheated of his revenge, as Moroni had gone to Zarahemla, he had without mercy had the aged parents of Teancum and Moroni's young wife, Hirza, put to the sword. Her woman's wit had saved her boy, Moronihah, and sent him in safety to his father, but it could not save herself.

"The vampire has drunk your blood through Hirza's veins." Teancum stopped in his mad pace. "Poor Hirza, whose only fault was being loved by you."

Moroni groaned.

"It was a coward's trick," continued the other. "They are dead, my aged father and my poor old mother--Look you, Moroni, Amalickiah belongs to me. Before heaven I swear to kill him with these two hands!" He flung his powerful arms with clenched fists above his head.

"Nay, do not swear," cautioned Moroni. "Teancum, you have been given the command of the division that moves against the Lamanites tomorrow. Fight with the genius and tenacity you displayed on the narrow neck of land. For the rest I trust you implicitly. Now I would be alone."

* * * * * * * *

Amalickiah marched toward the land Bountiful driving the Nephites before him. On the last day he had been much harassed by the archers of Teancum that skirted the woods. When they reached the seashore they met the forces of Teancum drawn up in martial array. A pitched battle ensued in which the Nephites had the advantage over the footsore Lamanites who had been marching and fighting for many days, while their opponents were fresh. With nightfall hostilities ceased. "If Amalickiah were dead, there would be no more war; the snake cannot strike without its head," cogitated the Nephite.

Teancum sat in his tent and by the sputtering flame of a pine torch, was engaged in coloring his skin brown by rubbing it with the juice of a wood berry. His servant, who had already gone through the same performance, and was a Lamanite to all appearances, was sorting over rather gingerly, a pile of women's apparel.

"You are hard to please. Does nothing there suit you?" asked Teancum, with mocking irony.

"Nay, there are so many, I know not which to choose," replied the other in the same spirit.

"It need not be overly becoming in the dark. Let me warn you to make your skirts short, for you may have to run." So daring hearts make light of the gravest dangers.

The man servant replied with a vicious wrench as he got into the woman's garb.

Teancum surveyed him and laughed. "My word, you make a charming wench. Half the men in the Lamanite camp will try to flirt with you, and so defeat our adventure. Pull your scarf down more over your face, so."

The other grinned, displaying a mouth unfeminine in width. But he looked sober when Teancum handed him a battle axe with the remark, "If I fail, you may have an opportunity to finish it," Teancum himself tucked a double-edged dagger into his belt and took down his javelin. He then enveloped himself in a blanket.

As the two passed out, the servant in the yellow striped skirt of a drab, the other with the shuffling gait of a camp straggler, they attracted little attention. When they entered the camp of the Lamanites they elicited less, for the men slept with the abandonment of exhaustion. "A fellow and his girl out late," was all they thought, if they saw them at all.

As the couple picked their way among the tired soldiers one would occasionally open his eyes, see who it was, only grunt and turn over wearily. So without mishap they reached the tent of Amalickiah. Fortune was with them, for his servants were sleeping heavily. Although delay was fraught with danger, Teancum reconnoitered a moment to ascertain just where Amalickiah lay. He was asleep on a camp couch with his arms by his side. A streak of moonlight straggled in and illumined his pale face.

For a moment Teancum poised his javelin in the air. Then he struck. So powerful was the arm that drove the weapon that it went through the sleeper's body, speared the heart, and he died without a groan.

Teancum joined his cowering companion at the entrance, and the two picked their way out of the hostile camp.

Not until morning did the Lamanite hordes raise a wail for their dead king. They had just found his corpse, stark and cold, stuck through with a javelin.

AMMON'S MISSION TO THE LAMANITES.

I.

AMMON EMBARKS ON A MISSION

Ammon was the Napoleon of the western hemisphere. One trembles to think what a man of such power might have done, had he used it for his own aggrandizement, instead of converting souls. He was a king's son, and though not the eldest, he was chief among his brothers, for his name is always mentioned first.

During a brilliant and careless youth, the whole course of his life had been metamorphosed by a miracle. Thenceforth he consecrated his life to the work of the Lord, beside which a mere earthly kingdom sank into insignificance.

When Mosiah, king of the Nephites, waxed old, there was no one to take his place as his four sons had elected to go as missionaries to the Lamanites. His death marked the beginning of the reign of the judges.

Heavily armed, the missionaries departed into the wilderness. Their weapons were not designed for their fellow man, but for wild game that they should kill for food. That they went hungry was not due to their lack of prowess, for they often chose to fast that the spirit of the Lord would be with them. Nor was their sacrifice without effect, for the Lord promised them that if they made examples of their lives that they should be instruments in his hands unto the salvation of many souls.

It was characteristic of Ammon that he should separate from his companions and go up to the land of Ishmael alone. Here, skirting the woods, he was captured by the Lamanites, and, like every Nephite caught on their borders, was taken before their king.

Lamoni was in a good humor. He had just returned from the hunt where he had killed the silver fox. As he threw himself back on his divan, he took in the points of the prisoner with the keen eye of a connoisseur. With discriminating approval, he noted the swelling muscles beneath the loose garments of the white man, but with black suspicion, demanded, "What are you doing here?"

"I was entering your country when I was violently assaulted and bound with thongs of buckskin." Ammon looked ruefully, down at his chafed ankles.

"May I ask what you were entering the country for?"

"I came here to live."

"You came here to live!" repeated the king stupidly.

"Yes, and I may stay until I die."

"Which may be soon, judging by the fate that your last two countrymen, that encroached on my borders, met. What crime did you commit in Zarahemla that makes you an outcast?"

"None. I came here of choice, not of necessity."

"Then you are a merchant?"

"No. I am a king's son and need nu money."

Lamoni looked puzzled. Clearly he could not understand this man, yet his words carried conviction.

"I am a missionary," explained Ammon simply. "I have come here to preach the gospel of righteousness."

"I know that your people have preserved some remnants of the truth that we have lost. You say that you have relinquished your father's kingdom to come and live among us?" he asked incredulously, obviously flattered.

"What is that compared with the salvation of souls? Who knows but what if we come to one belief that these bloodthirsty wars between our two peoples shall cease?"

"Cut this man's bonds," ordered Lamoni, pleased with his new guest.

Like a hound loosed from leash, Ammon shook off his fetters and stood forth majestically.

Lamoni opened his mouth to speak, when suddenly his jaw dropped and the utterance died on his lips. A woman's laugh, shrill and taunting, came from the terrace and recalled his chief trouble to the king. His brow puckered. His daughter, Alla, was the trial of his life. She kept the court in a continuous uproar. Not the least of her faults was that she was an incorrigible flirt and kept the nobles in continual hot water with her coquetries. It would not have been so bad if she had confined her operations to the nobility, but she showed a democratic predilection for commoners that was at least alarming. More than once, he had tried to marry her off but his and the princess' choice had never fallen on the same person. Only three days before, she had lured two young men into an embroglio with the result that one carried his arm in a sling while the other had lost the temporary use of an eye. When openly charged with encouraging them, Alla had shamelessly confessed that she led men on to see what they would do under certain circumstances. Hers was a woman's insatiate curiosity, which, deprived of books, read people in lieu thereof.

Lamoni was seized with a sudden inspiration. "Tell Alla to come here."

The servant sped out, but Ammon was not prepared for the apparition that presently appeared.

"You wanted me, father?" Of strong rather than beautiful features as she stood there in regal robes she was every inch a princess. She was dressed with the care bred of the knowledge that every detail was dear to the heart of a man. Yet Alla did not make her conquests at first sight. They were wrought out of the diabolical cunning of her brain, but once she got her grip on a man--she did not let go.

"This is Ammon, son of King Mosiah. Since he purposes to dwell among us I shall give him you for a wife," announced Lamoni. Turning to the man he continued, "That you may appreciate the honor I confer upon you, I will add that the hand of my daughter has been sought by every noble in the kingdom." He did not explain that a decision in any one's favor would probably precipitate civil war and that he was pawning her off on the newcomer to gain peace for himself.

"I do not know him," interposed Alla.

"The women of our country choose their own husbands," abetted Ammon. "Moreover, missionaries do not marry. They cannot divide their attention between their work and a woman."

"Then you refuse her," repeated the king dully. The humor of the situation burst on him. "Alla, there is one man who will not have you."

With one look at Ammon, she tossed her head and swept out.

"She will make you regret it," remarked Lamoni with a twinkle in his eye, "No one ever offends Alla with impunity."

"I meant no offense to the princess. Under the circumstances what else could I say?"

"Since you have refused to become the king's son-in-law, may I ask what you propose to do?"

"No work is too humble for my new calling. Let me be your servant," he suggested with enthusiasm.

"The training of a king's son seldom fits a man for labor. What can you do?"

"I have herded cattle and I love the open."

"Then a cattle herder you shall be."

He clapped his hands. To the servant that appeared he ordered, "Take this man and give him a place among the herders. Provide him with all necessities." To Ammon he said, "If there is anything I can do for you let me know. I shall see you again." They were dismissed and with a sigh of relief he sank back among his cushions.

II. THE CATTLE HERDER.

For three days Ammon rode among the cattle. A born horseman he sat well the king's mount that had been sent him. During that time he had seen no more of Princess Alla though his ears had been filled with a multitude of servant's tales about her that were both weird and startling.

It so chanced that early in the morning as the herders drove the cattle to the waters of Sebus to drink, that the robbers from the mountains had congregated there to scatter the herds. This was not an unusual thing for the vast wealth of Lamoni in live stock was known and coveted. A rather peculiar criminal code existed, by which any servants who allowed the king's cattle to be stolen, were put to death, while the robbers retreated to their mountain fastnesses unmolested. This prevented collusion but encouraged the thieves.

As the cattle neared the river the robbers, with wild whoops, plunged in among them, scattering them in all directions. This was what they wanted so they could drive them off in bunches to their rendezvous. Ammon, who was not familiar with the conditions, viewed the scene with astonishment; but his surprise knew no bounds when he beheld the king's servants throw themselves violently to the ground and begin to weep in a paroxysm of grief.

"Look here, you will be run over," he cried heading off a frightened heifer. The chief danger was over, as the stampede was swallowed up in a cloud of dust across the plains.

"We are all dead men," wailed an old man to whom life was still sweet.

"I leave a young wife," added a youth in a lifeless monotone.

"What do you mean?" Ammon impatiently exclaimed.

"Simply this," explained a man of middle age, "when the king's cattle are stolen, the herders are put to death."

"Then they must be brought back," said Ammon with finality. "Instead of driveling here, spread out to the sides and help drive them in when I turn them this way."

The others eyed him as if paralyzed as he dug his heels into his horse and sped off across the plains like the whirlwind. As his flying figure wa? swallowed up by a cloud of dust, they arose and mechanically began to spread out on the prairie.

Ammon was handicapped as the cattle had the start of him. He leaned forward and swirled his lariat in the air although his poor beast was already panting with distended nostrils. Slowly he gained on the herd which was impeded by its own numbers. His horse was frothing with foam as he reached the front. He dared not plunge in to destruction but he edged along the outskirts, curving the herd to one side. His alert eyes had espied the leader, a young bull, and he made for him. Without putting himself directly in its infuriated way, he uttered a wild whoop and almost imperceptibly turned him in another direction. The cattle followed suit and traveled in a circle and by the time that the cowboys hedged them in they were able to drive them back to the waters of Sebus.

The robbers, unprepared for such tactics, had after their first unsuccessful attempt massed themselves together at the watering place to again scatter the herds as they came up.