Chivalric days, and the boys and girls who helped to make them

Front matter

fojmigM'N 0 -

COEmiGHT DEPOSED

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Preface

All days may be chivalric, however barren they may seem of opportunity for heroic action. For, as truth and honor, courtesy and gentleness, purity and faith can never grow old ; as valor and courage, kindliness of heart and knightliness of soul, are ever the highest orders of nobility ; so all days may be full of chivalry, all deeds may be instinct with that earnestness of purpose that lives in the heart of every well-regulated girl or boy.

In the belief that this earnestness of purpose has been a part of girl and boy nature from the earliest times, however it may have been dulled by unhelpful surroundings or marred by unchecked passions, the author of this volume seeks to present a few pictures in outline suggestive of certain historic scenes in which the girls and boys of the past have been central or subordinate figures. Few of these young people are models ; all of them are human. For boys have been boys and girls have been girls from the days of ancient Thebes to those of modern London and New York. In every age young hearts have throbbed with hopes and fears ; young lives have felt alike the joy of triumph and iii

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the gloom of defeat. But from gloom, as from triumph, may come and have come a strength of purpose and a manliness of character that show in the gentleness of a life its true chivalry, and in its thoughtfulness for others the noblest and most helpful deeds. Not alone to the youth of his own knightly days but to the boys and girls of every age might be committed that definition of chivalry given by Sir Philip Sidney, the hero of Zutphen :

“ High erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy.”

Of the stories presented in this volume, three have already appeared in the pages of St. Nicholas magazine, viz.: “The Story of the Field of the Cloth of Gold,” “ The Cloister of the Seven Gates,” and “ The Little Lord of the Manor.” One — “ The Captain of the Caravel ” — has been freely adapted from the French of that most charming of historic-story tellers — Mme. Eugenie Foa, and based upon an excellent translation by Mrs. N. P. Harrison ; the remaining stories have been specially written for this volume.

Grateful acknowledgment is here made to the Century Co. and the editor of St. Nicholas, for the use of certain cuts needed for the volume, as also to the Brooklyn Library for the freedom of its valuable reference collection.

Contents

PAGE

I. — Cinderella’s Ancestor i

II. — The Favored of Baal 23

II. The Favored Of Baal

{A Story of the Great A frican Republic.')

HERE was once upon a time a rocky headland jutting out into an azure sea. To-day headland and sea still feel the glory and fervor of the warm southern sun, but only a waste of rock and sand and the mean houses of a little Moorish town mark the spot where, centuries ago, from the waters edge southward to the Libyan hills rose the walls and towers, the temples and palaces, the groves and gardens of a mighty city.

Look upon your map of Africa for the country of modern Tunis on the northern shore of the great southern continent. Northeast of the city of Tunis you will see a promontory running out into the Mediterranean, terminating in the cape called Bon. In the broad sweep of the bay running westward around to Cape Farina and now called the Gulf of Tunis, another promontory,

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about six miles northeast from the modern city of Tunis, ran out into the sea. This was the site of ancient Carthage, one of the noblest cities of the long ago, founded nearly a thousand years before the Christian era by Dido Elissa, — the runaway Phoenician queen, whose romantic story you will some day read in Virgil’s great poem of the ^Eneid. Peopled thus by the Phoenicians, those adventurers, sailors, explorers, and merchants of the ancient world, Carthage soon grew to be a rich and prosperous city. It had possessions and colonies all along the northern coast of Africa, in Sicily and Sardinia, in Spain and the Balearic Islands. Its galleys, rowed by well-trained oarsmen, had borne its gold and its merchandise into every Mediterranean port, and carried its great bronze standard of the Horse and the Palm-tree through the Straits of Gibraltar northward into the then unknown regions of France, of England, and of Ireland, and far southward along the unhealthy and tropical coasts of Western Africa.

And, as to the city itself, even Grecian jealousy and Roman hate have not been able entirely to blot out the records of its glory and grandeur. From its sculptured sea-gate on the Mediterranean, and its magnificent colonnade of pillared docks, the splendid city stretched up the height, its streets running at right angles, and lined with shops and palaces and massive six-story houses, until it reached the land-

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THE MERCHANTS OF CARTHAGE ATTACKED BY ROMANS.

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ward ramparts and the triple walls, in which were stabled the three hundred war elephants and the four thousand horses of the city’s garrison.

And this splendid city of merchant princes was, itself, the capital of a great republic, with a constitution and a government in many ways similar to those of our own home-land of America. It had a house of representatives of three hundred members, a senate of thirty, and two presidents, or “suffetes,” duly elected to their official positions. In the broad and beautiful forum, or market-place, stood the senate-house, where, as in our own capitol at Washington, the law-makers met to frame laws, make treaties, and decide important questions of state. From the forum northward to the hill of Byrsa, or the Acropolis, ran the Via Salutaris or Street of Health, leading to the splendid temple of Hisculapius, where, in secret council the senate and the presidents debated over grave and important matters.

At the date of our story, just two hundred and thirty-eight years before Christ, the two presidents were the Lord Hanno, the general of the army, and the Lord Hamilcar, the admiral of the fleets. The Lord Hanno was the representative of the aristocracy or rich men of Carthage, while the admiral Hamilcar was the representative of the democracy or people of the republic.

THE FA VO RED OF BAAL.

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Both the presidents, however, were very rich ; for the spoils of war and conquest had brought them great store of treasure, and the palace of the Lord Hamilcar Barca, the admiral, in the cypressshaded garden of his great estate, just outside the city, was splendidly built and richly furnished. His name, Hamilcar, meant the favorite of Hercules, and the additional title of Barca meant the lightning, so that his whole name signified “ the favorite of Hercules, terrible as the lightning.”

From all this you will infer, and rightly, that the Lord Hamilcar Barca, was a very fiery and very successful soldier; and this opinion was likewise held by the people and the armies of Carthage, by the Romans who had many a time felt his power, and especially by the great admiral’s dearly loved son, the little ten-year-old Hannibal.

At the time of our story the Lord Hamilcar Barca had just successfully conquered a terrible rebellion against the power of Carthage, brought about by the swarm of dissatisfied and underpaid foreign soldiery it had in its service. And because he had saved the republic from a fearful danger and from civil war, he was especially honored and made the head of the republic. Little Hannibal did not understand the reason for all this, but he knew that the streets of the great city rang with shouts and acclamations whenever the golden

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chariot of his father, drawn by four Numidian horses and surrounded by an escort of the “sacred band ” gorgeous in golden armor, rolled through the forum or up the Street of Health, and he felt that it was a fine thing to be the son of so great a man. For boys have loved the feeling of power and prominence in every age of the world’s history, and have made the most of their fathers’ glories and honors.

And to-day as the boy stood in the glittering chariot by the side of his father the Admiral-President, holding the ends of the silken reins that hung from the driver’s hands, one from among the shouting throng had thrown a wreath of olive leaves over the boy’s curly head, and all the people had clapped their hands in approval, and had shouted : “ Barca, Barca ! He is the son of Barca ! Hanna-Baal ; Hanna-Baal ! ”

Now Baal was the great deity of the Phoenicians and the chief of all the gods of the Carthaginians, and Hanna-Baal, which was the name of this ten-year-old son of the admiral, meant the favored or favorite of the great god Baal. What wonder then that little Hannibal felt very proud and happy as he received all this attention and homage from that shouting throng.

In the spreading shade of the thick cypress trees in the gardens of Megara — that beautiful suburb

THE YOUNG HANNIBAL.

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of Carthage in which stood the palace of Hamilcar — a little slave girl, whose fair face and golden hair proclaimed her to be one of the Gallic captives from across the sea, was playing with a small spotted guepard— the chetah or tamed tiger-cat which the old-time hunters of the East trained for the chase.

The guepard, of course, did not belong to the little Gallic slave girl. The bond-servants of the Carthaginians had but few pleasures and fewer pets. Like all the slaves of those old days, they were ground down by hard work and still harder taskmasters. But Hamilcar Barca was a kind and lenient lord, and the throng of slaves upon his great estate were better cared for and more justly treated than the majority of their comrades. Still the little Gyptis knew that it was not right for her to unloose and play with her young lord’s pet tiger-cat. Child-like, though, she enjoyed the sport all the more because it was a forbidden pleasure. Why is it that things we ought not to do seem so much more attractive and fascinating than those we know we can do ?

A long trumpet peal rang out on the sultry air. The narrow gateway was flung hastily open, and into the gardens dashed the chariot of the admiral. Little Hannibal sprang lightly to the ground, but as he saw the little slave girl trying to hide from his sight his spotted guepard, he ran toward her

THE FA VORED OF BAAL.

with an angry word, and raised his hand to strike. But the voice of his father withheld him.

“ Stop, my son,” said the admiral-president. “ He who is the Favored of Baal should not lift hand against a slave. It is a craven dog that doth devour the herds it should protect.”

The bright little fellow understood his fathers meaning, and with a flushed face he lowered his uplifted hand. Instead of striking the crouching slave girl he cast around the leopard’s neck the flower-chain of roses and pomegranates that the girl had woven, and together, boy and girl, master and slave, raced gayly away with the tiger-cat still deeper into the sunlit gardens.

The manner of the trained guepard was much like that of the domestic dog or cat, and the three playmates were soon having a glorious romp under the cypress trees, for boys and girls could play at jolly games in those old days, quite as heartily as they can to-day. But suddenly, as they rolled in a tangled heap at the foot of a giant cork-tree, there came a rush of wings, and a mighty bird — one of the strongest and fiercest of the species known as the lammergeyer, or bearded vulture — swooped down and twined its strong talons in the flimsy, veil-like tunic of the Gallic slave girl. The guepard, surprised and startled by the descent of the great bird, slunk frightened away ; the girl

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screamed in terror ; but young Hannibal, tearing off his short purple mantle, threw it over the bird’s white head, and then valiantly flinging his arms about its body strove to tear it away from the struggling girl. The vulture, thus blinded and attacked, beat about with its mighty wings, while endeavoring at the same time to release its enveloped head and its entangled talons. But though bruised and buffeted by the vulture’s wings, young Hannibal manfully held his ground, and as the bird’s feet became free from the meshes of poor Gyptis’ veil, “ the dauntless boy,” so the record says, “seized the great bird more firmly in his clutch and pressed it against his chest,” actually strangling the vulture in his strong and sinewy grasp.

There was a cry of delight from the avenue of palm-trees, and as boy and bird fell to the ground, the one exhausted and the other dead, the Admiral Hamilcar came into the cork-tree’s shade and saying, proudly, “ So, son of Hercules, there spake the blood of heroes,” he caught the boy in his arms and praised and petted him.

“ He who defends the weak and dares attack the fierce,” he said, “ is worthy to stand within the warchariot and face the charge of the elephants. My Hannibal will yet prove his valor as a son of Mago.”*

* Mago was the father of Queen Dido, the founder of Carthage, and was the ancestor to whom the family of Hannibal traced their descent.

THE FA VORED OF BAAL .

Then, taking the boy, though still so young, into his confidence as they sat upon the northern terrace of the palace and looked out upon the blue Mediterranean and toward the Italian coast, the admiral told his son of the might and power of Carthage, of the bitter enemies of the great republic who in distant Rome prayed and plotted for its downfall, and how it was for all true sons of Carthage to be loyal and strong in her honor and defence. He told how even now, the great city was becoming weakened and nerveless because its citizens knew but one desire, that of gain and gold, instead of striving for the strengthening and glory of the republic ; and he told him also that the time must surely come when the power of envious and relentless Rome would once again be hurled against the splendid city in deadly conflict, either to destroy or be destroyed.

“ He who can stay his hand from striking a helpless slave and yet can crush the vulture in his strong young arms ; he who can hold the tiger-cat in leash and guide his father’s war-steeds while yet a boy like you,” thus spoke the loving admiral, “ is one whom the republic may hope either to exalt in honor or to mourn gloriously.”

That very night, in secret council within the temple of zEsculapius, the senate of Carthage decided to strike a blow at Roman supremacy by extending

I the power of Carthage in the rich peninsula of Spain, and the Lord Hamilcar Barca, the admiral, was invested with the sole command of the armies and the fleets. Remembrance of Roman greed and cruelty and dread of Rome’s increasing power urged the brave admiral to accept, and this he did, only stipulating that the Lord Hasdrubal, whom the people of Carthage greatly loved, should be his second in command, and that men and means in plenty should be given him for the work of conquest.

The wonderful gardens of Hamilcar’s palace lay bathed in all the glory of the mid-winter month of Schebaz, the most perfect season in the Carthaginian year. The pomegranate trees were brilliant with their crimson flowers, while rose and fig-tree, cypress and sycamore, gave varied color to the brilliant scene. The terraced palace of spotted Numidian marble, four stories in height, glittered in the sun as down the broad stairway came the admiral-president to enter his gorgeous chariot. The noble Carthaginian was a tall and superbly built man of about thirty years. His splendid tunic of the violet silk of Tyre glittered with its golden brocade of vines and grapes, boots of gilded leather covered his feet, a collar of gems encircled his neck, large pearl pendants hung from his ears, a golden helmet covered his head, and his short bronzed battle-sword

THE FA VOTED OF BAAL.

hung at his side. The old Carthaginians had the real African love of display and of brilliant colors and ornaments.

The Admiral Hamilcar waited for the restive chariot horses to calm their prancing and curvetting, and, just as he was about to spring into his chariot, down the broad stairway like a rush of flame flashed the red mantle of the little Hannibal.

“ Let me too ride in the chariot with you, my father,” he cried, “and bid Iddibal give me the reins, that I may guide the horses through the Street of Health.”

Hamilcar lifted the boy until young Hannibal’s curly head rested upon his father’s helmet-crest.

“Nay, not at this hour, my boy,” he said, “for this is scarce a day for lads to trifle with affairs of state. This morning, my Hannibal, I seek the shrine of Hercules and the temple of the mighty Baal to crave the favor of the great gods upon my work in Spain.”

At once the boy flung his arms about his father’s neck, regardless of the gemmed collar and the violet tunic.

“Oh, then, my father,” he cried, “let me too go with you. Did you not tell me that a son of the republic should gladly give himself up to its honor and defence? And what am I, my father, but a son of Carthage ? ”

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Hamilcar smoothed the restless young head and said gravely : “ Alas, my boy, little can you know the full meaning of your words. I go to the temple to pledge my strength and life against the power of relentless Rome.”

“ Aye, but let me too go, my father,” persisted young Hannibal with eager voice. “ Let me too touch the victims and stand by your side at the altar. . See ” — and unclasping his encircling arms, he raised one brown and sturdy little fist aloft and shook it with vindictive energy — “see, my father; I, too, hate Rome !”

In an age when the test of courage was hatred rather than forgiveness, centuries before the “eye for an eye ” of Judea and of Rome had given place to the divine “ Love your enemies ” of the Sermon on the Mount, such a burst of passion as was this of young Hannibal’s was the surest way to a warlike father’s heart.

“ My noble boy,” cried Hamilcar with the deepest emotion, “ I do believe that you do mean all your fiery words. Great Hercules, my patron, did, even in his cradle, strangle the two mighty serpents sent for his destruction, and who can say that this son of mine, even though but a boy, may not do some mighty deed for Carthage and for Baal ? Will you go with your father to Spain and to glory, my Hannibal?”

THE FA VORED OF BAAL.

Go ? would he not indeed ? What boy of any spirit would say no to such a question, whatever his name and nation ?

And as young Hannibal sprang to his fathers side and took the chariot reins from Iddibal the driver, it would be hard to decide which was the proudest of the three — the manly little boy so full of energy and ambition, the noble admiral his father, or grim old Iddibal the charioteer, who had himself trained the eye and hand of this brave little lad to be free and fearless, steady and strong.

So they rode on to the city, under the arches of the aqueduct, through the cheering streets and the crowded forum until, at last, turning into the Street of Baal, they dashed up the height upon the crest of which stood the great temple of Baal Hammon, the supreme sun-god of the ancient Phoenicians and their descendants, the people of Carthage.

It was a noble edifice, a great vaulted and circular building two hundred feet across, its solid masonry rising high in air and surmounted with a triple dome. It was richly carved and decorated, and its twelve gates looked out over the mighty city, the rolling African plains, and the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean. Even Roman hate and destruction could not entirely obliterate it, and to-day the ruined pedestals of its twelve massive,

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fluted columns may still be seen lifting themselves above that waste of African sand and rock.

In the centre of this circular temple stood the great brazen image of Baal — the god to whose worship the faithless Hebrews so often turned in the ancient days, the one whose priests the grand old prophet, Elijah the Tishbite, put to shame on the slopes of Mount Carmel, and whose magnificent altar the wicked Phoenician princess, J ezebel, of T yre, reared in the very court of Ahab, King of Israel.

His rites were bloody and cruel, fit type of what, even in a beautiful and cultured city, may be done under the dark and vindictive faiths of Paganism. A noble war-horse, one of the fleetest and choicest of Hamilcar’s stables,* lay bound upon the great altar, and as the knife of the priest let out the lifeblood of the noble animal, Hamilcar the admiral placed one hand upon the victim and raising the other aloft toward the hideous brazen image with its head of an ox and its outstretched, open hands, he craved the favor of Baal, “ Lord of heaven and god of time,” to favor his new efforts for the good and glory of Carthage.

“ Then,” says Polybius, the old Greek historian, “when the libations and other rites were ended, Hamilcar, having commanded the rest that were

* Horses were offered as sacrifices to Baal, under the belief that the swiftest of animals would be an acceptable offering to the swiftest of immortal beings.

HANNIBAL BEFORE THE ALTAR.

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about the altar to retire, called Hannibal to him and caressed him.”

“ My Hannibal,” he said, “ and do you still desire to go with me to the army and to Spain ? ”

Even the sombre surroundings of that great temple of the ox-headed idol could not dampen the boy’s ardor or chill his hope of glory.

“ I have said it, my father,” he replied, with simple earnestness.

“ Then touch the victim on the altar of Baal, my son, and say as I do bid you,” said Hamilcar.

Boldly, yet with a serious and awe-filled face, the boy laid one hand upon the body of the sacrificed war-horse, and lifting the other as did his father, he repeated after him this oath of vengeance :

“ Hear me, O Baal ; lord of the heavens and god of time ; king of the two zones. By the stars ; by the meteors ; by the volcanoes ; by all that which burns ; by the thirst of the desert ; by the saltness of the sea ; by the ashes of my ancestors ; I, Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar, the son of Mago, admiral of the sea and ruler of the people, here before thee, Baal with the bull’s head, Baal the supreme, Baal Hammon, do swear eternal enmity to Rome ! Never to be friend or ally to Rome ; never to make treaty or alliance with Rome ; never to give succor or aid to Rome, but always and ever, to Rome, enmity and hate ! ”

HANNIBAL CROSSING THE ALPS

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A senseless and stupid array of words these must seem to us ; a needless and unhealthy promise for a father to enforce or a boy to make. An oath of vengeance and of hatred seems like a very terrible thing to us in these more enlightened days of liberty and of law. But we must study the character of people in the light of the times in which they lived. Let every boy and girl who has become interested in this brave little Carthaginian lad read the later life of Hannibal and the story of the “ Punic wars ” and see what was the effect of this oath in the temple of Baal upon the life of this son of the admiral-president. It inspired him to learn thoroughly, even while a boy, the art of war, and upon the death of his victorious father and of the Lord Hasdrubal, it raised him, at the age of eighteen, to the sole command of the Carthaginian armies in Spain ; it impelled him to brave the force and power of Rome in her own possessions, and, by one of the most masterly and daring moves in all history, to lead his army of one hundred thousand men across the towering Alps, conquer Italy, and only just miss the capture of Rome itself. It made him the untiring enemy of Rome until the day of his death, and, in the year 183 b.c., to poison himself rather than be the captive of Rome.

So Hannibal kept his oath. And though, to-day, Carthage, city of the merchants, once the splendid

THE FA VORED OF BAAL.

home of over seven hundred thousand busy and prosperous people, destroyed by the hatred and enmity of Rome, is so complete a ruin that even the records of its greatness are but few and imperfect, the name and fame of Hannibal stand out clear and imperishable.

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Even all the spitefulness and untruths of his Roman enemies and biographers cannot hide from the student of history his “courteous, mild, and chivalrous ” nature. And, notwithstanding his fearful oath of vengeance and the untiring energy of his life of battles, the boys of this nineteenth century of Christianity and progress can find much to admire and much to honor in the life-story of this greatest of all Carthaginians and one of the greatest of the world’s illustrious men — Hannibal, the relentless enemy of Rome, the curly-headed boy of ten, who in that splendid city of the long ago was hailed and honored as the Favored of Baal.

III. The Gage Of A Princess

{A Story of the Days of the Emperors.')

“ Thy right ; ho-ho! ” and the burly Dacian burst into a loud and scornful laugh. “ Thy right, indeed ! Why, boy, what right hath an hostage of the emperor ? Thou darst not even die without his word. What hope, then, hast thou to set thyself against me — against me, Galerius the Caesar, one crook of whose finger could do thee to death ? Ay, boy, could do thee to death, I say, ere ever so worthy a deed could come to the ears of that sallow-faced Caesar, thy father, who, men do say, is half Christian himself and therefore doubly accursed.”

The handsome face of the young lad against whom these bitter words were launched flushed angrily.

“ Have a care, have a care, Galerius,” he cried.

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“ For, big though thou art, and Caesar-elect though thou may’st be, thou shalt not say aught against Constantius, my father, while his son cloth live. Flavius Constantius doth outrank thee, proud one, and even though thou should’st call him sallow-faced,*”* he could give thee that in thy lying throat that could make thee turn sallow forever, never to show again thy must-colored nose and gluttonpainted cheek.”

The now thoroughly enraged Dacian soldier strode angrily forward and made one dash at the bold-tongued lad. But the young hostage darted nimbly to one side and clapped his hand to the hilt of the spatha, or short-handled sword that hung at his belt. Before, however, he could draw it in defence, a light touch fell upon his arm, and in between the angry disputants stepped a young girl. She laid a restraining hand upon the arm of each.

“ Nay, nay, good Galerius,” she said ; “and nay, too, my Valerius ; let not thy heated and unmeaning words stir up foolish and bitter strife. Sure, Galerius did but joke, even as did’st thou, my Valerius ; but ’t were hardly safe, methinks, to thus bandy guard-room jokes in the audience-hall of him who is friend and father alike, even as he is

* Constantius, the father of Constantine, was called, by his soldiers and by the Romans, Constantius Chlorus, or Constantius the Sallow-faced, from the natural paleness of his complexion, which was in marked contrast to the red or swarthy faces of his royal colleagues.

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emperor and lord, to the brave Caesar Galerius and to the noble hostage, Constantine.”

The young Constantine, whom the girl had called by his home name of Valerius, bent his shapely head in courteous acknowledgment of the merited reproof. But heavy-witted bodies are not so readily tamed as lighter ones, and the big Dacian, Galerius, grew even more angry at this linking of his name with that of young Constantine.

“ How, now, Valeria,” he said, gruffly, “ dost thou couple the name of this puling boy, who has scarce yet doffed his chlamys for his toga, with that of Galerius, the Caesar and the soldier ? Stand aside, girl, and let me but lay hand uj^on him. He shall rue the day that he dared thus insult the conqueror of Illyria and the terror of the Persian. Stand aside, I say, I will give him what he doth richly deserve — not the soldier’s steel, but the school-boy’s rod.”