Half A Hundred Hero Tales Part 36

His ministers and courtiers heard him astonished. They spoke among themselves with bated breath of the thing the King proposed to do.

How could the business of the realm go on without the King's recognized seal to set upon his ordinances? The news spread through the palace, where astonishment was mingled with consternation, and consternation with admiration of the King who would sacrifice so great a treasure to propitiate the G.o.ds for the good of his realm. From the palace the news spread to the town, and men gathered in knots to discuss it, and women ran from house to house to tell and hear it.

Then they saw the royal barge of fifty oars being swiftly prepared for sea. The crowds of workers left their toil in the workshops of the town and cl.u.s.tered on the quay. They looked and saw the King coming in procession from the palace, his ministers about him, his courtiers following after. A frown was on his brow and a fierce resolve in his eyes. And as he pa.s.sed along the gangway they marked that his royal hand was bare; no green fire shone from it like a glow-worm at night.

Out, far out into the sea the rowers drove the swift galley; the water boiled beneath the keel, and fled hissing from the stroke of those fifty oars. At last the silent King made a sign, and the oars flashed out of the water, scattering a silver fountain of spray.

Thrice the King raised his arm in act to throw, and thrice as he eyed the priceless gem he clutched it in his open palm. But the fourth time he closed his dazzled eyes and flung it far from him. And the great emerald, as it fell into the main, flashed like a streamer in the northern sky.

No sign that the G.o.ds accepted his sacrifice followed the deed. The sun shone bright overhead, and below was the innumerable laughter of the waves.

The King made a sign with the hand, now so significantly bare, and the galley sped back to the quay. And all the days that followed there was mourning in the palace, the King was wrapped in gloom, the business of the state seemed to have been brought to a standstill.

On the sixth day a humble fisherman climbed to the palace gates, bearing as a gift a royal sturgeon. "Accept, O King," he cried, "an offering worthy of thee. For three-score years have I plied my humble trade, yet never before have my nets brought to land so goodly a fish."

Polycrates thanked the fisherman and bestowed on him a purse of gold, and the fish he ordered to be served for that night's banquet.

The King was in his chamber, deep in state affairs, when a scullion came running demanding instant audience. In his hand was a jewel that flashed and glowed.

Polycrates stared in amazement, and then stretched forth his hand to seize the ring that had been miraculously restored. For when the fisherman's gift had been cut open the ring had been found in its belly.

The courtiers whispered together in fear: "What can this mean? Have the jealous G.o.ds rejected the sacrifice?"

But Polycrates was beside himself with joy. He wrote in haste to Amasis, King of Egypt, to tell him what had befallen. "Such good fortune as mine," he declared, "is una.s.sailable by G.o.ds or men."

But Amasis was of a different opinion. He felt that no power could avail to save a man so unnaturally fortunate from the vengeance of the jealous G.o.ds. He sent his herald to say that he renounced the friendship between them lest, said he, if some dreadful and great calamity befell Polycrates he might himself be involved in it!

Black anger at this desertion filled the heart of Polycrates. He heard that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, King of Persia, was on the point of invading Egypt with a great army, so he offered him help by sea.

Cambyses gladly accepted this alliance, and Polycrates despatched forty ships of war.

But in his heaven-sent blindness he manned them with malcontents and men of conquered nations whom he suspected of disloyalty and wished to remove--sending with them secretly a message to Cambyses that he did not wish a man of them to return.

These warriors mutinied before they reached the battle ground, and returned in war array against Samos, but they, too, failed and Polycrates became more powerful than ever. And then it was that Oroetes, the Persian satrap of Sardis, who had conceived a hatred of Polycrates, enticed the fortunate tyrant to visit him and seized upon him treacherously and crucified him, so that men might see how the jealous G.o.ds will not suffer a mortal to share immortal bliss, and that soon or late pride has a fall.

ROMULUS AND REMUS

BY MRS. GUY E. LLOYD

Every one has heard tell of Rome, that great city, already ancient when Caesar found on the sh.o.r.es of Britain woad-painted savages living in a swamp where now stands the mightiest city in the world. The story of Romulus and Remus tells of the founding of this ancient city, and how it took its name from its first king.

Older even than Rome was a town built on a hill not far away by Iulus, son of aeneas, of whose wanderings you have heard, and called Alba Longa, the Long White City.

When my story begins it was ruled by King Amulius. He had no right to the throne, but he had seized it by force from his elder brother, Numitor, who was a peace-abiding man, and no match for his ambitious brother.

Amulius had nothing to fear from the gentle Numitor, who abode with his flocks and herds, but his guilty conscience would not let him rest, and he lived in terror lest one day the children of Numitor should avenge their father's wrongs and take the throne that was theirs by right of inheritance.

So he hired a.s.sa.s.sins to kill the boy, and the girl, Sylvia, he doomed to be a vestal virgin. These were maidens vowed to remain single all their lives, and to watch the ever-burning fire in the shrine of the G.o.ddess Vesta; this could only be kept alive by spotless virgins, and on its life depended the safety of the city--of Alba first, and afterwards of Rome.

But the G.o.d Mars, whom all Romans worship as the leader of their hosts and the founder of their race, looked with pity on the maid, and willed not that the seed of Numitor should perish. So he visited her as she lay asleep in the temple of Vesta, and he sent her a wonderful dream.

She dreamt that as she sat and watched the sacred fire, she dozed, and the fillet slipped from her brow, and from the fillet there sprang two palm trees that grew and spread till their tops reached the heavens, and their branches overspread all the earth. Seven times did she dream the same dream, and she knew at last that it was a message of the G.o.d.

And lo, in due time there were born to her twin sons of more than mortal beauty.

When Amulius heard of the birth of these twins his wrath was kindled.

He commanded that Sylvia should forthwith be buried alive, for that is the punishment appointed for virgins unfaithful to their vows; and himself seizing the wicker cradle in which the babes lay asleep, he flung it into the yellow Tiber.

But Mars was mindful of his own. The mother, Sylvia, was nowhere to be found, for the G.o.d had spirited her away in safety, and the helpless babes, still sleeping quietly, floated upon the turbid waters as though their cradle had been a boat, while Father Tiber quelled his raging flood to let them pa.s.s unharmed.

On drifted the frail bark down the river till it came to where, at the foot of a hill, stood a great wild fig tree, its gnarled roots laid bare by the wash of the flood. The floating cradle was driven against the roots of this tree and held fast there, for the water had reached its highest level and was beginning now to ebb.

Through all the roaring of the raging river the babes had slept, but now, with a start, they awoke and looked up, expecting to see their mother bending over them and ready to take them to her breast. But over their heads they saw only a glimmer of twilight through the branches of the fig tree, and there was no sound save the sough of the wind and the lapping of the waters, and now and again the distant howl of a wolf seeking its evening meal. Cold and hungry, they cried piteously. Presently, through the gathering darkness, two green eyes stared down at them. It was a great gray she-wolf, and the hungry babes hushed their cry and gazed in wonder at those lamps of fire.

The wolf sniffed all round the cradle; then she pushed it with her forepaws till it fell right over on its side and the two infants rolled out of it. She licked them gently with her rough tongue, and they cuddled to her warm flanks and clutched instinctively with their tiny fingers at her s.h.a.ggy fell. She dragged them gently up the hillside, away from the water, to a mossy cavern where she had her lair, and there she gave them milk as though they had been her own cubs, and nestling close against her the babes fell asleep.

It chanced that Faustulus, the chief herdsman of King Amulius, went forth one morning to see if the floods were abated and the pastures once more clear. As he wandered along at the foot of the Palatine hill he saw a cradle lying on its side beneath a fig tree. He went towards it, and as he neared the place his eye was caught by something moving within the dark shadow of an overhanging rock. He bent his steps to the cave to see what might be within it, when on a sudden a she-wolf sprang out and away among the bushes before he could aim a dart at her; and, to his amazement, a green woodp.e.c.k.e.r, with a piece of bread in its beak, came fluttering forth from the hollow. Both wolf and woodp.e.c.k.e.r, you must know, are special servants of Mars, and these were doing his pleasure and tending the helpless infants.

Faustulus came to the cave and stooped to look in. There, scrambling over one another on a soft bed of moss and fern, were two beautiful boys; and he marveled greatly, and said to himself: "These babes were not born of common mortals, but of one of the immortal G.o.ds. A naiad, or haply a river-G.o.d, must have interposed to save them from the flood, and to feed them with ambrosia, the food of the G.o.ds."

So he took them home to his wife Laurentia, and told her the tale. And when she saw their innocent faces her motherly heart was stirred with love and pity, and she tended them as though they had been her own sons, and called them Romulus and Remus.

The boys grew up brave and strong. When they were old enough they helped the herdsmen of King Amulius; and, because they were ever foremost where there was danger, all the other lads came to look up to them as leaders. It was a life that pleased the twins well. All day they wandered on the slopes of the hills, guarding the grazing cattle from wild beasts or robbers, and at night all the herdsmen would join together and make a camp in some sheltered valley or beneath spreading trees on the mountain side. And here they would build great fires to keep off the wolves, and would lie beside them, singing songs or telling tales to one another.

Sometimes the herdsmen of King Amulius had desperate fights with other herdsmen over good camping-grounds, or fertile pastures, or safe watering-places, or over the ownership of strayed cattle. More especially were their quarrels fierce and frequent with the herdsmen of Numitor, whose grazing-grounds marched with those of King Amulius.

Sometimes, after these fights, the herdsmen of Numitor would complain to their master of the two tall striplings who constantly led the herdsmen of Amulius to victory.

At length, one day they laid an ambush and caught Remus, and bore him away to Numitor. As soon as the deposed king saw the lad he was reminded of the face of his long-lost daughter Sylvia, and he eagerly desired to see Romulus also.

Faustulus and his foster-son were wondering what could have befallen Remus, and were preparing to set out in search of him, when they saw a band of youths approaching, with olive boughs in their hands, in token that they came on a peaceful errand.

"Wherefore come you hither, friends?" asked Romulus.

The leader of the band made answer: "Our master, Numitor, has sent us, Romulus, to pray thee to hasten to his presence."

"Nay," answered Romulus, "I cannot go with you, for I must seek my brother Remus, who is lost."

Then said the herdsman: "Fear not for thy brother. He is already with our master Numitor."

Then Faustulus, who long ago had guessed who the boys must be, said to Romulus: "Do thou the bidding of Numitor, and go with these youths. I myself will go with thee, and will tell thee on the way certain matters that it much imports thee to know."

So on the way to the hall of Numitor, Faustulus told Romulus all the tale of the wicker cradle caught beneath the fig tree, and of the wolf and woodp.e.c.k.e.r that had tended the helpless babes.

When the herd-lads saw Romulus pa.s.s by they followed him, armed with staves and slings, to see that no harm should come to him; for they loved him and his brother well, and counted them their leaders.

As soon as Numitor saw the two lads together and heard the tale of their finding, he was sure that they must be the children of his daughter Sylvia.

And Romulus and Remus, when they knew of the evil deeds of their great-uncle Amulius, determined to take vengeance on him.