Lords of the World Part 2

"Well, I am ready. I have had my turn, a full share of the feast of life, and it would be a shameful thing if I was to grudge to go. But there is trouble ahead for those who are to come after me. I have done my best for my kingdom, yet nothing can save it long. You know, I had to choose, when I was about your age, between Rome and Carthage, and my choice was the right one. If I had taken sides with Carthage, Rome would have swallowed up this kingdom fifty years ago; as it is, she will swallow us up fifty years hence. Sooner or later we are bound to go. But it has lasted my time, and will last my sons' time too, if they are wise. And now, as to this matter. I have something to put in your charge. You have heard of Scipio?"

Cleanor nodded his a.s.sent.

"He came over here some two months ago, when I had had my first warning that my time was short, and that I had best set my affairs in order. No one had any notion but that he came on military business. The Romans had asked me for help, and I didn't choose to give it just then. They hadn't consulted me in what they had done, and it was time, I thought, that they should have a lesson. We did discuss these matters; but what he really came for was a more serious affair. I left it to him to divide my kingdom between my three sons. I had thought of dividing it in the usual way; this and that province to one, and this and that province to another. But he had quite another plan in his head, and it seemed to me wonderfully shrewd. 'Don't divide the kingdom,' he said; 'the three parts would be too weak to stand alone. Divide the offices of the kingdom. Let each prince have the part for which he is best fitted--one war and outside affairs, another justice, the third one civil affairs.'

Well, I took his advice, and had his settlement put in writing. The chief priest of the temple of Zeus in Cirta here has the doc.u.ment in his keeping."

After this the old man was silent for a time. Rousing himself again, for he had been inclined to doze, he said:

"Cleanor, are you here?"

"Yes, sire," replied the Greek.

"Don't leave me till all is over. And now give me a cup of wine."

"But, sire, the physician said--"

"Pooh! what does it matter if I die one hour or two or three hours before sunrise? And I want something that will give me a little strength."

Cleanor filled a cup and handed it to the king. "It hardly tastes as good as usual," said the old man, when he had drained it, "yet that, I can easily believe, is not the wine's fault, but mine. But tell me, do you think that I shall know anything about what is going on here when I am gone? What does Mastanabal say? I haven't had time to think about these things; but he reads, and you are something of a student too. What do the philosophers say?"

"Aristotle thinks, sire, that the dead may very well know something about the fortunes of their descendants--it would be almost inhuman, he says, if they did not--but that it will not be enough to make them either happy or unhappy."

"Well, the less one knows the better, when one comes to think. To see things going wrong and not be able to interfere!... But enough of this.... And now, Cleanor, about yourself. You do not love the Romans, I think?"

The young Greek's face flushed at the question.

"I have no reason to love them, sire."

"Very likely not. Indeed, who does love them? Not I; if I could crush them I would, as readily as I stamp my foot on a viper's head. But that is not the question. Can you make use of them? You shake your head. It does not suit your honour to pretend a friendship which you do not feel.

That has not been my rule, as you know, but there is something to be said for it. Well, it is a pity that you can't walk that way. Whether we love them or no, depend upon it, the future belongs to them. And I could have helped you with some of their great men. I have written a letter to Scipio, and two or three others to powerful people in Rome who would help you for my sake. You can deliver them or not as you please. But tell me, what are you going to do if the Romans are out of the question?"

"I thought of going to Carthage," answered the young man in a hesitating voice.

"Carthage!" repeated the king in astonishment. "Why, the place is doomed. It can't hold out more than a year,--or two at the outside. And then the Romans won't leave so much as one stone standing upon another.

They won't run the chance of having another Hannibal to deal with.

Carthage! You might as well put a noose round your neck at once!"

"I hope not, sire," said the young man. "And in any case I have only Carthage and Rome to choose between."

"Well," replied the old king after a pause, "you must go your own way.

But still I can help you, at least with some provision for the journey.

Put your hand under my pillow and you will find a key."

The young man did as he was told.

"Now open that chest in yonder corner, and bring me a casket that you will find wrapped up in a crimson shawl."

Cleanor brought the casket and put it into the king's hands. Masinissa unlocked it and took out a rouleau of gold pieces, which he gave to Cleanor. "That will be useful for the present," he said; "but gold is a clumsy thing, and you can hardly carry about with you what would serve for a single year. This bit of parchment is an order for a thousand ounces of gold--five hundred thousand sesterces in Roman money--on Caius Rabirius, knight, of the Coelian Hill in Rome, who has kept some money for me for thirty years or more. You can sell the parchment to Bocchar the banker in Cirta here. He will charge you something for his commission, but it will save you trouble. And he will keep the money for you, or whatever part of it you please. It is a very handy way of carrying about money; but there is another that is more handy still."

The old man took out a small leather bag full of precious stones.

"These," he said, "you can always hide. It is true that the merchants will cheat you more or less when you want to sell them. Still, you will find these stones very useful."

The jewels were worth at least five times as much as the order on the parchment. "It is too much," murmured the Greek. "I did not expect--"

"It is true that you did not expect. I have seen that all along, and that is one of the reasons why I give it. And as for the 'too much', you must leave me to judge about that. My sons will find treasure enough when they come to divide my goods between them. I have been saving all my life, and this is but a trifle which they will not miss, and which you will find very useful. And now give me another cup of wine. After this I will sleep a while. You will stay,--and don't let that young villain Jugurtha come near me."

Two or three hours afterwards Cleanor was startled to see the old man raise himself in bed, a thing which he had not been able to do without help for three or four days past. He hastened to the bedside, but the king, though his eyes were wide open, did not seem to see him. Yet something there was that he saw; his was no vacant stare, but a look full of tenderness. Then he began to speak, and his voice had a soft tone of which Cleanor could not have believed it capable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE OLD KING, THOUGH HIS EYES WERE OPEN, DID NOT SEEM TO SEE CLEANOR."]

"So, sweetest and fairest, you have not forgotten me; you, as all men know, no one can forget. Why am I in such haste? Nay, dearest, look in your mirror for an answer. And besides, when you are mine, the Romans can have nothing more to say. Till to-morrow, then--but stay, let me give you a little token. Nay,"--and his voice changed in an instant to a note of horror--"what, pray, has changed my love-gift into this? Faugh!"

And with a gesture as of one who dashed something to the ground, he sank down upon the bed, and in another moment was sleeping again.[5]

Early the next morning the king's three sons, who had heard the physician's report of their father's health, arrived at the palace.

Their emotion, as they knelt by the dying king, was genuine, though probably not very deep. The old man was perfectly self-possessed and calm.

"My sons," he said, "I have done my best for you. Probably you will not like it. What is there, indeed, that you would all like? But lay your hands on my head and swear that you will accept what I have done. What it is you had best not know till I am gone. But trust me that I have been just to all of you."

The princes took the oath.

"Cleanor here knows where I have put away my testament, but he is bound by me not to tell till I am buried. And now farewell! Don't wait for the end. You will have your hands full, I warrant, as soon as the tribes know that the old man is gone."

The princes left the room and the old man turned his face to the wall and seemed to sleep. All the rest of that day Cleanor watched, but noticed no change. Just before dawn he heard the sleeper draw two or three deep breaths. He bade the slave who was in waiting in the ante-chamber call the physician.

But the man of science found no movement either of pulse or heart. When he held a mirror to the mouth, there was not the faintest sign of breath upon it. The world had seen the last of one of the most wonderful of its veterans.

FOOTNOTES:

4: Numidia corresponds roughly to Algeria, Mauretania to Morocco.

5: In his youth Masinissa was betrothed to Sophonisba, the accomplished and beautiful daughter of Hasdrubal, son of Gisco.

The engagement was broken off for political reasons. Hasdrubal made Sophonisba's hand the price of an alliance which he wished Syphax, Masinissa's rival in the struggle for the Numidian throne, to contract with Carthage. In the war that followed, Syphax was defeated, first by the Romans, afterwards by Masinissa himself, who took Cirta, his capital, and in it Sophonisba. To marry her at once seemed to the conqueror the only way of saving her from the Romans. But the marriage did not suit the policy of Rome, which dreaded the hostile influence which such a woman might exercise. Scipio (the Elder), who was in command, insisted that Sophonisba should be given up; and Masinissa, to save her the humiliation of captivity, sent her a cup of poison.

CHAPTER IV.

SCIPIO.

The old king's body was roughly embalmed, in order to give some time before the celebration of the funeral. This was a more splendid and impressive ceremony than had ever been witnessed in that region. The news of Masinissa's death had been carried far into the interior with that strange, almost incredible rapidity with which great tidings commonly travel in countries that have no regular means of communication. The old man had been one of the most prominent figures in Northern Africa for a s.p.a.ce more than equal to an ordinary lifetime. Nor had he been one of the rulers who shut themselves up in their palaces, and are known, not in their persons, but by their acts. His long life had been spent, one might say, in the saddle. There was not a chief in the whole region that had not met him, either as friend or as foe. Many had heard from their fathers or grandfathers the traditions of his craft as a ruler and his prowess as a warrior, and now they came in throngs to pay him the last honours. From the slopes of the Atlas range far to the west, and from the south as far as the edge of what is now called the Algerian Sahara, came the desert chiefs, some of them men who had never been seen within the walls of a city. For that day, at least, were suspended all the feuds of the country, many and deadly as they were. It was the greatest, as it was the last honour that could be paid to the great chief who had done so much to join these warring atoms into a harmonious whole.

The bier was carried by representatives of the states which had owned the late king's sway. Behind it walked his three sons; these again were followed by the splendid array of the war-elephants with their gorgeous trappings. The wise beasts, whom the degenerate successors of the old African races have never been able to tame,[6] seemed to feel the nature of the occasion, and walked with slow step and downcast mien. Behind the elephants came rank after rank what seemed an almost interminable cavalcade of hors.e.m.e.n. The procession was finished by detachments of Roman troops, both infantry and cavalry, a striking contrast, with their regular equipment and discipline, to the wild riders from the plains and hills of the interior.

The funeral over, there was a great banquet, a scene of wild and uproarious festivity--a not unnatural reaction from the enforced gravity of the morning's proceedings. Cleanor, who had the sober habits which belonged to the best type of Greeks, took the first opportunity that courtesy allowed of withdrawing from the revel.