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Title: The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander

Author: Frank R. Stockton

Release date: December 1, 2003 [eBook #10368]
                Most recently updated: December 19, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Bonny Fafard, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VIZIER OF THE TWO-HORNED ALEXANDER ***




Produced by Suzanne Shell, Bonny Fafard, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed
Proofreaders





THE VIZIER OF THE TWO-HORNED ALEXANDER

BY

FRANK R. STOCKTON


1899


PREFATORY NOTE

The story told in this book is based upon legendary history, and the
statements on which it is founded appear in the chronicles of Abou-djafar
Mohammed Tabari. This historian was the first Mussulman to write a general
history of the world. He was born in the year 244 of the Hejira
(838-839 A.D.), and passed a great part of his life in Bagdad, where he
studied and taught theology and jurisprudence. His chronicles embrace the
history of the world, according to his lights, from the creation to the
year 302 of the Hejira.

In these chronicles Tabari relates some of the startling experiences of
El Khoudr, or El Kroudhr, then Vizier of that great monarch, the
Two-Horned Alexander, and these experiences furnish the motive for
those subsequent adventures which are now related in this book.

Some writers have confounded the Two-Horned Alexander with Alexander the
Great, but this is an inexcusable error. References in ancient histories
to the Two-Horned Alexander describe him as a great and powerful
potentate, and place him in the time of Abraham. Mr. S. Baring-Gould, in
his "Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets," states that, after a careful
examination, he has come to the conclusion that some of the most generally
known legends which have come down to us through the ages are based on
incidents which occurred in the reign of this monarch.

The hero of this story now deems it safe to speak out plainly without
fear of evil consequences to himself, and his confidence in our high
civilization is a compliment to the age.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

I lent large sums to the noble knights

"Don't you do it"

His wife was a slender lady

"Time of Abraham!" I exclaimed

Moses asked embarrassing questions

An encounter with Charles Lamb

I cut that picture from its frame

When we left Cordova

I had been a broker in Pompeii

Solomon and the Jinns

"Go tell the queen"

She gave me her hand, and I shook it heartily

Asking all sorts of questions

And roughly told me

She turned her head

"How like!"

I proceeded to dig a hole

"Why are you not in the army?"

Nebuchadnezzar and the gardener

Petrarch and Laura

The crouching African fixed her eyes
upon him




THE VIZIER OF THE
TWO-HORNED ALEXANDER




I


I was on a French steamer bound from Havre to New York, when I had a
peculiar experience in the way of a shipwreck. On a dark and foggy
night, when we were about three days out, our vessel collided with
a derelict--a great, heavy, helpless mass, as dull and colorless
as the darkness in which she was enveloped. We struck her almost
head on, and her stump of a bowsprit was driven into our port bow
with such tremendous violence that a great hole--nobody knew of what
dimensions--was made in our vessel.

The collision occurred about two hours before daylight, and the frightened
passengers who crowded the upper deck were soon informed by the officers
that it would be necessary to take to the boats, for the vessel was
rapidly settling by the head.

Now, of course, all was hurry and confusion. The captain endeavored
to assure his passengers that there were boats enough to carry every
soul on board, and that there was time enough for them to embark
quietly and in order. But as the French people did not understand him
when he spoke in English, and as the Americans did not readily comprehend
what he said in French, his exhortations were of little avail. With such
of their possessions as they could carry, the people crowded into the
boats as soon as they were ready, and sometimes before they were ready;
and while there was not exactly a panic on board, each man seemed to be
inspired with the idea that his safety, and that of his family, if he had
one, depended upon precipitate individual action.

I was a young man, traveling alone, and while I was as anxious as any
one to be saved from the sinking vessel, I was not a coward, and I
could not thrust myself into a boat when there were women and children
behind me who had not yet been provided with places. There were men
who did this, and several times I felt inclined to knock one of the
poltroons overboard. The deck was well lighted, the steamer was settling
slowly, and there was no excuse for the dastardly proceedings which were
going on about me.

It was not long, however, before almost all of the passengers were
safely embarked, and I was preparing to get into a boat which was
nearly filled with the officers and crew, when I was touched on the
shoulder, and turning, I saw a gentleman whose acquaintance I had
made soon after the steamer had left Havre. His name was Crowder.
He was a middle-aged man, a New-Yorker, intelligent and of a social
disposition, and I had found him a very pleasant companion. To my
amazement, I perceived that he was smoking a cigar.

"If I were you," said he, "I would not go in that boat. It is horribly
crowded, and the captain and second officer have yet to find places
in it."

"That's all the more reason," said I, "why we should hurry. I am
not going to push myself ahead of women and children, but I've just
as much right to be saved as the captain has, and if there are any
vacant places, let us get them as soon as possible."

Crowder now put his hand on my shoulder as if to restrain me. "Safety!"
said he. "You needn't trouble yourself about safety. You are just as safe
where you are as you could possibly be in one of those boats. If they are
not picked up soon,--and they may float about for days,--their sufferings
and discomforts will be very great. There is a shameful want of
accommodation in the way of boats."

"But, my dear sir," said I, "I can't stop here to talk about that.
They are calling for the captain now."

"Oh, he's in no hurry," said my companion. "He's collecting his papers,
I suppose, and he knows his vessel will not sink under him while he is
doing it. I'm not going in that boat; I haven't the least idea of such
a thing. It will be odiously crowded, and I assure you, sir, that if the
sea should be rough that boat will be dangerous. Even now she is
overloaded."

I looked at the man in amazement. He had spoken earnestly, but he was as
calm as if we were standing on a sidewalk, and he endeavoring to dissuade
me from boarding an overcrowded street-car. Before I could say anything
he spoke again:

"I am going to remain on this ship. She is a hundred times safer than any
of those boats. I have had a great deal of experience in regard to vessels
and ocean navigation, and it will be a long time before this vessel sinks,
if she ever sinks of her own accord. She's just as likely to float as that
derelict we ran into. The steam is nearly out of her boilers by this time,
and nothing is likely to happen to her. I wish you would stay with me.
Here we will be safe, with plenty of room, and plenty to eat and drink.
When it is daylight we will hoist a flag of distress, which will be much
more likely to be seen than anything that can flutter from those little
boats. If you have noticed, sir, the inclination of this deck is not
greater now than it was half an hour ago. That proves that our bow has
settled down about as far as it is going. I think it likely that the water
has entered only a few of the forward compartments."

The man spoke so confidently that his words made an impression upon me.
I knew that it very often happens that a wreck floats for a long time,
and the boat from which the men were now frantically shouting for the
captain would certainly be dangerously crowded.

"Stay with me," said Mr. Crowder, "and I assure you, with as much reason
as any man can assure any other man of anything in this world, that you
will be perfectly safe. This steamer is not going to sink."

There were rapid footsteps, and I saw the captain and his second officer
approaching.

"Step back here," said Mr. Crowder, pulling me by the coat. "Don't let
them see us. They may drag us on board that confounded boat. Keep quiet,
sir, and let them get off. They think they are the last on board."

Involuntarily I obeyed him, and we stood in the shadow of the great
funnel. The captain had reached the rail.

"Is every one in the boats?" he shouted, in French and in English. "Is
every one in the boats? I am going to leave the vessel."

I made a start as if to rush toward him, but Crowder held me by the arm.

"Don't you do it," he whispered very earnestly. "I have the greatest
possible desire to save you. Stay where you are, and you will be all
right. That overloaded boat may capsize in half an hour."

[Illustration: "'DON'T YOU DO IT.'"]

I could not help it; I believed him. My own judgment seemed suddenly to
rise up and ask me why I should leave the solid deck of the steamer for
that perilous little boat.

I need say but little more in regard to this shipwreck. When the fog
lifted, about ten o'clock in the morning, we could see no signs of any
of the boats. A mile or so away lay the dull black line of the derelict,
as if she were some savage beast who had bitten and torn us, and was
now sullenly waiting to see us die of the wound. We hoisted a flag,
union down, and then we went below to get some breakfast. Mr. Crowder
knew all about the ship, and where to find everything. He told me he
had made so many voyages that he felt almost as much at home on sea
as on land. We made ourselves comfortable all day, and at night we went
to our rooms, and I slept fairly well, although there was a very
disagreeable slant to my berth. The next day, early in the afternoon,
our signal of distress was seen by a tramp steamer on her way to
New York, and we were taken off.

We cruised about for many hours in the direction the boats had probably
taken, and the next day we picked up two of them in a sorry condition,
the occupants having suffered many hardships and privations. We never
had news of the captain's boat, but the others were rescued by a
sailing-vessel going eastward.

Before we reached New York, Mr. Crowder had made me promise that I
would spend a few days with him at his home in that city. His family
was small, he told me,--a wife, and a daughter about six,--and he wanted
me to know them. Naturally we had become great friends. Very likely the
man had saved my life, and he had done it without any act of heroism or
daring, but simply by impressing me with the fact that his judgment was
better than mine. I am apt to object to people of superior judgment, but
Mr. Crowder was an exception to the ordinary superior person. From the
way he talked it was plain that he 'had much experience of various sorts,
and that he had greatly advantaged thereby; but he gave himself no airs on
this account, and there was nothing patronizing about him. If I were able
to tell him anything he did not know,--and I frequently was,--he was very
glad to hear it.

Moreover, Mr. Crowder was a very good man to look at. He was certainly
over fifty, and his closely trimmed hair was white, but he had a fresh
and florid complexion. He was tall and well made, fashionably dressed,
and had an erect and somewhat military carriage. He was fond of talking,
and seemed fond of me, and these points in his disposition attracted
me very much.

My relatives were few, they lived in the West, and I never had had a
friend whose company was so agreeable to me as that of Mr. Crowder.

Mr. Crowder's residence was a handsome house in the upper part of the
city. His wife was a slender lady, scarcely half his age, with a sweet
and interesting face, and was attired plainly but tastefully. In general
appearance she seemed to be the opposite of her husband in every way. She
had suffered a week of anxiety, and was so rejoiced at having her husband
again that when I met her, some hours after Crowder had reached the house,
her glorified face seemed like that of an angel. But there was nothing
demonstrative about her. Even in her great joy she was as quiet as a dove,
and I was not surprised when her husband afterward told me that she was a
Quaker.

[Illustration: "HIS WIFE WAS A SLENDER LADY."]

I was entertained very handsomely by the Crowders. I spent several days
with them, and although they were so happy to see each other, they made
it very plain that they were also happy to have me with them, he because
he liked me, she because he liked me.

On the day before my intended departure, Mr. Crowder and I were smoking,
after dinner, in his study. He had been speaking of people and things that
he had seen in various parts of the world, but after a time he became a
little abstracted, and allowed me to do most of the talking.

"You must excuse me," he said suddenly, when I had repeated a question;
"you must not think me willingly inattentive, but I was considering
something important--very important. Ever since you have been here,
--almost ever since I have known you, I might say,--the desire has been
growing upon me to tell you something known to no living being but
myself."

This offer did not altogether please me; I had grown very fond of Crowder,
but the confidences of friends are often very embarrassing. At this moment
the study door was gently opened, and Mrs. Crowder came in.

"No," said she, addressing her husband with a smile; "thee need not let
thy conscience trouble thee. I have not come to say anything about
gentlemen being too long over their smoking. I only want to say that
Mrs. Norris and two other ladies have just called, and I am going down
to see them. They are a committee, and will not care for the society of
gentlemen. I am sorry to lose any of your company, Mr. Randolph,
especially as you insist that this is to be your last evening with us;
but I do not think you would care anything about our ward organizations."

"Now, isn't that a wife to have!" exclaimed my host, as we resumed our
cigars. "She thinks of everybody's happiness, and even wishes us to feel
free to take another cigar if we desire it, although in her heart she
disapproves of smoking."

We settled ourselves again to talk, and as there really could be no
objection to my listening to Crowder's confidences, I made none.

"What I have to tell you," he said presently, "concerns my life,
present, past, and future. Pretty comprehensive, isn't it? I have long
been looking for some one to whom I should be so drawn by bonds of
sympathy that I should wish to tell him my story. Now, I feel that
I am so drawn to you. The reason for this, in some degree at least, is
because you believe in me. You are not weak, and it is my opinion that
on important occasions you are very apt to judge for yourself, and not
to care very much for the opinions of other people; and yet, on a most
important occasion, you allowed me to judge for you. You are not only
able to rely on yourself, but you know when it is right to rely on
others. I believe you to be possessed of a fine and healthy sense of
appreciation."

I laughed, and begged him not to bestow too many compliments upon me,
for I was not used to them.

"I am not thinking of complimenting you," he said. "I am simply telling
you what I think of you in order that you may understand why I tell you
my story. I must first assure you, however, that I do not wish to place
any embarrassing responsibility upon you by taking you into my confidence.
All that I say to you, you may say to others when the time comes; but
first I must tell the tale to you."

He sat up straight in his chair, and put down his cigar. "I will begin,"
he said, "by stating that I am the Vizier of the Two-horned Alexander."

I sat up even straighter than my companion, and gazed steadfastly at him.

"No," said he, "I am not crazy. I expected you to think that, and am
entirely prepared for your look of amazement and incipient horror. I will
ask you, however, to set aside for a time the dictates of your own sense,
and hear what I have to say. Then you can take the whole matter into
consideration, and draw your own conclusions." He now leaned back in his
chair, and went on with his story: "It would be more correct, perhaps,
for me to say that I was the Vizier of the Two-horned Alexander, for
that great personage died long ago. Now, I don't believe you ever heard
anything about the Two-horned Alexander."

I had recovered sufficiently from my surprise to assure him that he
was right.

My host nodded. "I thought so," said he; "very few people do know anything
about that powerful potentate. He lived in the time of Abraham. He was a
man of considerable culture, even of travel, and of an adventurous
disposition. I entered into the service of his court when I was a very
young man, and gradually I rose in position until I became his chief
officer, or vizier."

[Illustration: "'TIME OF ABRAHAM!' I EXCLAIMED."]

I sprang from my chair. "Time of Abraham!" I exclaimed. "This is simply--"

"No; it is not," he interrupted, and speaking in perfect good humor.
"I beg you will sit down and listen to me. What I have to say to you is
not nearly so wonderful as the nature and power of electricity."

I obeyed; he had touched me on a tender spot, for I am an electrician,
and can appreciate the wonderful.

"There has been a great deal of discussion," he continued, "in regard to
the peculiar title given to Alexander, but the appellation 'two-horned'
has frequently been used in ancient times. You know Michelangelo gave
two horns to Moses; but he misunderstood the tradition he had heard, and
furnished the prophet with real horns. Alexander wore his hair arranged
over his forehead in the shape of two protruding horns. This was simply
a symbol of high authority; as the bull is monarch of the herd, so was
he monarch among men. He was the first to use this symbol, although it
was imitated afterward by various Eastern potentates.

"As I have said, Alexander was a man of enterprise, and it had come to his
knowledge that there existed somewhere a certain spring the waters of
which would confer immortality upon any descendant of Shem who should
drink of them, and he started out to find this spring. I traveled with
him for more than a year. It was on this journey that he visited Abraham
when the latter was building the great edifice which the Mohammedans claim
as their holy temple, the Kaaba.

"It was more than a month after we had parted from Abraham that I, being
in advance of the rest of the company, noticed a little pool in the shade
of a rock, and being very warm and thirsty, I got down on my hands and
knees, and putting my face to the water, drank of it. I drank heartily,
and when I raised my head, I saw, to my amazement, that there was not a
drop of water left in the spring. Now it so happened that when Alexander
came to this spot, he stopped, and having regarded the little hollow under
the rock, together with its surroundings, he dismounted and stood by it.
He called me, and said: 'According to all the descriptions I have read,
this might have been the spring of immortality for which I have been
searching; but it cannot be such now, for there is no water in it.' Then
he stooped down and looked carefully at the hollow. 'There has been water
here,' said he, 'and that not long ago, for the ground is wet.'

"A horrible suspicion now seized upon me. Could I have drained the
contents of the spring of inestimable value? Could I, without knowing it,
have deprived my king of the great prize for which he had searched so
long, with such labor and pains? Of course I was certain of nothing, but
I bowed before Alexander, and told him that I had found an insignificant
little puddle at the place, that I had tasted it and found it was nothing
but common water, and in quantity so small that it scarcely sufficed to
quench my thirst. If he would consent to camp in the shade, and wait a few
hours, water would trickle again into the little basin, and fill it, and
he could see for himself that this could not be the spring of which he was
in search.

"We waited at that place for the rest of the day and the whole of the
night, and the next morning the little basin was empty and entirely dry.
Alexander did not reproach me; he was accustomed to rule all men, even
himself, and he forbade himself to think that I had interfered with the
great object of his search. But he sent me home to his capital city, and
continued his journey without me. 'Such a thirsty man must not travel
with me,' he said. 'If we should really come to the immortal spring,
he would be sure to drink it all.'

"Nine years afterward Alexander returned to his palace, and when
I presented myself before him he regarded me steadfastly. I knew why he
was looking at me, and I trembled. At length he spoke: 'Thou art not one
day older than when I dismissed thee from my company. It was indeed the
fountain of immortality which thou didst discover, and of which thou didst
drink every drop. I have searched over the whole habitable world, and
there is no other. Thou, too, art an aristocrat; thou, too, art of the
family of Shem. It was for this reason that I placed thee near me, that
I gave thee great power; and now thou hast destroyed all my hopes, my
aspirations. Thou hast put an end to my ambitions. I had believed that
I should rule the world, and rule it forever.' His face grew black; his
voice was terrible. 'Retire!' he said. 'I will attend to thy future.'

"I retired, but my furious sovereign never saw me again. I was fifty-three
years old when I drank the water in the little pool under the rock, and
I was well aware that at the time of my sovereign's return I felt no older
and looked no older. But still I hoped that this was merely the result of
my general good health, and that when Alexander came back he would inform
me that he had discovered the veritable spring of immortality; so
I retained my high office, and waited. But I had made my plans for escape
in case my hope should not be realized. In two minutes from the time
I left his presence I had begun my flight, and there were no horses in
all his dominions which could equal the speed of mine.

"Now began a long, long period of danger and terror, of concealment and
deprivation. I fled into other lands, and these were conquered in order
that I might be found. But at last Alexander died, and his son died, and
the sons of his son died, and the whole story was forgotten or
disbelieved, and I was no longer in danger of living forever as an example
of the ingenious cruelty of an exasperated monarch.

"I do not intend to recount my life and adventures since that time; in
fact, I shall scarcely touch upon them. You can see for yourself that that
would be impossible. One might as well attempt to read a history of the
world in a single evening. I merely want to say enough to make you
understand the situation.

"A hundred years after I had fled from Alexander I was still fifty-three
years old, and knew that that would be my age forever. I stayed so long
in the place where I first established myself that people began to look
upon me with suspicion. Seeing me grow no older, they thought I was a
wizard, and I was obliged to seek a new habitation. Ever since, my fate
has been the necessity of moving from place to place. I would go
somewhere as a man beginning to show signs of age, and I would remain as
long as a man could reasonably be supposed to live without becoming truly
old and decrepit. Sometimes I remained in a place far longer than my
prudence should have permitted, and many were the perils I escaped on
account of this rashness; but I have gradually learned wisdom."

The man spoke so quietly and calmly, and made his statements in such
a matter-of-fact way, that I listened to him with the same fascinated
attention I had given to the theory of telegraphy without wires, when it
was first propounded to me. In fact, I had been so influenced by his own
conviction of the truth of what he said that I had been on the point of
asking him if Abraham had really had anything to do with the building
of the Islam temple, but had been checked by the thought of the utter
absurdity of supposing that this man sitting in front of me could possibly
know anything about it. But now I spoke. I did not want him to suppose
that I believed anything he said, nor did I really intend to humor him in
his insane retrospections; but what he had said suggested to me the very
apropos remark that one might suppose he had been giving a new version of
the story of the Wandering Jew.

At this he sat up very straight, on the extreme edge of his chair; his
eyes sparkled.

"You must excuse me," he said, "but for twenty seconds I am going to be
angry. I can't help it. It isn't your fault, but that remark always
enrages me. I expect it, of course, but it makes my blood boil, all the
same."

"Then you have told your story before?" I said.

"Yes," he answered. "I have told it to certain persons to whom I thought
it should be known. Some of these have believed it, some have not; but,
believers or disbelievers, all have died and disappeared. Their opinions
are nothing to me. You are now the only living being who knows my story."

I was going to ask a question here, but he did not give me a chance.
He was very much moved.

"I hate that Wandering Jew," said he, "or, I should say, I despise the
thin film of a tradition from which he was constructed. There never was
a Wandering Jew. There could not have been; it is impossible to conceive
of a human being sent forth to wander in wretchedness forever. Moreover,
suppose there had been such a man, what a poor, modern creature he would
be compared with me! Even now he would be less than two thousand years
old. You must excuse my perturbation, but I am sure that during the whole
of the Christian era I have never told my story to any one who did not, in
some way or other, make an absurd or irritating reference to the Wandering
Jew. I have often thought, and I have no doubt I am right, that the
ancient story of my adventures as Kroudhr, the Vizier of the Two-horned
Alexander, combined with what I have related, in one century or another,
of my subsequent experiences, has given rise to the tradition of that
very unpleasant Jew of whom Eugène Sue and many others have made good
use. It is very natural that there should be legends about people who in
some way or other are enabled to live forever. If Ponce De Leon and his
companions had mysteriously disappeared when in search of the Fountain
of Youth, there would be stories now about rejuvenated Spaniards wandering
about the earth, and who would always continue to wander. But the Fountain
of Youth is not a desirable water-supply, and a young person who should
find such a pool would do well to wait until he had arrived at maturity
before entering upon an existence of indefinite continuance.

"But I must go on with my story. At one time I made for myself a home, and
remained in it for many, many years without making any change. I became a
sort of hermit, and lived in a rocky cave. I allowed my hair and beard to
grow, so that people really thought I was getting older and older; at last
I acquired the reputation of a prophet, and was held in veneration by a
great many religious people. Of course I could not prophesy, but as I had
such a vast deal of experience I was able to predicate intelligently
something about the future from my knowledge of the past. I became famed
as a wonderful seer, and there were a great many curious stories told
about me.

"Among my visitors at that time was Moses. He had heard of me, and came to
see what manner of man I was. We became very well acquainted. He was a man
anxious to obtain information, and he asked me questions which embarrassed
me very much; but I do not know that he suspected I had lived beyond the
ordinary span of life. There are a good many traditions about this visit
of Moses, some of which are extant at the present day; but these, of
course, are the result of what might be called cumulative imagination.
Many of them are of Moslem origin, and the great Arabian historian Tabari
has related some of them.

[Illustration: "MOSES ASKED EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS."]

"I learned a great deal while I lived in this cave, both from scholars and
from nature; but at last new generations arose who did not honor or even
respect me, and by some I was looked upon as a fraudulent successor to the
old prophet of whom their ancestors had told them, and so I thought it
prudent to leave."

My interest in this man's extraordinary tissue of retrospection was
increasing, and I felt that I must not doubt nor deny; to do so would
be to break the spell, to close the book.

"Did it not sometimes fill you with horror to think that you must live
forever?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered, "that has happened to me; but such feelings have long,
long passed away. If you could have lived as I have, and had seen the
world change from what it was when I was young to what it is now, you
would understand how a man of my disposition, a man of my overpowering
love of knowledge, love of discovery, love of improvement, love of
progress of all kinds, would love to live. In fact, if I were now to be
told that at the end of five thousand years I must expire and cease, it
would fill me with gloom. Having seen so much, I expect more than most men
are capable of comprehending. And I shall see it all--see the centuries
unfold, behold the wonderful things of the future arise! The very thought
of it fills me with inexpressible joy."

For a few moments he remained silent. I could understand the state of his
mind, no matter how those mental conditions had been brought about.

"But you must not suppose," he continued, "that this earthly immortality
is without its pains, its fears, I may say its horrors. It is precisely
on account of all these that I am now talking to you. The knowledge that
my life is always safe, no matter in what peril I may be, does not relieve
me from anxiety and apprehension of evil. It would be a curse to live if
I were not in sound physical condition; it would be a curse to live as a
slave; it would be a curse to live in a dungeon. I have known vicissitudes
and hardships of every kind, but I have been fortunate enough to preserve
myself whole and unscathed, in spite of the dangers I have incurred.

"I often think from what a terrible fate I saved my master, Alexander
of the two horns. If he had found the fountain he might have enjoyed his
power and dominion for a few generations. Then he would have been thrown
down, cast out, and even if he had escaped miseries which I cannot bear
to mention, he never could have regained his high throne. He would have
been condemned to live forever in a station for which he was not fitted.

"It is very different with me. My nature allows me to adapt myself to
various conditions, and my habits of prudence prevent me from seeking
to occupy any position which may be dangerous to me by making me
conspicuous, and from which I could not easily retire when I believe
the time has come to do so. I have been almost everything; I have even
been a soldier. But I have never taken up arms except when obliged to do
so, and I have known as little of war as possible. No weapon or missile
could kill me, but I have a great regard for my arms and legs. I have
been a ruler of men, but I have trembled in my high estate, for I feared
the populace. They could do everything except take my life. Therefore
I made it a point to abdicate when the skies were clear. In such cases
I set out on journeys from which I never returned.

"I have also lived the life of the lowly; I have drawn water, and I have
hewn wood. By the way, that reminds me of a little incident which may
interest you. I was employed in the East India House at the time Charles
Lamb was a clerk there. It was not long after he had begun to contribute
his Elia essays to the 'London Magazine.' I had read some of them, and
was interested in the man. I met him several times in the corridors or
on the stairways, and one day I was going up-stairs, carrying a hod of
coals, as he was coming down. Looking up at him, I made a misstep, and
came near dropping a portion of my burden. 'My good man,' said he, with
a queer smile, 'if you would learn to carry your coals as well as you
carry your age you would do well.' I don't remember what I said in
reply; but I know I thought if Charles Lamb could be made aware of my
real age he would abandon his Elia work and devote himself to me."

"It is a pity you did not tell him," I suggested.

"No," replied my host. "He might have been interested, but he could not
have appreciated the situation, even if I had told him everything. He
would not really have known my age, for he would not have believed me.
I might have found myself in a lunatic asylum. I never saw Lamb again,
and very soon after that meeting I came to America."

[Illustration: AN ENCOUNTER WITH CHARLES LAMB.]




II


"There are two points about your story that I do not comprehend," said
I (and as I spoke I could not help the thought that in reality I did not
comprehend any of it). "In the first place, I don't see how you could
live for a generation or two in one place and then go off to an entirely
new locality. I should think there were not enough inhabited spots in
the world to accommodate you in such extensive changes."

Mr. Crowder smiled. "I don't wonder you ask that question," he said; "but
in fact it was not always necessary for me to seek new places. There are
towns in which I have taken up my residence many times. But as I arrived
each time as a stranger from afar, and as these sojourns were separated
by many years, there was no one to suppose me to be a person who had
lived in that place a century or two before."

"Then you never had your portrait painted," I remarked.

"Oh, yes, I have," he replied. "Toward the close of the thirteenth century
I was living in Florence, being at that time married to a lady of wealthy
family, and she insisted upon my having my portrait painted by Cimabue,
who, as you know, was the master of Giotto. After my wife's death
I departed from Florence, leaving behind me the impression that I intended
soon to return; and I would have been glad to take the portrait with me,
but I had no opportunity. It was in 1503 that I went back to Florence, and
as soon as I could I visited the stately mansion where I had once lived,
and there in the gallery still hung the portrait. This was an
unsatisfactory discovery, for I might wish at some future time to settle
again in Florence, and I had hoped that the portrait had faded, or that it
had been destroyed; but Cimabue painted too well, and his work was then
held in high value, without regard to his subject. Finding myself
entirely alone in the gallery, I cut that picture from its frame.
I concealed it under my cloak, and when I reached my lodging I utterly
destroyed it. I did not feel that I was committing any crime in doing
this; I had ordered and paid for the painting, and I felt that I had a
right to do what I pleased with it."

"I don't see how you can help having your picture taken in these days,"
I said; "even if you refuse to go to a photographer's, you can't escape
the kodak people. You have a striking presence."

"Oh, I can't get away from photographers," he answered. "I have had a
number of pictures taken, at the request of my wife and other people.
It is impossible to avoid it, and that is one of the reasons why I am
now telling you my story. What is the other point about which you
wished to ask me?"

"I cannot comprehend," I answered, "how you should ever have found
yourself poor and obliged to work. I should say that a man who had lived
so long would have accumulated, in one way or another, immense wealth,
inexhaustible treasures."

[Illustration: "'I CUT THAT PICTURE FROM ITS FRAME.'"]

"Oh, yes," said he, with a smile; "Monte Cristo, and all that sort of
thing. Your notion is a perfectly natural one, but I assure you, Mr.
Randolph, that it is founded upon a mistake. Over and over and over again
I have amassed wealth; but I have not been able to retain it permanently,
and often I have suffered for the very necessaries of life. I have been
hungry, knowing that I could never starve. The explanation of this state
of things is simple enough: I would trade; I would speculate; I would
marry an heiress; I would become rich; for many years I would enjoy my
possessions. Then the time would come when people said: 'Who owns these
houses?' 'To whom belongs this money in the banks?' 'These properties were
purchased in our great-grandfathers' times; the accounts in the banks were
opened long before our oldest citizens were born. Who is it who is making
out leases and drawing checks?' I have employed all sorts of subterfuges
in order to retain my property, but I have always found that to prove my
continued identity I should have to acknowledge my immortality; and in
that case, of course, I should have been adjudged a lunatic, and
everything would have been taken from me. So I generally managed, before
the time arrived when it was actually necessary for me to do so, to turn
my property, as far as possible, into money, and establish myself in some
other place as a stranger. But there were times when I was obliged to
hurry from my home and take nothing with me. Then I knew misery.

"It was during the period of one of my greatest depressions that I met
with a monk who was afterward St. Bruno, and I joined the Carthusian
monastery which he founded in Calabria. In the midst of their asceticism,
their seclusion, and their silence I hoped that I might be asked no
questions, and need tell no lies; I hoped that I might be allowed to live
as long as I pleased without disturbance; but I found no such immunity.
When Bruno died, and his successor had followed him into the grave, it was
proposed that I should be the next prior; but this would not have suited
me at all. I had employed all my time in engrossing books, but the duties
of a prior were not for me, so I escaped, and went out into the world
again."

As I sat and listened to Mr. Crowder, his story seemed equally wonderful
to me, whether it were a plain statement of facts or the relation of an
insane dream. It was not a wild tale, uttered in the enthusiastic
excitement of a disordered mind; but it was a series of reminiscences,
told quietly and calmly, here a little, there a little, without
chronological order, each one touched upon as it happened to suggest
itself. From wondering I found myself every now and then believing: but
whenever I realized the folly in which I was indulging myself, I shook
off my credulity and endeavored to listen with interest, but without
judgment, for in this way only could I most thoroughly enjoy the
strange narrative; but my lapses into unconscious belief were frequent.

"You have spoken of marriage," said I. "Have you had many wives?"

My host leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. "That is a
subject," he said, "of which I think as little as I can, and yet I must
speak to you of it. It is right that I should do so. I have been married
so often that I can scarcely count the wives I have had. Beautiful women,
good women, some of them women to whom I would have given immortality had
I been able; but they died, and died, and died. And here is one of the
great drawbacks of living forever.

"Yet it was not always the death of my wives which saddened me the most;
it was their power of growing old. I would marry a young woman, beautiful,
charming. You need not be surprised that I was able to do this, for in all
ages woman has been in the habit of disregarding the years of man, and
I have always had a youthful spirit; I think it is Daudet who says that
the most dangerous lover is the man of fifty-three. I would live happily
with a wife; she would gradually grow to be the same age as myself; and
then she would become older and older, and I did not. As I have said,
there were women to whom I would have given immortality if I could; but
I will add that there have been times when I would have given up my own
immortality to be able to pass gently into old age with a beloved wife.

"You will want to know if I have had descendants. They exist by the
thousand; but if you ask me where they are, I must tell you that I do
not know. I now have but one child, a little girl who is asleep
up-stairs. I have gathered around me families of sons and daughters;
they have grown up, married, and my grandchildren have sat upon my knees.
Sometimes, at long intervals, I have known great-grandchildren. But when
my sons and daughters have grown gray and gone to their graves, I have
withdrawn myself from the younger people,--some of whom were not
acquainted with me, others even had never heard of me,--and then by the
next generation the old ancestor, if remembered at all, was connected
only with the distant past. And so family after family have melted into
the great mass of human beings, and are as completely lost as though they
were water thrown into the sea.

"I have always been fond of beautiful women, and as you have met Mrs.
Crowder, you know that my disposition has not changed. Sarah, the wife
of Abraham, was considered a woman of great beauty in her day, and the
fame of her charms continues; but I assure you that if she lived now her
attractions would not have given her husband so much trouble. I saw a
good deal of Sarah when I visited Abraham with my master Alexander, and
I have seen many more beautiful women since that time. Hagar was a fine
woman, but she was too dark, and her face had an anxious expression which
interfered with her beauty."

"Was Hagar really the wife of Abraham," I asked, "as the Mussulmans say,
and was Ishmael considered his heir?"

"When I saw them," my host continued, "the two women seemed as friendly
as sisters, and Isaac was not yet born. At that time it was considered,
of course, that Ishmael was Abraham's heir. Certainly he was a much finer
man than Isaac, with whom I became acquainted a long time afterward. There
were some very beautiful women at the court of Solomon. One of these was
Balkis, the famous Queen of Sheba."

"Did you ever meet Cleopatra?" I interrupted.

"I never saw her," was the answer, "but, from what I have heard, I do
not think I should have cared for her if I had seen her asleep. What might
have happened had I seen her awake is quite another matter. I have noticed
that women grow more beautiful as the world grows older, and men grow
taller and better developed. You would consider me, I think, a man of
average size; but I tell you that in my early life I was exceptionally
tall, and I have no doubt it was my stature and presence to which
I largely owed my preferment at the court of Alexander. I was living in
Spain toward the close of the tenth century, when I married the daughter
of an Arabian physician, who was a wonderfully beautiful woman. She was
not dark, like the ordinary Moorish women. In feature and form she
surpassed any creation of the Greek sculptors, and I have been in many of
their workshops, and have seen their models. This lady lived longer than
any other wife I had. She lived so long, in fact, that when we left
Cordova we both thought it well that she should pass as my mother. She was
one of the few wives to whom I told my story. It did not shock her, for
she believed her father to be a miracle-worker, and she had faith in many
strange things. Her great desire was to live as long as I should, and
I think she believed that this might happen. She died at the age of one
hundred and fifteen, and was lively and animated to the very last.
My first American wife was a fine woman, too. She was a French creole, and
died fifteen years ago. We had no children."

[Illustration: "'WHEN WE LEFT CORDOVA.'"]

"It strikes me," I said suddenly, "that you must understand a great many
languages--you speak so much of living with people of different nations."

"It would be impossible," he answered, "unless I were void of ordinary
intelligence, to live as long as I have, and not become a general
linguist. Of course I had to learn the languages of the countries
I visited, and as I was always a student, it delighted me to do so. In
fact, I not only studied, but I wrote. When the Alexandrian library was
destroyed, fourteen of my books were burned. When I was in Italy with my
first American wife, I visited the museum at Naples, and in the room
where the experts were unrolling the papyri found in Pompeii, I looked
over the shoulder of one of them, and, to my amazement, found that one of
the rolls was an account-book of my own. I had been a broker in Pompeii,
and these were the records of moneys I had loaned, on interest, to various
merchants and tradespeople. I was always fond of dealing in money, and at
present I am a broker in Wall street. During the first crusades I was a
banker in Genoa, and lent large sums to the noble knights who were setting
forth for Jerusalem."

[Illustration: "'I HAD BEEN A BROKER IN POMPEII.'"]

[Illustration: "'I LENT LARGE SUMS TO THE NOBLE KNIGHTS.'"]

"Was much of it repaid?" I asked.

"Most of it. The loans were almost always secured by good property. As
I look back upon the vast panorama of my life," my host continued, after
a pause, "I most pleasantly recall my various intimacies with learned
men, and my own studies and researches; but in the great company of men
of knowledge whom I have known, there was not one in whom I was so much
interested as in King Solomon. I visited his court because I greatly
wished to know a man who knew so much. It was not difficult to obtain
access to him, for I came as a stranger from Ethiopia, to the east of
Ethiopia, to the east of the Red Sea, and the king was always anxious
to see intelligent people from foreign parts. I was able to tell him a
good deal which he did not know, and he became fond of my society.

"I found Solomon a very well-informed man. He had not read and studied
books as much as I had, and he had not had my advantages of direct
intercourse with learned men; but he was a most earnest and indefatigable
student of nature. I believe he knew more about natural history than any
human being then living, or who had preceded him. Whenever it was
possible for him to do so, he studied animal nature from the living
model, and all the beasts, birds, and fishes which it was possible for
him to obtain alive were quartered in the grounds of his palace. In a
certain way he was an animal-tamer. You may well imagine that this great
king's wonderful possessions, as well as the man himself, were the source
of continual delight to me.

"The time-honored story of Solomon's carpet on which he mounted and was
wafted away to any place, with his retinue, had a good deal of foundation
in fact; for Solomon was an exceedingly ingenious man, and not only
constructed parachutes by which people could safely descend from great
heights, but he made some attempts in the direction of ballooning.
I have seen small bags of thin silk, covered with a fine varnish made of
gum to render them air-tight, which, being inflated with hot air and
properly ballasted, rose high above the earth, and were wafted out of
sight by the wind. Many people supposed that in the course of time
Solomon would be able to travel through the air, and from this idea was
derived the tradition that he really did so.

"Another of the interesting legends regarding King Solomon concerned his
dominion over the Jinns. These people, of whom so much has been written
and handed down by word of mouth, and who were supposed by subsequent
generations to be a race of servile demons, were, in reality, savage
natives of surrounding countries, who were forced by the king to work on
his great buildings and other enterprises, and who occupied very much the
position of the coolies of the present day. But that story of the dead
Solomon and the Jinns who were at work on the temple gives a good idea of
one of the most important characteristics of this great ruler. He was a
man who gave personal attention to all his affairs, and was in the habit
of overseeing the laborers on his public works. Do you remember the story
to which I refer?"

I was obliged to say that I did not think I had ever heard it.

"The story runs thus," said my host: "The Jinns were at work building
the temple, and Solomon, according to his custom, overlooked them daily.
At the time when the temple was nearly completed Solomon felt that his
strength was passing from him, and that he would not have much longer to
live. This greatly troubled him, for he knew that when the Jinns should
find that his watchful eye would be no more upon them, they would rebel
and refuse to work, and the temple would not be finished during his
reign. Therefore, as the story runs, he came, one day, into the temple,
and hoped that he might be enabled to remain there until the great
edifice should be finished. He stood leaning on his staff, and the Jinns,
when they beheld their master, continued to work, and work, and work. When
night came Solomon still remained standing in his accustomed place, and
the Jinns worked on, afraid to cease their toil for a moment.

[Illustration: SOLOMON AND THE JINNS.]

"Standing thus, Solomon died; but the Jinns did not know it, and their
toil and labor continued, by night and by day. Now, according to the
tradition, a little white ant, one of the kind which devours wood, came
up out of the earth on the very day on which Solomon died, and began to
gnaw the inside of his staff. She gnawed a little every day, until at
last the staff became hollow from one end to the other; and on the day
when she finished her work, the work of the Jinns was also finished.
Then the staff crumbled, and the dead Solomon fell, face foremost, to
the earth. The Jinns, perceiving that they had been slaving day and night
for a master who was dead, fled away with yells of rage and vexation.
But the glorious temple was finished, and King Solomon's work was done.
Tabari tells this story, and it is also found in the Koran; but the origin
of it was nothing more than the well-known custom of Solomon to exercise
personal supervision over those who were working for him.

"I was the person from whom Solomon first heard of the Queen of Sheba.
I had lived in her capital city for several years, and she had summoned
me before her, and had inquired about the places I had visited and the
things I had seen. What I said about this wonderful woman and the
admirable administration of her empire interested Solomon very much,
and he was never tired of hearing me talk about her. At one time
I believe he thought of sending me as an ambassador to her, but afterward
gave up this notion, as I did not possess the rank or position which
would have qualified me to represent him and his court; so he sent a
suitable delegation, and, after a great deal of negotiation and
diplomatic by-play, the queen actually determined to come to see Solomon.
Soon after her arrival with her great retinue, she saw me, and immediately
recognized me, and the first thing she said to me was that she perceived
I had grown a good deal older than when I had been living in her domains.
This delighted me, for before coming to Jerusalem I had allowed my hair
and beard to grow, and had dispensed with as much as possible of my
ordinary erect mien and lightness of step; for I was very much afraid, if
I were not careful, that the wise king would find out that there was
something irregular in my longevity, and an old man may continue to look
old much longer than a middle-aged man can continue to appear middle-aged.

"It was a great advantage to me to find myself admitted to a certain
intimacy with both the king and his visitor the queen. As I was a subject
of neither of them, they seemed to think this circumstance allowed a
little more familiarity than otherwise they would have shown. Besides, my
age had a great deal to do with the freedom with which they spoke to me.
Each of them seemed anxious to know everything I could tell about the
other, and I would sometimes be subjected to embarrassing questions.

"There is a great deal of extravagance and perversion in the historical
and traditional accounts of the tricks which these two royal personages
played upon each other. Most of these old stories are too silly to repeat,
but some of them had foundation in fact. They tell a tale of how the queen
set five hundred boys and five hundred girls before the king, all the
girls dressed as boys and all the boys dressed as girls, and then she
asked him, as he was such a wise man, immediately to distinguish those of
one sex from those of the other. Solomon did not hesitate a moment, but
ordering basins of water to be brought, he commanded the young people to
wash their hands. Thereupon he watched them closely, and as the boys
washed only their hands, while the girls rolled up their sleeves and
washed their arms as well as their hands, Solomon was able, without any
trouble, to pick out the one from the other. Now, something of this kind
really happened, but there were only ten boys and ten girls. But in the
course of ages the story grew, and the whole thing was made absurd; for
there never was a king in the world, nor would there be likely to be one,
who could have a thousand basins ready immediately to put before a company
who wished to wash their hands. But the result of this scheme convinced
the queen that Solomon was a man of the deepest insight into the manners
and customs of human beings, as well as those of animals, birds, and
fishes.

"But there is an incident with which I was personally connected which was
known at the time to very few people, and was never publicly related. The
beautiful queen desired, above all other things, to know whether Solomon
held her in such high esteem because she was a mighty queen, or on
account of her personal attractions; and in order to discover the truth
in regard to this question, she devised a little scheme to which she made
me a party. There was a young woman in her train, of surpassing beauty,
whose name was Liridi, and the queen was sure that Solomon had never seen
her, for it was her custom to keep her most beautiful attendants in the
background. This maiden the queen caused to be dressed in the richest and
most becoming robes, and adorned her, besides, with jewels and golden
ornaments, which set off her beauty in an amazing manner. Then, having
made many inquiries of me in regard to the habits of Solomon, she ordered
Liridi to walk alone in one of the broad paths of the royal gardens at the
time when the king was wont to stroll there by himself. The queen wished
to find out whether this charming apparition would cause the king to
forget her for a time, and she ordered me to be in the garden, and so
arrange my rambles that I could, without being observed, notice what
happened when the king should meet Liridi. I was on hand before the
appointed time, and when I saw the girl walking slowly up the shaded
avenue, I felt obliged to go to her and tell her that she was too soon,
and that she must not meet Solomon near the palace. As I spoke to her
I was amazed at her wonderful beauty, and I did not believe it possible
that the king could gaze upon her without such emotion as would make him
forget for the moment every other woman in the world.

"The queen had purposely made an appointment with him for the same hour,
so that if he did not come she would know what was detaining him. At
length Solomon appeared at the far end of the avenue, and Liridi began
again her pensive stroll. When the king reached her, she retired to one
side, her head bowed, as if she had not expected to meet royalty in this
secluded spot. King Solomon was deep in thought as he walked, but when
he came near the maiden, he raised his eyes and suddenly stopped. I was
near by, behind some shrubbery, and it was plain enough to me that he was
dazzled by this lovely apparition. He asked her who she was, and when
she had told him he gazed at her with still greater attention. Then
suddenly he laughed aloud. 'Go tell the queen,' said he, 'that she hath
missed her mark. The arrow which is adorned with golden trappings and
precious stones cannot fly aright.' Then he went on, still laughing to
himself. In the evening he told me about this incident, and said that if
the maiden had been arrayed in the simple robes which became her station
he would have suspected nothing, and would probably have stopped to
converse with her so long that he would have failed to keep his
appointment with his royal guest.

[Illustration: "'GO TELL THE QUEEN'"]

"The queen was very much annoyed at the ill success of her little
artifice, but it was not long after this that she and the king discovered
their true feeling for each other, and they were soon married. The
wedding was a grand one--grander than tradition relates, grander than the
modern mind can easily comprehend. When they went to the palace to sit
for the first time in state before the vast assembly of dignitaries and
courtiers, the queen found, beside the throne of Solomon, her own throne,
which he had caused to be brought from Sheba in time for this occasion.
This incident, I think, affected her more agreeably than anything else
that happened. Great were the festivities. Honors and dignities were
bestowed on every hand, and I might have come in for some substantial
benefit had it not been that I committed a great blunder. I had fallen
in love with the beautiful Liridi, and as the queen seemed so gracious
and kind to everybody, I made bold to go to her and ask that she would
allow me to marry her charming handmaiden. But, to my surprise, this
request angered the queen. She told me that such an old man as myself
ought to be ashamed to take a young girl to wife; that she was opposed
to such marriages; and that, in fact, I ought to be punished for even
mentioning the subject.

"I retired in disgrace, and very soon afterward I left Jerusalem, for
I have found, by varied experiences, that the displeasure of rulers is
an unhealthful atmosphere in which to live. However, the Queen of Sheba
did not get altogether the better of me. As you know, King Solomon and
his royal wife did not reign together very long. They ruled over two
great kingdoms, each of which required the presence of its sovereign;
so Queen Balkis soon went back to Sheba with more wealth, more soldiers,
more camels, horses, and grand surroundings of every kind, than she had
brought with her. She carried in her baggage-train her royal throne,
but she did not take with her the beautiful Liridi. That lady had been
given in marriage to an officer in Solomon's army, and thirty years
afterward, in the land of Asshur, where her father was stationed,
I married the youngest daughter of Liridi. The latter was then dead, but
my wife, with whom I lived happily for many years in Phoenicia, was quite
as beautiful. I was greatly inclined, at the time, to send a courier with
a letter to the Queen of Sheba, informing her of what had happened; but
I was afraid. She was then an elderly woman, and I was informed that age
had actually sharpened her wits, so that if I had incensed her and given
her reason to suspect the truth about my unnatural age, I believe there
was no known country in which I could have concealed myself from her
emissaries.

"There are many, many incidents which crowd upon my memory," continued my
host, "but--" and as he spoke he pulled out his watch. "My conscience!"
he exclaimed, "it is twenty minutes past three! I should be ashamed of
myself, Mr. Randolph, for having kept you up so long."

We both rose to our feet, and I was about to say something polite, suited
to the occasion, but he gave me no chance.

"I felt I must talk to you," he said, speaking very rapidly. "I have
discovered you to be a man of appreciation--a man who should hear my
story. I have felt for some years that it would soon become impossible for
me to conceal my experiences from my fellow-men. I believe mankind has now
reached a stage of enlightenment--at least, in this country--when the
person who makes strange discoveries which cannot be explained, and the
person who announces facts which cannot be comprehended by the human mind,
need not fear to be punished as a sorcerer, or thrust into a cell as a
lunatic. I may be mistaken in regard to this latter point, but I think
I am right. In any case, I do not wish to live much longer as I have been
living. As I must live on, with generation after generation rising up
about me, I want those generations to know before they depart from this
earth that I am a person who does not die. I am tired of deceptions; I am
tired of leaving the places where I have lived long and am known, and
arriving in other places where I am a stranger, and where I must begin
my life again.

"I do not wish to be in a hurry to make my revelations to the world at
large. I do not wish to startle people without being able to show them
proof of what I say. I wish to speak only to persons who are worthy to
hear my story, and I have begun with you. I do not want you to believe
me until you are quite ready to do so. Think over what I have said,
consider it carefully, and make up your mind slowly.

"You are a young man in good health, and you will, in all probability,
live long enough to assure yourself of the truth or falsity of what
I have told you about my indefinite longevity. I should be glad to relate
my story to scientific men, to physicians, to students; but, as I have
said, we shall wait for that. In the meantime, you may, if you choose,
write down what I have told you, or as much of it as you remember. I have
no written records of my past life. Long, long ago I made such, but
I destroyed them, for I knew not what evil they might bring upon me were
they discovered. But you may write the little I have told you, and when
you feel that the time has come, you may give it to the world. And now
we must retire. It is wicked to keep you out of your bed any longer."

"One word," said I. "Do you intend now to tell your wife?"

"Yes," he answered, "I shall tell her tomorrow. Having reposed confidence
in you, it would be treating her shamefully if I should withhold that
confidence from her. She has often said to me that I do not look a day
older than when I married her. I want her now to know that I need never
look a day older; I shall counterfeit old age no more."

I did not sleep well during what was left of the night, for my mind went
traveling backward and forward through the ages. The next morning, at
breakfast, Mr. Crowder appeared in his ordinary good spirits, but his
wife was very quiet. She was pale, and occasionally I thought I saw signs
of trouble on her usually placid brow. I felt sure that he had told her
his story. As I looked at her, I could not prevent myself from seriously
wondering that a man who had seen Abraham and Sarah, and had been
personally acquainted with the Queen of Sheba, should now be married to a
Quaker lady from North Sixteenth street, Philadelphia. After breakfast
she found an opportunity of speaking to me privately.

"Do you believe," she asked very hurriedly, "what my husband told you last
night--the story of his earthly immortality?"

"I really do not know," I answered, "whether I believe it or not. My
reason assures me that it is impossible; and yet there is in Mr. Crowder's
manner so much sincerity, so much--"

Contrary to her usual habits, I am sure, she interrupted me.

"Excuse me," she said, "but I must speak while I have the chance. You
must believe what my husband has said to you. He has told me everything,
and I know that it is impossible for him to tell a lie. I have not yet
arranged my ideas in regard to this wonderful revelation, but I believe.
If the time should ever come when I shall know I should not believe, that
will be another matter. But he is my husband. I know him, I trust him.
Will you not do the same?"

"I will do it," I exclaimed, "until the time comes when I shall know that
I cannot possibly do so."

She gave me her hand, and I shook it heartily.

[Illustration: "SHE GAVE ME HER HAND, AND I SHOOK IT HEARTILY."]




III


About four months after my first acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Crowder,
I found myself again in New York; and when I called at the house of my
friends, I received from them a most earnest invitation to take up my
abode with them during my stay in the city.

Of course this invitation was eagerly accepted; for not only was the
Crowder house a home of the most charming hospitality, but my interest in
the extraordinary man who was evidently so glad to be my host was such
that not one day had passed since I last saw him in which I did not think
of him, and consider his marvelous statements from every point of view
which my judgment was capable of commanding. I found Mr. Crowder
unchanged in appearance and manner, and his wife was the same charming
young woman I had known. But there was nothing surprising in this.
People generally do not change very much in four months; and yet, in
talking to Mr. Crowder, I could not prevent myself from earnestly
scanning his features to see if he had grown any older.

He noticed this, and laughed heartily. "It is natural enough," he said,
"that you should wish to assure yourself that there is a good foundation
to your belief in what I have told you; but you are in too great a hurry:
you must wait some years for that sort of proof, one way or the other.
But I believe that you do believe in me, and I am not in the least
disturbed by the way you look at me."

After dinner, on the first day of my visit, when we were smoking
together, I asked Mr. Crowder if he would not continue the recital of his
experiences, which were of such absorbing interest to me that sometimes I
found them occupying my mind to an extent which excluded the consideration
of everything relating to myself and the present time.

"From one point of view," he said, "that would be a bad thing for you:
but I don't look at it in that way; in fact, I hope you may become my
biographer. I will furnish you with material enough, and you can arrange
it and put it in shape; that is, if, in the course of a few years, you
consider that, in doing what I ask of you, you will be writing the true
life of a man, and not a collection of fanciful stories. So I hope you
may find that you have not lost your time when thinking so much of a man
of the past."

Now, there is no doubt that I did most thoroughly believe in Crowder. I
had argued with myself against this belief to the utmost extent of my
ability, and I had now given up the effort. If I should disbelieve him
I would deprive myself of one of the most precious privileges of my
existence, and I did not intend to do so until I found myself absolutely
forced to admit that I was mistaken. Time would settle all this, and all
that I had to do now was to listen, enjoy, and be thankful for the
opportunity.

"I am not going to tell any stories now," he said, "for my wife has not
overcome her dislike to tobacco smoke, and she has insisted that she
shall be one of my hearers when I tell stories of my past life to you;
but I can tell you this, my friend: she will believe every word I say;
there can be no possible doubt of that. I have told her a good many things
since I saw you last, and her faith in me is a joy unspeakable."

Of course I was delighted to hear that this charming lady was to be my
fellow-auditor, and said so.

"I often think of you two," said Mr. Crowder, contemplatively leaning
back in his arm-chair. "I think of you together, but I am bound to say
that the thought is not altogether pleasant." I showed my amazement at
this remark. "It can't be helped," he said; "it can't be helped. It's
one of the things I have to suffer. I have suffered it over and over
again thousands of times, but I never get used to it. Here you are, two
young people, young enough to be my children: one is my wife; the other,
I am proud to say, my best friend. You are the only persons in the world
who know my story. You have faith in me, and the thought of that faith is
the greatest pleasure of my life. Year by year you two will grow older;
year by year you will more nearly approach my own age, and become,
according to the ordinary opinion of the world, more suitable companions
for me. Then you will reach my age. We shall be three gray-haired friends.
Then will come the saddening time, the mournful days. You two will grow
older and older, and I shall remain where I am--always fifty-three. Then
you will grow to be elderly--elderly people; at last, aged people. If you
live long enough I shall look up to you as I would to my parents."

This was a state of things I had never contemplated. I could scarcely
appreciate it.

"Of course," he continued, "I wish you both to live long; but don't you
see how it affects me? But enough of that. Here comes Mrs. Crowder, and
with her all subjects must be pleasant ones."

"I think thee must buy some short cigars," she said, just putting her
head inside the door, "to smoke after dinner. If large ones are necessary,
they can be smoked after I go to bed. I am getting very impatient; for now
that Mr. Randolph is here, I believe that thee is going to be unusually
interesting."

We arose immediately, and joined Mrs. Crowder in the library.

This lady's use of the plain speech customary with Quakers was very
pleasant to me. I had had but little acquaintance with it, and at first its
independence of grammatical rules struck upon me unpleasantly; but I soon
began to enjoy Mrs. Crowder's speech, when she was addressing her husband,
much more than I did the remarks she made to me, the latter being always
couched in the most correct English. There was a sweetness about her
"thee" which had the quality of gentle music; and when she used the word
"thy" it was pronounced so much like "thee" that I could scarcely perceive
the difference. To her husband and child she always used the Quaker speech
of the present day; and as I did not like being set aside in this way, I
said to her that I hoped there was no rule of the Society of Friends which
would compel her to make a change in her form of speech when she addressed
me. "If thee likes," she said, with a smile, "thee is welcome to all the
plain speech thee wants." And after that, when she spoke to me, she did
not turn me out among the world's people.

"Now, you know," said Mr. Crowder, "that I'm not going to play the part
of an historian. That sort of discourse would bore me, and it would bore
you. If there is any kind of thing that you would like to hear about,
all you have to do is to ask me; and if you don't care to do this, I will
tell you whatever comes up in my memory, without any regard to chronology
or geography, just as I talked to you before. If I were to begin at the
beginning and go straight along, even if I skipped ever so much, the
story would--it would be a great deal too long."

I am sure that Mrs. Crowder and I both felt what he did not wish to
say--that we were not likely to live to hear it all.

"There are a great many things I should like to ask thee," said Mrs.
Crowder, speaking quickly, as if to change the subject of her thoughts;
"but I believe I have forgotten most of them. But here is something I
should like to know--that is," she said, turning to me, "if thee hasn't
anything in thy mind which thee wishes to ask about?"

I noticed that she pronounced "thy" very distinctly, a little bit of
grammatical conscience probably obtruding itself. Of course, I had
nothing to ask, and she put her question: "What _did_ thee do in
the dark ages?"

Crowder laughed. "That is a big question," said he, "and the only answer
I can give you in a general way is that there were so many things that
I was not able to do, or did not dare to do, that I look upon those
centuries as the most disagreeable part of my whole life. But you must
not suppose that everybody felt as I did. A great many of the people by
whom I was surrounded at that doleful period appeared to be happier and
better satisfied with their circumstances than any I have known before
or after. There was little ambition, less responsibility; and if the poor
and weak suffered from the rapacity and violence of the rich and strong,
they accepted their misfortunes as if they were something they were bound
to expect, such as bad weather. I am not going to talk history, and there
is one thing that your question reminds me of. During that portion of the
middle ages which is designated as dark, I employed myself in a great many
different ways: I was laborer, sailor, teacher, and I cannot tell you what
besides; but more frequently than anything else I was a teacher."

"Thee must have been an angel of light," Mrs. Crowder remarked.

"No," said he; "an angel of light would have been very conspicuous in
those days. I didn't pose for such a part. In fact, if I had not
succeeded in appearing like a partial ignoramus I should have been
obliged to go into a monastery, for in those days the monks were the only
people who knew anything. They expected to do all the teaching that was
done; but, for all that, a few scholars cropped up now and then, and here
and there, who did not care to have monks for masters; and by instructing
these in a very modest, quiet way I frequently managed to make a living."

"I should think," I said, "that at any time and in any period you would
have been a person of importance, with your experience and knowledge of
men."

Mr. Crowder shook his head. "No," said he; "not so. To make myself of
importance in that time I must have been a soldier, and the profession of
arms, you know, is one I have always avoided. A man who cannot be killed
should take care that he be not wounded."

"I am so glad that thee did take care," ejaculated Mrs. Crowder; "but
even I cannot see how thee kept out of fighting in those disorderly
times."

"I did not keep out of it altogether, but in every possible way I tried
to do so, and for the most part succeeded. Whenever I was likely to be
involved in military operations, I let my hair and beard grow, and the
white-haired old man was usually exempted. I have had far more experience
in keeping out of battles than any other human being has had in the art
of winning them. But what you two want is a story, and I will give you
one.

"During some of the earlier years of the seventh century, I was living
in Ravenna, and there I had three or four scholars whom I taught
occasionally. I did not dare to keep a regular school, with fixed hours
and all that; but while I was not working at my trade, which was then
that of a mason, I gave lessons to some young people in the neighborhood.
Sometimes I taught in the evening, sometimes in bad weather when we did
not work out of doors. No one of my scholars showed any intelligence,
except a girl about eighteen years old. Her father, I think, was a
professional robber, for his family lived very well, and he was generally
absent from home at the head of a little band of desperate fellows, of
whom there were a great many in that region.

"This girl, whose name was Rina, had an earnest desire for knowledge, and
showed a great capacity for imbibing it and retaining it. In fact, I
believe she was the most intelligent person in that region."

"Was she pretty?" asked Mrs. Crowder.

"Yes," replied her husband; "she was very good-looking. I was so
interested in her desire for knowledge that I taught her a great deal
more than I would have dared to teach anybody else; and the more I taught,
the more she wanted to learn.

"I soon became very much concerned about Rina. Some man of the
neighborhood, old or young, would be sure to marry her before very long,
and then there would be an end of the development of what I considered
the brightest intellect of the day."

"So to keep that from happening to her, thee married her thyself?" asked
Mrs. Crowder.

Her husband smiled. "Yes; that is what I did. You know," he said,
addressing me, "that I believe that Mrs. Crowder takes more interest in
my marriages than in anything else I have done in the course of my
career."

"Certainly I do," she said, with a little flush. "Of course thee had to be
married, and it is natural enough that I should want to know whom thee
married, and all about it."

"Well," said Mr. Crowder, "we must get on with this. A priest with whom
I was acquainted married us, and we immediately fled from Ravenna. After a
year or two of wandering through benighted countries where even kings
and rulers could not write their names, and where reading seemed to be a
lost art, except in the monasteries, we made up our minds, if possible,
we would go from darkness into light, and so we set out on a journey to
China."

At this statement Mrs. Crowder and I looked surprised.

"I don't wonder you open your eyes," said he. "It must seem odd to you,
unless you are very familiar with the history of the period, that we
should go from Europe to China in search of enlightenment and
civilization; but that is what we did, and we found what we looked for.
As the Pope had sent an envoy to China, and as some Nestorian
missionaries had gone there, I believed that we could go.

"This journey to the Chinese province of Nan-hae occupied the greater
part of five years; but to me personally that was of no account, for I
had time enough. Although we passed through all sorts of hardships and
dangers, my wife was greatly interested in the strange things and people
she met. Sometimes we traveled by water, sometimes on horses and asses,
and very often we walked. During the last part of the journey we joined
a caravan which went through central Asia.

"At that time China was ruled by a woman, the Empress Woo. For a long
time back there had been a period of great intellectual activity in China.
Literature and the arts flourished, and while the great personages of
Europe did not know how to write, these people were printing from wooden
blocks.

"The empress was a remarkable woman. She had been one of the widows of a
monarch, and when his son succeeded to the throne she married him. She had
great ambition and great ability. She put down her enemies, and she put
herself forward. She took her husband's place in all the imperial
consultations and decisions, and very soon set him aside, and for forty
years was actual ruler of the empire.

"She was a great woman, this Empress Woo. Very little happened in her
dominions that she did not know, and when two wanderers arrived from the
far and unknown West, she sent for me and my wife to appear before her at
the palace. We were received with much favor, for we could do her no
possible harm, and she was very eager for knowledge. My wife was an object
of great curiosity to her, as she was so different from the Chinese women.
But as poor Rina could never acquire a word of the language of the country,
the empress soon ceased to take interest in her. As I was always very good
at picking up languages, she had me at the palace a great deal, asking all
sorts of questions about the Western countries and people. I was also able
to tell her much about bygone ages, which information she thought,
of course, I had acquired by reading.

[Illustration: "'ASKING ALL SORTS OF QUESTIONS.'"]

"One day the empress asked me about the marriage customs in the West,
and wanted to know how many wives a man could have in our country. She
seemed to be so much in earnest, as she spoke, that I was frightened.
I did not know what to answer. But fortunately one of her generals was
announced, and she did not press the question. As I was leaving the
palace, one of the officers of the court took me aside, and told me that
the empress was thinking of marrying me, and that I had better put on some
fine clothes when I came again. This was terrible news, but I was bound to
tell my wife, and we sat up all night talking about it. To escape from
that region would have been impossible. We were obliged to stay and face
the inevitable, whatever it might be.

"The question which Rina and I had to decide was a very simple one, but
terribly difficult for all that. If I should tell the empress that men
of my country believed that it was right to have but one wife, Rina would
quickly be disposed of; so she had to decide whether she would prefer to
die so that I might marry the empress, or to preserve her life and lose
her undivided possession of a husband."

"I know what I would have done," said Mrs. Crowder, her eyes very bright;
"I would have let her kill me. I would never have consented for thee to
marry the wretch."

"That would have pleased her," said Mr. Crowder; "for she would have had
me all the same, and you would have been out of the way."

"Then I would not have died," said the little Quakeress, almost fiercely;
"I would not have done anything to please her. But I don't know. What did
thee and thy wife do?"

"We talked and talked and talked," said Mr. Crowder, "and at last I
persuaded her to live; that is to say, not to make herself an obstacle
to the wishes of the empress. It was a terrible trial, but she consented.
The more insignificant she became, I told her, the greater her chances
of safety.

"The next day the empress sent for me, as I was sure she would do.

"'You did not tell me,' she said, 'how many wives your men have.' 'That
all depends upon the will of our sovereign,' I replied; 'in matrimonial
affairs we do as we are commanded. When we have no commands from the
throne, our circumstances regulate the matter.'"

"Thee did tell a dreadful lie while thee was about it," said Mrs. Crowder,
"but I suppose thee had to."

"You are right there," said her husband; "and my answer pleased the
empress. 'That is what I like,' she said. 'The monarch should settle all
these matters. I hope some day to settle them in this country.' Then,
without any hesitation or preface, she announced her intention of marrying
me. 'I greatly need,' she said, 'a learned man for an imperial consort.
My present husband knows nothing. I never trust him with any affairs of
state. But I have never asked you anything to which you did not give me
a satisfactory answer.' Now, my dear," said Mr. Crowder, "you see the
reward of vanity. If I had pretended to be a fool instead of aspiring to
be a philosopher and an historian, I should never have attracted the
interest of the queen."

"And did thee marry her?" asked his wife. "I do so pity poor Rina!"

"I'll tell you how it turned out," he continued. "After pressing me a
good deal, the empress said: 'I had intended to marry you in a few days,
or as soon as the preparations could be made; but I have now postponed
that ceremony. I find that military affairs must occupy me for some time,
and it would be better for me at present to marry one of my generals. A
military man is what the country needs. But I shall want a counselor of
your sort very soon, so you must hold yourself ready to marry me whenever
I shall notify you.'

"My instincts prompted me to ask her what the imperial general might be
apt to think about the increase in her matrimonial forces, but I was wise
enough to hold my tongue. When the general should cease to be of use to
her, I knew very well that he would not be likely to offer opposition to
anything on earth."

"How glad I am," ejaculated Mrs. Crowder, "that thee didn't ask any
questions, and that thee consented to everything the wicked creature
said!"

"So am I," he replied; "and I was glad to get out of that palace, which I
never entered again. From that day I began to grow old as fast as I
could. My hair and beard became very long; I ate but little; I stooped
more and more each day, and walked with a staff. I began to be very
forgetful when people asked me questions. About a year afterward the
queen saw me. I was in the crowd near the palace, where I had purposely
gone that I might be seen. She looked at me, but gave no sign that she
recognized me. The next day an officer came to me, and roughly told me
that the empress had no use for dotards in her dominions, and that the
sooner I went away the better for me. I afterward heard that the execution
of two strangers had been ordered, but that a certain superstition in the
mind of the empress had prevented this. She had heard, through persons
who had met the Nestorians, that people of our country were protected in
some strange manner which she did not understand.

[Illustration: "'AND ROUGHLY TOLD ME.'"]

"Rina and I could not leave China, for I had now no money; but we went
to a distant province, where I lived for more than ten years, passing as
a Chinaman."

"And Rina--poor Rina?" asked Mrs. Crowder.

"She soon died," said her husband. "She was in a state of fear nearly all
the time. She could not speak the language, and it may be said that she
gave up her life in her pursuit of knowledge. In this respect she was as
wonderful a woman as was the Empress Woo."

"And a thousand times better," said Mrs. Crowder, earnestly. "And then?"

"Then," said her husband, "I married a Chinese woman."

"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder, her eyes almost round.

"Yes, my dear; it was a great deal safer for me to be married, and to
become as nearly as possible like the people by whom I was surrounded."

"But thee didn't have several wives, did thee?" asked Mrs. Crowder.

"Oh, no," he answered; "I was too poor for anything of that kind to be
expected of me. When an opportunity came to join a caravan and get away,
I took my Chinese wife with me, and eventually reached Arabia. There we
stayed for a long time, for I found it impossible to prosecute my
journeying. Eventually, however, we reached the island of Malta, where
my wife lived to be over seventy. Travel, hardships, and danger seemed
to agree with her. She never spoke any language but her own, and as she
was of a quiet disposition, and took no interest in the things she saw,
she generally passed as an imbecile. But she was the first Chinese woman
who ever visited Europe."

"I guess thee was very sorry thee brought her before thee got through
with her. I don't approve of that matrimonial alliance at all," said
Mrs. Crowder.

During this and succeeding evenings of narration, it must not be supposed
I sat silent, making no remarks upon what I heard; but, in fact, what I
said was of hardly any importance, and certainly not worth introducing
into this account of Mr. Crowder's experiences. But the effect of his
words upon Mrs. Crowder, as shown both by the play of her features and her
frequent questions and exclamations, interested me almost as much as the
statements of my host. I had previously known her as the gentlest, the
sweetest, and the most attractive of my female acquaintances; but now I
found her to be a woman of keen intellect and quick appreciation. Her
remarks, which were very frequent, and which I shall not always record,
were like seasoning and spice to the narrative of Mr. Crowder. Never
before had a wife heard such stories from a husband, and there never could
have been a woman who would have heard them with such religious faith.
Naturally, she showed me a most friendly confidence. The fact that we were
both the loyal disciples of one master was a bond between us. He was so
much older than either of us, and he regarded us sometimes with what
looked so much like parental affection, that it would not have been
surprising if persons, not believers as we were, should have entertained
the idea that, in course of time, he would pass away, and that we two
should be left to comfort each other as well as we might. But I, who had
heard my friend speak of the coming years, could not forget the picture he
had drawn of two aged and feeble people, looked up to in love and
veneration by a fresh and hearty man of fifty-three.

"Thee never seemed to have any trouble in getting married," said Mrs.
Crowder. "Did thee ever stay an old bachelor any length of time?"

Crowder laughed. Such questions from his wife amused him very much.

"I was thinking of changing the subject," said he, "and was about to tell
you something which had not anything to do with wives and marriages.
I thought you might be tired of that sort of thing."

"Not at all," said she, quickly; "that's just what I want to hear."

"Very well," answered he; "I will give you a little instance of one of
my failures in love-making.

"It was long before my visit to Empress Woo; in fact, it was about eleven
hundred years before Christ, and I was living in Syria, where I was
teaching school in the little town of Timnath. I became very much
interested in one of the girls of my class. She was a good deal older
than any of the others; in fact, she was a young woman. She had a bright
mind, and was eager to learn, and I naturally became interested in her;
and in the course of time she pleased me so much that I determined to
marry her."

"It seems thee was in the habit of marrying thy scholars," said Mrs.
Crowder.

"There is nothing very strange in that," he replied; "a schoolmaster
usually becomes very well acquainted with some of his scholars, and if a
girl pleases him very much it is not surprising that he should prefer to
marry her, or, at least, to try to, than to go out among comparative
strangers to look for a wife."

"If I had been in thy place," said Mrs. Crowder, reflectively, "sometimes
I would have enjoyed a long rest of bachelordom; it would have been a
variety."

"Oh, I have had variety of that kind," said he. "For many succeeding
decades I have been widower, or bachelor, whichever you choose to call
it.

"As I was saying, this girl pleased me very much. She was good-looking,
bright, and witty, and her dark, flashing eyes won her a great deal of
attention from the young men of the place; but she would not have
anything to do with them. They could not boast much in regard to
intelligence or education, nor were any of them in very good
circumstances; and so, in spite of my years, she seemed to take very
kindly to me, and I made up my mind I would marry her the approaching
autumn. I had some money, and there was a house with a piece of land
for sale near the town. This I planned to buy, and to settle down as
an agriculturist. I was tired of school-teaching."

"No wonder," said Mrs. Crowder, "as thee intended to take out of it
its principal attraction."

"We were walking, one evening, over the fields, talking of astronomy,
in which she took a great interest, when we saw a man approaching who was
evidently a stranger. He was a fellow of medium height, but he gave the
impression of great size and vigor. As he came nearer, striding over the
rough places, and paying no attention to paths, I saw that he was very
broad-shouldered, with a heavy body and thick neck. His legs were probably
of average size, but they looked somewhat small in comparison with his
body and his long arms, which swung by his sides as he walked. He was a
young man, bushy-bearded, with bright and observant eyes. As he passed us,
he looked very hard at my companion, and, I am sorry to say, she turned
her head and gazed steadfastly at him.

[Illustration: "'SHE TURNED HER HEAD.'"]

"'That's a fine figure of a man,' she said. 'He looks strong enough for
anything.'

"I didn't encourage her admiration. 'He might be made useful on a farm,'
I said; 'if his legs were as big as the rest of him, he could draw a plow
as well as an ox.'

"She made no answer to this; but her interest in astronomy seemed to
decrease, and she soon proposed that we should turn back to the town. On
the way we met the stranger again, and this time he stopped and asked us
some questions about the country and the neighborhood. All the time we
were talking he and my scholar were looking at each other, and each of
them seemed entirely satisfied with the survey. The next day the girl was
very inattentive at school, and in the afternoon, when I hoped to take
a walk with her, I could not find her, and went out by myself. Before
long I saw her sitting under a tree, talking to the stranger of
yesterday."

"She was a regular flirt," said Mrs. Crowder.

"Apparently she was," replied her husband; "but although I might have
excused her, considering how much better suited this stranger was to her,
in point of years at least, I was not willing to withdraw and leave her
to another, especially as he might be a person entirely unworthy of her.

"I did not disturb them, but I went back to the town and made some
inquiries about the stranger. I found that he was a Danite, and lived
with his parents in Zorah, and that his name was Samson. I also learned
that his family was possessed of considerable means.

"It soon became plain that it would not be easy for me to carry out my
marriage plans and settle down among my vines and fig-trees. Samson went
home, told his parents of his desire to marry this girl, and in the
course of time they all came down to Timnath and made regular matrimonial
propositions to her parents."

"Was this the great Samson who tore lions apart and threw down temples?"
asked Mrs. Crowder, in amazement.

"The very man," was the reply; "and he was the most formidable rival I
ever had in that sort of affair. The proper thing for me to do, according
to the custom of the times, would have been to take him aside, as soon
as I found that he was paying attentions to my sweetheart, and fight him;
but the more I looked at him and his peculiar proportions, the more I was
convinced that he was not a man with whom I wanted to fight."

"I should think not," said Mrs. Crowder. "How glad I am thee never
touched him!"

"The result might not have been disastrous to me," he said; "for although
I have always avoided military matters as much as possible, I was probably
better versed in the use of a sword than he was. But I did not care to
kill him, and from what I heard of him afterward, I am sure that if he had
ever got those long arms around me I should have been a mass of broken
bones.

"So, taking everything into consideration, I gave up my plan to marry
this girl of Timnath; and I was afterward very glad I did so, for she
proved a tricky creature, and entered into a conspiracy to deceive her
husband, actually weeping before him seven days in order to worm out of
him the secret of his strength."

"I suppose thee never met Delilah?" asked Mrs. Crowder.

"Oh, no," he answered; "before Samson was married I left that part of the
world, and I did not make the acquaintance of the attractive young person
who was so successful in the grand competition of discovering the source
of Samson's strength. In fact, it was nearly a hundred years after that
before I heard of those great exploits of Samson which have given him
such widespread fame."

"I am glad thee never met Delilah," said Mrs. Crowder, reflectively;
"for thee, too, was possessed of a great secret, and she might have gained
it from thee."




IV


"I think thee was in great danger," continued Mrs. Crowder, "in that
Samson business. It makes me shudder to think, even now, of what might
have happened to thee."

"There was not much danger," said he; "for all I had to do was to
withdraw, and there was an end to the matter. I have often and often been
in greater danger than that. For instance, I was in the army of Xerxes,
compelled to enter it simply because I happened to be in Persia.
My sympathies were entirely with the Greeks. My age did not protect me at
all. Everybody who in any way could be made useful was dragged into that
army. It was known that I had a knowledge of engineering and surveying,
and I was taken into the army to help build bridges and lay out camps.

"Here it was that I saw the curious method of counting the soldiers which
was adopted by the officers of Xerxes's army. As you may have read, ten
thousand men were collected on a plain and made to stand close together
in a mass nearly circular in shape. Then a strong fence, with a wide gate
to the west and another to the east, was built around them, and I was
engaged in the constructing and strengthening of this fence. When the
fence was finished, the men were ordered to march out of the inclosure,
and other soldiers marched in until it was again entirely filled. This
process was repeated until the whole army had been in the inclosure. Thus
they got rid of the labor of counting--measuring the army instead of
enumerating it. But the results were not accurate. I was greatly
interested in the matter, and on three occasions I stood at the exit gate
as the soldiers were coming out, and counted them, and the number never
amounted to ten thousand. One counting showed less than seven thousand,
--the men did not pack themselves together as closely as they were packed
the first time,--so I am confident that Xerxes's army was not so large as
it was reported to be.

"I became so much interested in the operations and constitution of this
great horde of soldiers, attendants, animals, vehicles, and ships, that
I went about looking at everything and getting all the information
possible. In these days I would have been a war correspondent, and I did
act somewhat in that capacity; for I told Herodotus a great many of the
facts which he put into his history of this great campaign."

"Thee knew Herodotus?" his wife asked.

"Oh, yes; I worked with him a long time, and gave him information which
helped him very much in writing his histories; but it would have been of
greater advantage to the world if he had adhered more closely to my
statements. I told him what I discovered in regard to the enumeration of
the army of Xerxes, but he wanted to make that army as big as he could,
and he paid little attention to my remonstrances.

"Herodotus was only four years old when Xerxes invaded Greece, and of
course all his knowledge concerning that expedition was second-hand, and
by the time he began to write his history of the campaign there were very
few people living who knew anything personally about it. If he had not
been a man so entirely wrapped up in his own work he would have wondered
how any one of my apparent age could give him so much in the way of
personal experience; but he seemed to have no suspicions, and, at any
rate, asked no questions, and as I had a great desire that this remarkable
historical event should be fully recorded, I helped him as much as
I could.

"I had been assisting in the construction of the canal behind Mount Athos,
which Xerxes made in order to afford a short cut for his vessels, and as
I had frequently climbed into the various portions of the mountain in
order to make surveys of the country below, I had obtained a pretty good
knowledge of the neighborhood; and when disaster after disaster began to
hurl themselves upon this unfortunate multitude of invaders, I took
measures for my safety. I did not want to go back to Persia, even if
I could go there, which looked very doubtful after the battle of Salamis,
and as I had come into the country with the Persians, it might have been
unsafe to show myself with the Greeks; so, remembering what I had seen of
the wild regions of Mount Athos, I made my way there, with the intention
of dwelling in its rocky fastnesses until the country should become safe
for the ordinary wayfarer. As there was no opportunity of teaching school
on that desolate mountain--"

"And marrying one of thy scholars," interpolated Mrs. Crowder.

"--I became a sort of hermit," he continued; "but I did not spend my time
after the usual fashion of the conventional hermit, who lives on
water-cresses and reads great books with a skull to keep the pages open.
I built myself a rude cabin under a great rock, and lived somewhat after
the fashion of the other inhabitants of that wild region, mostly robbers
and outlaws. As I had nothing which any one would want to steal, I was
not afraid of them, and I could occasionally be of a little service to
them, especially in the way of rude medical attendance, for which they
were willing to pay me by giving me now and then some food.

"I had laid in a stock of writing-materials before I went up on the
mountain, and I now went to work with great enthusiasm to set down what
I knew of the expedition of Xerxes, and here it was that I made the notes
which were afterward so useful to Herodotus.

"When the country became quieter I went down into the plains, looked over
the battle-fields, and obtained a great deal of information from the
villagers and country people. I stayed here nearly two years, and had a
pretty hard time of it; but when I went away I took with me a very
valuable collection of notes.

"For many years I made no use of these notes; but being in Halicarnassus,
I heard of Herodotus, who was described as a great scholar and traveler,
and engaged in writing history. To him I applied without loss of time, and
I made a regular engagement, working several hours with him every day. For
this he paid me weekly a sum equal to about two dollars and seventy-five
cents of our present money; but it was enough to support me, and I was
very glad to have the opportunity of sending some of my experiences and
observations down into history. It was at this time that the love of
literary work began to arise within me, and in the next three or four
centuries after the death of Herodotus I wrote a number of books on
various subjects and under various names, and some of these, as
I mentioned before, were destroyed with the Alexandrian Library.

"It was in this period that I made the acquaintance of an editor--the
first editor, in fact, of whom I know anything at all. I was in Rhodes,
and there was a learned man there named Andronicus, who was engaged in
editing the works of Aristotle. All the manuscripts and books which that
great philosopher left behind him had been given to a friend, or trustee,
and had passed from this person into the possession of others, so that for
about a hundred years the world knew nothing of them. Then they came into
the hands of Andronicus, who undertook to edit them and get them into
proper shape for publication. I went to Andronicus, and as soon as he
found I was a person qualified for such work, he engaged me as his
assistant editor. I held this position for several years, and two or three
of the books of Aristotle I transcribed entirely with my own hand,
properly shaping sentences and paragraphs, and very often making the
necessary divisions. From my experience with Andronicus, I am sure that
none of the works of Aristotle were given to the world exactly as he wrote
them, for we often found his manuscript copies very rough and disjointed
so far as literary construction is concerned, but I will also say that we
never interfered with his philosophical theories or his scientific
statements and deductions."

"In all that time thee never married?" asked Mrs. Crowder.

Crowder and I could not help laughing.

"I did not say so," said he, "but I will say that, with one exception,
I do not remember any interesting matrimonial alliances which occurred
during the period of my literary labors. I married a young woman of
Rhodes, and gave her a very considerable establishment, which I was able
to do, for Andronicus paid me much better than Herodotus had done; but she
did not prove a very suitable helpmeet, and I believe she married me
simply because I was in fairly good circumstances. She soon showed that
she preferred a young man to an elderly student, the greater part of whose
time was occupied with books and manuscripts, and we had not been married
a year when she ran away with a young goldsmith, and disappeared from
Rhodes, as I discovered, on a vessel bound for Rome. I resigned myself
to my loss, and did not even try to obtain news of her. I was too much
engrossed in my work to be interested in a runaway wife.

"It was a little more than half a century after this that I was in Rome
and sitting on the steps of one of the public buildings in the Forum.
I was waiting to meet some one with whom I had business, and while I sat
there an old woman stopped in front of me. She was evidently poor, and
wretchedly dressed; her scanty hair was gray, and her face was wrinkled
and shrunken. I thought, of course, she was a beggar, and was about to
give her something, when she clasped her hands in front of her and
exclaimed, 'How like! How like! How like!' 'Like whom?' said I. 'What are
you talking about?' 'Like your father,' she said, 'like your father! You
are so like him, you resemble him so much in form and feature, in the way
you sit, in everything, that you must be his son!' 'I have no doubt I am
my father's son,' said I, 'and what do you know about him?' 'I married
him,' she said. 'For nearly a year I was his wife, and then I foolishly
ran away and left him. What became of him I know not, nor how long he
lived, but he was a great deal older than I was, and must have passed away
many years ago. But thou art his image. He had the same ruddy face, the
same short white hair, the same broad shoulders, the same way of crossing
his legs as he sat. He must have married soon after I left him. Tell me,
whom did he marry? What was thy mother's name?' I gave her the name of my
real mother, and she shook her head. 'I never heard of her,' she said.
'Did thy father ever speak of me, a wife who ran away from him?' 'Yes; he
has spoken of you--that is, if you are Zalia, the daughter of an
oil-merchant of Rhodes?'

[Illustration: "'HOW LIKE!'"]

"'I am that woman,' she exclaimed, 'I am that woman! And did he mourn my
loss?'

"'Not much, I think, not much.' Then I became a little nervous, for if
this old woman talked to me much longer I was afraid, in spite of the
fact that I was an elderly man when she was a girl, that she would become
convinced that I could not be the son of the man who had once been her
husband, but must be that man himself. So I hastily excused myself on the
plea of business, and after having given her some money I left her."

"And did thee never see her again?" his wife asked, almost with tears in
her eyes.

"No, I never saw her again," said Mr. Crowder; "I was careful not to do
that: but I did not neglect her; I caused good care to be taken of her
until she died."

There was a slight pause here, and then Mrs. Crowder said:

"Thee has known a great deal of poverty; in nearly all thy stories thee is
a poor man."

"There is good reason for that," said Mr. Crowder; "poor people frequently
have more adventures, at least more interesting ones, than those who are
in easy circumstances. Possession of money is apt to make life smoother
and more commonplace; so, in selecting the most interesting events of my
career to tell you, I naturally describe periods of comparative
poverty--and there were some periods in which I was in actual want of the
necessaries of life.

"But you must not suppose that I have always been poor. I have had my
periods of wealth, but, as I explained to you before, it was very
difficult, on account of the frequent necessity of changing my place of
residence, as well as my identity, to carry over my property from one set
of conditions to another. However, I have often been able to do this, and
at one time I was in comfortable circumstances for nearly two hundred
years. But generally, when I found myself obliged to leave a place where
I had been living, for fear of suspicion concerning my age, I had to
leave everything behind me.

"I will tell you a little story about one of my attempts, to provide for
the future. It was toward the end of the fifteenth century, about the time
that Columbus set out on his first voyage of discovery,--and you would be
surprised, considering the important results of his voyage, to know how
little sensation it caused in Europe,--that I devised a scheme by which
I thought I might establish for myself a permanent fortune. I was then
living in Genoa, and was carrying on the same business in which I am now
engaged. I was a broker, a dealer in money and commercial paper. I was
prosperous and well able to carry out the plan I had formed. This plan
was a simple one. I would purchase jewels, things easily carried about or
concealed, and which would be valuable in any country or any age; and with
this idea in my mind I spent many years in collecting valuable stones and
jewels, confining myself generally to rings, for I wished to make the bulk
of my treasures very small when compared with their value.

"About the middle of the sixteenth century I went to Rome, and took my
jewels with me. They were then a wonderfully fine collection of gems, some
of them of great antiquity and value; for, in gradually gathering them
together, the enthusiasm of the collector had possessed me, and I often
traveled far to possess myself of a valuable jewel of which I had heard.
I remained in Rome as long as I dared do so, and then prepared to set out
for Egypt, which I had not visited for a long time, and where I expected
to find interesting though depressing changes. I concluded, naturally
enough, that it would be dangerous for me to take my treasures with me,
and I could conceive of no place where it would be better to leave them
than in the Eternal City. Rome was central and comparatively easy of
access from any part of the world, and, moreover, was less liable to
changes than any other place; so I determined to leave my treasures in
Rome, and to put them somewhere where they were not likely to be
disturbed by the march of improvement, by the desolations of war and
conquest, or to become lost to me by the action of nature. I decided to
bury them in the catacombs. With these ancient excavations I was familiar,
and I believed that in their dark and mysterious recesses I could conceal
my jewels, and that I could find them again when I wanted them.

"I procured a small box made of thick bronze, and in this I put all my
rings and gems, and with them I inclosed several sheets of parchment,
on which I had written, with the fine ink the monks used in engrossing
their manuscripts, a detailed description, and frequently a history, of
every one of these valuable objects. Having securely fastened up the box,
I concealed it in my clothing and then made my way to the catacombs.

"It was a dark and rainy evening, and as the entrances to the catacombs
were not guarded in those days, it was not difficult for me to make my
way unseen into their interior. I had brought with me a tinder-box and
several rushlights, and as soon as I felt secure from observation from
the outside I struck a light and began my operations. Then, according to
a plan I had previously made, I slowly walked along the solemn passageway
which I had entered.

"My plan of procedure was a very simple one, and I had purposely made it
so in order that it might be more easily remembered. I was well acquainted
with the position of the opening by which I had entered. For several days
I had studied carefully its relation to other points in the surrounding
country. Starting from this opening, my plan was to proceed inward through
the long corridor until I came to a transverse passage; to pass this until
I reached another; to pass this also, and to go on until I came to a
third; then I would turn to my left and proceed until I had passed two
other transverse passages and reached a third; then I would again turn
to my left and count the open tombs on my left hand. When I reached the
third tomb I would stop. Thus there would be a series of three threes,
and it was scarcely possible that I could forget that.

"At this period a great many of the tombs were open, having been despoiled
even of the few bones they contained. The opening at which I stopped was
quite a large one, and when I put my light inside I found it was entirely
empty.

"Lighting another rush-candle, I stuck it in the bottom of the tomb, which
was about four feet above the floor of the passage, and drawing my large
dagger, I proceeded to dig a hole in the left-hand corner nearest the
front. The earth was dry and free from stones, and I soon made a hole two
feet deep, at the bottom of which I placed my box. Then I covered it up,
pressing the earth firmly down into the hole. When this was entirely
filled, I smoothed away the rest of the earth I had taken out, and after
I finished my work, the floor of the tomb did not look as if it had been
disturbed. Then I went away, reached the passage three tombs from me,
turned to the right, went on until I reached the third transverse passage,
then went on until I came to the entrance. It was raining heavily, but
I was glad to get out into the storm."

[Illustration: "'I PROCEEDED TO DIG A HOLE.'"]

"Now, please hurry on," said Mrs. Crowder. "When did thee get them again?"

"A great many things happened in Egypt," said Mr. Crowder, "some pleasant
and some unpleasant, and they kept me there a long time. After that I went
to Constantinople, and subsequently resided in Greece and in Venice.
I lived very comfortably during the greater part of this period, and
therefore there was no particular reason why I should go after my jewels.
So it happened that, for one cause or another, I did not go back to Rome
until early in the nineteenth century, and I need not assure you that
almost the first place I visited was the catacombs.

"After three hundred years of absence I found the entrance, but if I had
not so well noted its position in relation to certain ruins and natural
objects I should not have recognized it. It was not now a wide opening
through which a man might walk; it was a little hole scarcely big enough
for a fox to crawl through; in fact, I do not believe there would have
been any opening there at all if it had not been for the small animals
living in the catacombs, which had maintained this opening for the purpose
of going in and out. It was broad daylight when I found this entrance. Of
course I did not attempt to do anything then, but in the night, when there
was no moon, I came with a spade. I enlarged the hole, crawled through,
and after a time found myself in a passageway, which was unobstructed."

"Now, hurry on," said Mrs. Crowder.

"I brought no rushlights with me this time," said Mr. Crowder. "I had a
good lantern, and I walked steadily on until I came to the third
transverse passage; I turned to the left, counted three more passages;
I turned to the left, I walked on slowly, I examined the left-hand wall,
and apparently there were no open tombs. This startled me, but I soon
found that I had been mistaken. I saw some tombs which were not open, but
which had been opened and were now nearly filled with the dust of ages.
I stopped before the first of these; then I went on and clearly made out
the position of another; then I came to the third: that was really open,
although the aperture was much smaller than it had been. It did not look
as I remembered it, but without hesitation I took a trowel which I had
brought with me, and began to dig in the nearest left-hand corner.

"I dug and I dug until I had gone down more than two feet; then I dug on
and on until, standing in the passage as I was, I could not reach down any
deeper into the hole I had made. So I crawled into the tomb, crouched down
on my breast, and dug down and down as far as I could reach.

"Then," said Mr. Crowder, looking at us as he spoke, "I found the box."

A great sigh of relief came from Mrs. Crowder.

"I was so afraid," said she--"I was so afraid it had sunk out of reach."

"No," said he; "its weight had probably made it settle down, and then the
dust of ages, as I remarked before, had accumulated over it. That sort
of thing is going on in Rome all the time. But I found my box, and, after
hours and hours of wandering, I got out of the catacombs."

"How was that?" we both asked.

"I was so excited at the recovery of my treasures after the lapse of three
centuries that when I turned into the first passage I forgot to count
those which crossed it, and my mind became so thoroughly mixed up in
regard to this labyrinth that I don't know when I would have found my way
out if I had not heard a little animal--I don't know what it was
--scurrying away in front of me. I followed it, and eventually saw a
little speck of light. That proved to be the hole through which I had come
in."

"What did thee do with the jewels?" asked Mrs. Crowder.

Her husband looked at his watch, and then held it with the face toward
her.

She gave a cry of surprise, and we all went up-stairs to bed.




V


"Now, my dear," said Mrs. Crowder, the moment we had finished dinner on the
next evening, "I want thee to tell us immediately what thee did with the
jewels. I have been thinking about that all day; and I believe, if I had
been with thee, I could have given thee some good advice, so that the
money thee received for these treasures would have lasted thee a long
time."

"I have thought on that subject many times," said Mr. Crowder, "not only
in regard to this case, but others, and have formed hundreds of plans for
carrying my possessions into another set of social conditions; but the
fact of being obliged to change my identity always made it impossible
for me to avail myself of the advantages of commercial paper, legal deeds,
and all titles to property."

"Thee might have put thy wealth into solid gold--great bars and lumps.
Those would be available in any country and in any age, and they
wouldn't have had anything to do with thy identity," said his wife.

"It was always difficult for me to carry about or even conceal such golden
treasures, but I have sometimes done it. However, as you are in such a
hurry to hear about the jewels, I will let all other subjects drop. When
I reached my lodgings in Rome, I opened the box, and found everything
perfect; the writing on the sheets of parchment was still black and
perfectly legible, and the jewels looked just as they did when I put them
into the box."

"I cannot imagine," interrupted Mrs. Crowder, "how thee remembered what
they looked like after the lapse of three hundred years."

Mr. Crowder smiled. "You forget," he said, "that since I first reached
the age of fifty-three there has been no radical change in me,
physical or mental. My memory is just as good now as it was when I reached
my fifty-third birthday, in the days of Abraham. It is impossible for me
to forget anything of importance, and I remembered perfectly the
appearance of those gems. But my knowledge of such things had been greatly
improved by time and experience, and after I had spent an hour or two
looking over my treasures, I felt sure that they were far more valuable
than they were when they came into my possession. In fact, it was a
remarkable collection of precious stones, considering it in regard to its
historic as well as its intrinsic value.

"I shall not attempt to describe my various plans for disposing of my
treasures; but I soon found that it would not be wise for me to try to
sell them in Rome. I had picked out one of the least valuable engraved
stones, and had taken it to a lapidary, who readily bought it at his
own valuation, and paid me with great promptness; but after he had secured
it he asked me so many questions about it, particularly how I had come
into possession of it, that I was very sure that he had made a wonderful
bargain, and was also convinced that it would not do for me to take any
more of my gems to him. Those Roman experts knew too much about antique
jewels.

"I went to Naples, where I had a similar experience. Then I found it would
be well for me, if I did not wish to be arrested as a thief who had robbed
a museum, to endeavor to sell my collection as a whole in some other
country. As a professional dealer in gems from a foreign land I would be
less liable to suspicion than if I endeavored to peddle my jewels one at a
time. So I determined to go to Madrid and try to sell my collection there.

"When I reached Spain I found the country in a great turmoil. This was in
1808, when Napoleon was on the point of invading Spain; but as
politicians, statesmen, and military men were not in the habit of buying
ancient gems, I still hoped that I might be able to transact the business
which had brought me to the country. My collection would be as valuable to
a museum then as at any time; for it was not supposed that the French were
coming into the country to ravage and destroy the great institutions of
learning and art. I made acquaintances in Madrid, and before long I had an
opportunity of exhibiting my collection to a well-known dealer and
connoisseur, who was well acquainted with the officers of the Royal
Museum. I thought it would be well to sell them through his agency, even
though I paid him a high commission.

"If I should say that this man was astounded as well as delighted when he
saw my collection, I should be using very feeble expressions; for, carried
away by his enthusiasm, he did not hesitate to say to me that it was the
most valuable collection he had ever seen. Even if the stones had been
worthless in themselves, their historic value was very great. Of course he
wanted to know where I had obtained these treasures, and I informed him
truthfully that I had traveled far and wide in order to gather them
together. I told him the history of many of them, but entirely omitted
mentioning anything which would give a clue to the times and periods when
I had come into possession of them.

"This dealer undertook the sale of my jewels. We arranged them in a
handsome box lined with velvet and divided into compartments, and I made
a catalogue of them, copied from my ancient parchments--which would have
ruined me had I inadvertently allowed them to be seen. He put himself into
communication with the officers of the museum, and I left the matter
entirely in his hands.

"In less than a week I became aware that I was an object of suspicion.
I called on the dealer, but he was not to be seen. I found that I was
shadowed by officers of the law. I wrote to the dealer, but received no
answer. One evening, when I returned to my lodgings, I found that they had
been thoroughly searched. I became alarmed, and the conviction forced
itself upon me that the sooner I should escape from Madrid, the better for
me."

"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder, "and leave thy jewels behind? Thee
certainly did not do that!"

"Ah, my dear," replied her husband, "you do not comprehend the situation.
It was very plain that the authorities of the museum did not believe that
a private individual, a stranger, was likely to be the legitimate owner of
these treasures. Had my case been an ordinary one I should have courted
investigation; but how could I prove that I had been an honest man three
hundred years before? A legal examination, not so much on account of the
jewels, but because of the necessary assertion of my age, would have been
a terrible ordeal.

"I hurried to the dealer's shop, but found it closed. Inquiring of a woman
in a neighboring door-step, I was informed that the dealer had been
arrested. I asked no more. I did not return to my lodgings, and that night
I left Madrid."

I could not repress an exclamation of distress, and Mrs. Crowder cried:
"Did thee really go away and leave thy jewels? Such a thing is too
dreadful to think of. But perhaps thee got them again?"

"No," said Mr. Crowder; "I never saw them again, nor ever heard of them.
But now that it is impossible for any one to be living who might recognize
me, I hope to go to Madrid and see those gems. I have no doubt that they
are in the museum."

"And I," exclaimed Mrs. Crowder--"I shall go with thee; I shall see them."

"Indeed you shall," said her husband, taking her affectionately by the
hand. And then he turned to me. "You may think," said he, "that I was too
timid, that I was too ready to run away from danger; but it is hard for
any one but myself readily to appreciate my horror of a sentence to
imprisonment or convict labor for life."

"Oh, horrible!" said his wife, with tears in her eyes. "Then thee would
have despaired indeed."

"No," said he; "I should not even have had that consolation. Despair is a
welcome to death. A man who cannot die cannot truly despair. But do not
let us talk upon such a melancholy subject."

"No, no," cried Mrs. Crowder; "I am glad thee left those wretched jewels
behind thee. And thee got away safely?"

"Oh, yes; I had some money left. I traveled by night and concealed myself
by day, and so got out of Spain. Soon after I crossed the Pyrenees I found
myself penniless, and was obliged to work my way."

"Poverty again!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder. "It is dreadful to hear so much
of it. If thee could only have carried away with thee one of thy diamonds,
thee might have cracked it up into little pieces, and thee might have sold
these, one at a time, without suspicion."

"I never thought of being a vender of broken diamonds, and there is
nothing suspicious about honest labor. The object of my present endeavors
was to reach England, and I journeyed northward. It was nearly a month
after I had entered France that I was at a little village on the Garonne,
repairing a stone wall which divided a field from the road, and I assure
you I was very glad to get this job.

"It was here that I heard of the near approach of Napoleon's army on its
march into Spain; that the news was true was quickly proved, for very soon
after I had begun my work on the wall the country to the north seemed to
be filled with cavalry, infantry, artillery, baggage-wagons, and
everything that pertained to an army. About noon there was a general halt,
and in the field the wall of which I was repairing a body of officers made
a temporary encampment.

"I paid as little apparent attention as possible to what was going on
around me, but proceeded steadily with my work, although I assure you
I had my eyes wide open all the time. I was thinking of stopping work in
order to eat my dinner, which I had with me, when a party of officers
approached me on their way to a little hill in the field. One of them
stopped and spoke to me, and as he did so the others halted and stood
together a little way off. The moment I looked at the person who
addressed me I knew him. It was Napoleon Bonaparte."

"Then thee has seen the great Napoleon," almost whispered Mrs. Crowder.

"And very much disappointed I was when I beheld him," remarked her
husband. "I had seen portraits of him, I had read and heard of his great
achievements, and I had pictured to myself a hero. Perhaps my experience
should have taught me that heroes seldom look like heroes, but for all
that I had had my ideal, and in appearance this man fell below it. His
face was of an olive color which was unequally distributed over his
features; he was inclined to be pudgy, and his clothes did not appear to
fit him; but for all that he had the air of a man who with piercing eyes
saw his way before him and did not flinch from taking it, rough as it
might be. 'You seem an old man for such work,' said he, 'but if you are
strong enough to lift those stones why are you not in the army?' As he
spoke I noticed that he had not the intonation of a true Frenchman. He
had the accent of the foreigner that he was.

[Illustration: "'WHY ARE YOU NOT IN THE ARMY?'"]

"'Sire,' said I, 'I am too old for the army, but in spite of my age I must
earn my bread.' I may state here that my hair and beard had been growing
since I left Madrid. For a moment the emperor regarded me in silence. 'Are
you a Frenchman?' said he. 'You speak too well for a stone-mason, and,
moreover, your speech is that of a foreigner who has studied French.' It
was odd that each of us should have remarked the accent of the other, but
I was not amused at this; I was becoming very nervous. 'Sire,' said
I, 'I come from Italy.' 'Were you born there?' asked he. My nervousness
increased. This man was too keen a questioner. 'Sire,' I replied, 'I was
born in the country southeast of Rome.' This was true enough, but it was a
long way southeast. 'Do you speak Spanish?' he abruptly asked.

"At this question my blood ran cold. I had had enough of speaking Spanish.
I was trying to get away from Spain and everything that belonged to that
country; but I thought it safest to speak the truth, and I answered that
I understood the language. The emperor now beckoned to one of his
officers, and ordered him to talk with me in Spanish. I had been in Spain
in the early part of the preceding century, and I had there learned to
speak the pure Castilian tongue, so that when the officer talked with me
I could see that he was surprised, and presently he told the emperor that
he had never heard any one who spoke such excellent Spanish. The emperor
fixed his eyes upon me. 'You must have traveled a great deal,' he said.
'You should not be wasting your time with stones and mortar.' Then,
turning to the officer who had spoken to me, he said, 'He understands
Spanish so well that we may make him useful.' He was about to address me
again, but was interrupted by the arrival of an orderly with a despatch.
This he read hastily, and walked toward the officers who were waiting for
him; but before he left me he ordered me to report myself at his tent,
which was not far off in the field. He then walked away, evidently
discussing the despatch, which he still held open in his hand.

"Now I was again plunged into the deepest apprehension and fear. I did not
want to go back to Spain, not knowing what might happen to me there. Every
evil thing was possible. I might be recognized, and the emperor might not
care to shield any one claimed by the law as an escaped thief. In an
instant I saw all sorts of dreadful possibilities. I determined to take
no chances. The moment the emperor's back was turned upon me I got over
the broken part of the wall and, interfered with by no one, passed quietly
along the road to the house of the man who had employed me to do his
mason-work, and seeing no one there,--for every window and door was
tightly closed,--I walked into the yard and went to the well, which was
concealed from the road by some shrubbery. I looked quickly about, and
perceiving that I was not in sight of any one, I got into the well and
went down to the bottom, assisting my descent by the well-rope. The water
was about five feet deep, and when I first entered it, it chilled me; but
nothing could chill me so much as the thought that I might be taken back
into Spain, no matter by whom or for what. I must admit that I was doing
then, and often had done, that which seemed very much like cowardice; but
people who can die cannot understand the fear which may come upon a person
who has not that refuge from misfortune.

"For the rest of the day I remained in the well, and when people came to
draw water--and this happened many times in the course of the afternoon
--I crouched down as much as I could; but at such times I would have been
concealed by the descending bucket, even if any one had chosen to look
down the well. This bucket was a heavy one with iron hoops, and I had a
great deal of trouble sometimes to shield my head from it."

"I should think thee would have taken thy death of cold," said Mrs.
Crowder, "staying in that cold well the whole afternoon."

"No," said her husband, with a smile; "I was not afraid of that. If
I should have taken cold I knew it would not be fatal, and although the
water chilled me at first, I became used to it. An hour or two after
nightfall I clambered up the well-rope,--and it was not an easy thing, for
although not stout, I am a heavy man,--and I got away over the fields with
all the rapidity possible. I did not look back to see if the army were
still on the road, nor did I ever know whether I had been searched for or
had been forgotten.

"I shall not describe the rest of my journey. There is nothing remarkable
about it except that it was beset with many hardships. I made my way into
Switzerland and so on down the Rhine, and it was nearly seven months after
I left Madrid before I reached England.

"I remained many years in Great Britain, living here and there, and was
greatly interested in the changes and improvements I saw around me. You
can easily understand this when I tell you it was in 1512, twenty years
after the discovery of America, that I had last been in England. I do not
believe that in any other part of the world the changes in three hundred
years could have been more marked and impressive.

"I had never visited Ireland, and as I had a great desire to see that
country, I made my way there as soon as possible, and after visiting the
most noted spots of the island I settled down to work as a gardener."

"Always poor," ejaculated Mrs. Crowder, with a sigh.

"No, not always," answered her husband. "But wandering sight-seers cannot
be expected to make much money. At this time I was very glad indeed to
cease from roving and enjoy the comforts of a home, even though it were a
humble one. The family with whom I took service was that of Maria
Edgeworth, who lived with her father in Edgeworthstown."

"What!" cried Mrs. Crowder, "'Lazy Lawrence,' 'Simple Susan,' and all the
rest of them? Was it that Miss Edgeworth?"

"Certainly," said he; "there never was but one Maria Edgeworth, and I
don't think there ever will be another. I soon became very well acquainted
with Miss Edgeworth. Her father was a studious man and a magistrate. He
paid very little attention to the house and garden, the latter of which
was almost entirely under the charge of his daughter Maria. She used to
come out among the flower-beds and talk to me, and as my varied experience
enabled me to tell her a great deal about fruits, flowers, and vegetables,
she became more and more interested in what I had to tell her. She was a
plain, sensible woman, anxious for information, and she lived in a very
quiet neighborhood where she did not often have opportunities of meeting
persons of intelligence and information. But when she found out that
I could tell her so many things, not only about plants but about the
countries where I had known them, she would sometimes spend an hour or two
with me, taking notes of what I said.

"During the time that I was her gardener she wrote the story of 'The
Little Merchants,' and as she did not know very much about Italy and
Naples, I gave her most of the points for that highly moral story. She
told me, in fact, that she did not believe she could have written it had
it not been for my assistance. She thought well to begin the story by
giving some explanatory 'Extracts from a Traveler's Journal' relative
to Italian customs, but afterward she depended entirely on me for all
points concerning distinctive national characteristics and the general
Italian atmosphere. As she became aware that I was an educated man and
had traveled in many countries, she was curious about my antecedents, but
of course my remarks in that direction were very guarded.

"One day, as she was standing looking at me as I was pruning a rose-bush,
she made a remark which startled me. I perfectly remember her words. 'It
seems to me,' she said, 'that one who is so constantly engaged in
observing and encouraging the growth and development of plants should
himself grow and develop. Roses of one year are generally better than
those of the year before. Then why is not the gardener better?' To these
words she immediately added, being a woman of kind impulses, 'But in the
case of a good gardener, such as you are, I've no doubt he does grow
better, year by year.'"

"What was there startling in that little speech?" asked Mrs. Crowder.
"I don't think she could have said anything less."

"I will tell you why I was startled," said her husband. "Almost those very
words--mark me, almost those very words--had been said to me when I was
working in the wonderful gardens of Nebuchadnezzar, and he was standing by
me watching me prune a rose-bush. That Maria Edgeworth and the great
Nebuchadnezzar should have said the same thing to me was enough to startle
me."

To this astounding statement Mrs. Crowder and I listened with wide-open
eyes.

"Yes," said Mr. Crowder; "you may think it amazing that a very ordinary
remark should connect 'The Parents' Assistant' with the city of Babylon,
but so it was. In the course of my life I have noticed coincidences quite
as strange.

"I spent many years in the city of Babylon, but the wonderful Hanging
Gardens interested me more than anything else the great city contained. At
the time of which I have just spoken I was one of Nebuchadnezzar's
gardeners, but not in the humble position which I afterward filled in
Ireland. I had under my orders fifteen slaves, and my principal duty was
to direct the labors of these poor men. These charming gardens, resting
upon arches high above the surface of the ground, watered by means of
pipes from the river Euphrates, and filled with the choicest flowers,
shrubs, and plants known to the civilization of the time, were a
ceaseless source of delight to me. Often, when I had finished the daily
work assigned to me and my men, I would wander over other parts of the
garden and enjoy its rare beauties.

"I frequently met Nebuchadnezzar, who for the time enjoyed his gardens
almost as much as I did. When relieved from the cares of state and his
ambitious plans, and while walking in the winding paths among sparkling
fountains and the fragrant flowerbeds, he seemed like a very ordinary man,
quiet and reflective, with very good ideas concerning nature and
architecture. The latter I learned from his frequent remarks to me.
I suppose it was because I appeared to be so much older and more
experienced than most of those who composed his little army of gardeners
that he often addressed me, asking questions and making suggestions; and
it was one afternoon, standing by me as I was at work in a rose-bed, that
he said the words which were spoken to me about twenty-four centuries
afterward by Maria Edgeworth. Now, wasn't that enough to startle a man?"

[Illustration: NEBUCHADNEZZAR AND THE GARDENER.]

"Startle!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder, "I should have screamed. I should have
thought that some one had come from the dead to speak to me. But I suppose
there was nothing about Maria Edgeworth which reminded thee of
Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon."

"Yes, there was," replied her husband: "there was the same meditative
expression of the eyes; the same reflective mood as each one began to
speak, as if he and she were merely thinking aloud; the same quick, kind
reference to me, as if the speaker feared that my feelings might have been
hurt by a presumption that I myself had not developed and improved.

"I had good reason to remember those words of Nebuchadnezzar, for they
were the last I ever heard him speak. A few days afterward I was informed
by the chief gardener that the king was about to make a journey across the
mountains into Media, and that he intended to establish there what would
now be called an experimental garden of horticulture, which was to be
devoted to growing and improving certain ornamental trees which did not
flourish in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. His expedition was not to be
undertaken entirely for this purpose, but he was a man who did a great
many things at once, and the establishment of these experimental grounds
was only one of the objects of his journey.

"The chief gardener then went on to say that the king had spoken to him
about me and had said that he would take me with him and perhaps put me in
charge of the new gardens.

"This mark of royal favor did not please me at all. I had hoped that I
might ultimately become the chief of the Babylonian gardens, and this
would have suited me admirably. It was a position of profit and some
honor, and when I thought that I had lived long enough in that part of the
world it would have been easy for me to make a journey into the
surrounding country on some errand connected with the business of the
gardens, and then quietly to disappear? But if I were to be taken into
Media it might not be easy for me to get away. Therefore I did not wait
to see Nebuchadnezzar again and receive embarrassing royal commands, but
I went to my home that night, and returned no more to the wonderful
Hanging Gardens of Babylon."

"I think thee was a great deal better off in the gardens of Maria
Edgeworth," said Mrs. Crowder, "for there thee could come and go as thee
pleased, and it almost makes my flesh creep when I think of thee living
in company with the bloody tyrants of the past. And always in poverty and
suffering, as if thee had been one of the common people, and not the
superior of every man around thee! I don't want to hear anything more
about the wicked Nebuchadnezzar. How long did thee stay with Maria
Edgeworth?"

"About four years," he replied; "and I might have remained much longer,
for in that quiet life the advance of one's years was not likely to be
noticed. I am sure Miss Edgeworth looked no older to me when I left her
than when I first saw her. But she was obliged to go into England to
nurse her sick stepmother, and after her departure the place had no
attractions for me, and I left Ireland."

"I wonder," said Mrs. Crowder, a little maliciously, "that thee did not
marry her."

Her husband laughed.

"Englishwomen of her rank in society do not marry their gardeners, and,
besides, in any case, she would not have suited me for a wife. For one
reason, she was too homely."

"Oh," exclaimed Mrs. Crowder, and she might have said more, but her
husband did not give her a chance.

"I know I have talked a great deal about my days of poverty and misery,
and now I will tell you something different. For a time I was the ruler of
all the Russias."

"Ruler!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder and I, almost in the same breath.

"Yes," said he, "absolute ruler. And this was the way of it:

"I was in Russia in the latter part of the seventeenth century, at a time
when there was great excitement in royal and political circles. The young
czar Feodor had recently died, and he had named as his successor his
half-brother Peter, a boy ten years of age, who afterward became Peter the
Great. The late czar's young brother Ivan should have succeeded him, but
he was almost an idiot. In this complicated state of things, the
half-sister of Peter, the Princess Sophia, a young woman of wonderful
ambition and really great abilities, rose to the occasion. She fomented a
revolution; there was fighting, with all sorts of cruelties and horrors,
and when affairs had quieted down she was princess regent, while the two
boys, Ivan and Peter, were waiting to see what would happen next.

"She was really a woman admirably adapted to her position. She was well
educated, wrote poetry, and knew how to play her part in public affairs.
She presided in the councils, and her authority was without control; but
she was just as bloody-minded and cruel as anybody else in Russia.

"Now, it so happened when the Princess Sophia was at the height of her
power, that I was her secretary. For five or six years I had been a teacher
of languages in Moscow, and at one time I had given lessons to the
princess. In this way she had become well acquainted with me, and having
frequently called upon me for information of one sort or another, she
concluded to make me her secretary. Thus I was established at the court of
Russia. I had charge of all Sophia's public papers, and I often had a good
deal to do with her private correspondence, but she signed and sealed all
papers of importance.

"The Prince Galitzin, who had been her father's minister and was now
Sophia's main supporter in all her autocratic designs and actions, found
himself obliged to leave Moscow to attend to his private affairs on his
great estates, and to be absent for more than a month; and after his
departure the princess depended on me more than ever. Like many women in
high positions, it was absolutely necessary for her to have a man on whom
she could lean with one hand while she directed her affairs with the
other."

"I do not think that is always necessary," said Mrs. Crowder, "at least, in
these days."

"Perhaps not," said her husband, with a smile, "but it was then. But I must
get on with my story. One morning soon after Galitzin's departure, the
horses attached to the royal sledge ran away just outside of Moscow. The
princess was thrown out upon the hard ground, and badly dislocated her
right wrist. By the time she had been taken back to the palace her arm and
hand were dreadfully swollen, and it was difficult for her surgeons to do
anything for her.

"I was called into the princess's room just after the three surgeons had
been sent to prison. I found her in great trouble, mental as well as
physical, and her principal anxiety was that she was afraid it would be a
long time before she would be able to use her hand and sign and seal the
royal acts and decrees. She had a certain superstition about this which
greatly agitated her. If she could not sign and seal, she did not believe
she would be able to rule. Any one who understood the nature of the
political factions in Russia well knew that an uprising among the nobles
might occur upon any pretext, and no pretext could be so powerful as the
suspicion of incompetency in the sovereign. The seat of a ruler who did
not rule was extremely uncertain.

"At that moment a paper of no great importance, which had been sent in to
her before she went out in her sledge that morning, was lying on the table
near her couch, and she was greatly worried because she could not sign it.
I assured her she need not trouble herself about it, for I could attend to
it. I had often affixed her initials and seal to unimportant papers.

"The princess did not object to my proposition, but this was not enough
for her. She had a deep mind, and she quickly concocted a scheme by which
her public business should be attended to, while at the same time it
should not be known that she did not attend to it. She caused it to be
given out that it was her ankle which had been injured, and not her wrist.
She sent for another surgeon, and had him locked up in the palace when he
was not attending to her, so that he should tell no tales. Her ladies were
informed that it would be very well for them to keep silent, and they
understood her. Then she arranged with me that all public business should
be brought to her; that I should sign and seal in her place, and should be
her agent of communication with the court.

"When this plan had been settled upon, the princess regained something of
her usual good spirits. 'As I never sign my name with my toes,' she said
to me, 'there is no reason why a sprained ankle should interfere with my
royal functions, and, for the present, you can be my right hand.'

"This was a very fine plan, but it did not work as she expected it would.
Her wrist became more and more painful, and fever set in, and on the
second day, when I called upon her, I found she was in no condition to
attend to business. She was irritable and drowsy. 'Don't annoy me with
that paper,' she said. 'If the wool-dealers ought to have their taxes
increased, increase them. You should not bring these trifles to me; but'
--and now she regained for a moment her old acuteness--'remember this:
don't let my administration stop.'

"I understood her very well, and when I left her I saw my course plain
before me. It was absolutely necessary that the exercise of royal
functions by the Princess Sophia should appear to go on in its usual way;
any stoppage would be a signal for a revolution. In order that this plan
should be carried out, I must act for the princess regent; I must do what
I thought right, and it must be done in her name, exactly as if she had
ordered it. I assumed the responsibilities without hesitation. While it
was supposed I was merely the private secretary of the princess, acting as
her agent and mouthpiece, I was in fact the ruler of all the Russias."

Mrs. Crowder opened her mouth as if she would gasp for breath, but she did
not say anything.

"You can scarcely imagine, my dear," said he, "the delight with which
I assumed the powers so suddenly thrust upon me. I set myself to work
without delay, and, as I knew all about the wool-dealers' business,
I issued a royal decree decreasing their taxes. Poor creatures! they
were suffering enough already."

"Good for thee!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder.

"I cannot tell you of all the reforms I devised, or even those which
I carried out. I knew that the fever of the princess, aggravated by the
inflammation of her dislocated wrist, would continue for some time, and
I bent all my energies to the work of doing as much good as I could in the
vast empire under my control while I had the opportunity. And it was a
great opportunity, indeed! I did not want to do anything so radical as to
arouse the opposition of the court, and therefore I directed my principal
efforts to the amelioration of the condition of the people in the
provinces. It would be a long time before word could get back to the
capital of what I had done in those distant regions. By night and by day
my couriers were galloping in every direction, carrying good news to the
peasants of Russia. It was remarked by some of the councilors, when they
spoke of the municipal reforms I instituted, that the princess seemed to
be in a very humane state of mind; but none of them cared to interfere
with what they supposed to be the sick-bed workings of her conscience. So
I ruled with a high hand, astonishing the provincial officials, and
causing thousands of downtrodden subjects to begin to believe that perhaps
they were really human beings, with some claim on royal justice and
kindness.

"I fairly reveled in my imperial power, but I never forgot to be prudent.
I lessened the duties and slightly increased the pay of the military
regiments stationed in and about Moscow, and thus the Princess Sophia
became very popular with the army, and I felt safe. I went in to see the
princess every day, and several times when she was in her right mind she
asked me if everything was going on well, and once when I assured her that
all was progressing quietly and satisfactorily, she actually thanked me.
This was a good deal for a Russian princess. If she had known how the
people were thanking _her_, I do not know what would have happened.

"For twenty-one days I reigned over Russia. If I had been able to do it,
I should have made each day a year; I felt that I was in my proper place."

"And thee was right," said Mrs. Crowder, her eyes sparkling. "I believe
that at that time thee was the only monarch in the world who was worthy to
reign." And with a loyal pride, as if he had just stepped from a throne,
she put her hand upon his arm.

"Yes," said Mr. Crowder, "I honestly believe that I was a good monarch,
and I will admit that in those days such personages were extremely scarce.
So my imperial sway proceeded with no obstruction until I was informed
that Prince Galitzin was hastening to Moscow, on his return from his
estates, and was then within three days' journey of the capital. Now I
prepared to lay down the tremendous power which I had wielded with such
immense satisfaction to myself, and with such benefit, I do not hesitate
to say, to the people of Russia. The effects of my rule are still to be
perceived in some of the provinces of Russia, and decrees I made more than
two hundred years ago are in force in many villages along the eastern side
of the Volga.

"The day before Prince Galitzin was expected, I visited Sophia for the
last time. She was a great deal better, and much pleased by the expected
arrival of her minister. She even gave me some commands, but when I left
her I did not execute them. I would not have my reign sullied by any of
her mandates. That afternoon, in a royal sledge, with the royal
permission, given by myself, to travel where and how I pleased, I left
Moscow. Frequent relays of horses carried me rapidly beyond danger of
pursuit, and so, in course of time, I passed the boundaries of the empire
of Russia, over which for three weeks I had ruled, an absolute autocrat."

"Does thee know," said Mrs. Crowder, "that two or three times I expected
thee to say that thee married Sophia?"

Mr. Crowder laughed. "That is truly a wild notion," said he.

"I don't think it is wild at all," she replied. "In the course of thy life
thee has married a great many plain persons. In some ways that princess
would have suited thee as a wife, and if thee had really married her and
had become her royal consort, like Prince Albert, thee might have made a
great change in her. But, after all, it would have been a pity to
interfere with the reign of Peter the Great."




VI


"And what did thee do after thee got out of Russia?" asked Mrs. Crowder,
the next evening.

Her husband shook his head. "No, no, my dear; we can't go on with my
autobiography in that fashion. If I should take up my life step by step,
there would not be time enough--" There he stopped, but I am sure we both
understood his meaning. There would be plenty of time for him!

"Often and often," said Mr. Crowder, after a few minutes' silence, "have
I determined to adopt some particular profession, and continue its
practice wherever I might find myself; but in this I did not succeed very
well. Frequently I was a teacher, but not for many consecutive years.
Something or other was sure to happen to turn my energies into other
channels."

"Such as falling in love with thy scholars," said his wife.

"You have a good memory," he replied. "That sometimes happened; but there
were other reasons which turned me away from the paths of the pedagogue.
With my widely extended opportunities, I naturally came to know a good
deal of medicine and surgery. Frequently I had been a doctor in spite of
myself, and as far back as the days of the patriarchs I was called upon
to render aid to sick and ailing people.

"In the days when I lived in a cave and gained a reputation as a wise and
holy hermit, more people came to me to get relief from bodily ailments
than to ask for spiritual counsel. You will remember that I told you that
I was visited at that time by Moses and Joshua. Moses came, I truly
believe, on account of his desire to become acquainted with the prophet El
Khoudr, of whom he had heard so much; but Joshua wanted to see me for an
entirely different reason. The two remained with me for about an hour, and
although Moses had no belief in me as a prophet, he asked me a great many
questions, and I am sure that I proved to him that I was a man of a great
deal of information. He had a keen mind, with a quick perception of the
motives of others, and in every way was well adapted to be a leader of
men.

"When Moses had gone away to a tent about a mile distant, where he
intended to spend the night, Joshua remained, and as soon as his uncle was
out of sight, he told me why he wished to see me."

"His uncle!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder.

"Certainly," said her husband; "Joshua was the son of Nun and of Miriam,
and Miriam was the sister of Moses and Aaron. What he now wanted from me
was medical advice. For some time he had been afflicted with rheumatism in
his left leg, which came upon him after exposure to the damp and cold.

"Now, this was a very important thing to Joshua. He was a great favorite
with Moses, who intended him, as we all know, to be his successor as
leader of the people and of the army. Joshua was essentially a soldier;
he was quiet, brave, and a good disciplinarian; in fact, he had all the
qualities needed for the position he expected to fill: but he was not
young, and if he should become subject to frequent attacks of rheumatism,
it is not likely that Moses, who had very rigid ideas of his duties to his
people, would be willing to place at their head a man who might at any
time be incapacitated from taking his proper place on the field of battle.
So Joshua had never mentioned his ailment to his uncle, hoping that he
might be relieved of it, and having heard that I was skilled in such
matters, now wished my advice.

"I soon found that his ailment was a very ordinary one, which might easily
be kept under control, if not cured, and I proceeded at once to apply
remedies. I will just mention that in those days remedies were generally
heroic, and I think you will agree with me when I tell you how I treated
Joshua. I first rubbed his aching muscles with fine sand, keeping up a
friction until his skin was in a beautiful glow. Then I brought out from
the back part of my cave, where I kept my medicines, a jar containing a
liniment which I had made for such purposes. It was composed of oil, in
which had been steeped the bruised fruit or pods of a plant very much
resembling the Tabasco pepper-plant."

"Whoop!" I exclaimed involuntarily.

"Yes," said Mr. Crowder, "and Joshua 'whooped' too. But it was a grand
liniment, especially when applied upon skin already excited by rubbing
with sand. He jumped at first, but he was a soldier, and he bore the
application bravely.

"I saw him again the next day, and he assured me with genuine pleasure
that every trace of the rheumatism had disappeared. I gave him some of my
liniment, and also showed him some of the little pepper pods, so that he
might procure them at any time in the future when he should need them.

"It was more than twenty years after this that I again met Joshua. He was
then an elderly man, but still a vigorous soldier. He assured me that he
had used my remedy whenever he had felt the least twinges of rheumatism,
and that the disease had never interfered with the performance of his
military duties.

"He was much surprised to see that I looked no older than when he had met
me before. He was greatly impressed by this, and talked a good deal about
it. He told me he considered himself under the greatest obligations to me
for what I had done for him, and as he spoke I could see that a hope was
growing within him that perhaps I might do something more. He presently
spoke out boldly, and said to me that as my knowledge of medicine had
enabled me to keep myself from growing old, perhaps I could do the same
thing for him. Few men had greater need of protecting themselves against
the advance of old age. His work was not done, and years of bodily
strength were necessary to enable him to finish it.

"But I could do nothing for Joshua in this respect. I assured him that my
apparent exemption from the effects of passing years was perfectly
natural, and was not due to drugs or medicaments.

"Joshua lived many years after that day, and did a good deal of excellent
military work; but his life was not long enough to satisfy him. He fell
sick, was obliged to give up his command to his relative Caleb, and
finally died, in his one hundred and twenty-eighth year."

"Which ought to satisfy him, I should say," said Mrs. Crowder.

"I have never yet met a thoroughbred worker," said Mr. Crowder, "who was
satisfied to stop his work before he had finished it, no matter how old he
might happen to be. But my last meeting with Joshua taught me a lesson
which in those days had not been sufficiently impressed upon my mind.
I became convinced that I must not allow people to think that I could live
along for twenty years or more without growing older, and after that
I gave this matter a great deal more attention than I had yet bestowed
upon it."

"It is a pity," said Mrs. Crowder, "that thy life should have been marred
by such constant anxiety."

"Yes," said he; "but this is a suspicious world, and it is dangerous for a
man to set himself apart from his fellow-beings, especially if he does it
in some unusual fashion which people cannot understand."

"But I hope now," said his wife, "that those days of suspicion are entirely
past."

Now the conversation was getting awkward; it could not be pleasant for any
one of us to talk about what the world of the future might think of Mr.
Crowder when it came to know all about him, and, appreciating this, my
host quickly changed the subject.

"There is a little story I have been wanting to tell you," said he,
addressing his wife, "which I think would interest you. It is a love-story
in which I was concerned."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Crowder, looking up quickly, "a scholar?"

"No," he answered; "not this time. Early in the fourteenth century I was
living at Avignon, in the south of France. At that time I was making my
living by copying law papers. You see, I was down in the world again."

Mrs. Crowder sighed, but said nothing.

"One Sunday morning I was in the Church of St. Claire, and, kneeling a
little in front of me, I noticed a lady who did not seem to be paying the
proper attention to her devotions. She fidgeted uneasily, and every now
and then she would turn her head a little to the right, and then bring it
back quickly and turn it so much in my direction that I could see the
profile of her face. She was a good-looking woman, not very young, and
evidently nervous and disturbed.

"Following the direction of her quick gaze when she again turned to the
right, I saw a young man, apparently not twenty-five years of age, and
dressed in sober black. He was also kneeling, but his eyes were
steadfastly fixed upon the lady in front of me, and I knew, of course,
that it was this continuous gaze which was disturbing her. I felt very
much disposed to call the attention of a priest to this young man who was
making one of the congregation unpleasantly conspicuous by staring at her;
but the situation was brought to an end by the lady herself, who suddenly
rose and went out of the church. She had no sooner passed the heavy
leathern curtain of the door than the young man got up and went out after
her. Interested in this affair, I also left the church, and in the street
I saw the lady walking rapidly away, with the young man at a respectful
distance behind her.

[Illustration: PETRARCH AND LAURA.]

"I followed on the other side of the street, determined to interfere if
the youth, so evidently a stranger to the lady, should accost her or annoy
her. She walked steadily on, not looking behind her, and doubtless hoping
that she was not followed. As soon as she reached another church she
turned and entered it. Without hesitation the young man went in after her,
and then I followed.

"As before, the lady knelt on the pavement of the church, and the young
man, placing himself not very far from her, immediately began to stare at
her. I looked around, but there was no priest near, and then I advanced
and knelt not very far from the lady, and between her and her persistent
admirer. It was plain enough that he did not like this, and he moved
forward so that he might still get a view of her. Then I also moved so as
to obstruct his view. He now fixed his eyes upon me, and I returned his
gaze in such a way as to make him understand that while I was present he
would not be allowed to annoy a lady who evidently wished to have nothing
to do with him. Presently he rose and went out. It was evident that he saw
that it was no use for him to continue his reprehensible conduct while
I was present.

"I do not know how the lady discovered that her unauthorized admirer had
gone away, but she did discover it, and she turned toward me for an
instant and gave me what I supposed was a look of gratitude.

"I soon left the church, and I had scarcely reached the street when
I found that the lady had followed me. She looked at me as if she would
like to speak, and I politely saluted her. 'I thank you, kind sir,' she
said, 'for relieving me of the importunities of that young man. For more
than a week he has followed me whenever I go to church, and although he
has never spoken to me, his steady gaze throws me into such an agitation
that I cannot think of my prayers. Do you know who he is, sir?'

"I assured her that I had never seen the youth before that morning, but
that doubtless I could find out all about him. I told her that I was
acquainted with several officers of the law, and that there would be no
difficulty in preventing him from giving her any further annoyance. 'Oh,
don't do that!' she said quickly. 'I would not wish to attract attention
to myself in that way. You seem to be a kind and fatherly gentleman. Can
you not speak to the young man himself and tell him who I am, and impress
upon his mind how much he is troubling me by his inconsiderate action?'

"As I did not wish to keep her standing in the street, we now walked on
together, and she briefly gave me the facts of the case.

"Her name was Mme. de Sade: she had been happily married for two years,
and never before had she been annoyed by impertinent attentions from any
one; but in some manner unaccountable to her this young student had been
attracted by her, and had made her the object of his attention whenever he
had had the opportunity. Not only had he annoyed her at church, but twice
he had followed her when she had left her house on business, thus showing
that he had been loitering about in the vicinity. She had not yet spoken
to her husband in the matter, because she was afraid that some quarrel
might arise. But now that the good angels had caused her to meet with such
a kind-hearted old gentleman as myself, she hoped that I might be able to
rid her of the young man without making any trouble. Surely this student,
who seemed to be a respectable person, would not think of such a thing as
fighting me."

"Thee must have had a very long white beard at that time," interpolated
Mrs. Crowder.

"Yes," said her husband; "I was in one of my periods of venerable age.

"I left Mme. de Sade, promising to do what I could for her, and as she
thanked me I could not help wondering why the handsome young student had
made her the object of his attention. She was a well-shaped, fairly
good-looking woman, with fair skin and large eyes; but she was of a grave
and sober cast of countenance, and there was nothing about her which
indicated the least of that piquancy which would be likely to attract the
eyes of a youth. She seemed to me to be exactly what she said she was--the
quiet and respectable lady of a quiet and respectable household.

"In the course of the afternoon I discovered the name and residence of the
young man, with whom I had determined to have an interview. His name was
Francesco Petrarca, an Italian by birth, and now engaged in pursuing his
studies in this place. I called upon him at his lodgings, and,
fortunately, found him at home. As I had expected, he recognized me at
once as the elderly person who had interfered with him at the church; but,
as I did not expect, he greeted me politely, without the least show of
resentment.

"I took the seat he offered me, and proceeded to deliver a lecture. I laid
before him the facts of the case, which I supposed he might not know, and
urged him, for his own sake, as well as for that of the lady, to cease his
annoying and, I did not hesitate to state, ungentlemanly pursuit of her.

"He listened to me with respectful attention, and when I had finished he
assured me that he knew even more about Mme. de Sade than I did. He was
perfectly aware that she was a religious and highly estimable lady, and he
did not desire to do anything which would give her a moment's sorrow.
'Then stop following her,' said I, 'and give up that habit of staring at
her in such a way as to make her the object of attention to everybody
around her.' 'That is asking too much,' answered Master Petrarca. 'That
lady has made an impression upon my soul which cannot be removed. My will
would have no power to efface her image from my constant thought. If she
does not wish me to do so, I shall never speak a word to her; but I must
look upon her. Even when I sleep her face is present in my dreams. She has
aroused within me the spirit of poetry; my soul will sing in praise of her
loveliness, and I cannot prevent it. Let me read to you some lines,' he
said, picking up a piece of manuscript which was lying on the table. 'It
is in Italian, but I will translate it for you.' 'No,' said I; 'read it as
it is written; I understand Italian.' Then he read the opening lines of a
sonnet which was written to Laura in the shadow. He read about six lines
and then stopped.

"'It is not finished,' he said, 'and what I have written does not
altogether satisfy me; but you can judge from what you have heard how it
is that I think of that lady, and how impossible it is that I can in any
way banish her from my mind, or willingly from my vision.'

"'How did you come to know that her name is Laura?' I asked. 'I found it
out from the records of her marriage,' he answered.

"I talked for some time to this young man, but failed to impress him with
the conviction that his conduct was improper and unworthy of him. I found
means to inform Mme. de Sade of the result of my conversation with
Petrarch,--as we call his name in English,--and she appeared to be
satisfied that the young student would soon cease his attentions, although
I myself saw no reason for such belief.

"I visited the love-lorn young man several times, for I had become
interested in him, and endeavored to make him see how foolish it was--even
if he looked upon it in no other light--to direct his ardent affections
upon a lady who would never care anything about him, and who, even if
unmarried, was not the sort of woman who was adapted to satisfy the lofty
 affection which his words and his verses showed him to possess.

"'There are so many beautiful women,' said I, 'any one of whom you might
love, of whom you might sing, and to whom you could indite your verses.
She would return your love; she would appreciate your poetry; you would
marry her and be happy all your life.'

"He shook his head. 'No, no, no,' he said. 'You don't understand my
nature.

"'Marriage would mean the cares of a house--food, fuel, the mending of
clothes, a family--all the hard material conditions of life. No, sir! My
love soars far above all that. If it were possible that Laura should ever
be mine I could not love her as I do. She is apart from me; she is above
me. I worship her, and for her I pour out my soul in song. Listen to
this,' and he read me some lines of an unfinished sonnet to Laura in the
sunlight. 'She was just coming from a shaded street into an open place
I saw her, and this poem came into my heart.'

"About a week after this I was very much surprised to see Petrarch walking
with his Laura, who was accompanied by her husband. The three were very
amicably conversing. I joined the party, and was made acquainted with
M. de Sade, and after that, from time to time, I met them together,
sometimes taking a meal with them in the evening.

"I discovered that Laura's husband looked upon Petrarch very much as any
ordinary husband would look upon an artist who wished to paint portraits
of his wife.

"I lived for more than a year in Avignon with these good people, and I am
not ashamed to say that I never ceased my endeavors to persuade Petrarch
to give up his strange and abnormal attentions to a woman who would never
be anything to him but a vision in the distance, and who would prevent him
from living a true and natural life with one who would be all his own. But
it was of no use; he went on in his own way, and everybody knows the
results.

"Now, just think of it," continued Mr. Crowder. "Suppose I had succeeded
in my honest efforts to do good; think of what the world would have lost.
Suppose I had induced Petrarch not to come back to Avignon after his
travels; suppose he had not settled down at Vaucluse, and had not spent
three long years writing sonnets to Laura while she was occupied with the
care of her large family of children; suppose, in a word, that I had been
successful in my good work, and that Petrarch had shut his eyes and his
heart to Laura; suppose--"

"I don't choose to suppose anything of the kind," said Mrs. Crowder. "Thee
tried to do right, but I am glad thee did not deprive the world of any of
Petrarch's poetry. But now I want thee to tell us something about ancient
Egypt, and those wonderfully cultivated people who built pyramids and
carved hieroglyphics. Perhaps thee saw them building the Temple of the Sun
at Heliopolis."

Mr. Crowder shook his head. "That was before my time," said he.

This was like an electric shock to both of us. If we had been more
conversant with ancient chronology we might have understood, but we were
not so conversant.

"Abraham! Isaac! Moses!" ejaculated Mrs. Crowder. "Thee knew them all, and
yet Egypt was civilized before thy time! Does thee mean that?"

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Crowder. "I am of the time of Abraham, and when he was
born the glories of Egypt were at their height."

"It is difficult to get these things straight in one's mind," said Mrs.
Crowder. "As thee has lived so long, it seems a pity that thee was not
born sooner."

"I have often thought that," said her husband; "but we should all try to
be content with what we have. And now let us skip out of those regions of
the dusky past. I feel in the humor of telling a love-story, and one has
just come into my mind."

"Thee is so fond of that sort of thing," said his wife, with a smile,
"that we will not interfere with thee."

"In the summer of the year 950," said Mr. Crowder, "I was traveling, and
had just come over from France into the province of Piedmont, in northern
Italy. I was then in fairly easy circumstances, and was engaged in making
some botanical researches for a little book which I had planned to write
on a medical subject. I will explain to you later how I came to do a great
deal of that sort of thing.

"Late upon a warm afternoon I was entering the town of Ivrea, and passing
a large stone building, I stopped to examine some leaves on a bush which
grew by the roadside. While I was doing this, and comparing the shape and
size of the leaves with some drawings I had in a book which I took from my
pocket, I heard a voice behind me and apparently above me. Some one was
speaking to me, and speaking in Latin. I looked around and up, but could
see no one; but above me, about ten or twelve feet from the ground, there
was a long, narrow slit of a window such as is seen in prisons. Again
I heard the voice, and it said to me distinctly in Latin, 'Are you free to
go where you choose?' It was the voice of a woman.

"As I wished to understand the situation better before I answered, I went
over to the other side of the road, where I could get a better view of the
window. There I saw behind this narrow opening a part of the face of a
woman. This stone edifice was evidently a prison. I approached the window,
and standing under it, first looking from side to side to see that no one
was coming along the road, I said in Latin, 'I am free to go where
I choose.'

"Then the voice above said, 'Wait!' but it spoke in Italian this time. You
may be sure I waited, and in a few minutes a little package dropped from
the window and fell almost at my feet. I stooped and picked it up. It was
a piece of paper, in which was wrapped a bit of mortar to give it weight.

"I opened the paper and read, written in a clear and scholarly hand, these
words: 'I am a most unfortunate prisoner. I believe you are an honest and
true man, because I saw you studying plants and reading from a book which
you carry. If you wish to do more good than you ever did before, come to
this prison again after dark.'

"I looked up and said quickly, in Italian, 'I shall be here.' I was about
to speak again and ask for some more definite directions, but I heard the
sound of voices around a turn in the road, and I thought it better to
continue my walk into the town.

"That night, as soon as it was really dark, I was again at the prison.
I easily found the window, for I had noted that it was so many paces from
a corner of the building; but there was no light in the narrow slit, and
although I waited some time, I heard no voice. I did not dare to call, for
the prisoner might not be alone, and I might do great mischief.

"My eyes were accustomed to the darkness, and it was starlight. I walked
along the side of the building, examining it carefully, and I soon found a
little door in the wall. As I stood for a few moments before this door, it
suddenly opened, and in front of me stood a big soldier. He wore a wide hat
and a little sword, and evidently was not surprised to see me. I thought it
well, however, to speak, and I said: 'Could you give a mouthful of supper
to a--'

"He did not allow me to finish my sentence, but putting his hand upon my
shoulder, said gruffly: 'Come in. Don't you waste your breath talking
about supper.' I entered, and the door was closed behind me. I followed
this man through a stone passageway, and he took me to a little stone room.
''Wait here!' he said, and he shut me in. I was in pitch-darkness, and had
no idea what was going to happen next. After a little time I saw a streak
of light coming through a keyhole; then an inner door opened, and a young
woman with a lamp came into the room."

"Now does the love-story begin?" asked his wife.

"Not yet," said Mr. Crowder. "The young woman looked at me, and I looked
at her. She was a pretty girl with black eyes. I did not express my
opinion of her, but she was not so reticent. 'You look like a good old
man,' she said. 'I think you may be trusted. Come!' Her speech was
provincial, and she was plainly a servant. I followed her. 'Now for the
mistress,' said I to myself."

"Thee may have looked like an old man," remarked Mrs. Crowder, "but thee
did not think like one."

Her husband laughed. "I mounted some stone steps, and was soon shown into
a room where stood a lady waiting for me. As the light of the lamp carried
by the maid fell upon her face, I thought I had never seen a more
beautiful woman. Her dress, her carriage, and her speech showed her to be
a lady of rank. She was very young, scarcely twenty, I thought.

"This lady immediately began to ask me questions. She had perceived that
I was a stranger, and she wanted to know where I came from, what was my
business, and as much as I could tell her of myself. 'I knew you were a
scholar,' she said, 'because of your book, and I believe in scholars.'
Then briefly she told me her story and what she wanted of me.

"She was the young Queen Adelheid, the widow of King Lothar, who had
recently died, and she was then suffering a series of harsh persecutions
from the present king, Berengar II, who in this way was endeavoring to
force her to marry his son Adalbert. She hated this young man, and
positively refused to have anything to do with him.

"This charming and royal young widow was bright, intelligent, and had a
mind of her own; it was easy to see that. She had formed a scheme for her
deliverance, and she had been waiting to find some one to help her carry
it out. Now, she thought I was the man she had been looking for. I was
elderly, apparently respectable, and she had to trust somebody.

"This was her scheme. She was well aware that unless some powerful friend
interfered in her behalf she would be obliged to marry Adalbert, or remain
in prison for the rest of her life, which would probably be unduly
shortened. Therefore she had made up her mind to appeal to the court of
the Emperor Otto I of Germany, and she wanted me to carry a letter to him.

"I stood silent, earnestly considering this proposition, and as I did so
she gazed at me as if her whole happiness in this world depended upon my
decision. I was not long in making up my mind on the subject. I told her
that I was willing to help her, and would undertake to carry a letter to
the emperor, and I did not doubt, from what I had heard of this noble
prince, that he would come to her deliverance. But I furthermore assured
her that the moment it became known that the emperor was about to
interfere in her behalf, she would be in a position of great danger, and
would probably disappear from human sight before relief could reach her.
In that prison she was utterly helpless, and to appeal for help would be
to bring down vengeance upon herself. The first thing to do, therefore,
was to escape from this prison, and get to some place where, for a time at
least, she could defend herself against Berengar, while waiting for Otto
to take her under his protection.

"She saw the force of my remarks, and we discussed the matter for half an
hour, and when I left--being warned by the soldier on guard, who was in
love with the queen's black-eyed maid, that it was time for me to
depart--it was arranged that I should return the next night and confer
with the fair Adelheid.

"There were several conferences, and the unfaithful sentinel grumbled a
good deal. I cannot speak of all the plans and projects which we
discussed, but at last one of them was carried out. One dark, rainy night
Adelheid changed clothes with her maid, actually deceived the guard--not
the fellow who had admitted me--with a story that she had been sent in
great haste to get some medicine for her royal mistress, and joined me
outside the prison.

"There we mounted horses I had in readiness, and rode away from Ivrea. We
were bound for the castle of Canossa, a strong-hold of considerable
importance, where my royal companion believed she could find refuge, at
least for a time. I cannot tell you of all the adventures we had upon that
difficult journey. We were pursued; we were almost captured; we met with
obstacles of various kinds, which sometimes seemed insurmountable; but at
last we saw the walls of Canossa rising before us, and we were safe.

"Adelheid was very grateful for what I had done, and as she had now
learned to place full reliance upon me, she insisted that I should be
the bearer of a letter from her to the Emperor Otto. I should not travel
alone, but be accompanied by a sufficient retinue of soldiers and
attendants, and should go as her ambassador.

"The journey was a long and a slow one, but I was rather glad of it, for
it gave me an opportunity to ponder over the most ambitious scheme I have
ever formed in the whole course of my life."

"Greater than to be autocrat of all the Russias?" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder.

"Yes," he replied. "That opportunity came to me suddenly, and I accepted
it; I did not plan it out and work for it. Besides, it could be only a
transitory thing. But what now occupied me was a grand idea, the good
effects of which, if it should be carried out, might endure for centuries.
It was simply this:

"I had become greatly attached to the young queen widow whose cause I had
espoused. I had spent more than a month with her in the castle at Canossa,
and there I learned to know her well and to love her. She was, indeed, a
most admirable woman and charming in every way. She appeared to place the
most implicit trust in me; told me of all her affairs, and asked my
opinion about almost everything she proposed to do. In a word, I was in
love with her and wanted to marry her."

"Thee certainly had lofty notions; but don't think I object," said Mrs.
Crowder. "It is Chinese and Tartars I don't like."

"It might seem at first sight," he continued, "that I was aiming above me,
but the more I reflected the more firmly I believed that it would be very
good for the lady, as well as for me. In the first place, she had no
reason to expect a matrimonial union worthy of her. Adalbert she had every
reason to despise, and there was no one else belonging to the riotous
aristocratic factions of Italy who could make her happy or give her a
suitable position. In all her native land there was not a prince to whom
she would not have to stoop in order to marry him.

"But to me she need not stoop. No man on earth possessed a more noble
lineage. I was of the house of Shem, a royal priest after the order of
Melchizedek, and King of Salem! No line of imperial ancestry could claim
precedence of that."

Mrs. Crowder looked with almost reverent awe into the face of her husband.
"And that is the blood," she said, "which flows in the veins of our
child?"

"Yes," said he; "that is the blood."

After a slight pause Mr. Crowder continued: "I will now go on with my tale
of ambition. A grand career would open before me. I would lay all my plans
and hopes before the Emperor Otto, who would naturally be inclined to
assist the unfortunate widow; but he would be still more willing
to do so when I told him of the future which might await her if my plans
should be carried out. As he was then engaged in working with a noble
ambition for the benefit of his own dominions, he would doubtless be
willing to do something for the good of lands beyond his boundaries. It
ought not to be difficult to convince him that there could be no wiser, no
nobler way of championing the cause of Adelheid than by enabling me to
perform the work I had planned.

"All that would be necessary for him to do would be to furnish me with a
moderate military force. With this I would march to Canossa; there I would
espouse Adelheid; then I would proceed to Ivrea, would dethrone the wicked
Berengar, would proclaim Adelheid queen in his place, with myself as king
consort; then, with the assistance and backing of the imperial German,
I would no doubt soon be able to maintain my royal pretensions. Once
self-supporting, and relying upon our Italian subjects for our army and
finances, I would boldly re-establish the great kingdom of Lombardy, to
which Charlemagne had put an end nearly two hundred years before. Then
would begin a grand system of reforms and national progress.

"Pavia should be my capital, but the beneficent influence of my rule
should move southward. I would make an alliance with the Pope; I would
crush and destroy the factions which were shaking the foundations of
church and state; I would still further extend my power--I would become
the imperial ruler of Italy, with Adelheid as my queen!

"Over and over again I worked out and arranged this grand scheme, and when
I reached the court of the Emperor Otto it was all as plain in my mind as
if it had been copied on parchment.

"I was very well received by the emperor, and he read with great interest
and concern the letter I had brought him. He gave me several private
audiences, and asked me many questions about the fair young widow who had
met with so many persecutions and misfortunes. This interest greatly
pleased me, but I did not immediately submit to him my plan for the relief
of Adelheid and the great good of the Italian nation. I would wait a
little; I must make him better acquainted with myself. But the imperial
Otto did not wait. On the third day after my arrival I was called into his
cabinet and informed that he intended to set out himself at the head of an
army; that he should relieve the unfortunate lady from her persecutions
and establish her in her rights, whatever they might prove to be. His
enthusiastic manner in speaking of his intentions assured me that I need
not trouble myself to say one word about my plans.

"Now,--would you believe it?--that intermeddling monarch took out of my
hands the whole grand, ambitious scheme I had so carefully devised. He
went to Canossa; he married Adelheid; he marched upon Berengar; he
subjugated him and made him his vassal; he formed an alliance with Pope
John XII; he was proclaimed King of the Lombards; he was crowned with his
queen in St. Peter's; he eventually acquired the southern portion of
Italy. All this was exactly what I had intended to do."

Mrs. Crowder laughed. "In one way thee was served quite right, for thee
made all thy plans without ever asking the beautiful young ex-queen
whether she would have thee or not."

In the tones of this fair lady's voice there were evident indications of
mental relief. "And what did thee do then?" she asked. "I hope thee got
some reward for all thy faithful exertions."

"I received nothing at the time," Mr. Crowder replied; "and as I did not
care to accompany the emperor into Italy, for probably I would be
recognized as the man who had assisted Adelheid to escape from the prison
at Ivrea, and as I was not at all sure that the emperor would remember
that I needed protection, I thought it well to protect myself, and so
I journeyed back into France as well as I could.

"This was not very well; for in purchasing the necessary fine clothes
which I deemed it proper to wear in the presence of the royal lady whose
interests I had in charge, in buying horses, and in many incidental
expenses, I had spent my money. I was too proud to ask Otto to reimburse
me, for that would have been nothing but charity on his part; and of
course I could not expect the fair Adelheid to think of my possible
financial needs. So, away I went, a poor wanderer on foot, and the
imperial Otto rode forward to love, honor, and success."

"A dreadful shame!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder. "It seems as if thee always
carried a horn about with thee so that thee might creep out of the little
end of it."

"But my adventures with Adelheid did not end here," he said. "About fifty
years after this she was queen regent in Italy, during the infancy of her
grandchild Otto III. Being in Rome, and very poor, I determined to go to
her, not to seek for charity, but to recall myself to her notice, and to
boldly ask to be reimbursed for my expenses when assisting her to escape
from Ivrea, and in afterward going as her ambassador to Otto I. In other
words, I wanted to present my bill for enabling her to take her seat upon
the throne of the 'Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.'

"As a proof that I was the man I assumed to be, I took with me a ring of
no great value, but set with her royal seal, which she had given me when
she sent me to Otto.

"Well, I will not spend much time on this part of the story. By means of
the ring I was accorded an interview with the regent. She was then an old
woman over seventy years of age. When I introduced myself to her and told
her my errand, she became very angry. 'I remember very well,' she said,
'the person you speak of, and he is long since dead. He was an old man
when I took him into my service. You may be his son or some one else who
has heard how he was employed by me. At any rate, you are an impostor.
How did you come into possession of this ring? The man to whom I gave it
had no right to keep it. He should have returned it to me when he had
performed his duties.'

"I tried to convince her that there was no reason to suppose that the man
who had assisted her could not be living at this day. He need only be
about one hundred years old, and that age was not uncommon. I affirmed
most earnestly that the ring had never been out of my possession, and that
I should not have come to her if I had not believed that she would
remember my services, and be at least willing to make good the
considerable sums I had expended in her behalf.

"Now she arose in royal wrath. 'How dare you speak to me in that way!' she
said. 'You are a younger man at this moment than that old stranger you
represent yourself to be.' Then she called her guards and had me sent to
prison as a cheat and an impostor. I remained in prison for some time, but
as no definite charge was made against me, I was not brought to trial, and
after a time was released to make room for somebody else. I got away as
soon as I could, and thus ended my most ambitious dream."




VII


"Now, my dear," said Mr. Crowder, regarding his wife with a tender kindness
which I had frequently noticed in him, "just for a change, I know you
would like to hear of a career of prosperity, wouldn't you?"

"Indeed, I would!" said Mrs. Crowder. "You will have noticed," said her
husband, "that there has been a great deal of variety in my vocations; in
fact, I have not mentioned a quarter of the different trades and callings
in which I have been engaged. It was sometimes desirable and often
absolutely necessary for me to change my method of making a living, but
during one epoch of my life I steadily devoted myself to a single
profession. For nearly four hundred years I was engaged almost
continuously in the practice of medicine. I found it easier for me, as a
doctor, to change my place of residence and to appear in a new country
with as much property as I could carry about with me, than if I had done
so in any other way. A prosperous and elderly man coming as a stranger
from a far country would, under ordinary circumstances, be regarded with
suspicion unless he were able to give some account of his previous career.
But a doctor from a far country was always welcome; if he could cure
people of their ailments they did not ask anything about the former
circumstances of his life. It was perfectly natural for a learned man to
travel."

"Did thee regularly study and go to college?" asked Mrs. Crowder, "or was
thee a quack?"

"Oh, I studied," said her husband, smiling, "and under the best masters.
I had always a fancy for that sort of thing, and in the days of the
patriarchs, when there were no regular doctors, I was often called upon,
as I told you."

"Oh, yes," said his wife; "thee rubbed Joshua with gravel and pepper."

"And cured him," said he, "You ought not to have omitted that. But it was
not until about the fifth century before Christ that I thought of really
studying medicine. I was in the island of Cos, where I had gone for a very
queer reason. The great painter Apelles lived there, and I went for the
purpose of studying art under him. I was tired of most of the things I had
been doing, and I thought it would be a good idea to become a painter.
Apelles gave me no encouragement when I applied to him; he told me I was
entirely too old to become a pupil. 'By the time you would really know how
to paint,' said he, 'supposing you have any talent for it, you ought to be
beginning to arrange your affairs to get ready to die.' Of course this
admonition had no effect upon me, and I kept on with my drawing lessons.
If I could not become a painter of eminence, I thought that at least
I might be able, if I understood drawing, to become a better
schoolmaster--if I should take up that profession again.

"One day Apelles said to me, after glancing at the drawing on which I was
engaged: 'If you were ten years younger you might do something in the
field of art, for you would make an excellent model for the picture I am
about to begin. But at your present age you would not be able to sustain
the fatigue of remaining in a constrained position for any length of
time.' 'What is the subject?' I asked. 'A centurion in battle,' said he.

"The next day I appeared before Apelles with my hair cropped short and my
face without a vestige of a beard. 'Do I look young enough now to be your
model?' said I. The painter looked at me in surprise. 'Yes,' said he, 'you
look young enough; but of course you are the same age as you were
yesterday. However, if you would like to try the model business, I will
make some sketches of you.'

"For more than a month, nearly every day, I stood as a model to Apelles
for his great picture of a centurion whose sword had been stricken from
his hand, and who, in desperation, was preparing to defend himself against
his enemy with the arms which nature had given him."

"Is that picture extant?" I asked.

Mr. Crowder smiled. "None of Apelles's paintings are in existence now," he
answered. "While I was acting as model to Apelles--and I may remark that
I never grew tired of standing in the position he desired--I listened with
great satisfaction to the conversations between him and the friends who
called upon him while he was at work. The chief of these was Hippocrates,
the celebrated physician, between whom and Apelles a strong friendship
existed.

"Hippocrates was a man of great common sense. He did not believe that
diseases were caused by spirits and demons and all that sort of thing, and
in many ways he made himself very interesting to me. So, in course of
time, after having visited him a good deal, I made up my mind to quit the
study of art and go into that of medicine.

"I got on very well, and after a time I practiced with him in many cases,
and he must have had a good deal of confidence in me, for when the King of
Persia sent for him to come to his court, offering him all sorts of
munificent rewards, Hippocrates declined, but he suggested to me that
I should go.

"'You look like a doctor,' said he. 'The king would have confidence in you
simply on account of your presence; and, besides, you do know a great deal
about medicine.' But I did not go to Persia, and shortly after that I left
the island of Cos and gave up the practice of medicine. Later, in the
second century before Christ, I made the acquaintance of a methodist
doctor--"

"A what?" Mrs. Crowder and I exclaimed at the same moment.

He laughed. "I thought that would surprise you, but it is true."

"Of course it is true," said his wife, coloring a little. "Does thee think
I would doubt anything thee told me? If thee had said that Abraham had a
Quaker cook, I would have believed it."

"And if I had told you that," said Mr. Crowder, "it would have been so.
But to explain about this methodist doctor. In those days the physicians
were divided into three schools: empirics, dogmatists, and methodists.
This man I speak of--Asclepiades--was the leading methodist physician,
depending, as the name suggests, upon regular methods of treatment instead
of experiments and theories adapted to the particular case in hand.

"He also was a man of great good sense, and was very witty besides. He made
a good deal of fun of other physicians, and used to call the system of
Hippocrates 'meditation on death.' I studied with him for some time, but it
was not until the first century of the present era that I really began the
practice of my profession. Then I made the acquaintance of the great
Galen. He was a man who was not only a physician, but an accomplished
surgeon, and this could be said of very few people in that age of the
world. I studied anatomy and surgery under him, and afterward practiced
with him as I had done with Hippocrates.

"The study of anatomy was rather difficult in those days, because the
Roman laws forbade the dissection of citizens, and the anatomists had to
depend for their knowledge of the human frame upon their examinations of
the bodies of enemies killed in battle, or those of slaves, in whom no
one took an interest; but most of all upon the bodies of apes. Great
numbers of these beasts were brought from Africa solely for the use of
the Roman surgeons, and in that connection I remember an incident which
was rather curious.

"I had not finished my studies under Galen when that great master one day
informed me that a trader had brought him an ape, which had been confined
in a small building near his house. He asked me to go out and kill it and
have it brought into his dissecting-room, where he was to deliver a
lecture to some students.

"I started for the building referred to. On the way I was met by the
trader. He was a vile-looking man, with black, matted hair and little
eyes, who did not look much higher in intelligence than the brutes he
dealt in. He grinned diabolically as he led me to the little house and
opened the door. I looked in. There was no ape there, but in one corner
sat a dark-brown African girl. I looked at the man in surprise. 'The ape
I was to bring got away from me,' he said, 'but that thing will do a great
deal better, and I will not charge any more for it than for the ape. Kill
it, and we will put it into a bag and carry it to the doctor. He will be
glad to see what we have brought him instead of an ape.'

"I angrily ordered the man to leave the place, and taking the girl by the
arm,--although I had a good deal of trouble in catching her,--I led her to
Galen and told him the story."

"And what became of the poor thing?" asked Mrs. Crowder.

"Galen bought her from the man at the price of an ape, and tried to have
her educated as a servant, but she was a wild creature and could not be
taught much. In some way or other the people in charge of the amphitheater
got possession of her, and I heard that she was to figure in the games at
an approaching great occasion. I was shocked and grieved to hear this, for
I had taken an interest in the girl, and I knew what it meant for her to
take part in the games in the arena. I tried to buy her, but it was of no
use: she was wanted for a particular purpose. On the day she was to appear
in the arena I was there."

"I don't see how thee could do it," said Mrs. Crowder, her face quite
pale.

"People's sensibilities were different in those days," said her husband.
"I don't suppose I could do such a thing now. After a time she was brought
out and left entirely alone in the middle of the great space. She was
nearly frightened to death by the people and the fear of some unknown
terror. Trembling from head to foot, she looked from side to side, and at
last sank crouching on the ground. Everybody was quiet, for it was not
known what was to happen next. Then a grating sound was heard, with the
clank of an iron door, and a large brown bear appeared in the arena. The
crouching African fixed her eyes upon him, but did not move.

[Illustration: "'THE CROUCHING AFRICAN FIXED HER EYES UPON HIM.'"]

"The idea of a combat between this tender girl and a savage bear could not
be entertained. What was about to occur seemed simply a piece of brutal
carnage, with nothing to make it interesting. A great many people
expressed their dissatisfaction. The hard-hearted populace, even if they
did not care about fair play in their games, did desire some element of
chance which would give flavor to the cruelty. But here was nothing of
the sort. It would have been as well to feed the beast with a sheep.

"The bear, however, seemed to look upon the performance as one which would
prove very satisfactory. He was hungry, not having had anything to eat for
several days, and here was an appetizing young person waiting for him to
devour her.

"He had fixed his eyes upon her the moment he appeared, and had paid no
attention whatever to the crowds by which he was surrounded. He gave a
slight growl, the hair on his neck stood up, and he made a quick movement
toward the girl. But she did not wait for him. Springing to her feet, she
fled, the bear after her.

"Now followed one of the most exciting chases ever known in the history of
the Roman amphitheater. That frightened girl, as swift as a deer, ran
around and around the vast space, followed closely by her savage pursuer.
But although he was active and powerful and unusually swift for a bear, he
could not catch her.

"Around and around she went, and around went the red-eyed beast behind
her; but he could not gain upon her, and she gave no sign that her
strength was giving out.

"Now the audience began to perceive that a contest was really going on: it
was a contest of speed and endurance, and the longer the girl ran the more
inclined the people were to take her part. At last there was a great shout
that she should be allowed to escape. A little door was opened in the side
of the amphitheater; she shot through it, and it was closed almost in the
face of the panting and furious bear."

"What became of the poor girl?" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder.

"A sculptor bought her," said Mr. Crowder. "He wanted to use her as a
model for a statue of the swift Diana; but this never came to anything.
The girl could not be made to stand still for a moment. She was in a
chronic condition of being frightened to death. After that I heard of her
no more; it was easy for people to disappear in Rome. But this incident
in the arena was remembered and talked about for many years afterward.
The fact that a girl was possessed of such extraordinary swiftness that
she would have been able to escape from a wild beast, by means of her
speed alone, had she been in an open plain, was considered one of the most
interesting natural wonders which had been brought to the notice of the
Roman people by the sports in the arena."

"Fortunately," said Mrs. Crowder, "thee did not--"

"No," said her husband, "I did not. I required more than speed in a case
like that. And now I think," said he, rising, "we must call this session
concluded."

The next day I was obliged to bid farewell to the Crowders, and my
business arrangements made it improbable that I should see them again for
a long time--I could not say how long. As I bade Mr. Crowder farewell and
stood holding his hand in mine, he smiled, and said: "That's right. Look
hard at me; study every line in my face, and then when you see me again
you will be better able--"

"Not a bit," said Mrs. Crowder. "He is just as able to judge now as he
will be if he stays away for twenty years."

I believed her, as I warmly shook her hand, and I believe that I shall
always continue to believe her.







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