The Worlds Greatest Books - Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25
The young fisherman looked sadly into his sweetheart's face, and when he
saw her wet eyes and quivering lips his heart was stirred. He took her
hand and kissed it, but suddenly an ill-favoured face was thrust forward
between the two lovers.
"Isn't it a pity," sneered Mikel Grallon, "to see a pretty girl wasting
herself on a coward, when----"
He did not complete the sentence, for Rohan stretched out his hand and
smote him down. Grallon fell like a log.
A wild cry arose from all the men, the women screamed, even Marcelle
shrank back; and Rohan strode to the door, pushing his way out.
"Hold him! Kill him!" shouted some.
"Arrest him!" cried Corporal Derval.
Rohan hurled his opponents right and left like so many ninepins. They
fell back and gasped. Then, turning his white face for an instant on
Marcelle, her lover passed unmolested out into the darkness.
_II.--In the Cathedral of the Sea_
Along the wild, rugged shore, a little way from Kromlaix, was an immense
cavern of crimson granite, hung with gleaming moss, and washed by the
roaring tides of the sea. Its towering walls had been carved by wind and
water into thousands of beautiful, fantastical forms, and a dim
religious light fell from above through a long, funnel-shaped hole
running from the roof of the cavern to the top of the great cliff.
It was here that Rohan Gwenfern hid from the band of soldiers sent in
pursuit of him. The air was damp and chill, but he breathed it with the
comfort of a hardy animal. He made a bed of dry seaweed on the top of
the precipice leading to the hole in the cliff, where his mother came
and lowered food to him every evening; and Jannedik, a pet goat that
used to follow him everywhere in the days when he was a free man, was
his only companion. Strange and solitary was the life he led, but he
slept as soundly in his bed of seaweed on the wild precipice as he did
in his bed at home.
But one morning, when he awoke, a confused murmur broke upon his ear.
Peering over the ledge, he saw a crowd of soldiers standing on the
shingle at the mouth of the cavern.
"Come down and surrender, in the name of the emperor!" cried the
sergeant.
"Surrender!" shouted all his men. And the vast, dim place rang with the
echoing sound of their voices.
"You can have my dead body if you care to come up here for it!" cried
Rohan, stepping into the light that fell from the hole in the cliff.
The soldiers stared up in astonishment when Rohan appeared on the ledge
of the precipice. He was now a gaunt, forlorn, hunted man, with a few
rags hanging about his body, and a great shock of yellow hair tumbling
below his shoulders. Under the stress of mental suffering his flesh had
wasted from his bones, but his eyes flashed with a terrible light.
"Come down," said the sergeant, raising his gun, "or I will pick you off
your perch as if you were a crow."
Instead of getting behind a rock, Rohan stood up with a strange smile on
his face, and said, "If you want me, you must come and fetch me."
There was a flash, a roar--the sergeant had fired. But when the smoke
had cleared away, Rohan was still standing on the ledge with the strange
smile on his face. The shot had gone wide.
"You can smile," said the sergeant angrily, "but you cannot escape. If I
cannot bring you down, I will starve you out. My men are watching for
you, above and below. You are surrounded."
"And so are you," said Rohan, with a laugh, pointing to the mouth of the
cavern. "Look behind you!"
The sergeant and his men turned round, and gave a cry of dismay. The
tide had turned, and the sea was surging fiercely into the mouth of the
cavern.
"Give him one volley," shouted the sergeant, "and then swim for your
lives."
But when the men turned to aim at Rohan, he was no longer visible. They
fired at random at the hole in the cliff, and after filling the great
cavern with drifting smoke and echoing thunder, they fled for their
lives, wading, swimming through the high spring tide.
"At any rate," said the sergeant, when they had all got safely back to
land, "we can stop Mother Gwenfern from bringing the mad rebel any more
food."
So a watch was set over the cottage in which Rohan's widowed mother
lived, and she was always searched whenever she left her house, and
bands of armed men kept guard night and day by the hole at the top of
the cliff and by the seaward entrance to the cavern. At the end of two
weeks the sergeant resolved to make another attack. The man, he thought,
must surely have been starved to death, as every avenue of aid had long
since been blocked.
So one moonlight night at ebb tide the crowd of soldiers crept into the
cavern and lashed two long ladders together, and began to climb up the
precipice. But a strong arm seized the ladders from above, and flung
them back on the granite floor of the cave. Standing like a ghost in the
faint, silvery radiance falling through the hole in the cliff, Rohan
hurled down upon the dark mass of the besieging crowd great fragments of
rock which he had placed, ready for use, along the ledge on which he
slept.
"Fire Fire!" shrieked the sergeant, pointing at the white figure of
Rohan.
But before the command could be obeyed, Rohan got under shelter, and the
bullets rained harmlessly round the spot where he had just stood. Then,
under cover of fire, some men advanced and again placed the ladder
against the precipice. As Rohan crouched down on the ledge, he was
startled by the apparition of a human face. With a cry of rage, he
sprang to his feet, and, heedless of the bullets thudding on the rock
around him, he slowly and painfully lifted up a terrible granite
boulder, poised it for a moment over his head, and then hurled it down
at the shapes dimly struggling below him. There was a crash, a shriek.
Under the weight of the boulder the ladders broke, and the men upon them
fell down, amid horrible cries of agony and terror.
What happened after this Rohan never knew; for, overcome by frenzy and
fatigue, he swooned away. When he opened his eyes, he was lying beneath
the hole in the cliff, with the moonlight streaming upon his face. From
below him came the soft sound of lapping water, and, looking down, he
saw that the tide had entered the cave, and forced the besiegers to give
over their attack.
Yes, the battle was over, and he had conquered! His position indeed was
impregnable; had he been well supplied with food, he could have held it
against hundreds of men for a long period. But, as he laid down on his
bed of seaweed, a rough tongue licked his hand. It was his goat,
Jannedik. For the last fortnight, Rohan's mother had sent the goat every
day to her son with a basket of food tied round its neck and hidden in
the long hair of its throat. Rohan groped in the darkness for the
basket, and Jannedik uttered a low cry of pain, rolled over at his feet
into the moonlight, revealing a terrible bullet-wound in its side, and
quivered and died. Some soldier had shot it.
As Rohan stared at the dead body of his four-footed friend, the strength
of mind which had enabled him to withstand all the power that Napoleon,
the conqueror of Europe, could bring against him at last went from him.
Trembling and shivering, he looked around him, overcome by utter
desolation and despair. He had held out bravely, but he could hold out
no longer; slowly and laboriously he climbed down the dark face of the
precipice, and reached the narrow strip of shingle below, just as the
moon got clear from a cloud and lighted up the cavern. Its cold rays
fell on the white face of the sergeant, who laid half on the shingle and
half in the water, crushed by the great boulder with which Rohan had
broken down the ladders.
Rohan gazed for a moment on the features of the man he had killed, and
then, with a cry of agony and despair, he fell upon his knees.
"Not on my head, O God, be the guilt!" he prayed. "Not on my head, but
on his who hunted me down and made me what I am; on his, whose red sword
shadows all the world, and drives on millions of innocent men to murder
each other! Ah, God, God, God! The men that Napoleon has slain! Is it
not high time that some man like me sought him out and killed him, and
brought peace back once more to this blood-covered earth of ours? Yes, I
will do it!"
Rising wildly to his feet, full of the strange strength and the strange
powers of madness, Rohan Gwenfern climbed up the precipice to his bed of
seaweed, and then took a path that no man had taken and lived--the
sheer, precipitous path from the roof of the cavern to the top of the
cliff.
_III.--Rohan Meets Napoleon_
As the Grand Army swept into Belgium for the last great battle against
the united powers of England, Germany, Austria, and Russia, a strange,
savage creature followed it--a gaunt, half-naked man, with long yellow
hair falling almost to his waist, and bloodshot eyes with a look of
madness in them. How he lived it is difficult to tell. He never begged,
but the soldiers threw lumps of bread at him as he prowled round their
camp-fires, asking everyone whom he met: "Where is the emperor? Where is
Napoleon? Do you think he will come this way?"
Twice he had been arrested as a spy, and hastily condemned to be shot.
But each time, on hearing his sentence of death, he gave so strange a
laugh that the officer examined him more closely, and then set him free,
saying with scornful pity, "It is a harmless maniac. Let him go."
He always lagged in the rear of the advancing army, and as each fresh
regiment arrived he mingled with the soldiers, and asked them in a
fierce whisper, "Is the emperor coming now? Isn't he coming?"
At last, one dark rainy evening, the wild outcast saw the man for whom
he was seeking. Wrapped in an old grey overcoat, and wearing a cocked
hat from which the rain dripped heavily, Napoleon stood on a hill, with
his hands clasped behind his back, his head sunk deep between his
shoulders, looking towards Ligny. But he was guarded; a crowd of
officers stood close behind him, waiting for orders.
Suddenly a bareheaded soldier came riding along the road, spurring and
flogging his horse as if for dear life; galloping wildly up the hill he
handed the emperor a dispatch. Napoleon glanced at it, and spoke to his
staff officers. With a wild movement of joy they drew their swords, and
waved them in the air, shouting, "_Vive l'Empereur!"_ Napoleon smiled.
His star was again in the ascendant! The Prussians were retreating from
Ligny; he had struck the first blow, and it was a victory!
Near the hill on which he was standing was a deserted farmhouse; he gave
orders that it should be prepared for his reception. But, as he rode
down the hill at the head of his staff, the man who had been watching
him divined his intention, and reached the house before his attendants.
The soldiers who searched the place before Napoleon entered failed to
see the dark figure crouching up in the corner of a loft among the black
rafters.
"Leave me," said Napoleon to his men, after he had finished the plain
meal of bread and wine set before him.
To-morrow he would meet for the first time, on the rolling fields of
Waterloo, the only captain of a European army whom he had not defeated.
He wanted to think his plans of battle over in silence. Some time he
paced up and down the room, his chin drooping forward on his breast, and
his hands clasped upon his back. Through the wide, clear spaces of his
mind great armies passed in black procession, moving like storm-clouds
over the stricken earth; burning cities rose in the distance, amid the
shrieks of dying men, and the thunder of cannon. His plan was at last
matured. Victory? Yes, that was certain! So his thoughts ran. An
aide-de-camp entered with a dispatch. He tore it open, and ran his eye
over it.
"It is nothing," he said. "Don't disturb me for two hours except on a
matter of great importance. I want to sleep."
Going up to the old armchair of oak that was set before the fire, he
fell on his knees, and covered his eyes and prayed.
"What!" said the man who was watching him up in the rafters. "Does Cain
dare to pray? Surely God will not answer his prayers! He is praying that
he may wipe the English to-morrow from the face of the earth, and again
cement his throne with blood, and forge his sceptre of fire!"
That, no doubt, was what Napoleon prayed for. Yet, when he rose up his
face was wonderfully changed and softened by the religious light which
had shone on it for a few moments. Then, throwing himself into the
armchair, he closed his eyes. And, as the fire burnt low, Rohan Gwenfern
silently descended from the loft, and something gleamed in his hand. He
crept up to the sleeping emperor, and stared at his face, reading it
line by line. Napoleon moved uneasily in his sleep, and murmured to
himself, and his hand opened and shut.
As Rohan raised his knife to strike home to the heart of the tyrant he
saw the hand--white and small, like a woman's or a child's. Again he
looked at the face. Ah, there was no imperial grandeur here! Only a
feeble, sallow, tired, and sickly creature, whom a strong man could
crush down with one blow of his fist. Rohan grew weak as he looked, and
the long knife almost fell from his clutch.
"I must kill him--I must kill him!" he kept saying to himself. "His one
life against the peace and happiness of earth--the life of a Cain! If he
awakens, war will awaken, and fire, famine, and slaughter! Kill him,
Rohan, kill him!"
Perhaps if Napoleon had not prayed before he slept, his enemy would have
carried out his purpose. But he had prayed; his face had become
beautiful for a moment, and he fell asleep as fearlessly as a child. No!
Rohan Gwenfern was not made of the stuff of which savage assassins are
formed; though there was madness in his brain, there was still love in
his heart. He could not kill even Cain, when God had sanctified the
murderer with sleep. God had made Napoleon, and God had sent him; bloody
as he was, he, too, was God's child.
Opening the great casement window of the room in the farmhouse, Gwenfern
gazed for a moment with wild eyes and quivering lips on the pale, worn
face of the great conqueror, and then leaped out into the darkness. When
Napoleon awoke, a long knife was lying at his feet; but he heeded it
not, and little dreamt that a few minutes ago it had been pointed at his
heart.
Ah, Rohan Gwenfern had done well to leave the mighty emperor in the
hands of God, and go back, a wild, tattered, mad beggar to his
sweetheart Marcelle, in the little Breton village of Kromlaix. For as
Napoleon came out of the farmhouse, and looked at the dawning sky, there
rose up, clouding the lurid star of his destiny, the blood-red shadow--
WATERLOO!
* * * * *
JOHN BUNYAN
The Holy War
John Bunyan was born at Elstow, near Bedford, England, in
1628. After receiving a scanty education at the village
school, he worked hard at the forge with his father. In his
sixteenth year he lost his mother, and soon after he joined
the army, then engaged in the Civil War; but his military
experience lasted only a few months. Returning to Elstow, he
again worked at the forge, and married. After various
alternating religious experiences, in 1655 he became a member
of the Baptist congregation at Bedford, of which he was ere
long chosen pastor. His success was extraordinary; but after
five years his ministry was prohibited, and he was
incarcerated in Bedford Gaol, his imprisonment lasting for
twelve years. There he wrote his immortal "Pilgrim's
Progress." Released under the Act of Indulgence, he resumed
his ministry, and ultimately his pastoral charge in Bedford.
He took fever when on a visit to London, and died on August
31, 1688. The "Holy War" is considered by critics even
superior to the "Pilgrim," inasmuch as it betrays a finer
literary workmanship. It was written in 1682, after
molestation of Bunyan as a preacher had ceased, and when he
was known widely as the author of the first part of the
"Pilgrim's Progress," the second part of which was published
two years later. Macaulay held that if there had been no
"Pilgrim's Progress," "Holy War" would have been the first of
religious allegories. No doubt its popularity has been due in
some degree to its kinship to that work; but the vigour of its
style overcomes the minute elaboration of an almost impossible
theme, and the book lives, alike as literature and theology,
by its own vitality. An elaborate analysis of it may be found
in Froude's volume on Bunyan. He said of it: "'The Holy War'
would have entitled Bunyan to a place among the masters of
English Literature."
_I.--The Founding of Mansoul_
In the gallant country of Universe there is a fair and delicate town, a
corporation called Mansoul, a town for its building so curious, for its
situation so commodious, for its privileges so advantageous, that there
is not its equal under the whole heaven.
As to the situation of the town, it lieth between two worlds, and the
first founder and builder of it was one Shaddai, who built it for his
own delight. And as he made it goodly to behold, so also mighty to have
dominion over all the country round about.
There was reared up in the midst of this town a most famous and stately
place--for strength it may be called a castle; for pleasantness, a
paradise. This place King Shaddai intended for himself alone, and not
another with him; and of it he made a garrison, but committed the
keeping of it only to the men of the town.
This famous town of Mansoul had five gates--Eargate, Eyegate, Mouthgate,
Nosegate, and Feelgate. It had always a sufficiency of provisions within
its walls, and it had the best, most wholesome and excellent law that
was then extant in the world. There was not a rogue, rascal, or
traitorous person within its walls; they were all true men, and fast
joined together.
_II.--The Plot and Capture_
Well, upon a time there was one Diabolus, a mighty giant, made an
assault upon the famous town of Mansoul, to take it, and make it his own
habitation. This Diabolus was first one of the servants of King Shaddai,
by whom he was raised to a most high and mighty place. But he, seeing
himself thus exalted to greatness and honour, and raging in his mind for
higher state and degree, what doth he but begin to think with himself
how he might set up as lord over all, and have the sole power under
Shaddai--but that the king had reserved for his son. Wherefore Diabolus
first consults with himself what had best to be done, and then breaks
his mind to some others of his companions, to which they also agreed. So
they came to the issue that they should make an attempt upon the king's
son to destroy him, that the inheritance might be theirs.
Now, the king and his son, being all and always eye, could not but
discern all passages in his dominions; wherefore, what does he but takes
them in the very nick, and the first trip that they made towards their
design, convicts them of the treason, horrid rebellion, and conspiracy
that they had devised, and casts them altogether out of all place of
trust, benefit, honours, and preferment; and this done, he banishes them
the court, turns them down into horrid pits, never more to expect the
least favour at his hands.
Banished from his court, you may be sure they would now add to their
former pride, malice and rage against Shaddai. Wherefore, roving and
ranging in much fury from place to place, if perhaps they might find
something that was the king's, they happened into this spacious country
of Universe, and steered their course to Mansoul. So when they found the
place, they shouted horribly on it for joy, saying: "Now have we found
the prize, and how to be revenged on King Shaddai!" So they sat down and
called a council of war.
Now, with Diabolus was, among others, the fierce Alecto, and Apollyon,
and the mighty giant Beelzebub, and Lucifer, and Legion. And Legion it
was whose advice was taken that they should assault the town in all
pretended fairness, covering their intentions with lies, flatteries, and
delusive words; feigning things that will never be, and promising that
to them which they shall never find. It was designed also that, by a
stratagem, they should destroy one Mr. Resistance, otherwise called
Captain Resistance--a man that the giant Diabolus and his band more
feared than they feared the whole town of Mansoul besides. And they
appointed one Tisiphone to do it.
Thus, having ended the council of war, they rose up and marched towards
Mansoul; but all in a manner invisible, save only Diabolus, who
approached the town in the shape and body of a dragon. So they drew up
and sat down before Eargate, and laid their ambuscade for Mr. Resistance
within a bow shot of the town. Then Diabolus, being come to the gate,
sounded his trumpet for audience, at which the chiefs of the town, such
as my lord Innocent, my lord Will-be-will, Mr. Recorder, and Captain
Resistance, came down to the wall to see who was there and what was the
matter.
Diabolus then began his oration.
"Gentlemen of the famous town of Mansoul, I have somewhat of concern to
impart unto you. And first I will assure you it is not my own but your
advantage that I seek. I am come to show you how you may obtain ample
deliverance from a bondage that, unawares to yourselves, you are
captivated and enslaved under."
At this the town of Mansoul began to prick up its ears.
"And what is it, pray? What is it?" thought they.
Then Diabolus spoke on.
"Touching your king, I know he is great and potent; but his laws are
unreasonable, intricate, and intolerable. There is a great difference
and disproportion betwixt the life and an apple, yet one must go for the
other by the law of your Shaddai. Why should you be holden in ignorance
and blindness? O ye inhabitants of Mansoul, ye are not a free people!
And is it not grievous to think on, that the very thing you are
forbidden to do, might you but do it would yield you both wisdom and
honour?"
And just now, while Diabolus was speaking these words to Mansoul,
Tisiphone shot at Captain Resistance, where he stood on the gate, and
mortally wounded him in the head, so that he, to the amazement of the
townsmen, fell down quite dead over the wall. Now, when Captain
Resistance was dead--and he was the only man of war in the town--poor
Mansoul was left wholly naked of courage. Then stood forth Mr.
Ill-pause, that Diabolus brought with him as his orator, and persuaded
the townsfolk to take of the tree which King Shaddai had forbidden; and
when they saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant
to the eye, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, they took and did
eat. Now even while this Ill-pause was making his speech, my lord
Innocent--whether by a shot from the camp of the giant, or from some
qualm that suddenly took him, or whether by the stinking breath of that
treacherous villain, old Ill-pause, for so I am most apt to think--sunk
down in the place where he stood still, nor could he be brought to life
again.
Now, these brave men being dead, what do the rest of the townsfolk but
fall down and yield obedience to Diabolus, and having eaten of the
forbidden fruit, they become drunk therewith, and so opened both Eargate
and Eyegate, and let in Diabolus and all his band, quite forgetting
their good Shaddai and his law.
Diabolus now bethinks himself of remodelling the town for his greater
security, setting up one and putting down another at pleasure. Wherefore
he put out of power and place my lord mayor, whose name was my lord
Understanding, and Mr. Recorder, whose name was Mr. Conscience. But my
lord Will-be-will, a man of great strength, resolution, and courage,
resolved to bear office under Diabolus, who, perceiving the willingness
of my lord to serve him forthwith, made him captain of the castle,
governor of the walls, and keeper of the gates of Mansoul. He also had
Mr. Mind for his clerk.
When the giant had thus engarrisoned himself in the town of Mansoul, he
betakes himself to defacing. Now, there was in the market-place, and
also in the gates of the castle, an image of the blessed King Shaddai.
This he commanded to be defaced, and it was basely done by the hand of
Mr. No-truth. Moreover, Diabolus made havoc of the remains of the laws
and statutes of Shaddai, and set up his own vain edicts, such as gave
liberty to the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride
of life.
_III.--The Re-Taking of Mansoul_
Now, as you may well think, long before this time, word was carried to
the good King Shaddai that Mansoul was lost, and it would have amazed
one to have seen what sorrow and compunction of spirit there was among
all sorts at the king's court to think that the place was taken. But the
king and his son foresaw all this before, yea, had sufficiently provided
for the relief of Mansoul, though they told not everybody thereof.
Wherefore, after consultation, the son of Shaddai--a sweet and comely
person, and one that always had great affection for those that were in
affliction--having striven hard with his father, promised that he would
be his servant to recover Mansoul. The purport of this agreement was
that at a certain time, prefixed by both, the king's son should take a
journey into the country of Universe, and there, in a way of justice and
equity, make amends for the follies of Mansoul, and lay the foundation
of her perfect deliverance.