The Children's Portion Part 7

So they brought the book of the Gospels, and the knight kissed it, but as soon as he began to take the oath he was felled down as by a terrible blow, and his neck was found broken and his eyes burst from his head. Before them all, in great agony, he died, confessing his guilt and the innocence of Constance.

King Alla had been much moved by the beauty of Constance and her innocent looks, and now she was proved guiltless, all his heart went out to her. And when he asked her to become his queen she gladly consented, for she loved him because he had pitied and helped her.

They were soon married amidst the great rejoicing of the people, and the king and all the land became converted to the Christian faith.

This king also had a mother, named Donegilde, an old heatheness, no less cruel than the mother of the Soldan. She hated Constance because she had been made queen though for fear of her son's wrath she dared not molest her.

After his honeymoon, King Alla went northward to do battle with the Scots, who were his foemen, leaving his wife in charge of a bishop and the good governor, the husband of the murdered Hennegilde. While he was absent heaven sent Constance a beautiful little son, whom she named Maurice.

As soon as the babe was born, the governor sent a messenger to the king with a letter telling him of his good fortune. Now it happened this messenger was a courtier, who wished to keep on good terms with all the royal family. So, as soon as he got the letter, he went to Donegilde, the king's mother, and asked her if she had any message to send her son.

Donegilde was very courteous and begged him to wait till next morning, while she got her message ready. She plied the man with wine and strong liquor till evening, when he slept so fast that nothing could wake him. While he was asleep she opened his letters and read all that the governor had written. Then this wicked old woman wrote to Alla that his wife Constance was a witch who had bewitched him and all his people, but now her true character became plain, and she had given birth to a horrible, fiend-like creature, who, she said, was his son.

This she put in place of the governor's letter, and dispatched the messenger at dawn.

King Alla was nearly heart-broken when he read these bad tidings, but he wrote back to wait all things till he returned, and to harm neither Constance nor her son. Back rode the messenger to Donegilde once again. She played her tricks over again and got him sound asleep.

Then she took the king's letter and put one in its place commanding the governor to put Constance and her child aboard the s.h.i.+p in which she came to these sh.o.r.es and set her afloat.

The good governor could hardly believe his eyes when he read these orders, and the tears ran over his cheeks for grief. But he dared not disobey what he supposed was the command of his king and master, so he made the vessel ready and went and told Constance what he must do.

She, poor soul, was almost struck dumb with grief. Then, kneeling before the governor, she cried, with many tears,--

"If I must go again on the cruel seas, at least this poor little innocent, who has done no evil, may be spared. Keep my poor baby till his father comes back, and perchance he will take pity on him."

But the governor dared not consent, and Constance must go to the s.h.i.+p, carrying her babe in her arms. Through the street she walked, the people following her with tears, she with eyes fixed on heaven and the infant sobbing on her bosom. Thus she went on board s.h.i.+p and drifted away again.

Now, for another season, she went about at the mercy of winds and waves, in icy waters where winds whistled through the frozen rigging, and down into tropical seas where she lay becalmed for months in the gla.s.sy water. Then fresh breezes would spring up and drive her this way or that, as they listed. But this time she had her babe for comfort, and he grew to be a child near five years old before she was rescued. And this is the way it happened. When the Emperor of Rome heard of the deeds the cruel Soldaness had done, and how his daughter's husband had been slain, he sent an army to Syria, and all these years they had besieged the royal city till it was burnt and destroyed. Now the fleet, returning to Rome, met the s.h.i.+p in which Constance sailed, and they fetched her and her child to her native country. The senator who commanded the fleet was her uncle, but he knew her not, and she did not make herself known. He took her into his own house, and her aunt, the senator's wife, loved her greatly, never guessing she was her own princess and kinswoman.

When King Alla got back from his war with the Scots and heard how Constance had been sent away, he was very angry; but when he questioned and found the letter which had been sent him was false, and that Constance had borne him a beautiful boy, he knew not what to think.

When the governor showed him the letter with his own seal which directed that his wife and child should be sent away, he knew there was some hidden wickedness in all this. He forced the messenger to tell where he had carried the letters, and he confessed he had slept two nights at the castle of Donegilde.

So it all came out, and the king, in a pa.s.sion of rage, slew his mother, and then shut himself up in his castle to give way to grief.

After a time he began to repent his deed, because he remembered it was contrary to the gentle teachings of the faith Constance had taught him.

In his penitence he resolved to go to Rome on a pilgrimage to atone for his sin. So in his pilgrim dress he set out for the great empire.

Now when it was heard in Rome that the great Alla from the North-land had come thither on a Christian pilgrimage, all the n.o.ble Romans vied to do him honor. Among others, the senator with whom Constance abode invited him to a great banquet which he made for him. While Alla sat at this feast, his eyes were constantly fixed upon a beautiful boy, one of the senator's pages, who stood near and filled their goblets with wine. At length he said to his host,--"Pray tell me, whence came the boy who serves you? Who is he, and do his father and mother live in the country?"

"A mother he has," answered the senator: "so holy a woman never was seen. But if he has a father I cannot tell you." Then he went on and told the king of Constance, and how she was found with this bey, her child, on the pathless sea.

Alla was overjoyed in his heart, for he knew then that this child was his own son. Immediately they sent for Constance to come thither. As soon as she saw her husband, she uttered a cry and fell into a deep swoon. When she was recovered she looked reproachfully at Alla, for she supposed it was by his order she had been so ruthlessly sent from his kingdom. But when, with many tears of pity for her misfortunes, King Alla told her how he had grieved for her, and how long he had suffered thus, she was convinced.

Then they embraced each other, and were so happy that no other happiness, except that of heavenly spirits, could ever equal theirs.

After this, she made herself known to the Emperor, her father, who had great rejoicing over his long-lost daughter, whom he had thought dead.

For many weeks Rome was full of feasting, and merry-making, and happiness. These being over, King Alla, with his dear wife, returned to his kingdom of England, where they lived in great happiness all the rest of their days.

THE DOCTOR'S REVENGE.

BY ALOE.

Painfully toiled the camels over the burning sands of Arabia. Weary and thirsty were they, for they had not for days had herbage to crop, or water to drink, as they trod, mile after mile, the barren waste, where the sands glowed red like a fiery sea. And weary were the riders, exhausted with toil and heat, for they dared not stop to rest.

The water which they carried with them was almost spent; some of the skins which had held it flapped empty against the sides of the camels, and too well the travelers knew that if they loitered on their way, all must perish of thirst.

Amongst the travelers in that caravan was a Persian, Sadi by name, a tall, strong man, with black beard, and fierce, dark eye. He urged his tired camel to the side of that of the foremost Arab, the leader and guide of the rest, and after pointing fiercely toward one of the travelers a little behind him, thus he spake:

"Dost thou know that yon Syrian Yusef is a dog of a Christian, a kaffir?" (Kaffir--unbeliever--is a name of contempt given by Moslems, the followers of the false Prophet, to those who wors.h.i.+p our Lord.)

"I know that the hakeem (doctor) never calls on the name of the Prophet," was the stern reply.

"Dost thou know," continued Sadi, "that Yusef rides the best camel in the caravan, and has the fullest water-skin, and has shawls and merchandise with him?"

The leader cast a covetous glance toward the poor Syrian traveler, who was generally called the hakeem because of the medicines which he gave, and the many cures which he wrought.

"He has no friends here," said the wicked Sadi; "if he were cast from his camel and left here to die, there would be none to inquire after his fate; for who cares what becomes of a dog of a kaffir?"

I will not further repeat the cruel counsels of this bad man, but I will give the reason for the deadly hatred which he bore toward the poor hakeem. Yusef had defended the cause of a widow whom Sadi had tried to defraud; and Sadi's dishonesty being found out, he had been punished with stripes, which he had but too well deserved. Therefore did he seek to ruin the man who had brought just punishment on him, therefore he resolved to destroy Yusef by inducing his Arab comrades to leave him to die in the desert.

Sadi had, alas! little difficulty in persuading the Arabs that it was no great sin to rob and desert a Christian. Just as the fiery sun was sinking over the sands, Yusef, who was suspecting treachery, but knew not how to escape from it, was rudely dragged off his camel, stripped of the best part of his clothes, and, in spite of his earnest entreaties, left to die in the terrible waste. It would have been less cruel to slay him at once.

"Oh! leave me at least water--water!" exclaimed the poor victim of malice and hatred.

"We'll leave you nothing but your own worthless drugs, hakeem!--take that!" cried Sadi, as he flung at Yusef's head a tin case containing a few of his medicines.

Then bending down from Yusef's camel, which he himself had mounted, Sadi hissed out between his clenched teeth, "Thou hast wronged me--I have repaid thee, Christian! this is a Moslem's revenge!"

They had gone, the last camel had disappeared from the view of Yusef; darkness was falling around, and he remained to suffer alone, to die alone, amidst those scorching-sands! The Syrian's first feeling was that of despair, as he stood gazing in the direction of the caravan which he could no longer see. Then Yusef lifted up his eyes to the sky above him: in its now darkened expanse shone the calm evening star, like a drop of pure light.

Yusef, in thinking over his situation, felt thankful that he had not been deprived of his camel in an earlier part of his journey, when he was in the midst of the desert. He hoped that he was not very far from its border, and resolved, guided by the stars, to walk as far as his strength would permit, in the faint hope of reaching a well, and the habitations of men. It was a great relief to him that the burning glare of day was over: had the sun been still blazing over his head, he must soon have sunk and fainted by the way. Yusef picked up the small case of medicines which Sadi in mockery had flung at him; he doubted whether to burden himself with it, yet was unwilling to leave it behind. "I am not likely to live to make use of this, and yet--who knows?" said Yusef to himself, as, with the case in his hand, he painfully struggled on over the wide expanse of dreary desert. "I will make what efforts I can to preserve the life which G.o.d has given."

Struggling against extreme exhaustion, his limbs almost sinking under his weight, Yusef pressed on his way, till a glowing red line in the east showed where the blazing sun would soon rise. What was his eager hope and joy on seeing that red line broken by some dark pointed objects that appeared rise out of the sand. New strength seemed given to the weary man, for now his ear caught the welcome sound of the bark of a dog, and then the bleating of sheep.

"G.o.d be praised!" exclaimed Yusef, "I, am near the abodes of men!"

Exerting all his powers, the Syrian, made one great effort to reach the black tents which he now saw distinctly in broad daylight, and which he knew must belong to some tribe of wandering Bedouin Arabs: he tottered on for a hundred yards, and then sank exhausted on the sand.

But the Bedouins had seen the poor, solitary stranger, and as hospitality is one of their leading virtues, some of these wild sons of the desert now hastened toward Yusef. They raised him, they held to his parched lips a most delicious draught of rich camel's milk. The Syrian felt as if he were drinking in new life, and was so much revived by what he had taken, that he was able to accompany his preservers to the black goat's-hair tent of their Sheik or chief, an elderly man of n.o.ble aspect, who welcomed the stranger kindly.

Yusef had not been long in that tent before he found that he had not only been guided to a place of safety, but to the very place where his presence was needed. The sound of low moans made him turn his eyes toward a dark corner of the tent. There lay the only son of the Sheik, dangerously ill, and, as the Bedouins believed, dying. Already all their rough, simple remedies had been tried on the youth, but tried in vain. With stern grief the Sheik listened to the moans of pain that burst from the suffering lad and wrung the heart of the father.

The Syrian asked leave to examine the youth, and was soon at his side.

Yusef very soon perceived that the Bedouin's case was not hopeless,--that G.o.d's blessing on the hakeem's skill might in a few days effect a wonderful change. He offered to try what his art and medicines could do. The Sheik caught at the last hope held out to him of preserving the life of his son. The Bedouins gathered round, and watched with keen interest the measures which were at once taken by the stranger hakeem to effect the cure of the lad.

Yusef's success was beyond his hopes. The medicine which he gave afforded speedy relief from pain, and within an hour the young Bedouin had sunk into a deep and refres.h.i.+ng sleep. His slumber lasted long, and he awoke quite free from fever, though of course some days elapsed before his strength was fully restored.

Great was the grat.i.tude of Azim, the Sheik, for the cure of his only son; and great was the admiration of the simple Bedouins for the skill of the wondrous hakeem. Yusef soon had plenty of patients. The sons of the desert now looked upon the poor deserted stranger as one sent to them by heaven; and Yusef himself felt that his own plans had been defeated, his own course changed by wisdom and love. He had intended, as a medical missionary, to fix his abode in some Arabian town: he had been directed instead to the tents of the Bedouin Arabs. The wild tribe soon learned to reverence and love him, and listen to his words.

Azim supplied him with a tent, a horse, a rich striped mantle, and all that the Syrian's wants required. Yusef found that he could be happy as well as useful in his wild desert home.