The Iron Star - And What It Saw on Its Journey Through the Ages Part 9

"To the President of the United States, Was.h.i.+ngton

"The Queen desires to congratulate the President upon the successful completion of this great international work, in which the Queen has taken the greatest interest.

"The Queen is convinced that the President will join with her in fervently hoping that the electric cable, which now connects Great Britain with the United States, will prove an additional link between the nations, whose friends.h.i.+p is founded upon their common interest and reciprocal esteem.

"The Queen has much pleasure in thus communicating with the President, and renewing to him her wishes for the prosperity of the United States."

Let us pick up the thread of the story of one sharp splinter which we have lost sight of;--the sword which Louis of Daneshold lost in battle, which Wulf had carried and which Ulf had made far back in the days of the Northmen.

Men do not linger long around a battlefield after the fight is over, unless it is their fate to stay there forever; and with rattle of mailed harness and blare of trumpet-calls the Crusaders tramped heavily away through the sand, leaving behind them here and there a red spot on the earth, here and there a Saracen. Then, in time, a lightfooted, lightfingered troop of Arabs dashed into the little valley, sharply scanning the ground to right and left for forgotten weapons worth the picking up.

One wild, swift riding young fellow came sweeping along with his white burnous, or robe, trailing behind him in the air, and down he bent to earth like a circus rider as his eye caught a flash of sunlight. With a shout of triumph he s.n.a.t.c.hed up a straight cut-and-thrust sword, which in weight and size seemed exactly made for him. This was unusual luck; for, as he said gleefully to his comrades, while Frankish swords were not uncommon trophies of war yet usually they were heavy, clumsy things, not easily wielded by the hands of Eastern men. So, that night by the camp fire at the little well under the date palms, Mohammed Ali Ben Ibyn, no longer a wild, reckless horseman, but a grave, dignified young man, thrust a fresh coal into the bowl of his long stemmed pipe, handed it politely to an elder friend, and beckoned to a slave to bring him that new weapon from his tent. Taking it he made a few pa.s.ses and cuts at the empty air to learn the balance of it, then set the point of it on the metal boss of a small s.h.i.+eld at his feet, steadily pressing downward.

Down, down went the hilt while the splendidly tempered blade curved under the pressure into a bow, until before their astonished eyes hilt and point kissed each other. Then the spring of the steel slowly overcame the muscle in the arm that bent it, and the hilt turned ever so slightly in the hand, yet quite enough; for the point glanced from the metal and sank into the leather, the blade sprung into line, and with a whiz the little buckler slid out from under foot, flew up from the sand as though it had wings and skimmed away far beyond the firelight.

"Allah kerim!" cried the astonished Arab. "G.o.d is merciful! This is a sword for a sultan. See, it is as straight as when it was made. No chief in the army of Saladin has a better blade."

"True, O son of Sheik Ibyn. The blade is perfect. But the hilt is not.

Seest thou not that it is made like the cross of the infidel, the unbeliever? Good luck will not follow thee, wielding that sign."

"That is easily remedied,--" began Mohammed Ali, but got no further; for from one of the other fires a tall Arab stepped forward, clad in a long robe and a white turban, and with a beard that reached his waist.

Lifting his powerful voice he sent it forth in a chant that made itself heard from end to end of the camp; and far out in the surrounding desert the jackals that whined and skulked among the sandhills dropped to earth hushed by the sonorous call. Not a leaf in the palms was astir. Not a breath of the night wind swayed a tent curtain. The chant rang through a stillness broken only by the low snap and crackle of the fires.

"Ashhadu an la illah illa-llah, Ashhadu anna Mohammadar ra-sool ulla."

chanted the long robed priest. "G.o.d is G.o.d, and Mohammed is his Prophet! There is no G.o.d but G.o.d! To prayer, O sons of the Faithful!-- "just as at that hour, all over Arabia, other priests in other places were sending out their warning summons in camp and city, under the palms and from the lofty minarets of countless round-domed mosques or temples, wherever ruled the might of the Eastern faith.

Forth from their fires stepped the dark skinned warriors and formed in line, facing Mecca, the birthplace of their prophet Mohammed, and to them a most holy place. Not ashamed were they to say their prayers to the Father of All, nor to ask for help and guidance; and the wildest fighter of them all knelt and prayed as earnestly as a child, knowing well that if G.o.d was with him it mattered nothing if the whole world was against him; although in the desert the Arab's own proverb says that "No man meets a friend."

Then, their prayers ended, it was night, and time for sleep. And, after all, it was not Mohammed Ali Ben Ibyn's hand which put a new hilt to that sword, but another's; for its fame, in that land where a good weapon is beyond price, was carried from camp to camp, and the sword itself became the cause and centre of a little war all its own.

Once a man stole it, and on a swift camel he fled by night only to fall into the power of still greater thieves and wickeder men. Thus the sword, like a firebrand, was pa.s.sed from hand to hand. At one time it even got as far south as Abyssinia, in Africa, and became by purchase the property of a Hamran Arab, one of the most daring, reckless, fearless, skilful hunters that ever walked on earth, as his people are to this day.

He was one of four brothers, and every day in the hunting season they used to ride out together elephant hunting, yet armed with nothing but their swords. In spite of his great size an elephant is wonderfully quick in movement, and it is a good horse that can outrun him. Yet one of these four brothers, the smallest and lightest of them, would ride up close to the head of a wild elephant and tease him into a charge.

The instant that the great ears were c.o.c.ked forward and the wicked little eyes flashed the warning that he was coming, round would whirl the good horse and away he would fly with the great grey beast striding after him like a runaway steam-engine, screaming with rage.

Then up from the rear would come the other brothers like hawks; a leap to the ground while at full speed, sword in hand! a swift, circling blow, and the steel would bite deep into the thick leg just above the heel, and like a gadfly the hunter would be away and in saddle again before the blow of the whistling trunk could reach him.

Another tempting by the youngest brother, another vain charge, another flash of the circling sword in the sun, and with the sinews cut in both hind legs that elephant's running days would be over, and presently he would die almost a painless death from loss of blood, slain in spite of his great size by just two strokes of a sword! Then at the nearest village there would be great rejoicing. The young girls would clap their hands and praise the courage of the brothers; all the older people would sharpen their knives and prepare to go to market, for even one elephant could not be carried home in a basket. It would provide steaks and roasts enough for a whole village; while the four brothers would carefully cut out the great tusks of gleaming white ivory,--each perhaps weighing half as much as a man, and worth a little fortune to them when traders reached their tribe. For such ivory was sold from hand to hand until sometimes it reached even far- away Britain, where it was made into sword-hilts, thrones, and other things for kings.

Those were peaceful days for the sword, and useful ones. It is no small matter to provide food for a whole village full.

Centuries rolled away, and men went with them. From hand to hand went the sword of Ulf, ever the possession of one who knew its worth, and more than one etched on its blade, with acid or otherwise, brief sayings, each in their own tongue--now forgotten; just as even nowadays you may sometimes find on a Spanish blade some good word as a warning to the user, such as,

"Draw me not without cause; sheathe me not without honour." One day, to Ghent, in the Netherlands, there came a man, short, though broadly built. His hair was chestnut, and in his eyes there was a glint of the same red, especially when he was angry, which was not seldom; for as he said of himself, "A little pot is soon hot."

English he was by birth, and of a n.o.ble family; yet for many a year he had lived the life of a soldier, and to some of the great captains who warred in that time against the Turks he was not unknown as one who did daring deeds when in the mood, or when it was his duty. In Ghent, then, there lived an old armourer to whom this man did some great service in protecting his goods and very possibly his life from robbers.

The soldier made light of the matter, but the old armourer took a different view and was very grateful; so grateful, indeed, that from his store of arms of all sorts he brought forth a curious sword which had a curious story, for he told a long, rambling tale of love and war in which the weapon had figured, claiming that it came from Persia last, yet was made in Damascus, a city of great fame as a place where the best sword-blades were forged. It was of splendid steel, it is true, yet if the old man had trusted his eyes instead of his ears he would have seen that, whether it came last from Persia or not, whether the hilt was put on at Damascus or not, yet that nearly straight, cut- and-thrust blade was not the fas.h.i.+on in which Eastern swords were made. On the contrary, it was distinctly a Western style. This weapon the armourer insisted on the soldier accepting as a gift; and he, seeing how much the giver desired it, was not unwilling, taking care at a later time to do the armourer another good turn in a matter of a large order for arms and armour, although the old man knew it not.

Thus he kept the balance of favours even.

Now this sword had inscriptions etched on it in unknown tongues, and also the sun, moon, and stars of the night deeply bitten in by the craft of some former owner. I will not say that it was the sword of Ulf. I will say only that I like to think it might have been; for the short soldier took it, whistled it through the air around his head a few times, and straightway went and had a few signs of his own engraved upon it.

In Holland at that time there was a little company of English men and women who had come over there because of trouble about religious matters at home, where they were not allowed peaceably to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d in the way they thought was right. They were planning to go to the new world which had been discovered across the seas, and it seemed to the impetuous soldier that they would have need of him in such a journey, so he went with them. They did not sail direct from Holland, but went over to England again first, and sailed from Plymouth. Do you not know now the rest of the story without my telling it? Do you not know that the famous sword of that fiery little soldier, who valiantly stood so many times between those wanderers and death, is now to be seen among the most precious relics treasured at the old town of Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts? And the name of that sword was "Gideon," and the name of the n.o.ble, quick-tempered, warm-hearted little soldier, a name which will be remembered as long as the United States of America exist, was Captain Myles Standish.