The Last of the Legions and Other Tales of Long Ago

e te, Britannia,

s background of barren, red-scarped hills, shimmered like a dream country in the opal light. Save for a narrow edge of snow-white surf, the Mediterranean lay blue and serene as far as the eye

n, three-pronged ram projected in front, and a high golden figure of Baal, the God of the Ph?nicians, children of Canaan, shone upon the after-deck. From the single high mast above the huge sail streamed th

Why are some missing from the staring portholes, some snapped with jagged, yellow edges, some trailing inert against the sides? Why are two prongs of the brazen ram twisted and broken?

g brow. But these slaves-look at them! Some are captured Romans, some Sicilians, many black Libyans, but all are in the last exhaustion, their weary eyelids drooped over their eyes, their lips thick with black crusts, and pink with bloody froth, their arms and backs moving mechanically to the hoarse chant of the overseer. Their bodies of all tints from ivory to jet, are stripped to the waist, and every glistening back shows the angry stripes o

screened the eastern side of the Bay of Carthage. On the after-deck were gathered a number of officers, silent and brooding, glancing from time to time at two of their own class who stood apart deep in conversation. The one, tall, dark, and wiry, with pure, Semitic features, and the limbs of a giant, was Magro, the famous Carthaginian captain, whose name was still a terror on every shore, from Gaul to the Euxine. The other, a white-bearded, swarthy man, with indomitable courage and ener

with gloom in his voice and bearing

way, as you saw, like a wolf which has a hound hanging on to either haunch. The Roman dogs can show the wolf-bites which pro

y hill could be seen, dotted with the white villas of the wealthy Ph?nician merchants. Above them, a gleaming dot

e galley of Black Magro. But which of all of them will guess that we alone remain of all that

spent your life upon the seas, Magro. You do not know how it has been with us on the land. But I have seen this canker grow upon us which now leads us to our death. I and others have gone down into the market-place to plead with the people, and been pelte

no answer?" as

the mother of all things, was sinking to her end. So might the bees debate who should have wax or honey when the torch was blazing which would bring to ashes the hive and all therein. 'Are we not rulers of the sea?

id Magro, "to know that what

we go down, she is sup

that part of the Tin Islands which juts forth into the sea, and from her lips I have heard many things, but not one which has not come aright. Of the fall of our own c

id she o

even as we, weakened by h

less bitter," said he. "But since we have fallen, and Rome

nt for the tale she told, which must be false if all else she said was true. She would have it that in coming days it was her own land, this fog-girt is

fingers closed upon his companion's wrist. The other had set rigid, his head advanced, his ha

" whisper

g. For a moment the gloom of defeat was lifted, and a buzz of joy ran from group to group at the

lter. Could it be young Hamilcar in the Africa, or is it Beneva in the Blue Syrian ship? We three with others may for

ses which flanked the great African city. Already, upon the headland, could be seen a dark group of waiting townsmen. Gisco and Magro were still watching with puckere

he cried

the wash of the water and the measured rattle

s right!" cried old Gisco. "See how they swoop upon

Magro. "See how it gleams ye

mast. Is it not the cursed b

one galley shall return to the old sea-mother. Well, for my part, I wo

me. What shall it profit us to make the Roman victory complete? Nay, Magro, let the slave

two lean fierce galleys from the north. Already the morning sun shone upon the lines of low Roman helmets above the bulwarks, and glistened on the silver wave wh

ttle which told their dismal tale. The Romans, too, were heading in such a way that it was before their very faces that their ship was about to be cut off; and yet of all this multitude not one could raise a hand in its defence. Some wept in impotent grief, some cursed with flashing eyes and knotted fists, some on their knees held up appealing hands to Baal; but neither prayer, tears, nor curses could undo the past nor mend the present. That

han the rest, "at least we are b

n? What is the brave man untrained to the brave man trained? When you stan

let us

within the year? Nay, there is but one chance for us. If we give up our commerce and our colonies, if

perate in his despair, had cast the crooked flukes of his anchors over their gunwales, and bound them to him in an iron grip, whilst with hammer and crowbar he burst great holes in his own sheathing. The last Punic galley should n

the water, and the Romans', drawn towards it by the iron bonds which hold them, are tilted downwards, one bulwark upon the waves, one reared high in the air. Madly they strain to cast off the death-grip of the galley. She is under the surface now, and ever swifter, with the greater weight, the Roman ships heel after her. There is a rending crash. The wooden side

was scattered there as a sign that Carthage should be no more. And far off a huddle of naked, starving folk stood upon the distant mountains, and looked down upon the desolate plain which had once been the fairest and richest upon earth. And they understo