As Theseus was skirting the valley along the foot of a lofty mountain, a very tall and strong man came down to meet him, dressed in rich garments. On his arms were golden bracelets, and round his neck a collar of jewels. He came forward, bowing courteously, held out both his hands, and spoke:—
“Welcome, fair youth, to these mountains; happy am I to have met you! For what is greater pleasure to a good man than to entertain strangers? But I see that you are weary. Come up to my castle, and rest yourself awhile.”
“I give you thanks,” said Theseus; “but I am in haste to go up the valley.”
“Alas! you have wandered far from the right way, and you cannot reach the end of the valley to-night, for there are many miles of mountain between you and it, and steep passes, and cliffs dangerous after nightfall. It is well for you that I met you, for my whole joy is to find strangers, and to feast them at my castle, and hear tales from them of foreign lands. Come up with me and eat the best of venison, and drink the rich red wine, and sleep upon my famous bed, of which all travellers say that they never saw the like. For whatsoever the stature of my guest, however tall or short, that bed fits him to a hair, and he sleeps on it as he never slept before.”
And he laid hold on Theseus’s hands, and would not let him go.
Theseus wished to go forward, but he was ashamed to seem churlish to so hospitable a man; and he was curious to see that wondrous bed; and besides, he was hungry and weary. Yet he shrank from the man, he knew not why; for though his voice was gentle and fawning, it was dry and husky, and though his eyes were gentle, they were dull and cold like stones. But he consented, and went with the man up a glen which led from the road, under the dark shadow of the cliffs.
As they went up, the glen grew narrower, and the cliffs higher and darker, and beneath them a torrent roared, half seen between bare limestone crags. Around them was neither tree nor bush, while from the white peaks of the mountain the snow-blasts swept down the glen, cutting and chilling, till a horror fell on Theseus as he looked round at that doleful place. He said at last, “Your castle stands, it seems, in a dreary region.”
“Yes; but once within it, hospitality makes all things cheerful. But who are these?” and he looked back, and Theseus also. Far below, along the road which they had left, came a string of laden beasts, and merchants walking by them.
“Ah, poor souls!” said the stranger. “Well for them that I looked back and saw them! And well for me, too, for I shall have the more guests at my feast. Wait awhile till I go down and call them, and we shall eat and drink together the livelong night. Happy am I, to whom Heaven sends so many guests at once!”
He ran back down the hill, waving his hand and shouting to the merchants, while Theseus went slowly up the steep path. But as he went up he met an aged man, who had been gathering driftwood in the torrent bed. He had laid down his fagot in the road, and was trying to lift it again to his shoulder. When he saw Theseus, he called to him and said,—
“O fair youth, help me up with my burden, for my limbs are stiff and weak with years.”
Then Theseus lifted the burden on his back. The old man blessed him, and then looked earnestly upon him and said,—
“Who are you, fair youth, and wherefore travel you this doleful road?”
“Who I am my parents know; but I travel this doleful road because I have been invited by a hospitable man, who promises to feast me and to make me sleep upon I know not what wondrous bed.”
Then the old man clapped his hands together and cried:—
“Know, fair youth, that you are going to torment and to death, for he who met you is a robber and a murderer of men. Whatsoever stranger he meets, he entices him hither to death; and as for this bed of which he speaks, truly it fits all comers, yet none ever rose alive off it, save me.”
“Why?” asked Theseus, astonished.
“Because, if a man be too tall for it, he lops his limbs till they be short enough, and if he be too short, he stretches his limbs till they be long enough; but me only he spared, seven weary years agone, for I alone of all fitted his bed exactly, so he spared me, and made me his slave. Once I was a wealthy merchant, and dwelt in a great city; but now I hew wood and draw water for him, the tormentor of all mortal men.”
Then Theseus said nothing; but he ground his teeth together.
“Escape, then,” said the old man; “for he will have no pity on thy youth. But yesterday he brought up hither a young man and a maiden, and fitted them upon his bed; and the young man’s hands and feet he cut off, but the maiden’s limbs he stretched until she died, and so both perished miserably—but I am tired of weeping over the slain. He is called Procrustes, the stretcher. Flee from him; yet whither will you flee? The cliffs are steep, and who can climb them? and there is no other road.”
But Theseus laid his hand upon the old man’s mouth, and said, “There is no need to flee;” and he turned to go down the pass.
“Do not tell him that I have warned you, or he will kill me by some evil death,” the old man screamed after him down the glen; but Theseus strode on in his wrath.
He said to himself: “This is an ill-ruled land. When shall I have done ridding it of monsters?” As he spoke, Procrustes came up the hill, and all the merchants with him, smiling and talking gayly. When he saw Theseus, he cried, “Ah, fair young guest, have I kept you too long waiting?”
But Theseus answered, “The man who stretches his guests upon a bed and hews off their hands and feet, what shall be done to him, when right is done throughout the land?”
Then the countenance of Procrustes changed, and his cheeks grew as green as a lizard, and he felt for his sword in haste. But Theseus leaped on him, and cried:—
“Is this true, my host, or is it false?” and he clasped Procrustes around waist and elbow, so that he could not draw his sword.
“Is this true, my host, or is it false?” But Procrustes answered never a word.
Then Theseus flung him from him, and lifted up his dreadful club; and before Procrustes could strike him, he had struck and felled him to the ground. And once again he struck him; and his evil soul fled forth, and went down into the depths squeaking, like a bat into the darkness of a cave.
Then Theseus stripped him of his gold ornaments, and went up to his house, and found there great wealth and treasure, which he had stolen from the passers-by. And he called the people of the country, whom Procrustes had spoiled a long time, and divided the treasure among them, and went down the mountains, and away.
On every side death stared us in the face; no human skill could avert it any longer. We saw the moment approach when we must bid farewell to earth, yet without feeling that unutterable horror which must have been experienced by the unhappy victims at Cawnpore. We were resolved rather to die than to yield, and were fully persuaded that in twenty-four hours all would be over. The engineer had said so, and all knew the worst. We women strove to encourage each other, and to perform the light duties which had been assigned to us, such as conveying orders to the batteries, and supplying the men with provisions, especially cups of coffee, which we prepared day and night.
I had gone out to try to make myself useful, in company with Jessie Brown, the wife of a corporal in my husband’s regiment. Poor Jessie had been in a state of restless excitement all through the siege, and had fallen away visibly within the last few days. A constant fever consumed her, and her mind wandered occasionally, especially that day, when the recollections of home seemed powerfully present to her. At last, overcome with fatigue, she lay down on the ground, wrapped up in her plaid. I sat beside her, promising to awaken her when, as she said, her “father should return from the ploughing.”
She fell at length into a profound slumber, motionless and apparently breathless, her head resting in my lap. I myself could no longer resist the inclination to sleep, in spite of the continual roar of the cannon. Suddenly I was aroused by a wild, unearthly scream close to my ear; my companion stood upright beside me, her arms raised, and her head bent forward in the attitude of listening.
A look of intense delight broke over her countenance; she grasped my hand, drew me towards her, and exclaimed: “Dinna ye hear it? dinna ye hear it? Ay. I’m no dreaming: it’s the slogan o’ the Highlanders! We’re saved! we’re saved!” Then flinging herself on her knees, she thanked God with passionate fervor. I felt utterly bewildered; my English ears heard only the roar of artillery, and I thought my poor Jessie was still raving; but she darted to the batteries, and I heard her cry incessantly to the men: “Courage! courage! Hark to the slogan—to the Macgregor, the grandest of them a’! Here’s help at last!”
To describe the effect of these words upon the soldiers would be impossible. For a moment they ceased firing, and every soul listened with intense anxiety. Gradually, however, there arose a murmur of bitter disappointment, and the wailing of the women, who had flocked to the spot, burst out anew as the colonel shook his head. Our dull Lowland ears heard only the rattle of the musketry. A few moments more of this deathlike suspense, of this agonizing hope, and Jessie, who had again sunk on the ground, sprang to her feet, and cried in a voice so clear and piercing that it was heard along the whole line: “Will ye no believe in it noo? The slogan has ceased, indeed, but the Campbells are comin’! D’ ye hear? d’ ye hear?”
At that moment all seemed indeed to hear the voice of God in the distance, when the pibroch of the Highlanders brought us tidings of deliverance; for now there was no longer any doubt of the fact. That shrill, penetrating, ceaseless sound, which rose above all other sounds, could come neither from the advance of the enemy, nor from the work of the sappers. No, it was indeed the blast of the Scottish bagpipes, now shrill and harsh, as threatening vengeance on the foe, then in softer tones, seeming to promise succor to their friends in need.
Never, surely, was there such a scene as that which followed. Not a heart in the residency of Lucknow but bowed itself before God. All, by one simultaneous impulse, fell upon their knees, and nothing was heard but bursting sobs and the murmured voice of prayer. Then all arose, and there rang out from a thousand lips a great shout of joy, which resounded far and wide, and lent new vigor to that blessed pibroch.
To our cheer of “God save the Queen,” they replied by the well-known strain that moves every Scot to tears, “Should auld acquaintance be forgot.” After that, nothing else made any impression on me. I scarcely remember what followed. Jessie was presented to the general on his entrance into the fort, and at the officers’ banquet her health was drunk by all present, while the pipers marched around the table playing once more the familiar air of “Auld Lang Syne.”
Now there was, not far from the place where they lay, a castle called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair, and it was in his grounds they now were sleeping; wherefore he, getting up in the morning early, and walking up and down his fields, caught Christian and Hopeful asleep in his grounds.
Then, with a grim and surly voice, he bade them awake, and asked them whence they were and what they did in his grounds. They told him they were pilgrims and that they had lost their way. Then said the Giant, “You have this night trespassed on me by trampling in and lying on my grounds, and therefore you must go along with me.”
So they were forced to go, because he was stronger than they. They also had but little to say, for they knew themselves in fault. The Giant therefore drove them before him, and put them into his castle, in a very dark dungeon. Here, then, they lay from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, without one bit of bread, or drop of drink, or light, or any person to ask how they did. In this place Christian had double sorrow, because it was through his counsel that they were brought into this distress.
Now Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffidence. So he told his wife what he had done, that he had taken a couple of prisoners, and cast them into his dungeon for trespassing on his grounds. Then he asked her also what he had best do further with them? So she asked him what they were, whence they came, and whither they were bound? and he told her. Then she counselled him that when he arose in the morning he should beat them without mercy.
So when he arose, he getteth him a grievous crab-tree cudgel, and goes down into the dungeon to them, and there first falls to rating them as if they were dogs. Then he fell upon them and beat them fearfully, in such sort that they were not able to help themselves or to turn upon the floor. This done, he withdraws and leaves them there to condole their misery, and to mourn under their distress.
The next night she, talking with her husband further about them, and understanding that they were yet alive, did advise him to counsel them to make away with themselves.
So, when morning was come, he goes to them in a surly manner, as before, and perceiving them to be very sore with the stripes that he had given them the day before, he told them that since they were never likely to come out of that place, their only way would be forthwith to make an end of themselves, either with knife, halter, or poison. “For why,” said he, “should you choose to live, seeing it is attended with so much bitterness?”
But they desired him to let them go. With that, he looked ugly upon them, and rushing to them, had doubtless made an end of them himself, but that he fell into one of his fits (for he sometimes in sunshiny weather fell into fits), and lost for a time the use of his hands. Wherefore he withdrew and left them as before to consider what to do.
Towards evening the Giant goes down into the dungeon again, to see if his prisoners had taken his counsel; but when he came there, he found them alive, and truly, alive was all. For now, for want of bread and water, and by reason of the wounds they received when he beat them, they could do little but breathe.
But, I say, he found them alive, at which he fell into a grievous rage, and told them that seeing they had disobeyed his counsel, it should be worse with them than if they had never been born. At this they trembled greatly, and I think that Christian fell into a swoon; but coming a little to himself again, they renewed their discourse about the Giant’s counsel, and whether yet they had best take it or no.
Now the Giant’s wife asked him concerning the prisoners, and if they had taken his counsel. To which he replied, “They are sturdy rogues; they choose rather to bear all hardships than to make away with themselves.”
Then said she, “Take them into the castle yard to-morrow, and show them the bones and skulls of those that thou hast already despatched; and make them believe, ere a week comes to an end, thou wilt tear them in pieces as thou hast done their fellows before them.”
So when the morning was come, the Giant goes to them again, and takes them into the castle yard and shows them, as his wife had bidden him.
“These,” said he, “were once pilgrims as you are, and they trespassed on my grounds as you have done, and when I thought fit, I tore them in pieces; and so within ten days I shall do you. Go, get you down to your den again!” and with that he beat them all the way thither. They lay, therefore, all day on Saturday in lamentable case, as before.
Now, when the night was come, Mistress Diffidence and her husband the Giant began to renew their discourse of their prisoners; and the old Giant wondered that he could neither by his blows nor counsel bring them to an end. And with that his wife replied:—
“I fear,” said she, “that they live in hopes that some one will come to relieve them; or that they have pick-locks about them, by means of which they hope to escape.”
“And sayest thou so, my dear?” said the Giant. “I shall therefore search them in the morning.”
Well, on Saturday, about midnight, they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day.
Now, a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out into this passionate speech:—
“What a fool,” quoth he, “am I to lie in a dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle.”
Then said Hopeful, “That’s good news; good brother, pluck it out of thy bosom and try.”
Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt, as he turned the key, gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle yard, and with his key opened that door also. After that he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too; but that lock went hard, yet the key did open it.
Then they thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed, but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair, who, hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the king’s highway, and so were safe.
Now when they were gone over the stile, they began to contrive with themselves what they should do at that stile to prevent those that should come after from falling into the hands of Giant Despair. So they consented to erect there a pillar, and to engrave upon the side thereof this sentence: “Over this stile is the way to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, who despiseth the King of the Celestial Country, and seeks to destroy his holy pilgrims.” Many, therefore, that followed after read what was written and escaped the danger.—John Bunyan.
By this time Elizabeth Temple and Louisa had gained the summit of the mountain, where they left the highway, and pursued their course under the shade of the trees. Their conversation was entirely occupied with the little incidents and scenes of their walk, and every tall pine, and every shrub or flower, called forth some simple expression of admiration.
In this manner they proceeded along the margin of the precipice, when Elizabeth suddenly started, and exclaimed,—“Listen! there are the cries of a child on this mountain! Is there a clearing near us, or can some little one have strayed from its parents?”
“Such things frequently happen,” returned Louisa. “Let us follow the sounds: it may be a wanderer starving on the hill.” More than once Elizabeth was on the point of announcing that she saw the sufferer, when Louisa caught her by the arm, and, pointing behind them, cried,—
“Look at the dog!”
Brave had been their companion from the time the voice of his young mistress lured him from his kennel to the present moment. His advanced age had long before deprived him of his activity; and when his companions stopped to view the scenery, or to add to their bouquets, the mastiff would lay his huge frame on the ground, and await their movements, with his eyes closed, and a listlessness in his air that ill accorded with the character of a protector.
But when aroused by this cry from Louisa, Miss Temple turned, she saw the dog with his eyes keenly set on some distant object, his head bent near the ground, and his hair actually rising on his body, through fright or anger. It was most probably the latter, for he was growling in a low key, and occasionally showing his teeth, in a manner that would have terrified his mistress, had she not so well known his good qualities.
“Brave!” she said. “Be quiet, Brave! what do you see, fellow?”
At the sound of her voice, the rage of the mastiff, instead of being at all diminished, began to increase. He stalked in front of the ladies, and seated himself at the feet of his mistress, growling louder than before, and occasionally giving vent to his ire by a short, surly barking.
“What does he see?” said Elizabeth. “There must be some animal in sight.”
Hearing no answer from her companion, Miss Temple turned her head, and beheld Louisa standing with her face whitened to the color of death, and her finger pointing upwards. The quick eye of Elizabeth glanced in the direction indicated by her friend, where she saw the fierce front and glaring eyes of a female panther, fixed on them and threatening to leap.
“Let us fly,” exclaimed Elizabeth, grasping the arm of Louisa, whose form yielded like melting snow.
There was not a single feeling in the temperament of Elizabeth Temple that could prompt her to desert a companion in such an extremity. She fell on her knees by the side of the inanimate Louisa, encouraging their only safeguard, the dog, at the same time, by the sound of her voice.
“Courage, Brave!” she cried, her own tones beginning to tremble, “courage, courage, good Brave!”
A quarter-grown cub, that had hitherto been unseen, now appeared, dropping from the branches of a sapling. This vicious creature approached the dog, imitating the actions and sounds of its parent, but exhibiting a strange mixture of the playfulness of a kitten with the ferocity of its race. Standing on its hind legs, it would rend the bark of a tree with its fore paws, and play the antics of a cat; and then, by lashing itself with its tail, growling and scratching the earth, it would attempt the manifestations of anger that rendered its parent so terrific.
All this time Brave stood firm and undaunted, short tail erect, his body drawn backwards on its haunches, and his eyes following the movements of both dam and cub. At every gambol played by the latter, it approached nigher to the dog, the growling of the three becoming more horrid at each moment, until the younger beast, overleaping its intended bound, fell directly before the mastiff. There was a moment of fearful cries and struggles, but they ended, almost as soon as commenced, by the cub appearing in the air, hurled from the jaws of Brave with a violence that sent it against a tree so forcibly as to render it completely senseless.
Elizabeth witnessed the short struggle, and her blood was warming with the triumph of the dog, when she saw the form of the old panther in the air, springing twenty feet from the branch of the beech to the back of the mastiff. No words can describe the fury of the conflict that followed. It was a confused struggle on the dry leaves, accompanied by loud and terrific cries. Miss Temple continued on her knees, bending over the form of Louisa, her eyes fixed on the animals, with an interest so horrid, and yet so intense, that she almost forgot her own stake in the result.
So rapid and vigorous were the bounds of the inhabitant of the forest, that its active frame seemed constantly in the air, while the dog nobly faced his foe at each successive leap. When the panther lighted on the shoulders of the mastiff, which were its constant aim, old Brave, though torn with her talons, and stained with his own blood, that already flowed from a dozen wounds, would shake off his furious foe like a feather, and, rearing on his hind legs, rush to the fray again with his jaws distended and a dauntless eye.
But age, and his pampered life, greatly disqualified the noble mastiff for such a struggle. In everything but courage he was only the vestige of what he had once been. A higher bound than ever raised the wary and furious beast far beyond the reach of the dog, who was making a desperate but fruitless dash at her, from which she alighted in a favorable position on the back of her aged foe. For a single moment only could the panther remain there, the great strength of the dog returning with a convulsive effort. But Elizabeth saw, as Brave fastened his teeth in the side of his enemy, that the collar of brass around his neck, which had been glittering throughout the fray, was of the color of blood, and, directly, that his frame was sinking to the earth, where it soon lay prostrate and helpless. Several mighty efforts of the wildcat to extricate herself from the jaws of the dog followed, but they were fruitless, until the mastiff turned on his back, his lips collapsed, and his teeth loosened, when the short convulsions and stillness that succeeded announced the death of poor Brave.
Elizabeth now lay wholly at the mercy of the beast. There is said to be something in the front of the image of the Maker that daunts the hearts of the inferior beings of His creation; and it would seem that some such power, in the present instance, suspended the threatened blow. The eyes of the monster and the kneeling maiden met for an instant, when the former stooped to examine her fallen foe; next, to scent her luckless cub. From the latter examination she turned, however, with her eyes apparently emitting flashes of fire, her tail lashing her sides furiously, and her claws projecting inches from her broad feet.
Miss Temple did not or could not move. Her hands were clasped in the attitude of prayer, but her eyes were still drawn to her terrible enemy. Her cheeks were blanched to the whiteness of marble, and her lips were slightly separated with horror.
The moment seemed now to have arrived for the fatal termination, when a rustling of leaves behind seemed rather to mock the organs than to meet her ears. “Hist! hist!” said a low voice, “stoop lower, girl; your bonnet hides the creature’s head.”
It was rather the yielding of nature than a compliance with this unexpected order that caused the head of the girl to sink on her bosom. Then she heard the report of the rifle, the whizzing of the bullet, and the enraged cries of the beast, who was rolling over on the earth, tearing the twigs and branches within her reach. At the next instant Leather-Stocking rushed by her, and called aloud:—
“Come in, Hector; come in; ’tis a hard-lived animal, and may jump again.”
The brave hunter fearlessly maintained his position, notwithstanding the violent bounds of the wounded panther, until his rifle was again loaded, when he stepped up to the animal, and, placing the muzzle close to her head, every spark of life was extinguished by the discharge.