The Warrior At Death Hands

 

A warrior, who had won imperishable fame on the battlefields of his country

, was confronted by a gaunt stranger, clad all in black and wearing

an impenetrable mask.

"Who are you that you dare to block my way?" demanded the soldier.

Then the stranger drew aside his mask, and the soldier knew that he was

Death.

"Have you come for me?" asked the warrior. "If so, I will not go with you;

so go your way alone."

But Death held out his bony hand and beckoned to the soldier.

"No," cried the soldier, resolutely; "my time is not come. See, here are

the histories I am writing--no hand but mine can finish them--I will not go

till they are done!"

"I have ridden by your side day and night," said Death; "I have hovered

about you on a hundred battlefields, but no sight of me could chill your

heart till now, and now I hold you in my power. Come!"

And with these words Death seized upon the warrior and strove to bear

him hence, but the warrior struggled so desperately that he prevailed

against Death, and the strange phantom departed alone. Then when he

had gone the so warrior found upon his throat the imprint of Death's cruel

fingers--so fierce had been the struggle. And nothing could wash away

the marks--nay, not all the skill in the world could wash them away, for

they were disease, lingering, agonizing, fatal disease. But with quiet valor

the soldier returned to his histories, and for many days thereafter he

toiled upon them as the last and best work of his noble life.

"How pale and thin the warrior is getting," said the people. "His hair is

whitening and his eyes are weary. He should not have undertaken the

histories--the labor is killing him."

 

They did not know of his struggle with Death, nor had they seen the

marks upon the warrior's throat. But the physicians who came to him, and

saw the marks of Death's cruel fingers, shook their heads and said the

warrior could not live to complete the work upon which his whole heart

was set. And the warrior knew it, too, and many a time he paused in his

writing and laid his pen aside and bowed his head upon his hands and

strove for consolation in the thought of the great fame he had already

won. But there was no consolation in all this. So when Death came a

second time he found the soldier weak and trembling and emaciated.

"It would be vain of you to struggle with me now," said Death. "My poison

is in your veins, and, see, my dew is on your brow. But you are a brave

man, and I will not bear you with me till you have asked one favor, which

I will grant."

"Give me an hour to ask the favor," said the soldier. "There are so many

things--my histories and all--give me an hour that I may decide what I

shall ask."

And as Death tarried, the warrior communed with himself. Before he

closed his eyes forever, what boon should he ask of Death? And the

soldier's thoughts sped back over the years, and his whole life came to

him like a lightning flash--the companionship and smiles of kings, the

glories of government and political power, the honors of peace, the joys

of conquest, the din of battle, the sweets of a quiet home life upon a

western prairie, the gentle devotion of a wife, the clamor of noisy boys,

and the face of a little girl--ah, there his thoughts lingered and clung.

"Time to complete our work--our books--our histories," counselled

Ambition. "Ask Death for time to do this last and crowning act of our

great life."

But the warrior's ears were deaf to the cries of Ambition; they heard

another voice--the voice of the soldier's heart--and the voice whispered:

"Nellie--Nellie--Nellie." That was all--no other words but those, and the

soldier struggled to his feet and stretched forth his hands and called to

Death; and, hearing him calling, Death came and stood before him.

"I have made my choice," said the warrior .

"The books?" asked Death, with a scornful smile.

"No, not them," said the soldier, "but my little girl--my Nellie! Give me a

lease of life till I have held her in these arms, and then come for me and I

will go!"

Then Death's hideous aspect was changed; his stern features relaxed and

a look of pity came upon them. And Death said, "It shall be so," and

saying this he went his way.

Now the warrior's child was far away--many, many leagues from where

the w lived, beyond a broad, tempestuous ocean. She was not, as

you might suppose, a little child, although the warrior  spoke of her as

such. She was a wife and a mother; yet even in her womanhood she was

to the warrior's heart the same little girl the warrior had held upon his

knee many and many a time while his rough hands weaved prairie flowers

in her soft, fair curls. And the soldier called her Nellie now, just as he did

then, when she sat on his knee and prattled of her dolls. This is the way

of the human heart.

It having been noised about that the warrior was dying and that Nellie had

been sent for across the sea, all the people vied with each other in

soothing the last moments of the famous man, for he was beloved by all

and all were bound to him by bonds of patriotic gratitude, since he had

been so brave a warrior upon the battlefields of his country. But the

soldier did not heed their words of sympathy; the voice of fame, which, in

the past, had stirred a fever in his blood and fallen most pleasantly upon

his ears, awakened no emotion in his bosom now. The warrior thought

only of Nellie, and he awaited her coming.

An old comrade came and pressed his hand, and talked of the times when

they went to the wars together; and the old comrade told of this battle

and of that, and how such a victory was won and such a city taken. But

the soldier's ears heard no sound of battle now, and his eyes could see no

flash of sabre nor smoke of war.

So the people came and spoke words of veneration and love and hope,

and so with quiet fortitude, but with a hungry heart, the soldier waited for

Nellie, his little girl.

She came across the broad, tempestuous ocean. The gulls flew far out

from land and told the winds, and the winds flew further still and said to the ship: "Speed on, O ship! speed on in thy swift, straight course, for

you are bearing a treasure to a father's heart!"

Then the ship leapt forward in her pathway, and the waves were very still,

and the winds kept whispering "Speed on, O ship," till at last the ship was

come to port and the little girl was clasped in the warrior's arms.

Then for a season the warrior seemed quite himself again, and people said

"He will live," and they prayed that he might. But their hopes and prayers

were vain. Death's seal was on the warrior , and there was no release.

The last days of the warrior's life were the most beautiful of all--but what

a mockery of ambition and fame and all the grand, pretentious things of

life they were! They were the triumph of a human heart, and what is

better or purer or sweeter than that?

No thought of the hundred battlefields upon which his valor had shown

conspicuous came to the soldier now--nor the echo of his eternal fame--

nor even yet the murmurs of a sorrowing people. Nellie was by his side,

and his hungry, fainting heart fed on her dear love and his soul went back

with her to the years long agone.

Away beyond the western horizon upon the prairie stands a little home

over which the vines trail. All about it is the tall, waving grass, and over

yonder is the swale with a legion of chattering blackbirds perched on its

swaying reeds and rushes. Bright wild flowers bloom on every side, the

quail whistles on the pasture fence, and from his home in the chimney

corner the cricket tries to chirrup an echo to the lonely bird's call. In this

little prairie home we see a man holding on his knee a little girl, who is

telling him of her play as he smooths her fair curls or strokes her tiny

velvet hands; or perhaps she is singing him one of her baby songs, or

asking him strange questions of the great wide world that is so new to

her; or perhaps he binds the wild flowers she has brought into a little

nosegay for her new gingham dress, or--but we see it all, and so, too,

does the warrior, and so does Nellie, and they hear the blackbird's twitter

and the quail's shrill call and the cricket's faint echo, and all about them is

the sweet, subtle, holy fragrance of memory.

And so at last, when Death came and the soldier fell asleep forever,

Nellie, his little girl, was holding his hands and whispering to him of those

days. Hers were the last words he heard, and by the peace that rested on

his face.

THE ENd.