The Red Book of Heroes

The Carthaginians had already taken their places at the time that the Romans began to form, when Hasdrubal, riding down his lines to make sure that everything was done according to his orders, noticed that among the enemy's array clad in shining armour were a band with rusty shields, and a bevy of horses which looked lean and ill-groomed. Glancing from the horses to their riders, he saw that their skins were brown with the sun of the south and their faces weary. No more was needed to tell him that reinforcements had come, and that it would be madness to risk a fight. He could do nothing during the day, but as soon as the night came he silently broke up his camp and started for the river Metaurus, hoping to put it between him and the Romans; but it was too late.

Had the Carthaginian army only consisted of old and well-seasoned troops all might have gone well with it; but the large body of Gauls were totally untrained, and in their disappointment at not being allowed to give battle, seized on all the drink in the camp, and fell along the roadside quite unable to move. Before Hasdrubal could get his vanguard across the Romans were close upon him, and there was nothing left for him to do but to post his men as strongly as he could.

For hours they fought, and none could tell with whom the victory would lie: then a charge by Nero decided it. When the day was hopelessly lost, Hasdrubal, who had always been in the fiercest of the struggle, cheering and rallying his men, rode straight at the enemy, and died fighting. Thus ended the battle of the Metaurus, the first pitched battle the Romans had ever gained over the Carthaginian army.

The next night Nero set off again for Apulia, bearing with him the head of Hasdrubal, which, as we have said, he caused to be flung into Hannibal's tent, staining for ever the laurels he had won.

With the triumph of Nero, and his reception in the Rome which he had delivered, dates the last act of the second Punic war. At the news of his brother's defeat, which was a great blow to him, Hannibal retreated into the most southern province of Italy. His troops, whose love and loyalty never wavered, were largely composed of foreign levies, and had not the steadiness and training of his old Libyans and Spaniards. Never for one moment did he think of abandoning his post till his country called him, yet his quick eye could not fail to read the signs of the times. The Roman senate was no longer absorbed by the thought of war. Relieved by Nero's victory from the crushing dread which for so long had weighed it down, it was taking measures to encourage agriculture and to rebuild villages, to help the poor who had been ruined during these years of strife, to blot out, he felt, the traces of the victories he had won. And he had to watch it all and to know himself powerless, though he still defied Rome for three years longer, and knew that she still feared him.

It was in the year 204 b. c. that Scipio entreated the senate to allow him to carry the war into Africa, which he had already visited, and where he had already made many important allies, among them the famous Numidian Massinissa, whom he promised to make king over his tribe. Fabius, now ninety, declared it was folly to take an army to Africa while Hannibal remained in Italy, and a large party agreed with him. The people, however, who had absolute trust in the young general, insisted that he should have his way; and after a long and fierce debate, the senate with almost inconceivable foolishness consented that Scipio should sail for Carthage, as he so much desired it, but that he must do so at the head of no more than thirty thousand or forty thousand men.

That so practical and sensible a nation should not have remembered the lesson of the defeat of Regulus, and have known the dangers which must be run by a small army in a foreign land, is truly surprising, and had Massinissa, with his priceless Numidian horse, not joined the Romans, Scipio's army would more than once have been almost certainly cut to pieces.

When it became known that Scipio had landed and was besieging the old town of Utica, the rich and pleasure-loving citizens of Carthage were filled with despair. But this did not last long, for one of the leading men of the city, called Hanno, collected a small force, while Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax the Numidian raised another, and between them both Scipio was forced to retreat. If only Hannibal had been there – But Hannibal was still in Italy, and no tidings of the struggle had reached him.

Winter had now set in, and though it was only the mild winter of North Africa, Scipio entrenched himself securely on rising ground, and Hasdrubal Gisco with Syphax made their camps close by. The Carthaginians, who had several times been defeated, now wished to make peace, and Syphax, whom the Roman general was most anxious to gain over to his side, was the messenger chosen. While discussing the terms, Scipio suddenly learned that the Carthaginian and Numidian huts were built solely of wood and reeds, covered with hastily woven mats – materials which they had gathered from the woods and streams close by.

'A spark would set them on fire, and how they would burn,' said the general to himself, and the evil thought took root, till one night orders were given to surround the camps stealthily and put flaming torches against the walls. In a few minutes the country round was lighted up with a fierce blaze, and the Carthaginians, wakened from their sleep and not knowing what was happening, were cut down on all sides before they could defend themselves. This piece of wicked treachery may be said to have turned the scales in favour of Rome. A battle followed in a place called 'the great plains,' when Hasdrubal was beaten and Syphax soon after fell into the hands of the enemy. The Numidian chief was sent to Rome, and Sophonisba, his wife, took poison rather than bear the humiliation of walking behind the triumphal car of the Roman victor.

Massinissa obtained the reward promised for his help – or his treason – and was made king of Numidia. Again Scipio offered peace, and the terms he proposed were as good as Carthage had any right to expect; but, favourable as they were, a few citizens were left to reject them with scorn. The fastest ship in the Carthaginian navy was sent to Italy to summon Hannibal from Bruttium and Mago from Milan. When the message arrived, Mago was already dead, but his troops embarked immediately and joined Hannibal and his twenty-five thousand men who had landed in Africa.

It was in this way that Hannibal came back to his native city, after an absence of thirty-six years. When he had last seen it he had been a boy of nine, and the events that had since happened crowded into his memory.

Notwithstanding his recent defeats, he had 'left a name at which the world grew pale,' and during the sixteen years he had spent in Italy none had dared to molest him. Single-handed he had fought; was it possible that at last his hour of triumph was at hand?

Now that Hannibal, whom they had deserted and betrayed, was really in Africa the weak and foolish citizens of Carthage sent orders to him to fight without delay. For answer he bade the messengers 'confine their attention to other matters, and leave such things to him, for he would choose for himself the time of fighting,' and without more ado he began collecting a number of elephants and all the Numidian horse that had not gone over to Rome with Massinissa.

He was labouring night and day at this task when again his plans were spoilt by some citizens of Carthage, who broke the truce which had been made by seizing some Roman ships. Scipio lost no time in avenging himself by burning all the towns and villages on the plain, and occupying the passes on a range of mountains where Hannibal had hoped to take up his position. Baulked in this project, Hannibal sent to Scipio to beg for an interview, and tried to obtain for Carthage better terms than the Roman was inclined to grant.

'You have broken the truce by capturing the vessel containing the Roman envoys,' he said, 'and now you and your country must throw yourselves on our mercy, or else conquer us.'

So the armies drew up opposite each other on the field of Zama, on the bright spring morning of 202 b. c. which was to decide whether Carthaginians or Romans were to be masters of the world. Hannibal had about five thousand men more than his enemy, but he was weak in cavalry, and the eighty elephants which he had placed in front were young and untrained. The cavalry of the Romans was under the command of Massinissa and of Lælius, friend of the historian Polybius, and it was this strong body of Numidian horse which ultimately turned the fate of the day. As for the elephants, the sound of the Roman trumpets frightened them before the battle had begun, and threw them into confusion. They charged right into the middle of the Carthaginian cavalry, followed by Massinissa and by Lælius, who succeeded in breaking the ranks of the horse and putting them to flight. For a moment it seemed as if the heavy armed foreign troops which Hannibal then brought up would prevail against the Roman legions, but at length they were forced back on to their own lines, which took them for deserters.

With a cry of 'Treachery!' the foreign soldiers fell on the Carthaginians, and fighting hard they retreated on Hannibal's reserve, the well-trained Italians.

At this point there was a pause, and both commanders made use of it to re-form their armies. Then the battle began afresh, and the generals left their posts and fought for hours in the ranks of the common soldiers. At last the cavalry returned from pursuit and threw itself on the rear of the Carthaginians. This time they gave way, and Hannibal, seeing that the battle was lost, quitted the field, in the hope that somehow or other he might still save his country from destruction.

How bitter, in after years, must have been his regret that he had not died fighting among his men at Zama!

Though Hannibal and the Romans hated each other so much, they were alike in many respects, and in nothing more than in the way that no defeat ever depressed them or found them without some plan to turn it into victory. In truth, in spite of his love for his country, which was dearer to him than wife or child, Hannibal was far, far more of a Roman than a Carthaginian.

Peace was made, and, as was inevitable, the terms were less favourable than when the fate of both countries hung in the balance. Naturally, the Carthaginians threw the blame on Hannibal, and naturally also, being filled with the meanest qualities that belong to mankind, when they found that all was in confusion and no one knew where to turn, they sent for the man they had abandoned and abused, and bade him set them on their feet again. In a moment all the wrongs he had suffered at their hands were forgotten; he accepted the position of dictator or suffete, he caused more humane laws to be passed, and not only saved the people from ruin and enabled the merchants again to sell their goods, but paid the large sum demanded as a war indemnity by Rome within the year.

Having done what no other man in Carthage, probably no other man in his age, could possibly have done, it is needless to remark that his fellow-citizens grew jealous of him, and listened without anger to Rome's demand for his surrender, made, it is just to say, in spite of the indignation of Scipio. To save himself from the people for whom he had 'done and dared' everything he escaped by night, leaving a sentence of banishment to be passed on him and the palace of his fathers to be wrecked. Perhaps – who knows? – he may have wished to save his country from the crowning shame of giving him up to walk by the chariot wheels in the triumph of Scipio Africanus.

The remaining years of his life – nearly twenty-five, it is said – are so sad that one can hardly bear to write about them. The first place at which he sought refuge was at Ephesus, with Antiochus the Great, lord, at least in name, of a vast number of mixed races from Asia Minor to the river Oxus. Here, still keeping in mind the master passion of his life, he tried to induce Antiochus to form a league by which Rome could be attacked on all sides. But the king, who had little in him of greatness but his name, made war before his preparations were half finished, and gave the chief commands to incapable men, leaving Hannibal to obey orders instead of issuing them. One by one the allies forsook the king and joined Rome – even Carthage sending help to the Roman fleet. In 196 b. c. the battle of Magnesia put an end to the war, and the dominions of Antiochus became a Roman province.

Once more the surrender of Hannibal was made one of the terms of the treaty, and once more he escaped and spent some time first in Crete, and then in Armenia, and finally, for the last time, returned to Asia Minor on the invitation of Prusias, king of Bithynia.

The hearty welcome of Prusias gave Hannibal a feeling of pleasure and rest that he had not known for long; but he was never destined to be at peace, and soon after a Roman envoy arrived at the palace of Prusias and demanded that the enemy of Rome should instantly be given up. To a brave soldier like Flaminius the mission was highly distasteful, which is another proof, if one were wanted, how great even in his downfall was the dread the Carthaginian inspired. 'Italy will never be without war while Hannibal lives!' had been the cry long, long ago, and it still rang proudly in his ears. He knew, and had always known, that his life would end by his own hand, and most likely he was not sorry that the moment had come.

'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety, since they cannot wait for the death of one old man,' he said, when he heard that soldiers had surrounded his house, and drawing from his tunic some poison that he carried, he swallowed it and fell back dead. He had escaped at last.

His last words had told truly the story of his life. It was the one old man who had held at bay the whole of the great nation.

On reading the tale of his steadfastness, his unselfishness, his goodness to his soldiers, and the base ingratitude and wickedness with which his countrymen treated him, more than ever do we instinctively long that the lost cause had proved the winning one, and again and again we have to remind ourselves of the terrible evil it would have been to the world if Carthage had overcome Rome. For Carthage was possessed of almost every bad quality which could work ill to the human race. Greed for money was her passion, and in order to obtain wealth she proved herself fickle, short-sighted, lawless, and boundlessly cruel. The government of Rome, which the Eternal City handed on to the countries she conquered, was founded not only on law, but on common-sense. Considering the customs of the world during the thousand years of her greatest glory, she was seldom cruel, and her people were ready at all times to sacrifice themselves for the good of the state.

So it was well for us now and here that Hannibal was overthrown at Zama, and was banished from Carthage; yet our hearts will always cry out with Othello, 'Oh, the pity of it!'

THE APOSTLE OF THE LEPERS

No one can travel through the countries of the East or sail about the lovely islands of the South Seas without constantly seeing before him men and women dying of the most terrible of all diseases – leprosy. The poor victims are cast out from their homes, and those who have loved them most, shrink from them with the greatest horror, for one touch of their bodies or their clothes might cause the wife or child to share their doom. Special laws are made for them, special villages are set apart for them, and in old times as they walked they were bound to utter the warning cry,

'Room for the leper! Room!'

From time to time efforts have been made to help these unfortunate beings, and over two hundred years ago a beautiful island in the Ægean Sea, called Leros, was set apart for them, and a band of nuns opened a hospital or lazar-house, as it was called, to do what they could to lessen their sufferings, and sooner or later to share their fate. Nobody, except perhaps the nuns' own relations, thought much about them – people in those days considered illness and madness to be shameful things, and best out of sight. The world was busy with discoveries of new countries and with wars of conquest or religion, and those who had no strength for the march fell by the wayside, and were left there. Nowadays it is a little different; there are more good Samaritans and fewer Levites; the wounded men are not only picked up on the road, but sought out in their own homes, and are taken to hospitals, where they are tended free of cost.

It is the story of a man in our own times, who gave himself up to the saddest of lives and the most lonely of deaths, that I am now going to tell you.

On a cold day in January 1841 a little boy was born in the city of Louvain, in Belgium, to Monsieur and Madame Damien de Veuster. He had already a brother a few years older, and for some time the children grew up together, the younger in all ways looking up to the elder, who seemed to know so much about everything. We have no idea what sort of lives they led, but their mother was a good woman, who often went to the big church in the town, and no doubt took her sons with her, and taught them that it was nobler and better to serve Christ by helping others and giving up their own wills than to strive for riches or honours. Their father, too, bade them learn to endure hardness and to bear without complaints whatever might befall them. And the boys listened to his counsel with serious faces, though they could be merry enough at times.

The lessons of their early years bore fruit, and one day the elder boy informed his parents that he wished to become a priest. It was what both father and mother had expected, and most likely hoped, and they at once agreed to his desire. Arrangements were soon made for his entering a training college, where he would have to live until he was old enough to be ordained.

Joseph, the younger, missed his brother greatly. He loved his father and mother dearly, but they seemed far too old to share the thoughts and dreams which came to him in the night-time, or during the quiet moments that he passed in church. Yet, from what we know of his after-life, we may be quite certain that he was no mere dreamer, standing aloof from his fellows. He was fond of carpentering and building; he watched with interest while the workmen were laying down the pipes which were to carry the water from the river to some dry field; he noted how the doctor bound up wounds and treated sores; and indeed no sort of knowledge that a man may gather in his everyday existence came amiss to young Damien. As to what he would do when he was a man, he said nothing, and his parents said nothing either.

On January 3, 1860, Joseph was nineteen, and Monsieur Damien proposed to take him as a birthday treat to see his brother, and to leave the two together while he went to the town on some business. It was a long time since they had met, and there was much to ask and hear. We do not know exactly what took place, but when Monsieur Damien returned to fetch Joseph, his son told him that he had made up his mind to follow in his brother's steps, and to be a priest also.

Monsieur Damien was not surprised; he had long seen whither things were tending. He would perhaps have liked to keep one son with him, but Joseph was old enough to judge for himself and he did not intend to make any objection. Still, he was hardly prepared for the boy's announcement that farewells were always painful, and that he thought he would best spare his mother by remaining where he was until she had grown accustomed to doing without him. Then he would beg permission to come to see her for the last time before he became a priest.

Very reluctantly Monsieur Damien gave his consent to this plan. He tried in vain to induce Joseph to think it over and to go back with him; but the young man was firm, and at length the father took leave of both his sons, and with a heavy heart returned home to break the news to his wife.

In this way Joseph Damien set about the work which was by and by to make his name so famous, though to that he never gave a thought. He does not seem to have dreamed dreams of greatness, like so many boys, or of adventures of which he was always the hero. As far as we can guess, Joseph Damien just did the thing that came next and lay ready to his hand, and thus fitted himself unconsciously for what was greater and better. Just now he had to study hard, and as soon as his father had written to say that neither he nor his mother wished to hold back their son from the life he had chosen, Joseph entered the same college where his brother had received his training for the priesthood.

For some time – we do not know if it was years or only months – Joseph studied hard, hoping that the harder he worked the sooner he would be ready to go forth on 'active service' against the sin and misery of the world. His brother's plans were already formed. He was to make one of a band of priests starting for the islands in the South Seas, which more than forty years before had been visited by a band of American missionaries.

It was a strange state of things that prevailed in the lovely group of the Sandwich Islands when the missionaries arrived there. The isles had been discovered during the eighteenth century by Captain Cook, but from the white men, chiefly merchants and traders, who followed him the natives learned nothing but evil, and fell victims to horrible diseases hitherto unknown there. To the Americans, who had left snow and ice behind them, the islands of Hawaii – to use their native name – appeared fairyland itself. Though the sun beat fiercely on them, cool streams rushed down the mountain-side, and in the great forests there was silence as well as darkness. Here the trees were bound together by ropes of flowery creepers, while outside, in the light and air, were groves of towering cocoa palms, standing with their roots almost in the water, and sheltering the huts, which could hardly be seen for the huge clusters of heliotropes, roses, and lilies that overshadowed them. But the sea! the sea! it was there that the greatest marvels were to be found! Fishes, orange, blue and scarlet; corals, seaweeds of every colour, creatures of every form and shape, whose names no white man knew. Afterwards, the missionaries learned that volcanoes were scattered over the islands, some extinct and only showing wide black mouths, others still blazing and throwing up jets of burning lava, which even in the sunshine take on a scarlet hue, and in the night gleam a yellowish white. Besides these wonders, there were also the curious customs of the people to be studied; and it was very necessary to know these, or a man might break the law and incur the penalty of death without having the slightest idea that he was doing any harm. For instance, he might go to pay a friendly visit to a chief, on whom the shadow of the visitor might fall; he might lose his way, and seeing a hut surrounded by a palisade would hasten to ask the shortest road to his tent, not guessing that he was entering the sacred home of a chieftain. If he offered a tired child a drink of cocoa-nut milk or a ripe banana, and she took it, he had brought about her death as certainly as if he had put the rope round her neck. But shortly before the arrival of the Americans a great king had abolished these iron rules, though no doubt they still lingered in out-of-the-way places.

The reigning monarch, son of the late king, was bathing in the marvellous blue sea with his five wives when a messenger brought him word that the white strangers had landed. Full of politeness, like all the islanders, the king at once hastened to greet them, followed by the ladies. The missionaries felt a little awkward, which was foolish, as the Hawaiians seldom wore clothes, being more comfortable without them; but the king noticed that his guests were ill at ease, and determined that he would be careful not to hurt their feelings again. So when they had taken leave of him, he sent for one of his servants and bade him seek for some clothes belonging to a trader who had died in the palace. A pair of silk stockings was found and a tall and curly brimmed hat, such as in pictures you may see the duke of Wellington wearing after the battle of Waterloo. The king smiled and nodded, and the very next afternoon he put on the hat and the stockings, and highly pleased with himself set out to call upon his visitors. The missionary whose tent he entered was sitting inside with his wife, having just put up in one corner a bed which they had brought with them. They were so amazed at the sight of this strange figure that they stood silently staring; but when, in the act of greeting them, Liholiho's glance fell upon the bed, he completely forgot the object of his visit. 'What a delicious soft-looking thing, to be sure!' he said to himself, and with a spring he landed upon the bed, and jumped up and down, while the tall hat rolled away and settled in a corner.

Like many people, when once he had begun to imitate the customs of other nations, king Liholiho was very particular in seeing that he was not put to shame by his own family. The missionary's wife wore clothes, and it was necessary, therefore, that his own ladies should not go uncovered; so orders were given accordingly, and when the white lady came to pay her respects at the palace – a somewhat larger hut than the rest – she found the brown ladies sitting up in great state to receive her, one of the widows of the late king being dressed in a garment made of seventy thicknesses of bark from the trees.

Such were the islands to which Joseph's elder brother longed to go. His own Church had sent out missionaries over twenty years before, who had now written home appealing for helpers. He had given in his name among the first, and had been accepted, when he was suddenly stricken with fever, and forbidden by the doctor to think of carrying out his plan. In vain did he argue and entreat; the doctor was firm. 'You would be a hindrance, and not a help,' he said, and in a paroxysm of grief the young man hid himself among the bedclothes, where Joseph found him.

'Yes, the doctor is right; you cannot go,' sighed the boy, when his brother had poured out the tale of his disappointment. 'You might get the fever again, you know, and only strong men are wanted there. But let me go instead; I dare say I shall not do as well, but, at any rate, I will do my best.'

Now there was a strict rule in the college that no student should post a letter without the superior having first read it. Joseph knew this as well as anyone, but was far too excited and too much afraid of what the superior might say to pay any attention to it. So he wrote secretly to the authorities who were preparing to send out the missionaries, and begged earnestly that he might be allowed to take his brother's place, although he had not yet passed the usual examinations for the priesthood. Perhaps candidates for the South Sea Islands were not very plentiful just then, or there may have been something uncommon about Joseph's letter. At all events he was accepted, and when the news was told him by the superior he could not contain his delight, but rushed out of doors, running and jumping in a manner that would have greatly astonished his bishop, could he have seen it.

For several years he worked hard among the islands making friends with the people, to whom he soon was able to talk in their own language. The young priest knew something about medicine, and could often give them simple remedies, so that they learned to look up to him, and were willing to listen to his teaching of Christianity. He was sociable and pleasant, and always ready to help in any way he could, and he was welcomed by many whose religious views differed from his own. Of course he had not been long there without finding out that the disease of leprosy was terribly common, and that the Government had set apart the island of Molokai as a home for the lepers, in order to prevent the spread of the disease; but the work given him to do lay in other directions, and in spite of the intense pity he felt for these poor outcasts he did not take any part in actual relief.