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.
[Illustration: 'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety,' he said.]
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.
In the year 1873 Father Damien happened to be sent to the island of
Maui, where the great volcano has burnt itself out, and while he was
there the bishop came over to consecrate a chapel which had just been
built. In his sermon he spoke of the sad condition of the colony at
Molokai, and how greatly he wished to spare them a priest who would
devote himself entirely to them. But there was much to do elsewhere, and
it was only occasionally that one could go even on a visit. Besides,
added the bishop, life in Molokai meant a horrible death in a few years
at latest, and he could not take upon himself to send any man to that.
Father Damien heard, and a rush of enthusiasm came over him. He had done
the work which he had been given faithfully and without murmuring, and
now something higher and more difficult was offered. Without a moment's
hesitation he turned to the bishop, his face glowing as it had done more
than ten years before, when the letter which had decided his career had
come to him.
'Some fresh priests have arrived at Hawaii,' he said; 'they can take my
place. Let _me_ go to Molokai.'
And he went, without losing an hour, for a cattle-boat was sailing that
very day for the island of the outcasts.
* * * * *