CHAPTER IV.
THE COUNCIL BANQUET.
As Solomon and Pietro returned to their hospital headquarters they were met by the same officer of the early morning. He handed Solomon a small packet, and commanded him to read it at once. Solomon obeyed. It contained three papers—one a brief message and two others evidently letters of introduction, one for each of the strangers. The message came direct from Don Abraham, and was as follows: “I am ordered to attend the Emperor in person at the front. Keep yourself in readiness to attend at any moment. The emperor delays his attack because each moment surrounds his opponent’s rear with new assailants. The battle will be fierce and decisive, and the emperor expects a desperate assault on himself. The other side may anticipate a similar movement. We have friends in the opposite ranks.” The other papers contained expressions of recognition and recommendation to be used in case the writer might be unable at a later moment to present these recipients in person. A verbal answer sufficed, and Solomon pledged himself to prompt compliance.
“Your lives depend on strict attention,” said the officer, and quickly rode away.
Gradually the crowd surged towards the front, and only women, children and a few stragglers remained. The noise at a distance became greater. Shouting grew more fierce and, contentious. At intervals a wild horseman rode into the camp, announcing the bloody contention and its incidents as observed, and then rode away again. Even the women and older children left the camp, and went forward. Seeing their opportunity, a group of prisoners hitherto unnoticed, with hands still bound since the previous evening, approached the tent. In front advanced a tall veteran, of dignified carriage and venerable appearance. Solomon and Pietro regarded this apparition at first with surprise and then with alarm. With difficulty they recognized their host of the previous morning. Hastily unbinding his wrists and administering every possible attention, they conducted the old man to the best couch at their disposal, and having disposed him torest, gave similar attention to the others. They were all members of the same family, sons or sons-in-law; and men and women, old and young, all were tortured captives together. “Be not uneasy,” said Solomon; “we shall need your services during the day while these wretches are engaged in their favorite pastime.” The group then quietly disposed of themselves at hand. Food and water were supplied and all waited in silence. “It will be asI expected,” said Solomon at length. “Otakar is overmatched. He will fall, and an ancient dynasty and a prosperous kingdom will fall with him. Woe to the land infested with these hordes. It were better given over for a season to the beasts, of the forest. I apprehend dreadful sufferings for these fine countries.”
The two friends waited long and patiently, not daring to leave their posts. They listened intently to the shouting as the sound swayed hither and thither, rose to a furious height,and then sunk in one direction, and again surged over to another.
“It goes well for Rudolph, I deem,” said Solomon. “I see none of these miscreants returning. Evidently they apprehend no impediment to their plying their vocation from that quarter.”
Early in the afternoon they were surprised to find two of the younger prisoners whom they had liberated in the morning returning from the front. The old man, much refreshed but still looking haggard, approached the group. “Now,” he said, “be accurate, and speak the truth whatever it may be.”
“Until within an hour,” returned the young man addressed, “there has been little advantage on either side. But, the slaughter is great. Kill, kill, is the spirit; none seem to be spared. Several battalions have already been driven into the river, and Otakar greatly weakened at one point. These were Russians, Poles and Bohemians. The center of each line is now the object of attack by the other. The chief commanders on each side are there situated. We witnessed a furious onslaught made against Rudolph in person. He went down, but we cannot tell the result. If he is unharmed, or but wounded, we may now look for the turning point.” “I know what you allude to,” said the old man. “Milota has waited for his opportunity, and now if a counter charge be made against Otakar in person, and it seems likely to succeed, or is forcibly made, we may at once look for a wide gap in his line and on his most vulnerable side. Milota’s vengeance will be complete.”
The party still waited until the noise centered in one point. “It is nearly over,” said the old man. From this day Bohemia is dead. She may rise again, but her resurrection will exhibit a melancholy metamorphosis, and I regret to believe that some of my own kindred shall have materially aided in the transformation. Otakar, too, was betrayed by the very power that lured him by deceitful professions to his doom.”
Towards evening the noise died away. A messenger approached the party and ordered the stranger physician, whose name he did not know, to repair at once to headquarters with all the attendants he could procure.
Solomon, Pietro, and the old man and his sons, and the entire group, at once proceeded towards headquarters under the guidance of the messenger. On their way they noticed a large number of men, evidently wounded and some desperately so, lying along the road and under the trees, in all directions. They endeavored to obtain what relief they could by their own efforts; but no thought of any general surgical aid or appliance, or hospital care of any kind, seemed even to have entered their minds. They all lay in one common neglect, so far as any organized surgical arrangements were concerned. In fact there were none. Thousands of men lay around, and blood met the eye in every direction. Any effectual aid to this multitude was hopeless, even if there was time or permission to extend it. Still the air seemed filled with a diffused moan, which gradually gave place to distinct voices, and some laughter, as the party approached headquarters. Here a wild spectacle was presented. Troops of every nationality in mixed groups stood, moved about and mingled with each other. Weapons lay ar ound, many broken. Many horses lay dead; others, wounded, shrieked and kicked in agony. Helmets and garments were thrown off. A few were engaged in binding up arms and legs and heads; but the work was that of comrades, and rendered with rough yet friendly alacrity. Wagons were being besieged for provisions; prisoners were marched to the rear, but these were not many and were all of distant nationalities. Many of those present fiercely gesticulated, showing how blows had been given and received. Dust, sweat, blood were everywhere, and water, water, was the universal cry. In an open space, not far from a large tent, numerous groups of officers were assembled. Among them stood one preëminent, the center of the group, tall, with a hooked nose, spare figure, bald head and severe look. He sustained himself with a spear, as if he had been hurt but would not avow it.
Near him stood a centenarian veteran who still held the Austrian banner by the middle of the staff. Close by, another officer still grasped the oak pole that bore on a cross bar the imperial eagle. Beside him stood a handsome youth with features resembling those of the chief personage, and he still guarded the banner of the cross which had marked the position of the commander-in-chief during the day. At a short distance and towards the rear, surrounded by a group evidently of another nationality, stood a stalwart person, clad in Bohemian garb, and even still bearing, through forgetfulness, the white and red sash of that nationality. He seemed to be a prisoner, but treated with consideration as a person to be reserved, but not openly avowed. On approaching this group, Solomon and his friends were met by Don Abraham. “I have sent for you,” said the officer, “because we fear that the emperor is injured, although he will not acknowledge it. He was desperately assailed and unhorsed during the fight, and almost trampled to death. He protected his face with his shield. His horse was killed and his danger seemed extreme, until a fresh horse was supplied. Your first duty will be to prescribe for the emperor, if you find any injuries have been sustained.” At this point the emperor’s eye fell on the approaching strangers and was at once fixed on the old man. The two looked at each other, but not in enmity. Don Abraham interposed. “The most renowned physician and master of the medical art in your highness’ dominions is fortunately present, and is prepared to relieve us of our anxieties if you will permit his services,” he said.
“I am bruised, but that is all,” replied Rudolph; “but let him come.”
Solomon approached.
“Whence come you?” said Rudolph.
“From the ancient and honored city of Cordova,” replied Solomon, assuming an air of courtly dignity, “that has supplied physicians to all the royal houses in Europe for centuries. But while I would not presume to obtrude myself on your highness, time is of supreme importance, and as imperial duties require health and activity, and especially those of the present time, the promptitude that distinguishes your highness may wisely be exhibited on this occasion.”
Rudolph smiled. His armor was removed. A few slight lesions were discovered and trifling bruises; his battered armor pressed the flesh and produced discolorations in several places; but no serious injury was revealed. Solomon’s proceedings disclosed the mastery of his art, at once delicate and thorough; and Rudolph very speedily perceived that he was in the hands of a man who perfectly understood his business. Solomon enjoined positive rest for the present, promising that by next day all stiffness would disappear under his care.
“I must remain here at least until to-morrow,” said Rudolph. “I am not yet certain of Otakar’s death, although I know he has fallen. We must search for his body, dead or alive, as it is most important that the truth be not only, known but fully exhibited to the world. In the meantime you and your attendants will remain here and you will be duly recompensed for services.”
Then summoning to his presence a nobleman who stood in another group, Rudolph said: “I commit the superintendence of these men and their proceedings to your fidelity, Lord Zawis; I well know your humane and honorable character. Let the field be thoroughly searched, and if the body of the king of Bohemia be found let it be instantly entrusted to our physician present. You will see that the body be fully identified and proofs produced of its identity; and as you were personally closely acquainted with the king of Bohemia, I charge you that all promptitude and formality be observed.”
Lord Zawis at once selected his attendants from among Solomon’s new acquaintances and others. Solomon, Pietro and the old man remained at headquarters, to bestow needed attention on wounded officers. This duty occupied them constantly through the night; allowing only an interval during the darker hours, when effort to discover wounded men was useless, and exhaustion utterly prevented further exertion.
All night long plunderers and marauders stripped and robbed the dead. Armor, clothing, weapons, everything was remorselessly carried off by the hordes of the morning, and by troops of combatants also, now robbers for the occasion. The wounded, unable to defend themselves, were pillaged like the rest and left naked on the plain. The morning disclosed a frightful spectacle. Corpses of men, carcasses of horses lay in thousands, exposed to the burning sun that poured down uninterrupted heat on the Marchfield.
Still Otakar’s body had not been identified. At last, towards noon, in front of the center line of the Bohemian position, a body was discovered, horribly disfigured and ghastly with seventeen wounds. It was carefully examined, and by the eye of Lord Zawis fully identified as that of the great Otakar, king of Bohemia. Little remained of the clothing; the splendid raiment, and the shining armor of the previous day replaced by bloody mud; and the kingly rank utterly extinguished in the wreck of reeking carcasses and offal that lay around. The body was placed on a rough bier and at once conveyed to headquarters. There it was again fully identified. A guard was set around the tent where it was deposited. Most stringent orders were issued as to its safe keeping, and Solomon informed to omit no secret or procedure known to his art to preserve the appearance. Solomon applied the only means within his power—plain clean water; but he advised that the body be dispatched at once to Vienna, where the means of embalming prior to interment were at hand. “Your highness perceives that I am powerless to do more,” said Solomon.
Rudolph immediately dispatched the body, carefully enveloped, under a special guard, chosen by his son Albert, to the abbey of the Scotch Minorites at Vienna.
The day was now devoted to the burial of the dead. It was hurriedly performed. The wounded helped each other off the field as well as they could. Women by hundreds appeared, some from considerable distances; and by evening the camp began to assume again the appearance of a rough order. Pillagers by thousands spread over the country, where now no impediment whatever to their ravages was presented.
Rudolph was perplexed as to his next step, and delayed his march. Bohemia, although beaten, was not yet wholly crushed. Many of her stoutest elements had kept aloof from the Marchfield contest, not through disloyalty, but from that blind party spirit that so frequently assists enemies at a distance whose hostility is not instantly felt, in order to secure gratification over domestic opponents whose petty irritations rankle at the hour.
In the evening the emperor invited all his officers and guests to an entertainment. He was now for the first time undisputed emperor. His greatest triumph had been achieved. All the elements of his empire were represented. He would secure their sentiments for his guidance, and with, this view he determined to hold a political council of war.
The banquet, such as the camp could afford, was spread early. All present were refreshed and cheerful. Many were jubilant. It was the moment to expect candor and ready speech.
As soon as tongues could be devoted to articulation of formal speech Rudolph sought out the old man. “Old comrade,” he said, “your good judgment will not attribute my seeming neglect to any forgetfulness, or disposition to overlook ancient friendship. I fill and drink a goblet to your good health.” The old man replied: “It is not for me either to forget or to remember, highness. My sentiments and feelings are such as they ever were, and do not require either mnemonics or rehearsals. Men who have borne the doublet and cuirass as long as you and I have, are not likely to be affected by the transitions of an hour.”
“Gentlemen, I give you a toast,” said Rudolph. “To the memories of Romové and Auf-ban. Let us honor the presence of Lord Boppo, to whom I am indebted for valiant shelter against the arrows and maces of the Prussians.” The toast was drunk with loud clatter, all eyes being turned on the old hero.
“By and by we shall resume those themes,” continued Rudolph. “For this moment I am perplexed to discover a solution of the mystery of the Fall of kingdoms. I propose, then, this theme for investigation: What is the chief cause of the downfall of kingdoms? Lord Bruno, be good enough to favor us first with your decision.”
“The wrath of God upon the offending I pronounce without hesitation to be the chief cause,” replied the bishop of Olmütz. “When princes err from the path of duty enjoined on them by the holy church, their steps wander in the mazes of willfulness, and become entangled among the thorns and brambles that ever beset the feet of the disobedient.”
“What is thy judgment, Lord de Haslan,” asked Rudolph. “It is thy province to instruct the counsels of kings, to enlighten the conscience of rulers, and disseminate the sentiments of justice among populations.”
“The downfall of kingdoms, in my judgment,” replied the chancellor, “is the result of disregard of those native principles of equity which bind man to his fellow man, which are crushed, undeveloped, or concealed by reason of the weight of authority, wealth, or rapacity; and thus the concentration of national forces is broken up, and an opening left in the national armor for a fatal thrust from an insidious foe, or an open assailant. I believe the insidious foe who attacks from within, under the guise of loyalty, is the chief source of the disunion and fall of kingdoms. When the arm of justice is palsied by the poison of deceitful insinuations emanating from the intriguing emissaries of a foreign despot, and plain honor and good faith are subjected to speculations on unseen things, and these speculations are associated designedly with assumed menaces from the unseen, the heart of a nation must lose its native throb, and its hand must be weak before its enemies.”
“I would inquire,” said Lord Bruno, “to what ‘insidious foe’ the Lord Justice alludes.”
“To every insidious foe,” replied the chancellor, “who to-day counsels his King to adopt one course until the King is irretrievably committed thereto, and then on the field of battle or elsewhere, before the walls of Vienna, or at any other place, in the very hour and strait of peril, assumes a changed attitude when that change favors the designs of a foreign despot, and creates a wide gap in the ranks of a nation’s defenders. A traitor to-day can never be a trustworthy counselor to-morrow. His foreign master may have some new phase of interest to promote.”
Rudolph’s good humor came to the rescue, for he well remembered Bruno’s defection from Otakar before Vienna two years previously under direct order from Rome. Accordingly he said cheerily: “All is fair in love and war, you know, Lord Justice. I would hear Lord Boppo express his judgment and observation.”
“Should I rely on the observation of the eye,” replied Lord Boppo, “I should refer the cause of the downfall of kingdoms to the number of Rudolphs there are in the world. But that explanation must be incomplete, as the existence of conquerors must have the same cause as the fall of kingdoms, and afford the occasion for their manifestation. Your highness and myself aided in the destruction of a people because we were the stronger. Had the Prussians possessed the same elements of knowledge in war and the industry that perversely supplies the, strength and appliances of war, their native courage, their fastnesses and morasses, and their patriotic devotion must have proved victorious. It is the want of knowledge that conduces most to the fall of kingdoms. Men cannot act when they do not know how to act; and their skill and efforts are wasted through insufficient supply of those facts and natural laws which provide men with infinite details of instrumentalities derived from nature’s abundant resources and powers. Hence is the world filled with civilizations arrested, and with the remnants of nations whose development had reached an unripe stage and was then made stagnant there; but the intrusion of alien superior forces, whether by might or by fraud, fixed the conditions in disastrous permanence of existing incompleteness. Every nation that develops itself unceasingly along its own lines, and by the constant growth of its inherent elements, must endure. Let its career be broken, then the unripe principles and crude systems it has reached become indurated for ever through retrospective appeals of patriotism to the life and glory it had lost. Bohemia had attained a fuller stage of polity in one respect. That stage conferred splendid prospects and had developed in most hopeful directions, and it is for these reasons her enemies conspired. I trust your highness may be able in your imperial dignity to preserve that which has been attained.”
“I invite the judgment of our physician present. His skill, learning, travel, and acquaintance with men and with principles will enlighten us,” said Rudolph.
“My judgment, highness,” replied Solomon, “must coincide in part with each sentiment that has been expressed. I believe the downfall of kingdoms may be referred, however, to the acceptance and enforcement in separate nations of each of those sentiments to the exclusion of the other. True it is, indeed, that the wrath of God destroys kingdoms; but God—operates through a myriad of instrumentalities, each and all adapted to our faculties and each and all constituting the connecting links between us and the world around us. The exclusion of all reliance on these instrumentalities in a blind dependence on the unseen and unknown, necessarily severs us from that source of strength supplied to us in abundance in the natural wealth of forces and activities surrounding us. What has created the difference between the civilized man and the savage of the past? The intelligent and persistent investigation of details. Here a fact, there an operation, next the combination of both intelligently exhibited, thence adopted by observing men. A myriad of these details constitute our visible progress. The denial of this investigation or the exclusion of all spirit to promote it through assumed terror of unseen spirits separates men from God, as it shuts them off from his visible operations which hang before us as the apples on the tree.
“The wealth he supplies to us is the adaptable concretion of himself ready to our intelligence. Neglect of this by superstitious terrors is the rejection of God. His power thus rejected and cringed from instead of being conformed to, becomes a terrible potency and its operation is indeed a wrath. Man’s nature must grow and bloom as the flower grows and blooms, according to its inherent qualities left to derive immortalizing sustenance from the essence of divine potency and life distributed in the nutriment that feeds the flower into beauty. No outward skill can confer those capabilities, although it may encourage them. Cut a nation thus off from God and a terrible wrath necessarily overwhelms it, and it falls.
“The disregard of the native principles of equity is but, another name for the rejection of the example of unity and co-operation between all the forces that work harmoniously in the world around us. The same light and air confer their elastic erowth; the same rain and lightning stimulate their activities. All is oneness in the great unity of harmony and co-operation. Men observe this phenomenon, but through factitious doctrines invented from the outside, allow themselves to be cheated out of the spirit of equity this observation, if unimpeded, must confer. The insufficient supply of facts and natural laws in the mind of a nation, whereof the Lord Boppo has spoken, is the necessary result of the obstructions created between the soul and its surroundings. When the nature of these is misrepresented, for the purpose of erecting an antagonistic system through the neglect or the fear of them, poverty of mind and beggary in appliances must ensue. The better informed in the exuberance of nature’s skill and methods have always prevailed and filled the world with abortive civilizations, crushed by men goaded on by ignorant terror of the unseen. I believe that my own nation has fallen through submission to similar misdirection.
“In a word, the fall of kingdoms has arisen from the substitution of principles ignorantly manufactured by the fancies of men, for the eternal, omnipresent, ceaseless activities that live in us as in all other objects, and makes us one with the great unity around. It is the discovery and adaptation of these activities that bestows intelligent effort on mankind, and strengthens them in their individual and national development. What constituted the diamond mind and conferred its luster? It was formed independent of the genius of man; and his grandest imagination cannot add to its perfection; his utmost malignity cannot tarnish its splendor. He may crush the diamond indeed ff it does not exhibit the dull, discolored light that he proposes, but his utmost ingenuity cannot insert the least spark of the divine brilliancy whose native gleam ‘springs from its own purity and perfection.’”
Rudolph, apparently satisfied, exclaimed:
“Friend Pietro, I hear thou art something of a jongleur; be good enough to present to us some demonstration of thine art.” Don Abraham furnished a guitar. Pietro reflected a moment.
“Take thy theme from Lord Abraham’s own land and kindred,” exclaimed Rudolph. “His valiant heart to-day interposed with ready arm and skillful lance for our rescue.”
Pietro, thus encouraged, seated himself a little apart, and accompanying himself, sang in a full voice the Spanish Arab melody of
ZERAH’S HALLS.
I.
“Through Zerah’s halls the marbles shine
In all the glories nature gave;
And pearl and fretted gold combine
To tint the light’s reflected wave.
The clustered pillar’s slender stem
Lightly sustains the airy dome,
Chased with a patterned diadem
To crown with rosy light the true believer’s home.
II.
“Through Zerah’s halls the fountains play
In tireless tranquilizing stream,
Mingling their living silver’s spray
With the light’s soft and tinted beam;
And perfumed breath of leaf and bloom
Diffuse their fragrance o’er the sense,
Bidding the faithful soul assume
A rapture of belief in Allah’s providence.
III.
“In Zerah’s halls the pages wait;
The cushioned couch invites repose;
And Spahis marshaled at the gate
Regal security disclose;
And all the perfumes of the East
From soft exotic petals rise,
And join to yield a monarch’s feast
Of soul, to guide his hopes to views of Paradise.
IV.
“And Zerah’s halls protect the rare
And costly tomes of wisdom’s lore,
Gathered from all lands, treasured there,—
Wrought by the sages who explore
The pathways of the stars and suns,
And laws that guide the planets’ course;
Or seek of plants the rarer ones
Whose hidden virtues break diseases’ poison force,
V.
“Or teach men’s hearts that goodness dwells
In virtue’s undefiled commands,
Where wisdom’s purity compels
An upright soul and stainless hands,
And spreads its potent charms around
In courtesy of word and deed,
Mingling high wisdom’s truths profound
With industry’s full toil, and alms for those who need.
VI.
“In Zerah’s halls the gentler tread
Of tender woman lightly glides,
And silken hues and rustle spread
By the soft movement; and, besides,
Music’s enchantment soothes the soul
And sheds a foretaste of the peace
Promised through the long ages’ roll
When Allah’s summons hence confers the great release.
VII.
“The subtle wit that charms in song
Trills melody for Zerah’s dames,
And mirrored boudoir courts prolong
The strain. Each opening hour proclaims
Fair science ruler of the scene
By some new token—gift divine
Of her inspiring embassy between
The One Light and the soul wherein its glories shine.”
Hardly had Pietro concluded when a messenger conveyed to Rudolph some tidings apparently of importance. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I am just informed that the gallant son of the late King of Bohemia has been captured. It were unseemly, perhaps, to greet a soldier of his rank with songs of joy over the discomfiture and death of his illustrious father, and his own disaster likewise. Only the late king’s dignity and power enabled him to sustain his gallant son in lofty station.”
Hardly had this delicate allusion to Duke Nicolas been uttered when the prisoner was escorted into the imperial presence. Rudolph presented his hand cordially. “I am sincerely sorry for your great mishap, duke,” he said; “but I am assured that you will accept the soldier’s fate without repining.”
“The soul of the Premysls,” responded Nicolas, “has never shrunk from any encounter either with destiny from mysterious, and at times traitorous sources, or from the open and announced hostility of a soldier enemy. I trust I shall meet these present apparently evil fortunes with such fortitude as I know my father would have required.”
“I believe your forces have been either dispersed or taken,” replied Rudolph, “and that little, if any, of your army remains.” “It would be useless to deny or conceal the completeness of your triumph,” answered the Duke of Troppau. “But I feel assured your highness is not informed of the devastations now being committed against non-combatants far and wide throughout the towns and villages of Moravia. Bands of marauders and murderers estab lished themselves in the most peaceful and prosperous neighborhood to await the issue of the battle. Now that we are defenceless, these ruffians slay, pillage and burn with all their Cumanian savagery.”
“I have given orders to arrest such violence,” briefly replied Rudolph; but no further commands to that effect were issued. “Personally you are under my immediate care,” continued the emperor; “but you will remain at my headquarters for the present. In other respects your freedom is assured.”
Hereupon the soldier company separated into many groups, and much animated discussion ensued. Gradually these groups assumed some stability; and those persons whose sentiments on the present emergencies seemed to correspond settled themselves to close, animated, and gradually to confidential discussion, as they penetrated deeper into each other’s deliberate and apparently fixed lines of action.
One of these groups included Lord Zawis, Duke Nicolas, the Chancellor, Lord Boppo and Solomon. Another group included Bruno, Bishop of Olmutz, Duke Albert, Milota of Deidicz and some distinguished commanders who had shared in the battle.
Rudolph took Pietro apart saying: “You seem to be a scholar. I would have you write some lines, and as the subject is not secret I shall avail myself of your skill, which probably exceeds my own with the stylus.” The emperor at once dictated the following letter:
“Rudolph, Emperor, to the Queen of Bohemia:
“Excellent Queen. With sincere sorrow we are compelled to officially announce the defeat and death of the king, your illustrious husband. We extend our protection to his family and shall counsel for their welfare. Be assured of our good will in that regard. Your valiant husband fought most nobly. The king, after seeing his army discomfited and himself left alone, still would not submit to our conquering standards, but fighting with the strength and spirit of a giant, defended himself with wonderful courage until he was unhorsed and mortally wounded by some of our soldiers. Then that magnanimous monarch lost his life at the same time with the victory, and was overthrown not by our power and strength, but by the greater power that controls destiny and disposes of kingdoms. The gracious lady, Queen Kunigunde, need entertain no alarm as to the safety of herself and her children.
“I will provide an escort, and you shall be the bearer of that letter as directed,” the emperor added, “and you will be ready to set forth when good light spreads clear to-morrow morning.”