Part 4 (2/2)

said one. ”I will build a new cottage for an aged tenant,” proclaimed another; while a third, who was in love with the beautiful girl who wanted the love of the poor, said, ”I will make a great supper for the hungry and will feast with them.”

”Ah,” cried the Wizard, ”that will be, indeed, a great feast! The bread of charity chokes the receiver because the hand that gives it will not break it with him. We must have communion, not patronage; or the invisible wall will never be built.”

The Princess Myrtle listened as one who hears a new gospel; and she remembered that she had never broken bread with the poor, but only bestowed benefits upon them, which is no way to become acquainted. And she sighed--a little sigh of love and regret and hope of doing better, which the Wizard said afterwards became one of the strongest stones in the invisible wall.

Such a change in the kingdom! People making up quarrels that had withered hearts for generations. Court ladies running with warm loaves to the cottages and staying to eat some of the bread. Knights helping old men with the harvest; minstrels sent to sing to the bedridden instead of to an a.s.semblage of bored ladies and gentlemen in a tapestried gallery. Much less talk of love and many more loving deeds. People wild to serve each other instead of themselves. All the land silent and helpful, instead of chattering and selfis.h.!.+ Such a change in the kingdom!

The Wizard was everywhere, for the wall was beginning to be a real defense, and he spared no pains to see that every stone was strong.

Now the fame of this wall reached King Theophile--for this was in the days of his warring--and he laughed on his throne and said, ”Oh, little Nation, I will make mincemeat of thee, for I have every kind of weapon that is made, and many officials who do nothing all day but spy on other people and brandish their swords. What have you to oppose to such strength? Little kingdom, you will be but a road to my glory.”

So he made great preparations for war, and gathered together all the weapons that shed blood. There were many of these and he prided himself upon them, but in all his a.r.s.enal was not one instrument that could put shed blood back again into the veins of a man, which shows that ironworkers do not know everything.

One fine day the King and all his armies came across the rocking waves and drove their boats upon the sh.o.r.es of The Kingdom of the Dark Wood which lay fair before them like a green and purple map edged with white where the breakers drove high. The land wind brought to their senses the odors of grapes, and the scent of apples and ripe grain. And the soldiers said to each other, ”We will kill, then we will feast.”

They were impatient to overrun the land. Now the air-spies reported that but a small army had ma.s.sed to meet the intruders, and that back of their ranks the inhabitants were peacefully at work gathering in the harvest.

This seemed incredible. Then King Theophile gave his command to the army, ”March forward”; and to the air-spies, ”Fly on and drop burning brands on the fields.”

The army immediately set out. Far away the air-spies were seen beating the air like black rooks, but strangely enough they always remained in sight and seemed to get no further. At last they went high up into the clouds and disappeared.

But the soldiers pressed on joyfully, for the sweet odors of vineyard and garden grew ever more ravis.h.i.+ng; and now the land lay at their feet in a s.h.i.+mmering haze, through which the forests rose like deep cool islands with here and there a red roof, or a white church spire to tell of human habitation. And up through the haze like released spirits in paradise came with soft, steady motion, phalanxes of soldiers smiling.

”By my sword that never sleeps,” cried King Theophile, ”their faces shall be gray ere nightfall, and they shall smile no more.”

Then all his soldiers made their swords sing and flash like waving grain of death; and they chanted together a song without joy. Suddenly the black dam of their war fury broke and, with the wild roar of an untamed cataract, they swept forward towards these still and smiling knights, with King Theophile on a high dark horse at their head.

In his rage of conquest he dug his golden spurs into his horse's side, and the beast with quivering nostrils, leaped through s.p.a.ce, then suddenly paused, quivering; nor could cry, or whip, or spur move him.

Then King Theophile leaped down and rushed forward to see what was frightening the animal; and all at once he crashed against something hard, and his broken right arm fell to his side. He grew gray, not with pain but with sheer terror, for he could see nothing, yet his arm had been broken upon a substance that felt like granite.

As he gazed wildly about him, he saw the first phalanx of his army pitch back with bleeding foreheads; and their eyes rolled in amazement, for they could see nothing, yet they had driven themselves against stones.

”On! On!” cried King Theophile, for he trusted again to his senses which revealed only a peaceful landscape and in the distance, haloed with the mists, a calm army waiting and smiling. That smile of the foe was like poison in the King's veins, and again he rushed forward, this time to bruise and cut his head, so that the blood poured over his white mantle.

Then he grew faint with fear as he beheld his soldiers clawing the empty airs and turning horror-stricken countenances to him. ”Sire,”

they whispered, ”something is holding us back. Something is here that we do not see!”

At that moment the air-spies dropped to the ground like tired birds. ”The wind holds us back,” cried one. ”No!” exclaimed another, ”we broke our machines against a wall miles in the air! This is a bewitched country.”

”We will wait and try again,” said King Theophile.

So they encamped on the spot, and far off in the haze they saw the other army pitch its tents, and they heard the soldiers singing. All night their banners waved in the wind and the faint music continued.

At dawn King Theophile's army was astir, and those air-spies whose vehicles were still unbroken, began their flight violently--and were as violently pitched back. The phalanxes were ordered to advance, but some fell dead with horror as they drove their limbs against an unseen barrier. For the limpid air revealed only the placid fields; and in the distance among the golden shadows, men smiling like the still saints in paradisal meadows. ”These be happy warriors,” sighed the King, and for once in his life he longed to call the foe ”brother” and ask how the harvest went; and to pillow his head on the same knapsack with a soldier, and so sleep sweet and brotherly.

But the wall which shut out his hate, now shut out also his love, so that he could not walk across the fields and embrace those smiling warriors waiting in the suns.h.i.+ne for a battle that was never to take place.

So sadly one day he turned his army back to the sea-strand, and the rocking boats, and away from the vision of calm eyes gazing at him through golden shadows, where the land lay fair and open.

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