



Produced by Lionel G. Sear





THE LAST GALLEY

IMPRESSIONS AND TALES

By Arthur Conan Doyle




PREFACE



I have written "Impressions and Tales" upon the title-page of this
volume, because I have included within the same cover two styles of work
which present an essential difference.

The second half of the collection consists of eight stories, which
explain themselves.

The first half is made up of a series of pictures of the past which
maybe regarded as trial flights towards a larger ideal which I have
long had in my mind. It has seemed to me that there is a region
between actual story and actual history which has never been adequately
exploited. I could imagine, for example, a work dealing with some great
historical epoch, and finding its interest not in the happenings to
particular individuals, their adventures and their loves, but in the
fascination of the actual facts of history themselves. These facts might
be  with the glamour which the writer of fiction can give, and
fictitious characters and conversations might illustrate them; but none
the less the actual drama of history and not the drama of invention
should claim the attention of the reader. I have been tempted sometimes
to try the effect upon a larger scale; but meanwhile these short
sketches, portraying various crises in the story of the human race, are
to be judged as experiments in that direction.

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.

WINDLESHAM, CROWBOROUGH, April, 1911.




CONTENTS


  PART I

     THE LAST GALLEY
     THE CONTEST THROUGH THE VEIL
     AN ICONOCLAST
     GIANT MAXIMIN
     THE COMING OF THE HUNS
     THE LAST OF THE LEGIONS
     THE FIRST CARGO
     THE HOME-COMING
     THE RED STAR



  PART II

     THE SILVER MIRROR
     THE BLIGHTING OF SHARKEY
     THE MARRIAGE OF THE BRIGADIER
     THE LORD OF FALCONBRIDGE
     OUT OF THE RUNNING
     "DE PROFUNDIS"
     THE GREAT BROWN-PERICORD MOTOR
     THE TERROR OF BLUE JOHN GAP





PART I. THE LAST GALLEY


"Mutato nomine, de te, Britannia, fabula narratur."

It was a spring morning, one hundred and forty-six years before the
coming of Christ. The North African Coast, with its broad hem of golden
sand, its green belt of feathery palm trees, and its background of
barren, red-scarped hills, shimmered like a dream country in the opal
light. Save for a narrow edge of snow-white surf, the Mediterranean lay
blue and serene as far as the eye could reach. In all its vast expanse
there was no break but for a single galley, which was slowly making its
way from the direction of Sicily and heading for the distant harbour of
Carthage.

Seen from afar it was a stately and beautiful vessel, deep red in
colour, double-banked with scarlet oars, its broad, flapping sail
stained with Tyrian purple, its bulwarks gleaming with brass work. A
brazen, three-pronged ram projected in front, and a high golden figure
of Baal, the God of the Phoenicians, children of Canaan, shone upon the
after deck. From the single high mast above the huge sail streamed the
tiger-striped flag of Carthage. So, like some stately scarlet bird, with
golden beak and wings of purple, she swam upon the face of the waters--a
thing of might and of beauty as seen from the distant shore.

But approach and look at her now! What are these dark streaks which foul
her white decks and dapple her brazen shields? Why do the long red oars
move out of time, irregular, convulsive? Why are some missing from the
staring portholes, some snapped with jagged, yellow edges, some trailing
inert against the side? Why are two prongs of the brazen ram twisted and
broken? See, even the high image of Baal is battered and disfigured! By
every sign this ship has passed through some grievous trial, some day of
terror, which has left its heavy marks upon her.

And now stand upon the deck itself, and see more closely the men who man
her! There are two decks forward and aft, while in the open waist are
the double banks of seats, above and below, where the rowers, two to
an oar, tug and bend at their endless task. Down the centre is a narrow
platform, along which pace a line of warders, lash in hand, who cut
cruelly at the slave who pauses, be it only for an instant, to sweep the
sweat from his dripping brow. But these slaves--look at them! Some are
captured Romans, some Sicilians, many black Libyans, but all are in the
last exhaustion, their weary eyelids drooped over their eyes, their
lips thick with black crusts, and pink with bloody froth, their arms
and backs moving mechanically to the hoarse chant of the overseer. Their
bodies of all tints from ivory to jet, are stripped to the waist, and
every glistening back shows the angry stripes of the warders. But it is
not from these that the blood comes which reddens the seats and tints
the salt water washing beneath their manacled feet. Great gaping wounds,
the marks of sword slash and spear stab, show crimson upon their naked
chests and shoulders, while many lie huddled and senseless athwart the
benches, careless for ever of the whips which still hiss above them. Now
we can understand those empty portholes and those trailing oars.

Nor were the crew in better case than their slaves. The decks were
littered with wounded and dying men. It was but a remnant who still
remained upon their feet. The most lay exhausted upon the fore-deck,
while a few of the more zealous were mending their shattered armour,
restringing their bows, or cleaning the deck from the marks of combat.
Upon a raised platform at the base of the mast stood the sailing-master
who conned the ship, his eyes fixed upon the distant point of Megara
which screened the eastern side of the Bay of Carthage. On the
after-deck were gathered a number of officers, silent and brooding,
glancing from time to time at two of their own class who stood apart
deep in conversation. The one, tall, dark, and wiry, with pure, Semitic
features, and the limbs of a giant, was Magro, the famous Carthaginian
captain, whose name was still a terror on every shore, from Gaul to
the Euxine. The other, a white-bearded, swarthy man, with indomitable
courage and energy stamped upon every eager line of his keen, aquiline
face, was Gisco the politician, a man of the highest Punic blood, a
Suffete of the purple robe, and the leader of that party in the State
which had watched and striven amid the selfishness and slothfulness of
his fellow-countrymen to rouse the public spirit and waken the public
conscience to the ever-increasing danger from Rome. As they talked, the
two men glanced continually, with earnest anxious faces, towards the
northern skyline.

"It is certain," said the older man, with gloom in his voice and
bearing, "none have escaped save ourselves."

"I did not leave the press of the battle whilst I saw one ship which I
could succour," Magro answered. "As it was, we came away, as you saw,
like a wolf which has a hound hanging on to either haunch. The Roman
dogs can show the wolf-bites which prove it. Had any other galley won
clear, they would surely be with us by now, since they have no place of
safety save Carthage."

The younger warrior glanced keenly ahead to the distant point which
marked his native city. Already the low, leafy hill could be seen,
dotted with the white villas of the wealthy Phoenician merchants. Above
them, a gleaming dot against the pale blue morning sky, shone the brazen
roof of the citadel of Byrsa, which capped the sloping town.

"Already they can see us from the watch-towers," he remarked. "Even from
afar they may know the galley of Black Magro. But which of all of them
will guess that we alone remain of all that goodly fleet which sailed
out with blare of trumpet and roll of drum but one short month ago?"

The patrician smiled bitterly. "If it were not for our great ancestors
and for our beloved country, the Queen of the Waters," said he, "I could
find it in my heart to be glad at this destruction which has come upon