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Then Sohrab said, "O man of many years, wherefore wilt thou not listen to the counsel of a stripling? I desired that thy soul should leave thee upon thy bed, but thou hast elected to perish in the combat. That which is ordained must be done, therefore let us make ready for the conflict."
Now, it was doubly a pity that such a controversy had been aroused, for, as most intelligent people in Dublin had begun to admit, it had been a heroic if tragically mad combat from the beginning.
The Emperor had with him only fifteen thousand men, and they had waged an equal struggle with eighty thousand foreign soldiers. At the close of the combat the Prussians retreated to Bar-sur-Aube; and his Majesty established himself in the chateau of Brienne, where he passed two nights.
For a moment I caught sight of a jaguar, and directly afterwards we came on an alligator which had evidently just been killed by the jaguar. I should have liked to have seen the combat in which the fierce mammal had come off victorious. What mighty strength it must have put forth to kill the huge reptile which lay mangled before us, a considerable portion of the interior devoured.
Bangs alone remained in the cabin, and when I went down, I found him swallowing the last morsel of his meal. He had on his fork some very respectable pieces of cheese. Before I left the deck, I saw clearly enough that a combat was inevitable, and as the disparity between the two vessels was very great, I confess that I had serious misgivings as to its probable result.
After a few moments' reflection, in which she rolled her luminous and cat-like eyes about, ruffled her feathers, and uttered a few soft 'to-whit to-whoos, she murmured, 'I have it. Seldom do I require to deliberate so anxiously, but parental anguish has clouded my active brain; the recent combat, also, has exhausted my nervous system.
"When the king and queen beheld the armies thus rushing to the combat, they threw themselves on their knees, and implored the Holy Virgin to protect her faithful warriors. The prince and princess, the ladies of the court, and the prelates and friars who were present, did the same; and the effect of the prayers of these illustrious and saintly persons was immediately apparent.
In the first case, when the want of harmony between inclination and duty, with regard to a moral act, belongs to the particular powerlessness of the subject, the act would always lose its moral value, in as far as that combat is necessary, and, in consequence, proportionally as there would be dignity in the exterior expression of this act; for our moral judgment connects each individual with the common measure of the species, and we do not allow man to be stopped by other limits than those of human nature.
Death is in the air, invisible and blind, whispering, whistling. As brave, good, trustworthy, and devoted as my companions may be, they do not shield me. Only, and this is abstract and less immediately intelligible to all than the material support of ancient combat, only I imagine that the more numerous we are who run a dangerous risk, the greater is the chance for each to escape therefrom.
The troops of Licinius, however, presenting a double front, still maintained their ground, till the approach of night put an end to the combat, and secured their retreat towards the mountains of Macedonia. The loss of two battles, and of his bravest veterans, reduced the fierce spirit of Licinius to sue for peace.
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