United States or Liberia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Our ways part here," said Constans, decidedly, for they had now reached the north gate of the citadel and he was beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable under those sharp eyes. "Farewell, my son, and remember that penitence precedes healing, whether of soul or of body." Constans passed on, and the man stood looking after him with a certain malevolent curiosity.
It was still flying from the cupola window, but that fact, of itself, meant little. All or nothing might have happened in the twenty-four hours that had elapsed since its first setting. The rope-ladder was in its hiding-place, and Constans, by its aid, was quickly on the garden wall. Here he waited for an instant, to look and listen.
It was not unusual for Constans to fall to sleep, lulled by the monotonous humming of the vibratory motor and awake to find the machinery still in motion. It was within this week that the Black Swan returned to port.
He loved her, he knew it now, and not as in that brief moment of passion at Arcadia, when even honor seemed well lost. For this was the greater love that draws a man to the one woman in the world who has the power to lift him to the heights whereon she herself stands. A supreme joy, that humbled even while it exalted, swept over Constans.
His eldest son, Constantine II, who held his court at Treves, was a firm friend of the exiled Bishop; the dying Emperor sent him a secret message to restore Athanasius to his see. He then received Baptism at the hands of Eusebius of Nicomedia, and died a few days later. Constantine's empire was divided between his three sons, Constantine, Constans and Constantius.
The oldest, at the age of twenty-one, retained the prefecture of Gaul; Constantius, aged twenty, kept Thrace and the East; while Constans, the youngest, at the age of seventeen, added the Italian prefecture with Greece. Constantine II. was dissatisfied with his share of the empire, and compelled Constans to yield up Africa, but was slain in an expedition beyond the Julian Alps, A.D. 340.
Constans could see that it was a war-vessel of the largest size, for there were full sixty oars on a side arranged in two banks. The figure-head was the representation of a black swan, and on the poop-deck stood the slight, graceful figure of a man wearing a plumed hat. Constans saw him remove the cigar from his lips as he turned to give an order.
"The Black Swan!" ejaculated Constans, forgetting himself for the moment. "Ay, master, and I may well curse my luck in missing the chance," continued the fellow grumblingly. "There is always fat picking to be had under that same bird's beak, but this bad knee of mine has kept me out of it for twice a twelvemonth.
Two miles from the keep was a cave that Constans had discovered on one of his hunting-trips, and which, boylike, he had proceeded to fit up with some rude furniture for lodging and cooking, little dreaming that he should ever stand in actual need of these necessities. Thither he betook himself, impelled primarily by the mere instinct for refuge and shelter.
Evidently not, for, with a shrug of his shoulders, the horseman threw one leg across the saddle-pommel and sat there, very much at his ease, while he proceeded to roll himself a cigarette from coarse, black tobacco and a leaf of dampened corn-husk. Constans felt his face flush hotly as he noted the contempt implied in his enemy's well-played indifference.
Word Of The Day