III.
AMALICKIAH.
Zorabel carried out her threat; having cast love out of her life she was ruled by ambition. After renouncing Moroni she proceeded to marry the aged, decrepid Lachoneus. He was the richest man in all Zarahemla, but her beauty bought him. She lived for wealth and power and outwardly was as handsome as ever. Moroni used to see her rolling resplendently in her carriage, but he never met her without a twinge of the old pain.
Amalickiah, when he saw his forces were far outnumbered by the legions of Moroni, beat a hasty retreat into the wilderness. Moroni marched against him, cut him off, and drove the insurgent soldiers back to Zarahemla. During the melee, however, Amalickiah with the chief conspirators, managed to escape. According to time honored custom they sought refuge in the city of Nephi, with the Nephite's arch enemy, the king of the Lamanites.
That august personage received the renegade Nephite with wide open arms, and when he found what a good fellow he was, heaped honors upon him. Amalickiah, with the charm of his words, won all hearts at court.
He conceived a gigantic scheme. That was to rule the Nephites through their ancient enemies, the Lamanites. To this end he began by his subtle flattery to stir up the king's anger against the white people.
"Why should you not rule over the whole continent, for you are stronger than they?" he intimated.
The idea tickled the king's fancy, for though he reigned over mighty hosts, he had a vast respect for the Nephite laws and craftsmanship.
"Seize them now, while their power is divided, and they are yours. They have no head," urged the deserter.
The king remembered a certain General Moroni, but wisely held his counsel. "They have those liberty flags floating from the towers of every city," he suggested.
"Yes, and you will trample every one of them in the dust beneath your chariot wheels," prophesied Amalickiah with rising vindictiveness.
The king, dazzled by the glories pictured by this astute adviser, issued the mandate for war. Throughout the length and breadth of the land went the word that summoned the hosts.
Then a remarkable thing occurred. Many of the warriors had fought on the banks of the river Sidon and had taken an oath not to again take up arms against the Nephites, nor would they. These men fled to a place called Onidah, appointed a general and declared, "We will have peace, if we have to fight for it."
The king suggested to Amalickiah, since he was so much interested in the campaign, that he whip the insurgents into line. The latter gladly accepted the command of the troops that were still loyal, for he had already planned to dethrone the king and he counted that one step toward the accomplishment of his design.
The rebels who refused to fight for the king, under the command of Lehonti, occupied the hill Antipus. Amalickiah pitched his camp at its base.
At night, muffled in a zerape, Amalickiah passed the guard, and with sinister stride, made his way around the side of the mountain. When he was out of sight of the sentry, he stopped abruptly. The night was fitted for deeds of darkness, as it was so black one could not see the next step in advance. To the west the clouds were banked up and the wind was beginning to rise. The gaze of the man who stood amid the desolation was fastened on a moving object up the side of the mountain. A stone, becoming dislodged, rattled down and instinctively his hand sought his sword.
The next moment the figure accosted him.
"It is you, Tish? What does Lehonti say?"
"He returns the same answer that he has sent the past two nights. He will not come down to parley with you."
"Did you tell him it was of vital importance?"
"He said that if that was the case, that you could send the message up to him."
"You told him I would assure his safe conduct."
"He answered that a man who had betrayed two masters might do no better by an enemy."
Amalickiah showed sudden magnanimity.
"Go tell the coward dog that I come alone to confer with him. Bid him bring his guards and meet me at his own gate."
Swiftly the messenger sped off and Amalickiah picked his more deliberate way up the side of the mountain. When he reached the place appointed, he found that Lehonti already awaited him and that he had taken the precaution to bring his full body guard.
"What I have to say is for your ears alone," explained Amalickiah in a low tone.
Not to be outdone in generosity, Lehonti motioned for his men to fall back.
With the bluntness his crafty soul knew so well how to assume, Amalickiah came straight to the point.
"My policy is to unite the two divisions of the Lamanite army. If we fall on each other and shed blood my very purpose will be defeated. We need all the men for the common enemy."
"I too, am opposed to bloodshed," answered Lehonti, slowly. "It is not good for brother to fight against brother."
"I wish to put the whole Lamanite army under one head. If you bring your troops tonight and surround our camp, I will deliver it to you at daylight."
"The price? What do you want?" asked Lehonti looking the traitor straight in the eyes.
"That you make me second in command of all the forces of the Lamanites."
The Indian mistrusted how he might get along with such a lieutenant, but the proposition seemed fair enough on its face, and he agreed.
At dawn, when the soldiers began to stir, they found that they were completely surrounded by the army of Lehonti. Then they pleaded with Amalickiah that he would let them fall in with their brethren and not be destroyed. That was what he wanted. In direct disobedience to the commands of the king, he delivered his men to Lehonti. That noble but trusting general had taken a viper to his bosom, though he had to die to prove it.
From second in command to the office of commander-in-chief, was but one step. It mattered little to the unscrupulous Amalickiah that Lehonti stood in the way. He had slow poison administered in his food. When the latter sickened the Nephite took over his duties.
As the two sat at the table at dinner, one day, Lehonti collapsed and fell on the floor. Amalickiah shrugged his shoulders and indifferently remarked that he had taken a fit. When the physicians examined the prostrate figure and pronounced him dead, Amalickiah affected surprise. He ordered that Lehonti be buried with military honors, and that same day appointed himself to the dead man's place.
Slowly the great army began to make its way back to the capitol. Runners brought word to the king that the hosts covered the plains. Thinking that Amalickiah had gathered together so great an army to go to battle against the Nephites, he, with great pomp, accompanied by his guards, sallied out to meet the victorious general. He did not know that Amalickiah would fain advance another step and that the king himself this time stood in the way.
The advance scouts, the employed hirelings of the general, went ahead of the army and bowed themselves down before the king to do him reverence. Among them was Tish, noted for his dog-like devotion to his master. It was he, it was suspected, who had administered the poison to Lehonti. Whatever his faults, he was unswerving in his loyalty to his chief. It chanced that he knelt directly in front of the monarch. When the sovereign put forth his hand to raise him in token of peace, he leaned forward and buried his dagger to the hilt in the king's heart. So quickly had it happened as the two men stood together, so sure was the stroke, that not until the king went down on his back and the red spot on his robe slowly widened, did the dazed onlookers realize what had happened. The attendants, in abject terror that they would share a like fate, swiftly fled.
An accomplice, taking his cue from the fleeing servants came up and addressed the assassin.
"So his own guards have killed the king and are running away."
Tish, smiling sardonically down on his own blade drinking the life blood of the dying monarch, murmured, "It must be so."
The eye lids of the victim quivered accusingly an instant and then closed forever. Tish turned away his head.
The others closed in and raised a great shout, "Behold the servants of the king have stabbed him to the heart, and he has fallen and they have fled. Come and see."
They did not bethink themselves to pursue the refugees until Amalickiah, with the main division of the army came up.
When that doughty general had looked in silence on the king, lying in his gore, he worked himself up to a mighty wrath and ordered, "Whosoever loved the king, let him go forth and pursue his servants that they may be slain."
At this, those who loved the king, and they were many, started in hot pursuit of the renegades, but the latter, when they saw an army coming after them, fortified with the strength born of desperation, made good their escape.
Amalickiah, having won the hearts of the people with his valorous attempt to apprehend the supposed slayers of the king, marched into the city in triumph at the head of his troops. He had already sent messages to the queen, accompanied by the corpse of her husband. In her vigil over the bier she listened to the tramp of the numberless battalions, and replied by craving mercy for the inhabitants of the city. She asked the general to wait upon her and bring witnesses to testify concerning the death of the king.
Amalickiah, looking very handsome in full armor, went to the palace and presented himself before the queen as she sat in state upon the throne. He was accompanied by Tish and the other conspirators, who had killed her husband. They all solemnly swore that the king had been slain by his own servants. They added, "They have fled. Does not this testify against them?" While she received the report, Amalickiah kept his dominating gaze on the queen's face. When she felt him looking at her, she dropped her eyes. After the others withdrew, Amalickiah remained to adjust affairs of state with the queen.
For three days the widow shut herself up in her chamber to mourn. During that time Amalickiah surfeited her with embankments of flowers and baskets of fruit. His multiple gifts were accompanied by a glib-tongued messenger, who lost no opportunity to sound his master's praises.
AMALIKAIH SENT THE CORPSE OF HER HUSBAND TO THE LAMANITE QUEEN.
The lady, overburdened with the affairs of state, came to rely more and more on the big, strong, councillor. They were thrown much together and people began to wonder if there had been another reason for the king's sending Amalickiah away to the wars. He was a Nephite with the charm and manners of his race, and the queen was but a pawn. Only, since he was to marry her to gain the throne, he gloried in the fact that she was so beautiful.
So the two were wed, and Amalickiah, seated on the throne by the queen's side, was crowned king. She salved her conscience for her undue haste by ordering a splendid tomb for the remains of her former husband. She had the funeral chamber decorated with leopards, the coat of arms of Amalickiah.
He gave himself over to the pleasures of the court, but still unsatisfied, desired to rule the earth. Slowly he began to plan the vast campaign which would again mark the clash of the two greatest generals of the age, Moroni, commander-in-chief of the Nephites, and Amalickiah, king of the Lamanites, only now the latter had the barbarian hordes behind him.