MISCELLANEOUS
THE SAMPLE COUNTER
OUR HISTORICAL NOVELS
From “The First Man in Rome.”
NO sooner had Cæsar crossed the Rubicon than all Rome was ablaze with excitement and terror. Horatius, who all by himself had held the bridge until outnumbered, retreated to the Tiber, where he was joined by the new levies, imperfectly armed and equipped, and some of the Prætorian Guards. There, behind such defenses as they could improvise, they swore to resist until all were dead. Sacrifices were offered to the gods, and the augurs, removing the hearts of the victims, consulted the auricles.
Meantime Cæsar’s leading legion, with Scipio Africanus marching proudly at its head, came into view beyond the Tarpeian Rock—the same from which the unhappy Sappho, one of the most prominent poets of her time, had cast herself—and advanced without delay in a shower of catapults.
Precisely what occurred during the next half-hour we are without the data to state with confidence: all the historical novels of the three or four centuries immediately following were destroyed in the accident at Pompeii; but at three o’clock in the afternoon of that fateful day Brutus lay dead upon the field of honor and the beaten forces of Horatius were in tumultuous retreat along the Claudian aqueduct. Then Cleopatra came forth from her place of concealment, resolved to throw herself at the feet of her conquering lover and intercede for the doomed city.
From “Court and Camp.”
Through a tangled wild as dense as death the martial forced his way, despite the wounds that the Russian forces had inflicted upon his aged frame. Suddenly he departed from the undergrowth and found himself in an open glade of inconsiderable dimensions, and before his vision stood the widely known figure of Napoleon, with folded arms and in a greatcoat falling to his heels. The king was apparently oblivious to his environment, but instinctively “the bravest of the brave,” ever considerate and genteel, drew back into cover, unwilling to interrupt the royal revery. Apparently Napoleon was immersed in meditations.