The Story of Alexander

by Robert Steele

CHAPTER XVIII. HOW ALEXANDER SLEW PORUS AND WON BACK THE WIFE OF CANDOYL AND WAS KNOWN OF CANDACE WHEN HE CAME TO HER.

After these things the host of the Greeks and the Persians and the Indians was gathered together, in one place, and messengers came from all the kings of the land to it to Alexander the king, bringing gifts of rare and precious things, of gold and spices, of the skins of a fish like to a leopard’s skin, of living lions and other wild beasts. Now, among these was the messenger of a Queen of the land, Candace by name, the widow of a great king friend and cousin of Porus; and they brought with them letters to King Porus from her. And when Alexander heard tell of her, he asked the King of India concerning her, who she was, and what manner of men she ruled over, and Porus answered and told him how she was the fairest woman in India, and how she had married his near kinsman, and had borne him three sons, Candoyl, Marcippus, and Caratros. Then he told him how he had sent his daughter to her for safety, and how she had married her to Caratros, her youngest son, who should reign after her, as the custom of that folk was: and he told of the gods she worshipped, and of the people she ruled, and of the riches of the land. Then Alexander was fain of her presence, and sent rich gifts, and a golden image of Ammon his god, and a letter in which he asked her to journey towards the mountains and meet him there, and he gave the messengers wealth and a strict command to tarry not till they brought him word again. But Porus purposed evil in his heart, for he sought to stir up wrath against Alexander in Roxana the Queen.

Thus the messengers came to Queen Candace and they laid before her the letter of Alexander, and his gifts, and told how she had been honoured by the wealth given to her messengers, and besought her to meet the Lord of the Greeks, but she would not, for she knew the double mind of Porus, and would not adventure herself where she could meet him, yet was she willing to please Alexander, so she sent again her messengers, and richer gifts than before, and a letter praising his knighthood and his valour, and the power of his gods. Now these were her gifts, a crown of gold set with a hundred precious stones, and two hundred and ten chains of red gold, and thirty rich goblets carved with pelicans and parrots, five Ethiopian slaves of one age, a rhinoceros, a thousand beryls in caskets of ebon-wood, and four elephants to carry this wealth, and on the back of each was the skin of a spotted panther, rich and precious. So the messengers went their way, and with them Queen Candace sent a cunning painter, and she prayed him in private to make her a portrait of the king on parchment, noting all his shape and proportion. And it was done as she said, for Alexander received her gifts and well entreated her messengers, and sent them home; and when they came the painter brought his drawing before her, and she rejoiced, for she had longed to see what manner of man the Greek lord was, and now was her wish fulfilled.

It fell on a day that Alexander was in his tent, and one of his clerks was there with him, and as men went out and he chanced to be alone with the king, he fell on his knees before him, and besought grace. Then Alexander comforted him and bade him speak out boldly and fear not. So this clerk told the king how Porus knew that the death of Alexander was near, and that he had gathered together men from all parts to slay him, and he told him how that the men of Gog and Magog were on the march from the frozen lands of the North at the pay of Porus. Then Alexander asked how this should be, and the clerk told him that he had been sent to them in years back by Darius, and that then it had been a full year’s journey, but now had they come nearer, so that one month saw the beginning and the end of the way to them, when Porus had sent him. Then the Lord of the Greeks grew wrathful and began to doubt all men, for he remembered that he should die by the hands of a friend whom he trusted, wherefore he sent messengers for Porus, and when he came he said to him: “O Porus, is not the half of my throne sufficient for thee, but thou must adventure to slay me by the hand of the outer barbarians? True knight thou art not, or thou wouldest scorn to do by another what thou durst not attempt thyself.” But Porus the king stood silent, and turned red and purple and white in turns, and then he tugged off his glove and threw it at the feet of Alexander on the ground. Then said Alexander: “O Porus, though mayhap it were better to slay thee as a traitor, yet thou hast been my fellow at board and bed, and I will meet thee as thou wishest, that at least thou shalt die as a true knight, if thou couldst not live as one.” Then he called for his page and he bade him take up the glove and put it in his helmet against the set day.

On the third day at sunrise all men rose up early and came to the field of war outside the camp, and each man took his place round the field, the Greeks on the south, the Indians on the north, and the Persians where they would on either side. And as they looked they saw the tent of Alexander hung with green silk and embroideries at the east end of the field, and the tent of Porus hung with cloth of gold at the other. Before the doors stood pages and trumpeters, and from time to time long calls rung out in the air, notes of defiance and of confidence. From end to end of the field ran a partition dividing it into two strips, for the battle was to be fought out with the lance alone, and in the middle was a high seat in which Ptolemy the king’s lieutenant was to sit as judge. Beside and below him were places for the heralds, and as time wore on they took their seats. And now the bustle round the tents increased, and men went in and out, and the noise of the hammer on the rivets rose between the calls. Then came a pause, and the squires brought long lances and laid them before the heralds, and they measured them side by side, and returned them to the squires, who bore them back to their tents. A long call was sounded, and a troop of men brought in between them the famous white horse Bucephalus, and at the sight of him all the warriors of Greece shouted, for many times had they followed him in battle, and they deemed him the best horse in the world, though he was now stricken in years; and when this shout died away another was raised by the Indian knights as their lord’s great black horse came in to the field, and the two horses smelled each other from afar, and neighed out their defiance.

Now sounded the drums and clarions, and from afar the procession of the lord of the lists came into the field, and amid the shouts of the army Ptolemy sat down on the throne, and all men kept silence. Then the heralds rose and saluted him, and he spoke to them, and soon they broke up into two parties, and went one to each tent, and each man’s eyes followed a party, this way or that. As they came before the tent doors, the squires drew aside the curtains and the kings stood before the heralds, clad in armour from head to foot. Then the processions re-formed and with lowly reverence the knights were brought before the lord of the lists, where they repeated one by one the solemn oath that they had used no charm or magic against their foe, but that the battle should be fought, man to man and horse to horse, till death: and as they stood side by side the giant Porus showed taller and stronger when compared with the Lord of Macedon.

Then the knights mounted their horses, and saluting each other and the lord of the lists, they turned away and rode to the end of the lists and stood there two images of bright steel, waiting for the sign of battle. A few moments pass, the lord of the field rises, and the trumpet-call rings out, first low and steady and strong, then higher and louder till it seems to carry men’s hearts with it to the clouds, and in the midst of its last and loudest call the baton is thrown down, and the two knights are spurring towards one another; no man breathes, each stride brings them nearer, their aim seems true, when a shout rises from the Greeks, and next second both knights are on the ground, the air is filled with curses and cries, the lists are peopled with heralds and knights and squires, the black horse is galloping wildly over the field, Alexander is kneeling by the side of his horse Bucephalus, and Porus is lying still on the field, for he had shifted his lance and taken traitor’s aim at the good horse and slain him, while Alexander had struck him on the helm and thrown him far on the ground.