A Child's Book of Saints

by William Canton

As he spoke the great bell of the High Church began to toll as for one whose spirit has passed away. At the sound Talisso started; then taking the rope from his neck and flinging it on the ground with a mocking laugh, he turned and fled down the Mound and into the green fields that lie to the north.

Not far had he fled into the open country before the recklessness of the reiver and strong-thief fell on Talisso. Entering a homestead he smote down the master, and got himself clothing and food and weapons, and seizing a horse, pushed on apace till he came to the red field where he had routed the Avars, and thence onward to Danube water.

Beyond Danube, some days' riding into the north, lay that mysterious stronghold, the Hring, the camp-city of the Avar robber-horde. And thither Talisso was now speeding, for he said to himself: "They are raiders and slayers, and this kind is quick to know a man. They will love me none the less that I have stricken and chased them. Rather will they follow me and avenge me, if not for my sake for the sake of the fat fields and rich towns of Sarras."

Now the stronghold was a marvel in the manner of its contrivance, and in its size and strength; for it was bulwarked with seven rings, each twenty feet high and twenty feet wide, and the rings were made of stockades of oak and beech and pine trunks, filled in with stones and earth, and covered atop with turf and thick bushes. The distance across the outer ring was thirty miles, and between each ring and the one within it there were villages and farms in cry of each other, and each ring was pierced by narrow gateways well guarded. In the midst of the innermost ring were the tent of the Chagan or Great Chief, and the House of the Golden Hoard. Piled high were the chambers of that house with the enormous treasure of a century of raiding—silken tissues and royal apparel and gorgeous arms, great vases and heavy plate of gold and silver, spoil of jewels and precious stones, leather sacks of coined money, the bribes and tribute of Greece and Rome, and I know not what else of rare and costly. Long afterwards, when the Avars were broken and the Hring thrown down, that hoard filled fifteen great waggons drawn each by four oxen.

In the very manner in which Talisso had forecast it, so it fell out with him at the Hring. The fierce, swart, broad-shouldered dwarfs with the almond eyes and woven pigtails gazed with glee and admiration on the tall and comely warrior who had swept them before his sword-edge; and when he spoke of the rich markets and goodly houses and fruitful land of Sarras their eyes glistened, and they swore by fire and water and the four winds to avenge his wrongs.

Little need is there to linger in telling of a swift matter. Mounted on their nimble and hardy ponies, the Avars dashed into Sarras land two hundred strong, and tarried neither to slay nor spoil, but outsped the fleet feet or rumour, till in the grey glimmer of cock-crow they sighted the towers of Sarras city. Under cover of a wood they rested till the gates were flung wide for the early market folk. Who then but Talisso laughed his fierce and orgulous laugh as he rode at their head and they all hurled through the gates, and, clattering up the empty street, carried the castle out of hand?

Not a blow was struck, no drop of blood reddened iron or stone; and such divinity doth hedge even a wicked king dethroned that when the guards saw the tyrant once more ascending the steps of power they lowered their points and stood at a loss how to act. But Talisso, with some touch of his pristine graciousness, bade no man flee or fear who was willing to return to his allegiance. "First, however, of all things, bring me hither the Archbishop; bring with ropes and horses if need be; but see that not a hair of his head be injured."

Now on this same night that these Hunnish folk were pressing forward to Sarras city Desiderius saw in a dream Talisso standing before the throne of God. On his head he wore his crown, but otherwise he was but such as he stood for sentence on the Mound of Coronation, to wit, with a rope around his neck, and naked save for the fold of sackcloth about his loins.

Beside him stood an Angel, and the Angel was speaking: "All the lusts of the flesh, and all the lusts of the eyes, and all the lusts of the will, and the pride of life this man hath gratified and glutted to surfeiting, yet is he as restless as the sea and as insatiable as the grave. Speak, man, is it not so?"

And Talisso answered, with a peal of orgulous laughter: "Restless as the sea; insatiable as the grave."