poor, and giving his time for them.

We read in the book, 'A Child's Hero,' how the brave Havelock won the heart of a little child who never saw him. She heard the words 'Havelock is dead,' and laid her head against the wall and burst into tears. Other children may feel the same devotion for these splendid people, for Hannibal, so far away from us, giving his whole heart and whole genius and his life for his wretched country, for men who would not understand, who would not aid him:

till their country was vanquished. Bad as that country was, for Hannibal's own sake we are all on the side of Hannibal, as we are on the side of Hector of Troy. 'Well know I this in heart and soul,' said Hector to his wife, when she would have kept him out of the battle, 'that the day is coming when holy Ilios shall perish, and Priam, and the people of Priam of the ashen spear, my father with my mother, and my brothers, many and brave, dying in the dust at the hands of our foemen; but most I sorrow for thee, my wife, when they lead thee weeping away, a slave to weave at thy master's loom and bear water from thy master's well, and the passers-by, as they see thee weeping, shall say, "This was the wife of Hector, the foremost in fight of the men of Troy, when they fought for their city." But may I be dead, and the earth be mounded above me, ere I hear thy cry and the tale of thy captivity.'

So he went back into the battle, and never again saw his wife and child. It was in the spirit of Hector that Hannibal planned and fought and toiled, till as an old man he bit on the poison ring, and died, and was free from the Roman captivity that threatened him.

Honour and courage were the masters of the men and women whose stories are told in this book, but of them all none dared a risk so horrible as brave Father Damien in the Isle of Lepers. For his adventure among dreadful people who must give him their own dreadful disease, a Montrose or a Havelock might have had little heart, for his task had none of the excitement and glitter of the soldier's duty in war. But they are all, these men and women, good to live with, good to know, good to go with, weary camp followers as we are of the Noble Army of Martyrs, and unworthy of a single leaf from the laurel crown.

A. Lang.

CONTENTS

• PREFACE v
• THE LADY-IN-CHIEF1
• PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES 25
• HANNIBAL 43
• THE APOSTLE OF THE LEPERS 95
• THE CONSTANT PRINCE 109
• THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE 135
• A CHILD'S HERO 169
• CONSCIENCE OR KING 222
• THE LITTLE ABBESS 246
• GORDON 281
• THE CRIME OF THEODOSIUS 334
• PALISSY THE POTTER 352

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

COLOURED PLATES

(Engraved and Printed by André & Sleigh, Ltd., Bushey.)

• 'Go back!' he said [See page 350]Frontispiece
• Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day to face p. 74
• Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely place by the sea106
• A great army of Irishmen have swooped down on the Atholl country 150
• The place was swarming with rats208
• She took all her nuns for a solemn walk258
• They saw a man in uniform shining with gold flying towards them 316
• A jar of water in the figure's right hand emptied itself on his head 364

FULL-PAGE PLATES

• Roger could hardly believe his eyes to face p.6
• She came forth with a golden circlet round