en urged to battle; every man a hero then;
And the Kabyles based reliance on the friendship of the Fates.

I held that love of country was a higher love of self,
With generous ends, but selfish still, whatever might be said;
I forgot my boasted honor; I had garnered all my pelf;
I became a hissing traitor to the land I owed my bread.

All was plain; if I was faithful, then Eudocia was lost;
Recreant, and gaining victory, I could claim her as my right.
I scarcely weighed the balance, and I dared not count the cost;
I stole out from the city to the alien camp that night.

I was loyal to the purpose that within my heart was shrined;
Another might have coped with it, and triumphed o'er its fall.
So men are, they do not vary much, the level of mankind,
What one lacks the next possesses; there are faults enough in all.

Down the cliff I slipped in silence; and the troubled cypress leaves
Quivered like sweet lips in anguish, while the star eyes wept with dew;
And I sought the French commander, where, amid his musket sheaves,
He sat and planned new reaping in a field that Azrael knew.

"I have come to bring assistance, if you take my terms," I said,
"For I know the weakest portion of the city's scowling wall.
There's a maiden named Eudocia I would sell my soul to wed;
Give me the right to have her, and I freely tell you all."

Then he smiled across his table as he granted my desire--
Smile of memory begotten, some remembrance of delight--
And he heard my story quietly, but said he would require
Me to go into the city as a spy the coming night.

V.

THE MASKED SPY IN THE PALACE.

Years before, a secret entrance 'neath the wall I ordered made;
And they were dead who built it, so none knew of it but me.
When the darkness came I gained it, and softly in the shade,
Passed through lone streets of the city where the battle was to be.

A purse of gold and rubies bought the whispered countersign,
And with its aid I noted place and number of the troops.
I chalked upon a building: _Lo, the doom of Constantine!
There's a traitor in the city, and the populace are dupes._

In the street I met a masker hurrying onward through the night,
And something in his bearing told of one I called a friend.
"Sir," I said, and on his shoulder I had laid my finger quite,
"Tell me why you mask your visage, and whereto your footsteps tend."

By my voice he knew me quic