ountry; but I must detest and punish thy crimes.

_Robber_--What have I done of which you can complain?

_Alexander_--Hast thou not set at defiance my authority, violated the
public peace and passed thy life in injuring the persons and properties
of thy fellow-subjects?

_Robber_--Alexander, I am your captive. I must hear what you please to
say, and endure what you please to inflict. But my soul is
unconquered; and if I reply at all to your reproaches, I will reply
like a free man.

_Alexander_--Speak freely. Far be it from me to take advantage of my
power, to silence those with whom I deign to converse.

_Robber_--I must, then, answer your question by another. How have you
passed your life?

_Alexander_--Like a hero. Ask Fame, and she will tell you. Among the
brave, the bravest; among sovereigns, the noblest; among conquerors,
the mightiest.

_Robber_--And does not Fame speak of me too? Was there ever a bolder
captain of a more valiant band? Was there ever--but I scorn to boast.
You yourself know that I have not been easily subdued.

_Alexander_--Still, what are you but a robber,--a base, dishonest
robber?

_Robber_--And what is a conqueror? Have not you too gone about the
earth like an evil genius, plundering, killing without law, without
justice, merely to gratify your thirst for dominion? What I have done
in a single province with a hundred followers, you have done to whole
nations with a hundred thousand. What; then, is the difference, but
that you were born a king, and I a private man; you have been able to
become a mightier robber than I.

_Alexander_--But if I have taken like a king, I have given like a king.
If I have overthrown empires, I have founded greater. I have cherished
arts, commerce, and philosophy.

_Robber_--I too have freely given to the poor what I took from the
rich. I know, indeed, very little of the philosophy you speak of, but
I believe neither you nor I shall ever atone to the world for the
mischief we have done it.

_Alexander_--Leave me. Take off his chains, and use him well. Are we,
then, so much alike? Alexander like a robber? Let me reflect.

LESSON XIII

THE AMERICAN INDIAN

Not many generations ago, where you now sit, surrounded with all that
makes life happy, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox
dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race of beings.
Beneath the same sun that rolls over your heads, the Indian hun