Rival Caesars Read online

  Furthermore, I do faithfully swear to stand by you in every danger (whether you be right or wrong) and never to divulge your secrets nor aid your foes, nor consciously do you any injury whatsoever, nor believe or repeat any evil report about you, your wife, your children, or your family.

  Furthermore, I formally swear on my word of honor, and seal said oath with my very heart's blood, should I ever break this, my solemn obligation, as a brother in blood of the Holy Ing, that you, A. . . . . . . . H. . . . . . . . . , are then at liberty to regard me as no longer your sworn friend, but your sworn enemy and denounce me as a perjured wretch before the iron altar of the ING, and thereafter pursue me to the grave and beyond it with unrelenting hostility to the end of the end. Mortuum Bellum.

  Signed and sealed, in the presence of the above A. . . . . . . . . . . H. . . . . . . . . . , from the veins of my heart, this . . . . day of . . . . . I775.

  A. . . . . . . . . . B. . . . . . . . . .

  The writer then cleaned the pen carefully, and drawing a small pocket knife from his fob, made a quick, deep incision through the skin of his left arm according to the old formula still in constant use.

  Dipping the pen into the rich red blood that ran from the puncture he carefully signed his name in a bold, regular round hand.

  Then he took his sword, pushed it through the written paper and handed the paper over the table to the wounded man, making at the same time the sign of fellowship with his left hand, and saying, “E La Moot.”

  Thereupon the wounded one took the ink and writing material across the table and copied the document, word for word. Then he wrote his own name in the blood that oozed through the bandage of his wounded arm, and went through the same ceremony (including the sign) and repeating the penal word, “E La Moot.”

  The pen was then re-dipped in the blood of both men and ceremoniously dropped into a goblet of wine that stood on the center of the table.

  Whereupon each man arose, took up his sword in his left hand, rested the flat of it on the other's left shoulder. Then they drank the goblet of wine mixed with blood between them, repeating this toast one after the other and word for word:

  An' trust me on my troth

  If thou keep faith with me,

  My dearest friend, as my own heart,

  Right welcome shalt thou be.

  Putting down the drained wine goblet, they then raised their naked swords aloft and grasping each other by the right hand, swore the ancient symbolical oath of Thurar—the oath without words.

  As the wounded man sat down again, he said, looking keenly across the table:

  “As Brethren of the Blood we are now bound to each other by the strongest bond that human hand and brain can bind. Henceforth we are not two but one. Ten thousand brains shall plot and plan to destroy one or both, should this ancient and binding pledge ever be broken or betrayed, by one or by the other.

  “Now I would suggest, as my arm is still somewhat painful, that we postpone further action until next Thursday evening at Judge Livingston's.

  “In the meantime we can think over the names of all those whom we might invite to join us. They should all be gentlemen and men of influence. We can possibly form a private revolutionary lodge of the Iron Cross, with you and I (unknown to the others perhaps) as the real moving spirits. I think we can reckon upon Brockholst, Livingston, Rodgers, Mason, Clinton, Troup, Fish, Tilghman, Ewing, Van Ranneslaer, Pendelton, Van Ness and young Roosevelt.”

  “Agreed,” answered the other enthusiastically, as he rose to go. “We can and must combine to ‘do things,’ but not with too many. We must chance our lives I tell you if we are ever to be successful and famous. If we fail the fate of all failures shall of course be ours, but if we win we literally win a kingdom. My good old grandfather wrote 'The Power of the Will' as his life’s work. I will write 'The Will to Power' as mine.

  “Good or bad I propose to be something great. I was never born to be a camp follower. The world as yet needs its conquerors, and I will be one of them.

  “Ah, how grand to be absolute master and lord it over millions. Already I dream, yes,

  I dream of a beautiful queen

  Afloat on the Hudson's tide

  With warriors in golden sheen,

  And Caesar by her side.”

  “Yes,” replied the wounded man, laughing heartily. “Your enthusiasm is quite infectious. Without doubt, the world is yet to Caesar. He is the conqueror. It is still “Hail all hail for the spoils of power and victory. Whoso would win great stakes must still play the Iron Game, with iron nerve. You are right.

  Nothing changes but the hands on the dial. Human history is but a record of what is about to occur. It happens once more what happened of yore. The glory and the failures of the past are all prophesies of the future.

  Exiles and outlaws, for example, founded the City of the Seven Hills. Exiles and outlaws—men driven from Europe—founded these thirteen Colonies, whose stupendous future shall yet surpass (in good and in evil) all that is recorded of imperial and republican Rome.

  There is before us and our posterity a glory, a power and a grandeur greater than that of anything the mind of Plutarch’s men could even conceive.”

  Like you I also have my day dreams—my castles in the air.”

  I dream of an empire as great,—

  And prouder than Rome of old,

  With its temples and towers of Fate—

  Its Eagles of war and gold.

  Then the two bosom friends walked down the stairs to the front door and cordially bade each other good bye. The unwounded man saying:

  “Well, we meet again next Thursday night at Judge Livingston’s.”

  “Yes, and in the meantime let us think over whom we are to invite to join us. It is of great importance that we should select only trustworthy men.”

  “As I pass the doctor's house, I will call and send him up to dress your wound,” said the unwounded man.

  “Thank you my dear friend,” answered the other.

  Thereupon he of the bandaged arm, fair hair, and pink complexion, walked musingly upstairs to his room. Seating himself by the table whereon the Oath of Brotherhood was written, he picked up the pen with which the signatures had been made, looked at it cynically, saying half aloud:

  “BUT I WILL BE THE CAESAR, MR. AARON BURR.”

  Almost at the same instant of time the other man—he of the deep dark, dazzling eyes (walking rapidly toward Broadway) was thinking and saying to himself:

  “BUT I WILL BE THE CAESAR, MR. ALEXANDER HAMILTON.”

  II

  The Eight Day Clock

  O, there's nothing half so sweet in life

  As love's young dream.

  There Galahad sat with manly grace,

  The kindly grandeur on his face,

  There Merolt of the Iron Mace

  And love-lorn TriStram there.

  A week after the events related in the last chapter a birthday party was given at Judge Livingston's.

  Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were both present, together with a number of other young men about town. By far the larger proportion of them had arrived early, attended by their lady relatives.

  The evening passed most enjoyably with music and dancing and the usual love-glances, inseparable from all such gatherings.

  The birthday celebration, however, was being used for a double purpose. Under the outward show of social pleasure and family entertainment a revolutionary lodge was to be formed—a lodge that afterwards played the chief role in all the memorable events leading up to and connected with the war of independence.

  The disguise of the social gathering was adopted at the shrewd suggestion of Chancellor Livingston—he who afterwards swore in General Washington as first President of the United States.

  In 1775 the secret agents of the king's government were employed in large numbers to shadow prominent business men known or suspected of dissatisfaction to the government.

  As the hours rolled on the male element
gradually disappeared from the dance hall and supper room, leaving the women to themselves. Burr and Hamilton, however, stayed until the very last—as if with design.

  Now women find little pleasure in the society of women and therefore the disappearance of the men caused a certain element of dullness to come over the assembly.

  Betsy Schuyler, daughter of Colonel (afterwards General) Schuyler, sat disconsolately upon a low cushioned stool while the two Miss Rannesslaers, her cousins, were holding a gossiping conversation nearby with Miss Morton and Miss Leah Roosevelt, all of whom were members of New York's leading merchant families.

  Betsy looked around and then it suddenly dawned upon her that there was not a man left in the room, except Judge Van Horn, an old friend of her father's. He was busy expounding the intricacies of a new dance of the Sir Roger De Coverly type to Miss Alexander, the daughter of Lord Stirling.

  Now Miss Betsy was filled with an irresistible spirit of curiosity. Whatever happened to be hidden from her, that she straightway desired to fathom with passionate eagerness.

  “Where have they gone? What is the matter?” she whispered to her sister Catherine. “Mr. Burr and Mr. Hamilton were both here just now. Why, we’ve not a solitary soul to dance with, no, not one.”

  “I saw them go. They all stepped out one by one,” said Catherine. I saw Aleck beckon the Magic Prince and they went off together through the side door. I see you are deeply interested in Mr. Burr, Betsy.”

  “Yes,” said Betsy frankly, and her large good-natured eyes lighted up. “I like him and Mr. Hamilton too, but where have they gone to, I wonder? It seems so strange that they should all disappear so suddenly, every one of them.

  “I suppose,” replied Catherine, “it is something about those horrid politics, the king, the riots, and the taxes.

  “When the men leave us everything becomes dead and dull. There is no company if there is no MAN. And then the men are so dreadfully selfish. How I wish I was a man,” said Betsy. Then she began to lilt in an undertone—and her voice was sweet and very pleasing:

  All, all is dull about the house,

  the world is drab and gray

  There’s no more luck about the house,

  when the Men are gone away.

  “I like those dear, delightful old melodies, Betsy, they are so pleasing and naive and so truthful and so simple, too. Any one can understand them. But the clever new songs seem so false and strained and hollow and dreadfully pretentious.”

  “Songs should be simple and pathetic and make one feel generous and noble thoughts.” “O, I wish I could write songs, Betsy.”

  “So do I,” answered Betsy, “you are so true and loving a sister, I am sure you could not but write charming and beautiful lyrics.”

  Suddenly Betsy arose—saying vehemently while tossing out her lustrous, wavy hair: “Catherine, I wish I was a man.” At that Catherine held up her hands in amazement, saying:

  “You mad girl, you! What do you wish that for?”

  “Why, I’d gird on my father's pistols,” answered Betsy, laughing, “and ride away to the wars on Jupiter.” (Jupiter was her favorite saddle horse.)

  “Why, what put that crazy notion into your head?”

  “I always thought it, Catherine, but didn’t know how to say it before.”

  “Then how did you learn?” inquired Catherine. “Your head is full of wild things.”

  “Why I just read a poem about it this morning in an old London Magazine. It's fine, Catherine. I know you'll like it too. It is called “If I were a man.’”

  “Let me see it,” urged Catherine, with increasing curiosity.

  Betsy fumbled in the folds of her dress, and pulled out a small square fragment of smoky colored paper. Upon it the following two verses were printed in old-fashioned type (wherein every f was an s):

  Far off from this fair false dower—

  This glamour of mart and stage—

  I would fly to the plains of Power

  And the conquerors scarlet page.

  And there as in days supernal,

  I would battle my life away,

  For the warrior lives eternal,

  But the dreamer dies in a day.

  Lady Helen.

  “But the warriors don’t live any more, Betsy,” said Catherine, after reading the poem. “They are all dead and buried in books you know. Now, by the way, I heard your Magic Prince declare this very afternoon (in conversation with father) ‘The reason there are no great poets and writers now is because there are no great deeds or heroes to write about. The world is becoming tame and sad and dreary.’”

  “And what did papa reply to that?” “Papa thought there were some heroes still, but that their greatness is somewhat obscured by popular illusions, or their activity strangled by untoward circumstances.”

  “Mr. Burr contended, however, that there is no field of activity for great men without the coming of great wars, great struggles and great 'revolutions, also that the true hero could not be obscured nor his genius strangled.”

  “Father again replied that in the colonization of America there is still a superb arena for the display of aggressive heroism. The field of action is ever the same. 'America today,' said he, 'is even as Europe was in the days of King Arthur and Beowulf—it is just being opened up. Therefore the heroic age has not passed away.’”

  “‘Perhaps,' replied Mr. Burr, 'but where are the heroes?’”

  “Which do you think right, Catherine? I know you delight to read those dear old stories of how our forefathers loved and fought and died.”

  “I think the Magic Prince was nearest right, but father was certainly not wrong. There must be great afflictions and sorrows and forlorn hopes to bring out the best that is in men. Tranquility and fatness makes life awfully dreary, Betsy. It is the overcoming of dangers and difficulties that make heroes.”

  “Catherine, do you know what I think?”

  “No.”

  “I think Mr. Burr and Mr. Hamilton are going to be real live heroes. You see they are not like other young men, no, not a bit. All the others whom we know are so dreadfully commonplace,” urged Betsy, with girlish enthusiasm. “They haven’t an idea in them, and then they make love so ridiculously too, simpering like girls and so timid.”

  “You are right, Betsy, Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Burr are not like other men and what is more, I suspect we are going to have a big war soon. There is a whole lot of plotting going on and talk of rebellion. Mother says the house is full of powder and shot.”

  “Then I am certain they will become famous,” said Betsy. “They will do great deeds, both of them, I am sure. They will lead regiments and ride boldly, just as it is in the history books and the pictures, and the common people will cheer them, and the flags will fly so gaily, and the drums will roll so grandly. O! it will be so fine, Catherine, won’t it? And we will wave our 'kerchiefs to them from the balconies as they ride past prancing proudly in triumph. How jolly it will all be! O. my, I wish it would come.”

  “But they will get killed or perhaps wounded.” said the more thoughtful Catherine. “The King has many soldiers.”

  “Then I would cry my eyes out and lay flowers on their graves or nurse them back to health and I would never speak to a King's soldier again, no, never.”

  To which Catherine replied:

  “I am also tired of merely reading in books about the great lover, great hero, the great prince. I long to see him in the flesh and blood, even as you do.”

  “Yes, I know you do Catherine, you are always dreaming of great old days when men were as true in love as they were bold in war—when they went out to carry off the one maiden of their choice against all opposition, and dared to do valiant things against wicked kings. O, how I wish I was living in those dreadfully romantic old times. It would be grand— delightful. Wouldn’t it be fine to marry a great man, Catherine and be like a princess?”

  “Yes it would, Betsy. But where is the great man? where is the Prince Charming?—the conq
uering hero?”

  “O, he'll come,” answered Betsy, laughing joyously.

  “But what if he doesn’t come?”

  “O, he'll come; I know he'll come. I’m sure of it. He's here now, I think, but we won’t know him for sure till after the great deeds are done.”

  “Betsy, I don’t know what to make of you. He may not come till we are too old.”

  “O, don’t talk so dreadfully, Catherine. The world is so beautiful yet.”

  “Betsy,” answered Catherine (as if with a sudden inspiration) I do believe you are right. Those grand old times will return. Something tells me.”

  “O, how I wish they would,” said Betsy. “Then no more mere reading and singing about knights and warriors and valiant kings-of-men, but living right alongside of them, and loving them, and assisting them, and suffering for them, too. Yes I do wish a great struggle would come, Catherine. I want to find me a man and a king, and I know you do too. I will never marry one who is not brave and bold and famous and successful.”

  “Betsy, you're an awful little pagan, you don’t hide your feelings a bit. You should be more reticent, Betsy. Besides, if no war comes, how can you know your hero?”