the goodness of
our horse or our arms but in our own. He that falls obstinate in his
courage--

"Si succiderit, de genu pugnat"

["If his legs fail him, he fights on his knees."
--Seneca, De Providentia, c. 2.]

--he who, for any danger of imminent death, abates nothing of his
assurance; who, dying, yet darts at his enemy a fierce and disdainful
look, is overcome not by us, but by fortune; he is killed, not conquered;
the most valiant are sometimes the most unfortunate. There are defeats
more triumphant than victories. Never could those four sister victories,
the fairest the sun ever be held, of Salamis, Plataea, Mycale, and
Sicily, venture to oppose all their united glories, to the single glory
of the discomfiture of King Leonidas and his men, at the pass of
Thermopylae. Who ever ran with a more glorious desire and greater
ambition, to the winning, than Captain Iscolas to the certain loss of a
battle?--[Diodorus Siculus, xv. 64.]--Who could have found out a more
subtle invention to secure his safety, than he did to assure his
destruction? He was set to defend a certain pass of Peloponnesus against
the Arcadians, which, considering the nature of the place and the
inequality of forces, finding it utterly impossible for him to do, and
seeing that all who were presented to the enemy, must certainly be left
upon the place; and on the other side, reputing it unworthy of his own
virtue and magnanimity and of the Lacedaemonian name to fail in any part
of his duty, he chose a mean betwixt these two extremes after this
manner; the youngest and most active of his men, he preserved for the
service and defence of their country, and sent them back; and with the
rest, whose loss would be of less consideration, he resolved to make good
the pass, and with the death of them, to make the enemy buy their entry
as dear as possibly he could; as it fell out, for being presently
environed on all sides by the Arcadians, after having made a great
slaughter of the enemy, he and his were all cut in pieces. Is there any
trophy dedicated to the conquerors which was not much more due to these
who were overcome? The part that true conquering is to play, lies in the
encounter, not in the coming off; and the honour of valour consists in
fighting, not in subduing.

But to return to my story: these prisoners are so far from discovering
the least weakness, for all the terrors that can be represented to