blunted.
Among them all, none made a better end than Eurytus. He was suffering
from a disease of the eyes, but he bade them arm him, and lead him into
the thick of the battle. Of another, Dieneces, it is told that hearing
the arrows of the Persians would darken the sun, he answered, 'Good
news! we shall fight in the shade.' One man only, Aristodemus, who also
was suffering from a disease of the eyes, did not join his countrymen,
but returned to Sparta. There he was scouted for a coward, but, in the
following year, he fell at Plataea, excelling all the Spartans in deeds
of valour.

This is the story of the Three Hundred. The marble lion erected where
Leonidas fell has perished, and perished has the column engraved with
their names, but their glory is immortal.[4]

FOOTNOTE:

[4] Herodotus.

[Illustration]

_PRINCE CHARLIE'S WANDERINGS_

CHAPTER I

THE FLIGHT

APRIL 16, 1746. It was an April afternoon, grey and cold, with gleams of
watery sunshine, for in the wilds of Badenoch the spring comes but
slowly, and through April on to May the mountains are as black and the
moors as sombre and lifeless as in the dead of winter. In a remote
corner of this wild track stood, in 1746, a grey, stone house with
marsh-lands in front, severe and meagre as the houses were at that time
in the Highlands. Upstairs in a room by herself a little girl of ten was
looking out of the window. She had been sent up there to be out of the
way, for this was a very busy day in the household of Gortuleg. The
Master, Mr. Fraser, was entertaining the chief of his clan, old Lord
Lovat, who, in these anxious days, when the Prince was at Inverness and
the Duke of Cumberland at Aberdeen, had thought fit to retire into the
wilds of Badenoch, to the house of his faithful clansman.

[Illustration]

Downstairs, the astute old man of eighty was sitting in his armchair by
the fire, plotting how he could keep in with both parties and secure his
own advantage whichever side might win. By some strange infatuation the
household at Gortuleg were cheerful and elate. A battle was imminent,
nay, might have been fought even now, and they were counting securely on
another success to the Prince's army. So the ladies of the
family--staunch Jacobites every one of them (as, indeed, most ladies
were even in distinctly Whig households)--were busy preparing a feast
in honour of the expected victory. The little girl sat alone upstairs,
hearing the din