Oh, ye shall burst the ties that bind
If ye will come with me!


It is written with authority of Tarsus that once it was no mean
city, but that is a tale of nineteen centuries ago. The Turko-Italian
War had not been fought when Fred Oakes took the fever of the place,
although the stage was pretty nearly set for it and most of the
leading actors were waiting for their cue. No more history was
needed than to grind away forgotten loveliness.

Fred's is the least sweet temper in the universe when the ague grips
and shakes him, and he knows history as some men know the Bible--by
fathoms; he cursed the place conqueror by conqueror, maligning them
for their city's sake, and if Sennacherib, who built the first
foundations, and if Anthony and Cleopatra, Philip of Macedon,
Timour-i-lang, Mahmoud, Ibrahim and all the rest of them could have
come and listened by his bedside they would have heard more personal
scandal of themselves than ever their contemporary chroniclers dared
reveal.

All this because he insisted on ignoring the history he knew so
well, and could not be held from bathing in the River Cydnus.
Whatever their indifference to custom, Anthony and Cleopatra knew
better than do that. Alexander the Great, on the other hand, flouted
tradition and set Fred the example, very nearly dying of the ague
for his pains, for those are treacherous, chill waters.

Fred, being a sober man and unlike Alexander of Macedon in several
other ways, throws off fever marvelously, but takes it as some persons