in full view of besiegers and besieged, and fastened to the gate of the
city with his dagger a copy of the Ave Maria. It was a wildly brave
action, and yet not without service in showing the dauntless spirit of
the Christian army. But the same can hardly be said of the daring shown
by the Emperor Maximilian when he displayed himself to the citizens of
Ulm upon the topmost pinnacle of their cathedral spire; or of Alonso de
Ojeda, who figured in like manner upon the tower of the Spanish
cathedral. The same daring afterwards carried him in the track of
Columbus, and there he stained his name with the usual blots of rapacity
and cruelty. These deeds, if not tinsel, were little better than gold
leaf.

A Golden Deed must be something more than mere display of fearlessness.
Grave and resolute fulfillment of duty is required to give it the true
weight. Such duty kept the sentinel at his post at the gate of Pompeii,
even when the stifling dust of ashes came thicker and thicker from the
volcano, and the liquid mud streamed down, and the people fled and
struggled on, and still the sentry stood at his post, unflinching, till
death had stiffened his limbs; and his bones, in their helmet and
breastplate, with the hand still raised to keep the suffocating dust
from mouth and nose, have remained even till our own times to show how a
Roman soldier did his duty. In like manner the last of the old Spanish
infantry originally formed by the Great Captain, Gonzalo de Cordova,
were all cut off, standing fast to a man, at the battle of Rocroy, in
1643, not one man breaking his rank. The whole regiment was found lying
in regular order upon the field of battle, with their colonel, the old
Count de Fuentes, at their head, expiring in a chair, in which he had
been carried, because he was too infirm to walk, to this his twentieth
battle. The conqueror, the high-spirited young Duke d'Enghien,
afterwards Prince of Condé, exclaimed, 'Were I not a victor, I should