A Captive of the Roman Eagles
by Felix Dahn · English · Gutenberg #32220 · 452,467 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: A Captive of the Roman Eagles
Author: Felix Dahn
Translator: Mary J. Safford
Release date: May 2, 2010 [eBook #32220]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32220
Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
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Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
Transcriber's Notes:
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2. Footnote is at the end of the book.
3. Diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
A CAPTIVE OF THE
ROMAN EAGLES
A Captive of the
Roman Eagles
_By_ FELIX DAHN
Translated from the German by
Mary J. Safford
TRANSLATOR OF
"Aspasia," "Cleopatra," etc.
Chicago
A. C. McClurg & Co.
1902
COPYRIGHT
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1902
PUBLISHED Sept. 13, 1902
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
The author of the romance "A Captive of the Roman Eagles"--published in
Germany under the title of "Bissula"--is one of the most distinguished
novelists of the present day in his own country, and will doubtless be
equally appreciated by Americans.
Like Dr. Georg Ebers, he has based his historical novels upon the solid
foundation of earnest study. The field he has chosen is principally the
period of the conflicts between Germany and Rome, and the struggles for
supremacy of the various peoples in the territory now occupied by
Germany, Switzerland, and France, and he describes with vivid colors
and dramatic power the life of those far-off days.
Professor Dahn is a native of Hamburg, but spent his childhood in
Munich, always a centre of intellectual life, and, under the stimulus
of its circle of writers, his poetic talent developed early. He studied
law, philosophy, and history in Munich and Berlin. In 1862 he was made
Professor in the University of Wurzburg, in 1872 in Königsberg, and in
1888 he was called to a chair in the University of Breslau, where, in
the intervals of his professional duties, he has devoted himself to his
brilliant literary work.
The warm welcome accorded to my translations of the novels of Ebers,
whose hold upon the affections of American readers has proved so
enduring, inspires the hope that "A Captive of the Roman Eagles" may
also receive a cordial recognition from our public.
MARY J. SAFFORD.
_Washington, D. C., June 10, 1902._
A CAPTIVE OF THE ROMAN EAGLES
BOOK ONE
THE FREE WOMAN
CHAPTER I.
Whoever has been at Friedrichshafen on beautiful Lake Constance, on a
clear August day, and watched the sun setting in splendor behind the
tops of the beeches of Manzell; whoever has seen the waves of the lake
and the snow-capped peaks of the Alps from Sentis to the Allgau
Mountains glow in the crimson light, while the notes of the Ave Maria
float softly over forest, meadow, and water, will treasure the memory
of the peaceful scene throughout his whole life. To this region the
story of little Bissula leads us.
But in that period--the year 378--the whole northern shore of the
"Venetus Lacus" (Lake Constance) looked somewhat desolate, and often by
no means peaceful. The lowlands were covered with primeval forests and
fens--only here and there a few scattered settlements appeared on
patches of parched tilled land.
At that time the lake covered a much more extensive tract of country
than now, and a still larger space was occupied by a marshy territory
between the water and the meadow, which being for the greater portion
of the year a mere swamp afforded at the same time refuge and food to
flocks of wild swans, herons, and countless smaller water-fowl.
This region had already been a considerable time in the possession of
the Alemanni; but on the southern shore of the lake Rome still
maintained her supremacy. This was with the special object of
controlling the important roads leading from Gaul by way of Augst
(Augusta Rauracorum) to Basle, Windisch (Vindonissa) to Arbon (Arbor
Felix), Bregenz (Brigantium), and thence farther eastward, thus
preserving the connection between the Western and Eastern portions of
the Empire, and facilitating the movements of the troops. The men were
sometimes forced to hasten from the Rhine to the Danube to meet the
Goths in the East, and anon from the Danube to the Rhine to contend
with the Franks on the lower, or the Alemanni on the upper portion of
the stream.
This year also such assistance seemed necessary--this time in the
eastern provinces, where the Gothic tribes, especially the Visigoths,
fleeing before the Huns, had found refuge on Roman territory, but,
driven to desperation by the ill-treatment of the Roman governor, had
risen in arms.
True, Valens, the Emperor of the Eastern Empire, hoped to cope
successfully with them alone; he would have been reluctant to share the
fame of victory with his young nephew and fellow-ruler Gratianus, lord
of the Western portion. Yet, nevertheless, he had been compelled to ask
the latter to hold himself in readiness to come to his uncle's
assistance with his Gallic legions in the territory bordering on the
Danube.
Gratianus, however, thought that he could not leave Gaul and the Rhine
until he had first punished the Alemanni for their recent incursions
across the frontier, and--at least for a while--deterred them from
making new inroads. At the same time he desired, in case the summons
for help should arrive, to have traversed a portion of the long
distance and thus be able to give his uncle aid more speedily. So,
toward the end of July, he left his residence, Trier, with the larger
portion of his troops, and marched by way of Zabern and Strassburg to
the left bank of the Rhine near Augst and Basle. Here and at Windisch
he formed two camps and kept the main body of his troops near him,
busying himself in the reorganization of the province and eagerly
awaiting news from the East.
The expedition against the Alemanni on the northern shore of the lake
was entrusted to a small band of troops which, being able to move more
swiftly, seemed better suited for the marches through swamp and forest
and, moreover, amply sufficient in number; for the attack was directed
against only the Linzgau, so called from the little river, which at the
present time is still known as the Linz, or more frequently the Ach.
This was the home of the Lentian Alemanni, who lived on the northern
and western shores of the lake and, during that very spring, had
harried the Roman frontier. The command of the expedition had been
entrusted to experienced generals who had chosen their own force of
foot and horse, while a large baggage train conveyed the provisions and
the remainder of the luggage. In all, there were probably more than
three thousand men.
According to the old victorious Roman strategy--whose success was
proved by the conquest of nearly half the world known at that
day--this small force was to assail the foe from several directions at
once, the same as in great campaigns, as if seized by claws, a favorite
comparison in Roman military literature. Part of the troops--the
cavalry, several squadrons of cataphractarii (mailed riders, who were
completely sheathed in armor), cohorts of the Twenty-Second Legion,
picked German mercenaries, Batavians (they were considered the best of
all the foreign soldiers), and lastly the flower of the Imperial Guard,
foot-soldiers, mainly Illyrians and Thracians, were to march northward
from Windisch, cross the Rhine, move along the old road to the north,
then, suddenly turning eastward, skirt the western shore of the lake to
gain its northern side, thus penetrating the whole Linzgau from the
west to the east, halting at an appointed place in the heart of the
enemy's country and awaiting the second division. Meanwhile this second
body was to march along the great highway bordering the southern shore
from Windisch to Arbon, cross the lake in boats, land on the northern
shore, and pass through the Linzgau from east to west till they reached
the first division.
Thus the escape of the Barbarians, whose tilled lands would all be laid
waste, would be cut off both eastward and westward. Those who attempted
flight southward in their boats across the lake would be intercepted by
the Roman Bodensee[1] Fleet. Year after year, the last time that very
March, the most brilliant reports of its strength and prowess had been
sent to Gaul. The remnant of the foe remaining after the assault from
two or three directions were to be driven by the united bands as far as
possible into the inhospitable northern forests, or forced into the
Danube.
The place of meeting appointed for both divisions was the lofty hill,
half a league north of Friedrichshafen, whence at the present day the
church of Berg dominates the lowlands. At that time it was known as the
Idisenhang,--the hill of the wood-goddesses. The Roman ships, in
crossing directly from Arbon, were obliged to run into the bay of what
we know as Friedrichshafen. For the land forces the leaders hoped to
find a passable route along the remains of an old military road, which
formerly--in Rome's better days--had extended also around the northern
shore of the lake. This steep hill, affording an unimpeded view in
every direction and dominating the whole neighborhood, was a model of
the positions where the Roman eagle was fain to alight for a brief rest
during its flights in quest of prey. Here a camp was to be formed,
whence the land of the Barbarians would be ravaged by small bodies of
troops in every direction, while the strong fortified camp should
maintain the connection with the lake, the fleet, and the southern
shore, until the whole enterprise was completed and the Romans could
return to the Emperor at Windisch.
CHAPTER II.
The experienced commanders had executed their tasks swiftly, skilfully,
and successfully. Arbon, the strongly fortified station of the great
military road, had, it is true, been repeatedly attacked, plundered,
and set on fire by the Alemanni in swift forays from the lake, but
never permanently occupied; they did not like to dwell in cities.
A few years previously Valentinian, Gratianus's warlike father and
predecessor, had repaired and strengthened the old walls, increased the
garrison, filled the store-houses with provisions, especially grain,
and stationed in the harbor a number of ships. These, though neither so
numerous nor so stately as those of the Venetian Fleet in the prouder
days of Rome, were quite sufficient to prevent the Barbarians from an
attack by water, nay, they constantly threatened them with a landing on
the northern shore.
The commander of the division intended for this fleet, the Comes of
Britannia, Nannienus, a man skilled in nautical matters and an
excellent officer, had reached the harbor fortification with his troops
very quickly by the excellent road from Windisch. The other column
needed a much longer time for its wearisome march, turning finally
eastward before it again reached the shore of the lake.
Caution was the first requisite during this advance through the
pathless land of the Barbarians; and no measure of prudence was omitted
by the well-trained, circumspect leaders. Natives of the country who
were perfectly familiar with the region acted as guides; though the
southern shore was inhabited exclusively by Roman colonists, they
guarded carefully against treachery from that quarter. Horsemen,
lightly armed Celtic archers, the Keltae and Petulantes, and Germans
familiar with woodland warfare--the Batavians--formed the van and
rearguards. In the centre were the heavily armed foot-soldiers of the
Imperial Guard, protecting the traders and sutlers, luggage, camp
equipage, and provisions. They moved along the ruinous old road, as
near the shore as the marshy ground permitted, in order to keep in view
of the lake, that they might discover any attempt at an attack by the
Barbarians in their boats, and also not lose sight of the opposite
shore occupied by the Romans.
The most difficult task was assigned to the left wing which, at the
north of the central division and the old road, was to force a passage
through forest and morass in a line parallel with that of the main
body, and protect it from any flank assault of the foe; for should the
latter suddenly burst from an ambush in the impenetrable woods and fall
upon the column extended in marching order, the whole body, thus taken
by surprise, might be scattered and driven into the marshes and the
lake.
But the resistance offered by forest and fen to the progress of the
troop seemed destined to remain the sole opposition which the Romans
were to encounter; for the latter had not met a single human being
since they quitted the southern shore of the lake and the stations
along the road there. There were no villages of the Alemanni in this
region: the ground was occupied by farms, and the houses (called
"Schwaigen") were miles apart. The few lonely dwellings which they
passed during a march of several days had been abandoned. A mysterious
silence, boding destruction, seemed to brood over the empty wooden
buildings.
Everywhere, just before the time of ripening, the grain--oats, barley,
and spelt--had been cut and partly burnt; the latter mode was the
quicker, and the grain of the Alemanni should not serve their foe even
as fodder for his horses. The cattle had been driven away; the kennels
of the faithful farm watch, almost always found at the gates, were also
empty; the hay and straw were removed from the barns, which were
usually connected with the houses and very often formed part of them.
Slowly, with frequent halts, advancing with difficulty, the Romans
assigned to the care of the provisions in charge of the troops or the
sutlers and their wives struggled forward for several days, each night
carefully establishing a well-fortified camp. From the western end of
the lake, where it ran into a stretch of marshy ground densely
overgrown by rushes, and meadows with sedges waving in the wind, they
marched toward the east. Thus, by a toilsome march, they had reached
the foot of the steep hill now crowned by the stately castle of
Meersburg.
The long August day, during which frequent showers of rain had fallen,
though the sky had not been always clouded, was drawing to a close.
Again the sun shone brilliantly through a rift, gilding the whole chain
of mountain peaks of the Bernese Alps to the Allgau heights; the Sentis
glowed in crimson splendor, solemnly, like a king of the mountain
giants who had drawn his radiant mantle around his proud shoulders.
The Roman column halted cautiously at the foot of the steep hill, whose
rocky sides fell abruptly to the lake and the valley on the west, while
the summit, at that time densely covered with trees and bushes,
presented a gloomy, threatening aspect. The oak-leaves and pine-needles
were dripping with rain, and wherever the sun did not shine on them,
looked dark-green, almost black.
Two officers, whose high rank was betokened by the gold and silver
ornaments on their equipments, now flashing brightly in the rays of the
setting sun, rode slowly toward the hill. Before them, bound by the
right and left arms respectively to the stirrups of two mounted
soldiers, walked a guide. A few pioneers with axes and spades
surrounded the leaders, and a little band of Batavian spearmen
followed. One of the officers, a stately man about thirty-five, now
checked his heavy Spanish barb and bent forward, his clear-cut bronzed
features wearing a keenly watchful expression.
"If I have ever known and fought with Germans," he said with a strong
Illyrian accent, "they are hiding in the woods on yonder hill-top,
which is a natural fortress. Halt, I beg, Prefect Prætor of Gaul. We'll
go no farther without reconnoitring. Forward, my brave Batavians.
Rignomer, take six men and climb up among the underbrush. But be wary!
And you, Brinno, trumpeter, give the signal of warning the instant you
discover the foe."
The other officer, a man much his senior, smiled as the order was
executed. "You are over-cautious, Saturninus. Always erring on the side
of prudence!"
"We cannot be over-cautious against this foe, my noble friend. Had not
the Barbarians occupied this fortress erected by the gods of their
native land, all courage to offer resistance must have deserted them."
"And it evidently _has_ abandoned them. All taste for war was
thoroughly extirpated by the departed hero, Valentinian, and our bold
young Emperor, his son. My pupil!" he added complacently. "I am quite
sure that all danger to the Empire from the Germans is over."
His companion silently shook his head. Just at that moment a captain of
the mailed horsemen, a man numbering about five and twenty years,
dashed forward from the centre of the Roman column. Tangled locks hung
from beneath his helmet, and his features were ignoble in form and
disagreeable in expression.
"Must we cross that accursed cliff. Tribune?" he exclaimed, abruptly
checking his horse.
"We must," replied the Illyrian quietly. "I have just learned that our
left wing has again found the morass in the forest bottomless, and is
approaching along this, our only road. And the waves of the lake are
dashing at our right."
The young man cast a doubtful glance at the cliff. "H'm," he muttered,
"it will cost us many men. But that's no misfortune," he added, "we
have more than enough Barbarians in our pay; if they fall fighting
against other Barbarians, there will simply be fewer of the beasts."
"An abominable remark, nephew Herculanus," replied the Prefect
reprovingly.
"If the ascent be resisted," said the Tribune, "it will consume much
time, and we have none to lose. We ought to have been on the bank of
the Ister long ago to fight the Goths. I am anxious about the Emperor
Valens. I have a presentiment of evil."
"You are always boding evil," replied the Prefect, smiling, "but the
evil never comes, the good fortune of eternal Rome always conquers.
Hark, it is the same now. The trumpeter is giving the signal: 'All
safe! Forward!' and the Centurion of the Batavians, who climbed the
height first--what is his name?--Rignomer, is beckoning to us to
follow. Up, friends! Was I not right, my brave Tribune? The Barbarians
will make no defence."
"You are right as usual, uncle!" said Herculanus with a smile intended
to be pleasant, but which made quite the opposite impression.
"If you only remain right, Ausonius!" said the Illyrian hesitatingly.
"Yet at the moment it really does appear so. Up, give the signal with
the tubas: Forward! We will pitch our camp for the night on that
height, and the land of the Alemanni will be defenceless before us."
CHAPTER III.
As we have seen, the Romans were still ignorant whether the Barbarians
were aware of the bands approaching simultaneously from several
directions to menace the inhabitants of the forest with destruction.
Preparations had been made so secretly that the commanders believed it
possible to take the foe completely by surprise. For weeks not a German
had been allowed to pass the guards on the very outermost line of Roman
territory, which, it is true, had been greatly diminished in the course
of the last three or four generations. The right of traffic at the
stations on the southern shore had been withdrawn a still longer time,
on the pretext of alleged violations of the conditions of such
intercourse. Roman traders had not ventured recently within the
precincts occupied by neighbors who were justly irritated by such
severity.
The sentinels on the frontier reported that nothing unusual could be
seen from the watch towers. The people went about their work in field
and forest as usual, tended their numerous flocks, hunted or fished;
apparently they thought neither of defence nor flight.
Once, it is true, one of the _speculæ_ reported that, late one night, a
fire had suddenly blazed upon a mountain peak probably several miles
from the lake and, after a short interval, as suddenly vanished. The
Alemanni called the towering height, whose summit was visible for many
a mile, the Sacred Mountain, the Holy Mountain, and Odin's Mountain,
and the name has clung to it tenaciously. True, in later times the
"sacred" related to Christian consecration; but at the present day the
stately castle on that majestic height bears the title of Heiligenberg.
On the spot where Odin's ash-trees then rustled, the breeze now sweeps
across the flower-beds of a beautiful garden.
The report was unheeded. Forest fires, even at night, were not unusual
among the Germans, who in their labor of clearing the ground often
required, in the place of the axe, the aid of the swifter flame. During
the next few days also everything remained quiet.
On the morning after that night--it was a few days prior to the Romans'
march across the height of Meersburg, already described--a youth
emerged from the dense woods stretching for miles in a northwesterly
direction toward the Holy Mountain, a youth whose figure was as
straight, tall, and slender as a young pine. The hood of lynx-skin
fluttering from his shoulders like a short cloak did not confine his
long fair locks, which fell in waves upon his shoulders, waves with
which the morning breeze played caressingly, as the youth stopped on
the crest of a low grassy hill that afforded a view of the lake.
Resting his right arm upon the oak handle of his spear, he leaned
forward, shading his eyes with his left hand from the glare of the
sunbeams on the smooth surface of the water, as he gazed intently
toward the southern shore. It was an eagle glance, proud, bold, and
keen, and the color of the eye was a light golden brown.
The red-tiled roofs of the Roman watchtowers and citadels opposite in
Arbon and the other stations (Constantia, etc.) shone brightly in the
morning sunlight. The utmost repose pervaded the whole scene. Neither
sail nor row-boat was visible: a huge kite, with an occasional stroke
of its broad pinions, was soaring in wide circles above the shallows
near the shore.
The young German turned his eyes in the direction of the gently rising
ground before him northwest of Friedrichshafen, now occupied by the
village of Jettenhausen. At that time the land had been cleared and
brought under cultivation. The hill was crowned by a stately wooden
structure, surrounded by a fence built breast-high for purposes of
defence; a pair of superb antlers adorned the ridge-pole. From the main
building itself and a small one adjoining it smoke circled upward
through holes in the roof: the inmates were doubtless preparing the
morning meal.
The youth made a movement in the direction of the hall, on which his
eyes had rested proudly, yet with an expression of almost sorrowful
earnestness, then he paused suddenly, saying to himself: "No! I will go
first to _her_." He hastened eastward through what was then a tract of
marshy woodland--now bearing the name of Seewald--crossing it in the
direction of the Tettnang forests. Often he was forced to leap from
rock to rock or from one mossy hillock to another, that he might not
sink waist-deep in the morass. But the young German seemed perfectly
familiar with the almost invisible path which, sometimes in the form of
a ford, sometimes as a bridge, led through the bog and the dense
underbrush. Swinging himself with a daring leap, aided by the handle of
his spear, across a tolerably wide stream which flowed through moss and
sedges to the lake--a startled red grouse flew upward with a shrill
cry--he soon saw before him the nearest settlement to his own stately
dwelling: for he was the lord of the manor he had left behind. In this
region neighbors lived more than a league apart; it was not until
succeeding generations that the scattered freeholds along the lake grew
into villages.
The little house in the forest--it might almost be called a
hut--nestled modestly at the foot of a low hill which sheltered it from
the northeast wind. The old roof was overgrown with dark green moss,
and the small stable forming part of the dwelling afforded room for
only a few head of cattle. Yet everything was neat and well-kept,
especially the little pasture in whose fenced inclosure stood several
fruit-trees, while the eye noted with surprise the presence in this
wilderness of several ornamental plants belonging to Rome or Southern
Gaul: the yew and--carefully tended--some fine roses. Across the top of
the ridge-pole was a four-pointed star, clumsily carved from pine-wood,
but unmistakable. Its beauty, however, had not been increased by its
having been smeared with the red lead used to color the house-mark cut
in it--evidently a recent act.
The youth's first glance as he came in sight of the little house was
unconsciously directed toward the star on the roof. When he saw the red
paint a smile curled the well-cut mouth, which was not yet wholly
concealed by the downy beard of early manhood. His second look sought
the top of the low hill, where an ancient oak, now steeped in the
golden sunshine, was waving its gnarled branches in the morning breeze;
long garlands of goat's beard, dangling from the boughs, swayed to and
fro. A circular wooden bench surrounded the trunk, and on the southern
side a few large stones had been arranged to form a sort of table.
CHAPTER IV.
An old woman, wrapped in a dark garment, sat almost motionless upon the
bench in the warm sunshine. Thin locks of beautiful white hair escaped
from beneath the edge of the brown cloak drawn over her head; her hands
alone stirred with a slight, regular motion. When the youth's footsteps
echoed on the sandy slope of the hillock, she paused in her work and
bent forward to listen; then nodding, murmured under her breath:
"That's why she slipped away."
"Hail to you, Waldrun!" said the youth, pausing before her. "Don't be
frightened--it is I--"
"Adalo, the young noble," interrupted the old woman. "Only the
evil-doers fear _you_."
"You recognize me?"
"When the gods blind the eyes, they give sight to the soul. Though your
light footstep rarely rings near me now, I know it well. I often hear
it as you hurry past our home, avoiding the house by taking a wide
circuit. No one save Bruna, your tame bear, comes to us by daylight
from the manor; for you have doubtless forbidden even your fair-haired
little brother to visit our house. But brutes are more loyal than human
beings: often, very often, Bruna seeks my little maid and Zercho the
bondman. When she brings us a wreath of the child's favorite flowers
wound around her neck and growling, drags it off to her lap, we know
well that the boy Sippilo, not you, sent it. By day you shun us! But--"
She bent forward and lowered her voice to a whisper: the youth glanced
around in surprise; surely they were still alone--"but by night you
often approach stealthily."
Adalo flushed crimson, and sought to divert her thoughts. "Can you spin
without seeing?"
"The youngest of the three great Sisters--who was born blind--spins the
future of the whole human race. And what I am spinning is as familiar
to my fingers as to my thoughts."
"What is it?"
"My shroud. But I do not think that Adalo, son of Adalger, came hither
to question Waldrun concerning her thoughts of death. Do you seek my
son? Suomar has not yet returned from the Council."
"I do not seek him--he sends me. The Council--last night on Odin's
Mountain--resolved to destroy all the houses and harvests." The youth's
noble, handsome countenance beamed with the fierce menacing joy of
battle as he added: "_The Romans_ are coming."
"They will not tarry long," said the old woman, calmly going on with
her spinning. "I have often seen them dash forward in all the pride of
strength, and soon sink feebly back again."
"You women, those unable to bear arms, the slaves, and the cattle are
to be received in two fortresses far away from the lake--one on Odin's
Mountain in the west, the other among the eastern marshes. We shall
form two divisions: one stationed in the east, the other in the west.
Your son is assigned to the eastern band; he was sent directly from the
council to the swamps. The troop will go through the fords there and
strengthen the breastwork of logs around the meadows to prevent the
entrance of the Italians."
"Then we must hasten eastward to the morasses. We shall be nearer to
him there."
Adalo hesitated. His face again crimsoned and he cast a keen glance at
the door of the house ere he began: "That was his first idea--and by
the decree of the people the fugitives were thus divided. But--some one
else--a friend--counselled him not to hide you in the swamps, but--on
the Holy Mountain."
"You belong to the western band--on the mountain."
Adalo made no reply.
"You gave him that counsel, Adalo!"
"I do not deny it; you know that I mean kindly. You will be better
concealed on the lofty wooded summit of Odin's Mountain than in the
marshes. Life in the fever-breeding swamps is full of discomfort--the
disease often attacks the inhabitants--and it is not so safe. The
eastern band will not remain in your hiding place: Suomar himself
cannot protect you; concealment is your sole defence. But on Odin's
Mountain, far up within the stone fortress, the gods of the land
themselves will shield you. And the life there in the woodland huts and
tents built of green branches will be more comfortable and pleasant.
And--" he spoke slowly and modestly--"I myself will be there to defend
you. Follow me,--to-morrow it may be too late,--follow me at once!"
Just at that moment two acorns fell rattling on the top of the rude
stone table and rebounded to the earth. Adalo looked up. "A squirrel?"
he asked.
"Yes. A _red_ one," added the old woman, nodding. "It often plays its
saucy pranks up there. They are sometimes very spiteful."
"Indeed they are," replied Adalo, laughing. "One which I once caught
nearly bit through my finger. There!"
Waldrun felt the fore-finger of his outstretched hand, then without
releasing it, said: "There is another scar close by. My naughty
granddaughter bit you years ago--do you remember? How did it happen?"
"It was at the spring festival. The west wind was blowing furiously,
like the very breath of Odin. She ventured alone in your mouldering
boat--the old one hollowed from a log--to cross the lake. The others
jeered at her--I pleaded. Every effort was vain. Springing into the
skiff, she pushed off: if she passed beyond the rushes into the open
water she was lost. I ran after her, waded, swam, and dragged her from
the boat, just as it upset. I carried her to the shore, while she
writhed and struggled, spitting like an otter, and, by way of thanks,
bit my finger."
"And then," replied Waldrun reprovingly, "some spiteful tongue uttered
the saying,
"'Sharp is the squirrel's scratch,
Bissula's bite is sharper.'
"The saying ran through the district, nay, all the provinces by the
lake. Wherever my granddaughter went, to pick berries in summer, to
comb the flax, to glean, to mow, to thresh--everywhere the jeering
couplet greeted her. That was not kind. Or wise!" she added in a lower
tone.
"Mother Waldrun, you are right: it was not well done, but no harm was
meant."
"Yes, yes, Odin placed the song in your reckless lips and gave you the
winged words, the biting jest. You cannot help it! Wherever you see a
tempting mark, the arrow of a mocking speech whizzes from your mouth."
"But unvenomed, unbarbed. A blunt little shaft like that with which we
strike the pretty red-breast, Donar's favorite, not to harm it, nay,
only to capture it unhurt and bear it home to our hearths that it may
sing sweetly to us year after year."
"Beware! Everything that has the red hue is passionate, swift to
revenge, and slow to forgive.
"Yes," replied the youth laughing. "How runs another verse?
"'Dost vex little Red Hair?
I bid thee beware!
The fair one fear.
She's false and spits her ire
Like the fox and the fire.'"
Scarcely was the last line uttered when, high among the topmost boughs
of the lofty tree, a strange sound was heard. At the very summit the
noise resembled spitting and rattling, while below it was different,
like something sliding down the trunk. The first sounds undoubtedly
came from a little squirrel, which, startled by some disturbance,
chattering and hissing in fear or anger, sprang in a wide curve yet
with a sure leap from the topmost bough of the tree to a neighboring
oak which stood at a considerable distance.
CHAPTER V.
Adalo's glance followed the little creature's bound, which really
resembled flying.
But meanwhile, from amid the dense foliage in the centre of the tree a
figure clad in the dress of a girl slid nimbly down the trunk, and as
soon as she reached the ground, smoothed her garments carefully from
her knees to her ankles. With her dainty, sparkling beauty, her almost
childlike delicacy of form, this apparition looked less like a mortal
maiden than a spirit of light.
She wore no cloak. Her white linen robe, with its cherry-red border and
girdle of the same hue a hand's breadth wide, left her neck and arms
bare; her complexion, wherever any portion of her almost too slenderly
moulded figure was visible, gleamed with the dazzling whiteness of
ivory; the unusually heavy dark-red eyebrows, which nearly met in the
centre but were beautifully arched, frowned threateningly, and her
clear blue eyes were now flashing with wrath. The vision attracted
rather by the vivacious charm of expression and the perfect symmetry of
her dainty figure than by regular beauty. For it must be confessed,
though the charming inquisitive little nose did not actually turn
up--by no means--it was really a little too short. And, as it sloped
sharply away at the end, the space between it and the upper lip became
too long, thereby giving the oval face when in repose an expression
half of alert surprise, half of mischievous wilfulness.
Everything about this dainty dragon-fly was so delicate that the young
girl might easily have been taken for a child, had not her rounded bust
revealed her womanhood. Wonderfully charming was the little mouth,
whose lips were so full that they seemed to pout mirthfully, while
their hue rivalled the red border of her robe. A dimple in the chin and
a slight tendency to a double chin lent the face that innocent
sweetness without which woman's beauty fails to attract.
The most remarkable thing about this elfin vision was her hair--hair
whose bright red hue was the very tint of flame--which rippled around
her brow and temples in a thousand wilful little ringlets as if each
individual one curled separately. They seemed to frame the face
protectingly, as thorns cluster about a rosebud. The rest of her locks,
after the Suabian fashion, were combed upward toward the crown, knotted
there, and then flowed in magnificent tawny waves, somewhat darker in
tint, over her dazzlingly white neck far below her waist.
The expression of saucy defiance, inquisitive surprise, nay even
superiority, enhanced by this arrangement of the hair, was still
further heightened by the little creature's habit of raising her heavy
eyebrows as if in mingled astonishment and reproof. In the charm of the
contradiction lay a temptation to smile which this fragile elf, with
her pert little nose and sparkling blue eyes, seamed to discover--and
if necessary instantly resent.
An extremely strong will, a hot, ungovernable temper, and the sweetness
of a half unfolded bud, were contrasts which provoked a smile--nay,
almost irresistibly awakened a desire to try what the impetuous little
thing would do if her swift wrath were aroused. But when she raised her
eyes with a more gentle expression, they were so bewitchingly
beautiful, so pure, so tender, so soulful, that enthusiastic admiration
made the spectator forget the inclination to tease her.
True, at this moment the elf looked by no means angelic, but thoroughly
evil, as, darting only one swift glance of furious rage at the tall
young noble, she seized the old woman violently by the shoulder and in
a low voice stifled by suppressed fury--cried: "Grandmother!--Away!--To
the marshes! Zercho the bondman must guide us. Away!"
"Gently, child, gently! Did not you hear? It will be safer on the
mountain."
"Safer perhaps for us; but not for those whom we--no, whom _I_ should
then be near. Go," she cried furiously to the youth, "save yourself, I
advise you, from the red-hair. 'False and spitting her ire like the fox
and the fire.' Was that the way it ran, you witty fellow? As soon as
the daughter of our neighbor Ero, giggling with spiteful mirth, told me
your last jibe against me, I climbed the hay-ladder to the ridge-pole
of our house and painted our white star up there red: painted it very
thick and bright, so that you could see it from the edge of the forest
and keep far away from the evil color. Very far--do you hear?"
CHAPTER VI.
Adalo had now recovered from his astonishment.
"I knew," he said, smiling, "that the elves of light dwell above our
heads; but I was not aware that they had nests among the boughs of the
oaks."
"And why not? If you reproach me with being an elf of light."
"It is no reproach, I should think. What says the elf-song? 'Fairest
fair are not the ases, but the elves.'"
"'Sharp is the bite of the squirrel, but Bissula's is sharper still.'
You yourself classed me with the biting animals, so do not wonder that
I fled to my red, snarling, biting sisters when I heard in the distance
the haughty footfall of the hated Adalo. I detected your approach even
sooner than the long-practised ear of my blind grandmother. Hate is
quick to hear."
"Do you hate me?" asked the youth. His voice sounded low and sad.
"Forgive her, Adalo! She is but a child."
"No, grandmother, I am a child no longer; I shall see my eighteenth
winter when the next snow falls. The child tried to defend herself
against superior strength. She was too weak; but now something within
me struggles against your arrogance--I know not what it is; it glows
here in my breast, and believe me, this thing within is stronger than
my hands once were: you cannot conquer."
"I do not wish to conquer; I seek to protect you and your grandmother."
"The head of our clan will protect us--Suomar, her son, my uncle and
guardian."
"Suomar thought that you would be safer on Odin's Mountain."
"Because my good uncle did not suspect that you were only trying to win
fresh renown by new couplets. Something like this:
'Bitterly bites Bissula! But back
Repentant she ran, in fear of the Romans;
To Adalo, the Adeling!'
You hear--I too can make verses."
"Evil words," said Waldrun reprovingly, "which were not given to you by
Odin the Wise, but by Loki! Why do you scorn the protection your
neighbor offers? You grew up together like brother and sister, constant
playfellows on the shore and the lake."
"Until the neighbor discovered that he was the rich, strong young
noble, skilled in song; the 'handsome' Adalo--as all the silly girls
whisper. He handsome? He is hideous. His name is forever ringing in
one's ears throughout the whole region in every dwelling along the
lake. Who is the boldest hero in the Roman war? The stoutest swimmer,
the most successful hunter? The victor in wrestling, hurling stones,
casting the spear? Who leaps highest in the sword dance? To whom do
even the gray-beards listen in the Council? At whom do the maidens peep
at the sun-festival? Adalo! Adalo! Adalo!--The arrogant fellow! It is
unbearable."
The angry maiden pressed both little clenched hands over her eyes to
shut out the sight of the foe she so fervently hated.
"Would arrogance bring me here with this entreaty?"
"Ay; sheer arrogance! When, during the spinning in the winter and the
hay-making in the autumn, the girls talked about you, I said little; I
only listened. It was rumored that Jetto, the rich lord of the manor,
was beginning--he took the first step--to treat with Adalo concerning a
marriage with his daughter, Jettaberga. Jettaberga is the handsomest
girl in the lake region--"
"That is not true," said Adalo earnestly.
"Her kinsmen, next to your own family, have the largest number of
spears and of cattle, are the richest in shields and in lands."
"That is true," he answered, nodding assent. "But Adalo refused the
offer as soon as it was sufficiently well known in the neighborhood
that Jetto himself had proposed to give him his daughter because both
clans would have profited by the alliance--"
"Especially Jetto!" interrupted Waldrun. "And because Jettaberga
thought the young nobleman was handsomer than any other man."
"That is probably _not_ true!" remarked the latter, smiling pleasantly.
"Yes, it is true!" exclaimed Bissula vehemently. "Don't deny it. She
told me so."
"I wish to hear nothing about it, Bissula--chatterer!" said the
grandmother reproachfully.
The girl bit her lips.
"Pshaw, he knew it; or he believed he knew it, as he believes it of all
girls. And so it must seem to him and his companions that Bissula also
(who, it is true, is neither rich nor beautiful--only Bissula, who is
defiant and tameless), that I, too, instead of going to the marshes
would rather flee to the Holy Mountain--to Adalo! But"--and now her
eyes blazed with an almost menacing light--"you shall never boast of
_that_!"
"But if I command?" warned the old woman.
"Then I'll run off to the swamps alone. Forgive me, dear, dear
grandmother; but Suomar is my guardian, not you. Did he command?
Speak!"
"He only advised," replied Adalo reluctantly.
"Then I am free! Advice may be followed or not. But know this: If you
had lied--"
Adalo's face blanched.
"Insolent girl!" said the grandmother reprovingly.
"Oh, I know--he never lies; but it is not from truthfulness, but pride.
If you had pretended that my guardian had given a command--I would
rather have leaped into the deepest part of the lake than have gone
with you."
"What foolish defiance! He speaks only from anxiety."
"He speaks from arrogance. The vain fellow weaves a wreath composed of
every flower to deck his curly head: Bissula, the red heather-blossom,
must not be wanting."
"The red heather-blossom alone must adorn my life," said the youth
earnestly.
Bissula started: every tinge of color faded from her face, and
trembling violently she clasped her grandmother's arm for support.
The latter, however, with a keenly intent expression, turned her head
toward Adalo. "What words were those you dared to utter?"
"Earnest ones. I am under no man's authority. I am old enough to lead a
wife to my home, strong enough to protect her. Well then, Bissula,
playmate of my childhood, come with me! I will give whatever Suomar
demands. I love you better than any one else can do. Come with me to
the Holy Mountain, that I may protect you there--my betrothed bride!"
CHAPTER VII.
The young girl clung still closer to Waldrun, but the latter started up
in alarm and hastily pressed her hand upon Bissula's heart.
"How it throbs!" she murmured. Then, raising her left hand, as if to
keep the youth back, her right drew the folds of her ample cloak over
the brushing girl's sweet face. "Go," she said warningly. "Suspicion
seizes me also. It is ignoble for you to dare utter the words of wooing
to two defenceless women, confusing the girl, and inspiring vain, idle
thoughts. That is not the honorable custom of our people. If your suit
was serious you ought first to have spoken to Suomar, the guardian: he
gives my granddaughter's hand, not she herself. Whoever means marriage
deals with the guardian; whoever seeks mere amusement and dallying
coaxes the girl. Go! I doubt you!"
Adalo laid his hand upon his breast with a gesture of protest, but ere
he could speak Bissula glided from beneath the shelter of her
grandmother's cloak. Her cheeks were glowing; her red locks fairly
bristled; it seemed as if one could almost hear them crackle; her angry
eyes blazed, and springing forward, she pushed the youth with both
hands, but had no power to stir the tall figure.
"Yes, go!" she cried. "I do not doubt. Even Waldrun, who always speaks
in your behalf, distrusts you, and she cannot see your arrogant face,
the victorious smile on your proud lips, the light in your sparkling
eyes! There--see how the feigned expression of good-will vanishes from
your features; how resentfully you rear your head! Ay, that is the
noble, the swift, strong, handsome man, who believes that the god of
wishes must grant every whim, every caprice of his favorite. _You_ mate
with a poor girl! _you_ lead red-haired Bissula to your home! Besides,
I am called Bissula only by my friends; to strangers my name is
Albfledis. Waldrun is right: the blind woman has seen. If you were in
earnest you would have gone to the guardian."
She drew back and seized her grandmother's arm. "Come! let us return to
the house."
But Adalo, his tall figure drawn up to its full height, barred their
way. Grief and anger were contending for the mastery in the expression
of his handsome face.
"I was in earnest, the deepest earnest. Freya knows it. Soon Frigga
will know also. I did not speak to Suomar, because I did not wish, like
most men, to obtain the girl solely by her guardian's command; I
desired not only her hand and her person, but her heart, her love. I
was sure of Suomar."
"Do you hear his arrogance, grandmother?"
"It is not arrogance. What can your uncle bring against me? Nothing!
And we have always been friendly neighbors. He would not have refused
me; but I did not want you as a gift from another, you defiant
creature. I wanted the playmate of my childhood to give herself to me.
Yes, I confess I hoped that she retained from those childish days a
little--just a little affection."
"Presumptuous fellow!"
"And now the hour and the danger loosed my tongue. The Romans are
approaching. Who knows what they may bring us? But you have repulsed me
with undeserved suspicion, disdained my loyal aid. True,"--here his
brow contracted with mingled grief and anger,--"perhaps the foe will
not injure _you_."
"What do you mean?" asked Waldrun. Her tone expressed dread of some
fresh cause for contention between the two young people. Bissula,
without speaking, darted a flashing glance at him.
"For years," Adalo went on with suppressed indignation, "you have had
friends among these hated enemies--at least one friend. Perhaps he will
return hither with the cohorts now threatening us--the wise, eloquent,
and wealthy Senator! Of course a German noble, a 'Barbarian,' cannot
vie with him in gifts of jewels, rare fruit, and foreign flowers. That
I belong to your own people and he to our mortal foes--what care you?
You need, nay perchance you desire, neither marsh nor mountain as a
defence against your--friend!"
"Silence, Adalo! She was then only thirteen. The noble Roman might be
her father, nay, almost her grandfather."
"But he was so clever! He understood how to choose his words so
skilfully that usually I could not comprehend them at all. And
Albfledis was so fond of listening to the language of the foe!"
"At least," the girl hastily retorted, "Ausonius never used the
language of insolent mockery to the child. And since you have provoked
me to it, I tell you: yes, if the noble, kindly Roman should ever come
again and wish, as he did then, to take me with him as his child to his
beautiful country, his splendid pillared mansion,--listen,--I would
rather go with him, his daughter, than listen to you and your
contemptuous suit."
"Stay, Albfledis," said the youth, drawing himself up proudly, "Enough!
My suit? It is ended forever. Never will I repeat it--I swear by this
spear. You have scorned me--have openly preferred the Roman. Hear my
vow, in the presence of your ancestress and the all-seeing sun: Never
again will Adalo woo you. Though the ardent longing of my heart should
consume me, I will die ere I approach you again with words of
entreaty."
"Alas!" wailed the blind woman, "alas for my dearest wish! Is it never
to be fulfilled?"
"If it should be. Mother Waldrun, Albfledis must first come to me in my
hall, and say: 'Adalo, here I am! Take me for your wife!'"
"Oh, what shameless insolence!" cried Bissula, frantic with grief and
rage. Seizing one of the blocks of stone which formed the rude table
before the oak, she tried to hurl it at the hated man. Her little hands
tore at the jagged rock without avail, till the fingers bled, but the
heavy block remained unmoved, and bursting into tears of helpless rage,
she flung herself upon the ground.
The old woman bent over her, listening anxiously to her sobs, but Adalo
had neither seen nor heard aught of these things. Even as he uttered
the last words, he turned his back upon the women, his face dark with
pride and anger, and throwing his spear over his shoulder, leaped down
the slope so swiftly that his yellow locks floated wildly around his
handsome head.
CHAPTER VIII.
Days had passed since the incident related in the last chapter. The
Romans had entered the country without encountering the slightest
resistance. After encamping on the summit of Meersburg and resting
during the following day, they had set forth again and, turning
somewhat inland from the lake and its swampy shores, reached the
Idisenhang.
Finding this commanding position undefended, they had formed a
permanent camp here at the spot agreed upon with the troops which had
embarked on the fleet. As soon as this seemed sufficiently fortified to
be defended by a small garrison left behind, and their comrades in
Arbon had the fleet ready, the latter were to cross, land, and begin
the pursuit of the invisible Barbarians.
But scarcely had Nannienus seen from Arbon on the opposite shore that
the column sent by land had reached the spot appointed and established
a camp, when he despatched by a swift fisher-boat tidings which
threatened to defer the progress of the enterprise for an indefinite
time. As soon as the experienced commander reached the Roman post he
discovered that the equipment of the necessary vessels would require
far more time than had been expected.
The reports of the magistrates and officers to the distant Emperor,
which represented a considerable portion of the old Roman fleet as
still in existence and, moreover, strengthened by newly built ships,
proved false and shamefully exaggerated: these unprincipled men,
corrupt, like nearly all the officials in the Empire, had concealed
their numerous defeats in which the Barbarians had gradually destroyed
these ships; they had then appropriated the money furnished to build
new ones, and reported them completed.
This was the discovery made by the Comes of Britannia, who announced
with fierce indignation--he had sent the treacherous quaestors and
nauarchs in chains to the Emperor at Vindonissa--that though he had
ordered work to be carried on in the little dockyard night and day, the
intended landing must be deferred to a considerably later period.
Energetic Saturninus was incensed by this enforced idleness: but he
could do nothing save vituperate the corruption of the magistracy, the
Empire, the whole age, and--wait.
The richly decorated tent intended for the Prefect of Gaul was pitched
upon the very summit of the height which is now occupied by the
cemetery of the village of Berg. Soft rugs, piled one above another,
covered the ground; a couch was placed against the back of the leather
tent, and beside it stood a table adorned with costly drinking-vessels.
An old freedman, a slave, and the cup-bearer were engaged in giving the
last touches. There were places for three on the horseshoe-shaped
couch, and a row of goblets stood on the table; for, though the c[oe]na
had been served in the Tribune's tent, the Prefect had invited him and
his nephew to take some choice wine after the meal in the Praetorian
one.
While the servants were busied in preparing the table, the loose
leather at the poles in the rear of the tent was repeatedly raised
noiselessly and then dropped again. No one observed it. Two of the men
now went out, but the cupbearer still lingered to wipe again and again
the inside of a magnificent silver goblet, which, supported by three
graceful female figures, bore the inscription: "The graces to their
favorite, Ausonius."
"Not ready yet, Davus?" the old freedman had asked in a tone of
vexation, as he turned away.
"No, Prosper. You know our master will drink only from this cup, the
Emperor's gift, and he is so particular about it."
The slave was scarcely alone when the leather flap of the tent was
again raised, a watchful face was thrust cautiously in. "Alone at
last!" a voice whispered.
"I was waiting for you, my lord."
"Well? To-day? At the nocturnal carouse?"
"No. I dare not attempt it yet. Your uncle is as well as he was at home
in Burdigala. Let him first sicken under this Barbarian sky, the
unwonted fatigues of camp life in the rain and swamps; then it will be
easier. But now--in perfect health? No, no! Have patience. Wait a
little longer."
"I cannot. My creditors, the usurers, are hounding me to the death;
have followed me here to the camp. And this region, this neighborhood,
as you know, is more perilous to me than any other spot in the whole
world. So hasten!"
"As soon as he begins to ail a little I'll do it at once. But I must
confess--"
"What?"
"The vial of poison you gave me, I--"
"Lost? You blockhead!"
"No, it is broken. During the steep ascent of the mountain recently I
slipped, struck my breast against a boulder, and crushed the little
bottle, whose contents all poured out."
"Alas, then where else--"
"Have no fear, my lord. I've seen hemlock enough growing in these
marshy meadows to poison our whole army. I have already begun to gather
and dry it. Do you the same, and as soon--"
Loud voices and the clank of weapons were heard; the face vanished, and
the slave passed through the doorway of the tent into the open air.
CHAPTER IX.
Directly after, Ausonius and Saturninus entered the Praefectorian tent
from the _Via Principalis_, while Herculanus, coming from the rear,
passed in with them. The host shared his seat on the couch with his two
guests.
He was a man of fifty-two, but his stately figure showed few signs of
approaching age, and his noble face lacked none of the characteristics
of the patrician Roman in the modelling of the forehead, nose, and
finely arched brows.
But the mouth had smiled so often--probably far too often in self
complacency--that it had forgotten how to close with firm decision; it
was much too weak for a man. And the light-brown eyes, so pleasant and
kindly, so content with everything and everybody--and not least with
Ausonius--betrayed more plainly than any other feature the approach of
age; their glance had lost the fire of youth. They seemed weary, not of
life but of reading; for Ausonius had been professor, rhetorician,
tutor of princes, and poet. In those days that meant a man who read an
immense amount and, in default of elevating thoughts of his own,
extracted with the industry of a bee the ideas of the writers of four
centuries, tore them asunder, and put them together again in such tiny
fragments that his readers and himself believed them to be new ones of
his own and would have found it very difficult to separate the mosaic
into its borrowed portions. Passions had never furrowed this smooth
face: the lines around the eyes were not graven by pain, but by the
passage of the years.
This kindly natured man, who himself saw everything on its best side,
thought the whole world most admirably arranged. He believed seriously
that all men who had not committed great crimes, and therefore deserved
punishment, fared just as well as the very, very wealthy, benevolent,
and much praised Decimus Magnus Ausonius of Burdigala (Bordeaux), the
delightful city of villas; that they fared as well as Ausonius, who was
petted by all who surrounded him, and who in the opinion of his
contemporaries--and especially his own--was the greatest poet of his
age. Even had this been true, it certainly would not have meant much.
This really amiable, kindly man, whose only fault was a little undue
self-satisfaction, was now playing the part which best suited him,--far
better than that of poet or statesman,--the part of the host who,
comfortable himself, desires to make all his guests equally so. His
pleasant, cheery, friendly kindness of heart, which would fain see
everybody happy, though of course without too much self-sacrifice,
found in this _rôle_ its fullest expression.
"There! now go, slaves." He waved his hand to those who had again
entered. "Look after yourselves--as we are doing. Go, too, my faithful
Prosper: take for yourself--and give to the others--the better wine
from Rhodanus; you know it. I saw how hard it was to drag the skins up
the steep hill. Go: we will serve ourselves." He stretched himself
comfortably on the lectus, thrusting under his head a soft downy pillow
filled with the feathers of German geese. "Give yonder amethyst goblet
to the Tribune, my dear nephew, for our Illyrian Hercules must drink
deeply! No, Saturninus, don't take the mixing vessel! The first
cup--unmixed. To the genius of the Emperor Gratianus!"
"It's lucky that the Emperor himself doesn't hear you," cried the
Tribune, laughing, as he put down the empty goblet. "I am neither
Christian nor pagan, only a soldier, and nobody asks about my faith.
But you! Gratianus's teacher! The Emperor is zealous in the true
religion. And you drink to his genius, as though we were living in the
reign of Diocletian! Are you a pagan, Prefect of Gaul?"
Ausonius glanced around to see that no slave was within hearing. Then
he smiled. "If I were a pagan, that is, if I had not been baptized, I
certainly should not be Prefect of Gaul. The dignity is probably worth
a few drops of water. They did not penetrate my skin. How could a poet
forget the old gods?"
"Yes, yes, if the learned mythological allusions should be effaced from
your verses, the brightest of the borrowed foreign feathers would be
plucked from Ausonius's raven."
"Tribune!" cried the nephew angrily,--he shouted much louder than was
necessary,--"you are speaking of the greatest Roman writer!"
"No, no," said the man thus lauded, very seriously, "there are probably
two or three greater ones."
"Forgive me, Ausonius," said Saturninus. "I understand battles, not
verses. Probably it is my own fault that yours don't suit me."
"You know too few of them," replied Herculanus reprovingly.
"I'm not of your opinion!" retorted the Illyrian, laughing. "I've never
had much time for reading. But I sometimes ride beside your uncle
through the olive woods of Aquitania, the vineyards of the Mosella, or
the marshy forests of the Alemanni: he has an inexhaustible memory and
can repeat his verses for miles."
"Yes," the poet assented complacently, "my memory must supply the place
of imagination."
"Wouldn't it be better if you had imagination, and your readers took
pleasure in remembering what it created?" asked the soldier.
"My uncle can repeat the whole of Virgil."
"Yes, that is evident--in his verses! The reader often doesn't know
where Virgil and Ovid end and Ausonius begins. But Ausonius prefers to
recite his own poetry."
The latter nodded pleasantly.
"That's the best thing about you. Prefect; though a little vain, like
all verse-writers, your heart is in the right place: a warm, kind heart
which never takes offence at a friend's jest."
"I should be both stupid and contemptible if I did that."
"As a reward I'll tell you now that I owe an exquisite night to one of
your poems--or a portion of it."
The poet, much pleased, raised himself on the lectus: "What poem?"
"Your 'Mosella.'"
"Yes, yes," replied Ausonius smiling, "I like it very much, too."
"It is divine!" Herculanus protested.
"I'm no theologian," said Saturninus, laughing, "to understand divine
things. But the most beautiful part of the poem is the description of
the various kinds of fish in the river."
"Yes, yes," observed the author, smiling as he slowly sipped his wine,
"verses eighty-two to one hundred and forty-nine: they are very pretty,
especially the euphony."
"Oh, never mind the euphony. I read it in the evening, and fell
asleep."
"Barbarian!" exclaimed the poet. "But in my dreams I saw before me the
most delicious fish; the salm--"
"'Thee, too, I praise, O salmon, with thy roseate flesh!'"
Ausonius quoted.
"The trout."
"'Then the trout, its back besprinkled with tiny crimson
stars.'
"That's what I call a fine line."
"The grayling."
"'And the swift grayling, escaping from the eye with
rapid leaps!'"
"Yes, but not as you describe them, alive in the Mosella--there is
nothing I enjoy eating more than a fine fish! No, I saw them before me
on silver dishes, baked, broiled, and in dainty stews; and in my dream
I tasted them all. When I woke, I licked my lips and blessed Ausonius:
no poet has ever given me so much pleasure."
He laughed and drained his goblet.
CHAPTER X.
"I am generous," replied Ausonius. "It pleases me to discover in this
way a favorite dish of my usually Spartan friend. I will avenge myself
by placing before you, if possible, the delicious fish this lake
contains; for in its green depths are balche and trout of the most
delicate flavor. They are even better than those of the Mosella: I
could surely have supplied you with them if the Barbarians had not all
fled from the shore before our troops. When, five years ago, I spent
several months on the opposite side in Arbor Felix, to investigate the
condition of the frontiers, what magnificent fish I had!" Then, as if
lost in reverie, he sighed: "Ah, those were happy days! My dear wife,
my gentle Sabina, was living."
"Hail to thy memory, Attusia Lucana Sabina!" said the nephew.
"And my dear children! Then my beautiful, spacious house in the city,
and the charming villa outside the Garumna gate were not empty and
desolate. How gaily the songs of the young girls echoed through the
country during the season when the vine blossoms poured forth their
fragrance! Then I still saw around me the beloved faces of my kindred,
did not stand alone, poor with all my wealth, as now--"
"Uncle!" interrupted Herculanus, trying to assume a tone of most tender
reproach, in which, however, he was not entirely successful. "Stand
alone? Have you not me, who love you so tenderly?"
The Tribune gazed coldly at the over-zealous nephew.
But Ausonius replied kindly: "Certainly, my dear fellow, you are left
to me, but you alone out of the whole circle of my family swept away in
a single year by the pestilence: my Sabina, my three children, my two
sisters and two sweet young nieces. Can you alone fill the places of
all? I often feel so lonely. And you are a man. My gentle wife, my
daughters, my sisters, my nieces, how I miss them! I confess it: I need
the melody of women's voices, their graceful movements around me. I
miss something!"
The young Roman, excited, hastily seized the goblet. The Tribune looked
him keenly in the face and, without averting his eyes from the nephew,
suddenly said to the uncle in a very loud tone: "You must marry again!"
Then the Illyrian turned away from Herculanus: he seemed to have seen
enough.
"Yes," said Ausonius slowly, almost solemnly, "I have often thought of
it. It is a serious, a very serious matter--at my age."
"At any age," said Saturninus. "Years will not stand in your way. You
are perhaps fifty?"
"Fifty-two," sighed the Prefect. "And my hair is gray!"
"Not very yet! Besides, mine is too. In my case from the weight of the
helmet. And it is becoming. You are a--"
"Handsome old man, you are going to say," replied Ausonius smiling.
"That is not exactly what pleases maidens."
"Well, you need not choose a girl of sixteen."
"But not one much older!" said the poet quickly. "No, my friend! I want
youth and charm near me."
"That you may have too," said the Illyrian. "You can select from your
whole province, nay, the whole Empire. You, the highest official in
Gaul, the Emperor's tutor and favorite, the celebrated poet and--"
"And the richest match in the whole West," interrupted the nephew
sharply. Hitherto he had remained persistently silent, his eyes cast
down and the expression of his mouth covered by his hand. "The richest
gray beard on this side of the Alps!" he added.
"Yes, that is it," said Ausonius bitterly. "Herculanus only says openly
and frankly what has secretly tortured me so much all these years, nay,
what has alone deterred me. You know, my friend,--or rather, you blunt
Tribune of the camp, you do not know,--for what reasons parents in our
large cities marry their daughters, nay, how these girls themselves,
almost before they have laid aside their dolls, instantly look out for
'a good catch'! In sooth, neither Eros nor Anteros, but Hermes and
Plutus unite couples now."
"Yes, they marry only for money!" cried Herculanus wrathfully. "I am
poor; the girls all shun me--"
The Tribune was about to answer, but only laughed and drank his wine.
"Although I am nearly thirty years younger than my uncle! Fathers,
mothers, guardians, nay, even the forward girls themselves, all cajole
him, till I can scarcely warn and guard enough."
"That's the way the bee-keeper guards the honey from the mice," growled
the Illyrian under his breath.
"My nephew is perfectly right. A friend of mine, Erminiscius, a rich
merchant who deals in gems, fifty years old, married a girl of twenty.
A week after, she disappeared with all his antique jewels and--his
youngest freedman. Another, Euronius, a large owner of vineyards,
somewhat older, married a young widow of twenty-five; that is--he was
married by her; for she did not rest until she had him. Even before the
wedding he was obliged to make his will; she dictated it to him word
for word. He died at the next kalends--violent colic. I did not like it
at all; I hate colic! And so many wild cherries grew close by his
garden! You ought to see how much this double widow enjoys life now.
She once paid me a visit--she is very beautiful and was bewitchingly
amiable to me; but I thought of the dead Euronius's colic, and escaped
unwedded. I don't imagine in all cases an elopement or a wild-cherry
cake; every one is neither a Helena nor a Locusta. Suspicion is not
usually one of my faults."
"Rather the contrary," observed Saturninus.
"But, I confess it, my gray hairs make me distrustful. I should be so
unhappy--Apollo's richest laurels would not heal the wound--if I were
forced to believe that I had been married only for the sake of my
wealth. I do not deserve it."
"No indeed, you do not," cried the Tribune, pressing his hand warmly.
"Your heart is tender, kind, and frank. Whoever feigned love for the
sake of your money would be contemptible. And I hope that you may yet
see a band of children playing around your knees in the beautiful villa
gardens on the flowery shores of your beloved Garumna."
Ausonius smiled. The picture seemed to please him. Then his eye met the
glance of his nephew, who seemed to be gazing into the distance less
complacently. "Don't be uneasy, Herculanus," he said. "Even if it
should be so, my will would not forget you. And your creditors," he
added, smiling compassionately.
"Will! What an ill-omened word! Far be it," cried the young Roman.
"Well, people don't die from making wills, or I should have left the
living long ago. A Roman citizen sets his house in order for every
emergency, death included. So, though Herculanus according to the law
would now be my sole heir, I made my will before the magistrate in
Burdigala before joining the army, formally naming him my heir: a few
little legacies and the liberation of some faithful slaves still
remain. To you, Saturninus," he added, laughing, "I shall bequeath
after my return, in a codicil, a valuable memento of this evening."
"Well?"
"A copy of the 'Mosella'; but the verses about the fish are to be cut
out by way of punishment."
He quaffed his wine, pleased with his own jest.
CHAPTER XI.
"You must and will survive me, my noble friend! The Tribune will soon
lie where he belongs: on his shield. But you still belong to Burdigala,
in your tasteful house filled with rare works of art (what hospitality
I enjoyed there the last time I was wounded!), or to Rome, in the
Senate; not here, in the marshy forests of these Alemanni. Why (you
always liked to accompany the Emperor to Vindonissa)--why did you, a
man of peace and of leisure, join this military campaign? It has no
attraction for you! What have you to obtain on the Barbarian shores of
this lake?"
"I? I am seeking for something here," replied Ausonius, after some
little hesitation.
"Laurels of Mars to add to those of Apollo?"
"Not at all; only--a memory!"
Herculanus cast a sharp glance full of meaning at his uncle.
"Or, if you prefer it, a dream, the fulfilment of a dream. I believe in
dreams."
"Of course," said the Tribune, smiling, "like all poets! I care more
for waking thoughts."
"When I reached the army over yonder in Vindonissa, a lovely charming
memory of a child rose vividly before me; a child equally bewitching in
mind and person, whom I knew and loved here several years ago."
"A boy?"
"No, a girl."
"Ho, ho, pedagogue of the Emperor!" cried the Tribune, laughing.
Herculanus did not enter into the jest; he was silently watching
Ausonius's every look.
"Oh, calm yourself! Bissula is a girl about twelve years old--that
is--she was in those days. She and a Sarmatian boy brought to Arbor
every week the fish her uncle had caught on the northern shore of the
lake. And how delightfully she talked! Even her Barbarian Latin sounded
sweetly from her cherry-red lips. We became the best of friends. I gave
her--she would accept neither money nor costly jewels--trifling
articles, especially seeds of fine Gallic fruit and flowers from
Garumna for her little garden. She told me strange stories of the gods
and fauns in the woods, the nymphs in the lakes and springs here in the
country,--but she gave them different names,--and the mountain giants
opposite, whose white heads glittered in the sunset light. And I--I--"
"You read the 'Mosella' to her, of course!" laughed Saturninus.
"Certainly. And the little Barbarian girl showed a better appreciation
of it than the great Roman general. It was not the fish that pleased
_her_ best--"
"I can easily believe it: she had better ones herself, you said just
now."
"But the descriptions of the vineyards and villas along the river. And
when I told her that in my home on the Garumna were far, far handsomer
and richer houses, full of marble, gold, bronze, and ivory, adorned
with brightly painted walls and mosaics; that I myself owned the most
beautiful palaces and magnificent gardens full of leaping water,
foreign stags and deer, and birds with sweet songs or brilliant
plumage; when I spoke of the deep blue of the sky and the golden light
of the sun in the glorious land of Aquitania where almost perpetual
summer reigned, she could not hear enough in prose and verse of the
splendor of our country and the magnificence and art of our life. Once
she clapped her little hands in surprise and delight, exclaiming: 'Oh,
father, I should like to see that too. Just one day!' But I had grown
so fond of the gay, sweet child that, with a thrill of joy at the
thought, I answered: 'Come, my little daughter, not for a day--forever.
If your guardian will consent, I will adopt you as my child and take
you to Burdigala. How gladly my wife will welcome you! My daughters
will treat you as a dear sister. You shall become a Roman maiden!'
"But, like a frightened deer, she sprang from my lap, ran off, leaped
into her boat, rowed swiftly across the lake, and did not return for
many days. I was full of anxiety lest I had driven her away forever. At
last--it was a time of complete peace--I had myself rowed across the
lake to its northern shore and guided to her hut in the forest. But she
had scarcely caught sight of me when, with a loud cry of terror, she
climbed into a huge oak as nimbly as a woodpecker and hid herself among
the branches. She would not come down again until I had solemnly
promised, in the presence of her uncle and her grandmother, not to take
her away and never even to say a word about it: 'For,' she said, with
tears in her eyes, 'in that hot country I should die of homesickness
for my own family, the neighbors, nay, even for the mountain, the
meadow, and lake, like the forest flowers transplanted from the marshy
soil into dry sand.'"
"A sensible child," remarked the Tribune thoughtfully, stroking his
beautiful brown beard. "So she is pretty?"
"I think so!" cried Herculanus: the voice sounded almost savage.
"Why, nephew, you have never seen her."
"But you have described her to us often enough! I could paint her, with
her bright red locks."
"And her name is Bissula?" Saturninus added.
"Yes, 'the little one,'" replied Ausonius, "for she is very slender and
delicate of limb. I then saw her regularly again, but kept my promise
not to ask her to go with me. When I bade her farewell, she wept with a
child's loving tears. 'With you,' she said 'I part from a warm, bright,
beautiful world, into which, as it were, I peeped, standing on tiptoe,
over a curtain.'
"Recently, on reaching Vindonissa--during my journey through the
country I had thought much of the charming child--I saw her before me
in a dream the first night, encircled by a poisonous serpent. Her eyes
were raised to mine, imploring help, I woke with a cry, and my heart
grew heavy at the thought of what might befall the lovely girl--for she
must have become beautiful--if our cohorts bring all the horrors of war
into the forests along the shore of the lake. And I confess, it was
principally to see that child again--perhaps to protect her until the
war should be over--that I entreated the Emperor to permit me to join
this expedition."
CHAPTER XII.
"But I suppose you did not think your uncle's life would be
sufficiently safe under my protection, Herculanus, since you were so
eager to join us?" asked the Tribune.
Before the nephew could answer, Ausonius interrupted: "But--thank the
gods--our campaign will be bloodless: the Barbarians have abandoned the
country. Where can they have gone? What have you learned through your
spies of the movements of the enemy?"
"Nothing. That is the mysterious part of it. It seems as though the
earth had swallowed them. They are said to have numerous subterranean
passages and cellars, in which they conceal their provisions and
themselves in times of danger. We found it very difficult to obtain
spies among our colonists on the southern shore. They know very well
that we Romans come and go; the Alemanni remain in the country, and
they fear their vengeance. And deserters can no longer be had. In
former wars they were often mentioned. But the fact that there are no
renegades shows that self-reliance is increasing and the dread or hope
of Rome is declining. I could get only two volunteers--for a large sum
of money--to venture upon a reconnoitring expedition; the one who went
to the East returned without having seen a sign of the foe; the one
dispatched to the North has not yet appeared. And unfortunately we have
not taken even one prisoner. Not a sign of a human footprint have we
seen on the whole march along the lake. Once, it is true, I thought I
saw a light column of smoke rising from the dense growth of rushes
which stretches for leagues into the lake, and ordered the troops to
halt; but the tiny cloud instantly vanished."
"I can understand the strategy of our admirable General only by
crediting him with an almost offensive degree of caution," sneered the
commander of the mailed horsemen. "By Hercules! Wherever they may hide,
the Barbarians cannot be a day's march from us."
"Yes," Ausonius assented. "Yet I should think we might be strong enough
to seek them and drive them from their hiding places."
Saturninus frowned slightly. "Your nephew's opinion of my courage gives
me no concern. But you, Prefect, have again forgotten that, by the
Emperor's orders, we are not to disperse the Barbarians, but to
surround them and force them to submission. We are too weak for this
encircling, and must wait for the ships. Unless our fleet should block
the lake, they will again escape, as they have often done, in their
boats. Stick to your hexameters, my Pierian friend, and leave the
Barbarians to me: it will be better for all concerned."
"Except the Barbarians!" replied Ausonius smiling, extending his hand
to his friend.
"Who are probably the leaders of the enemy?"
"The Romans on the southern shore mention two names. The rest of the
Alemanni provinces are mainly ruled by kings."
"So far do Germans carry royalty," nodded the learned Prefect. "May
they always continue to be divided into numberless provinces under
their hedge kings and village magistrates, whom each man obeys as much
as he chooses."
"It seems that this state of things has changed. Many provinces are
united in leagues, which hold together in peace as well as in war. The
men of Linzgau have no king now, it appears, only an aged count. But he
must be a man of powerful intellect, since the gray-haired Hariowald
has been chosen commander-in-chief of all the provinces leagued against
us. True, we have not to deal solely with the Lentienses. After
centuries of folly these Barbarians are beginning to discover that
'liberty,' that is, the privilege of doing what each man pleases
without regard to his neighbor, is, though a delightful, a somewhat
dangerous pleasure, and that with such 'liberty' they will be forever
our bondmen, so long as one province looks on with malicious pleasure
while we subjugate another with which it has had a quarrel--till its
own turn comes. Formerly they preferred to place their surplus of young
men at our disposal rather than have them obey the commands of one of
their own people, but for some time there has been a change; even those
splendid soldiers, my Batavians, no longer wish to remain with me, and
will not renew their oath of service. We no longer hear the names of
numberless small peoples: five or six great leagues fill the whole
country from the Ister to the Suabian Sea. It has long made me uneasy.
That old man is now the commander-in-chief of all the Germans allied
against us."
"Commander-in-chief of the Alemanni!"
"Don't laugh at them, Ausonius! Ay, this leadership of the woodland war
has cost us much blood and many a dear-bought victory, since the days
of that Quinctilius Varus. As the white-beard is said to be the head, a
young relative of his is called the arm, the sword, the fire-brand of
the conflict."
"What is his name?"
"Attalus."
"Adalo! That was one of Bissula's playmates. She often mentioned him. I
saw him frequently; he looked at me defiantly enough. Could it be he?"
"The women and men at our stations along the lake cannot say enough in
praise of his beauty and strength."
"Well, hitherto neither the warlike wisdom of the old man nor the
warlike zeal of the young one has showed itself," sneered Herculanus.
"Yes," laughed Ausonius. "Their wisdom is the resolve to run away, and
their zeal the energy with which they execute the decision."
But the Tribune, with frowning brow, cried: "Such speeches drive away
the goddess of victory and summon the avenger of foolhardiness. Jeer
after we have conquered--and even then, it is wiser not to do it.
Nemesis sleeps lightly."
"If you cannot discover where the Barbarians are hiding, what will you
do?"
"Seek them until I do find them and bring them to a halt."
"But then," cried Herculanus, "let there be no treaties, no mercy,
nothing save extermination. How often these faithless people have
broken the peace! Our legions are full of fury against the Barbarians
who, year after year, compel them to march through these horrible
marshy forests. Only the extirpation of the last German will give peace
to the Roman Empire." He clenched his fist threateningly.
"You have perhaps uttered words of prophecy," said Saturninus
thoughtfully, "but in a different sense from what you intended."
"He has uttered abominable words!" cried Ausonius, filling his goblet.
"And they are utterly groundless. Ay, more than a century ago it looked
as if the Persians and Germans under Gallienus would flood the Eastern
and the Western Empire. But since that time Eternal Rome has grown
young once more. Your brave countrymen, my Saturninus, the heroic
Illyrian emperors, have curbed the barbarians on the Euphrates, the
Rhine, and the Ister. Diocletian has remodelled the internal affairs of
the Empire; and so I might adapt to Rome's mastery of the world the
proud words of my colleague Horace: 'He did not lack talent, but he
possessed little learning.'"
"Do they belong to poetry?" asked Saturninus doubtfully.
But the eager speaker, without hearing his words, continued: "What he
said concerning the permanence and spread of his own renown I will
apply to the glory of Rome: it will increase and grow, so long as the
priest ascends the hill to the Capitol with the silent Virgin. The
Vestal," he added in explanation.
"H'm," observed the Illyrian, "only it's a pity that the hypothesis is
no longer apt."
"What? How so?"
"The pious Constantine, of murderous memory (I hear they want to
canonize the assassin of his mother and his wife) prohibited or
restricted the offering of sacrifices at the Capitol, and your pupil
and patron, Gratianus, recently abolished the Vestals."
CHAPTER XIII.
"Oh, that must not be taken so literally," Ausonius remarked.
"I am not superstitious. I rely possibly too much upon my sword and too
little upon heaven; and I care nothing about the Vestal virgins. But I
do not like the second step your pupil took last year in Rome."
"What do you mean?"
"He removed from the council-hall of the Senate the altar of the
goddess of victory, where sacrifices were offered before the opening of
debates."
"Constantine had removed it previously."
"But Julian, the mighty conqueror of the Alemanni, restored it. And, by
Jupiter!--pardon me, by God!--with good success. The priests called him
'the apostate,' but the goddess of victory was not unfaithful to him.
Now men fight stoutly, with or without the goddess of victory. But--I
am a Roman--I dread the omen."
"You see the matter in too dark colors."
"You see it in too rosy a light. Your kind heart wishes good to all."
"Yes, even to the Barbarians!" Ausonius nodded, raising his goblet.
"They are human beings, too. And as the Stoa, not the Galilean, first
taught, all men are brothers."
"But there are too many of these yellow-maned brothers."
"And I believe in a deity--call him by whatever name you choose--that
directs all things well. Therefore I believe that these Barbarians will
listen to reason and soon offer you their submission."
"Perhaps the little girl--what is her name? Bissula--will also
surrender to Ausonius," said the Tribune in a jesting tone.
"Oh, the dear child! If I could only see her again."
"Do not wish it, Prefect."
"Why?"
"Perhaps she will conquer you! She would not be the first Barbarian.
Was it Pipa--or Pipara--that the girl of the Marcomanni was called,
with whom even an emperor fell desperately and hopelessly in love?"
"You forget I wanted her for a daughter, not a wife."
"At that time. Now she is no longer a child--and you are a widower."
"Alas! she probably fled with her people long ago. And yet, I am so
ready to believe what I desire!"
"Yes, that is one of your most amiable weaknesses,"
"Am I to hope for what I fear?"
"No, but to think what we do not desire more probable than what we
wish--that is my wisdom."
"No, no! I will not allow myself to be robbed of the hope that I shall
again see the little nymph of these forests."
"But if I catch her," cried the Tribune, laughing, "she will be mine
according to the laws of war."
A sudden change of expression--like a flash of lightning--flickered
across Herculanus's hazard visage. The Tribune did not see; his eyes
were fixed upon Ausonius's face, wondering that his features should
pale with fear.
"Can this feeling be so deep-seated in my worthy friend?" he thought.
"Uncle, surely you know that the Tribune is jesting," cried Herculanus,
as if to comfort him.
The Illyrian turned toward him with a threatening bearing, saying in a
stern, grave tone: "Who tells you so?"
Ausonius cast a hasty, anxious glance at the handsome, stately man;
then he tried to smile, but the attempt was not very successful. "Your
jest brought before me the possibility of a terrible earnest. If the
charming, innocent child should fall into the hands of one of our
pitiless centurions! Horrible!"
"It has been the fate of thousands--pshaw, what am I saying--of many
hundred thousands, since we Romans bore our eagles over the world. You
poets--even you, my softhearted friend--are fond of singing the praises
of war. I tell you, he who knows and directs it rarely lauds it. War is
necessary. I laugh at the foolish weaklings who, like the worthy
stoics, or the monks, imagine that some day there will be a kingdom of
eternal peace. War is grand; death for one's native land is the most
powerful feeling that rules mankind; but war is horrible! To me it does
not matter," he added, laughing, as he drained his goblet. "I need only
make war, not answer for it, and above all, I need not sing its
praises, I am neither anvil nor lyre; I am hammer, and woe to the
vanquished! For a thousand years we have carried the terrors of our
victories to all nations: an unprecedented loyalty on the part of
Fortuna. But now--I hope I shall not witness it--now her wheel is
gradually rolling backward--toward us--over us!"
"Never!" cried the poet. "What can these half-naked Barbarians do
against us? So long as we have warriors like you and, for the service
of the Muses, minds--"
"Like Ausonius's, do you mean? Enviable self-reliance! I tell you, I
consider myself--and far better soldiers than I--incapable of resisting
this ever-advancing ocean which is called 'Germans.' I have gone
through many a campaign against them--against these very Alemanni. I
think they know my name! But there is something mysterious under this
surging multitude--I know not what--a motive power unintelligible to us
all, which can no more be resisted with sword and spear than the sea
itself. I have long sought the clue to the secret, yet cannot find it.
But so far as the service of the Muses is concerned--pardon a rude
soldier--we need peasants, not poets. There are only millionaires,
beggars, and slaves. Give me a hundred thousand free peasants of the
ancient Latin stock, and I'll sacrifice in return for them all the
Latin poets, dead and living, and once more believe in the future of
Rome. As things are--but it is already late," he cried, starting up.
"Let us seek our couches. We shall not be able to end this old
conflict of ours; coming generations will decide it, but not with
words. Good-night! Dream of Bissula--that we may find her: you believe
in dreams. For to-morrow--Nannienus has at least completed a couple of
ships which he will send to cruise along the northern shore--we will
make a little expedition eastward."
He raised the curtain and strode in his clanking armor out into the
darkness; he could not help thinking constantly of the beautiful
wood-nymph. Herculanus also took his leave, but he was scarcely outside
the tent when he shook his clenched fist threateningly toward the east,
muttering through his set teeth: "Wait, Barbarian witch!" But Ausonius
stretched himself on his camp bed, put out the light, and murmured:
"Sleep peacefully, my Bissula, wherever you may be; to-morrow perhaps I
shall once more see those never-to-be-forgotten eyes."
CHAPTER XIV.
At daybreak the tuba sounded through the Roman camp, summoning to
departure the bands who were to share the expedition.
"Where is my nephew?" asked Ausonius, mounting the beautiful gray
Cantabrian stallion, whose stirrup was held by old Prosper. "He is
usually the first at my bedside to greet me."
"He hastened on with his mailed riders long ago. He started even before
the Tribune."
"What zeal! I like that," said the uncle, patting the neck of his noble
steed. "At home in Burdigala he devoted his time solely to--"
"To spending your money, O patron!" growled the old man.
"Pshaw, never mind, graybeard! My money--it will soon be his money."
"May the Olympians--forgive me, the saints--forbid!"
"Put no restraint on yourself on my account. I prefer them too. They
have the advantage of suiting the metre better, at least most of them.
Where is Saturninus?"
"Gone already. He left word that you might follow: you could not miss
the way. See, there are the helmets of the last men in his rear-guard.
His countryman Decius commands them."
"I see. Forward! How beautifully the morning light smiles upon us. Help
me, unconquered sun-god!"
He put spurs to his horse and, followed by a brilliant train of mounted
men, dashed down the hill and through the Porta Principalis Dextra
eastward, toward the sun. A guide had sought the best path at the
earliest dawn, marking it by placing at certain spaces small stones
carried in bags by the pioneers who accompanied and watched him.
The Prefect of Gaul soon reached the path trodden by Adalo a few
days before, which led to Suomar's lonely forest dwelling. With a
throbbing heart he recognized the familiar spot: the little hill, the
broad-branched oak, the neighboring spring: nothing had changed in the
few years, except that another piece of tilled land had been wrested by
fire from the primeval forest.
At the fence which inclosed the court-yard he sprang from his horse; he
had ordered his escort to halt at the oak-tree. The blood suffused his
face, so intense was his anxiety. The narrow gate in the palisade stood
ajar. Entering the yard, he uttered a cry of joyful astonishment: a
little flower garden had been laid out beside the door of the house; he
recognized with emotion in the gay blossoms, now in the full bloom of
summer, the seeds and slips which he had given the child in Arbor, nay,
even ordered from Gaul. Italian and Gallic flowers and shrubs,
evidently tended by loving hands, splendid roses and evergreen yews
greeted him in thick beds, and also small fruit-trees. Pontine
cherries, Picentinian apples, Aquitanian pears, had grown as high as
the door.
"Yes, yes," said Ausonius, smiling, "how everything has grown and
blossomed in five years!" Then something whirred over his head; from
openings in the stable-roof a whole flock of dainty little blue-gray
doves flew across the garden to the neighboring field of oats. "See,"
cried Ausonius, looking after them. "My Lycian rock-doves from
Burdigala! How that one pair has multiplied!"
He hesitated to enter the house. Doubtless he told himself that the
hope of finding her he sought was faint, nay futile. But here
everything seemed to bear witness to her presence; there on the bench
before the dwelling lay--he knew them well--the delicate garden shears
which he had sent to her from Vindonissa. He did not wish to cross the
threshold and rob himself of every hope.
The clank of armor came from the open door: a centurion belonging to
Herculanus's troop approached, bowing respectfully. "Everything is
empty, _vir illuster_, the Tribune sends word. And we are to ask
you--we are burning all the Barbarians' houses--whether this too--"
"Let it remain uninjured."
The man nodded with a look of pleasure. "I am glad to obey the order.
It would have been a hard task to destroy this home. Umbrian roses,
Picentinian mallows, like those which grow around my parents' house in
Spoletium, in the midst of the Barbarians' marshes! Who can have
wrought this miracle?"
"A poet," replied Ausonius, smiling, "and the fourth, the youngest, of
the Graces. So Saturninus was here himself?"
"Yes, but even before him your nephew, with me. Herculanus searched
everywhere carefully, nay, greedily. He forbade my accompanying him. I
was obliged to wait at the entrance."
"The good fellow! He wanted to bring her to me himself, to surprise
me--"
"Directly after Herculanus left, Saturninus dashed up."
"Where did the troop go from here?"
"Yonder into the forest, keeping to the left, steadily to the left,
away from the lake. Otherwise horses and men would sink in the morass.
You will find sentinels posted in the woods every three hundred paces.
I, with three men, form the commencement of the chain here."
"See that the yard and garden are not injured. I'll promise in return a
jug of the best wine."
With these words he turned away, mounted his horse and, followed by his
escort, rode toward the left across the tilled land and meadows
surrounding the dwelling to the entrance of the neighboring wood, where
the helmets and spears of the next sentinels glittered brightly in the
sunshine.
But Herculanus had not been content with thoroughly searching the
deserted house. He had also carefully examined the neighborhood for
some trace of the vanished girl. He was soon unable to ride farther
through the tangled underbrush; so, leaping from his horse, he gave his
Mauritanian roan charger into the care of the only man he had permitted
to accompany him, and glided on foot through the thicket. A sort of
path which he had discovered with much difficulty and followed for some
distance suddenly ended.
While vainly searching for the stones and bits of wood which hitherto,
though at long distances, had marked the direction of the way, he saw
plainly in the marshy ground of the forest the imprint of human
footsteps. And the people who had passed here were not Romans: the
troops had never yet pressed so far eastward. Besides, the prints were
not like those made by the seeker's own heavy Roman marching shoes: he
intentionally trod lightly close beside the marks he had found, but how
different was the track! His deep footprints instantly filled with the
reddish-yellow marsh-water, which oozed from the ground at the least
pressure. But within a short time some one had walked by here
barefooted with a lighter tread. Indeed, not one person, but several.
For besides one mark which seemed to belong to a child, always one step
behind was a somewhat heavier and broader impression, and invariably at
the right of it a narrow but deep little hole filled with water, as if
made by the sharp end of a staff, while partly at the left, partly two
paces in advance, a man's heavier tread seemed unmistakable.
The Roman followed the footprints with eager zeal; if he did not find
those whom he sought, he would have the credit of being the first to
discover the direction in which the Barbarians had fled. Suddenly the
traces appeared to vanish, in front of a large hawthorn bush which
barred the way. From beneath the hand thrusting the thorns aside a
little brown bird with a red breast flew up startled. Bending forward,
the Roman peered into the bush, then a cry of glad surprise escaped his
lips: "Aha! She passed here! She herself!"
Slowly, slowly he drew through his hand a shining red-gold hair which
had caught on a thorn: it was at least an ell long. And beyond the
thorn-bush the footprints were again visible, even more distinctly than
before, on a patch of damp sand. What seemed a child's footprints were
made by her steps.
CHAPTER XV.
The underbrush grew thinner, evidently removed by human hands; a few
steps more and the pursuer stood in an open space in the forest which
had been cleared by fire. Here stood a little hut, very roughly built
of unhewn logs: instead of doors two low narrow holes were opposite
each other. Such buildings were used by hunters for stations, by
shepherds overtaken in the forest by storms for a shelter, but
especially to keep quantities of hay which could not be dragged to the
distant barns. That was the case here; heaps of the grass piled in
stacks could be seen through the holes.
Before Herculanus had reached the hut, an indistinct sound reached his
ear from the right, the shore of the lake. He drew his sword and
stopped, listening intently. There it came again! Was it a cry? It
seemed like the shout with which Romans on guard gave warning of the
presence of a foe. Directly afterwards he heard another noise: it was
like the whirring of the string in bending and releasing the wood of
the bow, then came a heavy fall or plunge into the water, and all was
still again. Nothing but the metallic tapping of the woodpecker broke
the silence of the forest.
Cautiously raising his shield to his eyes and looking watchfully toward
the right, the Roman, with his thin figure drawn to its foil height,
waited several seconds longer: nothing stirred.
He now sprang in two bounds across the open ground to the hut of hay,
stooped and entered through the northern hole. Something rustled under
the thick grass, which seemed to be alive: something glided beneath
it--was it a weasel?--toward the opposite hole: only the waving motion
of the bundles of hay betrayed the direction.
Herculanus hastily grasped with his shield arm at the creature making
the rustling and lifted the broad short sword in his right for a
death-stroke. He seized something warm and drew it upward from the hay,
which fell on the right and left as he dragged forward a girl whose
face was covered with tangled red locks and blades of grass, through
which she gazed in mortal terror and fiery wrath at her assailant.
So strange, so bewitchingly beautiful was the young creature that
Herculanus uttered a fierce cry of pleasure. He had vowed that the
first moment he had the dangerous Barbarian alone within reach of his
sword, should be her last; and even now he did not really waver in the
resolve. Neither pity nor passion could influence a mind fixed solely
on his uncle's wealthy yet so much youthful beauty awakened a fleeting
desire for it: before he stabbed the foe, he would have one kiss from
those red lips. So, reserving his right hand for the death-blow, he
drew her closer to him with the left. The girl struggled with the
strength of despair. Turning her head as far as possible from him, she
uttered a cry of terror, like a dying fawn. It was only a moment's
delay of the assassin's thrust, but it saved her.
Before Herculanus could press his lips on her averted face a shadow
fell from outside upon the opening toward the lake, where the
struggling figures were now standing. "Murderer!" cried a deep voice;
and Herculanus, receiving a severe blow on the breast, staggered back,
loosing his hold upon his captive. Swiftly as the trout glides away,
the girl tried to slip through the opening; but she felt her arm seized
in the iron grasp of a much stronger hand, and looked up at another
helmeted Roman.
"Is it you, Tribune?" stammered Herculanus, hastily thrusting his sword
into the sheath.
The latter did not vouchsafe him a single word. "You are Bissula,
little one, are you not?" he asked, gazing with wondering eyes at the
strange vision. A sweet rapture ran through his veins as he saw the
lovely little face, the delicate, graceful limbs, the bare white feet,
and felt the pulsing of the young life through the round arm his hand
held so firmly.
The prisoner made no reply, but she looked up trustfully into the
Illyrian's handsome, manly face. Then she cast a strange glance, as if
seeking for some one, back into the hut,--Saturninus had dragged her
from the doorway into the open air,--and seemed to be listening
anxiously.
"Yes, it is Bissula," said Herculanus, now also coming out. "What made
you imagine that I wanted to kill her? I have been searching for her
since the earliest dawn."
"So I thought."
"Not for myself; I was only holding her firmly to prevent her escape."
"With a quivering sword uplifted to strike?"
"Only to frighten her."
But Bissula cast a reproachful glance at him.
"However that may be," the Illyrian continued, "she is my captive." His
glowing eyes rested on her; the girl lowered her long lashes in
embarrassment.
"No, no! I discovered her."
"But before you seized her a second time--for she was free again--I
captured her. Dare to contradict it, you murderer of girls!" and he
advanced threateningly toward him.
The sound of a tuba rang from the forest.
"We must return. The tuba gives a sign of warning," said Saturninus.
"The first trace of the foe has been found--not only the child--a man."
Bissula looked up anxiously.
"He lay covered with skins," the other added, as they moved forward,
"hidden among the rushes so that he could not be distinguished from a
fallen tree. Before we could seize him--"
Bissula uttered a sigh of relief.
"He had vanished in the sedges. A Batavian archer shot an arrow after
him. Hark! the Prefect is giving the signal again. Come without fear,
child."
He led her by the wrist, carefully trying not to hurt her; but she
often stopped, glancing back at the hut, and once also at the lake.
After a few steps they heard the neighing of a horse and soon entered
an opening in the forest, where Ausonius had halted his mounted escort.
"Father Ausonius!" cried the captive joyously, struggling to release
herself to rush to him.
But the Illyrian's grasp on her arm became like iron. Approaching the
Prefect, who held out both arms to Bissula, he made a military salute,
saying sternly: "The first encounter with the enemy! A man has escaped:
a girl--this one--became my prisoner: my slave."
BOOK TWO
THE SLAVE
CHAPTER XVI.
During those days the vicinity of the Holy Mountain, where a large
number of fugitives had taken refuge, was full of busy life, and from
the north, the quarter not threatened by the Romans, reinforcements
were constantly arriving from other provinces.
The Tribune's efforts to discover the retreat of the fugitives had been
baffled hitherto; neither those in the marshes nor on Odin's Mountain
had been overtaken by the spies and reconnoitring parties of the Roman
General. Marshes and impenetrable primeval forests surrounded the Roman
camp on the Idisenhang on every side except southward toward the lake.
In the last few days, after a tremendous thunder storm, a southwest
wind had sprung up, bringing on its dripping wings pouring torrents of
rain; then the forests became absolutely impassable for the heavy tread
of the legions: the few fords were buried in marshes or overflowed; the
tiniest rivulet became a raging river. Sulky and shivering, the
intruders, principally natives of the south, remained in the camp under
plank roofs and leather tents, fanning day and night the flames of huge
fires which, however, as all the wood was wet, diffused more smoke than
warmth.
For long distances from the foot of the mountain the few and narrow
openings which led to the interior of the immense forests were blocked
and barricaded by felled trees. Huge oaks, ashes, and pine-trees had
been felled and piled one above another more than the height of a man,
strengthened by earth and turf, and held together at regular distances
by enormous posts driven into the ground or by trees which had been
left standing. Thus an almost insurmountable breastwork was formed, on
whose summit, and in the tops of the trees towering above it, the best
archers were stationed. Similar lines of defence were repeated, one
behind another, wherever the locality permitted. The legions would have
needed many more days than the brief time still remaining before the
end of August--they always finished their short summer campaigns in
Germany before the commencement of the autumn rains--to storm all these
fortifications; they could scarcely find it possible to make a circuit
of them, on account of the marshes. But even if they succeeded in
penetrating all the barricades to the foot of the mountain, they would
then be forced to begin the inexpressibly toilsome siege of this
natural fortress.
All the entrances were covered by several tiers of logs; while, on the
mountain itself, rising one behind another, was a whole system of "ring
walls." These extremely powerful and extensive fortifications dated
principally from Celtic times, but had been considerably strengthened
and enlarged in scope by the Alemanni during their occupation of the
country for more than the past century: they had been forced to seek
refuge here from the Roman troops often enough.
These walls were made of heaped up earth, turf, palisades, and so
called Cyclopean walls: that is, rocks, so closely joined together
without mortar or bricks, by a skilful use of their points, edges, and
fissures that fire, tearing asunder, and the blows of the ram seemed
equally ineffectual.
Each one of these rings, which rose in stories, like terraces, required
to be stormed as a separate fortress. Each lower one was protected not
only by its own garrison, but by all those above, since they were so
constructed that stones, logs, spears, and arrows from all the upper
walls could strike the enemy without injuring the combatants on the one
beneath. Seven such defences girdled the mountain, the topmost one
surrounding the summit, which concealed Odin's altar in the heart of an
ash forest.
Those unable to fight, the women, children, old men, and slaves, were
scattered through all the stories of the mountain fortress. The herds
had been driven to the rear on the northern side, where their lowing,
neighing, and bleating would be as far as possible from the enemy. The
fugitives rested at night in huts built of thick green foliage, often
with the skin of some animal fastened among the branches, which the
Alemanni had great skill in constructing. Nor was there any lack of
cellarlike subterranean passages where stores of grain and valuables
were concealed.
The fighting men garrisoned all the entrances, reconnoitred in small
bands, especially at night, beyond the barricades close to the
neighborhood of the Roman camp. They spent the day in feats of arms or
drilling, impatiently enduring the long delay in giving battle, and
grumbling at the incomprehensible procrastination of their white-haired
Duke. For the latter, Adalo, and other leaders, huts of leaves had been
built on the summit of the mountain with the tents of their followers
scattered around them.
Before one of these huts (a stag's antlers had been cut on the central
post for a house mark) on the day after Bissula's capture, a bright
fire was burning late in the evening, fed with pine cones which had
been protected from the wet under the stone closing the opening of a
cellar. It was supplied by a man about forty years old, whose cropped
hair showed that he was a slave; while the shape of his short face, his
dark eyes, high cheek bones and snub nose denoted that he was not of
German lineage. Suomar had bought him many years before in Vindonissa;
cheap enough, for Valentinian--or the slave dealer--had brought
countless captives from the Jazyge war.
In front of the fire, sheltered from the wind and smoke, old Waldrun
lay on a bearskin, her feet covered with another. Adalo was kneeling
beside her. Mirthfulness and wrath had vanished; deep sorrow clouded
his handsome face. He gave the blind woman some wine to drink from a
silver goblet. Both beaker and wine were booty wrested from the Roman.
CHAPTER XVII.
"Tell me everything once more, Zercho," he said earnestly, "until
Waldrun has recovered and can add what you did not see. I have not yet
clearly understood the one thing upon which all depends."
The bondman was now crouching beside the fire, trying to keep the smoke
from the white-haired woman with the wolf-skin he wore for a cloak. It
did not annoy her at all, but it helped him to avert his eyes from the
youth's searching gaze.
"It happened in this way, handsome neighbor. Directly after you leaped
down the slope in anger,--I saw it from the stable,--the little red
sprite ordered me to bury the master's coins (alas, there are very few
of them!) and the brass vessels and broken-handled jug which he
obtained three winters ago at Brigantium. I had already driven the cow,
the sheep, and the goats into the alder thicket.
"The next day I was to take the young mistress and her grandmother into
the marshes to Suomar, the master. But alas, the hot and cold cat,
which invisibly shakes the body like a mouse, often springs upon the
good old mistress. So it was the next day. The sufferer could hardly
stir her aged limbs from the couch; her strength was as feeble as a
dying torch; I almost had to carry her. But I could do this only
on solid ground: in the forest marshes I should have sunk with my
burden--strong bones weigh heavily. So, in the forest, the blind woman
was obliged to walk by herself, leaning on her staff and guided by the
little elf, while I jumped from stone to stone in advance, seeking the
best path. But just before we reached the hay hut, the grandmother
fell; she could no longer stand or walk. We carried her in. You know
the entrance to the old cave is just beside the left corner post. Down
below there it was safe, warm, and for her no darker than above. We
spent the rest of the day and the night in it. Bissula, in spite of
every warnings would not leave the old woman and go on with me.
"She had brought some milk in a goat-skin, and rye bread. I watched
outside near the hut. In the gray dawn I stole back westward toward the
edge of the forest to watch for the helmeted Romans. Soon I saw a small
band of mounted men dash straight to Suomar's dwelling. I had hidden
our old log boat and the oars among the thickest rushes and meant to
row it through the marsh as near the hut as possible, carry the sick
woman to it, and then try to take my two mistresses to Suomar by way of
the lake. But when I reached the shore I saw several ships--their lofty
prows and triangular sails marked them as Roman galleys--moving from
Arbor on the opposite side toward our shore. They would soon be very
near. The way by the water was barred; but at the right, from the west,
I already heard the trampling of horses through the marshes and meadows
close beside me.
"Two men with arrows and long bows in their right hands dashed by, not
a spear's length distant. I crouched among the rushes, nay in the swamp
to my lips; but in doing so I startled the great egret that always
fishes there. As, screaming loudly--silly bird--he soared upward over
the rushes, he attracted the attention of the riders to himself and,
unluckily, to me too. They saw my head. A bow whirred, an arrow whizzed
through my otter cap and grazed my head. The wound wasn't deep;
Zercho's skull is hard, Suomar often says so, and this time, it was a
good thing. I now swam out into the lake, diving like a duck as long as
I could hold my breath.
"When I was forced to rise, the men had disappeared. Cautiously as the
fox stealing after the mouse, I crept on all fours through the thickest
rushes nearer to the land, in the direction of the hut, but making a
wide circuit. Then I saw two Romans in glittering armor step into the
clearing in the forest: one was leading the young mistress by the
arm--"
Adalo heard this for the second time, but he again sighed deeply.
"A horse neighed behind us, and on it sat the clever old man who a few
winters ago read to the little one in Arbor from many, many parchments,
oh, such a long, horribly long time--while I was obliged to wait to row
her back across the lake."
"Are you perfectly sure," asked Adalo, seizing the bondman by the
shoulder and forcing him to turn his averted face, "that this horseman
was the old Roman?"
"Well, he isn't so very old," replied the Sarmatian evasively, "though
he has grown somewhat grayer since that summer."
"Answer," cried Adalo angrily. "Can you swear that the rider was
Ausonius?"
"Ausonius! Yes, yes, that is what she always called him. Father
Ausonius. And that's what she cried out yesterday when she saw him:
'Father Ausonius!' she shrieked."
He broke off abruptly and began to rub his head (the wound suddenly
seemed to pain him) muttering meanwhile in his Sarmatian dialect, which
Adalo did not understand.
"So it was really he," sighed Adalo. "And I must thank the gods for
having led her to him."
"Freya will reward you for it," said the blind woman suddenly, raising
herself on her left arm and groping with her right hand in the
direction of the voice until she reached the youth's head and stroked
his long locks. "The dwellers in Asgard will repay you for such
thoughts."
"Must I not cherish them, Mother? Oh, if you could only sit up again!"
"Your drink, the Romans' drink, cheers the weary soul."
"Ausonius will protect her from the others. But," Adalo went on
angrily, "who will defend her from Ausonius? She was tenderly attached
to him."
"As a child to its father."
"Be it so--at that time. But now the maiden will owe him gratitude for
everything, even the highest boon."
During this conversation Zercho had repeatedly looked thoughtfully at
both; now he scratched himself behind the ear and was about to make
some remark, but changed his mind and remained silent.
"Against my warning," said the old woman, continuing the bondman's
story, "the child had glided away from my side out of the cellar into
the hut. She grew tired of waiting in the dark hole for Zercho's
return. Suddenly I heard a man's heavy step above me; then a shriek
from the little one, which made me tremble. But by the time I had
groped my way to the stone slab and lifted it, all was still. I vainly
called her name. Soon Zercho came with the news that he had seen her
led away captive. We sorrowfully waited for the darkness. My fever had
left me; I could walk slowly, but faithful Zercho sought our cow and
found her among the tall reeds in the swamp, lifted me upon her and, by
a wide circuit through the forest, brought me here."
"For I had seen Italian galleys between the forest hut and Suomar in
the eastern marshes," remarked the Sarmatian. "The enemy was
reconnoitring there, so I tried to reach the mountain, as my mistress
preferred."
"Yes; for since Suomar, my son, cannot be reached, it is you, Adalo,
of all the men of our people, our kind neighbor, the playfellow of
her childhood, to whom I must lament. The dear one is a captive:
help--rescue--liberate her."
The youth passed his hand sadly over his beautifully arched eyebrows.
"Yes," he thought, with bitter grief, "a captive through the fault of
her own defiance and obstinacy." But he said nothing, only thinking:
"It will be a difficult task. If it depended upon me--from the moment I
heard it I would have stormed the Idisenhang so constantly and fiercely
that the Italians would have had neither inclination nor leisure to
torment the child. Or to win her," he added bitterly. "But the army is
under the sole command of my cousin Hariowald, the Duke. I cannot--"
Here a low growl interrupted him: he turned and saw a singular
spectacle.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A handsome boy about fourteen, whose strong resemblance to Adalo marked
him as his brother--only his curling locks were light yellow, almost
white--was dragging by the ear a huge she-bear, which, growling,
struggling, but yielding, allowed herself to be drawn nearer and nearer
to the fire.
"Down, Bruna!" cried the lad, forcing the huge animal to lie prostrate.
"You dearly loved the merry, dancing girl too. Look, you growling brown
giantess, that's only the grandmother, and Zercho, who always brought
you so much wild-honey from the bee-wood. But _she_ is missing; our
Bissula is gone. Ah, if you had been there, you would have defended her
savagely; for you haven't forgotten that she and Adalo saved you,
dragged you out of the torrent. When you were scarcely bigger than a
kitten the cloud-burst swept you away from your mother, and you cried
piteously as you were drowning. And her busy hands fed you even more
eagerly than ours, with rich milk, rye bread, and dainty wild berries.
Since you first opened your blinking eyes, which now look as though you
knew as much as a human being, you have recognized her as your best
friend. Oh, if you had been with her, no one would have dared to seize
her. O brother, strong brother, you hero and shield of the whole
province, bring her back! Alas, if the little one, with her dainty
hands, should be forced to heat the bath-water for the hated foe and
wash his feet, as I often saw their maid-servants do in Arbor! Why
don't we rush down on the wings of the storm and hew her out of the
high-walled camp citadel?"
He swung his little wolf spear: the fire blazed up brightly as he stood
in the light of the flames, a handsome boyish figure, in his light-blue
linen robe bordered with white swan's down.
"Yes, my Sippilo," said the older brother with ill-repressed sorrow,
"you loved her too."
The boy looked up startled, but Adalo continued:
"Yes, yes. Perhaps she is dead--to us, to our people. Perhaps we shall
never see her again, never hear her sweet, elfish, mocking laugh."
"Oh, the smoke! How it stings!" cried the lad, wiping the tears from
his eyes.
"Perhaps she went with the Italians willingly," said Adalo, torturing
himself savagely--"with the clever Ausonius!"
"Is he here again?" cried Sippilo. "I'll run him through like a fat
carp that is sunning itself in shallow water. Oh, I used to wish he
might fall under the curse of Odin and the sun. Whenever I went to get
frogs for fishing or to play ball, she had always rowed over to him or
would not leave the long rolls of runes over which she racked her
brains. He had given them to her. If only I could catch him!"
"If we only had her back again! My heart is consumed with anxiety."
"Guard yourself from consuming anxiety, my son," said the old woman in
a warning tone. "It will paralyze your thoughts and arm; and you will
need both to liberate the naughty child. I am no prophetess, but I have
had strange dreams since I grew blind--which often come to pass: I saw
you to-night wounded, severely wounded. Guard your life. If she should
be rescued, and no longer find you--"
"Then her vengeful wish would be fulfilled. She hates me. She shouted
it loudly enough."
Sippilo laughed. "You? Hate you? She loves you better than a
sister. How I always had to tell her about you, everything you were
doing,--your prizes of honor in the contests; the gifts of neighboring
princes; your last verses; whom they praised! When I met her on the
lake quite lately, she asked if Jettaburga and her father did not often
visit the Stag Hall. When I said that they no longer came there, for
sheer delight she loosed from her own waist the beautiful blue girdle
she always wore, and gave it to me. See, there it is. I always carry it
hidden in my blouse. And, Bruna, didn't she once kiss you between the
eyes, when I told her how you had sprung to Adalo's assistance in the
chase and torn the furious wild bull which was goring his horse? Yes,
Bruna, you are faithful to her too. You have trotted after us for hours
when we were gathering berries and mushrooms, and watched our noonday
nap."
Just at that moment a long-drawn blast of a horn echoed from the summit
of the mountain. Adalo started up.
"The Duke is calling. We are to consult about what is to be proposed in
the people's council. Zercho, come with me. He wishes to question you
about the number of the enemy's mounted men. You, Sippilo, take care of
Mother Waldrun; that is all you can do for your Bissula."
"For the present," said the boy looking after his brother. "But I will
take part in storming the camp fortress where the scoundrels hold
captive the prettiest little bird--little gold-crested wren, no, little
redbreast--in the land of the Alemanni." He raised his clenched fist
threateningly.
CHAPTER XIX.
Outside of the Duke's tent also a huge fire was blazing, fed by slaves
who were roasting on the ends of poles the haunches and back of a
freshly killed stag. Adalo passed by, motioning to Zercho to wait,
parted the sailcloth stretched over the wooden frame of the tent, and
entered.
The roof was formed of interwoven pine branches; against the poles of
the light timberwork hung and rested everywhere weapons of all kinds.
Skins covered the turf floor which, opposite to the entrance, was
raised until it formed a high seat; a curtain of heavy linen hung
behind it, dividing from the front of the tent a small space used for a
sleeping room. In the centre stood an iron tripod, running to a point
at the top, into which was screwed a burning pine-torch that diffused a
dim, flickering red light.
On the fur-covered high seat, with his back resting against the main
column of the tent, sat Duke Hariowald. He greeted his young kinsman
only by a glance and seemed to heed nothing except the eager words of
another guest, a man about forty years old, who, clad in a boarskin and
wearing on his head a "boar helm" with the animal's tusks, sat at his
right.
The old Duke, a giant in height, towering nearly a head above Adalo's
tall figure, was a man of singular appearance. The immense framework of
his body appeared to belong to a much older race of men. His deep-set
gray eye--the left one had been destroyed by a stone from a Balearican
sling long before, and the empty socket had a sinister expression--was
under a bushy, prominent arched brow; its fire was by no means dimmed,
but curbed by the long habit of self-control. This ever perceptible
rule of passions blazing fiercely in his breast gave the mighty man,
who in spite of his sixty-five winters could not be called old, an air
of mysterious majesty. His people looked up to him with reverence, with
timid expectation, nay, with a slight fear of what he was planning in
rigid secrecy. His eagle eye was inscrutable when he half closed it;
when open, the flash that blazed from it was fairly blinding. The
expression of the mouth was concealed by the magnificent silvery-white
beard, sweeping over the breast-plate to the bronze belt, which framed
the cheeks and mingled with the thick locks of hair of the same hue.
Like the eye, the strong, deep, resonant voice revealed, no matter how
quietly the mighty man spoke, the sense of power held in check. He
rarely moved his muscular limbs, and all his gestures had a calmness
which was the result of long training. So he sat without a helmet, with
his ample blue cloak floating from his shoulders, his bearing one of
dignified composure. The majestic beauty of his finely formed head was
plainly visible as he rested it against the tent-pole, listening
intently. An immense spear rested in the curve of his right arm, its
brass top rising above his shoulder, as the end touched the floor; he
often stroked with a gentle, almost loving touch of the hand the runes
of victory inscribed on the back of the ash handle.
"I am usually glad to greet you, son of Adalger," said the Duke's other
guest, with a frowning brow, "but now I am most unwilling. I pleaded
for peace--" The Duke remained silent. "Now you come and you--I know
it--dream of nothing day and night save war with Rome."
Adalo measured him with a wrathful glance. "The ancient foe of our
people is in the country, and a king of the Alemanni counsels peace?
Ebarbold, son of Ebur, fear was alien to your kinsmen--"
The other laid his hand on the curved knife in his belt. Adalo did not
see it: he was under the spell of Hariowald's eye. A warning glance
from the old man, and the youth hastily added, "and is unknown to you,
hero of the wild-boar's courage."
The guest loosened his grip of the dagger and leaned back proudly.
"But Roman gold does not ensnare you," Adalo continued; "so some magic
blinds you."
"Or _you_ and all our crazy youths. The red drink of Zio, the war-god,
has intoxicated you. Or," he added in a lower, almost timid tone, "He,
Odin the Val-father, wishes again to people his Valhalla with
slaughtered heroes."
A change of expression flashed over the Duke's face. He gently raised
his spear and, unheard by the others, murmured, "Mighty Odin, do not
avenge the words." But Ebarbold went on:
"No matter about the boys! Their only art is war, and they have little
sense; but that you, who have seen sixty winters and almost as many
victories of the men with the high helmets--that you too should desire
war! My friends, I went to Rome; I climbed to the citadel on the
towering rock. It glitters with gold and marble. I served in the great
Valentinian's army. I have seen for years the countless thousands of
Roman warriors with their finest weapons, against which ours are like
children's toys."
The Duke, unnoticed, pressed his spear closer to his breast.
"And the military engines, the huge galleys with three banks of oars
one above another, the treasures of coined and uncoined gold and
silver! The whole extent of the land, all Mittelgard, as far as men
live--white, brown, and black--I've seen them painted on a long, long
strip of hide. The rising and the setting of the sun serve Rome. In his
golden house on one of the seven hills of the Tiber the Imperator has
placed a gold ball: all the provinces are copied on it. It is the work
of a magician. If a foe crosses the boundary in the farthest north or
south, the gold ball echoes and trembles in that spot; the Imperator
hears it, looks, and sends the legions. We will not defy him. The Cæsar
is a god on earth."
"Do not hear it. Mighty One!" the old Duke murmured, stroking the runes
on his spear soothingly.
Adalo was about to make a vehement reply, but he involuntarily looked
at the silent man, and controlled himself.
"We have learned that long enough, I think," Ebarbold continued; "from
generation to generation, when each province still fought
independently, long before this name and league of the Alemanni were
heard and invented!"
"You don't like this league?" the Duke now asked suddenly.
The King started. The voice, hitherto mute, sounded so loud and
powerful. Glancing up timidly, he shrugged his shoulders: "Whether I
like it or not, I can no longer dissolve it."
"No, you cannot," said Hariowald very calmly, stroking his long beard;
but his gray eye darted a glance which boded evil.
"You don't like the _name_ of Alemanni either?" asked Adalo
indignantly.
"No, Adeling. 'All men together!' Ha, our forefathers prided themselves
on standing alone, province by province; nay, in the old days family by
family, not leaning on others, and also not bound by them, not subject
to the will of the majority."
"Yes, that's it!" said the old Duke with a fierce smile. "You were in
the citadel of Rome--so was I. But I perceived with my one eye what you
have not seen. You noticed the glittering lustre of their magnificence;
it dazzled you: I saw through the glitter to the decay, the decline
beneath. And one thing more," he added mysteriously, lowering his
voice--"for several generations they have had no more luck with their
own gods--with the new ones, I mean. Ay, the old one whom they formerly
had--" he now spoke with a certain timidity, even reverence--"I mean
the one with the thunderbolts and the eagle--he was a god of battles,
almost like our own. Often his eagle on their shields seemed to me to
flap its wings, and the lightning to glow redly. Often and often have I
seen them conquer under that handsome bearded god and his sons. Mars
and Hercules. But now they have chosen for their god a youth, gentle
and nobly wise, but no warrior. His own priests say he never held a
sword in his hand. He did not descend from a line of gods; he was the
son of a laborer. And this man--a carpenter--belonged to a race long in
bondage to Rome, a people many of whom have wandered to us with packs
on their bent backs, mere traders in spices. Not many of them are seen
in the ranks of the legions. Since the Romans chose for their god that
gentle teacher who would not even defend his own life, victory has
deserted their standards. But what (besides their Jupiter in the
clouds) formerly secured to them for centuries conquest on earth I also
learned; the god whom I most honor showed it to me: one will controlled
them all. They were already united men--all for one, and one for all,
through many hundred winters; while we, according to the wish of your
heart, fought province by province, each for himself, and--succumbed.
This is your freedom--the freedom of discord and consequent
destruction!"
The glowing wrath of enthusiastic conviction transfigured the old
Duke's noble face.
CHAPTER XX.
Ebarbold wished to cast a venomous glance at him, but was forced to
lower his eyes in the presence of such lofty dignity. His lips curled
bitterly as he replied:
"Beware, Hariowald. Your title is Duke, not King; and your reign ends
when this war is over. According to your desire, it seems, one man must
rule the Alemanni. From the earliest days we have had kings and counts
of the provinces; but woe betide us if all the districts ever become
the slaves of one king of the people."
"Are the gods slaves because _one_ rules them as king?" The old Duke's
voice sounded threatening.
Ebarbold answered evasively: "But here on earth we Alemanni have equal
rights. And rather than--"
"Why do you hesitate?" asked Adalo angrily.
"He hesitates because he shrinks from uttering his thoughts. But the
Lofty One gave me the power to read the minds of men upon their brows
like explained runes."
Flushing and paling, Ebarbold started up.
"This son of Ebur thinks," the Duke continued, "that rather than obey a
king of the Alemanni he would serve the Cæsar."
Now Adalo sprang from his seat.
"And suppose it were so," cried Ebarbold, "would you prevent it? In a
few weeks, when the leaves fall, your command of the army will end. But
meanwhile--"
"Meanwhile I counsel you to obey."
"You?"
"Not me," the old man answered, with immovable composure, "but the
Council which rules all the provinces--even yours, the Ebergau and its
King. But sit down again, hot-tempered hero! And Adalo, hand him from
the wall of the tent where it hangs, the mead horn. The heron of
forgetfulness will rustle over our heads, bearing away on its wings the
words of wrath and discord."
The two young men took their seats again. While the wild bull's horn,
tipped at both ends with bronze, was passing around the circle,
Ebarbold said: "Even if we should conquer this time and drive this
band of Romans from the country--we have learned the lesson often
enough--others will come to avenge those who are defeated. So it has
been for many generations."
"But so it will be no longer," the Duke answered slowly. "That is
provided for. The evil she-wolf is surrounded by too many dogs at once.
She can no longer raise her left paw to aid her right: the Goth is
holding it firmly on the Danube, and she is still scarcely able to
escape the bite of the Franconians on the Rhine."
"The Goths?" said Ebarbold. "Who knows whether they will be in the
field this year?"
"I do," replied the Duke quietly.
"Can you see from here to Thrace?" sneered Ebarbold: "I cannot."
"But there is One who, from his throne in the clouds, overlooks all
countries: and he revealed it to me."
"But I see the misery the Romans have wrought around us in our own
land," the King continued. "My people have suffered heavily. The
cohorts in passing through burned all the dwellings. My own hall too."
"We will rebuild them," cried Adalo, laughing, as he hung the horn on
the wall. "The forest will not refuse trees to its people. My home
below on the hillock beside the lake"--his face now grew grave--"is
dear to me; sacred the hearth beside which I sat in my dear mother's
lap while my father, skilled in the music of the harp, sung of the gods
and the deeds of our own ancestors. The Centurion will probably soon
hurl the torch into the ancient dwelling of my family with the rune of
the stag's antlers. Never more can I hope to mount the high seat where
I was so often allowed to fill my father's drinking horn. But though
through all the future years I should have no other shelter for this
head than the waving boughs of the woods, never will I yield to the
Italians."
"Yield? The purpose is only to confirm a treaty such as we have often
made."
"And the Romans as often broken," said Adalo.
"Or we ourselves. What is asked of us? Young men to fight the Cæsar's
battles. We have more than we can feed. In return they will give us red
gold."
"May Hel swallow up this gold and these treaties!" cried Hariowald.
"For generations they have sold to our ancient foe our heart's blood
and our young heroes, who were used against ourselves and our
neighbors. If the hundreds of thousands who fell for Rome had banded
together against Rome, we should have watered our long-maned horses
long ago in the Gallic sea. But we will not cast aside your words,
Ebarbold. Perhaps I may even consent to send an envoy to the Roman camp
for peace!"
"What! Is that your wish?" cried Adalo impetuously.
"My wish will appear."
"To offer peace? Let them retire? With their booty?"
"It will not be hard to carry." Here a smile which lent the old Duke's
lips a wonderful charm hovered around them. "Six pots in Iburninga and
a broken mead vessel in Mariswik; so two old women complained to me."
"And the prisoners!" Adalo reminded him.
"They have only one, I hear," Ebarbold remarked, "the child of a small
farmer."
"No matter, she is a free maiden, a daughter of our race," cried Adalo,
with blazing eyes. "She has a right to the protection of her people."
"Protection? A captive! What can we--"
"Release her with the sword--or avenge her."
"Commence, for the sake of one woman, the conflict which will destroy
the people?"
"You are right," said the Duke slowly. "Women as well as men must be
sacrificed for the welfare of the nation. Let her stay where she
is--little Bissula."
"What, Bissula?" asked Ebarbold, startled. "Albfledis, whom they call
Bissula? The beautiful red elf?"
"You know her?" Adalo asked.
"Who has not heard of her? She is talked of along the whole shore of
the lake, and in such a way that the listener is anxious to see her. I
too grew curious and tried to get a look at her lately, at the last
sun-festival. It is a pity about her. By Freya's eyes, a great pity!
But peace is worth more."
"Certainly," said Hariowald, "and victory still more."
"Victory is certain," exclaimed Adalo.
"Do you think so?" replied the old man reprovingly. "I do not. Not
yet," he corrected himself.
"Lead us to the attack on the Roman camp! Our men are pouring here in
dense throngs since you sent the blood-red arrow from house to house."
"There are not yet enough. The army still lacks many men from distant
provinces situated far away toward the north and the east: Alpgau,
Albwins-Bar, Wisentgau, and Draggau."
"Do not calculate! Dare!"
"I am doing so; but I also consider the firmness of the Roman camp."
"But meanwhile our foes are strengthening themselves too. Their proud
galleys already lie anchored opposite in Arbor; they will soon bring
fresh cohorts over."
"Let them do so." The old Duke laughed softly; his look expressed a
grim, mysterious joy. "Meanwhile," he added after a pause, "I will send
an envoy to the foe to-morrow."
"Send me!" exclaimed Ebarbold eagerly.
"No. Adalo, you will go."
"He! He will not bring back peace."
"No, but keen scrutiny, and--" he whispered to the youth--"perhaps
Bissula."
"Thanks! Thanks!"
"I," cried Ebarbold wrathfully, "would surely bring home to our
people--"
"Subjection!" said the Duke. "That is just what you must not do. If the
Italians reject fair proposals, then I will ask the Council of the
people, the whole army, for its decision--"
"I know in advance," Ebarbold angrily interrupted, "what they will
determine, guided by you, you disciple of Odin, you giver of victims to
Zio! But your decision is one thing; it is another--"
He checked the word on his tongue and hesitated.
"That you will do, you wish to say. King of the Ebergau! I warn you,
Ebarbold. Your father was a gallant hero; he fell by my side twenty
winters ago in the murderous battle against Julian. Remembering him, I
once more warn you: beware!"
"Look to yourself," cried Ebarbold angrily. "You are not my guardian!"
Springing up, he rushed out of the tent.
CHAPTER XXI.
Adalo, too, rose hastily. "Will you let him go in this threatening
mood? Shall I follow?"
But the Duke remained unmoved. "I fear no danger from this man." A
shudder ran through the youth's limbs and he started, as the old chief,
lightly raising the spear, added: "He is dedicated to Odin."
"You will--?"
"Not I. He will--must sacrifice himself. Do not wonder. Wait."
"And the news about the Goths, Duke? Were you in earnest? Or did you
merely wish to encourage the faint-hearted Ebarbold?"
"Aha, do you credit me with such craft in the good work?" asked the old
man, smiling?
"You are Odin's favorite."
"It is as I said. One of the men in our ranks has been serving in the
army of the other Emperor; he came home on leave of absence, and said
that such countless throngs of Goths had crossed the Danube and were
assailing that Emperor so closely that he certainly could not march
here to his young nephew's assistance. Nay, the nephew's whole army
will perhaps be compelled to hasten to the uncle's relief. Because I
knew this I permitted, nay, commanded our young leaders to cross the
frontier early this spring to renew the war. But do you keep silence
about it. And open your eyes wide in the Roman camp to-morrow: do not
think only of the child, much as I hope you may see her, perhaps ransom
her, or save her by stratagem. For, by Frigga's girdle, she is lovely!
and I would fain see the fairest ornament of our land at liberty
again."
Adalo clasped the Duke's right hand; but the latter withdrew it, adding
sternly:
"Note carefully the height of the wall, the depth of the ditch, the
position of the gates, the number of the tents, the direction of the
paths between them, so that you can report everything accurately to me.
Now go, and send Zercho the bondman. No, do not ask what I want with
him. Obey!"
Adalo left the tent. His heart was throbbing violently. "I shall see
her; ransom her! I will give all my property; nay, if necessary, my
estate, the land I have inherited--or sell it. But will she desire to
be ransomed? Will she not prefer to go with the clever-tongued Italian
to his sunny home? And what if he will not release her? Well, then
there will at least be one way to bring her forth, known only to the
Duke and my father's oldest son."
Fiercely agitated by such thoughts, he sent the bondman, who was
crouching beside the fire, to the tent. The slave stood timidly before
the mighty soldier.
"How long is it since Suomar bought you?"
"That's hard for Zercho to say. I can hardly count beyond the fingers
of both hands, and there are more years than fingers. The little elf
was very small then. My master got me cheap, for the Romans had dragged
many, many of us as prisoners from the beautiful pastures of the
Tibiscus. He exchanged a horse and a net full of fish for me with the
dealer over in Vindonissa."
"Suomar has praised you to me. He has never been obliged to flog you."
Zercho made a wry face and rubbed his ear. "Yes, my lord--once."
"And why was that?"
"When I first saw the little elf--she was then a child about seven
years old--I thought she was the wood maiden, red Vila, threw myself on
the ground and shut my eyes; for whoever sees her is blinded. Then he
shouted a word in your language which I have often heard since,--it
means an animal with horns,--and struck me. But never afterwards." The
slave had uttered all this very rapidly; he was afraid of the Duke, and
kept on talking to deaden his fear.
"You are faithful to the young girl?"
"I would be cut to pieces with the ploughshare for her."
"You plucked me by the cloak when you made your report in the presence
of the Adeling and the old woman. You wished to tell me something that
they ought not to know."
"That is true, great Father! How did you discover--?"
"That was not hard to guess. But I suspect more--the girl did not
become the captive of the kindhearted chatterer, Ausonius, but of
another Roman."
The slave looked up at him in fright. "Did your Odin, your terrible god
who knows all things, reveal this to you?"
"No, he only gave me the power of reading men's eyes. So she is
another's prisoner; I suspected it. And you did not wish to plunge into
still deeper grief both the old grandmother and the Adeling; for he
loves the child ardently."
"You know that too?"
"One doesn't need Odin's assistance for it," replied the Duke, smiling.
"I was young once too. You wished to spare the youth?"
"Yes, great Father. He would wear himself out with rage and grief. Yet
he can do nothing to save her."
"He would only destroy himself, and perhaps our best hope of victory,
by some desperate deed. I am pleased with you, slave. Keep silence as
before. But Ausonius was there too?"
"Yes, the foreigner who stayed so long in Arbor several years ago. But
he didn't seize the child; it was another, younger man."
"Did you not hear his name? Was it anything like Saturninus?"
"My lord, his name was not spoken, or I did not hear it. He was a
fine-looking man in glittering armor."
"But he took his prisoner to Ausonius?"
"Yes. Yet he did not lift her on Ausonius's white horse, as the latter
seemed to ask, but swung the struggling girl upon another--a black
one--perhaps, yes, probably his own."
The Duke remained silent and thoughtful. At last he said: "The Adeling
is not to reach the Roman camp until twilight is closing in tomorrow.
Before he rides forth he will receive some directions from me. Tell him
so. And"--here he lowered his voice to a whisper, much to the surprise
of the slave, since there was no one in the tent--"if a faithful and
cunning man should venture to introduce himself or some one else in
disguise into the hostile camp and tell me what he saw there,--for I
fear they will not give Adalo much chance to look about him,--and this
man should be a slave, I would buy his freedom."
"Great Father!" exclaimed the Sarmatian, throwing himself prostrate
before the Duke and trying to kiss his feet.
The old man angrily thrust him back with the handle of his spear: "Are
you a dog, that you want to lick my feet?"
"Zercho is a Jazyge," said the bondman, rising and rubbing his bruised
shins. "Thus my people honor one who is worthy of honor."
"But we sons of the Ases do not bend the knee even to the mighty King
of Asgard when we call upon him and desire to honor him. Now go.
Perhaps it will be well that Adalo should not know what is to happen."
"He must not hear of it until after it has succeeded, for he would not
let the others whom I must have go with me."
"I do not wish to know in advance how the work is to be done. Say
outside that no one is to enter till I strike the shield."
The slave had scarcely gone when the Duke drew back the linen curtain
whose folds fell to the ground behind him, shutting off the rear of the
tent, used as a sleeping-room.
A man with long gray hair, scarcely younger than Hariowald, came
forward glancing cautiously around him.
"We are alone, Ebarvin. Repeat your King's words exactly again. For
consider, you must repeat them to his face, on oath, before the
assembly of the people, if he deny them."
"He will not deny them," said the graybeard sorrowfully. "He is too
proud to submit to you, but he is also too proud to lie."
"It is a pity," replied the Duke, curtly. "He was a fearless man."
"You speak as if he were numbered with the dead!" cried the other,
shuddering.
"I do not see how he can survive. Or, do you believe he will change his
choice?"
Ebarvin silently shook his head.
"How long have you borne his shield?"
"Ever since he _had_ a shield. I carried his father's, too," sighed the
man.
"I know it, Ebarvin. And," he asked craftily, as if in reproach, while
his gray eye blazed with a searching light, "and yet you betrayed him?"
The man gripped his short sword angrily.
"Betray? I accuse him openly, after I have often warned him loyally,
after threatening that I would tell you all. He laughed at it; he would
not believe me."
"And why do you do it? You have loved him."
"Why? And you ask that--you, who taught it to me, to us all? True, it
was not you alone--first necessity! Why? Because only this league of
the Alemanni can save us from ruin, from the shame of bondage. Why? Oh,
Duke, the oaths with which you bound us years ago, before the ash of
Odin, are terrible. Ebarvin will not forswear himself; I will not, a
perjured man, drift through endless nights down the horrible river of
Hel among corpses, serpents, and swords. And I have learned through a
long life that we must stand together, or the Romans will destroy us
province by province. Oh, I would slay my own son if, disobedient to
the Duke and the Council of the people, he tried to burst our league
asunder."
Up sprang the old chieftain; his eye flashed with delight. Raising the
spear aloft with his left hand, he struck the right one on the
clansman's shoulder: "I thank you for those words, Ebarvin! And I thank
thee, thou Mighty One in the clouds! If such a spirit lives in the
Alemanni, the league will never be sundered."
CHAPTER XXII.
It was really as Zercho the bondman had believed: Bissula had become
the captive, not of Ausonius, but another; and his captive she
remained. To the extreme surprise, nay, barely repressed indignation of
the Prefect of Gaul, the younger man had asserted his claim according
to the rights of war. Ausonius had no claims whatever to the prisoner;
that was clear. His nephew undoubtedly might have raised them, and at
first he did make the attempt. But he grew strangely silent when the
Tribune--scarcely in absolute harmony with the truth--said in his
uncle's presence: "The girl had escaped again. I was the first to catch
her finally. Shall I call her, that she may tell you the whole story
herself?"
Herculanus, with a venomous glance, left the tent.
But Ausonius did not understand the imperious rudeness of the brave
soldier who was usually so devoted to him. When the Tribune curtly
appealed to the right of war, Ausonius, deeply offended, pondered over
all the reasons which, as he thought, must induce his friend not to
yield his legal right in this instance to him. The poet, seeking
motives for the act, of course first grasped the nearest: all the men
in the camp gazed at the peculiar beauty of the child with unconcealed
admiration. It was no wonder then that the Illyrian, in the full vigor
of manhood, should also be seized with ardent love for the beautiful
creature who had fallen into his hands and, without really having any
evil design, wanted to keep her in his power until either from
affection or obedience the captive should yield to her master.
But this anxiety, which at first had weighed heavily upon him, was soon
relieved. With the keen distrust of jealousy, he watched his rival
sharply at every meeting; but even suspicion could discover nothing
that would have warranted this conjecture. Quiet, unmoved, and
steadfast as ever was the Tribune's bearing in her presence, which he
neither shunned nor sought, but treated with indifference. He looked
into the wonderful eyes no more frequently than occasion required, and
his glance was calm, his voice did not tremble. So Ausonius regarded
his friend's act as a soldier's strange whim, and did not doubt that he
would soon give it up. But this proved an error.
On returning to the camp Ausonius entreated his friend, without
renouncing his right of possession, to place the young girl in the tent
next to the Prefect's, now occupied by slaves and freedwomen, whom he
would remove. But Saturninus insisted that Bissula should be lodged
among the wives of the freedmen and female slaves who occupied some
tents a long distance from the Prefect's. The young girl herself paid
little heed to the discussion between the two Romans, whose meaning she
scarcely understood.
Released by the Tribune from the fear of death, and soothed by the
presence of her honored friend, her young cheerful heart soon
accommodated itself to the new condition of affairs,--not through
recklessness, but through childish ignorance of the perils which
possibly threatened her. Her grandmother was not discovered; her
faithful servant had not been captured; she herself was certainly
secure in the presence and under the eyes of her friend, the most
aristocratic man in the Roman camp. He would not let a hair of her head
be harmed, she knew.
True, the thought weighed heavily upon her heart as soon as she was
captured that she herself was solely to blame for her misfortune. If
she had obeyed the well-meant counsel--she was on the verge of tears;
experience had taught the value of the advice--she would now have been
safe and sheltered with her grandmother, though also with Adalo. And
owing him a debt of gratitude! She crushed the tears on her long
lashes. No, she would not admit that he was right. Now she owed the
haughty Adeling nothing: that was certainly an advantage. "And"--she
shook her waving locks back defiantly--"they won't eat me here! Only
don't be afraid, Bissula," she said to herself; "and don't submit to
anything!"
She had trembled only a moment after her escape from Herculanus, when
her powerful deliverer measured her whole dainty figure with a look
under which she lowered her eyes in confusion. But when she again
raised those innocent child-eyes, the expression had vanished. And it
never returned.
Her master allowed her to spend the whole day with her "Father
Ausonius": only when it grew dark he appeared, with inexorable
firmness, to take her away; and he went with her himself to the tent
assigned to her, before which he stationed one of his Illyrian
countrymen as a sentinel all night.
Bissula never saw her friend's nephew, whom she feared, alone. She
confidently expected the restoration of her liberty when the camp
should be broken up and the Romans should withdraw from the country.
There would be no fighting, Ausonius repeatedly told her. So the
light-hearted girl regarded her captivity, which had lost all its
terrors, as an adventure that afforded her an opportunity for the
conversations with her friend which she had missed so long.
Many of her young playmates had lived as hostages and probably as
captives in Roman camps and in the fortresses on the southern shore,
and been restored to liberty uninjured when truce or peace was
declared. That she could be detained or carried away against her will
she did not fear: the most powerful man in the camp was her protector.
Yet this peril constantly threatened her more and more closely.
Ausonius kept a sort of diary, in which before going to sleep he
recorded events, impressions, sketches of poems, and short bits of
verse--a custom whose regular observance he scarcely omitted even in
camp. A touch of pedantry was one of his characteristics. Yet the diary
was not a monologue, rather a sort of dialogue; for he addressed it in
the form of a letter to his oldest and most intimate friend, Arius
Paulus of Bigerri, rhetorician, but also an old soldier. Every three
months he collected what he had written and forwarded it to him to
receive his criticisms and answers on the margin of the manuscript when
returned.
So, during these days of involuntary leisure he wrote.
CHAPTER XXIII.
V. BEFORE THE KALENDS OF SEPTEMBER.
Ausonius sends greetings to his Paulus.
I wrote to you yesterday about the charming Barbarian child. Child? She
is one no longer. The delicate, yet lovely outlines of her form have
developed into exquisite roundness. And Barbarian? If she ever was one
she has ceased to be so, since Ausonius taught her the pomp of the
Latin language. How shall I describe her to you without drawing, no,
painting her? For it is precisely the charm of her coloring that is so
peerless. If only I had brought with me Paralos, my Ionian slave, who
painted the nymphs so exquisitely--you know--in my little dining hall
yonder, in the villa in the Province Noverus! And the expression--the
vivacity--in those ever varying features, now full of mischievous
wrath, now mirth, now jest, and anon of a sorrowful yearning which to
me is full of mystery.
And the dainty figure! Recently her leather sandals stuck fast in the
mire outside the camp ditch. How white and charming were the little
feet! How can they even support the figure, lightly as it floats along?
The muse which so long has shunned me has again returned in the form of
this Suabian girl: a fairer metamorphosis than ever Ovid dreamed.
Verses well up in my mind ceaselessly. Just listen!
"Nature had dowered Bissula with charms which the greatest of artists
Vainly to picture would strive. Doubtless to full many another
Justice he might do by use of the pigments of red and of white lead:
Coloring like hers, alas! will forever escape him, unless he
should paint
Her face with a lily's lustre, on which the breath of a rose
hath rested."
Ah, my friend, with the feelings that come to me, I am often ashamed of
the half century I bear with me. Fain would I sacrifice something to
Anteros--most willingly my gray hairs!
A short time ago the little maid amazed us all (Saturninus was even
more surprised than I; for I am already beginning to believe her almost
supernatural) by showing strategic insight. It was mentioned that while
making a tour on the southwestern wall I had saved her little hut from
burning, while our cohorts usually flung the torch with eager zeal into
the wooden houses of the Barbarians. Then Saturninus remarked that by
accident another building had been spared, a house with a lofty gable
roof rising on a hill farther toward the southwest. None of our
reconnoitring parties had marched in that direction. My nephew called
one of his men and ordered two of them to ride over the next day and
burn the dwelling down.
Suddenly the girl, with flashing eyes, cried: "How stupid!" and
laughed. Courtesy is not her favorite virtue, and she and my nephew
waste little love on each other. "How stupid!" she repeated, "The
building is very solid, the fence inclosing it very high; it is almost
a citadel like your camp here; and it is between you and the lake--to
which you must fly if my people come. You could fortify yourselves
there again, if you are forced to leave here as the fox darts from its
burrow."
Herculanus laughed sneeringly; but Saturninus cast a glance from the
top of the wall to that hill and the lofty building, and said in the
quiet tone which quells contradiction: "I myself had resolved to have
the dwelling burned to-morrow. But the child is right. The solid house
will not be burned, but perhaps, later, occupied--when the ships
arrive."
If those ships would only come! The eager Tribune is fairly consumed
with impatience for action. Already he has gone across the lake
repeatedly in a wretched rotting boat belonging to the Barbarians,
which we found hidden among the thickest growth of rushes near
Bissula's hut, and urged Nannienus to hasten. But the latter might
truthfully say with Homer: "Why dost thou urge one who is willing?" We
cannot make up in days for the neglect of months. The Emperor's own
miserable officials do him more harm than the Barbarians. And we do not
even know where these strange defenders of the country have vanished.
Ah, that reminds me of another anecdote of the little maid. How
constantly she steals into my thoughts! Of course--in jest and
earnest--we have tried to obtain information about the hiding--places
of the enemy from the only captive of whose possession hitherto we can
boast; but there we "victors" met with small success, as you may guess.
"Where are your heroes hiding?" I asked once laughing, toward the end
of a meal in my tent. "Truly, their heroism is as hard to find as
themselves."
"They will hardly have told this little maid," replied Saturninus. "For
Barbarian women can probably keep secrets no better than Roman ones.
She does not know."
"Yes, she does!" cried the rogue, pouting defiantly.
"Indeed? Then we'll question you," I cried, "on the rack."
"That isn't necessary. I am willing to tell."
"Well, where are they?" asked the Tribune seriously.
She glided out of the tent, thrust her head saucily through the
opening, and laughed mischievously: "They dwell with Odin and the nixie
in the lake. Search for them there yourself!" And she vanished.
Her favorite resting-place is at the foot of a huge pine-tree; it is
sacred, dedicated to a German goddess who, according to the
description, probably corresponds with Isis. I have repeatedly found
her there. Once she was swinging among the branches like a little bird.
She begged me not to betray her hiding-place to the others--the Tribune
and my nephew. She often liked to dream there all alone. Well, I
certainly shall not betray her. If _I_ know where to look for her, the
others shall not find her against her will.
IV. BEFORE THE KALENDS OF SEPTEMBER.
I regretted the artist's absence a short time since, and cannot get him
to come here. But perhaps Bissula will go later to the artist, to
Burdigala. How I wished it long ago! Oh, Paulus, if only I could show
her to you! The more I write of her and think of her, the more she
pleases me. Or perhaps the contrary is the case. I will write and think
of her no more.
* * * * *
You will not believe, my dear friend, how much I enjoy the military
life I have not witnessed for so long. I understand little about it,
but the pomp and pride and power of war stir me very strongly.
It is a pleasure to see the rule of a man like Saturninus. He cannot
scan a verse of Alcæus, but he knows how to arrange a camp according to
the demands and advantages of the location, better than I can write an
Alcæan strophe. Here, on this steep hillside in the midst of the
Barbarian forests, he had applied Frontinus's rules to the given space
most admirably. It would please an old soldier like you to see our
camp, the strength of wall and moat, the arrangement of the spaces
between the tents, the distribution of horse and foot-soldiers,
luggage, and camp followers.
III. BEFORE THE KALENDS OF SEPTEMBER.
And why should you not see it? For what purpose has Athene or the
clever Ph[oe]nicians taught us the art of writing? I begged Saturninus
to dictate to his fat slave scribe a sketch of our whole camp, with all
the points important for defence and the distribution of our troops. I
will put it on the papyrus.
How stately is the entrance! Four squadrons of mailed warriors at the
Porta Decumana, and all the baggage also piled up there. The wall eight
feet high; the ditch five feet deep. The weakest point is the northwest
corner, so the best troops are there: Batavian and spearmen of the
Emperor's Thracian Guard: etc.
I will not repeat here in detail what the inclosure will contain; but
the paper is not yet finished. He has taken it away to make the drawing
more accurate.
II. BEFORE THE KALENDS OF SEPTEMBER.
Ah, what avails dissimulation, playing hide and seek with myself? If
you drive her out with a pitchfork, Nature will always return, says the
Bandusian fellow. I am trying to make you--and myself--believe that my
thoughts are on ditch and wall and mailed soldiers. It is not true. I
think only of the little maid. Her image alone hovers before my eyes
day and night. It is already half decided that you shall see her.
When this expedition is over, I at any rate shall return to Gaul,
perhaps the whole army; for the Emperor Valens seems to be able to deal
with the Goths without needing our aid; he does not ask for us. Then I
can take the little maid as my guest for a short visit to Burdigala.
True, she is still considered the Tribune's slave. It is an odd
caprice of the valiant soldier. No, no, my Paulus! It is not what you
suppose that influences him. I have watched him suspiciously, almost
jealously, as sharply as a father--or can it be a lover? But I did him
injustice--or too much honor? He has nothing in his head except those
invisible Alemanni and our ships, still delayed at Arbor.
* * * * *
Yet why only for a visit? Why should she not remain in my house always
to beautify my advancing years with the roseate dawn of her youth?
Yes. Eos, Aurora: it is a fitting symbol for her. So young, so full of
the dewy freshness of the morning, with her ruddy curling locks
floating saucily around her.
Perhaps, now that she has grown more sensible, she will joyfully accept
the offer I made when she was a child: to go with me as my adopted
daughter.--Daughter? That is not the right word; no longer the right
word: she has blossomed into womanhood: I should not think of lifting
her on my knee, as I did years ago. She has become too mature.
And I am still too young to regard her only as a daughter.--Rather as a
brother, her loving brother who rejoices in her beauty. No, it will not
do.
A short time ago her round arm brushed me (the German women go with
bare arms); a fiery thrill darted through my veins. I can scarcely
doubt it, I---
My feelings for her do not concern other people. I might at any rate
first take her with me--and then adopt her? No matter what the legal
form may be, I am determined to keep her near me always.
I can no longer do without her charming presence; everything would grow
dark and cold. Already I shiver at the thought of again living alone
with the icy-hearted Herculanus.
She has become my muse! A barbarian one, do you scoff? Aha, are these
lines so barbaric?
"Incarnate joy! Caressing bliss! O thou embodiment of
sportive grace!
How the Barbarian maid the fair ones of Latium hath vanquished!
Bissula! Plebeian her name may sound in the ears of aliens:
But to Ausonius it echoes with harmonies sweet and bewitching."
CHAPTER XXIV.
It is useless to conceal it from myself any longer, and what I admit to
myself must also be confessed to you, my Paulus, my second self, at the
same moment. Alas, I fear you read it long ago from these words in
prose and verse.
I beseech you not to shake your cool, cautious head as usual over your
"too youthful" Ausonius: I hope my heart will throb warmly till it
ceases to beat.
I know all you will say--of course against it. For you would speak in
favor only if you had seen her. Yet I rejoice that you are not here: I
have no desire to be warned.
True, it is one thing to toy with the sweet illusion within my own
breast and to the friend who will keep my secret; and quite another to
transfer it to practical reality.
My thoughts are contradictory. I am fifty--ah no; fifty-two years old!
But what happiness it will be for the young girl to share not only my
wealth but the whole Latin civilization with me! She is a pagan. Pshaw!
The baptismal water will no more wash away her charm than it has driven
the pagan Muses from me. She can believe after baptism precisely what
she believed before. And she shall offer sacrifices to golden Aphrodite
and to Hymen!
I hesitate. She is very fond of me, but I often find her dreaming,
gazing out with yearning eyes beyond the walls of the camp: strangely
enough, it is not eastward in the direction of her home, but always
toward the northwest. At that point the wall rises almost to the height
of her huge pine tree, whose branches reach the ground: I again found
her hidden among them yesterday. She climbs so far up among the boughs
that she can look over the wall to the distant hills, and hides among
the dense foliage like a martin.
I discovered her with much difficulty,--twilight was gathering,--and
when at my call she slipped down I thought I saw tears in her eyes. But
the crimson glow of sunset had probably dazzled me; I did not see them
when she stood on the ground by my side, though she looked graver than
usual.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"Liberty," was her swift answer.
Perhaps I looked perplexed or angry, for she went on hastily: "Forgive
me! I was foolish. I know that if you set me free now, before the close
of the war, I might fall into the hands of other Romans before reaching
my people. And I am not ungrateful. How kind you are to me! Yet I often
feel so homesick--for--for--oh, I don't know myself!"
Then I said in jest,--for never before, and even now not seriously, had
the idea entered my mind,--"For a lover?"
She started back like a little red serpent. I have never seen her so
angry, though the hot temper of the little creature boils over often
enough. She stamped her tiny foot, the blood crimsoned her cheeks, and
she vehemently exclaimed:
"A lover? The 'red biting cat'? I have no heart! How should _I_ love?"
Then turning her back on me defiantly she ran off to her tent and did
not appear again that evening. But I am glad to learn from her own lips
that no bond of affection will hold her fast in this Barbarian land, if
I really decide to take her with me to Burdigala.
This possible obstacle to my wishes entered my thoughts rather late,
you will tell me. But it was because I considered her a child so long.
Later I daily felt in my own heart the feeling within growing stronger.
No, no, this girl is a child no longer, but a maiden ready for her
bridal.
The sweet wish--I scarcely repress it--is rapidly maturing. And with
this dear girl I shall be sure of one thing: she will not marry me for
my wealth, which I anxiously fear from our Gallic maidens. As to the
widows, I feel gripes in my stomach whenever I think of them.
I will be cautious not to startle the timid child; for how can the
Barbarian maiden dream of such an honor as even being invited as my
guest to Burdigala? It is inconceivable that she should refuse: now
that she has grown to womanhood. If she does, then--But no, surely it
will not be necessary. And when she has once tasted the rich, beautiful
life there, she will no longer desire to return to this wilderness.
Then ere long I can read aloud to her these verses which now I dare
entrust only to my friend:
"Bissula, fair maid born and reared in the cold land beyond
the Rhine,
Bissula, who bloomed so near the source of the Danube:
Captive of war, thou hast, when released from bondage, made captive
Thy conqueror: his heart became the prisoner's booty.
Of a mother's care bereft, ne'er hast thou suffered a mistress:
When thou a captive wast made, a mistress thou didst become,
Though thou by Roman favor, O German, wast thus transformed.
Still hast thou thine eyes' deep azure, still hast thou
thy hair's red gold.
Dual thou seemest now, and with dual charms adorn
Latium's tongue thy mind, and Suabia's grace thy form."
How do you like them, my dear friend? I hope they are not bad. At least
they please _me_ extremely, and you know I am not vain.
Now imagine how these melodious lines must gratify her--her who is
their inspiration.
CHAPTER XXV.
The morning after Ausonius had made this last entry in his diary,
Bissula, as usual, shared the first meal in his tent with the uncle and
nephew. The Prefect of Gaul was in excellent spirits, often jested,
talked a great deal, had his goblet repeatedly filled by the slave who
was his cup-bearer, and remarked again that the campaign would soon be
over. "When the ships come," he added in conclusion, "the Barbarians
will sue for peace." Glancing up merrily his eyes chanced to rest on
the young girl's face. To his surprise a mocking, nay, angry smile was
hovering around lips pouting in defiance; her brow was frowning, and
she made no reply. The conversation flagged. Herculanus watched the
rising cloud sharply, and eagerly fanned the flame.
"What?" he cried. "Peace? Bondage; extirpation! The Cæsar will soon
drag the last remaining Alemanni before his triumphal chariot to the
Capitol: the leaders will be strangled, the rest sold cheap: a German
for a cabbage."
Tears of rage filled Bissula's eyes. She could find no words; fury
choked her voice. She searched her thoughts, her memory, for aid and
defence. Adalo was the only name which came to her. "Yes, Adalo, if you
were here, or if I had your swift speech, whispered by Odin! Stay--his
verse--his verse of defiance. How, did it run?" She closed her eyes to
think, resting her elbows on the table, with both little clenched hands
pressed against her throbbing brow.
"I will offer a toast," Herculanus went on, raising his goblet; "pledge
me. You, the pupil of Ausonius, are surely one of us: Disgrace and
death to the Alemanni!" Bissula sprang up. Her blue eyes were blazing;
her red tresses fluttered around her head; a blow from her clenched
fist sent the silver goblet rattling on the floor; and, in the language
of her people, she cried loudly:
"Woe to the Latins!
Vengeance on Romans!
Break down their castles,
Shatter their strongholds,
Swing ye the sword
Till the base robbers flee!
All this region
Hath Odin given
To his sons of victory--
To us, the Alemanni!
"Oh, I thank you, I thank you, Adalo!" And she rushed out of the tent.
"How foolish!" Ausonius said reproachfully to his nephew. "How
inhospitable! How could you so incense our guest?"
"Guest? Our, that is, the Illyrian's, slave-girl. But forgive me,
uncle. It shall not happen again. How little a Barbarian woman suits
the society of Romans! Our thoughts, our wishes--she is implacably
hostile to all. And Adalo? I have already heard the name. Isn't it--?"
"No matter who it is," thundered the uncle. "But you are my nephew, and
have insulted, roused the lovely girl to furious rage at my table, in
my tent. How would you in Burdigala--"
A gloomy, significant glance from the young Roman checked his
thoughtless speech.
"You must appease her. Now leave me; I don't wish to see you again
to-day. Or stay--I will follow her myself. Poor little thing!"
Ausonius rose excitedly from the couch and hurried out. Herculanus and
the slave who acted as cup-bearer remained alone in the tent.
"Is it so already?" muttered the former angrily through his set teeth.
"Does the childish infatuated old fool reveal his plans so openly? To
work, Davus! Well or ill--to work! Have you the hemlock? Have you
enough?"
"I think it will do. If it fail the first time, you still have some in
the other little vial?" Herculanus nodded. The slave went on:
"He complained yesterday of all sorts of bad feelings. I'll risk it
soon, before he gets well again. But--one thing more--the Barbarian
girl will sleep alone to-night."
"What? Not in the tent with the teamsters' wives?
"No; a contagious eruption broke out there last night: I heard
Saturninus give the order to pitch another tent at once on the opposite
side for the prisoner."
"But he will have her closely guarded."
"To-night he is going on a reconnoitring expedition with all his
incorruptible Illyrians. Batavians are to be on duty: they are fond of
drinking; perhaps--"
"Silence! This ring as a reward for the news. We don't yet know whether
the plot against the old man will succeed, so we'll have two strings
ready for our bow. And I hate her. I don't hate him; only I must have
my inheritance quickly. So to-night! Hush, Prosper is coming! About the
poison--in the two little vials--we'll say more later; you know where
and when. First we'll wait to see what this night will bring forth."
* * * * *
Meanwhile kind-hearted Ausonius had vainly sought the angry fugitive.
He looked eagerly down the long wide streets of the camp which crossed
in a square at the prætorium--in vain. Now he hoped to find her in her
favorite hiding-place, the secluded spot with the tall fir-tree; but it
was empty. Nor was she perched among the branches: he scanned them
carefully.
Shaking his head he walked on still farther toward the northwest, to
the wall itself. Here he heard voices raised as if disputing, a
soldier's and Bissula's. Now he saw Rignomer, the Batavian sentry, with
lowered spear forcing back the slowly retreating girl. The man spoke
half in German, half in vulgar Latin; for at that time the Batavians
and Alemanni, though both Germans, found it as hard to understand one
another as the sailors of the Lower Rhine and the peasants of Lake
Constance do at the present day.
"Back, you red elf, you beautiful Idise, you nymph, and never try it
again! It would be a pity to hurt yourself. The wall is too high and
the ditch too deep--" Then the soldier recognized the Prefect, saluted
him, and went back to the top of the wall.
Bissula, noticing the respectful salute, had turned and, still
violently agitated, rushed to Ausonius, exclaiming: "Father, set me
free at once! at once!"
Ausonius shook his head. "Consider--"
"If you really catch defenceless girls and threaten to kill them by the
sword, you glorious Romans, as your nephew--"
"When did he do that?"
"Never mind! Send me with a safe escort, with a letter from you beyond
your outposts."
"Where shall I send you?"
Bissula remained silent a short time. Her face was deeply flushed.
"Where? To the place where you always gaze in your reveries? Out
yonder?"
"No," she replied, setting her teeth; "eastward, to my home. Then I
will take care of myself."
"Child, you must stay till the war is over."
"No, I must go," she answered. "I belong to my people, not to you. It is
not right, it is abominable, for me to sleep safe here in your
protection, drink Roman wine from golden goblets, while my kindred are
suffering want and danger. Let me go!" She raised her hand. The gesture
was meant to be an entreaty, but it resembled a threat.
"Cease this folly, little one," Ausonius now said, more seriously. "My
nephew's idle, unseemly words offended you; I reproved him for them; he
will beg your pardon,"--Bissula made a contemptuous movement,--"and
everything will be forgotten."
"Shall I forget my people?"
"Forget? No; but gradually become alienated from them. You look amazed.
Well, let this trivial incident hasten the important disclosure I have
to make. Are you thinking of leaving me? Give it up, sweet girl!" He
controlled himself and went on more calmly: "My little daughter, you
will never leave me again."
Bissula opened her eyes in the utmost astonishment, gazing at the Roman
with the expression of a captured deer. The iron tramp of a marching
cohort was heard close at hand, but the tents still concealed it from
their gaze.
"What do you mean?" she stammered.
"I will tell you," said Ausonius in a firmer, sterner tone than he had
ever used. The opposition he now suspected irritated him, and he was
determined to execute his will. "I will tell you that I have resolved
to fulfil my former plan. I shall take you as my guest for an
indefinite time. As my little daughter," he added cautiously, "with me
to Burdigala."
"Never!" cried Bissula, raising both arms in the wildest terror.
"Yes, most certainly."
"But I will not go. I--away from the lake--from--from my people? No,
no, no!"
"Yes, yes, yes! This is not tyrannical nor cruel, as you think now."
"Who will compel me to go away?"
"I. We compel children whom we are educating to do what we desire, for
their own good. You do not understand your real welfare: I will force
you to do so."
"But I am no child; I am--" She advanced toward him defiantly.
"You are a captive. Do not forget that. You must obey your master, and
he--"
"Is here," said a deep voice.
Saturninus stepped between them. With a firm hand he held Bissula, who
had turned, reeled as though giddy, and tried again to scale the wall.
"Do not forget that, Ausonius."
Angered by the interruption, perplexed, and half ashamed, the other
drew back. "What are you doing?"
"I am protecting my captive."
"Against whom?"
"Against every threat: against wiles as well as compulsion--even though
well meant."
Both gazed at him in silence, but the girl's gratitude was blended with
a slight thrill of fear--fear of this protector too.
Ausonius was the first to find words. In tones which revealed wrath,
jealousy, and suspicion, he exclaimed: "And who will protect her
against you?"
"Nothing and no one, except my own will."
"Oh, set me free!" cried Bissula, raising her clasped hands
despairingly to the Tribune.
"That you may tell the Barbarians all you have seen and heard in our
camp? No, little maid. You will stay--perhaps forever. Have no thought
of escape! Here, countryman!" He beckoned to a soldier. "Take her to
the new tent; keep guard there until I leave tonight; then Rignomer the
Batavian will relieve you. And listen: tell my scribe that during the
day he must see that she--" The rest was whispered in the ear of the
Illyrian, who led the wondering, bewildered girl away by the arm.
Ausonius and Saturninus parted without exchanging a single word: the
latter saluted respectfully; but the angry Prefect did not, or would
not, see the farewell.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Ever since the preceding day the rain clouds, which had so long densely
veiled the mountain peaks and hung in gray curtains to the shore of the
lake, had grown lighter and lighter. Scattered fragments still floated
over the forest; but the mists were dispersing from Sentis and Tödi.
And before the sun of that day sank behind the wooded heights of the
western shore, it burst through the cloud rack for the first time in a
long while, illumining lake and country for a few minutes with a
blood-red glow. The fishes leaped greedily after the flies which were
sunning themselves in the beams and flew feebly, with damp wings, close
to the surface of the water: then the radiant ball disappeared behind
the long cloud curtain.
The herons flew screaming from the rushes toward the land. The wind
seemed to be rising. The clouds swept across the sky, sometimes in one
direction, sometimes in another. The waves of the lake, obeying the
former course of the wind, rolled in a direction opposite to the clouds
above them.
The Batavian mercenaries of the Lower Rhine were encamped outside of
the northern gate of the camp, the Porta Prætoria, but a little toward
the west. The centurion, a man about forty years old, long in the
service of Rome, who was adorned with neck-chains and various badges of
honor on his breast-plate bestowed for gallant deeds, was fanning the
smoking fire, which they were loath to have die out in the cold damp
woods.
"There!" he muttered, "there it goes. I invoked both gods, Vulcan and
Loki, in vain. Vulcan won't help me, because I am a Barbarian; Loki
because I serve the Romans. We mercenaries no longer have any gods to
aid us, because we belong to no nation."
"Ha, Rignomer," laughed another in the group, a youth whose downy red
beard was just beginning to grow, "I care for only one god among them
all--the god of victory."
"And he, Odin, is the very one who has deserted us, Brinno. Everywhere
the Germans are conquering; that is, the peoples who are fighting
against Rome, not we German mercenaries, who battle for the Cæsar. And
in every conflict the men who bleed are we mercenaries."
"Because these cunning Romans always put us in the place which is most
severely threatened," Brinno cried angrily.
"Because Odin is hostile to us," whispered the centurion. "We must no
longer fight for Rome against the other Germans. He no longer wills
it."
"What do you mean by Germans? That's a word like Barbarians. The Romans
invented it, not we. What do I care for these Alemanni? I am a
Batavian; a Frank, if you prefer the name."
"Yes, I do prefer it."
"It's newer."
"But stronger, because it is larger."
"What do I care, I ask again, for these thick-skulled Suabians? I can
hardly understand what they say."
"But all we blue-eyed, yellow-haired men are sons of the dwellers in
Asgard. We have all come here to the great waters front the East. So
our forefathers teach us; so the harpers sing. And everywhere, on the
Rhine and the Danube, the districts and peoples who formerly had such
bitter feuds are gathering. This is Odin's work. He is summoning the
descendants of Asgard to war against Rome. This is my last campaign
under the dragon standard. In a few days my time of service will
expire; then I shall go home and till my land on the Issala, where my
mother and my brother and sisters live; till it with a better plough, a
Roman one. And if I must fight again, I will fight for my land, against
Rome. We Franks have too little room down there in the swamps of the
Rhine; we must go into beautiful Gaul."
"Well, this war of the Romans will soon be over. A bloodless victory."
"Who knows?" Here the centurion threw himself on the ground beside
Brinno and whispered: "A man from my district, who formerly fought
under the Emperor Valentinian by this lake against the Alemanni, told
me why in fear and horror he suddenly gave up the service and lost his
pay: In a battle the Romans were vanquished. _One_ against whom no man
can lift his hand without forfeiting salvation forever dashed forward
on a gray charger at the head of the Alemanni wedge."
"What?" asked Brinno, half incredulously, half timidly: "_He_--he--
himself?"
Rignomer nodded significantly: "In the form of a white-haired Duke; so
runs the legend. When sore peril threatens the dwellers by the lake he
descends from the heavenly heights, warns them, conceals them from the
eyes of the foe with his dark mantle of clouds; teaches them runes of
victory on inaccessible mountains, and bears them suddenly away on the
eagle wings of the tempest. Against him I will not fight. I vowed to
serve the Imperator against men only. But hark! a tuba signal from our
outposts. Whom are our mounted men bringing in?"
"A messenger from the Alemanni, it seems."
"Yes, a leader and two attendants. What a youth! Halt, young hero: if
you wish to go into the camp to the General,--only one is permitted to
ride in,--I must first cover your eyes. Dismount! You will not? Well
then, turn back again."
This was a severe blow to Adalo's hopes. He would so gladly have gazed
keenly about him in the Roman camp, scanned ditches, walls, gates,
and--two persons within that frowning palisade. He sullenly dismounted.
A thick woollen blanket was thrown in loose folds over his head like a
huge sack and fastened under his chin: Rignomer took him by the hand
and guided him to the gate, where a centurion of the Thracians received
the Barbarians' envoy.
Adalo's two companions also dismounted, tied the three horses to the
nearest trees, and soon lay chatting with the Batavians. The bad Latin
of the frontier, it is true, often had to aid the understanding of the
different dialects around the watchfire. With great exertion it had now
been rekindled, for it was growing very dark. Suddenly, from the forest
path by which the envoys had come, a strange growling was heard which
drew nearer and nearer. The whole group, including the two Alemanni,
started up in surprise.
"A bear?"
"So near the fire?"
"Slipped through our outposts?"
They seized the spears which stood stacked together. Then a Batavian,
laughing loudly, came around the bend of the narrow path, pointing
behind him. "Look, comrades! A Sarmatian juggler with a tame she-bear!
She dances to his big flute! It's very comical."
A cry of surprise escaped the lips of one of the Alemanni, whose eyes
and mouth opened in astonishment: "That's surely--"
But his companion gave him a violent dig in the ribs with his elbow: "A
she-bear! Yes. Didn't you ever see one?"
A man in the Sarmatian costume--black sheepskin with the wool turned
inside--now stepped into the firelight, leading by a leather thong a
large she-bear. Behind him, also clad in sheepskin, limped his boy,
probably carrying in his bundle provisions for their journey; he was a
poor cripple, who made his way forward slowly with the help of a
crutch, and doubtless found it hard either to stand or to walk; for
when the third Batavian, shoving him with the handle of his spear,
invited him to come nearer to the fire, the poor lad, with a low cry,
fell on the grass.
The soldiers, with Roman and German taunts, asked what _he_ could do.
He did not stir.
"You can talk to him a long while," said his master, laughing. "The boy
is deaf, and he is sick with fever. He is afraid of people. Let him lie
there!"
The lad crept under the thickest underbrush, far away from the flames.
He could scarcely be seen from the watchfire; all that was visible was
his coal-black curly hair. Taking out a little earthen pot, he poured a
few drops of some liquid on his lame foot and rubbed it with his hand.
CHAPTER XXVII.
To Adalo's impatience the time seemed very long--in his wrath he
believed the delay intentional--during which he was led through the
spacious camp till at last his guide stopped and removed the muffler
from his head. He found himself in the Prefect's tent. Ausonius,
Bissula's friend, he instantly recognized, with a thrill of anger. A
number of other army leaders were standing and sitting around him. They
had had plenty of time to assemble while the Barbarian was being guided
in bewildering zigzag lines through the streets of tents.
He silently saluted Ausonius (it did not escape his eyes that his foe
looked admiringly at him), who motioned to him to sit down on a camp
stool. But the youth, with a defiant bearing, remained standing. In
vain, gazing around the richly decorated space, Adalo endeavored to
discover some trace, not of Bissula herself--that was beyond his
hopes--but of some garment or article that belonged to her. Nothing was
to be seen except arms and papyrus rolls.
"You understand the language of Rome, since you have come without an
interpreter?" Ausonius began.
Adalo nodded.
"Be welcome! We expected such a messenger. You desire peace?"
The young hero angrily flung back his handsome head so that his long
locks rested on his shoulders, and answered with flashing eyes: "I
offer to let you depart unmolested."
"Ha, insolent Barbarian!" cried Herculanus.
But Saturninus wrathfully motioned to him to keep silence, and then
asked very quietly: "Are we surrounded?"
"Not yet; but only because we did not desire it."
Saturninus cast a significant glance at the Prefect.
"Boasting!" replied the latter in Greek.
"And why haven't you destroyed us yet?" sneered Herculanus.
"The result, Roman, is in the hands of the gods. We have not attacked
because we, who do not fear battle, but rather--you know well--love it,
this time desire peace; or our wise leaders, who think further than my
comrades, desire it. The great league of the Alemanni wishes to end
forever by a treaty not only this campaign but the whole war with you,
which for generations has been burning or at least smouldering: we wish
not a truce, but peace with Rome."
"Is this your idea, youth?" asked Saturninus, searchingly.
"I have already said it is the choice of our wise leaders, among whom I
am not numbered. But I, too, perceive that intercourse with you across
the frontiers, when the spears are leaning in the hall, will bring to
our people many benefits. We have already learned much from watching
you; we must learn still more."
"But why," interposed Ausonius, "if you perceive this, have you for
centuries broken every armistice, every treaty? You Germans boast of
fidelity as one of the virtues of your race, and we must praise the
loyal service of your mercenaries under our standards. Why, here on the
frontiers, are all your tribes of many names, Alemanni and Franks,
Goths and Quadi and Marcomanni, the same in this unfaithfulness? Why,
year after year, do you continually break peace and compact? Our
cohorts, constantly compelled to wade through your forest marshes,
upbraid you with fierce hatred as the falsest of the peoples. Why do
you continually break over our frontiers, like a forest stream?"
"Like a forest stream! You have uttered the right words, though
probably without knowing it. I will not answer that often we are not
the breakers of the treaties, but, perhaps against the Emperor's will,
your army leaders, your frontier officials. In defiance of the treaty
they build citadels on our free land, and the supplies which, according
to the treaties, you owe us, are withheld: especially the grain."
"Why," asked Saturninus eagerly, rising from his seat, "do you not
raise for yourselves the grain you need?"
"We cannot. There is not land enough for our increasing population. The
gods multiply our numbers wonderfully: it must be their will that we
should grow and overflow our boundaries. Hundreds, nay, thousands of
our young men emigrate every year to serve you as mercenaries and
frontier guards. We often send forth a third of our young people,
chosen by lot, to seek a new home where the flight of the birds and the
will of the gods directs them: but all this does not avail."
"Then," Saturninus questioned, speaking more to himself than to the
envoy, "it is not mere wantonness?"
"Do you think that mere wantonness would have driven, from the days of
our earliest ancestors (the legends have treasured it loyally, sadly,
and proudly) our almost naked heroes upon the spears of your mailed
legions? Nay, had it been we youths only, we would always rather win
what we need by blood--the foe's or our own--than by toiling with the
plough. But do you believe that, from mere wantonness, whole nations,
with their women and children, their men and maid-servants, their herds
and wagons, would constantly press across your frontiers southward and
westward; not as a warlike band on a foray in quest of booty, but on a
weary pilgrimage, pressing forward because pressed by others, pushing
because being pushed from the south and the east by other Germans and
by Sarmatians; not quitting the old home, but maintaining it by those
left behind till they too were obliged to yield--do you believe that
mere wantonness has so often lured these hundreds of thousands to and
beyond your frontiers, usually to certain destruction? Oh, no. It is
not wantonness that impels us, but the most powerful of all the
goddesses--Necessity. A man utters her name unwillingly; for the woman
with the iron girdle is the only inexorable deity; she is the mother of
the three Fates, who also revere her, and she often strangles with her
iron girdle the mortals who mention her carelessly. Beware, Romans!
Before our faces stands only your Empire, one mighty in military power,
it is true, but behind us threatens and urges the terrible mother of
the Norns. We have no choice. The country has become too narrow; we
must, come what may, pour out of the old bed in roaring torrents.
Therefore, clever Roman, you speak aptly of a forest stream. Believe
me: we shall continually break over your frontiers, no matter how
strongly they may be guarded with men and walls, until either all we
countless German tribes are destroyed or until we have gained land
enough to live upon. Not until then will there be peace."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The words uttered by Adalo, evidently from sincere belief, and with
warm feeling, produced a deep impression. Herculanus shrugged his
shoulders scornfully. Saturninus, with a grave face, gazed silently
into vacancy--into the future. After a long pause, Ausonius found
words:
"I have never seen that side of the question. Is this your wisdom?"
"I say once more, it is the wisdom of our wise men; Duke Hariowald
taught me. But the necessity of our people cries so loudly that even an
inexperienced youth must understand its call: Land or destruction! So,
in the name of our whole league of peoples, I ask (we Alemanni yield in
courage to no race on earth), do you wish to gain us, our spears,
forever against all your enemies, especially the false Franks, our evil
neighbors and yours? Do you desire that?"
The Romans listened intently; no one interrupted him in his appeal.
"Well, there is a way, but only one." He paused.
"Speak," urged Saturninus eagerly.
"Vacate all the land which you still occupy but can hold only by
constant fighting, the country northward between this lake and the
right bank of the Rhine to where the Main empties into it beneath your
stronghold of Mogontiacum, and all the region south of the lake to the
chain of the Cisalpine region."
"Insolent fellow!" shouted Herculanus. The other army leaders also did
not spare words of wrath. "Not bad!" said Ausonius, smiling. Saturninus
alone was silent; he was thinking how the great military hero,
Aurelian, had given up, in a manner very similar to the way asked here,
Trajan's proud conquest, Dacia, and thereby, for a long time, pacified
the Goths on the Danube.
But Adalo continued: "Do it, do it half voluntarily; do it for the most
valuable compensation; for I tell you, it must be done very soon. Then
it will be exacted without compensation in return. Do it willingly; for
there is a proud prediction current among our people: the Alemanni will
some day pasture their horses from the snows of the Alps to the woods
of the Vosges."
Ausonius rose indignantly. "Not another word! For our sole answer take
to your people the old Roman war-cry, 'Woe to the Barbarians!'"
"Woe to the Barbarians!" repeated the army leaders, with loud shouts.
"Before I go," said the youth,--he struggled fiercely to subdue the
agitation, the terrible anxiety which now sent a tremor through every
limb,--"listen to another message. You have captured a daughter of our
people." Six eyes were bent upon him with the keenest attention. "I am
commissioned to ransom her." In spite of every effort to appear calm
and cold his voice trembled.
"Are you Bissula's relative? She has no brother," said Ausonius
suspiciously.
"Or her lover?" asked Herculanus.
The youth's face flamed, his brow knit wrathfully. "Neither her kinsman
nor her betrothed lover. I am commissioned--I have already said so--to
ransom her. Name the price."
Ausonius was about to utter a refusal, but Saturninus hastily
anticipated him.
"You would pay any price as ransom?"
"Any."
"Is she a princess or a noble's daughter, that your people set so high
a value upon her liberty?"
"She is a free maiden of our people, and has as much right to our
protection as a queen."
"Well, your protection has been of little service to her," cried
Herculanus, laughing.
"I will give her weight in silver, nay, if needful, in gold--her full
weight."
"Pshaw!" replied Ausonius, smiling, "that isn't saying much. The little
one doesn't weigh heavily. Don't trouble yourself: I will not release
her."
"Pardon me, Prefect," said Saturninus quietly, yet without averting his
eyes an instant from Adalo, "I must again remind you that the Barbarian
girl is not your slave, but mine."
"What? O ye gods!" cried Adalo, wild with grief and horror.
He hastily advanced two paces toward the Roman. "Is it possible? Is it
true? Say no, Ausonius." The voice of the usually defiant youth now
sounded almost pleading.
"Unfortunately it is true," replied the Prefect sullenly.
But Saturninus, who now knew what he wished to learn, answered calmly:
"The captive is my property. And she cannot be bought with gold. But I
will release her, if you--" he rose, approached Adalo and whispered
into his ear.
The youth burst forth angrily: "The location of our fortification and
the strength of our force? Come into the woods, Roman: you will learn
there."
Saturninus stepped back coldly. "As you choose. Never will the
red-haired maiden see her people."
"And consider, Barbarian," hissed Herculanus, "we need not use the rack
to torture a maiden."
Adalo, with a fierce cry, gripped the hilt of the short sword at his
side. But he controlled himself and only cast a look at Herculanus,
who, unable to endure it, blinked and turned his eyes away.
Adalo, tortured by deep anguish, gazed inquiringly, searching into the
characters and dispositions of the two men; first into Saturninus's
stern, handsome face, then his glance scanned Ausonius's features,
kindly in expression, but wholly lacking the impress of a firm will. He
sighed heavily. But, conscious that the eyes of all were fixed intently
upon him, he summoned his whole strength, and said quietly: "If any
harm should befall her, her people will take terrible vengeance." The
firmly repressed, yet intense fury in the brief words, did not fail to
make an impression.
Adalo, without any gesture of farewell, turned to leave the tent, and
was already standing under the curtains at the entrance, when
Saturninus cried: "And what name has the envoy of the Alemanni?"
The youth turned quickly and, comprehending the whole group in a single
glance, exclaimed: "Adalo, son of Adalger. You shall remember it." He
passed outside the tent as he spoke.
"Uncle," cried Herculanus, "wasn't that the fellow's name? Yes, yes, it
is he: the 'Mars of the Alemanni!' Seize him--and the war is over!"
Before Ausonius could answer, Saturninus, hurrying out of the tent,
said: "Beware, Ausonius! Nothing in heaven or on earth seems to be
sacred to this nephew of yours. But that Barbarian's eyes must be
quickly bandaged again; their glance is like an eagle's." He hastened
after the envoy.
Ausonius, vexed by many things, said very irritably, in a tone almost
never heard from the lips of the kind-hearted noble: "I have long been
displeased with you, nephew Herculanus. I am very much displeased.
Very! Extremely!"
He passed him with a hasty step, harshly thrusting aside the arms which
Herculanus stretched toward him with a soothing gesture. The nephew's
eyes followed him with a glance that boded evil.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Meanwhile the Batavians, Adalo's two companions, and the bear-leader
had lain chattering peaceably together around the campfire.
There was, in general, so total a lack of any feeling of unity among
the various German tribes that
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