The Count of the Saxon Shore; or The Villa in Vectis.
by Alfred John Church · English · Gutenberg #44083 · 417,362 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Count of the Saxon Shore; or The Villa in Vectis.
Author: Alfred John Church
Ruth Putnam
Release date: October 31, 2013 [eBook #44083]
Most recently updated: June 15, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44083
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COUNT OF THE SAXON SHORE; OR THE VILLA IN VECTIS. ***
[Illustration: The Burning of the Villa.]
The COUNT
of the SAXON SHORE
_or_
The Villa in VECTIS
_A TALE OF THE DEPARTURE OF THE ROMANS FROM BRITAIN_
BY THE
REV. ALFRED J. CHURCH, M.A.
_Author of “Stories from Homer”_
WITH THE COLLABORATION OF
RUTH PUTNAM
_Fifth Thousand_
London
SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LIMITED
38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET
Entered at Stationers’ Hall
By SEELEY & CO.
COPYRIGHT BY G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, 1887
(For the United States of America).
PREFACE.
“Count of the Saxon Shore” was a title bestowed by Maximian (colleague of
Diocletian in the Empire from 286 to 305 A.D.) on the officer whose task
it was to protect the coasts of Britain and Gaul from the attacks of the
Saxon pirates. It appears to have existed down to the abandonment of
Britain by the Romans.
So little is known from history about the last years of the Roman
occupation that the writer of fiction has almost a free hand. In this
story a novel, but, it is hoped, not an improbable, view is taken of an
important event—the withdrawal of the legions. This is commonly assigned
to the year 410, when the Emperor Honorius formally withdrew the Imperial
protection from Britain. But the usurper Constantine had actually removed
the British army two years before; and, as he was busied with the conquest
of Gaul and Spain for a considerable time after, it is not likely that
they were ever sent back.
A. J. C.
R. P.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. A BRITISH CÆSAR 1
II. AN ELECTION 13
III. A PRIZE 21
IV. THE VILLA IN THE ISLAND 32
V. CARNA 47
VI. THE SAXON 57
VII. A PRETENDER’S DIFFICULTIES 70
VIII. THE NEWS IN THE CAMP 83
IX. THE DEPARTURE OF THE LEGIONS 94
X. DANGERS AHEAD 107
XI. THE PRIEST’S DEMAND 115
XII. LOST 124
XIII. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? 135
XIV. THE PURSUIT 144
XV. THE PURSUIT (_continued_) 152
XVI. THE GREAT TEMPLE 164
XVII. THE BRITISH VILLAGE 173
XVIII. THE PICTS 182
XIX. THE SIEGE 194
XX. CEDRIC IN TROUBLE 207
XXI. THE ESCAPE 216
XXII. A VISITOR 224
XXIII. THE STRANGER’S STORY 234
XXIV. NEWS FROM ITALY 245
XXV. CONSULTATION 256
XXVI. FAREWELL! 266
XXVII. MARTIANUS 271
XXVIII. A RIVAL 281
XXIX. AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL 293
XXX. AT LAST 306
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE BURNING OF THE VILLA _Frontispiece_
PAGE
CONSTANTINE ELECTED EMPEROR 18
THE _PANTHER_ AND THE SAXON PIRATES 28
CEDRIC AT THE FORGE 58
JAVELIN THROWING 78
THE DEPARTURE OF THE LEGIONS 104
BRITISH CONSPIRATORS 112
THE CAPTURE OF CARNA 128
THE SACRIFICE 166
CEDRIC AND THE PICT 196
CEDRIC’S FURY 212
CEDRIC’S ESCAPE 222
CLAUDIAN’S TALE 234
THE COUNT RECEIVING THE LETTER OF HONORIUS 252
CARNA AND MARTIANUS 276
CARNA ON THE HILLSIDE 304
_THE COUNT OF THE SAXON SHORE._
CHAPTER I.
A BRITISH CÆSAR.
“Hail! Cæsar Emperor, the starving salute thee!”(1) and the speaker made a
military salute to a silver coin, evidently brand-new from the mint (which
did not seem, by the way, to turn out very good work), and bearing the
superscription, “Gratianus Cæsar Imperator Felicissimus.” He was a soldier
of middle age, whose jovial face did not show any sign of the fate which
he professed to have so narrowly escaped, and formed one of a group which
was lounging about the _Quæstorium_, or, as we may put it, the paymaster’s
office of the camp at the head of the Great Harbour.(2) A very curious
medley of nationalities was that group. There were Gauls; there were
Germans from the Rhine bank, some of them of the pure Teuton type, with
fair complexions, bright blue eyes, and reddish golden hair, and
remarkably tall of stature, others showing an admixture of the Celtic
blood of their Gallic neighbours in their dark hair and hazel eyes; there
were swarthy Spaniards, fierce-looking men from the Eastern Adriatic,
showing some signs of Greek parentage in their regular features and
graceful figures; there were two or three who seemed to have an admixture
of Asian or even African blood in them; it might be said, in fact, there
were representatives of every province of the Empire, Italy only excepted.
They had been just receiving their pay, long in arrear, and now
considerably short of the proper amount, and containing not a few coins
which the receivers seemed to think of doubtful value.
“Let me look at his Imperial Majesty,” said another speaker; and he
scanned the features of the new Cæsar—features never very dignified, and
certainly not flattered by the rude coinage—with something like contempt.
“Well, he does not look exactly as a Cæsar should; but what does it
matter? This will go down with Rufus at the wine-shop and Priscus the
sausage-seller, as well as the head of the great Augustus himself.”
“Ah!” said a third speaker, picking out from a handful of silver a coin
which bore the head of Theodosius, “this was an Emperor worth fighting
under. I made my first campaign with him against Maximus, another British
Cæsar, by the way; and he was every inch a soldier. If his son were like
him(3) things would be smoother than they are.”
“Do you think,” said the second speaker, after first throwing a cautious
glance to see whether any officer of rank was in hearing—“do you think we
have made a change for the better from Marcus?(4) He at all events used to
be more liberal with his money than his present majesty. You remember he
gave us ten silver pieces each. Now we don’t even get our proper pay.”
“Marcus, my dear fellow,” said the other speaker, “had a full military
chest to draw upon, and it was not difficult to be generous. Gratianus has
to squeeze every denarius out of the citizens. I heard them say, when the
money came into the camp yesterday, that it was a loan from the Londinium
merchants. I wonder what interest they will get, and when they will see
the principal again.”
“Hang the fat rascals!” said the other. “Why should they sleep soft, and
eat and drink the best of everything, while we poor soldiers, who keep
them and their money-bags safe, have to go bare and hungry?”
“Come, come, comrades,” interrupted the first soldier who had spoken; “no
more grumbling, or some of us will find the centurion after us with his
vine-sticks.”
The group broke up, most of them making the best of their way to spend
some of their unaccustomed riches at the wine-shop, a place from which
they had lately kept an enforced absence. Three or four of the number,
however, who seemed, from a sign that passed between them, to have some
secret understanding, remained in close conversation—a conversation which
they carried on in undertones, and which they adjourned to one of the
tents to finish without risk of being disturbed or overheard.
The camp in which our story opens was a square enclosure, measuring some
five hundred yards each way, and surrounded by a massive wall, not less
than four feet in thickness, in the construction of which stone, brick,
and tile had, in Roman fashion, been used together. The defences were
completed by strong towers of a rounded shape, which had been erected at
frequent intervals. The camp had, as usual, its four gates. That which
opened upon the sea—for the sea washed the southern front—was famous in
military tradition as the gate by which the second legion had embarked to
take part in the Jewish War and the famous siege of Jerusalem. Vespasian,
who had begun in Britain the great career which ended in the throne, had
experienced its valour and discipline in more than one campaign,(5) and
had paid it the high compliment of making a special request for its
services when he was appointed to conduct what threatened to be a
formidable war. This glorious recollection was proudly cherished in the
camp, though more than three centuries had passed, changing as they went
the aspect of the camp, till it looked at least as much like a town as a
military post. The troops were housed in huts stoutly built of timber,
which a visitor would have found comfortably furnished by a long
succession of occupants. The quarters of the tribune and higher centurions
were commodious dwellings of brick; and the headquarters of the legate, or
commanding officer, with its handsome chambers, its baths, and tesselated
pavements, might well have been a mansion at Rome. There was a street of
regular shape, in which provisions, clothes, and even ornaments could be
bought. Roman discipline, though somewhat relaxed, did not indeed permit
the dealers to remain within the fortifications at night, but the shops
were tenanted by day, and did a thriving business, not only with the
soldiers, but with the Britons of the neighbourhood, who found the camp a
convenient resort, where they could market to advantage, besides gossiping
to their hearts’ content. The relations between the soldiers and their
native neighbours were indeed friendly in the extreme. The legion had had
its headquarters in the camp of the Great Harbour for many generations,
though it had occasionally gone on foreign service. Lately, too, the
policy which had recruited the British legion with soldiers from the
Continent, had been relaxed, partly from carelessness, partly because it
was necessary to fill up the ranks as could best be done, and there was
but little choice of men. Thus service became very much an inheritance.
The soldiers married British women, and their children, growing up, became
soldiers in turn. Many recruits still came from Gaul, Spain, and the mouth
of the Rhine, and elsewhere, but quite as many of the troops were by this
time, in part or in whole, British.
Another change which the three centuries and a half since Vespasian’s time
had brought about was in religion. The temple of Mars, which had stood
near the headquarters, and where the legate had been accustomed to take
the auspices,(6) was now a Christian Church, duly served by a priest of
British birth.
About a couple of hours later in the day a shout of “The Emperor! the
Emperor!” was raised in the camp, and the soldiers, flocking out from the
mess-tents in which most of them were sitting, lined in a dense throng the
avenue which led from the chief gate to headquarters.
Gratianus, who was followed by a few officers of superior rank and a small
escort of cavalry, rode slowly between the lines of soldiers. His
reception was not as hearty as he had expected to find. He had, as the
soldiers had hinted, made vast exertions to raise a sum of money in
Londinium—then, as now, the wealthiest municipality in the island. Himself
a native of the place, and connected with some of its richest citizens, he
had probably got together more than any one else would have done in like
circumstances. But all his persuasions and promises, even his offer of
twenty per cent. interest, had not been able to extract from the Londinium
burghers the full sum that was required; and the soldiers, who the day
before would have loudly proclaimed that they would be thankful for the
smallest instalment, were now almost furious because they had not been
paid in full. A few shouts of “Hail, Cæsar! Hail, Gratianus! Hail,
Britannicus!” greeted him on the road to his quarters; but these came from
the front lines only, and chiefly from the centurions and
deputy-centurions, while the great body of the soldiers maintained an
ominous silence, sometimes broken by a sullen murmur.
Gratianus was not a man fitted to deal with sudden emergencies. He was
rash and he was ambitious, but he wanted steadfast courage, and he was
hampered by scruples of which an usurper must rid himself at once if he
hopes to keep himself safe in his seat. He might have appealed frankly to
the soldiers—asked them what it was they complained of, and taken them
frankly into his confidence; or he might have overawed them by an example
of severity, fixing on some single act of insubordination or insolence,
and sending the offender to instant execution. He was not bold enough for
either course, and the opportunity passed, as quickly as opportunities do
in such times, hopelessly out of his reach.
The temper of the soldiers grew more excited and dangerous as the day went
on. For many weeks past want of money had kept them sober against their
will, and now that the long-expected pay-day had come they crowded the
wine-shops inside and outside the camp, and drank almost as wildly as an
Australian shepherd when he comes down to the town after a six months’
solitude. As anything can set highly combustible materials on fire, so the
most trivial and meaningless incident will turn a tipsy mob into a crowd
of bloodthirsty madmen. Just before sunset a messenger entered the camp
bringing a despatch from one of the outlying forts. One of those
prodigious lies which seem always ready to start into existence when they
are wanted for mischief at once ran like wild-fire through the camp.
Gratianus was bringing together troops from other parts of the province,
and was going to disarm and decimate the garrison of the Great Camp. The
unfortunate messenger was seized before he could make his way to
headquarters, seriously injured, and robbed of the despatch which he was
carrying. Some of the centurions ventured to interfere and endeavour to
put down the tumult. Two or three who were popular with the men were
good-humouredly disarmed; others, who were thought too rigorous in
discipline, were roughly handled and thrown into the military prison; one,
who had earned for himself the nick-name of “Old Hand me the other,”(7)
was killed on the spot. The furious crowd then rushed to headquarters,
where Gratianus was entertaining a company of officers of high rank, and
clamoured that they must see the Emperor. He came out and mounted the
hustings, which stood near the front of the buildings, and from which it
was usual to address gatherings of the soldiers.
For a moment the men, not altogether lost to the sense of discipline, were
hushed into silence and order by the sight of the Emperor as he stood on
the platform in his Imperial purple, his figure thrown into bold relief by
the torches which his attendants held behind him.
“What do you want, my children?” he said; but there was a tremble in his
voice which put fresh courage into the failing hearts of the mutineers.
“Give us our pay, give us our arrears!” answered a soldier in one of the
back rows, emboldened to speak by finding himself out of sight.
The cry was taken up by the whole multitude. “Our pay! Our pay!” was
shouted from thousands of throats.
Gratianus stood perplexed and irresolute, visibly cowering before the
storm. At this moment one of the tribunes stepped forward and whispered in
his ear. What he said was this: “Say to them, ‘Follow me, and I will give
you all you ask and more.’”
It was a happy suggestion, one of the vague promises that commit to
nothing, and if the unlucky usurper could have given it with confidence,
with an air that gave it a meaning, he might have been saved, at least for
a time. But his nerve, his presence of mind was hopelessly lost. “Follow
me—where? Whither am I to lead them?” he asked, in a hurried, agitated
whisper.
His adviser shrugged his shoulders and was silent. He saw that he was not
comprehended.
Gratianus continued to stand silent and irresolute, with his helpless,
despairing gaze fixed upon the crowd. Then came a great surging movement
from the back of the crowd, and the front ranks were almost forced up the
steps of the platform. The unlucky prince turned as if to flee. The
movement sealed his fate. A stone hurled from the back of the crowd struck
him on the side of the face. Half stunned by the blow, he leaned against
one of the attendants, and the blood could be seen pouring down his face,
pale with terror, and looking ghastly in the flaming torchlight. The next
moment the attendant flung down his torch and fled—an example followed by
all his companions. Then all was in darkness; and it only wanted darkness
to make a score of hands busy in the deed of blood.
As Gratianus lay prostrate on the ground the first blow was aimed by a
brother of his predecessor, Marcus, who had been quietly waiting for an
opportunity of vengeance. In another minute he had ceased to live. His
head was severed from the body and fixed on the top of a pike. One of the
murderers seized a smouldering torch, and, blowing it into flame, held it
up while another exhibited the bleeding head, and cried, “The tyrant has
his deserts!” But by this time the mad rage of the crowd had subsided. The
horror of the deed had sobered them. Many began to remember little acts of
kindness which the murdered man had done them, and the feeling of wrong
was lost in a revulsion of pity. In a few moments more the crowd was
scattered. Silent and remorseful the men went to their quarters, and the
camp was quiet again. But another British Cæsar had gone the way of a long
line of unlucky predecessors.
CHAPTER II.
AN ELECTION.
The camp next day was covered with gloom. The soldiers moved silent and
with downcast faces along the avenues, or discharged in a mechanical way
their routine duties. The guards were turned out, the sentries relieved,
and the general order of service maintained without any action on the part
of the officers—at least of those who held superior rank. These remained
in the seclusion of their tents; and it may be said that those who were
conscious of being popular were almost as much alarmed as those who knew
that they were disliked. If the latter dreaded the vengeance of those whom
they had offended, the others were scarcely less alarmed by the
possibility of being elected to the perilous dignity which had just proved
fatal to Gratianus. The country people, whose presence generally gave an
air of cheerfulness and activity to the camp, were too much alarmed to
come. The trading booths inside the gates were empty, and only a very few
stalls were occupied in the market, which was held every day outside them.
The funeral of the late prince was celebrated with some pomp. The soldiers
attended it in crowds, and manifested their grief, and, it would seem,
their remorse, by groans and tears. They were ready even to give proofs of
their repentance by the summary execution of those who had taken an active
part in the bloody deed. But here, one of the centurions, whose cheerful,
genial manners made him an unfailing favourite with the men, had the
courage to check them. “No, my men,” said he; “we were all mad last night,
and we must all take the blame.”
Two days passed without any incident of importance. On the third the
question of a successor began to be discussed. One of the other garrisons
might be beforehand with them, and they would have either to accept a
chief who would owe his best favours to others, or risk their lives in an
unprofitable struggle with him. In the afternoon a general assembly of the
troops was held, the officers still holding aloof, though some of them
mixed, _incognito_, so to speak, in the crowd.
Of course, the first difficulty was to find any one who would take the
lead. At last the genial centurion, who has been mentioned above as a
well-established favourite with the soldiers, was pushed to the front. His
speech was short and sensible. “Comrades,” he said, “I doubt whether what
I have to say will please you; but I shall say it all the same. You know
that I always speak my mind. We have not done very well in the new ways.
Let us try the old. I propose that we take the oath to Honorius Augustus.”
A deep murmur of discontent ran through the assembly, and showed that the
speaker had presumed at least as far as was safe on his popularity with
the troops.
“Does Decius,” cried a burly German from the crowd—Decius was the name of
the centurion—“does Decius recommend that we should trust to the mercy of
Honorius? Very good, perhaps, for himself; for the giver of such advice
could scarcely fail of a reward; but for us it means decimation(8) at the
least.”
A shout of applause showed that the speaker had expressed the feelings of
his audience.
“I propose that we all take the oath to Decius himself!” said a Batavian;
“he is a brave man and an honest, and what do we want more?”
The good Decius had heard undismayed the angry disapproval which his loyal
proposal had called forth; but the mention of his name as a possible
candidate for the throne overwhelmed him with terror. His jovial face grew
pale as death; the sweat stood in large drops upon his forehead; he
trembled as he had never trembled in the face of an enemy.
“Comrades,” he stammered, “what have I done that you should treat me thus?
If I have offended or injured you, kill me, but not this.”
More than half possessed by a spirit of mischief, the assembly answered
this piteous appeal by continuous shouts of “Long live the Emperor
Decius!”
The good man grew desperate. He drew his sword from the scabbard, and
pointed it at his own heart. “At least,” he cried, “you can’t forbid me
this escape.”
The bystanders wrested the weapon from him; but the joke had gone far
enough, and the man was too genuinely popular for the soldiers to allow
him to be tormented beyond endurance. A voice from the crowd shouted,
“Long live the Centurion Decius!” to which another answered, “Long live
Decius the subject!” and the worthy man felt that the danger was over.
A number of candidates, most of whom were probably as little desirous of
the honour as Decius, were now proposed in succession.
“I name the Tribune Manilius,” said one of the soldiers.
The name was received with a shout of laughter.
“Let him learn first to be Emperor at home!” cried a voice from the back
of the assembly, a sally which had considerable success, as his wife was a
well-known termagant, and his two sons the most frequent inmates of the
military prison.
“I name the Centurion Pisinna.”
“Very good, if he does not pledge the purple,” for Pisinna was notoriously
impecunious.
“I name the Tribune Cetronius.”
“Very good as Emperor of the baggage-guard.” Cetronius had, to say the
least, no high reputation for personal courage, and was supposed to prefer
the least exposed parts on the field.
A number of other names were mentioned only to be dismissed with more or
less contumely. Tired of this sport—for it really was nothing more—the
crowd cried out for a speech from a well-known orator of the camp, whose
fluency, not unmixed with shrewdness and humour, had gained him a
considerable reputation among his comrades.
“Comrades,” he began, “if you have not yet found a candidate worthy of
your suffrages, it is not because such do not exist among you. Can it be
believed that Britain is less worthy to produce the Emperor than Gaul, or
Spain, or Thrace, or even the effeminate Syria? Was it not from Britain
that there came forth the greatest of the successors of Augustus, the
Second Romulus, Flavius Aurelius Constantinus?”(9)
The orator was not permitted to proceed any further. The name Constantinus
ran like an electric shock through the whole assembly, and a thousand
voices took up the cry, “Long live Constantinus, Emperor Augustus!” while
all eyes were turned to one of the back rows of the meeting, where a
soldier who happened to bear that name was standing. Some of his comrades
caught him by the arm, hurried him to the front, and from thence on to the
hustings. He was greeted with a perfect uproar of applause, partly, of
course, ironical, but partly the expression of a genuine feeling that the
right man had been found, and found by some sort of Divine assistance. The
soldiers were, as has been said, a strange medley of men, scarcely able to
understand each other, and alike only in being savage, ignorant, and
superstitious. They had been unlucky in choosing for themselves, and now
it might be well to have the choice made for them. And at least the new
man had a name which all of them knew and reverenced, as far as they
reverenced anything.
[Illustration: Constantine elected Emperor.]
Whether he had anything but a name might have seemed perhaps somewhat
doubtful. He had reached middle age, for he had two sons already grown up,
but had never risen above the rank of a private soldier. It might be said,
perhaps, that he had shown some ability in thus avoiding promotion—not
always a desirable thing in troublous times; but there was the fact that
he was nearly fifty years of age, and was not even a deputy-centurion. On
the other hand, he was a respectable man, ignorant indeed, for, like most
of his comrades, he could neither read nor write, but with a certain
practical shrewdness, so good-humoured that he had never made an enemy,
known to be remarkably brave, a great athlete in his youth, and still of a
strength beyond the average.
His sudden and strange elevation did not seem to throw him in the least
off his balance. He had been perfectly content to go without promotion,
and now he seemed equally content to receive the highest promotion of all.
He stood calmly facing the excited mob, as unmoved as if he had been a
private soldier on the parade ground. A slight flush, indeed, might have
been seen to mount to his face when the cloak of imperial purple was
thrown over his shoulders, and the peaked diadem put upon his head. He
must have been less than man not to have felt some thrill either of fear
or pride at the touch of what had brought two of his comrades to their
graves within the space of less than half a year; but he showed no other
sign of emotion.
The officers, seeing the turn things had taken, had now come to the front,
and the senior tribune, taking the new Emperor by the hand, led him to the
edge of the hustings, and said, “Comrades, I present to you Aurelius
Constantinus, chosen by the providence of God and the choice of the army
to be Emperor of Britain and the West. The Blessed and Undivided Trinity
order it for the best.” A ringing shout of approval went up in response.
The tribunes then took the oath of allegiance to the new Emperor in
person. These again administered it to the centurions, and the centurions
swore in great batches of the soldiers. The new-made prince meanwhile
stood unmoved, it might almost be said insensible, so strange was his
composure in the face of his sudden elevation. All that he said—the
result, it seemed, of a whisper from one of his sons—were a few words,
which, however, had all the success of a most eloquent oration.
“Comrades, I promise you a donative(10) within the space of a month.”
The assembly broke up in great good-humour, and the newly-made Emperor,
attended by the officers, went to take possession of headquarters.
CHAPTER III.
A PRIZE.
It was a bright morning some three weeks after the occurrences related in
the last chapter, when a squadron of four Roman galleys swept round the
point which is now known as the South Foreland. The leader of the four,
all of which, indeed, lay so close together as to be within easy hailing
distance, bore on its mainmast the _Labarum_, or Imperial standard,
showing on a ground of purple a cross, a crown, and the sacred initials,
all wrought in gold. It was the flagship, so to speak, of the great Count
himself, one of the most important lieutenants of the Empire, whose task
it was to guard the shores of Britain and Northern Gaul from the pirate
swarms that issued from the harbours of the North Sea and the Baltic. The
Count himself was on board, coming south from his villa on the eastern
shore—for the stations of which he had the charge extended as far as the
Wash—to his winter residence in the sunny island of Vectis.
The Count was a tall man of middle age, and wore over his tunic a military
cloak reaching to the hips, and clasped at the neck with a handsome device
in gold, representing a hunting-dog with his teeth fixed in a stag. His
head was covered with a broad-brimmed hat of felt. The only weapon that he
carried was a short sword, which, with its plain hilt and leather
scabbard, was evidently meant for use rather than show. His whole
appearance and bearing, indeed, were those of a man of action and energy.
His eyes were bright and piercing; his nose showed, strongly pronounced,
the curve which has always been associated with the ability to command;
the contour of his chin and lips, as far as could be seen through a short
curling beard and moustache, worn as a prudent defence against the
climate, betokened firmness. Still, the expression of the face was not
unkindly. As a great writer says of one whom Britain had had good reason
in earlier days both to fear and to love, “one would easily believe him to
be a good man, and willingly believe him to be great.”
At the time when our story opens he was standing in conversation with the
helmsman, a weather-beaten old sailor, whose dark Southern complexion had
been deepened by the sun and winds of more than fifty years of service
into an almost African hue.
“The wind will hardly serve us as well as it has,” said the Count, as his
practised eye, familiar with every yard of the coast, perceived that they
were well abreast of the extreme southern point of the coast.
“No, my lord,” said the old man, “we shall have to take as long a tack as
we can to the south. There is a deal of west in the wind—more, I think,
than there was an hour since. Castor and Pollux—I beg your lordship’s
pardon, the blessed Saints—defend us from anything like a westerly gale.”
“Ah! old croaker,” replied the Count, with a laugh, “I verily believe that
you will be half disappointed if we get to our journey’s end without some
mishap.”
“Good words, good words, my lord,” said the old man, hastily crossing
himself, while he muttered something, which, if it could have been
overheard, would have been scarcely suitable to that act of devotion.
“Heaven bring us safe to our journey’s end! Of course it is your
lordship’s business to give orders, and ours to go to the bottom, if it is
to be so. But I must say, saving your presence, that it is against all
rules of a sailor’s craft as I have known it, man and boy, for nigh upon
threescore years, to be at sea near about a month after the autumn
equinox.
’Never let your keel be wet,
When the Pleiades have set;
Never let your keel be dry,
When the Crown is in the sky.’
That is what my father used to say, and his fathers before him, for I do
not know how many generations, for we have always followed the sea.”
“Very well for them, perhaps,” said the Count, “in the days when a man
would almost as soon go into a lion’s den as venture out of sight of land.
But the world is too busy to let us waste half our year on shore.”
“Yes, yes, I know all about that,” answered the old man, who was
privileged to have the last word even with so great a personage as the
Count; “but there is a proverb, ‘Much haste, little speed,’ and I have
always found it quite as true by sea as by land.”
Meanwhile the proper signals had been given to the rest of the squadron,
and the whole four were now heading south, with a point or two to the
west, the _Panther_—for that was the name of the flagship—still slightly
leading the way, with her consorts in close company. In this order they
made about twelve miles, the wind freshening somewhat as they drew further
away from the British shore, and, being nearly aft, carrying them briskly
along.
“Fine sailing, fine sailing,” said the old helmsman, drawn almost in spite
of himself into an exclamation of delight, as the _Panther_, rushing
through the water with an almost even keel, began to widen the gap between
herself and her nearest follower. The short waves, which just broke in
sparkling foam, the brilliant sunshine, almost bringing back summer with
its noonday heat, and the sea with a blue which recalled, though but
faintly, the deep tint of his native Mediterranean, combined to gladden
the old man’s soul. “But we need not put about now,” he said to himself.
“If this wind holds we shall fetch Lemanis(11) without requiring to tack.”
He was about to give the necessary orders to trim the sails, when he was
stopped by a shout from the look-out man at the bow, “A sail on the
starboard side!” Just within the range of a keen sight, in the
south-western horizon, the sunlight fell on what was evidently a sail. But
the distance was too great to let even the keenest sight distinguish what
kind of craft it might be, or which way it was moving. The Count, who had
gone below for his mid-day meal, was of course informed of the news. He
came at once upon deck, and lost no time in making up his mind.
“If she is an enemy,” he said to the old helmsman, “she will be eastward
bound; though I never knew a pirate keep the sea quite so late in the
year. If she is a friend she will probably be sailing westward, or even
coming our way—but it does not matter which. If she has anything to tell
us, we shall be sure to hear it sooner or later. But it will never do to
let a pirate escape if we can help it. Any one who is out so late as the
middle of October must have had good reason for stopping, and can hardly
fail to be worth catching. Quintus, put her right before the wind, and
clap on every inch of canvas.”
The course of the squadron was now changed to nearly due south-east. All
eyes, of course, were bent on the strange craft, and before an hour had
passed it was evident that the Count had been right in his guess. There
were four ships; they were long and low in the water, of the build which
was only too well known along the coasts of Gaul and Britain, where no
river or creek, if it gave as much as three or four feet of water, was
safe from their attack. In short, they were Saxon pirates, and were now
moving eastward with all the speed that sails and oars could give them.
The question that every one on board the _Panther_ was putting to himself
with intense interest was, “Shall we be able to intercept them?” For the
present the Count’s ship had the advantage of speed, thanks to the wind
abaft the beam. But a stern chase would be useless. On equal terms the
pirates were at least as quick as their pursuers. The light, too, of the
autumn day would soon fail, and with the light every chance of success
would be gone.
For a time it seemed as if the escape of the pirate was certain. “Curse
the scoundrels!” cried the Count, as he paced impatiently up and down the
after deck. “If it would only come on to blow in real earnest we should
have them. Anyhow, I would sooner that we should all founder together than
that they should get off scot free.”
The _Panther_, which had left her consorts about a mile in the rear, was
now near enough for her crew to see distinctly the outlines of the pirate
ships, to mark the glitter of the shields that were ranged along the
gunwales, and to catch the rhythmic rise and fall of the long sweeping
oars. The Saxons were evidently straining every nerve to make good their
escape, and it seemed scarcely possible that they could fail. Then came a
turn of fortune—the very thing, in fact, that the Count had prayed for.
For a time—only a very few moments—the wind freshened to something like
the force of a gale. The masts of the _Panther_ were strained to the
utmost of their strength; they groaned and bent like whips under the
sudden pressure on the canvas, but the seasoned timber stood the sudden
call upon it bravely. How the Count blessed himself that he had never
passed over a piece of bad workmanship or bad material! The good ship took
a wild plunge forward, but nothing gave way. But the last of the four
pirates was not so fortunate. She had one tall mast, carrying a
fore-and-aft sail, so large as to be quite out of proportion to her size.
The wind struck her nearly sideways, and she heeled over till her keel
could almost be seen. For a moment it was doubtful whether she would not
capsize. Then the mast gave. The vessel righted at once, but only to lie
utterly helpless on the water, with all her starboard oars hopelessly
entangled with the canvas and rigging. What the Count would have done had
his ship been entirely in hand it is difficult to say. No speedier or more
effective way of dealing with the enemy than running her down could have
been practised. The _Panther_ had three or four times the tonnage of her
adversary, whose lightness and low bulwarks made her easily accessible to
this kind of attack. Nor would the pirates have a chance of showing the
desperate valour which the Roman boarding-parties had learnt to respect
and almost to fear. The only argument on the other side would have been
that prisoners and booty would probably be lost. But, as a matter of fact,
the Count had no opportunity of weighing the _pros_ and _cons_ in the
matter. The _Panther_, driving as she was straight before the wind, was
practically unmanageable. She struck the pirate craft with a tremendous
crash amidships, and cut her almost literally in half. One blow, and one
only, did the pirates strike at their conquerors. When escape had become
manifestly impossible by the fall of the mast, the Saxon warriors had
dropped their oars, and seizing their bows had discharged a volley of
arrows against the Roman ship. The hurry and confusion of the moment did
not favour accurate aim, and most of the missiles flew wide of the mark;
but one seemed to have been destined to fulfil the helmsman’s expectations
of evil to come. It struck the old man on the left side, inflicting a
fatal wound. In the first confusion of the shock the incident was not
noticed, for the brave fellow stuck gallantly to the tiller, propping
himself up against it while he kept the _Panther_ steadily before the
wind. In fact, loss of blood had brought him nearly to his end before it
was even known that he had been wounded. Then, in a moment, the Count was
at his side.
[Illustration: The Panther and the Saxon Pirate.]
“Carry him to my own cabin,” he said.
The old man raised his hand in a gesture that seemed to refuse the service
which half a dozen stout sailors were at once ready to render him. “Nay,”
said he, “it is idle; this arrow has sped me. But let me die here, where I
can see the waves and the sky. I have known them, man and boy, threescore
years—aye, and more, for my father would take me on his ship when I was a
tiny chap of three feet high. Nay, no cabin for me; ’tis almost as bad as
dying in one’s bed.”
His voice grew feeble. The Count stopped, and asked whether there was
anything that he could do for him.
“Nay,” said the old man, “nothing; I have neither chick nor child. ’Tis
all as well as I could have wished. But mark, my lord, I was right about
sailing in October. Any one that knows the sea would be sure that trouble
must come of it.”
The next moment he was past speaking or hearing.
It was his privilege, we must remember, to have the last word.
The _Panther_ meanwhile had been brought to the wind. Her consorts, too,
had come up, and a search was made for any survivors of the encounter that
might be still afloat. Some had been killed outright by the concussion;
others had been so hurt that they could make no effort to save themselves.
They would not, however, have made it if they could. Those that had
escaped uninjured evidently preferred drowning to a Roman prison. With
grim resolution they straightened their arms to their sides and went down.
Only two survivors were picked up. These, evidently twins from their close
resemblance to each other, were found clinging to a fragment of timber.
One had been grievously hurt, the other had not suffered any injury.
The wounded man, who had received an almost fatal blow upon the head, had
lost the power to move, and was holding on to life more than half
unconsciously; and his brother, moved by that passionate love so often
found between twins, had sacrificed himself—that is, the honour which he
counted dearer than life—to save him. Had he had only himself to think of,
he would have been the first to go down a free man to the bottom of the
sea; but his brother was almost helpless, and he could not leave him.
When it was evident that all further search would be useless, the squadron
set their sails for Lemanis, which, thanks to a further change in the wind
to the northward, they were able to reach before midnight.
CHAPTER IV.
THE VILLA IN THE ISLAND.
Count Ælius was a man of the best Roman type, a man of “primitive virtue,”
as the classical writers would have put it, though this virtue had been
softened, refined, and purified by civilizing and instructing influences,
of which the old Roman heroes—the Fabiuses, the Catos, the Scipios—had
known nothing. In the antiquity of his lineage there was scarcely a man in
the Empire who could pretend to compare with him. For the most part, the
old houses from which had come the Consuls and Dictators of the Republic
had died out. The old nobility had gone, and the new nobility had followed
it. The great name of Fabius, saved by an accident from extinction, when
its three hundred gallant sons, each of them “fit to command an army,”
perished in one day by the craft of the Etruscan foe, had passed away.
There was no living representative of the conqueror of Carthage, or of the
conqueror of Corinth. Even the _parvenus_ of the Empire had in their turn
disappeared. The generals and senators, both of the old Rome and of the
new,(12) bore names which would have sounded strange and barbarous to
Cicero or even to Tacitus. An Ælius then, one who claimed to trace his
descent to a time even earlier than the legendary age, to a race which was
domiciled in Italy long before even Æneas had brought thither the gods of
Troy, was an almost singular phenomenon in a generation of new men. And
nothing less than this was the pedigree claimed by the Ælii. Their
remotest ancestor—the Count never could hear an allusion to it without a
smile—was the famous cannibal king who ruled over the Laestrygones, a
tribe of Western Italy,(13) and from whose jaws the prudent Ulysses so
narrowly escaped. The pride of ancient descent is not particular as to the
character of a progenitor, so he be sufficiently remote; and one branch of
the Ælii had always delighted to recall by their surname their connection
with this man-eating hero. But the race had not lacked glories of its own
in historical times. They had had soldiers, statesmen, and men of letters
among them. One of them had been made immortal by the friendship of
Horace. Another, an adopted son, it was true, better known by the famous
name of Sejanus, had nearly made himself master of the throne of the
Cæsars. About a hundred years later this crowning glory of human ambition
had fallen to it in the person of Hadrian, third in the list of the “five
good Emperors”;(14) though indeed there were purists in the matter of
genealogy who stoutly denied that this great soldier and scholar had any
of the real Ælian blood in him.
The Count’s father had held civil office at Carthage, and the young Ælius
had there, for a short time, been a pupil of Aurelius Augustinus, then
known as an eloquent teacher of rhetoric, afterwards to become the most
famous doctor of the Western Church. But his bent was not for the
profession of the law, and his father, though disappointed at his
preference for a soldier’s career, would not stand in his way. His first
experience of warfare was gained on a day of terrible disaster. His
father’s influence had secured him a position which seemed in every way
desirable. He was attached to the staff of Trajanus, a general of division
in the army of the Emperor Valens. By great exertions, travelling night
and day, at the hottest period of the year, the young Ælius contrived to
report himself to his commander on the eve of the great battle of
Adrianople. He had borne himself with admirable courage and
self-possession during that terrible day, more disastrous to the Roman
arms than even Cannæ itself. He had helped to carry the wounded Emperor to
a cottage near the field of battle, and had barely escaped with his life,
cutting his way with desperate resolution through the enemy, when this
place of refuge was surrounded and burnt by the barbarians. After this
unfortunate beginning he betook himself for a time to the employments of
peace, obtaining an office under Government at Milan, where he renewed his
acquaintance with his old teacher, Augustine. Then another opening, in
what was still his favourite profession, presented itself. The young
soldier’s gallant conduct on the disastrous day of Adrianople had not been
forgotten by some who had witnessed it, and when Stilicho, then the rising
general of the Empire, was looking about for officers to fill posts upon
his staff, the name of Ælius was mentioned to him. Under Stilicho he
served with much distinction, and it was on Stilicho’s recommendation that
he was appointed to the post which, when our story opens, he had held for
nearly twenty years.
His position during this period had been one of singular difficulty. The
tie between the Empire and Britain was very loose. More than once during
Ælius’ tenure of office it had seemed to be broken altogether. Pretender
after pretender had risen against the central power, and had declared his
province independent, and himself an Emperor. The Count of the Saxon Shore
had contrived to keep himself neutral, so to speak, during these troubles.
His own office, that of defending the eastern and southern shores of the
island against the attacks of the Saxon pirates, he had filled with
remarkable vigilance and skill. And the usurpers had been content to leave
him undisturbed. His sailors were profoundly attached to him, and any
attempt to interfere with him would have thrown a considerable weight into
the opposite scale. And he and his work were necessary. Whether Britain
was subject to Rome or independent of it, it was equally important that
its coasts should not be harried by pirates. If Ælius would provide for
this—and he did provide for it, with an almost unvarying success—he might
be left alone, and not required to give in his allegiance to the new
claimant of the throne. This allegiance he never did give in. He was
always the faithful servant of those who appointed him, and, whoever might
happen to be the temporary master of Britain, regularly addressed his
despatches and reports to the central authority in Italy. On the other
hand, he did not feel himself bound to take direct steps towards asserting
that authority in the island. He had to keep the pirates in check, and
that was occupation quite sufficient to keep all his energies employed.
Thus, as has been said, he observed a kind of neutrality, always loyal to
the Roman Emperor, but willing to be on friendly terms with the rebel
generals of Britain as long as they left him alone, let him do his work of
defending the coast, and did not make any demands upon him which his
conscience would not allow him to satisfy.
Having thus sketched the career of the Count, we must now say something
about the house, which now—it was early in the afternoon of the day
following the events described in the last chapter—was just coming into
sight.
The villa was the Count’s private property, and had been purchased by him
immediately on his arrival in the island, for a reason which will be given
hereafter. It was a handsome house, and complete in its way, with all that
was necessary for a comfortable residence, but not one of the largest of
its kind. Indeed, it may be said that what may be called the “living” part
of it was unusually small for the dwelling of so distinguished a person as
the Count. It had been found large enough by its previous owners, men of
moderate means and, it so happened, of small families; and the Count,
feeling that his occupation of it might be terminated at any time, had not
cared to add to it. Its situation was remarkably pleasing. Behind it was a
sheltering range of hills,(15) keeping off the force of the south-westerly
winds, and then richly covered with wood. It was not too near the sea, the
Romans not finding that the ceaseless disturbance of rising and falling
tides was an element of pleasure, though they could not get too close to
their own tideless Mediterranean; but it was within an easy distance of
the Haven.(16) The convenience of this neighbourhood had indeed been one
of the Count’s reasons for selecting this spot. But if the harsh, grating
sound of the waves upon the shingle did not reach the ears of the dwellers
in the villa, and the force of the sea winds was somewhat broken for them
by intervening cliffs, they still enjoyed all the freshness and vitality
of an air that had come across many a league of water. The climate, too,
was genial, mild without being too soft, mostly free from damp, though not
exempt from occasional mist, seldom troubled by frost or snow, and, on the
whole, not unlike some of the more temperate regions of Italy.
The villa, with its belongings, occupied three sides of a square, or
rather rectangle, and was built nearly to the points of the compass. The
eastern side of the square was open, thus giving a prospect seawards. The
western contained the principal living rooms. The northern, too, was
partly occupied by bed-chambers and sitting-rooms, for which there was no
room in the comparatively small portion which had been originally intended
for the residence of the owner and his family. Some of the workmen
employed lived in cottages outside the villa enclosure. The southern was
devoted to storehouses, workshops, and all the miscellaneous buildings
which made a Roman villa, as far as possible, an establishment complete in
itself. The open space was occupied by a pretty garden, which will be more
particularly described hereafter.(17)
The eastward front of the villa was occupied for the greater part of its
length by a colonnade or corridor. A low wall of about four feet in height
separated this from the garden; above the wall it was open to the air; but
an overhanging roof helped greatly to shelter it, while the view into the
garden was unimpeded. The floor was adorned with a handsome tesselated
pavement, the principal device of which was a representation of the
favourite subject of Orpheus attracting beasts and birds by his lyre. The
proprietor from whom the Count had purchased the villa had brought it from
Italy. He was a Christian of artistic tastes, and, like his
fellow-believers, had delighted to trace in the old myth a spiritual
meaning, the power of the teaching of Christ to subdue to the Divine
obedience the savage, animal nature of man. He had displaced for it the
original design, which, indeed, was nothing better than a commonplace
representation of dancing figures which had satisfied the earlier owners.
The artist had included among the listeners animals, some of which, as the
monkey, the Thracian minstrel could hardly have seen, and, with a certain
touch of humour, he had adorned the monkey’s head with a Phrygian cap,
like that which Orpheus himself wore, to indicate probably that the monkey
is the caricature of man. The inner wall was ornamented with a bold design
of Cæsar’s first landing in Britain, worked in fresco. Seats and tables
were arranged along it at intervals, and the whole corridor was thus made
to furnish a pleasant promenade in winter and a charming resort when the
weather was warm.
At the south end of the corridor was the Count’s own apartment, or study,
as it would be called in a modern house. One window looked into the
corridor, into which a door also opened; another, which was built out into
the shape of a bow, so as to catch as much of the sun as the aspect
allowed, looked into the garden. Part of it was formed of lattices, which
admitted of being completely closed when the weather required such
protection; the rest was glazed with glass, which would have seemed rough
to the present generation, but was quite as good as most people were
content to have in their houses fifty years ago. The pavement was
tesselated, and presented various designs, a Bacchante, and a pair of
gladiators among them. These, however, were commonly covered with thick
woollen rugs, the villa being chiefly used as a winter residence. The
Count had not forgotten his early studies, and some handsome bookcases
contained his favourite authors, among which were to be found the great
classic poets of Rome, Tacitus, for whom he had a special regard, some
writers on the military art, Cato and Columella on agriculture, and, not
least honoured, though some, at least, of their contents had but little
interest for him—for, sincere Christian as he was, he cared little for
controversy—the numerous treatises of his friend and teacher, Augustine.
Behind this room was a simple furnished bed-chamber, showing in an almost
bare simplicity the characteristic tastes of a soldier.
At the other end of the corridor was a door leading to the principal
chamber in this part of the villa. This measured altogether close upon
forty feet in length, but it was divided, or rather could be divided, into
two by columns which stood about halfway down its longer sides, and
between which a curtain could be hung. When the chamber was occupied in
summer it might be used as a whole; in the winter the smaller part, which
looked out into the garden, could be shut off from the rest by drawing the
curtain, and so made a comfortable room, warmed from below by hot air from
the furnace, which had been constructed at the western end of the northern
wing of the villa. Much artistic skill had been expended on the pavements
of the apartment, and the smaller chamber was very richly decorated in
this way. In the middle was a large head of Medusa, and the rest was
filled with beautifully-worked scenes illustrating the pleasures of a
pastoral life. It was the custom of the Count’s family to use the larger
portion of the whole chamber as a dining-room, the smaller as a ladies’
boudoir. On the rare occasion of some large entertainment being given, the
whole was thrown into one.
The ladies of the family, of whom we shall hear more hereafter, had their
own apartments at the western end of the north wing, part of which was
shut off for their occupation and for their immediate attendants. A
covered way connected this with the portion occupied by the Count.
It would be needless to describe the rest of the villa. It was like the
houses of its kind, houses which the Romans erected wherever they went in
as close an imitation as they could make of what they were accustomed to
at home.
The garden, however, must not be wholly passed over. Spacious and handsome
as it was, it in part presented a stiff and unnatural appearance, looking,
in fact, somewhat theatrical, as contrasted with the pastoral sunniness of
the landscape. A Roman gardener had been brought from Rome—one skilled in
all the arts of his craft. It was he who had terraced the slope with so
much regularity, had planted stiff box hedges—and, above all, it was his
taste which led him to cut and train box and laburnum shrubs into
fantastic imitations of other forms. The poor trees were forced to abandon
their own natural shapes, and to pose as vases, geometrical figures, and
animals of various kinds. There was even a ship of box surrounded by a
broad channel of water, so that the spectator, making large demands on his
imagination, might imagine that the little mock vessel was moored on a
still sheet of water. Among the box trees were stone fountains badly
copied from classic models. But these had not remained in their bare
crudity. The loving British ivy had crept close around them, and added a
grace which the sculptor had failed to give. The Roman gardener would have
liked to banish this intruder, or to at least train it into the positions
prescribed by horticultural rules, but he had been bidden to let it run at
its own sweet will; and so it had, and had flourished, well nursed by the
soft and humid atmosphere.
Scattered at regular intervals through the green were flower-beds stocked
with plants, which were either native to the island, or had been brought
hither with great care from the capital. There were roses in several
varieties, strange-shaped orchids, which had been found growing wild at
lower levels of the island, and adopted into this civilized garden to
ornament it with their unique beauty. Gay geraniums and other flowers made
throughout the summer bright patches of colour in striking contrast to the
dark green.
These beds were enclosed by borders. Between these enclosures were
curiously-cut letters of growing box, which perpetuated—at least for the
life-time of the shrub—the gardener’s own name or that of his master, or
classic titles, to serve as designations for certain portions of the
place. In the midst of the garden several luxuriant oaks and graceful elms
had been allowed to retain in their native freedom the shapes into which
they had been growing for so many years. They cast wide shadows, and gave
a softened aspect to the unnatural shapes of the trained growths.
Beyond the floral division of the garden was another enclosure for pear
and apple trees. They stood on a green sward, soft as velvet, and of a
deeper hue than Italian suns permit to the grass on which they smile.
Here, too, were foreign embellishments. The monotony of the uniform rows
of fruit trees was varied by pyramids of box, and the whole orchard was
surrounded by a belt of plane trees.
A circle of oaks had been left at the summit of one of the terraces. Thick
hedges were planted between the trees, making a dense wall, in which
openings were cut for the view, so that the vista was visible, like a
picture set in a dark frame. This green room, roofed by the sky, was paved
with a mosaic of the bright coloured chalk from the cliffs at the western
end of the island, and contained an oblong basin of water shaped like a
table. The water flowed through so gently that the surface always seemed
at rest, and yet never grew warm. Couches were placed at this fountain
table, and from time to time repasts were served here, certain viands
being placed in dishes shaped like swans or boats, which floated
gracefully on the watery surface. The more solid meats were placed on the
broad marble edges of the basin.
This sylvan retreat seemed made for a meeting of naiads and nereids. In
short, the spot was so sheltered, the outlook over sea and land both near
and across the strait so fair, that one could well believe even Pliny’s
famed Tuscan garden, which may have suggested some features of this
British one, was not more happily placed.
CHAPTER V.
CARNA.
When Ælius had come, some eighteen years before the beginning of our
story, to take up his command on the coast of Britain, he had brought with
him his young wife. This lady, always delicate in health, had not long
survived her transplantation to a northern climate. Six months after her
arrival in Britain she had died in giving birth to a daughter. The child
was entrusted to the care of a British woman, wife of the sailing master
of one of the Roman ships, who had reared her together with her own
daughter. When little Ælia was but a few weeks old her foster-mother had
become a widow, her husband having met with his death in a desperate
encounter with one of the Saxon cruisers. This misfortune had been
followed by another, the loss of her two elder children, who had been
carried off by a malarious fever. The widow, thus doubly bereaved, had
thankfully accepted the Count’s offer that she should take the post of
mother of the maids in his household. Her foster-daughter, a feeble little
thing, whom she had the greatest difficulty in rearing, was as dear to her
as was her own child, and the new arrangement ensured that she should not
be separated from her. For ten years she was as happy as a woman who had
lost so much could hope to be. She had the pleasure of seeing her delicate
nursling pass safely through childhood, and grow into a handsome, vigorous
girl. Then her own call came; and feeling that her earthly work was done,
she had been glad to meet it. The Count, who was a frequent visitor to her
deathbed, had no difficulty in promising her that the two children should
never be separated. Indeed he could not have divided the pair even had he
wished. Every wish of the ten-year-old Ælia was as a law to him, and Ælia
would have simply broken her heart to lose her playmate and sister Carna.
The two friends were curiously unlike in person and disposition. Ælia was
a Roman of the Romans. Her hair was of a shining blue-black hue, and so
abundant that when unbound it fell almost to her knees. Her black eyes,
soft and lustrous in repose, and shaded with lashes of the very longest,
could give an almost formidable flash when anything had roused her to
anger. Her complexion was a rich brown, relieved by a slight ruddy tinge;
her features regular, less delicately carved, indeed, than the Greek type,
but full of expression, which was tender or fiery, according to her mood.
Her figure was somewhat small, but beautifully formed. If Ælia was
unmistakably Roman, Carna showed equally clearly one of the finest British
types. She was tall, overtopping her companion by at least a head; her
hair, which fell in curls about her shoulders, was of a glossy chestnut;
her eyes of the very deepest blue; her complexion, half-way between blonde
and brunette, mantled with a delicate colour, which deepened, when her
emotions were touched, into an exquisite blush; her forehead was somewhat
low, but broad, and with a rare promise both of artistic power and of
intelligence; her nose would have been pronounced by a casual observer to
be the most faulty feature in her face; and it is true that its outline
was not perfect. But the same observer, after a brief acquaintance, would
probably have retracted his censure, and owned that this feature suited
the rest of her face, and would have been less charming if it had been
more perfect. Ælia was impulsive and quick of temper, honest and
affectionate, but not caring to go below the surface of things, and
without a particle of imagination. Carna, on the other hand, seemed the
gentlest of women. Those blue eyes of hers were ready to express affection
and pity; but no one—not even Ælia, who could be exceedingly provoking at
times—had ever seen a flash of anger in them. But her nature had depths in
it that none suspected to be there; it was richly endowed with all the
best gifts of her Celtic race. She had a world of her own with which the
gay Roman girl, whom she loved so dearly, and with whom she seemed to
share all her thoughts, had nothing to do. Music touched her soul in a way
of which Ælia, who could sing very charmingly, and play with no little
expression on the _cithara_, had no conception. And though she had never
written, or even composed, a verse, and possibly would never write or
compose one, she was a poetess. At present all her soul was given to
religion, religion full of the imagination and enthusiasm which has made
saints of so many women of her race. The good British priest, to whose
flock she belonged, a worthy man who eked out his scanty income(18) by
working a small farm, was perplexed by her enthusiasm. She was not
satisfied with the duties of adorning the little church where he
ministered, and its humble altar-cloths and vestments, by the skill of her
nimble fingers, of aiding the chants with the rich tones of her beautiful
voice, of ministering to the sick. She performed these, indeed, with
devotion, but she demanded more, and the good man did not know how to
satisfy her. In addition to her other gifts Carna had that of being a born
nurse. It was her first impulse to fly to the help of anything—whether it
was man, or beast, or bird—that was sick or hurt, just as it was Ælia’s
impulse, though she mastered it at any strong call of duty, to avoid the
sight of suffering. She had now heard that a prisoner had been brought in
desperately wounded, and she could not rest till she knew whether she
could do anything for the poor creature’s soul or body. Ælia was as
scornful as her love for her foster-sister allowed her to be.
“My dearest Carna,” she cried, “what on earth can make you trouble
yourself in this fashion about this miserable creature? They are the worst
plagues in this world, these Saxons, and it would be a blessing to the
world if it were well quit of the whole race of them! A set of pagan
dogs!”
“Oh, sister,” said Carna, her eyes brimming with tears, “that is the worst
of it. A pagan, who has never heard of the Blessed Lord, and now, they
say, he is dying! What shall we do for him?”
“But surely,” returned the other, “he is no worse off than his threescore
companions who went to the bottom the other day.”
“God be good to them,” said Carna, “but then we did not know them, and
that seems to make a difference. And to think that this poor creature
should be so near to the way and not find it. But I must go and see him.”
“It will only tear your poor, tender heart for no purpose. You had far
better come and talk to father.”
Carna was not to be persuaded, but hurried to the chamber to which the
wounded man had been borne.
It was evident at first sight that the end was not far off. The dying
Saxon lay stretched on a rude pallet. He was a young man, who could
scarcely have seen as many as twenty summers, for the down was hardly to
be seen on his upper lip and chin. His face, which was curiously fair for
one who had followed from infancy an outdoor life, was deadly pale, a
pathetic contrast with the red-gold hair which fell in curly profusion
about it. His eyes, in which the fire was almost quenched, were wide open,
and fixed with an unchanging gaze upon a figure that stood motionless at
the foot of the bed. This was his brother, who had been permitted by the
humanity of the Count to be present. They had been exchanging a few
sentences, but the dying man was now too far gone to speak, and the two
could only look their last farewell to each other. It was a pitiful thing
to see the twins, so like in feature and form, but now so different, the
one, prisoner as he was, full of life and strength, the other on the very
threshold of death.
By the side of the wounded man stood the household physician, a
venerable-looking slave, who had acquired such knowledge of medicine and
surgery as sufficed for the treatment of the commoner ailments and
accidents. This case was beyond his skill, or indeed the skill of any man.
He could do nothing but from time to time put a few drops of cordial
between the sufferer’s lips. Next to the physician stood the priest, and
his skill, too, seemed to be at fault. A messenger, sent by Carna, had
warned him that a dying man required his ministrations, but had added no
further particulars, and the worthy man, who was busy at the time in
littering down his cattle, had hastily changed his working dress for his
priestly habiliments, and had come ready, as he thought, to administer the
last consolations of the Church to a dying Christian. The case utterly
perplexed him. He had tried the two languages with which he was familiar,
and found them useless. No one had been able to understand a single word
of the dialogue which had passed between the brothers. The dying stranger
was as hopelessly separated from him and the means of grace that he could
command as if he had been a thousand miles away. He could not even
venture—for his theology was of the narrowest type—to commend to the mercy
of God the passing soul of this unbaptized heathen.
Carna understood the situation at a glance. She saw death in the Saxon’s
face; she saw the hopeless perplexity in the expression of the priest.
“Father,” she cried, “can you do nothing, nothing at all for this poor
soul?”
“My daughter,” said the priest, “I am helpless. He knows nothing; he
understands nothing.”
“Can you not baptize him?”
“Baptize him without a profession of repentance, without a confession of
faith! Impossible!”
“Will you let him perish before your eyes without an effort to save him?”
“Child,” said the priest, with some impatience in his tone, “I have told
you that I am helpless. It was not I that brought these things about.”
The girl cast an agonized look about the room, as of one that appealed for
help, and seized a crucifix that hung upon the wall. She threw herself
upon her knees by the bedside, and after pressing the symbol of Redemption
passionately to her lips, held it to the mouth of the dying man. The
Saxon, on his first entrance into the room, had removed his look from his
brother and fixed it steadfastly on this beautiful apparition. Clad in
white from head to foot, with a golden girdle about her waist, her eyes
shining with excitement, her whole face transfigured by a passion of pity,
she seemed to him a vision from another world, one of the Walhalla maidens
of whom his mother had talked to him in days gone by. His lips closed
feebly on the crucifix which she held to them; a smile lighted up his
fading eyes, and he muttered with his last breath “Valkyria.” The girl
heard the word and remembered without understanding it. The next moment he
was dead, and one of the women standing by stepped forward and closed his
eyes.
Carna burst into a passion of tears.
“He is gone,” she cried, amidst her sobs, “he is gone, and we could not
help him.”
The priest was silent. He had no consolation to offer. Indeed, but that he
recognized the girl’s saintliness—a saintliness to which he, worthy man as
he was, had no pretensions—he would have thought her grief foolish. But
the old physician could not keep silence.
“Pardon me, lady,” he said, “if I seem to reprove you. I pray you not to
suffer your zeal for the salvation of souls to overpower your faith. Do
you think that the All-Father does not love this poor stranger as well as
you, nay, better than you can love him? that He cannot care for him as
well? that you, forsooth, must save him out of His hands? Nay, my
daughter—pardon an old man for the word—do not so distrust Him.”
“You are right, father, as always,” said the girl. “I have been selfish
and faithless. I was angry, I suppose, to find myself baffled and
helpless. You must set me a penance, father,” she added, turning to the
priest.
The Saxon meanwhile had contrived by his gestures to make his guards
understand that he wished to take his farewell of his dead brother. They
allowed him to approach the bed. He stooped and kissed the lips of the
dead, and then, choking down the sobs which convulsed his breast, turned
away, seemingly calm and unmoved. But as he passed Carna he contrived to
catch with his manacled hands one of the flowing sleeves of her white
robe, and to lift the hem to his lips.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SAXON.
It was not easy to know what should be done with the survivor of the two
Saxon captives. The villa had no proper provision for the safe custody of
prisoners; and the problem of keeping a man under lock and key, without a
quite disproportionate amount of trouble, was as difficult as it would be
in the ordinary country house of modern times.
“I shall send him to the camp at the Great Harbour,” said the Count, a few
days after the scene described in our last chapter. “It is quite
impossible to keep him unless we chain him hand and foot, or set half a
dozen men to guard him; and even then he is such a giant that he might
easily overpower them. At the camp they have got a prison, and stocks
which would hold him as fast as death.”
Carna’s face clouded over when she heard the Count’s determination, but
she said nothing. The lively Ælia broke in—
“My dear father, you will break poor Carna’s heart if you do anything of
the kind. She is bent on making a convert of the noble savage. And anyhow,
whatever else she may induce him to worship, he seems ready, from what I
have seen, to worship her. And besides, what harm can he do? He has no
arms, and he can’t speak a word of any language known here. If he were to
run away he would either be killed or be starved to death.”
“Well, Carna,” said the Count, with a smile, “what do you say? Will you
stand surety for this young pagan? Or shall I make him your slave, and
then, if he runs away, it will be your loss?”
“I hope,” said the girl, “that you won’t send him to the camp, where, I
fear, they hold the lives of such as he very cheap.”
“Well,” replied the Count, “we will keep him here, at all events for the
present, and I will give the bailiff orders to give him something to do in
the safest place that he can think of.”
Accordingly the young Saxon was set to work at the forge attached to the
villa, and proved himself a willing and serviceable labourer. No more
suitable choice, indeed, could have been made. That he was a man of some
rank at home everything about him seemed to show—nothing more than his
hands, which were delicate, and unusually small in proportion to his
almost gigantic stature. But the greatest chief among his people would not
have disdained the hammer and anvil. Was not Thor a mighty smith? And was
it not almost as much a great warrior’s business to make a good sword as
to wield it well when it was made? So the young man, whose mighty
shoulders and muscular arms were regarded with respect and even
astonishment by his British fellow-workmen, laboured with a will, showing
himself no mean craftsman in the blacksmith’s art. Sometimes, as he plied
the hammer, he would chant to himself, in a low voice, what sounded like a
war-song. Otherwise he remained absolutely silent, not even attempting to
pick up the few common words which daily intercourse with his companions
gave him the opportunity of learning. There was an air of dignity about
him which seemed to forbid any of the little affronts to which a prisoner
would naturally be exposed; his evidently enormous strength, too, was a
thing which even the most stupid of his companions respected. Silent,
self-contained, and impassive, he moved quietly about his daily tasks; it
was only when he caught a glimpse of Carna that his features were lighted
up for a moment with a smile.
[Illustration: Cedric at the Forge.]
The idea of opening up any communication with him seemed hopeless, when an
unexpected, but still quite natural, way out of the difficulty presented
itself. An old peddler, who was accustomed to supply the inmates of the
villa with silks and jewellery, and who sometimes had a book in his pack
for Carna, paid in due course one of his periodical visits. The old man
was a Gaul by birth, a native of one of the States on the eastern bank of
the Rhine, and in youth he had been an adventurous trader, extending his
journeys eastward and northward as far as the shores of the Baltic. The
risk was great, for the Germans of the interior looked with suspicion on
the visits of civilized strangers; but, on the other hand, the profits
were considerable. Amber, in pieces of a size and clearness seldom matched
on the coasts of Gaul and Britain, and beautiful furs, as of the seal and
the sea-otter, could be bought at very low prices from these
unsophisticated tribes, and sold again to the wealthy ladies of
Lutetia(19) and Lugdunum(20) at a very considerable advantage. In these
wanderings Antrix—for that was the peddler’s name—had acquired a good
knowledge of the language—substantially the same, though divided into
several dialects—spoken by the German tribes; and, indeed, without such
knowledge his trading adventures would have been neither safe nor
profitable. As he approached old age Antrix had judged it expedient to
transfer his business from Gaul to Britain. Gaul he found to be a
dangerous place for a peaceable trader, having lost more than once all the
profits of a journey, and, indeed, a good deal more, by one of the
marauding bands by whom the country was periodically overrun. Britain, or
at least the southern district of Britain, was certainly safer, and it was
this that for the last ten years he had been accustomed to traverse, till
he had become a well-known and welcome visitor at every villa and
settlement along the coast.
Here then chance, or, as Carna preferred to think, Providence, had
provided an interpreter; and it so happened that, whether by another piece
of good fortune, or an additional interposition, his services were made
permanently useful. The old man had found his journeys becoming in the
winter too laborious for his strength, and it was not very difficult to
persuade him to make his home in the villa for two or three months till
the severity of the season should have passed. Every one was pleased at
the arrangement. Antrix was an admirable teller of tales, and his had been
an adventurous life, full of incident, with which he knew how to make the
winter night less long. The Count saw a rare opportunity, such as had
never come to him before, of learning something about the hardy
freebooters whom it was his business to overawe; and Carna had the
liveliest hopes of making a proselyte, if she could only make herself, and
the message in which she had so profound a faith, understood.
The young Saxon’s resolution and pride did not long hold out against the
unexpected delight of being able once more to converse in his own
language, and he soon began to talk with perfect freedom—for, he had no
idea of having anything to conceal—about his home and his people. He was
the son, they learnt from him, of the chief of one of the Saxon
settlements near the mouth of the Albis.(21) The people lived by hunting
and fishing, and, more or less, by cultivating the soil. But life was
hard. The settlements were crowded; game was growing scarce, and had to be
followed further afield every year; the climate, too, was very uncertain,
and the crops sometimes failed altogether. In short, they could not live
without what they were able to pick up in their expeditions to richer
countries and more temperate climates. On this point the young Saxon was
perfectly frank. The idea that there was anything of which a warrior could
possibly be ashamed in taking what he could by the strong hand had
evidently never crossed his mind. To rob a neighbour or fellow-tribesman
he counted shameful—so much could be gathered from expressions that he let
drop; as to others, his simple morality was this—to keep what you had, to
take what others could not keep. The Count found him curiously well
informed on what may be called the politics of Europe. He was well aware
of the decay of the Roman power. Kinsmen and neighbours of his own had
made their way south to get their share in the spoil of the Empire. Some,
he had heard, had stopped to take service with the enemy; some had come
back with marvellous tales of the wealth and luxury which they had seen.
About Britain itself he had very clear views. The substance of what he
said to the Count was this: “You won’t stop here very long. My father says
that you have been weakening your fleet and armies here for years past,
and that you will soon take them away altogether. Then we shall come and
take the country. It will hardly be in his time, he says. Perhaps it may
not be in mine. It is only you that hinder us; it is only you that we are
afraid of. We shall have the island; we must have it. Our own country is
too small and too barren to keep us.”
Of his own adventures the young Saxon had little to say. This was the
first voyage that he and his brother had taken. Their father was in
failing health, and their mother, who had but one other child, a girl some
ten years younger, had kept them at home, till she had been unwillingly
persuaded that they were losing caste by taking no part in the warlike
excursions of their countrymen. “We had a fairly successful time,” went on
the young chief, with the absolute unconsciousness of wrong with which a
hunter might relate his exploits; “took two merchantmen that had good
cargoes on board, and had a right royal fight with the people of a town on
the Gallic coast. We killed thirty of them; and only five of our warriors
went to the Walhalla. Then we turned homeward, but our ship struck on a
rock near some islands far to the west,(22) and had almost gone to the
bottom. With great labour we dragged her ashore, and set to work repairing
her; but our chief smith and carpenter had fallen in the battle, and we
were a long time in making her fit for sea. This was the reason why we
were going home so late, and also why we lagged behind our comrades when
you were chasing us. By rights we were the best crew and had the swiftest
ship, but she had been clumsily mended, and dragged terribly in the
water.”
The Count listened to all this with the greatest interest, and plied the
speaker with questions, all of which he answered with perfect frankness.
He found out how many warriors the settlement could muster, what were the
relations with their neighbours, whether there had been any definite plans
for a common expedition. On the whole, he came to the conclusion that
though there was no danger of an overpowering migration from this quarter
such as Western and Southern Europe had suffered from in former times,
these sea-faring tribes of the East would be an increasing danger to
Britain as years went on. Personally the prospect did not concern him
greatly; his fortunes were not bound up with the island. Still he loved
the place and its people; it troubled him to see what dark days were in
store for them. And taking a wider view—for he was a man of large
sympathies—he was grieved to see another black cloud in an horizon already
so dark. Would anything civilized be left, he thought to himself, when
every part of Europe has been swept by these hosts of barbarians?
Before long another source of interest was discovered in the young Saxon.
The Count happened to overhear him chanting to himself, and though he
could not distinguish the words, he recognized in the rhythm something
like the camp-songs that he had often listened to from German warriors in
Stilicho’s camp. Here again the peddler’s services as an interpreter were
put in requisition, and though the old man’s Latin, which went little
beyond his practical wants as a trader, fell lamentably short of what was
wanted, enough was heard to interest the villa family, which had a
literary turn, very much. What the young man had sung to himself was an
early Saga, a curious romance(23) of heroes fighting with monsters, as
unlike as can be conceived to anything to be found in Roman poetry—verse
in its rudest shape, but still making itself felt as a real poet’s work.
Lastly, Carna, now that she had found a way of communicating her thoughts,
threw herself with ardour into the work of proselytizing the stranger.
Here the peddler was more at home in his task as interpreter. Carna used
the dialect of South Britain, with which he was far more familiar than he
was with Latin—it differed indeed but little from his native speech. The
topics too were familiar, for he had been brought up in the Christian
faith, and though he scarcely understood the girl’s zeal, he was quite
willing to help her as much as he could.
Carna found her task much more difficult than she had expected. She had
thought in her simple faith that it would be enough for her to tell to the
young heathen the story of the Crucified Christ for him to fall down at
once and worship. He listened with profound attention and respect. This,
perhaps, he would have accorded to anything that came from her lips; but,
beyond this, the story itself profoundly interested him. But it must be
confessed that there was a good deal in it which did not commend itself to
his warrior’s ideal of what the God whom he could worship should be. He
was a soldier, and he could scarcely conceive of anything great or good
that was outside a soldier’s virtues. The gods of his own heaven, Odin and
Thor and Balder, were great conquerors, armed with armour which no mortal
blow could pierce, wielders of sword and hammer which were too heavy for
any mortal arm to wield. He could bow down to them because they were
greater, immeasurably greater than himself, in the qualities and gifts
which he most honoured. Now he was called upon to receive a quite
different set of ideas, to set up a quite different standard of
excellence. The story of the Gospels touched him. It roused him almost to
fury when he heard how the good man who had gone about healing the sick
and feeding the hungry had been put shamefully to death by His own
countrymen, by those who knew best what He had done. If Carna had bidden
him avenge the man who had been so ungratefully treated, he would have
performed her bidding with pleasure. But to worship this Crucified One, to
depose for Him Odin, Lord of Battles—that seemed impossible.
Still he was impressed, and impressed chiefly by the way in which the
preacher seemed to translate into her own life the principles of the faith
which she tried to set forth to him. She had told him that this Crucified
One had died for him. He could not understand why He should have done so,
why He should not have led His twelve legions of angels against the
wicked, swept them off from the face of the earth, and established by
force of arms a kingdom of justice. Still the idea of so much having been
given, so much endured for his sake touched him, especially when he saw
how passionately in earnest was this wonderful creature, this beautiful
prophetess, as, with the German reverence for women, he was ready to
regard her, how eager she was to do him good, how little, as he could not
but feel, she thought of herself in comparison with others.
As long as Carna dwelt on these topics she made good way; when she
wandered away from them, as naturally she sometimes did, she was not so
successful. One day it unluckily occurred to her that she would appeal to
his fears.
“Do not refuse to listen,” she said to him, “for if He is infinitely good
to those who love Him, He can also be angry with those who love Him not.”
“What will He do with them?” asked the young Saxon.
“He will send them to suffer in everlasting fire.”
“Ah!” answered the youth, “I have heard from our wise men of such a place
into which Odin drives cowards, and oath-breakers, and such as are false
to their friends. But they say it is a place of everlasting cold, and this
indeed seems to me to be worse than fire.”
“Yes,” said Carna, “there is such a place of torment, and it is kept not
only for the wicked, as you say, but for all who do not believe.”
“Will the Lord Christ then banish thither all who do not own Him as their
Master, and call themselves by His name?”
“Yes—and think how terrible a thing it would be if it should happen to
you.”
“And that is why you are so anxious to persuade me?”
“Yes.”
“And why you were so troubled about my brother when you could not make him
understand before he died?”
“Yes. Oh! it was dreadful to think he should pass away when safety was in
his reach.”
“And you think that the Lord Christ has sent him to that place because he
did not know Him?”
“I fear that it must be so.”
“Then He shall send me also. For how am I better because I have lived
longer? No—I will be with my brother, whom I loved, and with my own
people.”
And neither for that day nor for many days to come would he speak again on
this subject. Carna was greatly troubled; but she began to think whether
there might not be something in what the young man had said.
CHAPTER VII.
A PRETENDER’S DIFFICULTIES.
Our story must now go back a little, and take up the course of events at
the camp, where the look of affairs was not promising. The donative
promised by Constantine on the day of his election had been paid, but this
had been done only after the greatest exertions in wringing money out of
unlucky traders, farmers, and even peasants, who had been already squeezed
almost dry. All that had any coin left were beginning to bury it,(24) and
though the collectors of taxes, or loans, or gifts, or whatever else the
frequent requisition of money might be called, had ingenious ways of
discovering or making their owners give up these hoards, it was quite
evident that very little more could be got out of Britain. The military
chest meanwhile was becoming alarmingly empty, and though money was still
found somehow for the larger camps, some of the less important garrisons
had been left for months with almost nothing in the way of pay. What was
to be done was a pressing question, which had to be answered in some way
within a few days. If it was not so answered, it was tolerably plain that
Constantine would meet the fate of Marcus and Gratianus. The Emperor
himself (if we are to give him this title) seemed to be very little
troubled by the prospect, and remained stolidly calm. His elevation indeed
had made the least possible difference to him. He drank a better kind of
wine, and perhaps a little more—for his cups had been limited by his
means—but he did not run into excess. He was still the same simple,
contented, good-natured man that he had always been. But his sons were of
another temper, though curiously differing from each other. Constans the
elder was an enthusiast, almost a fanatic, a man of strong religious
feeling, who would have followed the religious life if it had been
possible, and who now, finding himself possessed of power, had schemes of
using it to promote his favourite schemes. Julian the younger had
ambitions of a more commonplace kind. But both the brothers were agreed in
holding on to the power that had been so strangely put into their father’s
hands, hands which, as he had very little will of his own, were
practically theirs.
A council was held at which Constantine, his two sons, and three of the
officers of highest rank were present, and the urgent question of the day
was anxiously debated.
Julian began the discussion.
“The army,” he said, “must be employed, or it will find mischief to do at
home which all of us will be sorry for.”
“I have some one to introduce to your Majesty,” said one of the officers
present, “who may have something to say which will influence your
decision. He is from Ierne,(25) and brings me a letter from the commander
at Uriconium. He came last night.”
“Let him enter,” said Constantine, with his usual dull phlegmatic voice.
The tribune went to the door of the chamber, and despatched a message to
his quarters. In a few minutes the stranger was introduced into the
council. He was a man verging upon middle age, somewhat short of stature,
with a great bush of fiery-red hair, which stood up from his head with a
very fierce look, a long, shaggy beard of the same colour, eyes of the
deepest blue, very bright and piercing, but with a wandering and unsteady
look in them, and a ruddy complexion which deepened to an intense colour
on his cheek bones and other prominent parts of his face. Around his neck
he wore a heavy twisted collar of remarkably red gold. Massive rings of
the same metal adorned his fingers. His dress was of undyed wool, and very
rudely shaped, a curious contrast to the richness of his ornaments. He was
followed into the room by an interpreter, a young native of Northern
Britain, who had been carried off by Irish pirates from one of the
ecclesiastical schools. He had been taught Latin before his captivity,
and, while a captive, had made himself acquainted with the Irish language,
which indeed did not differ very much from that spoken in Britain.(26) His
task of interpreter was not by any means an easy one to fulfil. The Prince
broke out into a rapid torrent of complaint, invective, and entreaty,
which left the young man, who was not very expert in either of the
languages with which he had to deal, hopelessly behind. Then seeing that
he was not followed, he turned on his unlucky attendant and dealt him a
blow upon the ear that sent him staggering across the room. Then he seemed
to remember himself, and began to tell his story again at a more moderate
rate of speed, though he still from time to time, when he came to some
peculiarly exciting part in the tale of his wrongs, broke out into a rapid
eloquence that baffled all interpretation. The upshot of the story was
this—
He was, or rather had been, a small king in South-eastern Ireland,(27) the
eldest of four brothers, having succeeded his father about ten years
before. There had been a quarrel about the division of some property. The
Prince was a little obscure in his description of the property; indeed it
was a matter about which he was shrewd enough to say as little as
possible. But his hearers had no difficulty in presuming that it consisted
of spoil carried off from Britain. The quarrel had come to blows. All the
nation had been divided into parties in the dispute. Finally he had been
compelled by his ungrateful subjects to fly for his life. Would the
Emperor bring him back? He was liberal, even extravagant, in his offers.
He would bring the whole island under his dominion. (As a matter of fact,
his dominions had never reached more than seventy miles inland, and he had
contrived to make himself so hated during his ten years’ reign that he had
scarcely a friend or follower left.) And what an island it was! There
never was such a place. The sheep were fatter, the cows gave more milk
than in any other place in the whole world. And there was gold too, gold
to be had for the picking up; and amber on the shores, and pearls in the
rivers. In short, it was a treasure-house of wealth, which was waiting for
the lucky first-comer.
“Are you a Christian?” asked Constans.
The exiled chief would have gladly said that he was, and indeed for a
moment thought of the audacious fiction that his attachment to the new
faith had been one of the causes of his expulsion. He was, in fact, a
savagely bigoted pagan, and had dealt very roughly with one or two
missionaries who had ventured into his neighbourhood. But he reflected
that the falsehood would infallibly be detected, and would inevitably do
him a great deal of harm.
“No!” he exclaimed; “would that I were. But there is nothing that I so
much desire if only I could attain to that blessing. But I promise to be
baptized myself, and to have every man, woman, and child within my
dominions baptized within a month, if you will only bring me back to
them.”
Even Constans thought this zeal to be a little excessive.
“And how many men can you bring into the field?” asked the more practical
Julian; “and what money can you find for the pay of the soldiers?”
The stranger was taken aback at these direct questions.
“All my subjects, all my treasures are yours,” he said, after a pause.
“I don’t believe,” said one of the tribunes in Latin to Julian, “that he
has any subjects besides this wretched interpreter, or any treasure beyond
what he wears on his neck and his fingers.”
“Shall he withdraw?” said Julian to his father.
Constantine, who never spoke when he could avoid speaking, answered by a
nod, and the Irish Prince withdrew.
“Let us have nothing to do,” said the practical Julian, “with these Irish
savages. They may cut their own throats, and welcome, without our helping
them. The men, too, would rebel at the bare mention of Ierne. It is out of
the world in their eyes, and I think they are about right. And as to the
gold and pearls, I don’t believe in them.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Constans; “but it would be a great work to
bring over a new nation to the orthodox faith.”
Julian answered with a laugh. “My good brother, we are not all such
zealous missionaries as you. I am afraid that preaching is not exactly the
work which our friends the soldiers are looking out for.”
“What does your Majesty say to an expedition to chastise those thieving
Picts? They grow more insolent every day.”
This was the suggestion of one of the tribunes.
“What is to be got?” was Julian’s answer.
“Glory!” answered the tribune.
“Glory! What is that?—the men want pay and plunder. These bare-legged
villains haven’t so much as a rag that you can take from them, and they
have a shrewd way of giving at least as many hard blows as they take.
No!—we will leave the Picts alone, and only too thankful if they will do
the same for us!”
“The Count of the Shore has not yet taken the oath to his Majesty,” said
an officer who had not spoken before. “We might give some employment to
the men in bringing him to reason.”
Constantine spoke for the first time since the council had begun its
sitting—“The Count is a good man and does his business well. Leave him
alone.”
Other suggestions were made and discussed without any sensible approach to
a conclusion, and the council broke up, but with an understanding that it
should meet again with as little delay as possible.
On the afternoon of that very day an incident occurred which convinced
every one—if further conviction was needed—that delay would certainly be
fatal.
A party of soldiers was practising javelin throwing, and Constantine, who
had been particularly expert in this exercise in his youth, stood watching
the game. He had stepped up to examine the mark made by one of the weapons
on the wooden figure at which the men were throwing, when a javelin passed
most perilously near his head and buried itself in the wood. It could not
have been an accident; no one could have been so recklessly careless as to
throw under the circumstances. Constantine was as imperturbable as usual.
Without a sign of fear or anger, he said, “Comrades, you mistake; I am not
made of wood,” and, signing to his attendants, walked quietly away. The
incident, however, made a great impression upon him, and a still greater
upon his sons.
[Illustration: Javelin throwing.]
The consultation was renewed and prolonged far into the night, and, as no
conclusion was reached, continued on the next day. About noon an
unexpected adviser appeared upon the scene.
A message was brought into the council-chamber that a merchant from Gaul
had something of importance to communicate to the Emperor. The man was
admitted, after having been first searched by way of precaution. His dress
was sober in cut and colour, and he had a small pack such as the wandering
dealers in jewellery and similar light articles were accustomed to carry.
Otherwise he was little like a trader; indeed, it did not need a very
acute or practised hand to detect in him a soldier’s bearing, and even
that of one who was accustomed to command.
“You have something to tell us?” said Julian.
“Yes, I have,” said the stranger, “but let me first show you my
credentials.”
He spoke in passable Latin, but with a decided accent, which, strongly
marked as it was, was not recognized by any of those present. At the same
time he produced from a silken purse, which he wore like a girdle round
his waist, a small square of parchment. It was a letter written in a
minute but very clear hand, and it had evidently been put for the security
of the bearer, who could thus more easily dispose of it in case of need,
into the smallest possible compass. This was handed to Constantine, who,
in turn, passed it on to his elder son Constans, he being the only one
present who could read and write with fluency. It ran thus:
“_Alaric, the son of Baltha, King of the Goths, Emperor of the World, to
Marcus, Emperor of Britain and the West, greeting._”
A grim smile passed over Constantine’s face as he heard this address. He
muttered to himself, “‘Marcus,’ indeed! Those who write to the Emperor of
Britain must have speedy letter-carriers.” The letter proceeded thus:
“_I desire friendship and alliance with the nations who are wearied and
worn out with the oppressions and cruelties of Rome, and for this purpose
send this present by my __trusty kinsman and counsellor Atualphus, to you
who are, I understand, asserting against the common tyrant of the world
the liberty of Britain and the West. I have not thought it fit to trust
more to writing, but commend to you the bearer hereof, the aforesaid
Atualphus, who is acquainted with the mind and purpose of myself and of my
people, and with whom you may conveniently concert such plans as may best
serve our common welfare. Farewell. Given at my camp at Æmona._”
“Marcus is no more,” said Julian. “He was unworthy of his dignity. You are
in the presence of the most excellent Constantine, Emperor of Britain.”
“It matters not,” said the Goth, with a haughty smile. “My lord the king
will treat as willingly with one as with another, so he be an enemy of
Rome!”
“And what does he propose? What would he have us do?”
“Make common cause with him against Honorius and Rome.”
“What shall we gain thereby?”
“Half of the Empire of the World.”
“How shall that be?”
“The King will march into Italy and attack the Emperor in his own land.
The Emperor will withdraw all the legions that he yet controls for his own
defence. With them the King will deal. Then comes your opportunity. What
does it profit you to remain in this island, where nothing is to be won
either of glory or of riches. Cross over into Gaul and Spain, which,
wearied with oppression and desiring above all things to throw off the
Roman yoke, will gladly welcome you. Your Cæsar shall reign on this side
of the Alps and the Pyrenees. The future may bring other things, but that
may suffice for the present.”
The plan, so bold, and yet, it would seem, so feasible, and presenting a
ready escape out of a situation that seemed hopeless, struck every one
present with a delighted surprise. Even the phlegmatic Constantine was
roused. “It shall be done,” he said.
Some further conversation followed, which it is not necessary to relate.
Ways and means were discussed. Questions were asked about the strength and
temper of the forces in Gaul and Spain, about the feeling of the towns,
and a hundred other matters, with all of which Atualphus showed a
curiously intimate knowledge. When the Goth retired from the council, he
left very little doubt or hesitation behind him.
“They are heretics—these Goths,” grumbled Constans; “obstinate Arians
every one of them, I told——”
“You shall convert them, my brother,” answered Julian, “when you are
Bishop of Rome. When we divide the West between us, that shall be your
portion.”
“It shall be done,” said Constantine again, as he rose from his chair.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE NEWS IN THE CAMP.
That afternoon a banquet, which was as handsomely set out as the very
short notice permitted, was given to all the officers in the camp. When
the tables were removed,(28) Constantine, who had been carefully primed by
his sons with what he was to say, addressed his guests. His words were few
and to the point. “Britain,” he said, “has been long enough ruled by
others. It is now time that she should begin herself to rule. It was the
error of those who went before me to be content with the limits of this
island. But here there is not enough to content us. Beyond the sea,
separated from us by only a few hours’ journey, lie wealthy provinces
which wait for our coming. A kindlier sky, more fertile fields, richer and
fairer cities than ours are there. We have only to show ourselves, in
short, to be both welcomed and obeyed. Half the victories which we have
won here to no profit over poverty-stricken barbarians would have sufficed
to give us riches even beyond our desires. Henceforth let us use our arms
where they may win something for us beyond empty honour and wounds. Follow
me, and within a year you shall be masters both of Gaul and Spain.”
The younger guests received this oration with shouts of applause; visions
of promotion and prize-money, and even of the spoil of some of the wealthy
cities of the mainland floated before them. The older men did not show
this enthusiasm. Many of them were attached to Britain by ties that they
were very loth to break. They had little to hope, but much to fear, from a
change. Still, they saw the necessity for doing something; another year
such as that which had just passed would thoroughly demoralize the army of
Britain. Legions that get into the habit of making emperors and killing
them for their pastime must be dealt with by vigorous remedies, and the
easiest and best of these was active service. In any case it would have
been impolitic to show dissent. Many feigned, therefore, a joy which they
did not feel, and shouted approval when the Senior Tribune exclaimed,
“Comrades, drink to our chief, Constantine Augustus, Emperor of Britain
and the West.”
The revel was kept up late into the night, the young Goth distinguishing
himself by the marvellous depth of his draughts and the equally marvellous
strength of his head.
The Emperor retired early from the scene, and Constans, who had little
liking for these boisterous scenes, followed his example, as did most of
the older men. One of these, the cheery centurion, who has been mentioned
more than once, we may follow to his home.
Outside the camp had grown up a village of considerable size, though it
consisted for the most part of humble dwellings. There were two or three
taverns, or rather drinking-shops, where the soldiers could carouse on the
thin, sour wine of the British vineyards, or, if the length of their
purses permitted, on metheglin, a more potent drink, made from the
fermentation of honey. A Jew, driven by the restless speculation of his
race, had established himself in a shop where he sold cheap ornaments to
the soldiers’ wives, and advanced money to their husbands on the security
of their pay. A tailor displayed tunics and cloaks, and a shoemaker sold
boots warranted to resist the cold and wet of the island climate. There
were a few cottages occupied by the grooms and stablemen who attended to
the horses employed in the camp, by fishermen who plied their trade in the
neighbouring waters, and other persons of a variety of miscellaneous
employments in one way or other connected with the camp. But just outside
the main street, at the end nearest to the camp, stood a house of somewhat
greater pretensions. It was indeed a humble imitation of the Roman villa,
being built round three sides of an irregular square, which was itself
occupied by a grass plot and a few flower beds. It was to this that the
Centurion Decius bent his steps after the conversation related in the last
chapter. It was evidently with the reluctant step of the bearer of bad
news that he proceeded on his way. As soon as he entered the enclosure his
approach was observed from within. Two blooming girls, whose ages may have
been seventeen and fifteen respectively, ran gaily to meet him. A woman
some twenty-five years older, but still youthful of aspect and handsome,
followed at a more sober pace.
“What is the matter, father?” cried the elder of the girls, who had been
quick to perceive that all was not right.
The centurion held up his hand and made a signal for silence. “Hush,” he
said; “I have something to tell you, but it must not be here. Let us go
indoors.”
“Shall the children leave us alone?” said the centurion’s wife, who had
now come up.
“No,” he answered, wearily, “let them be with us while they can,” he added
in a low voice, which only the wife’s ears, made keenly alive by affection
and fear, could catch.
The gaiety of the young people was quenched, for, without having any idea
of what had happened, they could see plainly enough that something was
disturbing their parents; and it was with fast beating hearts that they
waited for his explanation.
“Our happy days here are over, my dearest,” said the centurion, drawing
his wife to him, and tenderly kissing her, as soon as they were within
doors.
“You mean,” said she, “that the order has come.”
“Yes,” he answered, “we are to leave as soon as the transports can be
collected. The resolution was made to-day and will be announced to the
army to-morrow. It is no secret, I suppose, or will not be for long.”
“And where are we to go?” cried the elder of the girls, whose face
brightened as the thought of seeing a little more of the world, of a home
in one of the cities of Gaul, possibly in Rome itself, flitted across her
mind.
The poor centurion changed colour. The girl’s question brought up the
difficulty which he knew had to be faced, but which he would gladly have
put off as long as he could.
“We shall go to Gaul, certainly; where I cannot say,” he answered, after a
long pause, and in a hesitating voice.
“Oh, how delightful!” cried the girl; “exactly the thing that Lucia and I
have been longing for. And Rome? Surely we shall go to Rome, father? Are
you not glad to hear it, mother? I am sure that we are all tired of this
cold, foggy place.”
The mother said nothing. If she did not exactly see the whole of the
situation, she had at least an housewife’s horror of a move. The poor
father moved uneasily upon his chair.
“The legion will go,” he said, “but your mother and you——”
“Oh, Lucius,” cried the poor wife, “you do not, cannot mean that we are
not to go with you!”
“Nothing is settled,” he replied, “it is true; but I am much troubled
about it. _You_ might go, though I do not like the idea of your following
the camp; but these dear girls—and yet they cannot be separated from you.”
The unhappy wife saw the truth only too clearly. If the times had been
quiet, she might herself have possibly accompanied the legion in its march
southward; but even then she could not have taken her daughters with her,
her daughters whom she never allowed to go within the precincts of the
camp, except on the one day, the Emperor’s birthday, when all the
officers’ families were expected to be present at the ceremony of saluting
the Imperial likeness. And this had of late been omitted when it was
difficult to say from day to day what Emperor the troops acknowledged. The
centurion had spoken only too truly; the legion might go, but they must
stay behind. She covered her face with her hands and wept.
“Lucia,” cried the elder girl to her sister, “we will enlist; we will take
the oath; I should make just as good a soldier as many of the Briton lads
they are filling up the cohorts with now; though you, I must allow, are a
little too small,” she added, ruefully, as she looked at her sister’s
plump little figure, too hopelessly feminine ever to admit the possibility
of a disguise. “Cheer up, mother,” she went on, “we shall find a way out
of the difficulty somehow.” And she threw her arms round the weeping
woman, and kissed her repeatedly.
There was silence for a few minutes, broken at last by the timid,
hesitating voice of the younger girl.
“But must you go, father?” she said. “Surely they don’t keep soldiers in
the camp for ever. And have you not served long enough? You were in the
legion, I have heard you say, before even Maria was born.”
“My child,” said the centurion, “it is true that my time is at least on
the point of being finished. Yet I can’t leave the service just now. Just
because I am the oldest officer the Legate counts on me, and I can’t
desert him. It would be almost as bad as asking for one’s discharge on the
eve of a battle. And besides, though I don’t like troubling your young
spirits with such matters, I cannot afford it. Were I to resign now I
should get no pension, or next to none. But in a year or two’s time, when
things are settled down, I hope to get something worth having—some post,
perhaps, that would give me a chance of making a home for you.”
A fifth person, who had hitherto taken no part in the conversation, and
whose presence in the room had been almost forgotten by every one, now
broke in, with a voice which startled the hearers by its unusual clearness
and precision. Lena, mother of the centurion’s wife, had nearly completed
her eightieth year. Commonly, she sat in the chimney corner, unheeding, to
all appearances, of the life that went on about her, and dozing away the
day. In her prime, and even down to old age, she had been a woman of
remarkable activity, ruling her daughter’s household as despotically as in
former days she had ruled her own. Then a sudden and severe illness had
prostrated her, and she had seemed to shrink at once into feebleness and
helplessness of mind and body. Her daughter and granddaughters tended her
carefully and lovingly; but she seemed scarcely to take any notice of
them. The only thing that ever seemed to rouse her attention was the sight
of her son-in-law when he chanced to enter the chamber without disarming.
The shine of the steel brought a fire again into her dim, sunken eyes. It
was probably this that had now roused her; and her attention, once
awakened, had been kept alive by what she heard.
“And at whose bidding are you going?” she said, in a startlingly clear
voice to come from one so feeble; “this Honorius, as he calls himself, a
feeble creature who has never drawn a sword in his life! Now, if it had
been his father! He was a man to obey. He did deserve to be called
Emperor. I saw him forty years ago—just after you were born, daughter—when
he came with his father. A splendid young fellow he was; and one who would
have his own way, too! How he gave those turbulent Greeks at Thessalonica
their deserts! Fifteen thousand of them!(29) That was an Emperor worth
having!”
“Oh! mother,” cried her daughter, horrified to see the old woman’s
ferocity, softened, she had hoped, by age and infirmity, roused again in
all its old strength. “Oh! mother, don’t say such dreadful things. That
was an awful crime in Theodosius, and he had to do penance for it in the
church.”
“Ay,” muttered the old woman, “I can fancy it did not please the priests.
But why,” she went on, raising her voice again, “why does not Britain have
an Emperor of her own?”
“So she has, mother,” said the centurion. “You forget our Lord
Constantine.”
“Our Lord Constantine!” she repeated. “Who is Constantine? Why, I remember
his mother—a slave girl—whom the Irish pirates carried off from somewhere
in the North. Constantine’s father bought her, and married her. Why should
he be Emperor? I could make as good a one any day out of a faggot stick.”
“Peace, dear mother,” said the centurion, soothingly, afraid that her
words might have other listeners.
“Why not you,” went on the old woman, unheeding; “you are better born.”
“I, Emperor!” cried the centurion. “Speak good words, dearest mother.”
“Well,” said the old woman, dropping her voice again, “they are poor
creatures now-a-days.” And she relapsed into silence, looking again as
wholly indifferent to the present as if the strange outburst of rage and
impatience which her family had just witnessed had never taken place.
The family discussed the position of affairs anxiously till far into the
night.
“And what will happen,” said the wife, “when the legions are gone?”
“There will be a British kingdom, I suppose; and, if it were united, it
might stand. But it will not be united. It will be every man for himself.”
“And how about the Saxons and the Picts? If the legions hardly protected
us from them, how will it be when they are gone?”
The centurion’s look grew gloomier than ever. “I know,” he said, “the
prospect is a sad one. But I hope that for a year you will be fairly safe;
and after that I shall hope to send for you. Or you might go over to Gaul.
But I hope to see the Count of the Shore about these matters. He will give
me the best advice. Here, of course, you can hardly stay, even if you
cared to do it; and some place must be found. Meanwhile, make all the
preparations you can for a move.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE DEPARTURE OF THE LEGIONS.
The resolution to leave Britain was announced at a general meeting of the
soldiers on the following day, and was received by it with tremendous
enthusiasm. To most who were present, Gaul seemed a land of promise. It
was from Gaul that almost every article of luxury that they either had or
wished to have was imported, and some of the necessities of life, as
notably wine, were known to be both better and cheaper there than in
Britain. Comfortable quarters in wealthy cities, which were ready to be
friendly, or could easily be brought to reason if they were not; easy
campaigns, not against naked Picts, but against civilized enemies who had
something to lose; and when the time of service was over, a snug little
farm, with corn land, pasture, and vineyard, and a hard-working native to
till it—such were the dreams which floated through the soldiers’ minds;
and they were ready to go anywhere with the man who promised to make them
into realities. Older and more prudent men who knew that there were two
sides to the question, and the unadventurous, who were well content to
stay where they were, could not resist the tide of popular feeling, and
concealed, if they did not abandon, their doubts and scruples. As money
was scarce, the men volunteered to forego their pay till it could be
returned to them with large interest in the shape of prize-money. They
even gave up to the melting pot the silver ornaments from their arms and
from the trappings of their horses. The messengers who were sent with the
tidings of the proposed movement to the other camps—which were now mainly
to be found in the southern part of the island—found the troops everywhere
well disposed, and within a few days every military station was alive with
the stir and bustle of preparations for a move.
One of the most pressing cares of the new leaders of the army was the
securing the means of transport. There was a great number of merchant
ships, indeed, which could be pressed into the service, and which would
perform it very well if only the passage in the Channel could be made
without meeting opposition. The question to be considered was whether they
could reckon upon this, or would the fleet, which was still supposed to
acknowledge the authority of Honorius, prevent them from crossing. The
chief person to be reckoned with in this matter was, of course, the Count
of the Shore, and a despatch was immediately sent to him. It was the
production of Constans, and ran thus—
“_Constantine, Emperor of Britain and the West, to Lucius Ælius, Count of
the Saxon Shore, greeting._
“_Having been called to Empire by the unanimous voice of the People and
Army of Britain, and desiring to give deliverance from tyranny and
protection from violence to other provinces besides this my Island of
Britain, I purpose to transport such forces as it may be necessary to use
for this purpose to the land of Gaul. I call upon you therefore, having
full confidence in your loyalty, to give me such assistance as may be in
your power, for the accomplishment of this end, and promise you, on the
other hand, my favour and protection. Farewell._
“_Given at the Camp of the Great Harbour._”
The Count received this communication about ten days after his arrival at
the villa. The writer would scarcely have been pleased at the comments
which he made as he read it.
“‘Constantine, Emperor.’ How many more Emperors are we to have in this
unlucky island? ‘Of Britain and the West.’ And I doubt whether he can call
a foot of ground his own fifty miles from the camp. ‘To deliver other
provinces from oppression and violence.’ Why not begin by trying his hand
at home? ‘Full confidence in my loyalty.’ Truly valuable praise from so
excellent a judge in the matter. ‘Such assistance as may be in my power.’
Well, I should be glad to see the last of this crew of adventurers and
villains; but he sha’n’t have my ships.”
The Count’s position indeed was one of singular difficulty. He had thought
it best—indeed he had found it necessary, if he was to do his own work—to
keep on friendly terms with the usurpers who had gone before Constantine.
It had been quite hopeless for him to attempt to coerce the legions. If
they chose to make Emperors for themselves, he must let them do it, so
long as they did not interfere with his liberty as a loyal subject. But
this was a different matter. Crossing over into Gaul meant downright
hostility to the authorities in Italy. How could he help it forward? And
yet how could he prevent it? He had three ships available. All the others
were laid up for the winter in harbours on the eastern and south-eastern
shores of the island. With these he might do some damage to the legions in
their passage; but the passage he could not hope to prevent. And if he did
prevent it, what would be his own future relations with the army? Clearly
he could not stay in Vectis, or indeed anywhere in Britain, for there was
no place which he could hope to hold against a small detachment of the
army. And to go, though it could easily be done, and would save him a vast
amount of trouble, would be to give up his whole work, and to leave the
unhappy inhabitants of the coast without protection from the pirates of
the East. After long and anxious deliberation, which he did not disdain to
share with his daughter and Carna, he resolved on a middle course, by
following which he would neither help nor hinder. The first thing was to
seek an interview with Constantine or his representatives, and a messenger
was accordingly despatched suggesting a conference to be held on
shipboard, under a flag of truce, off the mouth of the Great Harbour.
The proposition was accepted, and three days afterwards the conference was
held, in the way that the Count had suggested. Each party brought a single
ship, which was anchored for the greater convenience of carrying on the
conversation, but was perfectly ready to slip its anchor in case of any
threatening of treachery. The Count’s vessel had the Imperial standard at
its mast-head; Constantine’s, on the other hand, had no distinguishing
characteristic. Both he and his two sons were present, but the father was
as silent as usual, and the chief spokesman was Julian.
The Count was very brief in his greetings, and indicated, as plainly as he
could without saying it in so many words, that he did not acknowledge the
pretensions of the usurper.
“My lord,” he said, “you have asked me to help in the transport of your
army across the Channel. Briefly then I have not the means. I have but
three ships ready for sea, and not one of these can I spare.”
“The Emperor can command their services,” said Julian.
“I have received no instructions from my master,” returned the Count, “to
use them except for the protection of the coast.”
“You have them now,” said Julian, “and you will refuse to obey them at
your peril.”
“My commission is made out by Flavius Honorius Augustus, and I know no
other to whom I can yield obedience.”
A pause followed this plain speech; the party on board with Constantine
debated the situation with some heat, Julian maintaining that the Count
must be brought to reason, the others being anxious to keep on good terms
with him.
“A single cohort can bring him to order,” cried the young Prince.
“Can drive him out of the villa doubtless,” said the more prudent
Constans, “but not bring us an inch nearer getting the ships.”
“We may at least count on your friendship,” said Constans, Julian retiring
sulkily from the negotiations; “you will not hinder the passage.”
“I have nothing to do with the disposition of the legions,” answered the
Count, “and, as I said before, have no instructions except to defend the
shore against the Pirates.”
“His Majesty will not be ungrateful,” said Constans.
“I owe no duty but to Honorius, and desire no favour but from him,” was
the Count’s reply, and the conference was at an end.
The result was as favourable as Constantine could have expected. At least
no opposition would be offered. Preparations for the passage were
accordingly hurried on with all possible speed. All the towns along the
coast were put under requisition for all the shipping that they could
furnish, and, for the most part, were glad enough to answer the call.
Whatever might happen in the future, it would be at least something to be
rid of such troublesome neighbours. If other legions were to come, they
might be more orderly and well-behaved. If these were to be the last,
perhaps this would be a change for the better. Every one accordingly
exerted himself to the utmost to supply the demand for transports.
It was a curious medley of vessels that assembled in the Great Harbour in
the late autumn for the embarkation of the army. Old ships of war that had
lain high and dry from before the memory of man were hastily pitched over
and launched. Merchant vessels of every kind were there, from the huge
hulks that were accustomed to carry heavy cargoes of metal from Cornwall,
to the light barks that carried on the trade in wine, olive oil, fruit,
and such light goods between Armorica and Britain; even the fishing
vessels from the villages along the coast were pressed into the service,
and laden to the full, sometimes even to a dangerous depth, with military
material and all the miscellaneous property with which an army of twenty
thousand men would be likely to be encumbered. The greater part of this
force had been collected at the Camp of the Great Harbour, which indeed
was overflowing, and more than overflowing, with troops. But the garrisons
that were situated to the eastward, as at Regnum(30) and Anderida,(31)
were to join the fleet as it sailed, while those from the inland and coast
stations of South and Eastern Britain were to make the best of their way
to the Portus Lemanus. This was to be the rendezvous for the whole force,
and the point for commencing the passage. The longer voyage, direct from
the Great Harbour to the mouth of the Sequana (the Seine) or the
projecting peninsula, now known as Manche, was dreaded, for the Channel
had even a worse reputation in those days than it has now. It was
arranged, accordingly, that the flotilla should sail along the coast as
far as the Portus Lemanus, and cross from thence to Bononia.(32) The first
half of November had passed before the preparations for departure were
completed, and there were some who advised Constantine to delay his
passage till the following spring. That he knew to be impossible; it was
better to run any risk of storm or shipwreck than to face the winter with
an ill-paid and discontented army.
At early dawn, on the fifteenth of the month, the embarkation began, the
munitions of war, stores, and other baggage having been already, as far as
was possible, put on board of the heavier transports. The water-gate of
the camp was thrown open, and at this Constantine, his sons, and his
principal officers took their place. The priest who served the church
within the camp offered a few prayers, and solemnly blessed the eagle of
the Second Legion, which constituted, as has been said, the main part of
the forces in the camp. When this ceremony was concluded, Constantine
addressed the army.
“By this gate in the days of our ancestors Vespasian led forth the Second
Legion, then, as now, one of the chief ornaments and supports of the
Empire, to execute the judgment of God on the rebellious nation of the
Jews, and to receive before long as his reward the Empire of Rome. By this
gate I lead you forth, worthy successors as you are of those who conquered
with him, to a service not less honourable, and certain to receive no less
distinguished a reward. Let my name, which recommended me to your favour,
and this place, already famous as the starting-point of victorious armies,
be accepted as omens of success. Comrades, follow me on a march which has
for its end nothing less than the Capitol of Rome.”
He then took his seat in a boat manned with a picked crew, and, amidst
shouts of applause from the assembled soldiers and spectators, was rowed
to the ship, one of the few war galleys of recent construction that were
to be found in the fleet. Then began the embarkation of the troops.
It was a singular scene. The news had spread with the greatest rapidity
through the whole countryside, and the native population had crowded to
witness the departure. Every point from which the sight could be seen was
occupied by spectators. Even the slopes of Portsdown were thickly dotted
by them. Nearer the camp the emotion and excitement were intense. A
regiment that marches out of a town in which it has been in garrison for a
year or two leaves many sad hearts behind it; even so brief a space is
long enough for the binding of many ties. But the legions had been almost
permanent residents in Britain, and they were bound to its people by bonds
many and close. And this people was not, it must be remembered, the
self-restrained English race, so chary of sighs and groans, and so much
ashamed of tears, but a race of excitable Celts, always ready to express
all, and even more, than they felt. Wives, children, kinsfolk, friends
were now to be left behind, and probably left for ever—for who could
believe that the legions, whose departure had been threatened so long,
could ever come back?
[Illustration: The Departure of the Legions.]
The embarkation went on. Some of the lighters could be brought close to
the shore, and were boarded by gangways. To others of heavier burden the
men had to be carried in boats. A strong guard had been posted to keep the
place of embarkation clear. But the guard was powerless, or perhaps
unwilling—for who could deal harshly with women and children so
situated?—to check the rush of the excited crowd. Some of the women threw
themselves on their departing husbands and lovers, clasped them round
their necks, or hung to their knees. Others sat on the shore rocking
themselves to and fro, or frozen by the extremity of their grief into
stillness; some uttered shrill cries; others were sunk in a speechless
despair. Nor were there wanting scenes of a less harrowing kind. Not a few
of the departing soldiers were breaking other obligations besides those of
the heart. Creditors were to be seen clinging to debtors whom they saw
vanishing out of their sight. The Jew trader from the village outside the
camp seemed to be in despair. Probably he had secured himself fairly well
against the consequences of an event which he must have been shrewd enough
to foresee; but to judge from the bitterness and frequency of his appeals
he was hopelessly ruined. He swore by the patriarchs and prophets that he
had always carried on his business at a loss, and that if his debts were
not now settled in full he should be reduced to beggary. The
tavern-keepers were also busy, running to and fro, getting, or trying to
get, payment of scores from customers whom they had trusted. There were
others who had something to sell, some provisions for the voyage, a cloak,
or a mantle, and offered it as a bargain—not, however, without a margin of
profit—to dear friends with whom they were not likely to have dealings
again. Other noisy claimants for attention were young Britons who wanted
to enlist. For days past these had been flocking into the camp, and now
that their last chance was about to disappear, they became importunate in
the extreme. The numbers of the legions could have been almost doubled
from these candidates for service.
Slowly, as ship after ship received its complement of men, the turmoil on
the shore lessened, and about sunset the embarkation was completed. The
weather was beautifully calm, a light wind blowing from the land during
the day, and even this falling as the light declined. When the moon
rose—the time of the full had been chosen for the embarkation—the sea was
almost calm. Then, amidst a great cry of “Farewell,” from the shore, the
fleet slowly moved down the harbour. All night, making the most of the
favourable weather, it pursued its way along the coast, being joined as it
went by other detachments. At the Portus Lemanus it found the fleet which
carried the garrisons of the eastern stations ready to start, and the
whole made its way without hindrance across the Channel to Bononia, having
as prosperous a voyage as had the legions which more than four hundred and
fifty years before Cæsar had brought to the island.
CHAPTER X.
DANGERS AHEAD.
The winter that followed the departure of the legions was a busy time with
the Count. He was now almost the only representative of Roman power in
Southern Britain, and the villa on the island became a place of
considerable importance. A military force of some strength was gathered
there. Constantine’s enterprise was not universally popular, and many had
taken any chance that offered itself of escaping from it. Some had
reached, or very nearly reached, the end of their time of service, and
claimed their discharge; others were known to be loyal to Rome, and were
allowed to retire. Not a few of those who found themselves without home or
employment, and did not happen to have friends or kinsfolk in Britain,
rallied to the Count. The families, too, of some that had gone with the
legions were glad to claim such shelter and protection as the
neighbourhood of the villa could give. Among these were the wife and
daughters of the Centurion Decius; the old mother had steadily refused to
accompany them, and, with an aged dependent of nearly the same age,
continued to occupy the house near the deserted camp. It was an anxious
matter with the Count what was to be done with these helpless people.
While things were quiet they could live safely, if not very comfortably,
in the neighbouring village; but if trouble were to come—and there were
several quarters from which it might come—they would have to be sheltered
somewhere in the villa. This never could be made into a really strong
place; but it might serve well enough for a time and against ordinary
attack. Some of the outbuildings and domestic offices were fortified as
well as the position admitted; such material of war as could be got was
accumulated, and provisions also were stored. The most reliable resource,
however, was in the ships of war. These were not, as was usual, drawn up
on the beach for the winter, but were kept at anchor, ready for immediate
use.
Nor were these precautions unnecessary, for indeed, as we shall see,
mischief of a very formidable kind was brewing, and indeed had been
brewing ever since the departure of the legions, and even before that
event. And it was mischief of a kind of which it may safely be affirmed
that neither the Count nor any Roman official, had any notion. Britain, to
all appearance, had for many generations been thoroughly subdued. Any
Roman, if he had been told that there was any danger of rebellion among
the Britons, would have laughed the suggestion to scorn. The legions,
indeed, had often been mutinous and turbulent, and their generals
ambitious and unscrupulous. The island indeed had gained so bad a
reputation for loyalty to the Empire that it had been called the mother of
tyrants, by “tyrant” being meant “usurper.” But whenever Rome had been
defied, she had been defied by her own troops. The Britons had enlisted in
the rebel armies, but they had never attempted to assert anything like
British independence. And yet the tradition of independence and liberty
had always been kept alive. The Celtic race is singularly tenacious of
such ideas, and also singularly skilful in concealing them from those who
are its masters for the time, and the Britons were Celts of the purest
blood. Caradoc(33) and Boadicea, and other heroes and heroines of British
independence, were household words in many families which were yet
thoroughly Roman in spirit and manners. Just as the Christianized Jews of
Spain, though to all appearances devout worshippers at church, still clung
in secret to the rites of their own worship, so these loyal subjects of
the Empire, as all the world believed them, cherished in their hearts the
memory of the free Britain of the past and the hope of a free Britain in
the future. And the time was now at hand when their leaders thought that
this hope might be fulfilled.
The Shanklin Chine of to-day is not a little different from the Shanklin
Chine of fifteen hundred years ago. It has, so to speak, been subdued and
civilized. Now it is a very pretty and pleasant wood; then it was an
almost impenetrable thicket, a noted lair of elk and wild boar.
Inaccessible, however, as it seemed to any one who surveyed it from above,
there was for those who were in the secret a way of approaching its
recesses. A little path, the beginning of which it was almost impossible
to discover without a guide, led up from the sea-end of the ravine to a
hut which had been constructed about half way up the ascent. It consisted
of a single chamber, about fourteen feet long, ten broad, and not more
than seven in height, and was constructed of roughly-hewn logs, the
interstices of which were filled with clay. The walls, however, were not
visible, for they were covered with hangings of a dark blue material,
something like serge. The floor was strewn with rushes. In the centre of
the apartment there was a hearth, having over it an aperture in the roof,
not, however, opening directly into the outer air, by which the smoke
might escape. On this hearth two or three logs were smouldering with a
dull heat which it would have been easy to fan into flame. There were two
windows unglazed, but closed with rough wooden lattices.
On three settles, roughly but strongly made of oak, which, with a
rudely-polished slab of wood that served for table, constituted all the
furniture of the hut, sat three confederates, and behind each stood a
stalwart attendant armed with a wicker shield which hung from his neck,
and a long Gallic sword. The three chiefs were curiously different in
appearance. One, as far, at least, as dress and manner were concerned,
might have passed anywhere for a genuine Roman. He was taller, it is true,
than the Romans commonly were; and his complexion, though dark rather than
fair, had a ruddier hue than was often seen under the more glowing skin of
Italy; still he might have walked down the Sacred Way or the Saburra(34)
unnoticed save as an exceptionally handsome man, of that fair beauty which
the southern nations especially admire. His hair was carefully curled and
perfumed; his face as carefully shaven, and showing no trace of beard,
moustache, or whisker. His toga of brilliant white, his long-sleeved tunic
of some dark purple stuff, his elegant sandals, were all such as a dandy
of the Palatine might have worn. The one thing which would have been
singular in a Roman street was the under-garment reaching to his knees,
which he had assumed in consideration of the cold and wet of the insular
climate. His fingers were loaded with rings, one of them a sapphire of
unusual size, on which was engraved a likeness of the feeble features of
the Emperor Honorius; on his left wrist might be seen a bracelet of gold.
If Martianus—for that was the name of the personage whom we have been
describing—might have been easily mistaken for a Roman, the chief who sat
facing him on the opposite side of the hearth was as manifestly a Briton.
His hair fell over his shoulders in long natural curls which suggested no
suspicion of the barber’s or the perfumer’s art. His upper lip was covered
with a moustache which drooped to his chin. His body was covered with a
sleeveless coat skilfully made of otters’ skins. Both arms were bare, and
were plentifully painted with woad. On his legs he wore a garment
something like the “trews” or short trowsers which the Highland regiments
sometimes wear in lieu of the kilt; his feet were enveloped in rude boots
of hide which were laced round his ankles. His ornaments were a massive
chain of twisted gold, which he wore round his neck, and a single ring,
rudely wrought of British gold, in which was set a British pearl of
immense size but indifferent hue. He had a Roman name, as he could on
occasion wear Roman costume, and speak the Latin tongue. In the present
company he was known and addressed by his native name of Ambiorix.
[Illustration: British Conspirators.]
The third conspirator had the appearance of a middle-class provincial. He
wore the tunic that formed part of a Roman’s ordinary dress, but not the
toga, which was replaced by a garment somewhat resembling a short cloak.
But under the garb of a well-to-do townsman was concealed a very
remarkable career and character. Carausius—for this was the name by which
he was generally known—was one of the last representatives of the ancient
Druid priesthood. The glory and power of this remarkable caste, which had
once held itself superior to the kings of Britain, were departed. Indeed,
it was almost dangerous to hold the ancient faith, and practise the
ancient worship. Since the publication of the edict by which Constantine
had made Christianity the Imperial religion, the adherents of the old
religion had become fewer and feebler. Some of the chiefs and nobles still
held it in secret, or were, at least, ready to return to it, if it should
ever again become powerful; but its adherents were mostly to be found
among the poorer classes. Even these in the towns were, in name at least,
mostly Christians; it was only the dwellers in the remoter and wilder
parts of the country that remained faithful. But these scattered adherents
revered the name of Carausius, who was believed to possess all the wisdom
of his class, and was indeed credited with mysterious powers over nature
and the gift of prophecy. From the Roman population all this was a secret,
and the secret was remarkably well kept. Carausius was supposed to be
nothing more than an ordinary farmer. His Roman neighbours would have been
astonished in the last degree if they could have seen him presiding at one
of the Druid ceremonies, in his white robes curiously embroidered with
mystic figures, his chaplet of golden oak-leaves, and the headless spear,
which was to him what the crozier was to a Christian bishop.
CHAPTER XI.
THE PRIEST’S DEMAND.
“So the time has come at last,” said Ambiorix; “at last the yoke is broken
from off the neck of Britain. Blessed be the day that saw the legions of
the oppressor depart!”
“Yes,” replied Martianus, “but will they not return? They have gone
before; but have they not come back? I take it these Romans get too much
out of us to let us go willingly.”
“I have no fear of their return. If Honorius can make terms with this
Constantine and his army, he will never send them back here; he wants them
too much at home. He has got King Alaric to reckon with, and he has been
long since drawing every soldier that he can from the provinces into
Italy. No, depend upon it, at last Britain is free.”
“Free; yes, if it has not forgotten how to move.”
“We haven’t all learnt to play the slave,” said Ambiorix fiercely, as he
started from his seat. “There are some who have not sold their birthright
for the delights of the bath and the banquet, and who are too proud to ape
the manners of their masters.”
“Peace, my son,” interposed the aged priest; “Martianus is not the less
able to help the cause of our country because he seems to be the friend of
those who oppress it.”
“These are but the wild words of youth, father,” said Martianus. “By a
wise man they are forgotten as soon as they are heard. But let us hear
what Ambiorix has to tell us about the force which we can bring into the
field.”
The young chief entered into details which it is impossible to reproduce.
Preparations had been made over nearly the whole of Britain, though the
more northerly parts, owing to the perpetual attacks of their neighbours
the Picts, had little to contribute in the way of help. Ambiorix knew how
many men could be relied upon in every district; he was acquainted with
the disposition of the representatives of the chief British families; he
knew what each would want for himself, to whom he would be prepared to
yield precedence, from whom he would claim precedence for himself. All his
views and calculations were those of a sanguine temper; but he certainly
could show—on paper at least, as we should say—a very respectable amount
of strength. When he had finished his account of the resources of Britain,
Martianus, who, whatever his faults, had at least a genuine admiration for
ability, held out his hand—
“This is wonderful!” he said. “You have a true genius for rule. That you
should keep the threads of so complicated a business all so distinct is
simply wonderful. You certainly give me hopes that I never had before.”
“I never doubted for a moment,” returned the young man, “but that when
this Roman incubus was removed all would go well. Besides, who is there to
attack us? We have no enemies.”
“No enemies!” replied the other, in a tone of surprise. “Do you forget the
Saxons by sea and the Picts by land.”
“I believe that neither will trouble us. They are not our enemies, but the
enemies of Rome. They have harassed—they were quite right in harassing—the
oppressors of the world: they will respect, I am sure, the liberties of a
free people. When Britain is as independent as they are we shall be
friends.”
Martianus could not help smiling sarcastically. “That is very fine. One
would think that you had been a pupil in one of the schools of rhetoric
which you so much despise. The most famous of our declaimers could not
have put it better. But I am afraid that there will be some difficulty in
explaining all this to them.”
“In any case, we can defend ourselves,” returned the young chief, “though
I do not think that the need will occur.”
“Let us hope not,” said Martianus, but his tone was not confident or
cheerful.
There were, it may easily be supposed, not a few other subjects for
discussion, and the conversation lasted for a long time, the young chief
showing throughout such a mastery of details as greatly impressed his
companions. When he had finished a brief silence followed. It was broken
by the priest. There was a special solemnity in his tone, which seemed to
claim an authority for his utterances, quite different from the position
that he had taken up while politics or military matters were being
discussed.
“My children,” he said, “this is a grave matter. The weal or woe of
Britain for many generations is at stake. If we fail, we may well be
undone for ever. You cannot enter on so great an enterprise without the
favour of the gods, and the favour of the gods is not easily to be won.
For many years they have lacked the sacrifice which they most prize. I
myself, though I have completed my threescore years and ten, have but once
only been privileged so to honour them. The time has come for this
sacrifice to be offered once more. Have I your consent, my children? But
indeed I need not ask. This is a matter in which I cannot be mistaken, and
from which I cannot go back.”
The young chief nodded assent, but said nothing. He was evidently
disturbed.
“What do you mean, father?” he said.
“The sacrifice which the gods most prize,” answered the old man, “is also
that which is most prized by men. The most perfect offering which we can
present to them is the most perfect creature they themselves have made.
Sheep and oxen may suffice for common needs; but at such a time as this,
when Britain itself is at stake, we must appease the gods with the blood
of MAN.”
Martianus grew pale. “It is not possible,” he stammered.
“Not only possible, but necessary,” calmly returned the priest. “Our
fathers were commonly content to offer those who had offended against the
laws; but in times of special necessity they chose the noblest victims.
Even our kings have given up their sons and their daughters. So it must be
now.”
All this was absolutely horrible to Martianus. He did not believe indeed
in Christianity, but it had influenced him as it had influenced all the
world. Whether he was at heart much the better may be doubted. But he was
softer, more refined; he shrank from visible horrors, from open
cruelty—though he could be cruelly selfish on occasion—and from bloodshed,
though he would not stretch out a finger to save a neighbour’s life. And
what the priest said was as new and unexpected to him as it was hideous.
He had no idea that this savage faith had survived in Britain.
“Father,” he said, “such a thing would ruin us. Such a deed would raise
the whole country against us. A human sacrifice! It is monstrous!”
“You are right so far,” returned the priest, “the country must not know
it. Britain is utterly corrupted by this new faith, a superstition fit
only for women, and children, and slaves; and I don’t doubt but that it
would lift up its hands in horror at this holy solemnity. But there is no
need that it should know it. It must be done secretly—so much I concede.”
“And the victim?”
“Well, the days are passed when a Druid could lay his command on Britain’s
noblest, and be obeyed without a murmur. The victim must be taken by
force, and secretly.”
“And have you any such victim in your thoughts?”
The priest hesitated for a moment; but it was only for a moment. He
resumed in a low voice, which it evidently cost him an effort to keep
steady—
“I have not forgotten the necessity of a choice; indeed for months past it
has been without ceasing in my mind, and now the choice is made. The
victim whom the gods should have is a maiden, beautiful and pure. She is
of noble descent, though her father was compelled, by poverty and the
oppression of the Roman tyrants, to follow a humble occupation. Thus she
is worthy to be offered. And yet no true Briton will regret her fate, for
she has deserted the faith of her ancestors for the base superstition of
the Cross.”
“And her name, father?” said both of the conspirators together.
Again the priest hesitated; a close observer might even have seen a trace
of agitation in that stern countenance.
“It is Carna,” he said, after a pause, which raised the suspense of his
hearers almost to agony. “It is Carna, adopted daughter of Count Ælius.”
And he looked steadfastly at his companions’ faces, as if he would have
said, “I dare you to challenge my decision.”
The two started simultaneously to their feet. Not long before, young
Ambiorix, who was then not yet possessed by the fanatical patriotism which
now mastered him, had admired her beauty and sweetness of manner, and had
had day-dreams of her as the goddess of his own hearth. Then a stronger
love had come in the place of the old. It was not of woman, but of Britain
free among the nations, as she had been before the restless eagles of the
South had found her, that he thought day and night. Still, he could not
calmly hear her doomed to a horrible death, and for a moment he was ready
to rebel against the sentence of the priest.
The older man was terribly agitated. He had been for many years on the
friendliest footing with the Count, a frequent guest at his table, almost
an intimate of the house. And Carna was an especial favourite with him.
Her sweetness, her simplicity, and a pathetic resemblance that she bore to
a dead daughter of his own, touched him on the best side of his nature.
“Priest,” he thundered, “it shall not be. I would sooner the whole scheme
came to ruin; I would sooner die. A curse on your hideous worship!”
The priest had now crushed down the risings of human feelings which his
training had not sufficed to eradicate.
“You have sworn by the gods,” he said, “and you cannot go back. If you do
not hesitate to betray Britain, at least you will not dare to betray
yourself. You know the power I can command. Go back from your promise to
follow my leading, and you are a dead man. You are faithful?” he went on,
turning to Ambiorix. “You do not draw back?”
The young chief returned a muttered assent.
The older man, meanwhile, was in a miserable condition of indecision and
terror. Unbeliever as he was, having long since given up the faith of his
fathers, and never accepted the doctrine of the church but with the
emptiest formality, he had not put from his breast the superstitious fear
that commonly lingers when belief is gone. And he knew that the priest’s
threatened vengeance on himself was no empty boast. The strength of
Druidism had passed, but it still had fanatics at its command, whose
daggers would find their way sooner or later to his heart. The cold,
cynical look with which he had entered on the conference had given place
to mingled looks of rage, remorse, and fear.
“You must have your own way,” he muttered, sullenly.
“My son,” said the priest, in a tone which he made studiously cautious,
“what is one life in comparison with the happiness and glory of our
nation? You, I know, would shrink from no sacrifice, and, believe me,” he
added in a lower voice, for he had to play off the two rivals against each
other, “believe me, whatever sacrifice you make shall not miss its
reward.”
CHAPTER XII.
LOST.
Carna was known all over the neighbourhood of the villa as the best and
kindest of nurses, always ready to help in cases of sickness, and able to
command the services of the household physician where her own medical
skill was at fault. It was therefore with no surprise that the morning
after the consultation, recorded in the last chapter, she was told that
her help was wanted in a case of urgent need. The woman who had brought
the message was a stranger. She was the daughter, she said, of an old
woman living at Uricum, a small hamlet about four miles from the villa.
She had happened to come the day before on a visit to her mother, and
found her very ill; they had no medicines in the house, and indeed should
not have known how to use them if they had. Would the lady come, and, if
she thought proper, bring the physician with her? The place mentioned was
on the limits of the district with which Carna was acquainted. It could
only be approached by a path through the forest; and the girl had not
visited it more than two or three times in her life. She had a vague
remembrance, however, of the patient’s name. On sending for the physician,
it was found that he was out, having been called away, Carna was told, to
a case which, he had said before starting, would probably occupy him for
the greater part of the day. On hearing this, she made up her mind to
start without waiting for him. The illness was very probably of a simple
kind, though it might be violent in degree. Very likely it was a case in
which the nurse would be more wanted than the doctor. She provided herself
with two or three simple remedies which she learnt to employ in the
ordinary maladies of the country, of which feverish colds were the most
common, and started, taking with her as companion and protector a stately
Milesian dog, or mastiff, who was always delighted to play the part of a
guard in her country walks. Her own pet dog, a long-haired little
creature, something of the Spanish kind, whom she had intended to leave at
home, contrived to free himself from the custody to which he had been
assigned, and stealthily followed her, cunningly keeping out of sight till
the party had gone too far for him to be conveniently sent back. He then
showed himself with extravagant gestures of contrition, was tenderly
reproached, pardoned, and allowed to go on.
During the walk the messenger was curiously silent, and answered all
Carna’s questions about her mother and her affairs in the very briefest
fashion. All that could be got from her was that she lived on the main
land, about twenty miles inland, in a northerly direction, and that since
her marriage, now twenty years ago, she had seen very little of her
mother. When they reached the outskirts of the hamlet she pointed out her
mother’s house, and, making an excuse that she had an errand for a
neighbour, disappeared. Carna, seeing nothing but a certain surliness of
temper, possibly only shyness, in her companion, went on without
suspicion. She reached the house, and knocked at the door. There was no
answer. She knocked again. Still all was silence. Looking a little more
closely at the place she could see no signs of habitation, no smoke, for
instance, making its way out of the thatch (for chimneys did not yet
exist, at least, in the poorer dwellings). The next thing was to peep in
at the window, a wooden lattice, which had been left partially open. The
room into which she looked was perfectly bare.
A suspicion rushed into her mind that she had been tricked, and that
danger of some unknown kind was at hand. The strange sympathy which often
makes the dog so quick to understand the feelings of man, made the big
mastiff, Malcho, uneasy. With a low growl, showing uneasiness rather than
fear or anger, he ranged himself at her side.
As she stood considering what was next to be done, a party of six men, one
of whom led a horse, issued from the wood which bordered the little garden
of the cottage.
“Can you tell me where I shall find one Utta, who, I am told, is sick, and
wishful to see me? Can it be that I have mistaken the house?”
“Utta, my lady,” said one of the party, “is not to be found any more. She
died a week since.”
“But,” said Carna, with rising anger, “a woman, who said that she was her
daughter, told me, not more than two hours ago, that she was sick, and
desired to see me. Why have I been brought here for nothing?”
“Pardon me, lady,” returned the first speaker, in a tone in which respect
and command were curiously blended, “but you have not been brought for
nothing. You have a better work to do than ministering to a sick old
woman.”
As he spoke he moved forwards. But he had not taken two steps before the
great dog, who had been watching the speakers, we might say almost
listening to their talk with the most eager attention, sprang furiously at
him, and laid him prostrate on the ground. His companions rushed to rescue
their leader from the dog and to seize the girl. They did not accomplish
either of their objects with impunity. The gallant creature turned from
one assailant to another with a strength and a fury which made him a most
formidable antagonist, and he had inflicted some frightful wounds before
he was made senseless by repeated blows from the weapons of the
assailants. Nor was Carna overpowered without a struggle. Weapons she had
none, except a little dagger, meant for use in needlework, which hung at
her side; but she used this not without effect. She clenched her fist, and
dealt two or three blows, of which her antagonists bore the marks upon
their faces for days to come. Finally she wrenched herself from the grasp
of the assailants as a last resource, and endeavoured to fly, but it was a
hopeless effort. Before she had run more than a few yards she was
overtaken. Her captors used no more violence than they could help.
Probably had they been less unwilling to hurt her, she could not have
resisted so long. Finding her so strong and so determined, they were
obliged to bind her hands and feet; but they did this with all the
gentleness compatible with an evident resolve to make her bonds secure. In
the midst of her terror and distress Carna could not help observing with
astonishment that the cords which they used were of silk. Then finding
herself absolutely helpless, she said—
“Do not bind me as though I were a slave. On the faith of a Christian, I
will not attempt to escape.”
“Lady, we trust you,” said the leader of the party, and at the same time
directed one of his companions to unbind the ropes. “Be comforted,” he
went on; “we do not intend you harm; on the contrary, high honour is in
store for you.”
[Illustration: The Capture of Carna.]
Carna was scarcely reassured by these mysterious words, but she had now
recovered her calmness. Summoning up all her courage—and it was far beyond
even the average of a singularly fearless race—she intimated to her
captors that she was ready to follow them without further delay. They
mounted her upon the horse, which, as has been said, one of them was
holding, and started in a northerly direction. Two of the party had been
so severely injured by the hound, that they were obliged to stay behind.
One of the others held the bridle of the horse, and led him forward at an
ambling pace; the others followed behind.
The way of the party lay entirely along rough forest-paths which seemed
from their appearance, often grown over as they were with branches and
creepers, to be but seldom traversed. Night had fallen some hours before
they reached the northern coast of the island. Their way had lain in a
north-westerly direction, and they emerged near to the arm of the sea now
known as Fishbourne Creek. Here they found a rowing boat in waiting.
Carna’s captors now handed over their charge to the boat party, which was
under the command of the young chief whom we know by the name of Ambiorix.
He received his prisoner with a dignified civility, made her as
comfortable as he could with rugs and wraps in the stern of the boat, and
then gave orders to start. The journey across the channel, which we now
know as the Solent, occupied some hours, though the night was calm, and
the ebbing tide mostly in the rowers’ favour, the shortest route not being
taken, but a north-westerly direction still followed. The morning was just
beginning to break when the coast was reached near the spot where
Lymington now stands. The party hurriedly disembarked, put the girl on a
rough litter which they had with them in the boat, and carried her to a
dwelling some half-mile inland, and surrounded by the woods which here
almost touched high-water mark. Carna found a tolerable chamber allotted
to her, where she was waited upon by an elderly woman who seemed bent on
doing everything that she could for her comfort. The girl was of the
elastic temper which soon recovers itself even under the most depressing
circumstances. She had the wisdom, too, to feel that, if she was to help
herself, she must keep up her strength to the very best of her power. She
did not refuse the simple but well-cooked meal which her attendant served
to her, after she had enjoyed the refreshment of a bath. And then
overpowered by the fatigue of a journey which had lasted not much less
than twenty-four hours, she sank into a deep sleep.
It was dark when her attendant gently roused her and told her that in an
hour she would be required to resume her journey, in which, as Carna heard
with some pleasure, she was herself to be her companion. A start was made
about three hours before midnight, and the journey was continued till an
hour before dawn. This plan was followed till their destination was
reached. The party was evidently careful to keep its movements secret.
Their way lay as before, by woodland paths, leading them through the
district now known as the New Forest. They travelled but slowly, more
slowly indeed than they had done on the island, for the paths were still
rougher, and, in fact, almost undistinguishable. Carna, too, was the only
one of the company that had a horse, and her female attendant, who was
neither young nor active, could manage but a few miles at a time. It was
the morning of the second day after they had left the coast before they
reached the edge of the great forest known as the Natanleah. Some five
miles to the west lay Sorbiodunum, now Salisbury. This was a Roman town of
some importance, and had of course to be avoided by the party, who,
indeed, were anxious, as Carna could gather from a few scattered words
that were let drop in her presence, as to the way in which the rest of
their journey was to be accomplished. The country was open, cultivated,
and comparatively populous, the inhabitants being, for the most part,
thoroughly Latinized. Two Roman roads, too, had to be crossed before their
destination was reached.
The day was spent as usual in concealment and repose. An hour after
nightfall the party started. They had now managed to procure another horse
for Carna’s attendant; and as the ground was fairly level, unenclosed,
and, at that time of year, unencumbered by crops, they moved rapidly
onwards. The moon had now risen, and Carna, for the first time, could at
least see where they were going. She was still, however, at a loss to know
what part of the country they had reached. At midnight a halt was called,
and the leader of the party proceeded to blindfold the captive’s eyes. But
if he wanted to keep her in ignorance of the locality, he was a little too
late. The girl’s quick sight had caught a glimpse in the distance of the
huge circle of earth walls, now known as Amesbury. She had never seen the
place, but it was known to her in the chronicles of her people. There, as
she had read with a patriotism which all her Roman surroundings had not
been able to quench, her countrymen had more than once held at bay the
legions of Rome. She knew roughly the situation of the famous camp of the
Belgæ, and she was sure that these massive fortifications, just seen for a
moment in the moonlight, could be none others than those of which she had
read so often.
When the bandage was removed, she found herself in a chamber larger and
more comfortably furnished than any she had hitherto occupied on her
journey. Part of the palace of one of the old kings of the Belgæ was still
standing, and the travellers had taken up their quarters in it. The
Amesbury camp was indeed as safe a place as they could have chosen. It was
a spot which no Roman, much less a Briton living under Roman protection,
would care to visit. The whole countryside believed that it was haunted by
the spirits of the great chiefs and warriors who had been buried within
its precincts, and of the slaves who had been killed to furnish them with
service and attendance in the unseen world. The scanty remnant who still
clung to the Druid faith found their account in encouraging these
superstitions. More than one appearance had been arranged to terrify
sceptical or curious persons who had been rash enough to visit the vast
circle of embankments. For many years before the time of our story the
enclosure had been untrodden except by the few who were in the secret of
the Druid initiation. Here, then, the party waited securely with their
prisoner till the time should come for the solemn visit to _Choir Gawr_,
the Great Temple, known to us by the name of Stonehenge.
CHAPTER XIII.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
It was some time before the prolonged absence of Carna caused any alarm at
the villa. When she was on one of her errands of kindness among the sick,
it was difficult to say when she would return. But in the course of the
afternoon the old physician returned, not a little wrath that he had been
sent on a fool’s errand. He had been told that an old farmer, living close
to the north-west of the island some seven or eight miles from the villa
was lying dangerously ill, and he had found the supposed patient in
vigorous health, and not a little angry at being supposed to be anything
else. This seemed to make things look somewhat serious. It was easy to
guess that the trick played upon the physician had something to do with
the message brought to Carna. It was remembered that the stranger had
asked that he should accompany the girl; it was at least possible that she
knew him to be out of the way, and that she would not have made the
request had she not known it.
While the Count, who had just returned from an inspection of his crews,
was talking the matter over with his daughter and two of his officers who
happened to be present, a new cause for suspicion and alarm presented
itself. Carna’s pet dog had found its way back with a bit of broken cord
round its neck, and refused to be comforted, tearing and pulling at the
dresses of the attendant, and saying, as plainly as a dog could say it,
that there was something wrong, that it must be attended to at once, and
that he would show them how to do it, if they would only follow him. When
the rope round his neck was examined more closely, it was found that it
had been gnawed in two. “He has been tied up and has broken away,” said
the Count, when this was pointed out to him. “And if I know the dear
little thing,” broke in Ælia, “he would not have left his mistress as long
as he could be near her. I am sure that some mischief has happened to
her.” And this was the general impression, though, who could have ventured
on so audacious an outrage it was impossible to guess.
What had happened, as the reader may possibly guess, was this. The dog had
remained with Carna, showing his love, not by fierce resistance like that
made by his powerful companion, for which he had the sagacity to know he
had not sufficient strength, but by keeping as close to her as he could.
After she had been made a prisoner, and while the party were preparing for
a start, he had been tied to a tree. It had been intended that he should
go with his mistress, for whom, as has been said, her captors showed
throughout a certain consideration, but it so happened that in the bustle
of departure he was forgotten. When he saw her go and found himself left
behind, he set himself with all his might to gnaw the rope which fastened
him to the tree. This task took him a long time, for he was an old dog,
and his teeth were not as good as they had been. Finding himself free he
started in headlong pursuit, easily tracking the party by the scent, but
after a while he halted; a happy thought—is it possible that, in the teeth
of all accumulated evidences, any one can deny that dogs can think?—a
happy _thought_ then struck his mind, quickened to its utmost capacity of
intelligence by love and grief. We may translate it into human language
thus: “If I follow her and overtake her, what good can I do? but if I go
back and make the people at home understand that something has happened to
her, then I can help her to some purpose.” This was his conclusion,
anyhow. How he arrived at it only He knows who makes all things great and
small, and “divideth to all severally as He will.” He turned back, ran
with breathless speed to the villa, and did all that could be done, short
of speaking, to show that his dear mistress was in trouble.
Meanwhile, however, much time had been lost, and the day was already far
advanced. Anxious as was the Count to set out, he could not but perceive
that haste might defeat the object of his journey. To start when the light
was failing would probably be to miss important signs of what had
happened, and, very possibly, to risk success. All preparations, however,
were made. The men who were to form the pursuing party were chosen. As it
may be supposed, there was no lack of volunteers. There was not a single
being at the villa or its dependencies that would not have given a great
deal and borne a great deal to see Carna again in safety. But it would be
possible to take only a small number, if the pursuit was to be rapid and
effective. Some of the most active of the crews of the war-ships
accordingly were chosen, sailors having then as now a cheerful activity
that makes them particularly valuable members of a land expedition. The
Count added others from his own establishment, and he determined to
conduct the party himself. It was arranged that it should start the
following day, as soon as it should be sufficiently light.
One of the slaves who was early astir on the following morning found fixed
to an outside gate of the villa a document, rudely written and roughly
folded, which bore the Count’s address. It was found, when opened, to
contain the following message, expressed in ungrammatical Latin, mingled
with one or two British words:
“_She whom you seek is not far off, and may be recovered by you if you are
wise. If you attempt to regain her by force, she will be lost to you
altogether. But if you wish to have her again with you safely and without
trouble, send one whom you can trust with a hundred gold pieces at
midnight three days after the receiving of this letter to the place to
which she was yesterday fetched. Let your messenger go alone, and ask no
questions then or afterwards._”
“So she is held to ransom by a set of brigands,” cried the Count, when he
had read this document. “I should not have thought that such a thing had
been possible in Britain. But the times have been getting worse and worse.
We have long been weakening our hold upon the province, and we had better
clear out altogether, if we cannot do better than this. But I suppose we
have no choice. We must not endanger the dear girl’s life. But now the
question is about the money. I do not think that I have so much in gold in
the house; but we can borrow somewhere what is wanted.”
“Perhaps,” said the Count’s secretary, whom he had summoned to consult
with him, “the peddler can help you. He has the reputation of being richer
than he looks.”
“Well,” replied the Count, “that would be a simple way out of the
difficulty, if it can be managed. Meanwhile, let me see what I have got of
my own at hand.”
It was found that eighty gold pieces were forthcoming, and the peddler was
summoned and asked whether he could make up the balance.
“My Lord,” said the man when he was brought into the Count’s presence and
had heard the story, “I will make no idle pretence of poverty. I have what
you want, and it is entirely at your lordship’s service. But will you let
me see the letter in which this demand for ransom is made?”
The Count handed him the document, and he examined it long and carefully.
“My lord,” he said, “the more I look at this, the more I am confirmed in
certain suspicions which have been growing up in my mind. I have been
thinking of this matter, and of other matters which seem to me to be
connected with it all the night. It will take long to explain, and, of
course, after all I may be wrong; still, I think you would do well to hear
what I have got to say.”
The Count, who had previously had reasons for thinking well of the
peddler’s intelligence, bade him proceed.
“In the first place,” continued the man, “I think this letter is a blind.
It is made to look like the work of some very rude and ignorant person.
But the pretence is not well kept up. You will see, if you look at the
handwriting a little more closely, that it is feigned. The writer was
perfectly able to make it a great deal better than it is, if he had so
chosen, and he has sometimes forgotten his part. Some of the letters, some
even of the words, particularly of the small words, about which he would
naturally be less careful, are quite well-formed. Now a really bad writer,
I mean one who writes badly because he does not know how to write well, is
always bad; every letter he forms is misshapen.”
The Count examined the document and acknowledged that this comment upon it
was just. And he began to see too what was naturally more apparent to him,
as an educated man, than it was to the peddler, that the style was hardly
what would have been expected from an ignorant scribe.
“What, then, is your conclusion?” he asked.
“About that,” returned the other, “I am not so certain. That this is a
blind, as I said, I am sure; and this talk about the ransom consequently
is a deception. ‘Three days,’ you see it says. That would be three days
lost. No, my lord, it is not by robbers that this has been planned.”
“What then?” cried the Count, flushing a fiery red as a sudden thought
occurred to him. “Carna is very beautiful. Do you think——”
“No,” said the peddler, “I think not. A lover would not lay so elaborate a
plot as I fancy I can see here. I think the Lady Carna is a hostage, or——”
He paused, and continued after a few minutes of silence. “I have much to
piece together, and it would take long, and lose much precious time. That
is the last thing that we should do. They have got too much start already.
We must not let them improve it more than we can help. You will let me go
with you, and I shall have leisure to put all I have got to say together
without hindering you. But the sooner we are on their track the better.”
To this the Count readily agreed, and preparations for immediate departure
were made. It was with difficulty that Ælia could be persuaded that she
must be left behind. But when it was pointed out to her that her presence
must inevitably make the progress of the party more slow, and increase
their anxieties, she reluctantly gave way. At the last moment an
unexpected addition was made to the party in the person of the Saxon
prisoner.
“My lord,” said the peddler, to whom the young man had communicated his
earnest desire to be allowed to go; “it may seem a strange thing for me to
say, but you cannot have a better helper in this matter than this young
fellow. He is as strong as any horse, and as keen and intelligent a youth
as I ever saw. And in this case too his wits will be doubly sharp, and his
arm doubly strong, for he worships the very ground that the Lady Carna
treads upon.”
“Very well,” replied the Count, with a smile, “let him go. After all, it
is quite as safe to take a lion about with one, as to leave him at home.”
The pet dog was, of course, a valued member of the expedition.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PURSUIT.
The task of tracing the lost girl was at first easy enough. She and the
stranger, who, it now seemed, had been sent to entrap her, had been seen
proceeding in the direction mentioned in the message. The neighbourhood of
the villa was mostly cultivated ground, and there had been people at work
in the fields who had noticed the girl’s well-known figure. Beyond this
belt of cultivated country, which might have been about a mile broad,
there was only one road which it was possible for her to have taken.
Following this, and reaching the hamlet at the further end of which, as we
have seen, the abduction had taken place, they still found themselves on
the right track. A child had seen two people, one of them, she said, a
pretty lady, pass by on the morning of the day before. The lady had
smiled, and said a few words to her in her own language, and had given her
a sweetmeat. Further on the traces of what they were looking for became
still more evident. There were marks of struggle on the ground, for Carna,
as we have seen, had not suffered herself to be taken without resistance;
a button was found on the ground, which the peddler at once identified as
one of his own selling. And a little off the path, the tree was found to
which the dog had been tied, with the fragment of string still attached to
it. Curiously enough, no traces of the great dog could be found.
Nor did the next step in the pursuit delay them long. There were, it is
true, three paths through the forest, which closed in the hamlet on every
side except that by which the party had approached it. Carna’s pet dog at
once decided for the searchers which of the three they should follow. He
discovered the scent very quickly, ran at the top of his speed along the
path thus distinguished from the others for about a hundred yards, and
then, coming back, implored the party, so to speak, by his gestures, that
they should come with him. It was evident that the path had been traversed
by a party of considerable size, whose tracks, the marks of a horse’s
hoofs among them, were still fresh in the ground, soft as it was with the
winter rains. The dog was evidently satisfied that they were right, for he
ran quietly on, now and then giving a very soft little whine. It wanted
still an hour or so of sunset when the party emerged out of the forest
upon the shore.
Here it might have seemed at first all trace was lost. The tide had flowed
and ebbed twice since the girl had been there, and had swept away all
marks of footsteps. The dog too was no longer a guide. The poor little
creature’s distress indeed was pitiful, as he ran to and fro upon the
shore with a plaintive whine.
The Count asked his companions for their opinions.
“Have they taken to the wood again, do you think? or have they crossed the
water? they may have gone a mile or more along the shore and then entered
the forest. In that case it seems hopeless to recover the track.”
“It is my opinion,” said the peddler, “that they have crossed to the
mainland; but it is only an opinion, and I have little or nothing to urge
for it.”
Other members of the party had different views; and, on the whole, opinion
was adverse to the peddler’s view; and the Count was about to order a
search in the direction of the wood further along the shore, when the
attention of the party was arrested by a shout from the Saxon.
The discussion had been carried on in a language which he had still some
difficulty in understanding, and he had been pacing backwards and forwards
along the shore, seemingly lost in thought, but really watching everything
with that keen attention to all outward objects which is one of the
characteristics of uncivilized man. It was thus that something caught his
eye. He plunged his hand into one of the little rock-pools upon the shore,
and drew it out. It was a small gold trinket, which the girl had dropped
in the forlorn hope that it might be found. Its weight, for it was an
almost solid piece of metal, had kept it in the place where it fell, and
as the night and day had been uniformly calm, there had been no sufficient
movement of the water to disturb it. With a cry of delight the Saxon held
it up, and the Count recognized it at once.
“Ah!” said the peddler, “I knew the fellow would be of use to us. If the
Lady Carna is anywhere on the earth he would find her. This proves, my
lord, that they have crossed the sea. They would certainly have not come
down so far from the shore as this.”
This seemed too probable to admit of any doubt. Happily it had occurred to
the Count that it would be well to have some kind of vessel at his
command, and he had ordered a pinnace to start from the haven as soon as
it could be got ready, and to coast along the shore of the island,
watching for any signal that might be given. The land party had
outstripped the ship, which, indeed, had not started till somewhat later.
Still, it might be expected very soon. Meanwhile there was an opportunity
for discussing the aspect which the affair now bore.
After various opinions had been given, the Count turned to the peddler.
“And what do you think of the affair?”
“I have a notion,” the man replied, “but it may be only a fancy—still I
seem to myself to have a notion of what their purpose is.”
“Do you mean,” pursued the Count, as the other paused, and seemed almost
unwilling to speak, “do you mean that they think of holding her as a kind
of hostage against me? Do they fancy that I shall not be able to act
against them, and shall hinder my colleagues from acting, as long as she
is in their power? or will they keep her as something to make terms about
if they fail?”
The other was still silent for a few minutes, and seemed to be collecting
his thoughts. At last he said:
“My lord, what I am going to tell you may seem as foolish as a dream. I
should have gone on saying nothing about it, as I have said nothing about
it hitherto, if things had not happened which makes it a crime for me to
be silent any longer. You find it difficult to believe that a rebellion is
possible among a nation which you have always looked upon as thoroughly
subdued. But what will you say if I tell you that this rebellion has been
preparing for generations, and that the Druids have been, and are, at the
bottom of it.”
“Druids!” cried the Count, “I did not know that there were any Druids. I
thought that the last of them had disappeared years ago.”
“Not so,” replied the peddler; “the people who rule do not know what is
going on about them. Now I have been among this people the greater part of
my life. I have seen them, not as they show themselves to you, but as they
are. You think that they are Christians—not very good Christians, perhaps,
but still not worse than other people—and believing the Creeds, if they
believe anything. Now I know for a certainty that many of them are no more
Christians now than their fathers were three hundred and fifty years ago.
I have seen sometimes, when no one knew that I saw, what they really
worshipped. I have pieced together many little things. I have heard hints
dropped unawares, and I know that there is a secret society, which has
existed ever since the island was conquered, which has for its object the
bringing back of the old faith. I could name—if things turn out as I
expect they will, I will name—men whom you believe to be quiet,
respectable citizens, but who are the heads of a conspiracy reaching all
over Britain, against Rome and the Christian Church. You never see them
except in the tunic and the cap, but they can wear on occasion the Druid’s
robe and crown.”
“But tell me,” said the Count, with a certain impatience, “what has this
got to do with my daughter?”
“This, my lord,” answered the other, “that if the Druids are making the
great effort for which they have been preparing for no one knows how many
years, they will begin it with all the solemnity that is possible—in a
word, with the great sacrifice. This, I suppose, has not been practised
for many generations, but it has not been forgotten. To speak plainly, I
believe that the Lady Carna has been carried off for the victim.”
The Count staggered back as if he had been struck. “Impossible!” he cried.
“Such things cannot be in Britain: and why should they fix upon her?”
“For two reasons,” said the peddler. “She is of royal race. You very
likely do not know or care about such things. All Britons to you will be
much about the same; but they do not forget it. Yes, though her father was
nothing more than a sailor, she is descended from Cassibelan. And then she
is a Christian. These are the two reasons why they have chosen her—this is
what they honour her for, and this is what they hate her for.”
“But where,” cried the Count, “where is this monstrous thing to be done?”
“That,” replied the other, “I think I know. It can hardly be done anywhere
but at the Great Temple, the Choir Gawr, as they call it themselves.”
“And where is this Great Temple?”
“About forty miles inland, in a nearly northerly direction. I have seen
the place once, and I can find my way to it, I believe; but, to make sure,
I will find a guide.”
“And when?”
“At the full moon. I should say.”
“And how much does it want to the full moon now?”
“It will be full moon to-morrow night.”
“We have to cross then to the mainland—and the galley is not in sight—to
find a guide, and to travel forty miles, and all before to-morrow night.
Well, it must be done. To think of these wretches murdering my dear
Carna!”
“Do not fear, my lord; we shall do it,” said the peddler; but added, in a
low voice, “if nothing happens.”
At that moment the galley came in sight. “That is right,” cried the Count;
“anyhow, we begin well; no time will be lost in getting across.”
CHAPTER XV.
THE PURSUIT (_CONTINUED_).
The signal previously agreed was promptly hoisted by the party on shore,
and as promptly observed and obeyed by the crew of the galley which had
been for some time on the watch for some communication.
“My lord,” said the peddler, when they had embarked, “if I may suggest, we
should not make a straight passage to the mainland from here, but steer
for the north-west. Some eight miles beyond the western point of the
island there is a river flowing into the sea, and a fishing village at the
mouth. I know the place well, and have one or two good friends there. We
shall get a guide there; I have in my mind the very man who will suit us
well in that capacity. Indeed the river(35) itself would be no bad guide.
The Great Temple lies but a few miles westward from its upper course. The
road will be easy too along the valley, which is mostly clear of wood.”
“Then,” said the Count, “the Temple cannot be far from Sorbiodunum. Why
not make for the Great Harbour, and go by the Great Road to Venta(36) and
from Venta to Sorbiodunum.(37) The travelling would be much easier.”
“I have thought of that,” said the other, “but I think my plan the best.
The distance is far less, and, what is quite as important, we shall not be
expected to come that way. Depend upon it there will be an ambuscade laid
somewhere along the road; for they will feel sure that we shall try and
come that way.”
It was evident anyhow that as far as the sea voyage was concerned the man
was right. The tide was ebbing slowly, and an east wind, already high and
still rising, was blowing. To make way against wind and tide to the Great
Harbour would be in any case a laborious business; and if the wind
increased to a gale as it threatened to do, might become impossible. The
galley had been chosen for swiftness rather than seaworthy qualities in
rough weather, and might fail in the attempt to work back. On the other
hand both wind and tide thoroughly favoured a westward voyage.
Indeed she moved gaily on with a strong breeze, that in the phraseology of
to-day would be called a half-gale, blowing due aft, and scarcely felt the
heavy sea, seeming to leave the waves behind, as the rowers bent their
backs to their work. The Saxon had now taken his place on one of the
thwarts, and his gigantic strength, put it was evident with a will into
the labour, seemed of itself to drive the galley forwards. In an
incredibly short time the river mouth was reached, the galley stranded,
and the guide, who, by great good luck, had just returned from a fishing
voyage, engaged.
But now an unforeseen obstacle opposed itself. A few specks of rain had
been felt by the party as they went, and then as the day went on, began to
change to snow. And now the wind almost suddenly died away, and at the
same time the fall of snow grew heavier. The face of the guide fell.
“My lord,” he said, “I hear that your business is urgent and cannot wait.
But I must tell you that the weather looks very bad, and that the
prospects of our journey are almost as unfavourable as they can be. We
shall have a very heavy fall of snow, and if the wind gets up again, and
it begins to drift, we shall be blocked, and possibly unable to get either
backwards or forwards.”
“We must go,” said the Count, in a determined voice, “though the snow were
over our heads.”
After a very short interval allowed for refreshment, the party started. At
first the snow was no very serious obstacle; but after a couple of hours
incessant and rapid fall, it began to make movement very difficult. The
progress of the travellers grew slower and slower, and the Count began to
calculate that at their present rate of speed they could but barely arrive
in time. It was an immense relief when the sky almost suddenly cleared,
and showed the moon still evidently somewhat short of the full. But the
relief was only temporary. The clearer weather was the result of a change
of wind, which had suddenly veered to a point westward of north and which
was rapidly increasing in force. And now occurred the thing which the
peddler’s knowledge of the country and the weather had suggested to
him—the snow began to drift. At first the party was hardly conscious of
the change; indeed for a time the way was somewhat clearer and easier than
before; then as they came to a slight depression, the snow was felt to be
certainly deeper. Still three or four miles were traversed without any
particular difficulty. Then the leader of the party suddenly plunged into
a drift considerably above his knees. This obstacle, however, was
surmounted, or rather avoided by making a _détour_. But still the wind
rose higher and higher, and as it rose, not only did its force hinder the
party’s advance, but the drifts grew now formidably deep. Some of the
party began to lag behind; the Count himself, who was past his prime,
began to acknowledge to himself, with an agony of anger and fear in his
heart, that his strength was failing. Still they struggled on, leaving one
or two of the strugglers to make the best of their way back, or, it might
well be, to perish in the snow, till about half the distance was
traversed. They had now reached a little hamlet,(38) on the outskirts of
which there happened to be a small villa. It was shut up, the proprietor
chancing to be absent, but it was put at the disposal of the party by the
person who was in charge. Fires were hastily lighted, and the travellers,
most of whom had almost reached the end of their powers of endurance, were
refreshed with warmth and food.
The Count held a council of war. The situation indeed seemed nothing less
than desperate. Two out of the party of twenty-five—their numbers had been
increased by a contingent taken from the crew of the galley—were missing.
They had fallen out on the march, and it was too probable that they had
perished in the snow. Of the remainder but four or five seemed fit for any
further exertion. By far the freshest and most vigorous of them was the
Saxon. The fatigues of the night had scarcely told on his gigantic
strength. The Italians, and even the Britons, natives of the southern
parts of the island, and little accustomed to heavy falls of snow, looked
at him with astonishment. As for him, he was full of impatience at the
delay.
The Count was in an agony of doubt and distress. His own strength had
failed so completely that all his spirit—and there was no braver man in
the armies of Rome—could not have dragged him a hundred yards further. And
he saw that many of his followers were in little better case. And yet to
give up the pursuit! to leave Carna, the sweetest, gentlest of women, dear
to him as a daughter of his own, to this hideous death! The thought was
too dreadful.
“When do they perform their horrible rites?” said the Count to the
peddler.
“When the full moon shines through the great south entrance of the
Temple,” was the answer.
“And when will that be?”
“To-night, and about an hour before midnight, as far as I can guess.”
“And what must be done? What is your advice?”
“There seems to me only one thing possible. Those who can must press on. I
count a great deal on the Saxon. His strength and endurance are such as I
never saw in any man, and they now seem to be increased manyfold. Anything
that can be done by mortal man, he, you may be sure, will do. Our guide
too has happily something still left in him; and there are three or four
others who are equal to going on after they have had a little rest. I
should say, let them get two or three hours’ sleep, and then push on to
Sorbiodunum. That is not far from here, and they can easily reach it
before noon to-day, after allowing a fair time for rest. Perhaps they may
get some help there, though the place is not what it was. It is some years
since I paid it a visit, and then I found it in a very declining
condition, so much so that it was not worth my while to go there again.
There were not more than two or three Roman traders there, and they made
but a very poor living out of their business.”
This seemed to be the best course practicable under the circumstances. The
Saxon, with whom the peddler held a long conversation, was for pressing on
at once, and would almost have gone alone, but for want of a guide. When
he understood the state of the case he yielded to what he perceived to be
a necessity, and throwing himself down on the hearth was almost
immediately buried in a profound sleep, an example which was soon followed
by the rest of the party, the Count and the peddler excepted.
Not more than two hours could be allowed for rest. The guide and the three
sailors who had volunteered to go on were roused with no little
difficulty; the young Saxon was wide awake in a moment. The party partook
hastily of a meal of bread, meat, and hot wine and water, which the
peddler had been busying himself in preparing while they slept, and, after
stowing away some provisions for the day, started on their journey about
two hours before noon.
Sorbiodunum was reached without much difficulty. But there a great
disappointment awaited them. The peddler’s anticipations were more than
fulfilled, for the town was almost deserted. Only one Roman remained
there. He was an old man who had married a British wife, and who
cultivated a farm which had descended to her from her father. When the
guide handed to him the letter which the Count had addressed to the
authorities of the town, begging for any help which they could give in
saving the liberty and life of a person very dear to himself, he shook his
head. When he heard the whole of the guide’s story, he became still more
depressed.
“Authorities!” he said, “there are no authorities. I am the only Roman
left in the place, and I do not know where to look for a single man to
help you. As for the Great Temple on the plain there is not a creature
here who would dare to go near it. They think it haunted by spirits and
demon
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