The young girl clung still closer to Waldrun, but the latter started up in alarm and hastily pressed her hand upon Bissula's heart.
"How it throbs!" she murmured. Then, raising her left hand, as if to keep the youth back, her right drew the folds of her ample cloak over the brushing girl's sweet face. "Go," she said warningly. "Suspicion seizes me also. It is ignoble for you to dare utter the words of wooing to two defenceless women, confusing the girl, and inspiring vain, idle thoughts. That is not the honorable custom of our people. If your suit was serious you ought first to have spoken to Suomar, the guardian: he gives my granddaughter's hand, not she herself. Whoever means marriage deals with the guardian; whoever seeks mere amusement and dallying coaxes the girl. Go! I doubt you!"
Adalo laid his hand upon his breast with a gesture of protest, but ere he could speak Bissula glided from beneath the shelter of her grandmother's cloak. Her cheeks were glowing; her red locks fairly bristled; it seemed as if one could almost hear them crackle; her angry eyes blazed, and springing forward, she pushed the youth with both hands, but had no power to stir the tall figure.
"Yes, go!" she cried. "I do not doubt. Even Waldrun, who always speaks in your behalf, distrusts you, and she cannot see your arrogant face, the victorious smile on your proud lips, the light in your sparkling eyes! There--see how the feigned expression of good-will vanishes from your features; how resentfully you rear your head! Ay, that is the noble, the swift, strong, handsome man, who believes that the god of wishes must grant every whim, every caprice of his favorite.Youmate with a poor girl!youlead red-haired Bissula to your home! Besides, I am called Bissula only by my friends; to strangers my name is Albfledis. Waldrun is right: the blind woman has seen. If you were in earnest you would have gone to the guardian."
She drew back and seized her grandmother's arm. "Come! let us return to the house."
But Adalo, his tall figure drawn up to its full height, barred their way. Grief and anger were contending for the mastery in the expression of his handsome face.
"I was in earnest, the deepest earnest. Freya knows it. Soon Frigga will know also. I did not speak to Suomar, because I did not wish, like most men, to obtain the girl solely by her guardian's command; I desired not only her hand and her person, but her heart, her love. I was sure of Suomar."
"Do you hear his arrogance, grandmother?"
"It is not arrogance. What can your uncle bring against me? Nothing! And we have always been friendly neighbors. He would not have refused me; but I did not want you as a gift from another, you defiant creature. I wanted the playmate of my childhood to give herself to me. Yes, I confess I hoped that she retained from those childish days a little--just a little affection."
"Presumptuous fellow!"
"And now the hour and the danger loosed my tongue. The Romans are approaching. Who knows what they may bring us? But you have repulsed me with undeserved suspicion, disdained my loyal aid. True,"--here his brow contracted with mingled grief and anger,--"perhaps the foe will not injureyou."
"What do you mean?" asked Waldrun. Her tone expressed dread of some fresh cause for contention between the two young people. Bissula, without speaking, darted a flashing glance at him.
"For years," Adalo went on with suppressed indignation, "you have had friends among these hated enemies--at least one friend. Perhaps he will return hither with the cohorts now threatening us--the wise, eloquent, and wealthy Senator! Of course a German noble, a 'Barbarian,' cannot vie with him in gifts of jewels, rare fruit, and foreign flowers. That I belong to your own people and he to our mortal foes--what care you? You need, nay perchance you desire, neither marsh nor mountain as a defence against your--friend!"
"Silence, Adalo! She was then only thirteen. The noble Roman might be her father, nay, almost her grandfather."
"But he was so clever! He understood how to choose his words so skilfully that usually I could not comprehend them at all. And Albfledis was so fond of listening to the language of the foe!"
"At least," the girl hastily retorted, "Ausonius never used the language of insolent mockery to the child. And since you have provoked me to it, I tell you: yes, if the noble, kindly Roman should ever come again and wish, as he did then, to take me with him as his child to his beautiful country, his splendid pillared mansion,--listen,--I would rather go with him, his daughter, than listen to you and your contemptuous suit."
"Stay, Albfledis," said the youth, drawing himself up proudly, "Enough! My suit? It is ended forever. Never will I repeat it--I swear by this spear. You have scorned me--have openly preferred the Roman. Hear my vow, in the presence of your ancestress and the all-seeing sun: Never again will Adalo woo you. Though the ardent longing of my heart should consume me, I will die ere I approach you again with words of entreaty."
"Alas!" wailed the blind woman, "alas for my dearest wish! Is it never to be fulfilled?"
"If it should be. Mother Waldrun, Albfledis must first come to me in my hall, and say: 'Adalo, here I am! Take me for your wife!'"
"Oh, what shameless insolence!" cried Bissula, frantic with grief and rage. Seizing one of the blocks of stone which formed the rude table before the oak, she tried to hurl it at the hated man. Her little hands tore at the jagged rock without avail, till the fingers bled, but the heavy block remained unmoved, and bursting into tears of helpless rage, she flung herself upon the ground.
The old woman bent over her, listening anxiously to her sobs, but Adalo had neither seen nor heard aught of these things. Even as he uttered the last words, he turned his back upon the women, his face dark with pride and anger, and throwing his spear over his shoulder, leaped down the slope so swiftly that his yellow locks floated wildly around his handsome head.
Days had passed since the incident related in the last chapter. The Romans had entered the country without encountering the slightest resistance. After encamping on the summit of Meersburg and resting during the following day, they had set forth again and, turning somewhat inland from the lake and its swampy shores, reached the Idisenhang.
Finding this commanding position undefended, they had formed a permanent camp here at the spot agreed upon with the troops which had embarked on the fleet. As soon as this seemed sufficiently fortified to be defended by a small garrison left behind, and their comrades in Arbon had the fleet ready, the latter were to cross, land, and begin the pursuit of the invisible Barbarians.
But scarcely had Nannienus seen from Arbon on the opposite shore that the column sent by land had reached the spot appointed and established a camp, when he despatched by a swift fisher-boat tidings which threatened to defer the progress of the enterprise for an indefinite time. As soon as the experienced commander reached the Roman post he discovered that the equipment of the necessary vessels would require far more time than had been expected.
The reports of the magistrates and officers to the distant Emperor, which represented a considerable portion of the old Roman fleet as still in existence and, moreover, strengthened by newly built ships, proved false and shamefully exaggerated: these unprincipled men, corrupt, like nearly all the officials in the Empire, had concealed their numerous defeats in which the Barbarians had gradually destroyed these ships; they had then appropriated the money furnished to build new ones, and reported them completed.
This was the discovery made by the Comes of Britannia, who announced with fierce indignation--he had sent the treacherous quaestors and nauarchs in chains to the Emperor at Vindonissa--that though he had ordered work to be carried on in the little dockyard night and day, the intended landing must be deferred to a considerably later period. Energetic Saturninus was incensed by this enforced idleness: but he could do nothing save vituperate the corruption of the magistracy, the Empire, the whole age, and--wait.
The richly decorated tent intended for the Prefect of Gaul was pitched upon the very summit of the height which is now occupied by the cemetery of the village of Berg. Soft rugs, piled one above another, covered the ground; a couch was placed against the back of the leather tent, and beside it stood a table adorned with costly drinking-vessels. An old freedman, a slave, and the cup-bearer were engaged in giving the last touches. There were places for three on the horseshoe-shaped couch, and a row of goblets stood on the table; for, though the cœna had been served in the Tribune's tent, the Prefect had invited him and his nephew to take some choice wine after the meal in the Praetorian one.
While the servants were busied in preparing the table, the loose leather at the poles in the rear of the tent was repeatedly raised noiselessly and then dropped again. No one observed it. Two of the men now went out, but the cupbearer still lingered to wipe again and again the inside of a magnificent silver goblet, which, supported by three graceful female figures, bore the inscription: "The graces to their favorite, Ausonius."
"Not ready yet, Davus?" the old freedman had asked in a tone of vexation, as he turned away.
"No, Prosper. You know our master will drink only from this cup, the Emperor's gift, and he is so particular about it."
The slave was scarcely alone when the leather flap of the tent was again raised, a watchful face was thrust cautiously in. "Alone at last!" a voice whispered.
"I was waiting for you, my lord."
"Well? To-day? At the nocturnal carouse?"
"No. I dare not attempt it yet. Your uncle is as well as he was at home in Burdigala. Let him first sicken under this Barbarian sky, the unwonted fatigues of camp life in the rain and swamps; then it will be easier. But now--in perfect health? No, no! Have patience. Wait a little longer."
"I cannot. My creditors, the usurers, are hounding me to the death; have followed me here to the camp. And this region, this neighborhood, as you know, is more perilous to me than any other spot in the whole world. So hasten!"
"As soon as he begins to ail a little I'll do it at once. But I must confess--"
"What?"
"The vial of poison you gave me, I--"
"Lost? You blockhead!"
"No, it is broken. During the steep ascent of the mountain recently I slipped, struck my breast against a boulder, and crushed the little bottle, whose contents all poured out."
"Alas, then where else--"
"Have no fear, my lord. I've seen hemlock enough growing in these marshy meadows to poison our whole army. I have already begun to gather and dry it. Do you the same, and as soon--"
Loud voices and the clank of weapons were heard; the face vanished, and the slave passed through the doorway of the tent into the open air.
Directly after, Ausonius and Saturninus entered the Praefectorian tent from theVia Principalis, while Herculanus, coming from the rear, passed in with them. The host shared his seat on the couch with his two guests.
He was a man of fifty-two, but his stately figure showed few signs of approaching age, and his noble face lacked none of the characteristics of the patrician Roman in the modelling of the forehead, nose, and finely arched brows.
But the mouth had smiled so often--probably far too often in self complacency--that it had forgotten how to close with firm decision; it was much too weak for a man. And the light-brown eyes, so pleasant and kindly, so content with everything and everybody--and not least with Ausonius--betrayed more plainly than any other feature the approach of age; their glance had lost the fire of youth. They seemed weary, not of life but of reading; for Ausonius had been professor, rhetorician, tutor of princes, and poet. In those days that meant a man who read an immense amount and, in default of elevating thoughts of his own, extracted with the industry of a bee the ideas of the writers of four centuries, tore them asunder, and put them together again in such tiny fragments that his readers and himself believed them to be new ones of his own and would have found it very difficult to separate the mosaic into its borrowed portions. Passions had never furrowed this smooth face: the lines around the eyes were not graven by pain, but by the passage of the years.
This kindly natured man, who himself saw everything on its best side, thought the whole world most admirably arranged. He believed seriously that all men who had not committed great crimes, and therefore deserved punishment, fared just as well as the very, very wealthy, benevolent, and much praised Decimus Magnus Ausonius of Burdigala (Bordeaux), the delightful city of villas; that they fared as well as Ausonius, who was petted by all who surrounded him, and who in the opinion of his contemporaries--and especially his own--was the greatest poet of his age. Even had this been true, it certainly would not have meant much.
This really amiable, kindly man, whose only fault was a little undue self-satisfaction, was now playing the part which best suited him,--far better than that of poet or statesman,--the part of the host who, comfortable himself, desires to make all his guests equally so. His pleasant, cheery, friendly kindness of heart, which would fain see everybody happy, though of course without too much self-sacrifice, found in thisrôleits fullest expression.
"There! now go, slaves." He waved his hand to those who had again entered. "Look after yourselves--as we are doing. Go, too, my faithful Prosper: take for yourself--and give to the others--the better wine from Rhodanus; you know it. I saw how hard it was to drag the skins up the steep hill. Go: we will serve ourselves." He stretched himself comfortably on the lectus, thrusting under his head a soft downy pillow filled with the feathers of German geese. "Give yonder amethyst goblet to the Tribune, my dear nephew, for our Illyrian Hercules must drink deeply! No, Saturninus, don't take the mixing vessel! The first cup--unmixed. To the genius of the Emperor Gratianus!"
"It's lucky that the Emperor himself doesn't hear you," cried the Tribune, laughing, as he put down the empty goblet. "I am neither Christian nor pagan, only a soldier, and nobody asks about my faith. But you! Gratianus's teacher! The Emperor is zealous in the true religion. And you drink to his genius, as though we were living in the reign of Diocletian! Are you a pagan, Prefect of Gaul?"
Ausonius glanced around to see that no slave was within hearing. Then he smiled. "If I were a pagan, that is, if I had not been baptized, I certainly should not be Prefect of Gaul. The dignity is probably worth a few drops of water. They did not penetrate my skin. How could a poet forget the old gods?"
"Yes, yes, if the learned mythological allusions should be effaced from your verses, the brightest of the borrowed foreign feathers would be plucked from Ausonius's raven."
"Tribune!" cried the nephew angrily,--he shouted much louder than was necessary,--"you are speaking of the greatest Roman writer!"
"No, no," said the man thus lauded, very seriously, "there are probably two or three greater ones."
"Forgive me, Ausonius," said Saturninus. "I understand battles, not verses. Probably it is my own fault that yours don't suit me."
"You know too few of them," replied Herculanus reprovingly.
"I'm not of your opinion!" retorted the Illyrian, laughing. "I've never had much time for reading. But I sometimes ride beside your uncle through the olive woods of Aquitania, the vineyards of the Mosella, or the marshy forests of the Alemanni: he has an inexhaustible memory and can repeat his verses for miles."
"Yes," the poet assented complacently, "my memory must supply the place of imagination."
"Wouldn't it be better if you had imagination, and your readers took pleasure in remembering what it created?" asked the soldier.
"My uncle can repeat the whole of Virgil."
"Yes, that is evident--in his verses! The reader often doesn't know where Virgil and Ovid end and Ausonius begins. But Ausonius prefers to recite his own poetry."
The latter nodded pleasantly.
"That's the best thing about you. Prefect; though a little vain, like all verse-writers, your heart is in the right place: a warm, kind heart which never takes offence at a friend's jest."
"I should be both stupid and contemptible if I did that."
"As a reward I'll tell you now that I owe an exquisite night to one of your poems--or a portion of it."
The poet, much pleased, raised himself on the lectus: "What poem?"
"Your 'Mosella.'"
"Yes, yes," replied Ausonius smiling, "I like it very much, too."
"It is divine!" Herculanus protested.
"I'm no theologian," said Saturninus, laughing, "to understand divine things. But the most beautiful part of the poem is the description of the various kinds of fish in the river."
"Yes, yes," observed the author, smiling as he slowly sipped his wine, "verses eighty-two to one hundred and forty-nine: they are very pretty, especially the euphony."
"Oh, never mind the euphony. I read it in the evening, and fell asleep."
"Barbarian!" exclaimed the poet. "But in my dreams I saw before me the most delicious fish; the salm--"
"'Thee, too, I praise, O salmon, with thy roseate flesh!'"
Ausonius quoted.
"The trout."
"'Then the trout, its back besprinkled with tiny crimson stars.'
"That's what I call a fine line."
"The grayling."
"'And the swift grayling, escaping from the eye with rapid leaps!'"
"Yes, but not as you describe them, alive in the Mosella--there is nothing I enjoy eating more than a fine fish! No, I saw them before me on silver dishes, baked, broiled, and in dainty stews; and in my dream I tasted them all. When I woke, I licked my lips and blessed Ausonius: no poet has ever given me so much pleasure."
He laughed and drained his goblet.
"I am generous," replied Ausonius. "It pleases me to discover in this way a favorite dish of my usually Spartan friend. I will avenge myself by placing before you, if possible, the delicious fish this lake contains; for in its green depths are balche and trout of the most delicate flavor. They are even better than those of the Mosella: I could surely have supplied you with them if the Barbarians had not all fled from the shore before our troops. When, five years ago, I spent several months on the opposite side in Arbor Felix, to investigate the condition of the frontiers, what magnificent fish I had!" Then, as if lost in reverie, he sighed: "Ah, those were happy days! My dear wife, my gentle Sabina, was living."
"Hail to thy memory, Attusia Lucana Sabina!" said the nephew.
"And my dear children! Then my beautiful, spacious house in the city, and the charming villa outside the Garumna gate were not empty and desolate. How gaily the songs of the young girls echoed through the country during the season when the vine blossoms poured forth their fragrance! Then I still saw around me the beloved faces of my kindred, did not stand alone, poor with all my wealth, as now--"
"Uncle!" interrupted Herculanus, trying to assume a tone of most tender reproach, in which, however, he was not entirely successful. "Stand alone? Have you not me, who love you so tenderly?"
The Tribune gazed coldly at the over-zealous nephew.
But Ausonius replied kindly: "Certainly, my dear fellow, you are left to me, but you alone out of the whole circle of my family swept away in a single year by the pestilence: my Sabina, my three children, my two sisters and two sweet young nieces. Can you alone fill the places of all? I often feel so lonely. And you are a man. My gentle wife, my daughters, my sisters, my nieces, how I miss them! I confess it: I need the melody of women's voices, their graceful movements around me. I miss something!"
The young Roman, excited, hastily seized the goblet. The Tribune looked him keenly in the face and, without averting his eyes from the nephew, suddenly said to the uncle in a very loud tone: "You must marry again!" Then the Illyrian turned away from Herculanus: he seemed to have seen enough.
"Yes," said Ausonius slowly, almost solemnly, "I have often thought of it. It is a serious, a very serious matter--at my age."
"At any age," said Saturninus. "Years will not stand in your way. You are perhaps fifty?"
"Fifty-two," sighed the Prefect. "And my hair is gray!"
"Not very yet! Besides, mine is too. In my case from the weight of the helmet. And it is becoming. You are a--"
"Handsome old man, you are going to say," replied Ausonius smiling. "That is not exactly what pleases maidens."
"Well, you need not choose a girl of sixteen."
"But not one much older!" said the poet quickly. "No, my friend! I want youth and charm near me."
"That you may have too," said the Illyrian. "You can select from your whole province, nay, the whole Empire. You, the highest official in Gaul, the Emperor's tutor and favorite, the celebrated poet and--"
"And the richest match in the whole West," interrupted the nephew sharply. Hitherto he had remained persistently silent, his eyes cast down and the expression of his mouth covered by his hand. "The richest gray beard on this side of the Alps!" he added.
"Yes, that is it," said Ausonius bitterly. "Herculanus only says openly and frankly what has secretly tortured me so much all these years, nay, what has alone deterred me. You know, my friend,--or rather, you blunt Tribune of the camp, you do not know,--for what reasons parents in our large cities marry their daughters, nay, how these girls themselves, almost before they have laid aside their dolls, instantly look out for 'a good catch'! In sooth, neither Eros nor Anteros, but Hermes and Plutus unite couples now."
"Yes, they marry only for money!" cried Herculanus wrathfully. "I am poor; the girls all shun me--"
The Tribune was about to answer, but only laughed and drank his wine.
"Although I am nearly thirty years younger than my uncle! Fathers, mothers, guardians, nay, even the forward girls themselves, all cajole him, till I can scarcely warn and guard enough."
"That's the way the bee-keeper guards the honey from the mice," growled the Illyrian under his breath.
"My nephew is perfectly right. A friend of mine, Erminiscius, a rich merchant who deals in gems, fifty years old, married a girl of twenty. A week after, she disappeared with all his antique jewels and--his youngest freedman. Another, Euronius, a large owner of vineyards, somewhat older, married a young widow of twenty-five; that is--he was married by her; for she did not rest until she had him. Even before the wedding he was obliged to make his will; she dictated it to him word for word. He died at the next kalends--violent colic. I did not like it at all; I hate colic! And so many wild cherries grew close by his garden! You ought to see how much this double widow enjoys life now. She once paid me a visit--she is very beautiful and was bewitchingly amiable to me; but I thought of the dead Euronius's colic, and escaped unwedded. I don't imagine in all cases an elopement or a wild-cherry cake; every one is neither a Helena nor a Locusta. Suspicion is not usually one of my faults."
"Rather the contrary," observed Saturninus.
"But, I confess it, my gray hairs make me distrustful. I should be so unhappy--Apollo's richest laurels would not heal the wound--if I were forced to believe that I had been married only for the sake of my wealth. I do not deserve it."
"No indeed, you do not," cried the Tribune, pressing his hand warmly. "Your heart is tender, kind, and frank. Whoever feigned love for the sake of your money would be contemptible. And I hope that you may yet see a band of children playing around your knees in the beautiful villa gardens on the flowery shores of your beloved Garumna."
Ausonius smiled. The picture seemed to please him. Then his eye met the glance of his nephew, who seemed to be gazing into the distance less complacently. "Don't be uneasy, Herculanus," he said. "Even if it should be so, my will would not forget you. And your creditors," he added, smiling compassionately.
"Will! What an ill-omened word! Far be it," cried the young Roman.
"Well, people don't die from making wills, or I should have left the living long ago. A Roman citizen sets his house in order for every emergency, death included. So, though Herculanus according to the law would now be my sole heir, I made my will before the magistrate in Burdigala before joining the army, formally naming him my heir: a few little legacies and the liberation of some faithful slaves still remain. To you, Saturninus," he added, laughing, "I shall bequeath after my return, in a codicil, a valuable memento of this evening."
"Well?"
"A copy of the 'Mosella'; but the verses about the fish are to be cut out by way of punishment."
He quaffed his wine, pleased with his own jest.
"You must and will survive me, my noble friend! The Tribune will soon lie where he belongs: on his shield. But you still belong to Burdigala, in your tasteful house filled with rare works of art (what hospitality I enjoyed there the last time I was wounded!), or to Rome, in the Senate; not here, in the marshy forests of these Alemanni. Why (you always liked to accompany the Emperor to Vindonissa)--why did you, a man of peace and of leisure, join this military campaign? It has no attraction for you! What have you to obtain on the Barbarian shores of this lake?"
"I? I am seeking for something here," replied Ausonius, after some little hesitation.
"Laurels of Mars to add to those of Apollo?"
"Not at all; only--a memory!"
Herculanus cast a sharp glance full of meaning at his uncle.
"Or, if you prefer it, a dream, the fulfilment of a dream. I believe in dreams."
"Of course," said the Tribune, smiling, "like all poets! I care more for waking thoughts."
"When I reached the army over yonder in Vindonissa, a lovely charming memory of a child rose vividly before me; a child equally bewitching in mind and person, whom I knew and loved here several years ago."
"A boy?"
"No, a girl."
"Ho, ho, pedagogue of the Emperor!" cried the Tribune, laughing.
Herculanus did not enter into the jest; he was silently watching Ausonius's every look.
"Oh, calm yourself! Bissula is a girl about twelve years old--that is--she was in those days. She and a Sarmatian boy brought to Arbor every week the fish her uncle had caught on the northern shore of the lake. And how delightfully she talked! Even her Barbarian Latin sounded sweetly from her cherry-red lips. We became the best of friends. I gave her--she would accept neither money nor costly jewels--trifling articles, especially seeds of fine Gallic fruit and flowers from Garumna for her little garden. She told me strange stories of the gods and fauns in the woods, the nymphs in the lakes and springs here in the country,--but she gave them different names,--and the mountain giants opposite, whose white heads glittered in the sunset light. And I--I--"
"You read the 'Mosella' to her, of course!" laughed Saturninus.
"Certainly. And the little Barbarian girl showed a better appreciation of it than the great Roman general. It was not the fish that pleasedherbest--"
"I can easily believe it: she had better ones herself, you said just now."
"But the descriptions of the vineyards and villas along the river. And when I told her that in my home on the Garumna were far, far handsomer and richer houses, full of marble, gold, bronze, and ivory, adorned with brightly painted walls and mosaics; that I myself owned the most beautiful palaces and magnificent gardens full of leaping water, foreign stags and deer, and birds with sweet songs or brilliant plumage; when I spoke of the deep blue of the sky and the golden light of the sun in the glorious land of Aquitania where almost perpetual summer reigned, she could not hear enough in prose and verse of the splendor of our country and the magnificence and art of our life. Once she clapped her little hands in surprise and delight, exclaiming: 'Oh, father, I should like to see that too. Just one day!' But I had grown so fond of the gay, sweet child that, with a thrill of joy at the thought, I answered: 'Come, my little daughter, not for a day--forever. If your guardian will consent, I will adopt you as my child and take you to Burdigala. How gladly my wife will welcome you! My daughters will treat you as a dear sister. You shall become a Roman maiden!'
"But, like a frightened deer, she sprang from my lap, ran off, leaped into her boat, rowed swiftly across the lake, and did not return for many days. I was full of anxiety lest I had driven her away forever. At last--it was a time of complete peace--I had myself rowed across the lake to its northern shore and guided to her hut in the forest. But she had scarcely caught sight of me when, with a loud cry of terror, she climbed into a huge oak as nimbly as a woodpecker and hid herself among the branches. She would not come down again until I had solemnly promised, in the presence of her uncle and her grandmother, not to take her away and never even to say a word about it: 'For,' she said, with tears in her eyes, 'in that hot country I should die of homesickness for my own family, the neighbors, nay, even for the mountain, the meadow, and lake, like the forest flowers transplanted from the marshy soil into dry sand.'"
"A sensible child," remarked the Tribune thoughtfully, stroking his beautiful brown beard. "So she is pretty?"
"I think so!" cried Herculanus: the voice sounded almost savage.
"Why, nephew, you have never seen her."
"But you have described her to us often enough! I could paint her, with her bright red locks."
"And her name is Bissula?" Saturninus added.
"Yes, 'the little one,'" replied Ausonius, "for she is very slender and delicate of limb. I then saw her regularly again, but kept my promise not to ask her to go with me. When I bade her farewell, she wept with a child's loving tears. 'With you,' she said 'I part from a warm, bright, beautiful world, into which, as it were, I peeped, standing on tiptoe, over a curtain.'
"Recently, on reaching Vindonissa--during my journey through the country I had thought much of the charming child--I saw her before me in a dream the first night, encircled by a poisonous serpent. Her eyes were raised to mine, imploring help, I woke with a cry, and my heart grew heavy at the thought of what might befall the lovely girl--for she must have become beautiful--if our cohorts bring all the horrors of war into the forests along the shore of the lake. And I confess, it was principally to see that child again--perhaps to protect her until the war should be over--that I entreated the Emperor to permit me to join this expedition."
"But I suppose you did not think your uncle's life would be sufficiently safe under my protection, Herculanus, since you were so eager to join us?" asked the Tribune.
Before the nephew could answer, Ausonius interrupted: "But--thank the gods--our campaign will be bloodless: the Barbarians have abandoned the country. Where can they have gone? What have you learned through your spies of the movements of the enemy?"
"Nothing. That is the mysterious part of it. It seems as though the earth had swallowed them. They are said to have numerous subterranean passages and cellars, in which they conceal their provisions and themselves in times of danger. We found it very difficult to obtain spies among our colonists on the southern shore. They know very well that we Romans come and go; the Alemanni remain in the country, and they fear their vengeance. And deserters can no longer be had. In former wars they were often mentioned. But the fact that there are no renegades shows that self-reliance is increasing and the dread or hope of Rome is declining. I could get only two volunteers--for a large sum of money--to venture upon a reconnoitring expedition; the one who went to the East returned without having seen a sign of the foe; the one dispatched to the North has not yet appeared. And unfortunately we have not taken even one prisoner. Not a sign of a human footprint have we seen on the whole march along the lake. Once, it is true, I thought I saw a light column of smoke rising from the dense growth of rushes which stretches for leagues into the lake, and ordered the troops to halt; but the tiny cloud instantly vanished."
"I can understand the strategy of our admirable General only by crediting him with an almost offensive degree of caution," sneered the commander of the mailed horsemen. "By Hercules! Wherever they may hide, the Barbarians cannot be a day's march from us."
"Yes," Ausonius assented. "Yet I should think we might be strong enough to seek them and drive them from their hiding places."
Saturninus frowned slightly. "Your nephew's opinion of my courage gives me no concern. But you, Prefect, have again forgotten that, by the Emperor's orders, we are not to disperse the Barbarians, but to surround them and force them to submission. We are too weak for this encircling, and must wait for the ships. Unless our fleet should block the lake, they will again escape, as they have often done, in their boats. Stick to your hexameters, my Pierian friend, and leave the Barbarians to me: it will be better for all concerned."
"Except the Barbarians!" replied Ausonius smiling, extending his hand to his friend.
"Who are probably the leaders of the enemy?"
"The Romans on the southern shore mention two names. The rest of the Alemanni provinces are mainly ruled by kings."
"So far do Germans carry royalty," nodded the learned Prefect. "May they always continue to be divided into numberless provinces under their hedge kings and village magistrates, whom each man obeys as much as he chooses."
"It seems that this state of things has changed. Many provinces are united in leagues, which hold together in peace as well as in war. The men of Linzgau have no king now, it appears, only an aged count. But he must be a man of powerful intellect, since the gray-haired Hariowald has been chosen commander-in-chief of all the provinces leagued against us. True, we have not to deal solely with the Lentienses. After centuries of folly these Barbarians are beginning to discover that 'liberty,' that is, the privilege of doing what each man pleases without regard to his neighbor, is, though a delightful, a somewhat dangerous pleasure, and that with such 'liberty' they will be forever our bondmen, so long as one province looks on with malicious pleasure while we subjugate another with which it has had a quarrel--till its own turn comes. Formerly they preferred to place their surplus of young men at our disposal rather than have them obey the commands of one of their own people, but for some time there has been a change; even those splendid soldiers, my Batavians, no longer wish to remain with me, and will not renew their oath of service. We no longer hear the names of numberless small peoples: five or six great leagues fill the whole country from the Ister to the Suabian Sea. It has long made me uneasy. That old man is now the commander-in-chief of all the Germans allied against us."
"Commander-in-chief of the Alemanni!"
"Don't laugh at them, Ausonius! Ay, this leadership of the woodland war has cost us much blood and many a dear-bought victory, since the days of that Quinctilius Varus. As the white-beard is said to be the head, a young relative of his is called the arm, the sword, the fire-brand of the conflict."
"What is his name?"
"Attalus."
"Adalo! That was one of Bissula's playmates. She often mentioned him. I saw him frequently; he looked at me defiantly enough. Could it be he?"
"The women and men at our stations along the lake cannot say enough in praise of his beauty and strength."
"Well, hitherto neither the warlike wisdom of the old man nor the warlike zeal of the young one has showed itself," sneered Herculanus.
"Yes," laughed Ausonius. "Their wisdom is the resolve to run away, and their zeal the energy with which they execute the decision."
But the Tribune, with frowning brow, cried: "Such speeches drive away the goddess of victory and summon the avenger of foolhardiness. Jeer after we have conquered--and even then, it is wiser not to do it. Nemesis sleeps lightly."
"If you cannot discover where the Barbarians are hiding, what will you do?"
"Seek them until I do find them and bring them to a halt."
"But then," cried Herculanus, "let there be no treaties, no mercy, nothing save extermination. How often these faithless people have broken the peace! Our legions are full of fury against the Barbarians who, year after year, compel them to march through these horrible marshy forests. Only the extirpation of the last German will give peace to the Roman Empire." He clenched his fist threateningly.
"You have perhaps uttered words of prophecy," said Saturninus thoughtfully, "but in a different sense from what you intended."
"He has uttered abominable words!" cried Ausonius, filling his goblet. "And they are utterly groundless. Ay, more than a century ago it looked as if the Persians and Germans under Gallienus would flood the Eastern and the Western Empire. But since that time Eternal Rome has grown young once more. Your brave countrymen, my Saturninus, the heroic Illyrian emperors, have curbed the barbarians on the Euphrates, the Rhine, and the Ister. Diocletian has remodelled the internal affairs of the Empire; and so I might adapt to Rome's mastery of the world the proud words of my colleague Horace: 'He did not lack talent, but he possessed little learning.'"
"Do they belong to poetry?" asked Saturninus doubtfully.
But the eager speaker, without hearing his words, continued: "What he said concerning the permanence and spread of his own renown I will apply to the glory of Rome: it will increase and grow, so long as the priest ascends the hill to the Capitol with the silent Virgin. The Vestal," he added in explanation.
"H'm," observed the Illyrian, "only it's a pity that the hypothesis is no longer apt."
"What? How so?"
"The pious Constantine, of murderous memory (I hear they want to canonize the assassin of his mother and his wife) prohibited or restricted the offering of sacrifices at the Capitol, and your pupil and patron, Gratianus, recently abolished the Vestals."
"Oh, that must not be taken so literally," Ausonius remarked.
"I am not superstitious. I rely possibly too much upon my sword and too little upon heaven; and I care nothing about the Vestal virgins. But I do not like the second step your pupil took last year in Rome."
"What do you mean?"
"He removed from the council-hall of the Senate the altar of the goddess of victory, where sacrifices were offered before the opening of debates."
"Constantine had removed it previously."
"But Julian, the mighty conqueror of the Alemanni, restored it. And, by Jupiter!--pardon me, by God!--with good success. The priests called him 'the apostate,' but the goddess of victory was not unfaithful to him. Now men fight stoutly, with or without the goddess of victory. But--I am a Roman--I dread the omen."
"You see the matter in too dark colors."
"You see it in too rosy a light. Your kind heart wishes good to all."
"Yes, even to the Barbarians!" Ausonius nodded, raising his goblet. "They are human beings, too. And as the Stoa, not the Galilean, first taught, all men are brothers."
"But there are too many of these yellow-maned brothers."
"And I believe in a deity--call him by whatever name you choose--that directs all things well. Therefore I believe that these Barbarians will listen to reason and soon offer you their submission."
"Perhaps the little girl--what is her name? Bissula--will also surrender to Ausonius," said the Tribune in a jesting tone.
"Oh, the dear child! If I could only see her again."
"Do not wish it, Prefect."
"Why?"
"Perhaps she will conquer you! She would not be the first Barbarian. Was it Pipa--or Pipara--that the girl of the Marcomanni was called, with whom even an emperor fell desperately and hopelessly in love?"
"You forget I wanted her for a daughter, not a wife."
"At that time. Now she is no longer a child--and you are a widower."
"Alas! she probably fled with her people long ago. And yet, I am so ready to believe what I desire!"
"Yes, that is one of your most amiable weaknesses,"
"Am I to hope for what I fear?"
"No, but to think what we do not desire more probable than what we wish--that is my wisdom."
"No, no! I will not allow myself to be robbed of the hope that I shall again see the little nymph of these forests."
"But if I catch her," cried the Tribune, laughing, "she will be mine according to the laws of war."
A sudden change of expression--like a flash of lightning--flickered across Herculanus's hazard visage. The Tribune did not see; his eyes were fixed upon Ausonius's face, wondering that his features should pale with fear.
"Can this feeling be so deep-seated in my worthy friend?" he thought.
"Uncle, surely you know that the Tribune is jesting," cried Herculanus, as if to comfort him.
The Illyrian turned toward him with a threatening bearing, saying in a stern, grave tone: "Who tells you so?"
Ausonius cast a hasty, anxious glance at the handsome, stately man; then he tried to smile, but the attempt was not very successful. "Your jest brought before me the possibility of a terrible earnest. If the charming, innocent child should fall into the hands of one of our pitiless centurions! Horrible!"
"It has been the fate of thousands--pshaw, what am I saying--of many hundred thousands, since we Romans bore our eagles over the world. You poets--even you, my softhearted friend--are fond of singing the praises of war. I tell you, he who knows and directs it rarely lauds it. War is necessary. I laugh at the foolish weaklings who, like the worthy stoics, or the monks, imagine that some day there will be a kingdom of eternal peace. War is grand; death for one's native land is the most powerful feeling that rules mankind; but war is horrible! To me it does not matter," he added, laughing, as he drained his goblet. "I need only make war, not answer for it, and above all, I need not sing its praises, I am neither anvil nor lyre; I am hammer, and woe to the vanquished! For a thousand years we have carried the terrors of our victories to all nations: an unprecedented loyalty on the part of Fortuna. But now--I hope I shall not witness it--now her wheel is gradually rolling backward--toward us--over us!"
"Never!" cried the poet. "What can these half-naked Barbarians do against us? So long as we have warriors like you and, for the service of the Muses, minds--"
"Like Ausonius's, do you mean? Enviable self-reliance! I tell you, I consider myself--and far better soldiers than I--incapable of resisting this ever-advancing ocean which is called 'Germans.' I have gone through many a campaign against them--against these very Alemanni. I think they know my name! But there is something mysterious under this surging multitude--I know not what--a motive power unintelligible to us all, which can no more be resisted with sword and spear than the sea itself. I have long sought the clue to the secret, yet cannot find it. But so far as the service of the Muses is concerned--pardon a rude soldier--we need peasants, not poets. There are only millionaires, beggars, and slaves. Give me a hundred thousand free peasants of the ancient Latin stock, and I'll sacrifice in return for them all the Latin poets, dead and living, and once more believe in the future of Rome. As things are--but it is already late," he cried, starting up. "Let us seek our couches. We shall not be able to end this old conflict of ours; coming generations will decide it, but not with words. Good-night! Dream of Bissula--that we may find her: you believe in dreams. For to-morrow--Nannienus has at least completed a couple of ships which he will send to cruise along the northern shore--we will make a little expedition eastward."
He raised the curtain and strode in his clanking armor out into the darkness; he could not help thinking constantly of the beautiful wood-nymph. Herculanus also took his leave, but he was scarcely outside the tent when he shook his clenched fist threateningly toward the east, muttering through his set teeth: "Wait, Barbarian witch!" But Ausonius stretched himself on his camp bed, put out the light, and murmured: "Sleep peacefully, my Bissula, wherever you may be; to-morrow perhaps I shall once more see those never-to-be-forgotten eyes."