A Captive of the Roman Eagles Part 18

"Well, there is a way, but only one." He paused.

"Speak," urged Saturninus eagerly.

"Vacate all the land which you still occupy but can hold only by constant fighting, the country northward between this lake and the right bank of the Rhine to where the Main empties into it beneath your stronghold of Mogontiac.u.m, and all the region south of the lake to the chain of the Cisalpine region."

"Insolent fellow!" shouted Hercula.n.u.s. The other army leaders also did not spare words of wrath. "Not bad!" said Ausonius, smiling. Saturninus alone was silent; he was thinking how the great military hero, Aurelian, had given up, in a manner very similar to the way asked here, Trajan's proud conquest, Dacia, and thereby, for a long time, pacified the Goths on the Danube.

But Adalo continued: "Do it, do it half voluntarily; do it for the most valuable compensation; for I tell you, it must be done very soon. Then it will be exacted without compensation in return. Do it willingly; for there is a proud prediction current among our people: the Alemanni will some day pasture their horses from the snows of the Alps to the woods of the Vosges."

Ausonius rose indignantly. "Not another word! For our sole answer take to your people the old Roman war-cry, 'Woe to the Barbarians!'"

"Woe to the Barbarians!" repeated the army leaders, with loud shouts.

"Before I go," said the youth,--he struggled fiercely to subdue the agitation, the terrible anxiety which now sent a tremor through every limb,--"listen to another message. You have captured a daughter of our people." Six eyes were bent upon him with the keenest attention. "I am commissioned to ransom her." In spite of every effort to appear calm and cold his voice trembled.

"Are you Bissula's relative? She has no brother," said Ausonius suspiciously.

"Or her lover?" asked Hercula.n.u.s.

The youth's face flamed, his brow knit wrathfully. "Neither her kinsman nor her betrothed lover. I am commissioned--I have already said so--to ransom her. Name the price."

Ausonius was about to utter a refusal, but Saturninus hastily antic.i.p.ated him.

"You would pay any price as ransom?"

"Any."

"Is she a princess or a n.o.ble's daughter, that your people set so high a value upon her liberty?"

"She is a free maiden of our people, and has as much right to our protection as a queen."

"Well, your protection has been of little service to her," cried Hercula.n.u.s, laughing.

"I will give her weight in silver, nay, if needful, in gold--her full weight."

"Pshaw!" replied Ausonius, smiling, "that isn't saying much. The little one doesn't weigh heavily. Don't trouble yourself: I will not release her."

"Pardon me, Prefect," said Saturninus quietly, yet without averting his eyes an instant from Adalo, "I must again remind you that the Barbarian girl is not your slave, but mine."

"What? O ye G.o.ds!" cried Adalo, wild with grief and horror.

He hastily advanced two paces toward the Roman. "Is it possible? Is it true? Say no, Ausonius." The voice of the usually defiant youth now sounded almost pleading.

"Unfortunately it is true," replied the Prefect sullenly.

But Saturninus, who now knew what he wished to learn, answered calmly: "The captive is my property. And she cannot be bought with gold. But I will release her, if you--" he rose, approached Adalo and whispered into his ear.

The youth burst forth angrily: "The location of our fortification and the strength of our force? Come into the woods, Roman: you will learn there."

Saturninus stepped back coldly. "As you choose. Never will the red-haired maiden see her people."

"And consider, Barbarian," hissed Hercula.n.u.s, "we need not use the rack to torture a maiden."

Adalo, with a fierce cry, gripped the hilt of the short sword at his side. But he controlled himself and only cast a look at Hercula.n.u.s, who, unable to endure it, blinked and turned his eyes away.

Adalo, tortured by deep anguish, gazed inquiringly, searching into the characters and dispositions of the two men; first into Saturninus's stern, handsome face, then his glance scanned Ausonius's features, kindly in expression, but wholly lacking the impress of a firm will. He sighed heavily. But, conscious that the eyes of all were fixed intently upon him, he summoned his whole strength, and said quietly: "If any harm should befall her, her people will take terrible vengeance." The firmly repressed, yet intense fury in the brief words, did not fail to make an impression.

Adalo, without any gesture of farewell, turned to leave the tent, and was already standing under the curtains at the entrance, when Saturninus cried: "And what name has the envoy of the Alemanni?"

The youth turned quickly and, comprehending the whole group in a single glance, exclaimed: "Adalo, son of Adalger. You shall remember it." He pa.s.sed outside the tent as he spoke.

"Uncle," cried Hercula.n.u.s, "wasn't that the fellow's name? Yes, yes, it is he: the 'Mars of the Alemanni!' Seize him--and the war is over!"

Before Ausonius could answer, Saturninus, hurrying out of the tent, said: "Beware, Ausonius! Nothing in heaven or on earth seems to be sacred to this nephew of yours. But that Barbarian's eyes must be quickly bandaged again; their glance is like an eagle's." He hastened after the envoy.

Ausonius, vexed by many things, said very irritably, in a tone almost never heard from the lips of the kind-hearted n.o.ble: "I have long been displeased with you, nephew Hercula.n.u.s. I am very much displeased.

Very! Extremely!"

He pa.s.sed him with a hasty step, harshly thrusting aside the arms which Hercula.n.u.s stretched toward him with a soothing gesture. The nephew's eyes followed him with a glance that boded evil.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Meanwhile the Batavians, Adalo's two companions, and the bear-leader had lain chattering peaceably together around the campfire.

There was, in general, so total a lack of any feeling of unity among the various German tribes that the Alemanni did not think of openly reproaching the Batavians, or even cherishing any secret resentment because they were fighting under Roman standards against other Germans: Alemanni mercenaries also fought against the German, as well as against the other foes of Rome.

So the Roman bronze vessel, filled with dark red Rhaetian wine, was pa.s.sed to the two Alemanni also, and the Batavians gladly drank the mead which Adalo's companions had brought in long wooden vessels fastened on their backs. For in those days the thirst of the Alemanni was great and frequent, and the brave fellows--hospitality in the enemy's camp had not been expected--would have been reluctant to do without liquor during the long hours consumed on the journey there, the waiting, and the return.

The Sarmatian, with laudable impartiality, drank wine and mead by turns. He, too, at a sign from Rignomer, had taken his seat by the fire. The bear lay stretched at full length at his side, while he began to throw sharp knives into the air and nimbly catch them again, to the astonishment of the Batavians, who gave him small copper coins. His lame companion was lying under the bushes, sleeping so soundly that he snored.

"Ah," cried Rignomer, wiping his chin with his bare arm and returning the little cask to the Alemanni, "may Fro reward you for the drink!

Nothing has tasted so good since I turned my back on the Issala and my mother's earth-cellar. She brews it even stronger."

"Wine tastes still better," said his countryman.

"Better in the mouth, Brinno; but mead and ale taste better in the heart: it's home drink. And the best part is not the moist wave that runs down the throat, but the memory of many a happy hour of former drinks, which hovers over it like the rustling of a heron's wings.

Well, Alemanni, when will it come to fighting? And will you seek us, or must we hunt for you?"

"As the Duke chooses," replied the other, draining his cup--"and all-ruling Odin."

The Batavian's face changed.

"Don't name him to me! I fear _him_; you wearers of hair I don't. I've seized many a man of you with the left hand by his Suabian tail, and thrust the short Roman sword into his throat with my right. But I fear the wearer of the mantle! He is hostile to us mercenaries. It seems to me as though he were hovering in the air opposing us, wherever we fight. There, Juggler, drink again. And then show (we've seen _your_ tricks) what your bear has learned. Ought not your boy in the bushes yonder, the lame fellow, to have something too? But where is he?"

"Ho, Zizais, dog of a cripple, are you deaf as well as dumb? Where are you hiding? Look, there he lies over by the spring, nearer to the ditch: he has a fever, and went for water. Now stir yourself, my brown dancing maid."

He whispered in the ear of the animal which, growling, rose on its hind legs; the juggler put his long staff in its fore-paws, and now the clumsy creature turned slowly in a circle, keeping time to a monotonous melancholy tune which he first played on his huge flute and then sang, beating time on a bronze cup with a knife-blade. The Romans laughed loudly at the clumsy dancer.