A Captive of the Roman Eagles Part 35

"Alas, Tribune, in the turmoil, in the pressure on the gate and the walls, we all dismounted and fought on foot. Our horses are gone; they dashed down the side streets."

"This is Hercula.n.u.s's discipline of his men! So--we have no hors.e.m.e.n.

Well then, the spears to the front! The wounded in the centre! Here, Ausonius, behind my troop! There. Draw back the bolts; throw the gate open. We will fight our way through to the ships. Forward! On!"

Then the gate, hitherto so firmly defended, its right wing half shattered, the left half burned, opened from within, and the Romans, summoning their last strength, led by their able General in person, and stimulated to a final supreme effort by his example and the prospect of safety, burst out of the camp. The shock was terrible, and the effect of the unexpected attack upon the Barbarians was very great. All who had been standing on the narrow strip of ground between the gate and the ditch were hurled into it. Adalo was not among the number; he had gone back for a moment to direct the preparation of a bridge of logs which was to lead directly to the gate; then he intended to have his men run across with beams to batter the already weakened timbers and break it down completely. So he escaped the fall into the ditch, which Sippilo shared, but as in the plunge from the wall, uninjured. The boy climbed nimbly up the southern side. He had lost the helmet in his first tumble, but held fast to his spear and shield this time too.

For a moment, it is true, it seemed as if the Romans, as soon as they had pa.s.sed through the gate and obtained a view of the lake, would disperse again in fresh terror; for meanwhile the attack on the ships and the camp below had apparently succeeded.

Hitherto the defenders on the walls had waited longingly for Nannienus, and looked in vain over the Barbarians and their flaring pitch torches toward the lake. But now that they had reached the open country outside the camp, they saw a vast conflagration on the sh.o.r.e. Surrounded by the tumult of the battle raging immediately about them, they had been unable to hear the noise of the conflict which had commenced below half an hour before; but they now perceived all that Saturninus had long since concluded by the absence of his brave friend: the fleet itself was being most hotly a.s.sailed.

"The ships are burning! The camp is in flames! Our last refuge is gone!" With these shouts, many sprang from the closed ranks, fled, and were instantly overtaken by the Germans and struck down before their comrades' eyes.

"You see how fugitives fare!" cried Saturninus. "Keep your ranks closed if you want to save your lives. March in close order to the lake, and we shall save ourselves and our friends."

This was a ray of encouragement, and the whole body followed their brave leader, who was the first man to climb up the southern side of the ditch. As soon as he reached the top his own name, shouted loudly from the ranks of the Barbarians, fell upon his ear.

"Where is Saturninus, the General of the Romans?" called a voice in Latin.

Brightly illumined by the flames of the burning camp, a leader of the Germans, in the richest armor, pressed forward before his men. A boar-helmet covered his head; a gray-bearded attendant held before him a long shield on which he caught two well-aimed Roman spears at once.

"Where is Saturninus? I must find him!" repeated the German, springing forward again and felling the nearest Thracian with his battle axe.

"Here," answered the Tribune. "But this is no time to negotiate."

"No, but to die!" shouted Ebarbold, his battle axe crashing upon the huge curved shield of the Roman. It entered it without injury to the bearer.

The King vainly struggled to draw out the weapon, it remained motionless, and already the Roman's short, murderous broad sword was quivering for the fatal stroke, when the gray-haired shield-bearer sprang between them and threw the shield before his master.

But the Norian iron penetrated the boar hide and the wooden frame of the shield to the old man's left breast. He fell on his back, borne down by the weight of the blow.

Meanwhile Ebarbold had dropped the handle of the battle axe, drawn the long unwieldy sword at his side, and swung it above the proud crest of the Roman General's helmet; but before it fell, the short Roman sword, red with the blood of the shield-bearer, pierced his throat and he sank dying by the old man's side. "You--with me--for me!" he could say no more.

"Did you think I would desert you? The King of the Ebergau must not enter Odin's hall unattended. You shall not enter the door of Valhalla unattended like some man of low degree. We--have--both--kept our word--and together--with the honor of heroes we will go to Valhalla."

Ebarvin's head sank on the shoulder of his King. Both were silent in death.

The Illyrian had sprung forward over the bodies of the two Germans--first hewing off with his sword the handle of the battle axe still sticking in his shield--amid the wild, exulting shouts of his countrymen who had witnessed the struggle. But the men of the Ebergau were dismayed by their leader's fall; they hesitated--stopped--yielded.

"Forward, down to the lake!" shouted the Tribune. "You see they are giving way." It was a dangerous moment; for, confused by the retreat of the Ebergau men, the band next behind them was wavering.

CHAPTER LII.

"Stand, men of the Linzgau!" shouted a clear, resonant voice, and a youth with golden-brown locks fluttering around his handsome head forced a pa.s.sage through the Alemanni and Romans toward the Tribune.

But the Romans had neither the inclination nor the habit of letting their General fight single combats with the Barbarian princes. A gigantic Illyrian stepped from the left of the ranks in front of his leader and aimed his spear at the youth's face. But the weapon did not fly; before he could hurl it a German boy leaped from below against the warrior, and thrust his little spear into the arm-pit, now unprotected by his suit of mail. He fell with a loud cry.

"I thank you, little brother!" exclaimed Adalo and now, pressing close upon Saturninus, he called to him in Latin: "Where is Bissula?"

But the Roman General had no thought to give to a Barbarian girl; the recollection of the captive had darted only once through his brain with the speed of lightning, when he heard her she-bear growling in the camp. He made no reply, except to wave the sword still dripping with Ebarbold's blood.

The Adeling's spear flew; Saturninus caught it on his shield; but being burdened by the long lance, this was now so difficult to manage that he let it fall, and sprang with a well-aimed sword thrust toward the youth, who had instantly drawn his short battle-axe from his girdle.

Each was so furiously resolved to fell the other, that neither thought of his own defence. So both struck, and both fell.

With his utmost strength--and it was great--the German had aimed at his adversary's forehead: the latter involuntarily bowed his head, putting the helmet forward, but the terrible stroke cleft this best work of the Roman armorers at Trier, and pierced through the bronze and the double leather of the lining to the skull. The helmet was found afterwards; and this "Suabian stroke" was long celebrated in the hall of the stag's antlers. But the lord of the hall seemed destined never to return to it, but to follow Ebarbold and Ebarvin; for, at the same time, the Roman's sword had penetrated the wooden shield of the German and cut deep into his left shoulder.

Sippilo caught his brother's drooping head; several attendants grasped his feet, and thus they bore him swiftly out of the battle.

Decius, springing from Ausonius's side, now took command of the Romans.

But he could no longer maintain order in the ranks. At their leader's fall under Adalo's terrible blow the column scattered in a wild flight down the hillside. The foremost ones, who had witnessed the duel, dispersed to the right and left. The rear ranks still held firm, but now they received an attack from behind, from the camp, and all was over. This attack was led by Duke Hariowald. At last--far too late for his battle fury--he, too, had crossed the camp and reached the Porta Dec.u.mana.

The greatest obstacle to the pursuit was now what had formerly been the princ.i.p.al cause of the hesitation, confusion, and dispersion of the retreating Roman troops: namely, the luggage, the barricade of wagons.

Behind it, that is, between it and the lake gate, numerous Romans, especially the German mercenaries, the Batavians, who were accustomed to such methods of fighting, had again made a stand; and much time was consumed before the Duke, by means of fire, axe-blows, and bloodshed, forced a pa.s.sage through it. He had at once sent bodies of his men through the cross streets leading to the right and left; to go round the obstacle and attack the defenders on both flanks. Hercula.n.u.s had watched, in mortal terror, from his hiding-place in the tent, the Alemanni dashing down these cross streets. Many rows of tents were already blazing; others were blocked with piles of luggage and tent equipage left behind. It was long before the Duke and his men, breaking their way through the citadel of wagons and driving its last defenders before them, reached the Dec.u.manian Gate; but then with his whole body of troops, intoxicated by their victory, he fell upon the rear of the Romans commanded by Decius.

All was lost. Decius succeeded in holding together only one very small band of Illyrians, scarcely twenty men. These, with their wounded General and Ausonius in their midst, burst through the ranks of the Linzgau men, who for some time were occupied with the care of Adalo, and fled directly south toward the lake. It was evident that the only hope of escape was by the ships, for swift destruction was overtaking all the fugitives, who scattered and fled to the right and left, the east and west. Without leadership or direction, only keeping in general toward the lake, they ran singly, in pairs, and in groups. Most of them, in the darkness of the night, floundered into the marshes, where, ignorant of the fords or the few higher portions, they sank, and were either drowned or cut down by their pursuers.

As soon as Hariowald reached the open ground he heard of the King's fall, to which he listened with a silent nod, and--from Sippilo's lips--of the Adeling's wound.

"Severe?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"In the shoulder; cut completely through."

"H'm!--Was he carried to his hall?"

"Yes."

"Take the blind old dame Waldrun to him at once from the Holy Mountain.

She knows the strongest herbs, and she also knows when and how they must be gathered, without impatience or rough handling."

"She is already waiting at his hall."

"How did that happen?"

"She dreamed last night that this battle would end in victory, but that she nursed my brother, who lay in her lap, sorely wounded. She insisted that the Sarmatian should lead her to our hall before the battle began.

'I will wait there for the wounded man,' she said."

"But you are bleeding, too, my lad; there, in the arm."

"A spear grazed me. It isn't much."

"Enough for the first time! You are surely tottering."

"An arrow--in the calf of my leg--but it didn't go deep."