A Captive of the Roman Eagles Part 37

In spite of the chill of the September night, the brave Commander, Nannienus, had had his couch prepared on the high quarter-deck, above the second bank of oars of his bireme; a very simple bed, consisting of a woolen blanket spread over the planks, a coil of rope under his neck and his Breton cloak for a coverlet. In reply to the warning of the colonist from Arbor, who now relieved the helmsman, against the nocturnal coolness of the lake, he had said, smiling:

"Oh, how often I have crossed at night, no more warmly wrapped, between Britain and Gaul! Is the German ocean to be shamed by this fresh water pond? There is no better sleeping potion than the rocking ship beneath me and the stars above! Unfortunately, tonight there is no moon and there are few stars. Strange, this constant calling of the swans. I never supposed there could be so many!"

While thinking of the swan notes, he fell asleep, but they haunted his dreams. He saw countless white, brown, and black swans coming from both sides of the marshy forest against his squadron, raising their wings threateningly as if to strike.

After a long sleep he awoke: gradually, as is natural after healthy slumber, not all at once, his thoughts began to clear. Was he still dreaming? It seemed as if the calling and singing of the swans on both sides actually came nearer, accompanied by a peculiar low whistling, humming, rippling, with now and then a louder splash in the water.

Still half asleep he asked the man at the helm: "What is that humming among the rushes?"

"The swans, my lord, the wild swans," replied the helmsman, the old Roman colonist from Arbor. He was a retired member of the Twenty-second Legion, faithful to the Caesar. "I know it well! I have often seen them at sunset going by thousands to the marshy forests of this lake. They are preparing to migrate."

"No," cried the Breton starting up. "Those are no water birds, the splashing is too loud." Lifting the helmet from his head, he gazed out keenly.

"The night is black as pitch, but look, something is swimming out from the rushes yonder: Swans? No, no!" He tore his sword from its sheath.--"Those are boats! To arms! Raise the anchor! The foe!"

At the same moment a bright light flamed on the Idisenhang, red torches blazed in the camp on the sh.o.r.e; a bundle of burning straw flew over Nannienus's helmet into the half-reefed sail, remained there caught by the folds, while tongues of fire, fanned by the north wind, crept up the sail, the rigging, the mast. Already dark forms were climbing up the sides of the galley from all directions, and wild cries from men, attacked and mortally wounded while sleeping, rang from all the ships and the camp on the lake sh.o.r.e.

Nannienus sprang with flashing sword toward the first man who boarded the galley. But the desperate fellow did not seem to care for his own life. Without heeding or attempting to parry the blow, which came within a hair's breadth of his unprotected head, he thrust a sort of harpoon (that is, a spear eight feet long with a sharp point and a hook curving backward, such as the men threw through holes in the ice on the lake in winter to catch the largest sheatfish) into the Roman's bronze belt, jerked him forward with tremendous force and hurled him overboard.

Nannienus fell into one of the boats of the Alemanni, at the starboard side of his bireme, and striking his head against a thwart, lay stunned for a considerable time. The skiff was empty, all its occupants had boarded the galley. When he regained consciousness, he saw his own ship and most of the other vessels in flames; while his camp on the sh.o.r.e, and even that of Saturninus, high up on the Idisenhang, were burning.

Then he perceived that all was lost. Everywhere the remnant of his armada which had escaped the flames was in full flight, pursued by the Barbarians.

He resolved to make his escape to Arbor, and hastily unbuckled the Roman armor that would have betrayed him; his helmet he had lost in his fall. Then, seeing a German mantle lying among the rubbish in the boat, he threw it on, placed himself at the helm (these boats were rowed and steered standing), trimmed the coa.r.s.e square sail to catch the wind, and was soon flying, unnoticed by the Germans, who recognized the boat as one of their own, across the lake toward Arbor.

Once only, the utmost peril threatened him. He had overtaken a lofty Roman ship whose sails were partly burned, but the fire was evidently being extinguished by the crew. He was on the point of hailing it and ordering the men to take him on board when, to his horror, he perceived that the galley was filled with Alemanni. As he had taken possession of the German boat, they were pursuing on the captured bireme other Roman ships that were flying to Arbor.

He hastily rowed the skiff away from the great vessel, and now perceived that in Arbor, too, a terrible conflagration was rising toward heaven. It was the funeral pyre of Roman rule in the fortress on the lake. Nannienus saw it with terror, turned his boat west southwest, and tried to gain, instead of the lost Arbor, the distant but safe harbor citadel of Constantia.

CHAPTER LVI.

The camp on the lake sh.o.r.e had been taken, with great loss of life to the Romans.

A camp wall and ditch had been hurriedly made in the few hours after their arrival, merely for form's sake, because the good old Roman custom prescribed it, and Nannienus insisted upon its observance. But the Commander himself closed his eyes to the carelessness of the work.

This camp was to be abandoned at dawn on the following morning and its men sent to garrison the one on the Idisenhang and to march in pursuit of the Barbarians. So the ditch was dug only a few feet deep, the wall erected only a few feet high, and other fortifications were omitted.

The Alemanni instantly poured from all directions into the fortress, whose inmates were overcome by sleep and wine.

The old Duke had given them counsel taken from the songs of a wandering bard, who had sung in his own hall, to the music of his harp, ancient tales of his race. The man was a Batavian and bore the names, an odd medley, Julius Claudius Civilis Chlodomer. He went from tribe to tribe as far as they understood his language, singing and telling the old songs and legends. So he related how, three centuries before, his people, skilled in the use of arms, and led by his ancestor who, though a German, had the same Roman names as his distant descendant, fought furiously against the Roman yoke and won many a victory, inspired by Veleda, a maiden prophetess of the Bructeri.

And he sang how once, one moonless, starless night, they attacked a Roman ship camp on the Rhine: the galleys were anch.o.r.ed in the river; on the sh.o.r.e were many tents. The Batavians first cut the main ropes, which wound around the poles stretching the tents; and the sleepers, buried, entangled, and held beneath them, were easily overpowered while thus defenceless:

"Like plump fish captured In nets by night, They struggled, shouting Their tents beneath."

The old Duke had firmly impressed upon his mind these lines of the Batavians; they had seemed to him the best of all, and he now used what he had learned.

The Romans were wakened first by the tents falling in upon them, by the glare of flames on all sides, and then by the Germans' shouts of victory. They scattered without offering the least resistance; saw the ships, their nearest refuge, also burning; tried to climb to the camp on the height, but beheld fire blazing there also, and fled, without aim or plan, to the right and left along the sh.o.r.e of the lake. They were pursued by few of the victors, who preferred, first of all, to seize the small Roman vessels and in these aid their comrades to board the proud biremes. These vessels would contain more men, and their higher decks were far better suited to climb the sides of the large war galleys than the low fishing boats of the Alemanni. So it happened that many German boats drifted to the sh.o.r.e empty, their crews having abandoned them to pursue in the smaller Roman vessels, the Roman galleys, or having already boarded them.

When Decius, with the little band of Illyrians, whom he had held together around the wounded General and Ausonius, reached the burning camp, even Saturninus, with the biremes blazing before his eyes, recognized reluctantly that here, too, all was lost, and any continuation of the battle impossible. He consented, hesitatingly, to think only of flight. Rignomer, who had joined the General at the lake gate, was the first to discover, as he gazed watchfully to and fro, several deserted boats of the Alemanni drifting near them.

Leaping into the water, sometimes wading, sometimes swimming, he reached the first, climbed in, found the oars, rowed to the three skiffs nearest, tied them together with the ropes tangled near the steering oar, and soon brought his little fleet so close to the sh.o.r.e that the wounded Commander could be placed in the largest one, while the whole band of fugitives--five or six in each--entered the others.

By his advice they all removed the high Roman helmets, which could be recognized at a long distance, and the glittering Roman armor. At his suggestion, too, they separated. Even Decius willingly followed the counsel of the Batavian, an expert in sailing, in order not to attract the enemy's attention so easily: thus they hoped to reach Arbor, on the southern sh.o.r.e, singly and undetected.

When Hariowald and his followers arrived, they found nothing to do except to take possession of all the Roman and German vessels which still lay unused near the land, and continue the pursuit of the war galleys on the lake. Springing into a Roman transport boat, he ordered his men to row him to Nannienus's galley, where the boarders, after overpowering the crew, had extinguished the flames. A man standing on the lofty deck flung a rope ladder into the boat and gave Hariowald his hand to help him on board. It was now dawn; the Duke recognized Fiskulf, the fisherman.

"What!" cried the old Commander in astonishment. "Did Odin really save you? Then he is even more powerful and more gracious than I expected."

"It must be so," replied the man, with a happy laugh. "I was the first on deck, flung, the first brand into the main sail, and swung the Italian lord overboard like a lake salmon out of an ice-hole. But then I saved the beautiful ship by putting out the flames. I thought: 'It is better to capture than to burn.' Did I keep my word?"

"You have surpa.s.sed it. And are you uninjured?"

"Not entirely: henceforth I shall have one ear less. It must be owned that the short swords of these Italians slice sharply, and they deal powerful blows. Look, not even the mother who bore me with two ears would believe that one ever peered out under my hair here--he shaved it off so smoothly."

The Duke held out his hand: "You shall be one of my followers, Fiskulf!

You have learned to hear and to obey me."

"Yes, my lord, even with one ear! When I miss the second, I shall always tell myself why I lost it."

"And how the Lofty One gave you back the life forfeited to him: never forget that. But now we will pursue the Italians across the lake to Arbor on their own splendid galley. Spread every sail!"

"Where shall we get them, my lord? They are all burned."

"Then stretch your mantles for sails. The north wind will help to fill them; a fresh west northwest breeze will spring up at sunrise. See how the waves are rippling already. The first red ray of morning is breaking through yonder clouds. Quick, men, seize the Roman oars; the morning sun must greet us on the southern sh.o.r.e. Ha, do you behold it over yonder? Smoke and flames are rising in Arbor. Our eastern men, the Hermunduri, and our kinsmen, now free, though hitherto under the foreign yoke, have kept their promise. Up! On to Arbor to celebrate the third victory of one night!"

He seized the helm himself. The proud galley of the Romans turned her prow away from the northern sh.o.r.e, and being now rowed by the conquerors, moved majestically across the lake. The mantles of the Alemanni, brown, blue, yellow, and red, filled in the fresh northwestern breeze, and the well-built ship darted swiftly through the water, which reflected the clear sky in the increasing brightness of the morning and shone with a wonderful azure hue. The waves broke in foam before the bow, tossing their white spray high into the air; little rosy clouds were floating in the eastern sky and were mirrored in the lake.

With the folds of his dark mantle around him, his white locks fluttering, his head crowned with a shining white helmet, Hariowald's tall figure stood forth in strong relief against the sky, as he remained at the helm erect and motionless, his spear flung over his shoulder. So the ship and her helmsman gradually vanished beyond the sight of the eyes watching them intently from the northern sh.o.r.e.

Rignomer, peering from behind his sail, also saw and recognized him.

"They can upbraid me as much as they please," he muttered. "Where is Brinno, who tried to oppose him? They can say what they choose. Even though in human form, it is still _he_!"

CHAPTER LVII.

But the Batavian was suddenly startled from his mythological studies.

He heard from the east a shout in German: "Romans! Romans! On them!"

and saw a boat filled with Alemanni steer toward them.

"Quick! Disperse in every direction!" he called, and the boats containing the fugitives scattered. He soon lost sight of two, which attracted the attention of the pursuers and were driven by the Germans out upon the lake toward the south. He himself steered and rowed at the same time, a.s.sisted by several soldiers, close in to the sh.o.r.e westward, where by good fortune he reached a small patch of rushes, among which he hid the boat; the second one, containing Decius, soon joined him.

From this place Ausonius, who by Saturninus's order was watching the sh.o.r.e to see if they could rescue any fugitive Romans, perceived by the dim light of morning the figure of a girl in a gleaming white robe, who was running at her utmost speed straight toward the boats. He already thought he recognized Bissula when her cry fell upon his ear: "Adalo, Alemanni, help Bissula!" He also saw a horseman dashing in furious pursuit down the hill. He ordered the men to row quickly sh.o.r.eward.

Prosper, even Rignomer, hesitated. "My lord," the latter warned him, "they will murder us all!"

"No matter! Bissula! It is for Bissula!"

Then Rignomer instantly obeyed. Hidden behind his sail he had not seen the young girl, and could not hear her; but now he turned the helm, and sent the boat with the speed of lightning toward the sh.o.r.e, at the same time urging the soldiers to row with all their might. The rest of the men now recognized the fugitive, and so the rescuers came just in time to save her from sinking.

Bissula, whose strength was completely exhausted, lay unconscious in the bottom of the boat for a long, long time. Rignomer had rolled into a bundle a fishing net which he found in the bow and put it under her head for a pillow. Ausonius, sitting on a thwart, supported her lovely little head and gazed anxiously down into her face, while the Batavian rubbed her cold hands.