A Captive of the Roman Eagles Part 27

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

"You have planned all this alone?" asked the young n.o.ble.

"Ha, more, far more than this! Like the wolf of h.e.l.l, this Rome opens her jaws to swallow all Mittelgard. What? They are not willing to grant us land enough on the northern sh.o.r.e of the lake to feed our growing population? Well, let us see whether, in punishment to the insatiable robbers for new and old crimes, the G.o.ds will not deprive them even of the districts they have hitherto held by force,--the northern sh.o.r.e!"

Adalo's astonishment was increasing.

"Their proud giant s.h.i.+ps will float against us from Arbor to-morrow; those which escape the midnight conflagration will not, I hope, be received again, when they fly homeward, in the eyrie whence these birds of prey went forth."

"What! Arbor?"

"I have long tried to persuade our eastern districts also to make common cause with us; they did not refuse reinforcements to the league, as people here suppose because they did not see the men of the eastern provinces. Besides,"--he smiled craftily,--"most of the eastern districts have kings. It was not necessary to have all these kings here, when Ebarbold's fate was to be decided. Meanwhile, they will help where I sent them: on the southern sh.o.r.e. But not they alone.

"We wished to free the brothers of our race still enslaved by Rome. For a long time the Alemanni and the other colonists--more slaves than free men--have borne, grinding their teeth, the yoke which every year pressed heavier. But they were held in check by the fortresses on the other side, from the Linden Island behind Brigantium, beyond Arbor and Constantia. They had long been ready to fight, but the lake fortresses seemed to be too strongly garrisoned. They dread these fortifications from long experience. They required to have aid from us.

"Well: least of all now, with the Emperor so near and a Roman army on the northern sh.o.r.e, least of all now, do the tyrants fear an attack upon their fortresses in the south. To-morrow nearly all the soldiers who usually guard Arbor will come across on the s.h.i.+ps to share the gay expedition for booty; only a small guard will be left behind. But as soon as the camp on the Idisenhang is burning,--a magnificent torch, kindled by Zio himself,--the infuriated colonists will attack Arbor from the land side. Thousands of free Alemanni from the eastern districts will aid; they have stolen in small parties through the mountain pa.s.ses from far, far beyond Brigantium, and remained hidden in the forests and farm-houses of the colonists for the last two days. At the same time our men from the eastern marshes (Suomar commands them) in thirty boats, under cover of the darkness (this is why I could not move while the moon-G.o.ddess was in the sky), will go to Arbor, burst the chains of the harbor, and unless the Christian G.o.d should descend from the clouds to save the fortress, the morning sun will see the free and the enslaved Alemanni on the walls of Arbor.

"Many times already we have won it, plundered it, half burned it, and then left it, so that the Romans could establish themselves there again: we will be so foolish no longer. If we conquer this time, we will remain there forever! Then one link of the iron chain will be broken, and we shall find it easier to subdue the other fortresses at the left and the right, from Brigantium to Constantia.

"I shall not live to see the day, but you will, young warrior, the day when the southern sh.o.r.e of the lake and the country far, far into the lofty mountains whose peaks are crowned with eternal snows, will be the possession of the free Alemanni: then think of this hour and old Hariowald."

He started up, intensely moved, his white hair and silver beard waving proudly in the breeze.

"My Duke," cried Adalo enthusiastically, "this is magnificent! Speak, when to-morrow we have won this great victory according to your plans, will you not then, instead of Count, bear the name of _King_ of the Linzgau and the Ebergau, if Ebarbold fall?"

"No," replied the old man quietly, "that would not be wise. I have reflected upon it a long time. Odin's will, I think, is different for our people. Ebarbold has no descendants: after his death I will propose that they shall not elect another king.

"That will be well; for the time is close at hand, though, it is true, not yet fully here, when one king, a single one, will gather all the districts of the Alemanni under his rule. The path will be more open, easier for this universal king to traverse, the fewer kings and the more counts rule the districts. We two will smooth, not block, the path for the future king of the people. No, no! And, besides, the men of the Ebergau must not say: 'Ebarbold was forced to fall because Hariowald wished to be called King.'

"That king of the people is coming! Then, it is true, the nation will scarcely remember me or you. Only perhaps some harper, in the hall of the One King, will sing how Hariowald, the old chief and Adalo, the young one, defeated the Romans three times in a single night. But we, Adalo, shall then look down upon the free land of the Alemanni, stretching from the Alps to the Vosges. We shall look down from Odin's table. And I may probably expect that, when I cross the threshold of Valhalla, the Lofty One will rise from his throne and come to meet me, with the drinking-horn in his hand. For many men--far more through my counsel, which always advised war, than by my spear--have I sent up to him by the red death in the last fifty years, to fill his hall and increase his army. Yes, my Adalo, we shall then look down upon the glory of our people and say, laughing joyously: 'We two also helped to build it that night on the Idisenhang.'

"So, Adalo, so I praise you: your cheek is glowing, your eye is flas.h.i.+ng! That is the right spirit, Odin's spirit, which is now taking possession of you. And that alone, that ardor for battle, will also give you the most ardent desire of your heart; not the dull despair of the last few days, in which, unhappy youth, you sent that secret message to the two Roman Generals!

"Hus.h.!.+ Of course I knew it. It was not difficult to guess the contents of the letter you forwarded after they had disdained everything else you had to give. But I also knew positively that they would refuse you too. That is the sole reason I allowed your messenger to pa.s.s through the barricades, as you thought, undetected. I too would gladly see her at liberty, the wild red rosebud of the hillside by the lake, the red flower in our people's garland of oak-leaves. But your Bissula is yonder, with victory, in the Roman camp. If you want her, hew her out at the same hour with conquest and the salvation of your people.

"No, do not thank me; do not talk! Go now! I must be alone."

CHAPTER XL.

Meanwhile, incidents of grave moment had occurred in the Roman camp.

The friendly feeling between the two Roman Generals had become strained, and Bissula's ingenuousness toward both was transformed into fear and distrust. The two friends, once so intimately a.s.sociated, avoided each other and confined their intercourse and conversation solely to matters absolutely required by the service. At the same time the prisoner, now suspiciously watchful, perceived in Ausonius a resentful bitterness toward the Tribune, very alien to his usual good-nature. The latter, on the other hand, evidently was not angry; even in his cool reserve he seemed to spare his older friend, nay, to treat him with a sort of compa.s.sion.

The little maid herself was very unhappy. Her careless unconsciousness was completely destroyed, and she did not know which of the two men whose friends.h.i.+p seemed to be broken, if not by her, on her account, she ought to avoid with the greater fear. This feeling grieved the kind-hearted girl. She was also burdened by anxiety about the future, by dread of the unknown, by rebelliousness--when she was powerless and fully aware of it--against the restraint imposed by the will of strangers upon her obstinacy, all threatening her immediately. For, however the two Romans differed in everything else concerning the prisoner, they seemed to unite in one thing: Bissula should never again be free, never return to the forest hut by the lake, to the familiar scenes of the neighborhood.

At these thoughts tears filled the eyes once so saucy or so proud. How sadly she admitted to herself that her own folly and defiance were the sole causes which had brought all this misfortune upon her! How kind, how prudent, how loyal Adalo's advice had been! Yet these tears, burning, bitter tears of remorse, nay, yearning, were a relief. Even now, in the trouble for which she alone was to blame, he had not abandoned her! The first greeting that reached her from her people had come from him; he had sent the young brother whom he loved so fondly, and whom therefore she loved for his sake, and Bruna too, her old playfellow.

She had dissembled craftily before the soldiers, and wondered loudly at the animal's "friendliness." But, as soon as she was alone in her tent with the faithful beast, she clasped the huge head tenderly with both white arms, kissed the broad forehead and lovingly patted the neck of the bear, who growled affectionately in reply. Then she slipped her hand through the collar, felt a depression in it, drew it up from the s.h.a.ggy skin to the light of the Roman lamp, perceived characters scrawled on it, and read: "Through the gate to the lake."

Her heart throbbed warmly. So her friends had already consulted about her escape! They were giving her the safest direction, the part of the camp where her companions would wait for her. But they could not possibly mean that she should try to make her way now, without further delay, through the lake gate, that is, through the "Porta Dec.u.mana," so closely guarded day and night. Not now! But when?

Evidently as soon as something happened which would render escape possible; then she was to choose that direction. But what was to happen? An attack of the Alemanni? Ausonius laughed at it. Even cautious Saturninus had said: "Unless they fly over it like the swallows that are now preparing for departure, they will not come into this solid camp."

So she racked her little brains, pondering over all sorts of possibilities which might bring her liberty against or with the will of the Romans. Should she appeal to Ausonius again? No!

A strange timidity had taken possession of her ever since her last interview with him. She had never cherished any affection for the clever, eloquent man except the feeling a daughter has for a father; but recently, in making the proposal to take her with him, his eyes had rested on her so strangely. Never had he looked at her so before. It was like the gaze Saturninus fixed upon her when he seized her outside of the forest hut--but never again, not even when he told her that she belonged to him and he would not release her.

So it happened that the sensitive girl, alarmed by the suddenly discovered ardor of the older man, felt safer and more at ease with the younger but undemonstrative one. She avoided Ausonius; she almost sought Saturninus, to whom, at the beginning and during the whole course of her captivity, she had learned to be grateful as to a watchful guardian.

Often and often, since reading Bruna's message, she walked toward the lake gate, without hoping to find it unwatched or carelessly guarded,--the Tribune kept too strict a rule, too sharp an oversight for that,--but to impress upon her mind the exact locality of the streets and tents which might afford a hiding-place near the gate where she might await, close at hand, the most favorable moment.

She had soon chosen for this purpose a towering heap of beams, gabions, and boards piled one above another, which had not been used in building the camp and had been left here: it rose high above her head, and when behind it, she was concealed from the view of those at the gate or in the street between the tents. But she never lingered long at the spot, lest she might arouse suspicion.

Bissula sought from preference the opposite side of the camp, facing the north, where the lofty pine-tree of the earth-G.o.ddess rose beside the broad sacrificial stones of the altar, spreading out its mighty branches, and from above the wall the eye could rove freely over the forests to the distant peaks where, veiled by mists, the Holy Mountain towered. Her thoughts always flew thither, not to the eastern marshes, not to Suomar. She was often anxious about her grandmother, but Zercho had certainly concealed her; and now that "the obstinate redhead" could no longer say no, probably on the Holy Mountain.

"Therefore"--this was the excuse she willingly made to herself--"_therefore_ I cannot help thinking constantly of the Holy Mountain, Oh no! That isn't true. It is not for my grandmother's sake.

Adalo, Adalo, help!"

So she had called aloud the evening after the refusal to set her at liberty, perched high among the branches of the pine-tree into which she liked to climb to dream alone, and at the same moment stretched her beautiful arms, with a gesture of longing entreaty, toward the northwest, where lightning was flas.h.i.+ng over the mountain peaks.

On the evening after the inspection (it was the day of the a.s.sembly on the Holy Mountain) she walked through the streets of the camp, thinking and dreaming of her liberation, also of her liberator. She had tied faithful Bruna firmly to the poles of her tent; for there had repeatedly been serious trouble when she took the animal with her: boys belonging to the camp followers pelted her with stones, from safe hiding-places, till she was greatly infuriated.

To Ausonius's nephew, especially, the bear showed intense antipathy, rising on her hind legs and growling furiously whenever she saw him, though he anxiously kept out of her way and never teased her. Only with the utmost difficulty, by clasping her arms around the animal, had she prevented Bruna from attacking him.

"Your she-bear understands Latin," said Saturninus, who had sprung to help her, smiling. "She knew what Hercula.n.u.s said when he swore that some day she should pay in the amphitheatre at Rome, under the teeth of his Thessalian dogs, for the mischief she meant to do him here."

"Bruna in Rome?" the girl cried defiantly. "No more--than Bissula in Burdigala!" But as she spoke she almost wept from rage, hate, and fear.

CHAPTER XLI.

Oppressed by sad yearning and anxiety, the usually light-hearted child had again walked this evening from her tent to the lake gate, and thence, driven back by the shouts of the Thracian sentries, wandered through the whole camp to her beloved pine-tree, which had begun to supply the place of the oak beside her forest home: for the tree of the earth-G.o.ddess also afforded a convenient ascent like a stairway on its broad branches drooping to the sacrificial stones, while on the central trunk was a hiding-place invisible from below, with a comfortable back, and the beloved view over the Roman fortifications to the mountain peaks rising in the distance.

The sun had set long before, and darkness gathered quickly in that region as soon as the glowing ball had vanished behind the wooded western sh.o.r.es of the lake. There was no moon; only a few stars were in the sky.

The wind bore to her ears from the distance scattered sounds: the neighing of a horse, the rattle of a weapon, the shout of a sentinel at the gate. Oh, those guards, who also watched her here in her s.p.a.cious prison, prevented her escape, her return to her people--for how much longer? Sorrow overpowered her, and she felt that tears were about to flow. But her tyrants should not see them; she would weep her fill, up above there!

Bissula glided lightly up and sat so still in her hiding-place among the boughs that a belated bird--a blackbird--perched for the night, without seeing her, a few branches above her head.

Then the girl saw two men step cautiously from behind corner tents, each at the end of a street running in opposite directions across the camp; they made signs to each other, gazed carefully behind and sideways, then hurried forward and met directly under the pine-tree on its northern side, so that the huge trunk completely concealed them from the camp.

Bissula bent softly, softly downward: it was a man with a helmet and one unarmed; she could not distinguish their features. They began to talk, in whispers, it is true, but the listener understood many words, and she now recognized the speakers by their voices.

"But I tell you, it must be this very day! He has ordered the scribe to come early tomorrow morning, with the seal. He means to change his will--to add a codicil. What good will his death do me, if he first throws the best part of his riches into that wench's lap?"

The other made some reply which the girl did not hear.