"Why? why? What are you doing? Have pity on me; have pity on yourself,
before it is too late! For this is madness. Return, or you must...."
She paused, and he completed the sentence for her with a haughty
smile--
"Or I must perish, you mean, Arsinoë? Be it so. I shall follow my road
to the end, lead where it may! If, as you say, I have been unjust
toward the wisdom of the Galileans, remember what I have borne at
their hands. How numberless, how despicable were my enemies!... The
other day some Roman soldiers found before my eyes, in a Mesopotamian
marsh, a lion tortured by flies. They had buried themselves in his
throat, in his ears, in his nostrils, choking his breath, sealing his
eyes, and in their stinging myriads had mastered even his powers at
last! Such shall my death be, and such the victory of the Galileans
over Cæsar!"
The girl still held out towards him her pale hands; but without a
word, without a hope, like a friend towards a friend who is dead.
Between the two lay still that abyss which is not to be crossed by the
living.
* * * * *
Towards the twentieth of July the Roman army, after a long journey
across burnt plains, found a little grass which had escaped from the
devastators in the deep valley of the river Durous.
A field of ripe wheat was found hard by. The soldiers reaped it and
rested in the valley three days. Unspeakably happy, the legionaries
threw themselves down on the verdure, breathing the delightful
moisture of the earth, and brushing the cool blades of grass against
their dusty faces.
On the morning of the fourth day the Roman sentinels perceived a cloud
of smoke or dust. Some supposed it to be the wild asses, which usually
roamed in herds for safety against the attack of lions. Others
affirmed that it was Saracens, attracted by the news of the siege of
Ctesiphon. A few expressed their fears lest it should prove to be the
principal army of King Sapor.
The Emperor ordered the call to arms to be sounded on the bugles. The
cohorts in strict defensive order, sheltered by their locked shields,
as by walls of metal, formed a camp half-circlewise on the river bank.
The cloud of smoke or dust remained on the horizon until evening, nor
could any divine with certainty what lurked behind it. The night was
dark and still, with not a star in the sky.
The Romans did not sleep. They stood round huge bivouac-fires in mute
restlessness, awaiting the dawn.