XVIII

At sunrise they saw the Persians. The enemy was advancing slowly.

Experienced soldiers estimated their number at nearly two hundred

thousand. Hill after hill unmasked new bodies of men, and the

glittering of the arms on these detachments, in spite of distance and

dust, was almost dazzlingly bright. The Romans, with hardly a word in

the ranks, left the valley of the previous night and ranged themselves

in battle-order. Their faces were stern, but not sad. Danger now

stifled their hatred, and all looks were fixed upon the Emperor,

Christians as well as Pagans seeking to surmise from his expression

whether they might still hope for success.

At that hour Julian was beaming with joy. Long, long, had he awaited

this encounter with the Persians, awaited the miracle in which victory

would give him such renown and power that the Galileans could no

longer resist. He was haughty as one of the old heroes of Hellas.

Danger seemed to spiritualise him; and a gay and terrible light was in

his eyes.

The heavy and dusty morning of the twenty-second of July seemed the

prelude to a day of burning heat, and the Emperor objected to wear a

breastplate, and remained clad in a light silken tunic. Victor, the

general, came up holding a coat-of-mail, and said--

"Cæsar, I have had a bad dream; tempt not fate; wear armour!"

Julian silently waved his hand in negation. The old man fell on his

knees--

"Put it on! Have pity on your slave!... This battle will be

perilous...."

Julian took a shield, flung the light purple of his chlamys over his

shoulder, and vaulting on horseback said--

"Let me be, old friend! I need nothing."

He vanished, his golden-crested helm glittering for a while in the

sun, while Victor anxiously followed him with his eyes.

Julian disposed his army in a peculiar form, like a crescent. The

enormous half-circle was to bury its two points in the Persian mass

and squeeze it inwards from two sides. The right wing was commanded

by Dagalaïf, the left by Hormizdas, Julian and Victor leading the

centre. The trumpets sounded. The earth trembled under the soft

and heavy tread of the Persian elephants, wearing huge plumes of

ostrich-feathers on their foreheads. Turrets of hide were lashed on

the back of the beasts by thick thongs; and each turret held four

archers, who shot flaming arrows of tow and pitch.

The Roman horse did not stand the first shock. With deafening roars

and raised trunks the elephants opened their huge moist gullets. The

legionaries felt in their faces the hot wind of the monsters, maddened

before battle by a special drink made of wine, pepper, and spices.

With foot spikes painted in vermilion and tipped with steel, the

elephants disembowelled horses, and their trunks whirled horsemen from

the saddle and dashed them against the ground. The torrid heat of the

afternoon raised from the trumpeting beasts a rank odour of sweat

which made the horses wince, rear, and tremble violently.

One cohort had already taken flight. It happened to be a body of

Christians. Julian pursued them, and striking the chief decurion full

in the face, cried furiously--

"Cowards! I suppose praying is the only thing you are good for?"

The light Thracian archery and Paphlagonian skirmishers now advanced

against the elephants. Behind them marched Illyrians, skilful throwers

of the leaded javelins, the "Martiobarbuli." Julian gave the order to

aim arrows, stones, and javelins at the legs of the elephants. An

arrow struck an enormous Indian beast in the eye. He trumpeted and

reared, the girths snapped, saddle and leather turret slid and upset,

shedding the Persian archers like birds from a nest. Confusion

followed among the huge pachyderms. Wounded in the legs they staggered

and fell, and their squadron became little more than a mountain of

grey masses. Their feet in air, their trunks bleeding, their armour

smashed, they lay amid ruins of the turrets, half crushed horses, and

piles of Roman and Persian dead.

At last the elephants took flight, and rushed headlong against the

Persians, trampling them underfoot. This particular danger had been

foreseen by the barbarian tacticians. The previous instance of the

battle under Nizibis had shown that an army may be defeated by its own

allies. Now the mahouts began to slash the monsters with curved

cutlasses between the two joints of the spine lying nearest the skull;

a single blow in this exact spot sufficing to kill outright the

largest and strongest of the great beasts. The cohorts of

Martiobarbuli charged, clambering over the wounded and pursuing those

in flight.

At this instant Julian galloped to support the left wing. On that side

rode the Persian _Clibanarii_, a famous body of cavalry, bound man to

man by a strong chain, and clad in invulnerable scale-armour. They

received the waves of battle like a row of bronze equestrian statues.

They could only be wounded through narrow slits left for mouth and

eyes.

Against the Clibaniars Julian sent his old faithful friends, the

Batavians and the Celts. They would die for a smile from Cæsar, gazing

at him with eyes of childlike adoration. The right wing of the Romans

was assailed by Persian chariots, drawn by galloping zebras. Scythes

were affixed to their axles, which, sweeping along with incredible

swiftness, mowed legs from horses and heads from soldiers, and lopped

bodies in half, easily as the reaper's sickle takes the corn.

Towards the end of the day, weighed down in their overheated armour,

the Clibaniars wavered. Julian massed all his forces against them.

They broke, and re-formed, but their ranks at last became confused and

fled. A cry of triumph broke from the Emperor's lips. He galloped

ahead, pursuing the fugitives, not perceiving that he was far in

advance of his main body. A few body-guards surrounded the Cæsar,

amongst them old General Victor. This old man, though wounded in the

hand, was unconscious of his hurt, not quitting the Emperor's side for

a moment, and shielding him time after time from mortal blows. He knew

that it was as dangerous to approach a fleeing army as to enter a

falling building.

"Take heed, Cæsar!" he shouted. "Put on this mail of mine!" but Julian

heard him not, and still rode on, on--his breast lying bared to drink

in the wind--as if he, unsupported, unarmed, and terrible, was hunting

his countless enemies by glance and gesture only from the field.

Laughter was on his lips; through the cloud of dust, raised by the

furious gallop of the horse, shone the Boeotian helmet, and the

outspread folds of his chlamys streamed into two great wings of

purple, that seemed to bear him farther and yet farther.

In front, a small detachment of Saracens was in flight. One of these

horsemen, turning in his saddle, recognised Julian by his raiment, and

pointing him out to his comrades, uttered a guttural cry like that of

an eagle--

"_Malek, malek!_ ... The king, the king!"

All wheeled round, and at full gallop sprang upright, standing on

their saddles, their long white vestments streaming, and lances poised

above their heads. The Emperor saw the bronzed face of a young robber,

one little more than a lad. Riding rapidly towards him on a Bactrian

dromedary, from whose shaggy hair lumps of dry mud swung and dangled,

Victor parried two lances aimed at the Emperor by Bedouins. Then the

lad on the camel aimed, his fierce look glittering and white teeth

showing while he cried gleefully--

"_Malek, malek!_"

"That boy is happy," was the thought that flashed through Julian's

mind, "and I too...."

He had no time to finish; the lance hissed, and grazing the skin of

his right hand, glanced over the ribs and buried itself below the

liver. Julian thought the wound a slight one, and seizing the

double-edged barb to withdraw it, cut his fingers. Blood gushed out.

Julian uttered a cry, flung his head back, fixed his staring eyes on

the pale sky, and slid from his horse into the arms of the guard.

Victor supported him with tender veneration, gazing with trembling

lips at the closed eyes of his sovereign. The tardy cohorts in the

rear came up.