Never in his life had Romulus felt in his own soul the strength of kinship
as he felt it after the colonists agreed to join their forces with his. He
had made his men into a fighting force when courage was almost the only
virtue they had, but there was no natural comradeship between them as a
whole. Here were men of his own people, welded together by all the ties of
a boyhood and manhood spent together in one place, and they were ready to
stand by him to the death. It seemed to give him a strength more than
human. Remus was his brother, but he too was different and did not
understand. He was no dreamer; he would have been content to go on all his
life a shepherd boy or a soldier. But these men understood; they looked
down the road of the years to come and planned for their children and
grandchildren. That was why they were willing to let their sons go to
fight against the tyrant Amulius under a stranger and a captain of
outlaws,—because they saw that in the end the war must be fought, and all
the men who could fight were needed.
There were anxious days in the settlement by the yellow river, after the
young men marched away. Even if Romulus won the victory, perhaps there
would be some who would not come back. And if he failed, the first the
colonists would know of it would be an army coming to kill or enslave them
all.
Not quite a month after the departure of the little fighting force the
watchmen on the wall saw far away on the plain a single running figure. At
first they could not be sure who it was. The word flew about the colony
and soon the people were gathered wherever they could get a view of the
running man. It was toward evening; the long shadows stretched over the
level ground, and the red sunset made the still waters look like pools of
blood. Everything was very quiet. They could hear the croak and pipe of
the frogs, far below at the foot of the hill.
On and on came the racing figure, and now he had caught sight of the
people on the hill, for he lifted his arm and waved to them again and
again. It was good tidings; that was the meaning of his gesture in their
signal language. Many hastened to meet him, but the path down the hill was
a winding one and those who stayed where they were heard the news almost
as soon. The runner was Caius Cossus, who always outstripped every other
lad of his age in the races, and when he came to the foot of the hill he
shouted:
[Illustration: “Victory! Vic-to-ry! Romulus forever!”]
“Ai-ya! Victory! Vic-to-ry! Romulus forever!”
His mother began to cry for joy and pride. The other women did not dare to
yet. They did not allow themselves to be really glad until the small boys
came scampering in ahead of their elders, to be the first to tell. Amulius
was dead and Numa ruled in his place, and not one of their own men had
been killed. Cossus reached the gate carried on men’s shoulders, for he
was almost worn out. He had had nothing to eat for several hours, and had
been running all the last part of the way, to get home before it was too
dark to see.
Caius Cossus lived to be very old, and his long life brought him much
honor and happiness, but never again, so long as he lived, did he have so
glad a triumph as when he came in at the gate of the little, rude town by
the river, and told the story of the fight at Alba Longa to the fathers
and mothers who had the best right to be proud of it. It was the first
battle the young men of the colony had ever been in, and a great deal
would have depended on it in any case. They were strangers, with their
reputation for courage and coolness all to make.
When the young messenger had had a chance to get his breath and some food
and drink—and the best in the place was none too good for him—he told the
story of the campaign from the beginning.
Romulus had separated his force into three companies and sent them toward
Alba Longa by three roads and in small groups, not to attract attention,
until they were within a few hours’ march of the town of the chief. Here
they halted, and some of the outlaw band came up with them, carrying new
shields and weapons that had been hidden in a cave until the time came to
use them. The place of meeting was a wild rocky place where not even goats
could have found pasture, and here Romulus made a brief speech giving them
their orders. Fortune, he said, always favored those who were loyal to the
gods. Amulius was loyal to nothing; he was a liar, a thief and a coward,
and the invisible powers of heaven were arrayed against him. He was not
afraid that any of his followers would offend the gods. Whatever else they
had done, they had not bullied the weak or robbed the poor, or turned
their backs on the strong, or violated the holy places of any city. They
were to go forward in the faith that the stars of heaven would fight for
them and against the armies of Amulius.
Some of the country people were there to serve as guides. There was a way
around the city to the back, where the wall was not so high, and Remus and
his party would go first and come around that way. The colonists were to
swing to the left, where a road branched off, and come up toward the gate
where the barracks were. Romulus himself with his own men would attack the
main gate just after dawn and push his way in while the troops were partly
distracted to the left and to the rear. When he gave the signal, a triple
drum roll, the colonists were to give back as if they were retreating, and
follow his men in at the main gate and bar it after them. He would send a
part of his men toward the west gate to take the troops in the rear, and
if they could drive the enemy out and hold that gate, the city would be in
Romulus’ hands.
It all went as it was planned. The headlong rush of the young chief and
his men, who were as active and sinewy as cats, took them through the main
gate and over the walls almost at the same moment. They had brought slim
tree trunks with the nubs of the branches left on, for ladders, and
rawhide ropes on which they could swarm up over the walls in half a dozen
places at a time. The soldiers were completely taken by surprise, and many
surrendered at once. The invaders were in the public square and pushing
into the palace of the chief almost before the bewildered and terrified
people found out what had happened. Romulus himself was the first to enter
the private rooms of Amulius, and there he found the old chief dying from
a spear wound in the breast. The captain of his guard had killed him and
then offered his sword to Romulus in the hope of being the first to gain
favor.
“A man who is false to one master will be false to two,” said Romulus,
with a flash like lightning in his dark eyes. He ordered the captain bound
and turned over to his grandfather, when he should arrive, for judgment.
This was not the sort of timber he wanted for an army. If the captain had
surrendered, it would have been very well, but to kill his master in his
room, unarmed, for a reward, was black treachery, and it was not the young
chieftain’s plan to encourage either traitors or cowards.
From the steps of the palace he sent the triple drum roll sounding through
the gray light of a rainy morning, and heard it answered by the battle
shout of the young men of the colony, as they came charging into the gate,
and by the shrill piercing music of the pipes from the company Remus led.
The three companies met in the square, keeping order and rank as if it
were a game, and as they saw their leader standing in the doorway in the
red flame of the torches, they shouted the triple shout of victory.
Standing there in his armor, above the savage confusion, the white faces
of the people uplifted to him from the crowded streets, he looked every
inch a chieftain. He beckoned his brother to his side, and lifted his
sword, and all was still.
“Ye who know what Amulius did in the days of his brother Numa,” he began,
“know now that he is dead.
“Ye who know that he killed his own sons for fear they should grow up and
rebel against him, fear him no more, for he is dead.
“Ye who have been bowed down with the burden of his cruelty and his greed,
rise up and stand straight like men, for he is dead.
“Ye, the gods of his fathers and mine, who know what he was in his
lifetime, I call on ye to judge whether his slayer did well to kill him,
for he is dead.
“Ye, the people of the Long White Mountain, who have heard the name of
Romulus and the name of Remus, know now that we are the children whom he
would have slain after he had killed our father and our mother, and that
we were saved by a wolf of Mars to live and rule our own people now that
Amulius is dead.
“Ye, the people of Alba Longa, of the ancient home of our race, take Numa
for your chief now, and be loyal to him and serve him, for he who took the
right from him is dead!”
There was an instant’s pause, and then shouts of “Numa! Numa!” broke from
the people. If Romulus had claimed the place for himself they would have
shouted his name just as readily, but this was not Romulus’ plan at all.
The headship of this people belonged to his grandfather Numa, and there
was no question about it. Until the old man was dead, he was the rightful
chief, and for his grandsons to push into his place would simply be the
same high-handed robbery Amulius had committed. The brothers were his
heirs, and they could wait and rule over their own city until they had the
right to rule here.
This did away with the last bit of resistance. The remainder of the army
was only too glad to surrender, and messengers were sent off to tell Numa
the good news and bring him home in triumph to his own place. When they
had welcomed him, they would come to the hill beside the river and found
their own city.
It was a day long to be remembered when the Romans returned, the young men
marching lightly with laughter and singing, their young leaders in the
van. The people went out to meet them with music and rejoicing, and there
was a great feast in the colony. But to Colonus the most precious moment
of that day—not even excepting the first sight of his own son Marcus—was
that in which the young and victorious Romulus came to him where he stood
with Tullius the priest, and knelt before them, saying,
“Tell me that I have done well, my fathers, for without your approval the
rest is nothing. Have I proved myself worthy to found our city, O ye who
know the law?”
[Illustration: Then they blessed him and crowned him with the victor’s
crown of laurel]
Then they blessed him and crowned him with the victor’s crown of laurel.
The outlaw had found his own people.