DANGERS AHEAD.
The winter that followed the departure of the legions was a busy time with
the Count. He was now almost the only representative of Roman power in
Southern Britain, and the villa on the island became a place of
considerable importance. A military force of some strength was gathered
there. Constantine’s enterprise was not universally popular, and many had
taken any chance that offered itself of escaping from it. Some had
reached, or very nearly reached, the end of their time of service, and
claimed their discharge; others were known to be loyal to Rome, and were
allowed to retire. Not a few of those who found themselves without home or
employment, and did not happen to have friends or kinsfolk in Britain,
rallied to the Count. The families, too, of some that had gone with the
legions were glad to claim such shelter and protection as the
neighbourhood of the villa could give. Among these were the wife and
daughters of the Centurion Decius; the old mother had steadily refused to
accompany them, and, with an aged dependent of nearly the same age,
continued to occupy the house near the deserted camp. It was an anxious
matter with the Count what was to be done with these helpless people.
While things were quiet they could live safely, if not very comfortably,
in the neighbouring village; but if trouble were to come—and there were
several quarters from which it might come—they would have to be sheltered
somewhere in the villa. This never could be made into a really strong
place; but it might serve well enough for a time and against ordinary
attack. Some of the outbuildings and domestic offices were fortified as
well as the position admitted; such material of war as could be got was
accumulated, and provisions also were stored. The most reliable resource,
however, was in the ships of war. These were not, as was usual, drawn up
on the beach for the winter, but were kept at anchor, ready for immediate
use.
Nor were these precautions unnecessary, for indeed, as we shall see,
mischief of a very formidable kind was brewing, and indeed had been
brewing ever since the departure of the legions, and even before that
event. And it was mischief of a kind of which it may safely be affirmed
that neither the Count nor any Roman official, had any notion. Britain, to
all appearance, had for many generations been thoroughly subdued. Any
Roman, if he had been told that there was any danger of rebellion among
the Britons, would have laughed the suggestion to scorn. The legions,
indeed, had often been mutinous and turbulent, and their generals
ambitious and unscrupulous. The island indeed had gained so bad a
reputation for loyalty to the Empire that it had been called the mother of
tyrants, by “tyrant” being meant “usurper.” But whenever Rome had been
defied, she had been defied by her own troops. The Britons had enlisted in
the rebel armies, but they had never attempted to assert anything like
British independence. And yet the tradition of independence and liberty
had always been kept alive. The Celtic race is singularly tenacious of
such ideas, and also singularly skilful in concealing them from those who
are its masters for the time, and the Britons were Celts of the purest
blood. Caradoc(33) and Boadicea, and other heroes and heroines of British
independence, were household words in many families which were yet
thoroughly Roman in spirit and manners. Just as the Christianized Jews of
Spain, though to all appearances devout worshippers at church, still clung
in secret to the rites of their own worship, so these loyal subjects of
the Empire, as all the world believed them, cherished in their hearts the
memory of the free Britain of the past and the hope of a free Britain in
the future. And the time was now at hand when their leaders thought that
this hope might be fulfilled.
The Shanklin Chine of to-day is not a little different from the Shanklin
Chine of fifteen hundred years ago. It has, so to speak, been subdued and
civilized. Now it is a very pretty and pleasant wood; then it was an
almost impenetrable thicket, a noted lair of elk and wild boar.
Inaccessible, however, as it seemed to any one who surveyed it from above,
there was for those who were in the secret a way of approaching its
recesses. A little path, the beginning of which it was almost impossible
to discover without a guide, led up from the sea-end of the ravine to a
hut which had been constructed about half way up the ascent. It consisted
of a single chamber, about fourteen feet long, ten broad, and not more
than seven in height, and was constructed of roughly-hewn logs, the
interstices of which were filled with clay. The walls, however, were not
visible, for they were covered with hangings of a dark blue material,
something like serge. The floor was strewn with rushes. In the centre of
the apartment there was a hearth, having over it an aperture in the roof,
not, however, opening directly into the outer air, by which the smoke
might escape. On this hearth two or three logs were smouldering with a
dull heat which it would have been easy to fan into flame. There were two
windows unglazed, but closed with rough wooden lattices.
On three settles, roughly but strongly made of oak, which, with a
rudely-polished slab of wood that served for table, constituted all the
furniture of the hut, sat three confederates, and behind each stood a
stalwart attendant armed with a wicker shield which hung from his neck,
and a long Gallic sword. The three chiefs were curiously different in
appearance. One, as far, at least, as dress and manner were concerned,
might have passed anywhere for a genuine Roman. He was taller, it is true,
than the Romans commonly were; and his complexion, though dark rather than
fair, had a ruddier hue than was often seen under the more glowing skin of
Italy; still he might have walked down the Sacred Way or the Saburra(34)
unnoticed save as an exceptionally handsome man, of that fair beauty which
the southern nations especially admire. His hair was carefully curled and
perfumed; his face as carefully shaven, and showing no trace of beard,
moustache, or whisker. His toga of brilliant white, his long-sleeved tunic
of some dark purple stuff, his elegant sandals, were all such as a dandy
of the Palatine might have worn. The one thing which would have been
singular in a Roman street was the under-garment reaching to his knees,
which he had assumed in consideration of the cold and wet of the insular
climate. His fingers were loaded with rings, one of them a sapphire of
unusual size, on which was engraved a likeness of the feeble features of
the Emperor Honorius; on his left wrist might be seen a bracelet of gold.
If Martianus—for that was the name of the personage whom we have been
describing—might have been easily mistaken for a Roman, the chief who sat
facing him on the opposite side of the hearth was as manifestly a Briton.
His hair fell over his shoulders in long natural curls which suggested no
suspicion of the barber’s or the perfumer’s art. His upper lip was covered
with a moustache which drooped to his chin. His body was covered with a
sleeveless coat skilfully made of otters’ skins. Both arms were bare, and
were plentifully painted with woad. On his legs he wore a garment
something like the “trews” or short trowsers which the Highland regiments
sometimes wear in lieu of the kilt; his feet were enveloped in rude boots
of hide which were laced round his ankles. His ornaments were a massive
chain of twisted gold, which he wore round his neck, and a single ring,
rudely wrought of British gold, in which was set a British pearl of
immense size but indifferent hue. He had a Roman name, as he could on
occasion wear Roman costume, and speak the Latin tongue. In the present
company he was known and addressed by his native name of Ambiorix.
[Illustration: British Conspirators.]
The third conspirator had the appearance of a middle-class provincial. He
wore the tunic that formed part of a Roman’s ordinary dress, but not the
toga, which was replaced by a garment somewhat resembling a short cloak.
But under the garb of a well-to-do townsman was concealed a very
remarkable career and character. Carausius—for this was the name by which
he was generally known—was one of the last representatives of the ancient
Druid priesthood. The glory and power of this remarkable caste, which had
once held itself superior to the kings of Britain, were departed. Indeed,
it was almost dangerous to hold the ancient faith, and practise the
ancient worship. Since the publication of the edict by which Constantine
had made Christianity the Imperial religion, the adherents of the old
religion had become fewer and feebler. Some of the chiefs and nobles still
held it in secret, or were, at least, ready to return to it, if it should
ever again become powerful; but its adherents were mostly to be found
among the poorer classes. Even these in the towns were, in name at least,
mostly Christians; it was only the dwellers in the remoter and wilder
parts of the country that remained faithful. But these scattered adherents
revered the name of Carausius, who was believed to possess all the wisdom
of his class, and was indeed credited with mysterious powers over nature
and the gift of prophecy. From the Roman population all this was a secret,
and the secret was remarkably well kept. Carausius was supposed to be
nothing more than an ordinary farmer. His Roman neighbours would have been
astonished in the last degree if they could have seen him presiding at one
of the Druid ceremonies, in his white robes curiously embroidered with
mystic figures, his chaplet of golden oak-leaves, and the headless spear,
which was to him what the crozier was to a Christian bishop.