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THE BRASS BELL
OR
THE CHARIOT OF DEATH
A Tale of Caesar's Gallic Invasion
By EUGENE SUE
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH BY
SOLON DE LEON
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY, 1907
NEW EDITION 1916
COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY THE
NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.
PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION
_The Brass Bell_; or, _The Chariot of Death_ is the second of Eugene
Sue's monumental serial known under the collective title of _The
Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the
Ages_.
The first story--_The Gold Sickle; or, Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of
Sen_--fittingly preludes the grand drama conceived by the author. There
the Gallic people are introduced upon the stage of history in the
simplicity of their customs, their industrious habits, their bravery,
lofty yet childlike--such as they were at the time of the Roman invasion
by Caesar, 58 B. C. The present story is the thrilling introduction to
the class struggle, that starts with the conquest of Gaul, and, in the
subsequent seventeen stories, is pathetically and instructively carried
across the ages, down to the French Revolution of 1848.
D. D. L.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Preface to the Translation
Chapter 1. The Conflagration 1
Chapter 2. In the Lion's Den 8
Chapter 3. Gallic Virtue 24
Chapter 4. The Trial 35
Chapter 5. Into the Shallows 41
Chapter 6. The Eve of Battle 52
Chapter 7. The Battle of Vannes 59
Chapter 8. After the Battle 80
Chapter 9. Master and Slave 88
Chapter 10. The Last Call to Arms 102
Chapter 11. The Slaves' Toilet 107
Chapter 12. Sold into Bondage 115
Chapter 13. The Booth across the Way 126
FOOTNOTES
CHAPTER I.
THE CONFLAGRATION.
The call to arms, sounded by the druids of the forest of Karnak and by
the Chief of the Hundred Valleys against the invading forces of the
first Caesar, had well been hearkened to.
The sacrifice of Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, seemed pleasing to
Hesus. All the peoples of Brittany, from North to South, from East to
West, rose to combat the Romans. The tribes of the territory of Vannes
and Auray, those of the Mountains of Ares, and many others, assembled
before the town of Vannes, on the left bank, close to the mouth of the
river which empties into the great bay of Morbihan. This redoubtable
position where all the Gallic forces were to meet, was situated ten
leagues from Karnak, and had been chosen by the Chief of the Hundred
Valleys, who had been elected Commander-in-Chief of the army.
Leaving behind them their fields, their herds, and their dwellings, the
tribes were here assembled, men and women, young and old, and were
encamped round about the town of Vannes. Here also were Joel, his
family, and his tribe.
Albinik the mariner, together with his wife Meroe left the camp towards
sunset, bent on an errand of many days' march. Since her marriage with
Albinik, Meroe; was the constant, companion of his voyages and dangers
at sea, and like him, she wore the seaman's costume. Like him she knew
at a pinch how to put her hand to the rudder, to ply the oar or the axe,
for stout was her heart, and strong her arm.
In the evening, before leaving the Gallic army, Meroe dressed herself in
her sailor's garments--a short blouse of brown wool, drawn tight with a
leather belt, large broad breeches of white cloth, which fell below her
knees, and shoes of sealskin. She carried on her left shoulder her
short, hooded cloak, and on her flowing hair was a leathern bonnet. By
her resolute air, the agility of her step, the perfection of her sweet
and virile countenance, one might have taken Meroe for one of those
young men whose good looks make maidens dream of marriage. Albinik also
was dressed as a mariner. He had flung over his back a sack with
provisions for the way. The large sleeves of his blouse revealed his
left arm, wrapped to the elbow in a bloody bandage.
Husband and wife had left Vannes for some minutes, when Albinik,
stopping, sad and deeply moved, said to Meroe:
"There is still time--consider. We are going to beard the lion in his
den. He is tricky, distrustful and savage. It may mean for us slavery,
torture, or death. Meroe, let me finish alone this trip and this
enterprise, beside which a desperate fight would be but a trifle. Return
to my father and mother, whose daughter you are also!"
"Albinik, you had to wait for the darkness of night to say that to me.
You would not see me blush with shame at the thought of your thinking
me a coward;" and the young woman, while making this answer, instead of
turning back, only hastened her step.
"Let it be as your courage and your love for me bid," replied her
husband. "May Hena, my holy sister, who is gone, protect us at the side
of Hesus."
The two continued their way along the crests of a chain of lofty hills.
They had thus at their feet and before their eyes a succession of deep
and fertile valleys. As far as eye could reach, they saw here villages,
yonder small hamlets, elsewhere isolated farms; further off rose a
flourishing town crossed by an arm of the river, in which were moored,
from distance to distance, large boats loaded with sheaves of wheat,
casks of wine, and fodder.
But, strange to say, although the evening was clear, not a single one of
those large herds of cattle and of sheep was to be seen, which
ordinarily grazed there till nightfall. No more was there a single
laborer in sight on the fields, although it was the hour when, by every
road, the country-folk ordinarily began to return to their homes; for
the sun was fast sinking. This country, so populous the preceding
evening, now seemed deserted.
The couple halted, pensive, contemplating the fertile lands, the
bountifulness of nature, the opulent city, the hamlets, and the houses.
Then, recollecting what they knew was to happen in a few moments, soon
as the sun was set and the moon risen, Albinik and Meroe; shivered with
grief and fear. Tears fell from their eyes, they sank to their knees,
their eyes fixed with anguish on the depths of the valleys, which the
thickening evening shade was gradually invading. The sun had
disappeared, but the moon, then in her decline, was not yet up. There
was thus, between sunset and the rising of the moon, a rather long
interval. It was a bitter one for husband and wife; bitter, like the
certain expectation of some great woe.
"Look, Albinik," murmured the young woman to her spouse, although they
were alone--for it was one of those awful moments when one speaks low in
the middle of a desert--"just look, not a light: not one in these
houses, hamlets, or the town. Night is come, and all within these
dwellings is gloomy as the night without."
"The inhabitants of this valley are going to show themselves worthy of
their brothers," answered Albinik reverently. "They also wish to respond
to the voice of our venerable druids, and to that of the Chief of the
Hundred Valleys."
"Yes; by the terror which is now come upon me, I feel we are about to
see a thing no one has seen before, and perhaps none will see again."
"Meroe, do you catch down there, away down there, behind the crest of
the forest, a faint white glimmer!"
"I do. It is the moon, which will soon be up. The moment approaches. I
feel terror-stricken. Poor women! Poor children!"
"Poor laborers; they lived so long, happy on this land of their fathers:
on this land made fertile by the labor of so many generations! Poor
workmen; they found plenty in their rude trades! Oh, the unfortunates!
the unfortunates! But one thing equals their great misfortune, and that
is their great heroism. Meroe! Meroe!" exclaimed Albinik, "the moon is
rising. That sacred orb of Gaul is about to give the signal for the
sacrifice."
"Hesus! Hesus!" cried the young woman, her cheeks bathed in tears, "your
wrath will never be appeased if this last sacrifice does not calm you."
The moon had risen radiant among the stars. She flooded space with so
brilliant a light that Albinik and his wife could see as in full day,
and as far as the most distant horizon, the country that stretched at
their feet.
Suddenly, a light cloud of smoke, at first whitish, then black,
presently colored with the red tints of a kindling fire, rose above one
of the hamlets scattered in the plain.
"Hesus! Hesus!" exclaimed Meroe. Then, hiding her face in the bosom of
her husband who was kneeling near her, "You spoke truly. The sacred orb
of Gaul has given the signal for the sacrifice. It is fulfilled."
"Oh, liberty!" cried Albinik, "Holy liberty!----"
He could not finish. His voice was smothered in tears, and he drew his
weeping wife close in his arms.
Meroe did not leave her face hidden in her husband's breast any longer
than it would take a mother to kiss the forehead, mouth, and eyes, of
her new born babe, but when she again raised her head and dared to look
abroad, it was no longer only one house, one village, one hamlet, one
town in that long succession of valleys at their feet that was
disappearing in billows of black smoke, streaked with red gleams. It was
all the houses, all the villages, all the hamlets, all the towns in the
laps of all those valleys, that the conflagration was devouring. From
North to South, from East to West, all was afire. The rivers themselves
seemed to roll in flame under their grain and forage-laden barges, which
in turn took fire, and sank in the waters.
The heavens were alternately obscured by immense clouds of smoke, or
reddened with innumerable columns of fire. From one end to the other,
the panorama was soon nothing but a furnace, an ocean of flame.
Nor were the houses, hamlets, and towns of only these valleys given over
to the flames. It was the same in all the regions which Albinik and
Meroe had traversed in one night and day of travel, on their way from
Vannes to the mouth of the Loire, where was pitched the camp of
Caesar.[1]
All this territory had been burned by its inhabitants, and they
abandoned the smoking ruins to join the Gallic army, assembled in the
environs of Vannes. Thus the voice of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys
had been obeyed--the command repeated from place to place, from village
to village, from city to city:
"In three nights, at the hour when the moon, the sacred orb of Gaul
shall rise, let all the countryside, from Vannes to the Loire, be set on
fire. Let Caesar and his army find in their passage neither men nor
houses, nor provisions, nor forage, but everywhere, everywhere cinders,
famine, desolation, and death."
It was done as the druids and the Chief of the Hundred Valleys had
ordered.[2]
The two travelers, who witnessed this heroic devotion of each and all to
the safety of the fatherland, had thus seen a sight no one had ever seen
in the past; a sight which perhaps none will ever see in the future.
Thus were expiated those fatal dissensions, those rivalries between
province and province, which for too long a time, and to the triumph of
their enemies, had divided the people of Gaul.