Was it actually so? Did the Germans stand indeed before the gates of
Juvavum?
The burghers racked their brains in tormenting uncertainty. They could
learn nothing more at present of what had happened without the walls;
the mouth that might have given farther information was silent for
ever.
The gates were kept carefully shut. When the news first reached the
Capitol, Leo, the Tribune, had sprung from his couch, "To horse!" cried
he; "out, before the walls!" But with a cry of pain he had sunk back in
the arms of his slave; and he did not wish to entrust to another the
dangerous enterprise of a nightly reconnaissance outside the gates,
against an enemy certainly far superior in numbers. Severus, the
commander of the volunteers in the town, had only infantry at his
disposal. With these alone, he could not and would not advance against
the barbarians in the night. He contented himself with occupying the
towers and gates. The strengthened guard on the ramparts watched and
listened attentively in the mild night air; but there was nothing
unusual to be observed, no light in the neighbourhood, no camp-fires in
the distance, which the advancing Germans, with wives and children,
men-servants and maidens, with herds, carts and waggons, certainly
could not dispense with, and which it was not their custom to
extinguish either from prudence or fear. No noise was heard, neither
the clang of arms, nor the hoof-strokes of horses; only the regular,
gentle murmuring of the stream, which hastened through the valley from
south to north, struck on the ears of the watchers. A burgher once
thought he heard a noise in the direction of the river, like the gentle
neighing of a horse, and a splash of the waves, as if a heavy body had
fallen or sprung into the stream; but he convinced himself that he had
been deceived, for everything remained still as before.
The nightingales sang in the bushes around the villas; their
undisturbed song testified, as one rightly judged, that neither
waggons, horses, nor warriors were in movement there.
So to gain information they turned again to the corpse of the horseman,
and to his steed, yet trembling in every limb.
They saw that the horse had swum the stream, man and horse were running
with water. Why had not the fugitive made use of the bridge below the
town? Because he did not know if it were occupied? or because he did
not wish to do so? Because he had striven to bring his news the most
direct road? He had no other wound than that in the neck, caused by the
deadly arrow, from which the blood had flowed over his shoulder and
shieldless left arm. It was undoubtedly a missile like those the
Germans carried; the three-barbed point had entered very deeply, the
shot was given at a close range; the long shaft of alder-wood was
winged with the feathers of the gray heron; the blade of his long
cavalry sword was missing, the leather sheath hung empty at the right
side of his girth; the spear, which the closed right hand still
grasped, was broken at the first iron clasp by which the point was
attached, by a powerful blow from a battle-axe, not from a sword; so
that the rider had lost in close combat, helmet, shield, sword, and
spear, and in flight had received the arrow shot by his pursuer. The
dead man could be questioned no more.
But what had become of his comrades in arms?
Leo, the Tribune, had the day before sent out five of the Moorish
cavalry to take possession of a hill, two hours' journey north-west of
the town, which commanded a view of the country as far as the thick
forest to the north. A half-fallen watch-tower stood there, which had
last been repaired and occupied in the time of the Emperor Valentinian
I., now a hundred years ago.
What had become of the other four Moors?
Nobody knew.
The citizens passed an anxious night. The watch went their rounds on
the ramparts with torches, and small fires burnt at the spots where
broad flagstones covered the surface of the earth and turf.
The fires were extinguished at dawn of the early June morning; the
sentinels looked carefully out into the country in the full morning
light; there was nowhere a trace of the enemy.
Peasants came as usual from all parts into the town to sell or to buy.
They were astonished to find the gates closed. They were allowed to
pass in singly, all being carefully examined to see if they were
trustworthy people or spies, perhaps even barbarians in disguise.
But the inoffensive peasants were terrified at this unusual sharpness
of the gate-watch; to question them was without rhyme or reason. They
evidently knew nothing, and were much more zealous and anxious to
inquire in the town what had taken place.
From the north-west, in the direction of Vindelicia, from which the
approach of the barbarians was expected, the country people had come
in, as usual, in numbers; they had observed nothing suspicious. But
from the south-east hardly anyone came. It excited no remark, few
villas and houses lay that way, and it was only seldom that a
frequenter of the market came from thence. One might have considered
the fright of the previous evening as a dream, only the dead horseman
was a silent witness to its actuality.
The first hours of the day passed away without any threatening
indications; there was no enemy visible even in the far distance; the
bridge over the Ivarus below the town (a second joined the two banks
within the walls) was seen to be unoccupied.
As the Tribune was still kept a prisoner in the Capitol by the accident
to his knee, Severus ordered the Vindelician gate to be opened; he went
with a company to the bridge, caused the end on the left, western bank
to be barricaded with pieces of rock and timber, left there thirty
spearmen and slingers, and then returned to the town quite satisfied
that there was no trace of the enemy. But the old soldier did not relax
his watchfulness; he ordered the gates to be kept closed and the towers
garrisoned, and any occurrence was to be notified immediately to him in
the Bath of Amphitrite, whither he now went, to wash away the cares of
the night and the heat and dust of the march.
After having fully enjoyed the bath, he sat comfortably on the soft
woollen rug covering the marble seat, which formed a semicircle around
the porphyry bath, rubbing now arms, and now legs, from the hip to the
knee.
This man of about fifty-five years was a model of healthy and vigorous
strength; his limbs showed that the practice of the hunt and gymnastics
had developed the power of his strongly-formed body.
He now ceased his movements, and sank gradually into deep thought. His
head fell deeper and deeper on his breast; at last he extended his
right arm and began to draw figures in the clean white sand, which
covered the space between the marble seat and the edge of the bath.
"Must rank our men still deeper against the German wedge," murmured he
to himself. "Ten men--twelve men deep. No, they don't waver yet. And
yet--it must be just a question of arithmetic to defeat these Germans.
It is only a problem of stroke and counter-stroke. Who may solve it? It
would be best"----
"It would be best," broke in gently a melancholy voice, "that we lay in
our last long sleep, where there is no longer either stroke or
counterstroke."
Severus turned; the white woollen curtain of the inner bath was moved
aside; a handsome man in the strength of youth, and fully armed, stood
behind it.
"Thou, Cornelius! What meanest thou?"
"Thou knowest my meaning. The best for man is not to have been born."
"Shame on thee! thirty years old, and already so tired of life."
"Shame on _thee_! Nearly sixty years, and still so foolishly fond of
life."
"What dost thou bring?"
"Advice: evacuate the town, all the citizens to the Capitol. An express
messenger over the Alps for help."
"Thou seest spectres!"
"Ah! If I saw only _them_! But I see the Germans!"
"There is no trace of them far and wide."
"It is exactly that which is mysterious. They must be near, quite near;
and no one knows where they are."
"_Why_ must they be quite near?"
"Because the gray heron does not go southwards in the month of June;
and because he never flies so low."
"What has that to say to it?"
"I will tell you. I was making the midnight round to relieve the guard
at the Porta Latina. From the battlements of the tower I looked out
sharply into the night. Nothing was to be seen, and nothing to be
heard, except the song of the nightingale. Then suddenly I heard the
cry of the gray heron."
"They are not numerous here," said Severus; "but they do appear in the
stagnant waters and in the marshes of the Ivarus."
"Certainly; but the cry did not come from the river; it sounded on this
side of the stream, out of the mountain forest."
"Making an eyrie there, perhaps."
"It was the _migratory call_. And they migrate in August. And after the
first call there was a second, a third, a fourth answer, till the
sounds died away in the distance."
"The echo from the hills!"
"That is conceivable. But the cry did not come from high in the air; it
came from below, from the ground, up to me on the battlements of the
tower. The heron does not fish at night."
The old man smiled pleasantly. "Do, my Cornelius, believe the old
huntsman. It fishes at night when it has a brood to feed. I have myself
caught one in the morning in the fishing-net which I had set the
evening before."
"But that arrow was winged with the feathers of the--gray heron. And as
often as the heron called, there answered still deeper out of the
eastern forest the shrill cry of the black eagle."
"Accident! And how could the Germans come here from the east? From the
west, from Vindelicia only, could the Alemanni come, who are the
nearest Germans to us. How could they have crossed the river unnoticed,
unless they have wings, like the gray heron himself? Foresight is very
praiseworthy, my young friend, and thou seest I am not wanting in
vigilance. But thou art too anxious; youth and age have exchanged their
_role_, I know," hastened Severus to add, as an angry look flashed
across the handsome face of the young man, "I know Cornelius Ambiorix
is only anxious for Rome, not for himself."
"Why should I be anxious about a life that has no charm and no value?"
asked the other, again composed, and sitting down by the old man. "The
philosophy of the sceptics has destroyed the old gods for us; and I
cannot believe in the Jew of Nazareth. A blind fate guides the world.
Rome--my pride, my dream--sinks, sinks irretrievably."
"Thou errest there," answered the other, quite composed. "I would
to-day throw myself on this sword"--he grasped the weapon which lay
near him on a cushion--"if I shared thy belief. But this sword--it is
inherited from my imperial ancestor, Probus--gives me always fresh
encouragement. Nine German kings knelt before that hero's tent, when he
drew this sword out of the scabbard, and commanded the trembling ones,
according to their own custom, to swear allegiance by the sword. And
they swore it."
"That is long ago."
"And with this sword is also bequeathed in our family the oracular
promise: 'This sword is conqueror in every battle.' It has been proved
in many generations of our house. I myself, while I was allowed to
serve, had defeated the Germans in twenty battles and fights, with this
sword." And the old man pressed the weapon tenderly to his breast.
"Pardon, if I correct thee," said the young man, smiling sadly; "not
with this sword, but with Isaurians, Moors, Illyrians, and, most of
all, with Germans, hast thou other Germans conquered. Rome, Latium,
Italy has no more men. There are no more Romans. Celtic blood flows in
my veins, Dacian in thine. And why canst thou no longer serve? Because
thou hast often conquered, the mistrustful Emperor has taken the
general's staff from thy hand, and in gratitude for thy services sent
thee here in honourable banishment."
"It was very--undeserved," said Severus, rising; "but no matter! I can
be of use to the Roman state here also."
"Too late!" sighed the other. "_Fuimus Troes!_ It is over with us. Asia
to the Parthians, Europe to the Germans, and to us--destruction. It
seems to me that each people, as each man, lives out its life. Twelve
centuries have gone by since Romulus was suckled by the she-wolf. We
must allow that she had good milk--the venerable beast--and the wolf's
blood in our veins has lasted long. But now it is diseased, and the
baptismal water has utterly ruined it. How can the government of the
world be maintained, when hardly any Roman marries, and the few
children that are born are not suckled by the mothers, while these
broad-hipped German women are filling the land with their numerous
progeny. They literally eat us up, these forest people; they dispossess
us from the earth more through their chaste fruitfulness than by their
deadly courage. Three hundred and forty thousand Goths did the Emperor
Claudius destroy; in four years after there stood four hundred thousand
in the field. They grow like the heads of the Hydra. And we have no
Hercules. I have had enough of it. I shall bring it to an end in the
next battle. One does not suffer long after a blow from a German
battle-axe."
Severus seized the hand of the young man who had spoken so bitterly. "I
honour thy sorrow, Cornelius, but thou shouldest act according to thy
own words: thy Thalamos stands empty; thou must again make Hymen sound
forth under the gray pillars."
"Ha!" laughed the young man fiercely, "that a second Emperor may entice
away from me a second spouse, as a bishop the first bride, an Emperor
the first wife led astray? No! truly there are no more Romans; but
still fewer Roman women. Pleasure, love of ornament, and love of power,
are the three Graces whom they invoke. Have you ever heard that the
priests among these barbarians befool the young girls? or their kings
entice wives from the hearths of their free husbands? I have not. But a
people without gods, without native warriors, without true wives,
without children--such a people can no longer live. A people that has
every reason to tremble before its own slaves, ten times more numerous
than itself! If thou hadst only seen the murderous dark looks with
which the slaves of Zeno, the usurer, threatened their lord and the
slave-master, as they were just now driven in chains through the
street! But I myself? How stands it with me? I have been everywhere,
and held many different offices in Rome, in Ravenna, in Byzantium:
soldier, magistrate, writer--all with success; and yet I found it
all--vain, hollow. I have tried everything, it is all naught. Now,
returned home to the town of my fathers, I find it ruled by a usurer
from Byzantium and a sensualist and brawler from Mauritania; and the
only one who still makes any opposition to this alliance, is not
_thou_, and not _I_; we are only two honourable Romans! no: a Christian
priest, whose fatherland, as he boasts, is not the Roman Empire, but
heaven!--I have had enough of it!--I say it again: a people without
gods, without wives, without mothers, without children--a people whose
battles are fought by levied barbarians--such a people can no longer
live! It must die; and that soon. Come, then, come, ye Alemanni! I
cannot swallow hemlock. I will fall with the clang of the tuba, and
imagine that I am falling under Camillus or Scipio."
Cornelius was wildly excited. Severus seized him by both shoulders:
"Promise me not to seek death until you see the next battle lost, and
that you will be willing to live if we conquer."
Cornelius nodded, sadly smiling, "I think I can boldly promise that.
Thou and thy conquering sword--you will no longer keep back the quickly
approaching ruin."
At this moment a shrill blast from the tuba struck on their ear. The
curtain of the inner bath was torn aside; an armed burgher rushed in
and cried: "Hasten, Severus; now they are coming. German horsemen are
galloping hither out of the western forest on the other side of the
river!"