“Stand and face your lover, stand and face your lover,
Stand and face your lover
As you have done before!
Follow him to London, follow him to London,
Follow him to London
As you have done before!
In and out the window, in and out the window ...”
Coisha stood at the door of her father’s house, looking out along the
road; her father called her to come in and cook the dinner, but she
slipped out of sight round the corner of the wall and sat down. She was
going to have a baby, and she didn’t feel a bit like stooping over the
fire and carrying the heavy pots about. She picked a handful of daisies
and made a daisy-chain for her hair; she looked down at herself,
thinking that it hardly showed at all, and she wished he’d come back
before she began looking ugly. What was the good of wearing flowers with
no Lerrys there to see them, to lie at her feet and look up at her, to
kiss her hands and play with her hair? She wanted her man so badly! She
started crying, pulled off the daisies and tore them to bits; her father
called her again and she got up to go in; after all, she was still in
his power and he’d beat her if dinner wasn’t cooked.
She went over to the well and filled her pitcher; it gave her a stitch
carrying it back, but there was no one to help her now. Her father
growled at her as she started kneading the flour with skim-milk and fat,
and asked her what she was grizzling at. She wiped her eyes with the
back of her hand, streaking the flour across her face.
“When’s he coming back, father?”
He spat on the floor and went on mending his knife: “No saying if he
ever will. Worst thing I did in my life when I let that master of his
talk me round. As like as not we’ll never see him again, and I shall be
left with you and your brat on my hands. That’s what comes of marrying a
stranger!”
“I don’t believe you, father!”
“I don’t care if you believe me or not, but the Romans will be out of
Gaul, and the Province too, most like, before harvest. So you just find
some one else to marry, my girl.”
Coisha didn’t answer; she put the dough on to the griddle, and made her
father a dish of bacon and cheese and garlic; then she heaped the hot
scones on to a wooden dish and waited on him. Then she sat down herself,
and thought of Lerrys and the feel of his brown cheek against hers, and
wondered what was happening to him now.
She had her back to the door, so the first thing she saw was her father
jumping up, startled. But then she jumped up herself, and ran, and threw
her arms round her man’s neck; and he hugged her close up to him and
each felt the other straining nearer, warm and alive and beloved; their
hearts beat together.
Then Lerrys said, “I’ve two horses; can you ride, sweetheart?”
“Of course!” said she, “but am I really going with you? Oh, Lerrys, for
always?”
He nodded: “Get your things ready. We’re going to Rome.”
She ran in and Lerrys followed her and began eating scones.
“Here!” said her father, “are you taking her off for good? Who’s going
to look after my house?”
“You can get a woman fast enough, father,” said Lerrys. “She’s going to
cook my dinner now.”
“But what are you doing here? Has your master sent you off?”
“Yes. With enough money, too, and a letter to his grandfather. Never you
fear; I’ll keep Coisha well enough.”
“What’s your news about the war? Who’s winning?”
“Oh, Cæsar’ll win in the end; at least they say so. But he’s not winning
now.”
“Isn’t he! And me that all the world knows was for the Romans! See here,
Lerrys, I’m thinking of coming south myself.”
“Not with us,” said Lerrys firmly. And Coisha came back with her face
washed, a woollen cloak over her best dress and all her ornaments, and a
bundle under her arm.
“Good-bye, father,” she said; “the salt bag’s in the flour-bin and
there’s enough wood outside to last a week. I suppose you’ll get the
widow at the corner to help you, but see she doesn’t cut into the ham
for a bit yet.”
He kissed her gloomily, saying, “Good-bye, little daughter; do as your
husband tells you, and don’t forget your old father when you’re away in
foreign parts.”
Lerrys took the bundle and helped her into the saddle, and her father
went off to talk to the widow at the corner.
Dith had been left in the Province with the dealer for six months or so,
but then, when Titus found he couldn’t have him back yet, he was sent
down to Rome, to be one of Caius Barrus’ household for a time. He knew
he was going further and further from Britain; he was very lonely, and
if any one had been even a little kind to him he would have tried to
please them and do what he was told. But nobody was; in the gang they
had all been treated like cattle, and when he got to Rome and the great
stony house, it was no better. He had expected to find some one like his
own master, older perhaps, but at least a human being, a man to respect
and look up to while he served him. But he only saw the grandfather
once; for all practical purposes his master was the freedman Marses,
whom he certainly didn’t feel inclined to obey. His Latin was bad and he
was slow at getting into the quite new ways of the household, so every
one laughed at him and gave him the hardest and dirtiest work to do, and
bullied him right and left.
Every day he hated it more and more, and at last he flatly refused to
obey an order from Marses. “I won’t!” he said, “I won’t! My own master
wouldn’t make me, so I’m not going to!”
“Your own master indeed! I’m your master now, and I advise you not to
forget it.”
“You’re not! My master’s a soldier and you’ve never drawn a sword!
You’re not even freeborn and I am!”
Which was a very unfortunate thing to say, but Dith had kept his temper,
more or less, for nearly a month. Marses dealt with him very efficiently
that morning, and kept on a little every day afterwards: that was
usually the best way of making rebels fit into his scheme of life. Then
Dith remembered what the others had told him about slavery; the only
thing he held to was the hope that he might be sent for back to Gaul. He
was not allowed out of the house, and the news he heard was very scanty,
so he hardly realized that the war was keeping Titus too busy in the
north to think about his British slave. He went about saying, “Where’s
my master? When’s my master coming back?” till he became a standing joke
among the rest of the slaves. He developed a curious sort of loyalty,
this way, for the absent Titus--he had to have something to believe
in--and he had a fight with one of the old man’s Greek cup-bearers, who
had spoken disparagingly of the grandson. He won easily, but it did him
no good, because Caius Barrus heard and was angry, and had him sent off
to the country. So there he stayed all winter, out in the fields in
every weather, beaten and kicked and cursed, growing into a beast, his
spirit too broken to let him think or remember or hope: and he caught
unpleasant diseases from his companions, and got boils on his leg which
wouldn’t heal.
But one day late in spring, when some old cows and oxen were being
driven up into the Capital to be slaughtered and sold, he was called
away from the wood stack where he had been piling logs since dawn, his
hands were tied behind his back, and he was driven in with the beasts.
He wondered what it was all about, but nobody told him; the ox-herds
were all mounted, but he shambled along in the dust, rubbing shoulders
with the thin old cows. At sunset they got to the south-eastern gate of
Rome; there was the usual crowd hanging about it, soldiers and slaves
and farmers and tax-collectors; the herds stopped to water the cattle,
and Dith went over to the trough to drink with them. He dipped his head
under, shaking the dust out of his hair, and stood up, dripping; and
Lerrys was standing in front of him, looking horrified.
“Dith!” he said. “They’ve done this to you!” and untied his hands
quickly.
The herds ran up, but Lerrys showed them a seal, and they let him take
Dith away with him.
For a minute or two the Briton said nothing, then he put out a hand
timidly and touched Lerrys: “Are you going to take me away?” he asked.
“To my own home,” said Lerrys; and they went on through by-streets,
across Rome, and gradually Dith began to realize that he might be a man
again.
It had been a queer business for Lerrys, coming back this time; it took
them some weeks going south, with Coisha looking about her and
exclaiming as he pointed things out to her, and the warm, fine days, and
his news to give in all the villages. They had spent long, delightful
nights in small inns and farmhouses; with her there he had hardly room
in his heart to be anxious about Meromic and his master. But as they
got nearer the Capital he began to be silent and not to answer his
wife’s questions; it was all one long astonishment to her, a fairy-tale
coming true, great arches and tombs and palaces, marble and stone, and
hundreds of people all going the same way as themselves! She wished she
could tell all the girls she knew just what a wonderful place this man
of hers was taking her to! But Lerrys kept on feeling the little wallet
at his belt that held his money and Titus’ letter, and sometimes he laid
a hand lightly on Coisha. And over and over again he said to himself:
I’m a free man now; nobody’s going to whip me or chain me or abuse me,
not even Marses: because I’m free; and this is my wife, my very own
wife, and I’ve got the right to protect her and keep her: because I’m
free; and I’m not to be afraid of any one, not even Marses: because they
can’t do anything, because I’m free; and this is Rome and I can go where
I like and nobody can stop me, not even Marses: because I’m free!
They turned down towards the grandfather’s house; Lerrys dismounted and
Coisha held the horse while he went, dragging his feet, over to the
door; the doorkeeper did not recognize him, and spoke with a little
respect. He asked to wait in the hall till he could see the master of
the house; the horses were tethered, and he and Coisha sat down on a
bench and watched the work of the day going on. There were some new
faces, some old; but nobody knew him; perhaps they were kept too busy to
stare at strangers. Coisha had never seen her husband like this before;
even when she first met him and he was still a slave, he had never been
afraid of his master. She tapped his arm, sharply:
“Lerrys! You’re looking like nothing but a snared rabbit: you mustn’t!”
He shivered and sat up straight: “No, there’s no need now; I keep on
forgetting. But you don’t know, Coisha----” he gave a little gasp:
“There he is!” With a great effort he sat still; he was not going to be
humble, not even to Marses: because he was free.
Marses naturally looked at Coisha first, and she looked back at him
disdainfully, not thinking much of him; then he saw Lerrys--Lerrys who
was cursing himself because involuntarily his eyes dropped and he shrunk
into himself before that well-known frown. But he had made up his mind
to speak first, and so he did, pitching his voice much too high: “I’ve a
letter from Titus.”
“Give it here!” said Marses. “At once, I tell you!”
Lerrys clutched it to him: “No! It’s for his grandfather, not for you!”
“So that’s the way you speak now, is it? But I’ll teach you: I dare say
you’ve not forgotten me!”
“You can’t touch me!”
“Oh, I can’t, can’t I? You belong to the head of the family still. Stand
up and give me that letter.”
But Lerrys sat still: “I’m not afraid of you: because I’m free!”
“Your proof?”
“In that letter--which isn’t for you. Touch it if you dare!”
For a moment the Sicilian looked dangerous; he swung his head from side
to side and his eyes glittered; then, abruptly, he turned and went out.
Lerrys leant back, with his heart thumping hard, and saw that Coisha was
white and trembling; he put his arm round her and she snuggled up to him
with: “I don’t like him, I don’t, I don’t! Lerrys, are we really safe?
Are you sure?”
“Quite sure,” he answered, and all at once felt strong himself, now that
he had some one to protect.
A few minutes afterwards Marses came in again; he pointed at Coisha:
“Who’s that woman?”
“My wife, and don’t make any mistake about it!”
They followed him to the grandfather’s room, and Lerrys gave his letter.
Caius Barrus was no better pleased than his steward to find that this
slave had been freed, but at least there was the letter from Titus. He
asked Lerrys a number of questions and finally dismissed him with: “Very
well. While you are in my house I shall expect obedience from you; and
no camp manners. Marses, take them away and find a place for them.”
But Lerrys said, “I hope to be allowed to do you all a freedman’s
service, sir; but I have got a room near here for my wife and myself.”
Caius Barrus shrugged his shoulders and turned to his book; but, as
Lerrys was going, a little alarmed at his own daring, he called him
back: “I see this letter mentions a British slave who was sent here.”
“Yes, sir. I wanted to ask--we all liked him.”
“Hmm. I’m afraid my grandson’s swans are a little apt to turn out
geese.”
“Oh, sir, what’s happened to him?”
“He had a fight. I have just told you I dislike camp manners. However,
as my grandson wishes it, he can be sent for again.”
“Then--he’s down in the country?”
“Yes,” said Marses, “where you ought to be!”
Dith was sent for, and Lerrys went to see about the room he said he had
found. It took a little time, but at last he and Coisha installed
themselves in a big, low garret, under a tile roof, full of dust and
spiders and stray sunbeams. They got a mattress, a table, a couple of
stools, a basin and a pitcher, and some pieces of stuff and cooking
pots. Coisha scrubbed it all out and settled down delightedly to a home
of her own; Lerrys went with her at first to market--they had to be
careful of their money--but soon she picked up enough Latin to bargain
for fish and meal and onions, and make friends with the other women in
the tenement house, who all began to take an interest in her and give
her advice about the coming baby.
She would take her spinning or sewing down to them, or they would come
up and gossip and help her to cook: it was a few weeks before she got
into the way of using a charcoal stove. Half the time she sang at her
work, and then, when Lerrys came home, she would sit on his knee with
her cheek against his neck and her hands in his, blinking happily at the
warm summer dusk closing in all round them. He brought her growing
plants and she set them in the window and watered them, till soon she
had a little bower of leaves and buds; and she made herself a thin,
loose dress of bright green linen, that set off her red hair. But at the
end of about a fortnight Lerrys came back one evening with Dith, and
told her he was going to stop with them. She had never seen the Briton,
of course, but had often heard of him, and made him welcome because her
husband liked him; but he was a miserable sort of thing to bring into
their home, shock-headed, ragged, with sores all over, and so dirty you
couldn’t tell if he was dark or fair! He hardly spoke at all, and stared
at her good soup as if he’d never seen food before. He went to sleep
early in a corner of the garret and was still sleeping at noon the next
day, a heap of dirt and rags and matted hair.
“I’d as soon have a pig!” said Coisha, stirring the porridge. “He isn’t
going to live here always, is he?”
“I’m afraid he’s got to,” Lerrys answered. “If he went back to that
house now---- Look at his face, Coisha: can’t you see what he’s been
through already?”
And she was sorry for him, but she did hate having him in her nice
place.
But he got wonderfully cleaner in a day or two, and then he did all the
hard work, everything she told him, and did it at once too, with an
almost painful quickness; and took a scolding or a pail of dirty water
over his head without a word. And then quite suddenly she found she was
beginning to like him herself after all.
At first Dith had kept entirely to the garret and the big common yard of
the house; he was still afraid of all sorts of things. He saw almost at
once that he was very much in Coisha’s way, and he tried to do
everything he possibly could to please her; he was very glad when she
began to be friendly. He asked Lerrys about their master and Meromic; he
couldn’t understand how it was the Gaul was still there after being
freed. “Why didn’t he go?” he asked. “Why? He can’t choose to fight
against his own people! I don’t call that being free. And why don’t you
go back to your place?”
“I don’t want to, now,” said the Colchian.
“Well, I shan’t ever forget my country!”
Lerrys shook his head: “There’s all the difference between eleven years
and a year and a half. Go and fetch me that mallet, Dith.”
And the days went on, and the weather began to be very hot; Coisha found
she couldn’t work very much, and let the Briton do it all. Lerrys had
saved a certain amount of money, and he could always go and get one good
meal a day at the grandfather’s house, and perhaps bring something back;
but chiefly he and Dith made a living out of carpentry and odd jobs;
they got to know all the people in the quarter roundabout. Lerrys bought
a pair of pigeons; they lived in a wicker cage, and in a week or two
they got tame enough to be let out to fly about the room; Coisha was
never tired of watching them. One evening the hen pigeon escaped, but
Dith climbed out on to the roof and brought it back. She kissed its soft
white head: “Oh, you bad thing,” she cried, “to fly away and leave me!”
“I expect it wanted to go home,” said Lerrys. “They came from the hills,
a long way off. I don’t know how they remember; they might be men.”
Dith laughed sharply: “I thought men forgot!”
“Oh, you, Dith! You forgot to get me a new spindle to-day, anyhow!”
“No, I didn’t; it’s here.” He pulled it out and gave it to Coisha, who
put the pigeon back in its cage and took her wool over to the window to
get all the light there was. The two men were making a cradle of whitish
lime-wood; Lerrys was smoothing one of the rockers and Dith was carving
a panel for the foot. He had made a wheel shape in the middle and all
round it a curved trumpet pattern in high relief, then curls and small
circles that formed the tips of wavy triangles, and spiral bosses at the
corners; between the raised parts he was rubbing the wood with blue dye;
he wanted to have a different colour for each panel, but Lerrys wouldn’t
let him: “It ought to be all the same,” he said.
“But it would look fine, Lerrys! I couldn’t have got the colours in
Britain, but here one can get everything. There’s a stall in the market
with red and yellow and green and--oh, every sort and all so bright!
People don’t use it enough down here.”
“You only like it because you’ve never seen it before. Let me look at
your panel. What’s that you’ve done on the bottom?”
“That? Running horses--the Three: for luck.”
“They’re not very like horses.”
“They’re not meant to be. Things oughtn’t to be like. That big place you
took me to see--what was it called?”
“Oh, Pompey’s theatre.”
“Yes. Well, those figures there, they were like; but it was awful to see
them, they shouldn’t be allowed!”
“I think they’re beautiful. They’re gods and goddesses.”
“Then all the more reason not to make them that way! It’s not right. You
mustn’t make things; you must make something instead of them, like we do
in Britain. It may be quite different, but it’s really them when you
once know. Can’t you understand, Lerrys? Meromic understands. And I
don’t like the buildings: all those straight lines.”
“They look very strong.”
“Yes, but you could build them just as strong and not so straight; I’d
put patterns on them, and colours.”
“Would you? I think you’d be wrong. Look at that,”--he held up the
rocker--“it’s smooth and simple and it does what you want it to do. But
I like your carving all the same, and Coisha likes it too. I wish I
could carve myself.”
“I learnt when I was little. You have to grow up with it, and partly
worship it, I think. I made my own shield; that’s bronze work, but you
get the same feeling when you do it. I wish you could have seen my
shield.”
“Yes. But it ought to be a fine cradle.”
“It ought to be a fine baby too. But, Lerrys, there’s a lot about this
city I don’t understand. They make things straight, but they live
crooked. And we--we make things patterny, but we live simple. Why is
it?”
“I don’t know. There’s more like that too. Here they build great, fine
palaces with thick walls, and yet there’s sunshine all day; and in your
island, where it’s always raining, you live in mud huts.”
“We make very good houses!” said the Briton indignantly. Then Lerrys got
up to light the lamp, and Coisha brought over her spinning, and glanced
at the cradle, smiling to herself.
* * * * *
And things were happening fast in Gaul. The Hæduans were coming over;
they had made up their minds at last. Gergovia had decided them:
Vercingetorix was the winning side. They called him into their own
territory to consult with them, and he went very willingly, though some
of his friends were afraid of treachery. He was half expecting what
happened: the Hæduan chiefs and magistrates demanded, as the price of
their arms, that they should take over the generalship of the Gallic
forces from him, and give it to one of themselves. He had his answer
prepared; he said he would submit to the ruling of the Council of the
Chiefs: let them assemble it where and how they pleased. His own
indignant followers would have had him reject the proposal outright, but
he knew better; he would have the common will behind him, and then the
Gods would be favourable. So the Hæduans summoned the Gallic Council to
meet in five days at Bibracte, in the heart of their own land, a steep,
windy town, full of metal-workers’ forges, and horse and slave dealers.
It was a brilliant, hot day that brought the thought of victory; the
people of Bibracte ran out from all their houses to see the chiefs come
riding in, armed and helmeted. First came the chief magistrate of the
Hæduans, the head of the state; then came more Hæduans, and among them,
their guest, the Arvernian King; he had bidden his friends keep away,
all but Lucter of the Cadurci, from whom he hid nothing. After them
came more chiefs, dark Aquitanians, big fair Belgians, men from
Aremorica--two chiefs who had escaped the smash of the Veneti--Gutuatros
of the Carnutes with his belt of Roman hair, and at the end the
Arvernians, with Vercassivellaun, the King’s young cousin, a good leader
himself, riding at their head. Caltane was one of the last; he had no
power now, though Vercingetorix always had a good word for him; one arm
was bandaged and he looked less triumphant than the others; but yet he
was not really unhappy: his own defeat mattered little if his cause had
the victory.
For half a day they talked in the assembly; the Hæduans saying that they
had always been first among the Gauls and they should be first still,
that the war would have dragged out endlessly if they had not come in,
and that their chiefs were as good as the Arvernian; they said that it
was right that every state should lead by turns, and now their turn had
come; they spoke of gold and land at their disposal. But the assembly
broke up into impatient shouts, demanding to vote at once and lose no
time. Vercingetorix leapt on to the speaker’s block. “Who is for me?” he
cried, but all the time he knew, he knew! He heard the shouts all round
him, saw the drawn swords, his to command. “And who against me?” A voice
or two from the Hæduans, but even those died down before the hostile
silence or hisses from the rest of the chiefs. In a moment he was the
centre of a wild rush, they lifted him on their shoulders, and he
shouted with them, hugely content. He felt hot hands clutch at his own;
he looked far out over Bibracte and the Hæduan lands: these, too, might
hail him King!
The Hæduans took their oaths to him, gloomy and reluctant; but it was
too late now to draw back; even if they went over again to Cæsar he
would never trust them after this. And more than one was not unwilling
to swear faith to this tall young general who promised them such fine
things, and they, too, thought of a united Gaul. So Vercingetorix rode
back out of Bibracte and down the Hæduan valleys full of young corn, the
chosen of his nation at the height of his happiness, and proud--too
proud when it came to dealing with Cæsar and Labienus and their Roman
legions at bay.
* * * * *
Meromic had fought, he had killed his own countrymen; by that shed blood
he was bound again to Titus Barrus. He was too busy to think much, now
that he had all his master’s things to see to, and marched and drilled
and worked with the auxiliaries as well. There were very few Gauls left
with the Roman army, only a little band from the Remi and Lingones, who
had always been faithful to Cæsar; but even they went about shamefaced
and uneasy now, and besides, they kept to themselves and didn’t choose
to be friendly with a stray Aremorican. The new horsemen from across the
Rhine had come in, yelling and waving their swords; they had been
remounted on army horses, as theirs were too small and light, and one
had been taken from Titus. But Meromic had no wish to know these
Germans: they were even older enemies to Gaul than the Romans, and then,
he couldn’t speak their barbarous dialect. He saw most of the Balearic
slingers, wild, hairy little men, who drank rough wine of their own and
gambled furiously with their pay; and some of the legionaries, too,
respecting him as a fighter, were quite ready to like him.
But mostly there was the growing friendship between him and Titus, more
than ever since Lerrys had gone. After the armies had rejoined there was
a little breathing-space; they camped among the friendly Lingones; all
round them were armed and hostile tribes, but they did not dare to
attack the whole strength of Cæsar. The midsummer days went by slowly,
with no sure news, but hundreds of rumours; morning and evening were
busiest, but at noon the lines lay quiet under long trails of smoke from
the camp-fires.
One day, when it was hottest, Titus lay in his tent, looking at some
sketches of siege engines; his armour was piled beside him, and there
was a water jug within reach. His shoes were off too, and now he
unpinned the shoulder of his tunic to get a little cooler; his bare,
brown arms were scarred here and there from slight wounds. Even for a
Roman it was very hot in the tent, though outside it was worse still; he
hoped there would be a breeze soon, and turned over, sweating, on to his
back, and dropped the sketches; and wondered what his promised Æmilia
was really like, and when, if ever, there’d be a chance of seeing her;
he wished there was a girl with him now--the only thing he could think
of in this heat. Then Meromic came in, remembering, for once, to give
the Roman salute with his sword; he sat down on the ground and Titus
pushed over the water jug; the sun had blistered him across the back of
his shoulders and neck and he looked rather tired.
“You ought to cut your hair,” said Titus. “You’ll get sunstroke if you
don’t.”
Meromic drank from the jug and loosened his belt: “There’s a man just
come in from the South,” he said.
“What news?”
“They say _he’s_ got fifteen thousand horse from the Hæduans.”
“Is it true?” asked Titus, knowing that “_he_” meant Vercingetorix: for
some reason Meromic never wanted to say the name.
“I think so; it’s likely enough. Will he attack us, sir?”
“He’ll be a fool if he does, now that we’ve got those Germans; and he’s
not often a fool. But of course he mayn’t know about them. Had the man
any other news?”
“More about the Province: that they’re rising too.”
“All the chiefs bribed, I suppose. Well, if the Province goes, we go. I
wish I knew if you’d like that, Meromic.”
“I wouldn’t let you be killed without being killed myself.”
“That’s good hearing. But it’s no answer to what I said. Do you want
Vercingetorix to win?”
“Well----”
“Yes. That’s it, isn’t it? I wonder the Remi keep loyal, even. And yet
our rule’s not hard; we treat a people better than its own kings do. And
the things we bring with us: trade and peace and prosperity, good roads
and good laws: they ought to weigh a little.”
“There’s liberty in the other scale: it’s heavy.”
“But what is liberty? Liberty to be oppressed. But you don’t care so
long as it’s your own chiefs! We don’t interfere with you, we leave you
your religion and your customs and your councils; it makes no difference
to a poor man where he pays his taxes. And if you want to fight, we can
give you good fighting and good pay, all over the world: in Asia and
Africa, along thousands of miles of frontier! Isn’t that good enough?”
“Not for a free man.”
“It ought to be.”
“Maybe. But even the Hæduans see it’s not. And all the Romans aren’t
like you, either. It’s what I told Lerrys just after you had us----”
“What is?”
“About you. That it wouldn’t matter if they were all like you; we’d take
you for our kings--willingly. At least, I would. But they aren’t. And
perhaps it’s just as well.”
“I’m not as good as you think me; I wish I was. I’m one like a hundred
others. But I’m glad you do think it, all the same. There goes the
bugle--my armour, Meromic!”
Cæsar set out for the Province; it had been wonderfully faithful on the
whole, but could he expect that to go on if he was not at hand to
protect his friends and punish his enemies? He moved quickly south
across a range of hills and down a valley, with his huge baggage train
trailing along with him. Scouts brought the news headlong to
Vercingetorix where he waited in the Hæduan country, and he moved east
with his infantry and all those new hosts of horsemen, the pick of Gaul:
if Cæsar reached the Province he might yet come back, and come back
stronger; they could not attack the legions directly, but they could and
would cut off the baggage train and leave the Romans to starve without
it. The leaders of the cavalry gathered round him; many of them were
new-comers, who had brought in their men after Bibracte, and these were
most of all anxious to have one great blow at the enemy under the eyes
of their General. By the red altars they pledged themselves, every man,
to ride twice through Cæsar’s lines, or never see home or wife or child
again.
The next morning they swept down on the marching troops, a thunder of
hoofs, a shock of steel, a vast, yelling crowd with Vercingetorix
himself heading them, reins loose and lance in hand. Then suddenly the
German horse came round on their left flank and drove them sideways down
the hill. And they lost the battle, and Vercingetorix fled for his life,
north-west up the passes and into Alesia, leaving three thousand of
those eager horsemen dead on the battlefield.
And Cæsar pressed hard after him, feeling his luck had changed at last,
and next day he was over the hills and down on the other side and facing
the strong fortress where Vercingetorix waited him. The hill of Alesia
rose solidly, separated from mountain or plain on all sides, with two
small rivers north and south and a flat stretch of low-lying country to
the west. It was not so high nor so steep as Gergovia, but yet too high
and steep for even a victorious army to try the assault. Cæsar saw at
once that there must be a blockade, and he set his men to ring Alesia
round with trenches and camps.
For a few days there was desperate fighting all along the tangled
slopes, and again the German cavalry won the battle for the Romans. The
lines were being drawn ever firmer about Vercingetorix and his army: he
was trapped, and badly trapped. Once more he called together the leaders
of the cavalry, this time by night on the level top of the hill, from
where they could see the circle of enemy lights all round them. He bade
them go, each to his own country, and there call up every man who could
bear arms and come back with them--quick, quick!--and save him and the
garrison before the Romans could starve them out. They swore to carry
out his orders, and by twos and threes they slipped out of the camp, and
past the Roman block-houses where the lines were not yet finished, and
up all the little valleys, and into the hills, and away to their own
tribes to gather an army and bring Vercingetorix, the chosen of Gaul,
safe out of Alesia!