It was really as Zercho the bondman had believed: Bissula had become
the captive, not of Ausonius, but another; and his captive she
remained. To the extreme surprise, nay, barely repressed indignation of
the Prefect of Gaul, the younger man had asserted his claim according
to the rights of war. Ausonius had no claims whatever to the prisoner;
that was clear. His nephew undoubtedly might have raised them, and at
first he did make the attempt. But he grew strangely silent when the
Tribune--scarcely in absolute harmony with the truth--said in his
uncle's presence: "The girl had escaped again. I was the first to catch
her finally. Shall I call her, that she may tell you the whole story
herself?"
Herculanus, with a venomous glance, left the tent.
But Ausonius did not understand the imperious rudeness of the brave
soldier who was usually so devoted to him. When the Tribune curtly
appealed to the right of war, Ausonius, deeply offended, pondered over
all the reasons which, as he thought, must induce his friend not to
yield his legal right in this instance to him. The poet, seeking
motives for the act, of course first grasped the nearest: all the men
in the camp gazed at the peculiar beauty of the child with unconcealed
admiration. It was no wonder then that the Illyrian, in the full vigor
of manhood, should also be seized with ardent love for the beautiful
creature who had fallen into his hands and, without really having any
evil design, wanted to keep her in his power until either from
affection or obedience the captive should yield to her master.
But this anxiety, which at first had weighed heavily upon him, was soon
relieved. With the keen distrust of jealousy, he watched his rival
sharply at every meeting; but even suspicion could discover nothing
that would have warranted this conjecture. Quiet, unmoved, and
steadfast as ever was the Tribune's bearing in her presence, which he
neither shunned nor sought, but treated with indifference. He looked
into the wonderful eyes no more frequently than occasion required, and
his glance was calm, his voice did not tremble. So Ausonius regarded
his friend's act as a soldier's strange whim, and did not doubt that he
would soon give it up. But this proved an error.
On returning to the camp Ausonius entreated his friend, without
renouncing his right of possession, to place the young girl in the tent
next to the Prefect's, now occupied by slaves and freedwomen, whom he
would remove. But Saturninus insisted that Bissula should be lodged
among the wives of the freedmen and female slaves who occupied some
tents a long distance from the Prefect's. The young girl herself paid
little heed to the discussion between the two Romans, whose meaning she
scarcely understood.
Released by the Tribune from the fear of death, and soothed by the
presence of her honored friend, her young cheerful heart soon
accommodated itself to the new condition of affairs,--not through
recklessness, but through childish ignorance of the perils which
possibly threatened her. Her grandmother was not discovered; her
faithful servant had not been captured; she herself was certainly
secure in the presence and under the eyes of her friend, the most
aristocratic man in the Roman camp. He would not let a hair of her head
be harmed, she knew.
True, the thought weighed heavily upon her heart as soon as she was
captured that she herself was solely to blame for her misfortune. If
she had obeyed the well-meant counsel--she was on the verge of tears;
experience had taught the value of the advice--she would now have been
safe and sheltered with her grandmother, though also with Adalo. And
owing him a debt of gratitude! She crushed the tears on her long
lashes. No, she would not admit that he was right. Now she owed the
haughty Adeling nothing: that was certainly an advantage. "And"--she
shook her waving locks back defiantly--"they won't eat me here! Only
don't be afraid, Bissula," she said to herself; "and don't submit to
anything!"
She had trembled only a moment after her escape from Herculanus, when
her powerful deliverer measured her whole dainty figure with a look
under which she lowered her eyes in confusion. But when she again
raised those innocent child-eyes, the expression had vanished. And it
never returned.
Her master allowed her to spend the whole day with her "Father
Ausonius": only when it grew dark he appeared, with inexorable
firmness, to take her away; and he went with her himself to the tent
assigned to her, before which he stationed one of his Illyrian
countrymen as a sentinel all night.
Bissula never saw her friend's nephew, whom she feared, alone. She
confidently expected the restoration of her liberty when the camp
should be broken up and the Romans should withdraw from the country.
There would be no fighting, Ausonius repeatedly told her. So the
light-hearted girl regarded her captivity, which had lost all its
terrors, as an adventure that afforded her an opportunity for the
conversations with her friend which she had missed so long.
Many of her young playmates had lived as hostages and probably as
captives in Roman camps and in the fortresses on the southern shore,
and been restored to liberty uninjured when truce or peace was
declared. That she could be detained or carried away against her will
she did not fear: the most powerful man in the camp was her protector.
Yet this peril constantly threatened her more and more closely.
Ausonius kept a sort of diary, in which before going to sleep he
recorded events, impressions, sketches of poems, and short bits of
verse--a custom whose regular observance he scarcely omitted even in
camp. A touch of pedantry was one of his characteristics. Yet the diary
was not a monologue, rather a sort of dialogue; for he addressed it in
the form of a letter to his oldest and most intimate friend, Arius
Paulus of Bigerri, rhetorician, but also an old soldier. Every three
months he collected what he had written and forwarded it to him to
receive his criticisms and answers on the margin of the manuscript when
returned.
So, during these days of involuntary leisure he wrote.