After allowing the excitement of the multitude time to find vent, the
old Duke gave the twelve heralds a sign, and they hurried into the
thick grove of oaks rustling behind the ash-tree. Then he struck the
shield, saying: "Justice has now been done according to righteous law
and the noble will of the people.
"The judge has done his work: now listen to your Duke, army of the
Alemanni!"
Deep silence instantly followed: all eyes rested intently upon
Hariowald, who sprang up, took the shield from the tree, slipped it on
his left arm, and grasping the spear with his right hand, said from the
high stone step, his voice, now in a totally different tone, ringing
out with mighty resonance over the people:
"Many of you, I know,--and not the worst spearmen,--have silently
dissented or openly grumbled because I have so long delayed leading you
to battle. The foe was in the land, and we shrank into the forests; he
was burning halls and huts, and we were watching the smoke and flames
rise at a distance and remaining inactive. Gradually, even from the
farthest districts, the men faithful to the league and obedient to the
oath joined us: still the Duke delayed. And meanwhile the enemy was
fortifying his camp. Yes, we knew it--any morning from the fortress on
the opposite side of the lake the proud galleys might bring almost as
many warriors as the camp already contained. Why did the old man still
delay? When would he fight?"
"Yes, yes, why delay? When shall we go to battle?" Many voices
impatiently repeated.
"He delayed," the Duke went on, his voice rising in tones of thunder,
"because he did not wish to strike part, not even half, but all, all,
as many as could be reached,--all the murderers, the burners of homes,
whom the boy in the imperial purple has again sent from across the lake
to attack our free people!
"To-morrow (faithful men reported it to me before the news reached the
Roman General), early to-morrow morning the proud galleys will sail
across the lake and anchor off the shore close to the camp; and
to-morrow, after midnight, old Hariowald will lead you to storm the
camp and the ships at the same time!"
Then the long-repressed battle fury broke out in a terrible tumult;
frantic shouts and wild clanking of weapons echoed through the air.
"Look," Hariowald continued, "the heralds are already bearing from the
sacred grove of the gods of our country, from the mysterious gloom of
the forest darkness, never illumined by a sunbeam, the victorious
badges of our tribes and districts which they have taken from the
ancient oaks."
A shout of joy, somewhat subdued by reverence, greeted the procession
of twelve heralds, who now, in pairs, with measured tread, came from
beyond the ash-tree and gave the badges to the representatives of the
various districts and clans, who stepped forward from the circle to
receive them.
Ebarvin seized the symbol of the Ebergau: the boar's head with
threatening tusks fastened to a cross-pole on a lofty spear. Adalo
grasped a similar shaft, which supported a pair of huge stag's antlers.
Almost all the monsters of the primeval forest and the animals sacred
to the gods were used in a similar way. Beside the huge horns of the
aurochs and the bison rose the broad antlers of the elk. Odin's wolf,
Donar's bear, and Loeki's fox opened their jaws threateningly. Zio's
sword, pointing straight upward, surmounted a shaft painted blood-red;
another had Donar's hammer between two zigzag red lightnings forged
from iron; three lances bore each a horse's head and neck, and from the
necks the manes--respectively black, red, and brown--still fluttered.
On other poles the bald eagle, the golden eagle, and the Alpine vulture
spread their wings and extended their talons in attitudes of menace. A
winged dragon carved from wood had been covered with the skins of the
ring adder and the copper adder, which rustled in the wind. And as,
like the manes of the horses, the hair of the wild beasts had been left
hanging in a strip from the head to the tail, and long red, yellow, and
blue streamers fluttered from the cross-poles, there was no lack of the
rustling, waving motion, to which we moderns are accustomed in banners.
Under these streamers was also many a trophy,--a fragment cut from a
captured dragon standard, or a scrap of a purple pennon which the Roman
squadrons and cohorts had long carried under the _labarum_ or standard
of the cross, for they had abjured the pagan eagles.
When the representatives of the districts and families had received
their beloved and honored emblems and returned to the ranks, the Duke
went on:
"Hail to you, ancient symbols of conflict and witnesses of victory!
Hail and greeting, ye emblems consecrated to the gods! In your
presence, looking into the future, seized by the power of the gods
invisibly hovering around you, I will venture to utter a prophecy:
"Comrades in arms, Alemanni! do not doubt this time that victory will
be ours. You know that it is not the custom of old Hariowald to boast
before acting: but this time I predict to you certain, complete,
glorious, joyous victory.
"All our gods will unite to aid us to-morrow. Not least of them Loeki,
the flame-creator. Tents and ships will vanish in fire. The lake nymph
will drag many hundreds down in her net. The terrible earth-goddess
will open her mysterious bosom, on which the insolent aliens have
trodden with iron feet: she will pour forth the avengers, the sons of
her country, into the midst of the enemy's strongest fortress! For the
Lofty One blinded the hated foe, so that they chose in our whole
district the spot for their camp most fatal to them. And when they fly
from the tents to the galleys, amid the terrors of the night, by the
flickering glare of their burning fortifications--they will find on the
lake the same destruction in fire and blood.
"If the last of the flying ships, with masts and prows half burned,
pursued and harried by our swift boats, should really succeed in
reaching the southern shore and the harbor fortress from which they
sailed forth so victoriously, who knows--I will not say more--who knows
whether they may not find there an unexpected doom?
"No! Silence still! Hear me to the end.
"Before I dissolve the assembly and send you all to prepare your
weapons in the best way, to polish the points and blades, and to eat
and drink enough,--not over much, then afterwards--do you hear--to
seek sleep soon, very soon, for you will have no slumber to-morrow
night--hear one thing more: you must make one resolve before this
battle!
"Remember, men, how from generation to generation these Romans have
sinned against our people; how again and again they have broken faith
and treaty; how they will not even grant us the poor land we have
wrested from the marsh and the primeval forest; how, in violation of
treaties, they have pushed their fortresses farther and farther into
our boundaries; how they forced thousands of our ancestors to fight
naked and unarmed with wild beasts on the blood-stained sand of their
arenas in the city by the Tiber, gloating, safe in their high seats,
over the death-agonies of our kinsmen under the paws and rent by the
teeth of roaring monsters; how they forced thousands of our young men
into their cohorts and made them shed their blood, often far beyond the
salt sea!
"Ha, Alemanni of the Black Forest, do you still know how they invited
your King Widigab to a banquet and murdered him over the wine-cup? Have
you forgotten, Alemanni of the Ebergau, who submitted to them on
condition that you should live according to your own laws, how on the
smallest pretext, they had your free men scourged by their lictors? Do
you still recollect, Alemanni from the Breisgau, how they asked a
peaceful passage through your country, and then encamped near the
sacred grove of the goddess Ostara, asked permission to visit the aged
priest of eighty and his great-granddaughter, the girl of sixteen, in
the grove (it was a General and one of their shaven priests, with a
hundred warriors), and inquired what was your most sacred thing? And
when the maiden unsuspiciously showed the sacred bronze vessels which
the gracious goddess had once sent down to you on the rainbow, how they
suddenly seized both, and the Christian priest, before the eyes of the
unarmed people, shamefully profaned the sacred vessel; how the General
slew the venerable priest and dragged the young priestess away to
captivity and disgrace, and how their warriors set fire to the sacred
grove?
"Do you still remember, men of the Alpgau, how, in the midst of peace,
a centurion dishonored your Count's young wife by her own hearthstone,
so that she hanged herself by her girdle?
"Have you forgotten how often they have bound our girls together, yes
and our boys, too, like beasts of burden, by their long locks, and
driven them forth to a life of disgrace from which the pure gods of
Asgard turn their faces, crimson with shame and wrath?
"You have _not_ forgotten these things! I hear it! I see it! Well then,
do as I advise: _Take no prisoners!_ Kill them all! Do not spare one;
disdain all ransom. Let the whole army,--leaders, horse and foot,--be
dedicated to Odin and to Zio. You will: I see it! Then repeat the words
after me and swear:
"To thee, Odin, doomed,
And to wrathful Zio,
Be all who live within the camp
And on the rocking galleys.
Soon will ye bathe in blood,
O gods so mighty,
From ankle to knee!"
Swinging their weapons in frantic excitement the gathered thousands
repeated the terrible oath.
"I will dismiss the army at once; only hear one thing more--your Duke's
vow. The many thousand mailed men who broke into the peaceful districts
captured one single prisoner, a defenceless woman, a merry little
maiden. Many of you, I think, know her."
"Bissula! The little one! The fair one! The red-elf, Suobert's child!"
So shouted hundreds of voices.
"Yes, Bissula, Suobert's daughter. Well then: whoever releases her,
whoever brings her to me from the Roman camp after the battle, shall
receive the Duke's whole share of the booty."
A grateful but sorrowful glance from Adalo rested upon him: the young
noble no longer dared to hope.
"The circle is dissolved, the assembly is over," the old commander
continued; he then turned the upright stone resting against the trunk
of the tree and descended the steps.
The bands, with loud acclamations for the Duke, instantly scattered in
all directions down the sides of the mountain, each division following
the symbols borne in front of its own district and tribe.
Adalo was going too; but the Duke motioned to him to remain, took from
his hand the stag standard and gave it to Sippilo, who bore it proudly
down the Holy Mountain.