"Stay," said Hariowald, when the heralds, last of all, had left the
place of assembly, "you must know how this battle is to be fought,
according to my plan and wish. For, if the Lofty One should call me up
to him before the victory is won, you must complete it. Therefore you
must now learn all (far more than the men in the army) that for weeks I
have been preparing during sleepless nights, and have secretly
accomplished in the past few days.
"Come, sit down by me; we will spread out on this stone the plan of the
Roman camp, which we owe to your brave little brother.
"It has been of the greatest service to me. I told you yesterday how
the men of the districts were to attack the four sides and gates of the
camp at the same time."
"Yes: but you did not say where you would fight with your bands, and
where I was to go."
"I? I shall take the shortest way--from beneath."
"No! No! Leave it to me. It is the--most dangerous one."
"Yes, yes," cried the old man, laughing. "And you have no suspicion how
dangerous it is. Know then: the ascent cannot be made, as we hoped,
first of all and unexpectedly, taking them by surprise; it cannot be
made until after the foe, alarmed by the assault on the northern wall,
stands ready in full armor."
"Then it will be impossible! But why?"
"Because, as I first learned night before last, the Romans, in digging
out the northern ditch, filled up the extreme northern end of the
subterranean passage; or else the earth has fallen in, from the
jarring. When I entered this passage from the forest outside of the
camp--"
"What? you yourself?"
"Yes, I myself; night before last. I advanced only a few steps before I
found a heap of earth which had fallen from above, and I was obliged to
return. But I stole, on the surface of the earth, so near the ditch
that I could look into it from a tree. The whole ditch--it is now dry
again--was brightly lighted by their camp fires. Then I saw that the
earth-goddess of our land had blinded the strangers' eyes. They
perceived nothing suspicious in the large boulder that bars the
continuation of the passage from the ditch into their camp, and they
did not roll it away. True, it has not been moved from the spot for
decades; for the secret, bequeathed from generation to generation, is
known to but two men of the race who bear the emblem of the stag's
antlers, and there is rarely an occasion which demands its use. So they
did not perceive that the rock had been rolled there by human hands,
and they planted one of their banners on the turf which covers it. They
have no suspicion of the passage. For look! The plan of the camp shows
it; close beside the Nerthus pine, above the altar stones of the Idise,
they have pitched a tent filled with provisions and weapons. You see,
here!"
"Yes, indeed. The tent is placed exactly over the mouth of the passage.
But outside there, in the northern ditch, numerous sentinels are
posted--Thracian spearmen alternating with Batavians."
"Yes, that's just it. They must be driven away before I can roll the
rock aside and make my way up."
"That will cost blood; it will also require time. The Thracians, and
especially the Batavians, are their very best troops. Alas, if it
happen to be the turn of the Batavians. They are not inferior to us in
heroic courage."
"No matter! They must fall before the badger can enter the old burrow."
"And then--after the battle has summoned all our foes to arms--then you
will? Let me go in your place!"
"Obey! You will find work enough at the southern gate, the lake gate.
When we have stormed the camp, the whole flood of those who still
remain alive will pour to the ships through the southern gate. They
must not be allowed to reach the lake in close order, to turn the tide
of battle against us there at the last. You will meet them as they
burst through the southern gate, and drive them back into the burning
camp, or scatter them. They must not be allowed to reach the lake from
the camp as reinforcements to the defenders of the galleys, but to
increase their alarm. This is your task: Saturninus, if he live, will
make it hard enough for you."
"So my post will be at the southern gate?"
"Yes; and to it I have sent, if by any means she can reach
it--Bissula!"
"Thanks!"
"Do not thank me! For I forbid you to fight for the girl; you must
fight solely for victory. Yet have no anxiety. If she is still alive,
she will be rescued. I have relieved Zercho and Sippilo from every
other duty, and given them only one charge--to find and protect the
young girl. But you I need for higher work. I fear one man only in the
whole army," he added in a lower tone--"Saturninus. He is like the old
leaders they had in their better days, the days of which my grandfather
and father told me with horror, when it was almost impossible for the
most heroic courage to defeat a Roman army. Who knows whether Ebarbold
will strike him down? We must let the King have the first chance; he
has the prior claim: but if the Roman should be the one who survives
and I do not reach and kill him after the King's fall, before you (I
shall make every effort to do it), do you, son of Adalger, provide that
Saturninus shall not lead his army in closed ranks down to the lake:
detain him as long as you can stand."
"As long as I can! But I wondered when you set the fisherman his task.
If the Roman galleys cross the lake here, how can you know whether he
will be able to reach them from the shore? They will anchor, not come
to the land. How is Fiskulf to get from the storming of the Roman camp
here?"
"He will not share the assault," replied Hariowald, laughing, as he
stroked his beard complacently. "And he will not go by land to the
galley, but by the lake."
"Swimming?"
"No, rowing. Know what no one has yet learned; for crowds are
garrulous. Besides the most distant Alemanni districts, I have secretly
won as allies the Hermunduri, who drink the water of the Main, and
induced them to send us reinforcements for this war. You supposed that
the boats in the two forest-covered swamps on the east and west of the
Idisenhang were filled solely with people unable to bear arms, after I
had brought most of the men here? No, my friend! The boats, almost
three hundred, in the two marshes are not empty of men. The women and
children are to be put ashore to-night; more than two thousand Alemanni
and Hermunduri will leap into the boats. From left and right, from east
and west, they will float in the stillness and darkness of the night
against the high-decked galleys, and as soon as the first torch is
hurled into the Roman camp on the Idisenhang, our boats will attack the
Roman ships from the open lake and from left and right. Aha, do you
think our fishing boats will be like nutshells against those giants?
Probably: but have you never seen a flock of brave little swallows
put a sparrow hawk to flight? Our skiffs are small, it is true; but
more than two hundred against sixty. And the pitch and resin of the
pine-trees in the forests by the lake, blazing in a thousand faggots of
dry twigs, will burn merrily in the linen sails and the rigging of the
triremes."