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Lion's Brood

<h3> XV. </h3> <h3> "WITHIN THE RAILS." </h3> It was then that Sergius first realized that Caius Manlius, his friend, the brother of Marcia, was indeed dead; but the time for such thoughts ivas short. Clenching his teeth in a paroxysm of anger, he again turned to follow Paullus and Decius, who had passed into the ranks of the legions and joined themselves to the personal volunteers of the pro-consul, Servilius. The great column was moving now, steadily gathering impetus, and there was little speech between the generals. Servilius gazed with gloomy brows at the consul and the half dozen men that remained to him, and no question as to the fate of the right wing was asked or answered. "How fight they on the left?" asked Paullus, after a moment's pause. "The allies skirmish with the Numidians," replied Servilius. "You mean that the Numidians skirmish with them," said Paullus. That was all, and the two soldiers turned to their task. The slingers' bullets fell no longer, or only scattering ones, dropping from above, told that these hornets had fallen back and sought refuge behind their lines; but the roar of battle rolled furiously from the front. "It is the standards that oppose at last," commented Paullus. "The ranks are not too close—yet. Let us go forward." Servilius protested, but the other waved him back. "Here is your place who command, my Servilius," said the consul; and a smile, sad rather than bitter, lit up the harsh lines of his face. "It is I, having no command, who can justly ply the sword." Sergius followed, and in a few moments the increasing pandemonium told that the front was not far ahead. The dust filled their eyes, and they could see nothing beyond; but the signs were for the veteran to read. Soon there was no more headway to be made through the dense mass; the corpses of the slain were thick beneath their feet, half-naked Gauls and Spaniards in white and purple mingled with the dead of the legions, and still the column pushed forward and still the slain lay closer. "They give ground. We are driving in their centre," gasped Sergius. Paullus had been frowning grimly, but now he turned to Marcus Decius and showed his wolfish teeth in his old-time smile. "What do you say, decurion?" he asked. "We drive them, surely; but—" "Yes, truly, but—do you hear those cries on the flank? We drive their Iberians, their Celts; it is the Africans that let us plunge on like one of Varro's stupid bulls: then they put the sword in our side. Could you fight now? I tell you we are already driven within the rails. If the gods keep Hasdrubal slaying my runaways, there may be hope; if he be a general, there is none." And still the column's headway seemed hardly checked, though the cries and the clashing of arms resounded, now, from both flanks as well as from the front, while, in the depths of its vitals, men were crushed together till they could scarce breathe. A rumour, too, like those Pan sends to dismay soldiers, ran quickly from heart to heart, rather than from lip to lip. It was that Hasdrubal had circled the rear and, falling upon the allied cavalry, had scattered the left wing as he had the right; that the Numidians pursued and slaughtered: but where now were the cavalry of Gaul and Spain, the winners of two victories? A sullen roar from the far distant rear seemed to answer; but the language was one that few could read—few of that host. Oh! for an hour of the veterans that slumbered on the shores of Trebia and Trasimenus! Oh! for an hour of Fabius, who lingered at Rome, powerless and discredited. Who were these that wore the armour, that wielded the ponderous javelins of Rome's legions? From under the bronze helmets gorgeously fierce with their great crests peered eyes—stupid, wondering eyes dazed by the uproar, blinded by the dust; eyes wherein, while as yet there was little of fear, still less was there of the knowledge of danger to be met and overcome; eyes that had but lately watched sheep upon the Alban hills, eyes that were used only to the flour dust when their owners kneaded dough behind the Forum. Ahead, around, the standards were tossing as if upon the billows of an angry sea. Was that a silver horse's head that flashed far to the right? "Look!" cried Sergius, striking Decius with his elbow. "You can see better now," muttered the veteran. "The flour is bread, and the bread of battle is mire kneaded of dust and blood." The eyes of Paullus were turned upward in strange prayer. "Grant me not, O Jupiter, my life this day!" It needed no eye of veteran to read the sentence that was writ. Driven, at last, within the rails, as went the saying, there was no room in all that weltering mass to use the sword, much less the pilum. On every side the barbarians of Africa, of Spain, of Gaul raged and slew—for even advance now was checked, and the Celts had turned and lashed the front with their great swords that rose and fell, crimson to the hilt, crimson to the shoulder, crimson to every inch of their wielders' huge bodies. The Spaniards, too, were stabbing fast and furiously, while all along both flanks the African squares, between which the weight of the column had forced its narrow length, thrust with their long sarissas and rained their pila upon the doomed monster in their midst: a war elephant, wounded to the death, with sides hung with javelins and streaming with blood, rocking and trumpeting in helpless agony. Sergius watched the dull, hopeless look deepening in the eyes of the young soldiers. They reminded him of the beeves in the shambles of the elder Varro. Even the voice of Pan could not wake such men. Were they not there to die for the traditions of Rome? It was true that every path leading to Pan's country bristled with spears, but only a few could fully know this, and these awaited their turn with the rest. The press seemed to loosen somewhat. Perhaps the assailants had drawn back to gain breath for a final onslaught; but, instinctively, the staggering lines of the Roman column opened out into the space afforded, and its four faces writhed forward bravely, pitifully. It was then that Sergius saw the consul for the last time. He had turned back from where he had forced his way to the head of the column; his arms were battered and blood-stained, and he reeled painfully in his saddle, for Paullus had mounted again, that he might the better be seen by the legionaries. His wandering eyes took in every detail of their hopeless plight; the last sparks of fire seemed to die out in him, and his head drooped upon his chest. Then, slowly, he dismounted, having ordered his horse to kneel, and the beast, unable to rise again, rolled over on its side. Paullus watched it with almost an expression of pity, and then dragged himself to a flat rock and sat down. Decius had sought to aid him, but the other thrust him rudely back. "It is only the smaller bone," he said. "One of their accursed stingers hit me." At that moment a rider covered with foam and dust and blood dashed up to the group and, reining his steaming animal to its haunches, leaped to the ground. Paullus raised his eyes. "It is time for you to escape, Cneius Lentulus," he said. "You have a horse." "It is for you, my father; that this day be not further darkened by the death of a consul. My horse is good, and there are still gaps between their squadrons. Ride to the east—" "And you?" "I am but a tribune." "And a young man, my Cneius. Where is Varro?" "Fled." "And the pro-consuls?" "Both fallen." "And you would have it said, my Cneius, that the Republic degenerates? that not one of this year's consuls dares die with his men, while both of last year's were Romans? Truly, it would be a much darker day should I escape with Varro than if I die with Regulus and Servilius; besides, I have no humour for further charges and trials, in order that the rabble may vindicate their favourite butcher. But do you go, Cneius, and tell them that you have seen me sitting in my colleague's shambles." There were tears in Lentulus' eyes, and he still strove to persuade his general to accept the horse, but, at that moment, new shoutings and clashing of arms announced what must prove the final attack. "They come again, my father," said Decius calmly. The roar of battle swelled up, all about the doomed column. In front and flanks, Africans, Gauls, and Spaniards charged in unbroken lines, and soon forced the deploying but weakened maniples back into their weltering mass; in the rear, the attack was less continuous, for Hasdrubal's horsemen were exhausted with slaying, and he hurled them in alternate squadrons, now on this point, now on that, wherever the Roman line showed relics of strength or firmness. So the front worked back, driven by sheer weight in the direction where the pressure was least. Paullus still sat, with drooping head, faint with fatigue and loss of blood, while Decius, Sergius, and Lentulus stood by him, helplessly awaiting the end. A rush of fugitives swept by and almost overwhelmed the wounded man; but Decius passed his arm around him, and the press slackened. "It is time for you to mount and ride, Cneius Lentulus;" and the consul raised his head again, while the old-time spirit of command flashed in his eyes. "You shall be my envoy to the fathers. Bid them fortify and garrison the city; go—" A new rush broke in upon his words,—a rush, in which the whole front was borne back a spear's length beyond them. Sergius was thrown down, but some one raised him, dazed and stunned, and seemed to bear him along. A moment, and he found himself standing once more upon his feet. Cneius Lentulus and his horse were gone; Paullus and Marcus Decius were left alone far beyond—no, not alone. He saw the tunics of the Iberians, now all as purple as their borders, thronging around; he saw his general and his comrade give their throats to the sharp, slender swords; and then he saw, far ahead, amid the Carthaginian syntagmata, a swarthy, smiling face with crisp, curling beard; he saw the brown-bronze corselet rich with gold, the meteor helmet with ostrich plumes floating between its horns, the snowy mantle bordered with Tyrian purple; and he saw the white head of the horse whose feet needed now no dye of art to stain them vermilion. All the fury of battle, all the madness of revenge overwhelmed him in an instant; despair was gone, thoughts of past and future were swept away by the surge of one overmastering idea: he must reach that man and kill him. He looked around at the scattered, reeling maniples. A standard bearer was lying at his feet, striving with his remnant of strength to wrench the silver eagle from its staff, that he might hide it under his cloak; but the death rattle came too quickly. Sergius picked up the standard. "Come," he said, "there is the enemy." And then, without a glance to note whether his appeal was regarded, he rushed blindly forward. It was a discipline inspired by tradition rather than taught by drills and punishments that came to the Roman recruit, and now it played its part. These peasants, these artisans whose eyes had seen naught save unaccustomed horrors through all the day, turned at once to answer the summons of the eagle. Sergius heard the feeble shout of battle that rose behind him, heard the scattered clanging of sword and shield, and when he struck the long pikes of the first square, it was with the force of half a dozen broken maniples welded into a solid mass. Still the sarissas held firm. Perhaps two lines went down, but the pila rained their slant courses from the rear; the feeble rush was stopped, and the legionaries struggled helplessly upon the spears. Sergius saw nothing but the dark, bearded face among the squares—scarcely nearer than before. Had he not read in a little book written by one, Xenophon, a Greek, and purchased, at great cost, at the shop of Milo, the bookseller in the Argiletum, how Oriental armies won or lost by the life or death of their leaders? He would kill Hannibal! Would to the gods that Paullus had fallen in the Cinctus Gabinus! Paullus, too much of an infidel to think of such old-time immolation; but there was yet one last appeal. Seizing the tough staff of the standard almost at the end, he whirled it around his head and let it go at full swing; the silver eagle flashed in the light of the setting sun, as it described great arcs, and plunged down amid the hostile ranks; a hoarse cry went up: the very deity of the legion was amid its foes! no Roman so untried as not to hear its call. The short swords hacked and stabbed among the spears; the first square swayed and rocked, shivered into fragments, and, hurled back upon the second, bore it, too, down in the mingled rush of pursuers and pursued. On every side of the dwindling band of assailants, front, flanks, and rear, the pikes dipped and plunged, the Gallic swords hissed through the air, the Spaniards ravened and stabbed; but, to the Romans, flanks and rear were nothing: it was the front, the Libyans, the lost eagle. And now, at last, it was won; the advance had been checked by the closer welding of the syntagmata, half his men were down; but Sergius, still unhurt, had stooped and raised the standard, kissing its crimson beak and wings. Then he looked up. Half the space between himself and the bearded horseman had vanished, and the latter was no longer talking carelessly with those about. His steady gaze was fixed upon the young Roman, as if studying the exact measure of strength that remained to him. There was nothing else for it. Again the great staff described great circles through the air, and again the crimson eagle soared and stooped, and the white stallion reared and snorted, as it struck the earth before him; again the shattered fragment of an army hurled itself, wounded and weary and bleeding, among the ever thickening spears; yes, and forced its way a quarter, half the remaining distance, until Sergius, whose eyes had never for a moment forsaken those of the Carthaginian, saw them grow troubled, saw the black, bushy brows draw together. Then his enemy turned and spoke a few hurried words to an attendant, gesticulating freely, until the man whirled his horse about and drove back through the throng. When Sergius looked into the face of the general again, it wore a disdainful smile—the smile of a Zeus that watches the sons of Aloeus pile mountain on mountain in the vain effort to storm Olympus. Again Hannibal was careless and unconcerned; again he laughed and joked gayly with his attendants; his soldier's eye had set the limit of Rome's last paroxysm, and it fell short of the spot where he sat—not by much, but enough. All that remained was for the arrows of Apollo to do their work, and now he had set these to the string. Wearily and yet more wearily the wolves bit and tore their way; then they came staggering to a stand, three spear lengths from the lost eagle, and then the pressure behind seemed to slacken, and the serried spears in front bore them slowly backward. All was over. Sergius' eyes, dim and bloodshot, wandered, at last, from the contemptuous smile that had held them, and rested upon the score of men, for the most part wounded, that remained about him. For an instant the spears and swords ceased their work, and the dense mass of lowering faces that surrounded the last of the legions rolled back. Lanes appeared between the syntagmata; a chorus of wild cries swelled up—swept nearer, and the furious riders of the desert came galloping through every interspace. To them had been granted, for a mark of honour, the ending of the battle. It was only a single rush, a brandishing and plunging of javelins retained in grasp, a little more blood spattered upon the horses' necks and bellies. No legionary was standing when the tempest had gone by, and there, among his men, with face turned from the red earth to the reddening sky, lay Lucius Sergius Fidenas, in slumber fitting for a Roman patrician when the black day of Cannae was done. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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