THE CASQUE'S LARK

THE FULL SERIES OF

OR

History of a Proletarian Family
Across the Ages

By EUGENE SUE

Consisting of the Following Works:

THE GOLD SICKLE; or, Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen.
THE BRASS BELL; or, The Chariot of Death.
THE IRON COLLAR; or, Faustine and Syomara.
THE SILVER CROSS; or, The Carpenter of Nazareth.
THE CASQUE'S LARK; or, Victoria, the Mother of the Camps.
THE PONIARID'S HILT; or, Karadeucq and Ronan.
THE BRANDING NEEDLE; or, The Monastery of Charolles.
THE ABBATIAL CROSIER; or, Bonaik and Septimine.
THE CARLOVINGIAN COINS; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne.
THE IRON ARROW-HEAD; or, The Buckler Maiden.
THE INFANT'S SKULL; or, The End of the World.
THE PILGRIM'S SHELL; or, Fergan the Quarryman.
THE IRON PINCERS; or, Mylio and Karvel.
THE IRON TREVET; or Jocelyn the Champion.
THE EXECUTIONER'S KNIFE; or, Joan of Arc.
THE POCKET BIBLE; or, Christian the Printer.
THE BLACKSMITH'S HAMMER; or, The Peasant Code.
THE SWORD OF HONOR; or, The Foundation of the French Republic.
THE GALLEY SLAVE'S RING; or, The Family Lebrenn.

Published Uniform With This Volume By
THE NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO.
28 CITY HALL PLACE NEW YORK CITY

The Casque's Lark

: : : : OR : : : :

VICTORIA, THE MOTHER OF THE CAMPS

A Tale of the Frankish Invasion of Gaul

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH

By DANIEL DE LEON

NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY, 1909

Copyright, 1909, by the
New York Labor News Company

INDEX

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

The first four stories of Eugene Sue's series of historic novels—The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages—are properly introductory to the wondrous drama in which, as indicated in the preface to the first story of the series, "one family, the descendants of a Gallic chief named Joel, typifies the oppressed; one family, the descendants of a Frankish chief named Neroweg, typifies the oppressor; and across and adown the ages, the successive struggles between oppressors and oppressed—the history of civilization—is thus represented in a majestic allegory." That wondrous drama opens with this, the fifth of the stories—The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, the Mother of the Camps.

Here, for the first time, does a descendant of Joel, the Breton chief, encounter a Neroweg, the representative of the conquering race. Here they cross swords for the first time, their descendants meeting again and again in the course of the subsequent narratives, almost always in deadly encounter, each typical of the advancing stage of civilization in which the succeeding encounters occur.

In point of time, the scene of this story is about the third century of the Christian era. The great historic epoch which it describes is that in which, the star of the Roman Empire being in the decline and the Empire's hold upon Gaul having been greatly relaxed, the flood of the barbarian migration of nations flowed westward from the primeval forests and frozen fields of Germania, attempting to cross the Rhine and enter Gaul. Foremost among these hordes were the savage and warlike Franks, led by a number of independent chiefs. The present story describes the two forces—Franks and Gauls, the latter supported by the Romans—facing each other, frequently crossing swords in bloody encounters and holding each other in check. Out of this material, into which the thin thread of the initial introduction of Christianity in Gaul is woven in the woof, Sue constructed the present superb narrative—a fit overture for the following and successive fourteen acts.

Daniel De Leon.
Milford, Conn., August, 1909.

INTRODUCTION.

I, Schanvoch, a descendant of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak; I, Schanvoch, now a freeman, thanks to the valor of my father Ralf and the bold Gallic insurrections that continued unabated from century to century; I, Schanvoch, write the following narrative two hundred and sixty-four years after my ancestress Genevieve, the wife of Fergan, witnessed in Judea the death of the poor carpenter Jesus of Nazareth.

I write the following account thirty-four years after Gomer, the son of Judicaël and grandson of Fergan, who was a slave like his father and grandfather, wrote to his son Mederik that he had nothing to add to the family annals but the monotonous account of his life as a slave.

Neither did my ancestor Mederik contribute aught to our family history, and his son Justin contented himself with having a stranger's hand enter these short lines:

"My father Mederik died a slave, fighting as a Son of the Mistletoe for the freedom of Gaul; he told me that he was driven to revolt against the foreign oppression by the narrative of the bravery of our free ancestors and by the description of the sufferance of our enslaved fathers. I, his son Justin, a colonist, and no longer a slave of the fisc, have caused this fact to be entered upon our family parchments, which I shall faithfully transmit to my son Aurel, together with their accompanying emblems, the gold sickle, the little brass bell, the fragment of the iron collar and the little silver cross, all of which I have carefully preserved."

Aurel, Justin's son and a colonist like his father, was not any more literate than the latter, and left no record whatever. After him, again a stranger's hand inserted these lines in our family annals:

"Ralf, the son of Aurel the colonist, fought for the freedom of his country. Ralf having become absolutely free, thanks to the Gallic arms and the holy war preached by our venerable druids, found himself obliged to resort to a friend's help in order to enter the death of his father Aurel upon our family parchments. Happier than myself, my son Schanvoch will not be forced to avail himself of a stranger in order to enter in our family's archives the death of myself, the first male descendant of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak, who again regained complete freedom. As several of my ancestors have done before me, I here declare that it was the history of our ancestors' valor and martyrdom that induced me to take up arms against the Romans, our masters and secular oppressors."

These family scrolls, together with their accompanying relics, I shall leave to you, my dear little Alguen, the son of my beloved wife Ellen, who gave you birth this day four years ago.

I choose this day, the anniversary of your birth, as a day of happy augury, in order to start, for your benefit and the benefit of our descendants, the narrative of my life and my battles, my joys and my sorrows, obedient to the last wishes of our ancestor Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak.

You will grieve, my son, when you learn from these archives that, from the death of Joel down to that of my great-grandfather Justin, seven generations, aye, seven whole generations, were subjected to intolerable slavery. But your heart will be cheered when you learn that my great-grandfather had, from a slave, become a colonist or serf attached to the glebe of Gaul—still a servile condition but greatly above that of slavery. My own father, having regained his full freedom, thanks to the formidable insurrections of the Sons of the Mistletoe that from century to century were conjured up at the voice of the druids, the tireless and heroic defenders of the freedom of oppressed Gaul, has bequeathed to me freedom, that most precious of all wealth. I shall, in turn, transmit it to you.

By dint of constantly struggling for it, and also of stubborn resistance, we Gauls have succeeded in successively reconquering almost our full former freedom. A last and frail bond still holds us to Rome, now our ally, after having formerly been our pitiless master. When that last and frail bond will be snapped, we shall have regained our absolute independence, and we shall resume our former place at the head of the great nations of the world.

Before acquainting you with the details of my life and time, my son, I must fill certain voids that are left in the history of our family through the omissions of those of our ancestors, who, either through illiteracy or the hardness of the times, were prevented from joining their respective accounts to our archives. Their lives must have been the life of all the other Gauls, who, the fetters of slavery notwithstanding, have, step by step and from century to century, conquered through revolt and battle the deliverance of our country.

You will find in the last lines written by our ancestor Fergan, the husband of Genevieve, that despite the vows taken by the Sons of the Mistletoe and despite innumerable uprisings, one of the most formidable of which was chieftained by Sacrovir, the worthy emulator of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys, the Roman yoke that Caesar imposed upon Gaul remained unshaken. In vain did Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth, prophesy that the chains of the slave would be broken. The slaves still dragged their blood-stained chains. Nevertheless, our old race, weakened, mutilated, unnerved or corrupted though it was by slavery, never once was submissive, and allowed only short intervals to pass without endeavoring to shake off the yoke. The secret associations of the Sons of the Mistletoe covered the country, and furnished intrepid soldiers to each succeeding revolt against Rome.

After the heroic attempt of Sacrovir, the account of whose sublime death you will find in the narrative of our ancestor Fergan, the weak and timid weaver-slave, other insurrections broke out during the reigns of the Emperors Tiberius and Claudius; they increased in force during the civil wars that rent Italy under the reign of Nero. At about that time, one of our heroes, Vindex, as intrepid a patriot as Sacrovir or the Chief of the Hundred Valleys, long held the Roman arms in check. Civilis, another Gallic patriot, taking his stand upon the prophecies of Velleda—one of our female druids, a virile woman, wise in council and worthy compeer of our brave and wise mothers—roused almost all Gaul to revolt and gave the first serious wound to the power of Rome. Finally, during the reign of the Emperor Vitellius, a poor field slave like our ancestor Guilhern set himself up as the messiah and liberator of Gaul, just as Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed himself the Messiah of Judea, and pursued with patriotic ardor the task of liberation that was started by the Chief of the Hundred Valleys and continued after him by Sacrovir, Vindex, Civilis and so many other heroes. That field slave's name was Marik. He was then barely twenty-five years of age; robust, intelligent and gifted with heroic bravery he joined the Sons of the Mistletoe. Our venerable druids, always persecuted, had traversed Gaul inciting the lukewarm, restraining the impatient, and preparing all for the hour of the insurrection. It broke out. At the head of ten thousand slaves, field laborers like himself and armed with their scythes and forks, Marik engaged the Roman troops of Vitellius under the walls of Lyons. That first attempt miscarried; the insurgents were cut to pieces by the Roman army that greatly exceeded them in numbers. But so far from feeling overwhelmed, this defeat intensified the ardor of the revolted people. Whole populations rose in rebellion at the voice of the druids that called them to the holy war. The combatants seemed to spring out of the entrails of the earth, and Marik saw himself again at the head of a numerous army. Endowed by the gods with a military instinct, he disciplined his troops, inspired them with courage and a blind confidence in him, and marched at their head towards the banks of the Rhine, where, sheltered behind its trenches, lay the reserve of the Roman army. Marik attacked it, beat it, and compelled whole legions that he took prisoner to drop their own ensigns and substitute them with our ancient Gallic cock. Those Roman legions had, due to their long sojourn in our country, virtually become Gauls; carried away by the military ascendency of Marik, they readily joined him, combatted under him against the fresh Roman columns that were sent from Italy, and either annihilated or dispersed them. The hour of Gaul's deliverance was about to sound—but at that moment Marik fell through cowardly treason into the hands of the monster Vespasian, then Emperor of Rome. Riddled with wounds the hero of Gaul was delivered to the wild beasts in the circus, like our own ancestor Sylvest.

The martyr's death exasperated the population. Fresh insurrections broke out forthwith all over Gaul. The words of Jesus of Nazareth, declaring that the slave is the equal of his master, began to penetrate our own country, filtering through on the lips of itinerant preachers. The flames of hatred for the foreign domination shot up with renewed vigor. Attacked from all sides in Gaul, harrassed on the other side of the Rhine by innumerable hordes of Franks, barbarous warriors that issued from the depths of the northern forests and seemed but to await the propitious moment to pour into Gaul, the Romans finally capitulated to us. At last we harvested the fruits of so many heroic sacrifices! The blood shed by our fathers for the previous three centuries watered our deliverance. Indeed, the words of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys were prophetic:

Yes, my son, those words were prophetic. It was with that refrain on their lips that our fathers fought and overcame the foreign oppressor. Rome, at last, yielded back to us a part of our ancient freedom. We formed Gallic legions commanded by our own officers; our provinces were once more governed by magistrates of our own choice. Rome reserved only the right to appoint a "Principal" over Gaul, the suzerainty over which she was to retain. We accepted, while waiting and striving for better things—and these better things were not long in coming. Frightened by our continual revolts, our tyrants had been slowly moderating the rigor of our slavery. Terror was to force from them that which they relentlessly refused as a matter of right and justice to the voice of suppliant humanity. First the master was no longer allowed, as he was in the days of Sylvest and several of his descendants, to dispose over the life of his slaves as one disposes over the life of an animal. Later, as their fear increased, the masters were forbidden from inflicting corporal punishments upon their slaves, except with the express authorization of a magistrate. Finally, my child, that horrible Roman law, that, at the time of our ancestor Sylvest and of the five generations that followed him, declared in its ferocious language that the slave does not exist, that "he has no head" (non caput habet) that shocking law was, thanks to the dread inspired by our unceasing revolts, modified to the point that the Justinian code declared:

"Freedom is a natural right; it is the statute law that has created slavery; it has also created enfranchisement, which is the return to natural freedom."

Alack! It is distressing to notice that the sacred rights of humanity can not triumph except at the cost of torrents of blood and of unnumbered disasters! But who is to be cursed as the true cause of all such evils? Is it not the oppressor, seeing that he bends his fellow-men under the yoke of a frightful slavery, lives on the sweat of the brow of his fellow-men, depraves, debases and martyrizes his fellow-beings, kills them to satisfy a whim or out of sheer cruelty, and thus compels them to reconquer by force the freedom that they have been deprived of? Never forget this, my son, if, once subjugated, the whole Gallic race had shown itself as patient, as timid, as resigned as did our poor ancestor Fergan the weaver, our slavery never would have been abolished! After vain appeals to the heart and reason of the oppressor, there is but one means left to overthrow tyranny—revolt—energetic, stubborn, unceasing revolt. Sooner or later right triumphs, as it triumphed with us! Let the blood that our triumph has cost fall upon the heads of those who enslaved us.

Accordingly, my son, thanks to our innumerable insurrections, slavery was at first replaced by the state of the colonist, or serfdom, the regime under which my great-grandfather Justin and my grandfather Aurel lived. Under that system, instead of being forced to cultivate under the whip and for the exclusive benefit of the Roman masters the lands that they had plundered us of by conquest, the colonist had a small share of the harvest that he gathered. He could no longer be sold as a draft horse, along with his children; he could no longer be submitted to the torture or killed; but they were, from father to children, compelled to remain attached to the same domain. If the domain was sold, the colonist likewise changed hands under the identical conditions of toil. Later the condition of the colonists was further improved; they were granted the rights of citizenship. When the Gallic legions were formed, the soldiers that composed them became completely free. My father Ralf, the son of a colonist, gained his freedom in that manner; I, the son of a soldier, brought up in camp, was born free; and I shall bequeath that freedom to you, as my father bequeathed it to me together with the duty to preserve it for your descendants.

When you will read this narrative, my son, after you will have become acquainted with the manifold sufferings of our ancestors, who were slaves for so many generations, you will appreciate the wisdom of the wish expressed by our ancestor Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak. You will admire his sagacity in expecting that, by piously preserving the memory of its bravery and of the independence that it once enjoyed, the Gallic race would be able to draw from the horror for Roman oppression the strength to overthrow it.

At this writing I am thirty-eight years of age. My parents are long dead. Ralf, my father, a soldier in one of our Gallic legions, in which he enrolled at the age of eighteen in the south of Gaul, came into this region, near the western banks of the Rhine, along with the army. He was in all the battles that were fought with the ferocious hordes of the Franks, who, attracted by the fertility of our Gaul and by the wealth contained in our borders, encamped on the opposite shore of the river, ever ready to attempt a new invasion.

About four years ago a descent of the insular population of England was feared in Brittany. On that occasion several legions, the one in which my father enlisted among them, were ordered into that province. During several months he was quartered in the city of Vannes, not far from Karnak, the cradle of our family. Having had one of his friends read to him the narratives of our ancestors, Ralf visited with pious respect the battle field of Vannes, the sacred stones of Karnak, and the lands that we were plundered of in Caesar's time by the Roman conquerors. The lands were held by a Roman family; colonists, sons of the Breton Gauls of our tribe and who had formerly been in bondage, now cultivated the lands that their ancestors one time owned. The daughter of one of those colonists loved my father; her love was reciprocated; her name was Madalene; she was one of those proud and virile Gallic women, that our ancestress Margarid, the wife of Joel, was a type of. She followed my father when his legion left Brittany to return to the banks of the Rhine, where I was born in the fortified camp of Mayence, a military city that our troops occupied. The chief of the legion to which my father belonged was the son of a field laborer. His bravery won him the post. On the day after my birth that chief's wife died in child-bed of a baby girl—a girl who, some day perhaps, may yet, from the retreat of her humble home, reign over the world as she reigns to-day over Gaul. To-day, at the time that I write, Victoria, by virtue of her distinguished wisdom, her eminent qualities, the benign influence that she exercises over her son Victorin and over our whole army, is, in point of fact, empress of Gaul.

Victoria is my foster-sister. Prizing the solid qualities of mind and heart that my mother was endowed with, when Victoria's father became a widower, he requested my mother to nurse his little babe. Accordingly, she and I grew up like brother and sister. We never since failed in the fraternal affection of our childhood. From her earliest age Victoria was serious and gentle, although she greatly delighted in the blare of trumpets and the sight of arms. She gave promise to be some day of that august beauty that mingles calmness, grace and energy, and that is peculiar to certain women of Gaul. You will see medals that have been struck in her honor when she was still a young maid. She is there represented as Diana the huntress, with a bow in one hand and a torch in the other. On a later medal, struck about two years ago, Victoria is represented with her son Victorin in the guise of Minerva accompanied by Mars. At the age of ten she was sent by her father to a college of female druids. Being now again freed from Roman persecution, thanks to the new birth of Gallic freedom, the druids, male and female, again attended to the education of children as they did of yore.

Victoria remained with these venerable women until her fifteenth year. She drew from that patriotic and strict tuition an ardent love for her country, and information on all subjects. She left the college equipped with the secrets of former times, and, it is said, possessing, like Velleda and other female druids, the power of seeing into the future. At that period of her life the proud and virile beauty of Victoria was sublime. When she met me again she was happy and she did not conceal her joy. So far from declining through our long separation from each other, her affection for me, her foster-brother, had increased.

I must at this point make an admission to you, my son; I am free to make it because you will not read these lines until after you will be a man. You will find a good example of courage and abnegation in my confession.

When Victoria returned in her dazzling beauty of fifteen years I was of the same age and although hardly of the age of puberty myself, I fell distractedly in love with her. I carefully concealed my feelings, out of friendship as well as by reason of the respect that, despite the fraternal attachment of which she every day gave me fresh proof, that serious young maid, who brought with her from the college of the female druids an indescribably imposing, pensive and mysterious appearance, inspired in me. I then underwent a cruel trial. Ignorant of the feelings of my heart, as she ever will be, at fifteen and a half Victoria gave her hand to a young military chief. I came near dying of a slow consuming illness caused by my secret despair. So long as my life seemed in danger, Victoria did not leave the head of my couch. A tender sister could not have attended me with more devoted and touching care. She became a mother. Although a mother, she ever accompanied her husband, to whom she was passionately devoted, whenever called to war. By force of reflection I succeeded at last in overcoming, if not my love, at least its violent manifestations, the pain it gave me, the senselessness of the passion. But there remained in me a sense of boundless devotion towards my foster-sister. She asked me to remain near her and her husband as a horseman in the body of cavalrymen that ordinarily act as escorts to the Gallic chiefs, and either take down in writing or convey their military orders. My foster-sister was barely eighteen years of age when, in a severe battle with the Franks, she lost on the same day both her father and her husband. A widow with her son, for whom she foresaw a glorious future, bravely verified by himself since then, Victoria never left the camp. The soldiers, accustomed ever to see her in their midst, with her child in her arms, and walking between her father and her husband, knew that more than once her profoundly wise advice prevailed in the councils of the chiefs as the advice of our mothers of old often prevailed in the councils of our forefathers. They came to look as a good omen upon the presence of this young woman, who was trained in the mysterious science of the druids. At the death of her father and husband they begged her not to leave the army, declaring to her with naïve affection that thenceforth her son Victorin should be "Son of the Camps" and she the "Mother of the Camps." Touched by so much affection, Victoria remained with the troops, preserving her influence over the chiefs, directing them in the government of Gaul, sedulous in imparting a manly education to her son, and living as modestly as the wife of an officer.

Shortly after her husband's death, my foster-sister told me that she would never marry again, it being her intention to consecrate her life entirely to Victorin. The last and insane hope that I nursed when I saw her a widow and free again, was dashed. With time I recovered my senses. I suppressed my ill-starred love and gave no thought but to the service of Victoria and her son. A simple horseman in the army, I served my foster-sister as her secretary. Often she confided important state secrets to me. At times she even charged me with confidential embassies to the military chiefs of Gaul.

I taught Victorin to ride, to handle the lance and the sword. Soon I came to love him as an own son. A kinder and more generous disposition than that of the lad could not be imagined. Thus he grew up among the soldiers, who became attached to him by a thousand bonds of habit and of affection. At the age of fourteen he made his first campaign against the franks, who were fast becoming as dangerous enemies to us as the Romans once were. I accompanied him. Like a true Gallic woman his mother remained on horseback and surrounded by the officers, on a hill from which the battle field could be seen on which her son was engaged. He comported himself bravely and was wounded. Being thus from early youth habituated to the life of war, the youth developed great military talents. Intrepid as the bravest of the soldiers, skilful and cautious as a veteran captain, generous to the full extent that his purse allowed it, of a joyful disposition, open and kind to all, he gained ever more the attachment of the army that soon divided with him its adoration for his mother.

The day finally arrived when Gaul, already almost independent, demanded to share with Rome the government of our country. The power was then divided between a Gallic and a Roman chief. Rome appointed Posthumus, and our troops unanimously acclaimed Victorin as the Gallic chief and general of the army. Shortly after, he married a young girl by whom he was dearly loved. Unfortunately she died within the year, leaving him a son. Victoria, now a grandmother, devoted herself to her son's child as she had done before to himself, and surrounded the babe with all the cares that the tenderest solicitude could inspire.

My early resolve was never to marry. I was nevertheless gradually attracted by the modest graces and the virtue of the daughter of one of the centurions of our army. She was your mother, Ellen, whom I married five years ago.

Such has been my life until this day, when I start the narrative that is to follow. Certain remarks of Victoria decided me to write it both for your benefit and the benefit of our descendants. If the expectations of my foster-sister, concerning several incidents in this narrative, are eventually realized, those of our relatives who in the centuries to come may happen to read this story will discover that Victoria, the Mother of the Camps, was gifted, like Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, and Velleda, the female druid and companion of Civilis, with the holy gift of prevision.

What I am here about to narrate happened a week ago. In order to fix the date with greater accuracy I certify that it is written in the city of Mayence, defended by our fortified camp on the borders of the Rhine, on the fifth day of the month of June, as the Romans reckon, of the seventh year of the joint principality of Posthumus and Victorin in Gaul, two hundred and sixty-four years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth, the friend of the poor, who was crucified in Jerusalem under the eyes of our ancestress Genevieve.

The Gallic camp, composed of tents and light but solid barracks, is massed around Mayence, which dominates it. Victoria lodges in the city; I occupy a little house not far from the one that she inhabits.

PART I.
FOREIGN FOES.

CHAPTER I.
SCHANVOCH AND SAMPSO.

The morning of the day that I am telling of, I quitted my bed with the dawn, leaving my beloved wife Ellen soundly asleep. I contemplated her for an instant. Her long loose hair partly covered her bosom; her sweet and beautiful head rested upon one of her folded arms, while the other reclined on your cradle, my son, as if to protect you even during her sleep. I lightly kissed both your foreheads, fearing to awake you. It required an effort on my part to refrain from tenderly embracing you both again and again. I was bound upon a venturesome expedition; perchance, the kiss that I hardly dared to give you was the last you were ever to receive from me. I left the room where you slept and repaired to the contiguous one to arm myself, to don my cuirass over my blouse, and take my casque and sword. I then left the house. At our threshold I met Sampso, my wife's sister, as gentle and beautiful as herself. She held her apron filled with flowers of different colors; they were still wet with the dew. She had just gathered them in our little garden. Seeing me, she smiled and blushed surprised.

"Up so early, Sampso?" I said to her. "I thought I was the first one stirring. But what is the purpose of these flowers?"

"Is it not to-day a year ago that I came to live with my sister Ellen and you—you forgetful Schanvoch?" she answered with an affectionate smile. "I wish to celebrate the day in our old Gallic fashion. I went out for the flowers in order to garland the house-door, the cradle of your little Alguen, and his mother's head. But you, where are you bound to this morning in full armor?"

At the thought that this holiday might turn into a day of mourning for my family I suppressed a sigh, and answered my wife's sister with a smile that was intended to allay suspicion.

"Victoria and her son charged me yesterday with some military orders for the chief of a detachment that lies encamped some two leagues from here. It is the military custom to be armed when one has such orders in charge."

"Do you know, Schanvoch, that you must arouse jealousy in many a breast?"

"Because my foster-sister employs my soldier's sword during war and my pen during truces?"

"You forget to say that that foster-sister is Victoria the Great, and that Victorin, her son, entertains for you the respect that he would have for his mother's brother. Hardly a day goes by without Victoria's calling upon you. These are favors that many should envy."

"Have I ever sought to profit by these favors, Sampso? Have I not remained a simple horseman, ever declining to be an officer, and requesting the only favor of fighting at Victorin's side?"

"Whose life you have already twice saved when he was at the point of perishing under the blows of those barbarous Franks!"

"I did but my duty as a soldier and a Gaul. Should I not sacrifice my life to that of a man who is so necessary to our country?"

"Schanvoch, we must not quarrel; you know how much I admire Victoria; but—"

"But I know your uncharitableness towards her son," I put in with a smile, "you austere and severe Sampso!"

"Is it any fault of mine if disorderly conduct finds no favor in my eyes—if I even consider it disgraceful?"

"Certes, you are right. Nevertheless I can not avoid being somewhat indulgent towards the foibles of Victorin. A widower at twenty, should he not be excused for yielding at times to the impulses of his age? Dear but implacable Sampso, I let you read the narrative of my ancestress Genevieve. You are gentle and good as Jesus of Nazareth, why do you not imitate his charity towards sinners? He forgave Magdalen because she had loved much. In the name of the same sentiment pardon Victorin!"

"There is nothing more worthy of forgiveness than love, when it is sincere. But debauchery has nothing in common with love. Schanvoch, it is as if you were to say to me that my sister and I could be compared with those Bohemian girls who recently arrived in Mayence."

"In point of looks they might be compared with you or Ellen, seeing that they are said to be ravishingly beautiful. But the comparison ends there, Sampso. I trust but little the virtue of those strollers, however charming, however brilliantly arrayed they may be, who travel from town to town singing and dancing for public amusement—even if they indulge not in worse practices."

"And for all that, I make no doubt that, when you least expect it, you will see Victorin the general of the army, one of the two Chiefs of Gaul, accompany on horseback the chariot in which these Bohemian girls promenade every evening along the borders of the Rhine. And if I should feel indignant at the sight of the son of Victoria serving as escort to such creatures, you would surely say to me: 'Forgive the sinner, just as Jesus forgave Magdalen the sinner.' Go to, Schanvoch, the man who can delight in unworthy amours is capable of—"

But Sampso suddenly broke off.

"Finish your sentence," I said to her, "express yourself in full, I pray you."

"No," she answered after reflecting a moment; "the time has not yet come for that. I would not like to risk a hasty word."

"See here," I said to her, "I am sure that what you have in mind is one of those ridiculous stories about Victorin that for some time have been floating about in the army, without its being possible to trace the slanders to their source. Can you, Sampso, you, with all your good sense and good heart, make yourself the echo of such gossip, such unworthy calumnies?"

"Adieu, Schanvoch; I told you I was not going to quarrel with you, dear brother, on the subject of the hero whom you defend against all comers."

"What would you have me do? It is my foible. I love his mother as an own sister. I love her son as if he were my own. Are you not as guilty as myself, Sampso? Is not my little Alguen, your sister's son, as dear to you as if he were your own child? Take my word for it, when Alguen will be twenty and you hear him accused of some youthful indiscretion, you will, I feel quite sure, defend him with even more warmth than I defend Victorin. But we need not wait so long, have you not begun your role of pleader for him, already? When the rascal is guilty of some misconduct, is it not his aunt Sampso whom he fetches to intercede in his behalf? He knows how you love him!"

"Is not my sister's son mine?"

"Is that the reason you do not wish to marry?"

"Surely, brother," she answered with a blush and a slight embarrassment. After a moment's silence she resumed:

"I hope you will be back home at noon to complete our little feast?"

"The moment my mission is fulfilled I shall return. Adieu, Sampso!"

"Adieu, Schanvoch!"

And leaving his wife's sister engaged in her work of garlanding the house-door, Schanvoch walked rapidly away, revolving in his mind the topic of the conversation that Sampso had just broached.

CHAPTER II.
ON THE RHINE.

I had often asked myself why Sampso, who was a year older than Ellen, and as beautiful and virtuous as my wife, had until then rejected several offers of marriage. At times I suspected that she entertained some secret love, other times I surmised she might belong to one of the Christian societies that began to spread over Gaul and in which the women took the vow of virginity, as did several of our female druids. I also pondered the reason for Sampso's reticence when I asked her to be more explicit concerning Victorin. Soon, however, I dropped all these subjects and turned my mind upon the expedition that I had in charge.

I wended my way towards the advance posts of the camp and addressed myself to an officer under whose eyes I placed a scroll with a few lines written by Victorin. The officer immediately put four picked soldiers at my disposal. They were chosen from among a number whose special department was to manoeuvre the craft of the military flotilla that was used in ascending or descending the Rhine in order, whenever occasion required, to defend the fortified camp. Upon my recommendation the four soldiers left their arms behind. I alone was armed. As we passed a clump of oak trees I cut down a few branches to be placed at the prow of the bark that was to transport us. We soon arrived at the river bank, where we found several boats that were reserved for the service of the army, tied to their stakes. While two of the soldiers fastened on the prow of the boat the oak branches that I had furnished them with, the other two examined the oars with expert eyes in order to assure themselves that they were in fit condition for use. I took the rudder, and we left the shore.

The four soldiers rowed in silence for a while. Presently the oldest of them, a veteran with a grey moustache and white hair, said to me:

"There is nothing like a Gallic song to make time pass quickly and the oars strike in rhythm. I should say that some old national refrain, sung in chorus, renders the sculls lighter and the water more easy to cleave through. Are we allowed to sing, friend Schanvoch?"

"You seem to know me, comrade?"

"Who in the army does not know the foster-brother of the Mother of the Camps?"

"Being a simple horseman I thought my name was more obscure than it seems to be."

"You have remained a simple horseman despite our Victoria's friendship for you. That is why, Schanvoch, everybody knows and esteems you."

"You certainly make me feel happy by saying so. What is your name?"

"Douarnek."

"You must be a Breton!"

"From the neighborhood of Vannes."

"My family also comes from that neighborhood."

"I thought as much, your name being a Breton name. Well, friend Schanvoch, may we sing a song? Our officer gave us orders to obey you as we would himself. I know not whither you are taking us, but a song is heard far away, especially when it is struck up in chorus by vigorous and broad-chested lads. Perhaps we must not draw attention upon our bark?"

"Just now you may sing—later not—we shall have to advance without making any noise."

"Well, boys, what shall we sing?" said the veteran without either himself or his companions intermitting the regular strokes of their oars, and only slightly turning his head towards them, seeing that, seated as he was on the first bench, he sat opposite to me. "Come, make your choice!"

"The song of the mariners, will that suit you?" answered one of the soldiers.

"That is rather long," replied Douarnek.

"The song of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys?"

"That is very beautiful," again replied Douarnek, "but it is a song of slaves who await their deliverance; by the bones of our fathers, we are now free in old Gaul!"

"Friend Douarnek," said I, "it was to the refrain of that slaves' song—'Flow, flow, thou blood of the captive! Drop, drop, thou dew of gore!' that our fathers, arms in hand, reconquered the freedom that we enjoy to-day."

"That is true, Schanvoch, but that song is very long, and you warned us that we were soon to become silent as fishes."

"Douarnek," one of the soldiers spoke up, "sing to us the song of Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen. It always brings tears to my eyes. She is my favorite saint, the beautiful and sweet Hena, who lived centuries and centuries ago."

"Yes, yes," said the other soldiers, "sing the song of Hena, Douarnek! That song predicts the victory of Gaul—and Gaul is to-day triumphant!"

Hearing these words I was greatly moved, I felt happy and, I confess it, proud at seeing that the name of Hena, dead more than three hundred years, had remained in Gaul as popular as it was at the time of Sylvest.

"Very well, the song of Hena it shall be!" replied the veteran. "I also love the sweet and saintly girl, who offered her blood to Hesus for the deliverance of Gaul. And you, Schanvoch, do you know the song?"

"Yes—quite well—I have heard it sung—"

"You will know it enough to repeat the refrain with us."

Saying this Douarnek struck up the song in a full and sonorous voice that reached far over the waters of the Rhine:

And myself and the three other oarsmen replied in chorus:

Douarnek then proceeded with the song:

And the other oarsmen and I replied in chorus to the rythmical sound of the oars:

Douarnek proceeded:

And Douarnek, along with the three other soldiers, repeated in a low voice, vibrating with pious admiration, this last refrain:

I alone did not join in the last refrain of the song. I was too deeply moved!

Noticing my emotion and my silence, Douarnek said to me surprised:

"What, Schanvoch, have you lost your voice? You remain silent at the close of so glorious a song?"

"Your speech is sooth, Douarnek; it is just because that song is particularly glorious to me—that you see me so deeply moved."

"That song is particularly glorious to you? I do not understand you."

"Hena was the daughter of one of my ancestors."

"What say you!"

"Hena was the daughter of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak, who died, together with his wife and almost all his family, at the great battle of Vannes—a battle that was fought on land and water nearly three centuries ago. From father to son, I descend from Joel."

"Do you know, Schanvoch," replied Douarnek, "that even kings would be proud of such an ancestry?"

"The blood shed for our country and for liberty by all of us Gauls is our national patent of nobility," I said to him. "It is for that reason that our old songs are so popular among us."

"When one considers," put in one of the younger soldiers, "that it is now more than three hundred years since Hena, the saintly maid, surrendered her own life for the deliverance of the country, and that her name still reaches us!"

"Although it took the young virgin's voice more than two centuries to rise to the ears of Hesus," replied Douarnek, "her voice did finally reach him, seeing that to-day we can say—Victory to our arms! Victory and freedom!"

We had now arrived at about the middle of the river, where the stream is very rapid.

Raising his oar, Douarnek asked me:

"Shall we enter the strong current? That would be a waste of strength, unless we are either to ascend or descend the river a distance equal to that that now separates us from the shore."

"We are to cross the Rhine in its full breadth, friend Douarnek."

"Cross it!" cried the veteran with amazement. "Cross the Rhine! And what for?"

"To land on the opposite shore."

"Do you know what that means, Schanvoch? Is not the army of those Frankish bandits, if one can honor those savage hordes with the name of army, encamped on the opposite shore?"

"It is to those very barbarians that I am bound."

For a few moments all the four oars rested motionless in their oarlocks. The soldiers looked at one another speechless, as if they could not believe what they heard me say.

Douarnek was the first to break the silence. With a soldier's unconcern he said to me:

"Is it, then, a sacrifice that we are to offer to Hesus by delivering our hides to those hide-tanners? If such be the orders, forward! Bend to your oars, my lads!"

"Have you forgotten, Douarnek, that we have a truce of eight days with the Franks?"

"There is no such thing as a truce to those brigands."

"As you will notice, I have made the signal of peace by ornamenting the prow of our bark with green boughs. I shall proceed alone into the enemy's camp, with an oak branch in my hand."

"And they will slay you despite all your oak branches, as they have slain other envoys during previous truces."

"That may happen, Douarnek; but when the chief commands, the soldier obeys. Victoria and her son have ordered me to proceed to the Frankish camp. So thither I go!"

"It surely was not out of fear that I spoke, Schanvoch, when I said that those savages would not leave our heads on our shoulders, nor our skins on our bodies. I only spoke from the old habit of sincerity. Well, then, my lads, fall to with a will! Bend to your oars! We have the order from our mother—the Mother of the Camps—and we obey. Forward! even if we are to be flayed alive by the barbarians, a cruel sport that they often indulge in at the expense of their prisoners."

"And it is also said," put in the young soldier with a less unperturbed voice than Douarnek's, "it is also said that the priestesses of the nether world who follow the Frankish hordes drop their prisoners into large brass caldrons, and boil them alive with certain magic herbs."

"Ha! Ha!" replied Douarnek merrily, "the one of us who may be boiled in that way will at least enjoy the advantage of being the first to taste his own soup—that's some consolation. Forward! Ply your oars! We are obeying orders from the Mother of the Camps."

"Oh! We would row straight into an abyss, if Victoria so ordered!"

"She has been well named, the Mother of the Camps and of the soldiers. It is a treat to see her visiting the wounded after each battle."

"And addressing them with her kind words, that almost make the whole ones regret that they have not been wounded, too."

"And then she is so beautiful. Oh, so beautiful!"

"Oh! When she rides through the camp, mounted on her white steed, clad in her long black robe, her bold face looking out from under her casque, and yet her eyes shining with so much mildness, and her smile so motherly! It is like a vision!"

"It is said for certain that our Victoria knows the future as well as she knows the present."

"She must have some charm about her. Who would believe, seeing her, that she is the mother of a son of twenty-two?"

"Oh! If the son had only fulfilled the promise that his younger years gave!"

"Victorin will always be loved as he has been."

"Yes, but it is a great pity!" remarked Douarnek shaking his head sadly, after the other soldiers had thus given vent to their thoughts and feelings. "Yes, it is a great pity! Oh! Victorin is no longer the child of the camps that we, old soldiers with grey moustaches, knew as a baby, rode on our knees, and, down to only recently, looked upon with pride and friendship!"

The words of these soldiers struck me with deeper apprehension than Sampso's words did a few hours before. Not only did I often have to defend Victorin with the severe Sampso, but I had latterly noticed in the army a silent feeling of resentment towards my foster-sister's son, who until then, was the idol of the soldiers.

"What have you to reproach Victorin with?" I asked Douarnek and his companions. "Is he not brave among the bravest? Have you not watched his conduct in war?"

"Oh! If a battle is on, he fights bravely, as bravely as yourself, Schanvoch, when you are at his side, on your large bay horse, and more intent upon defending the son of your foster-sister than upon defending yourself. 'Your scars would declare it, if they could speak through the mouths of your wounds,' as our old proverb says!"

"I fight as a soldier; Victorin fights as a captain. And has not that young captain of only twenty-two years already won five great battles against the Germans and the Franks?"

"His mother, well named Victoria, must have contributed with her counsel towards his victories. He confers with her upon his plans of campaign. But, anyhow, it is true, Victorin is a brave soldier and good captain."

"And is not his purse open to all, so long as there is anything in it? Do you know of any invalid who ever vainly applied to him?"

"Victorin is generous—that also is true."

"Is he not the friend and comrade of the soldiers? Is he ever haughty?"

"No, he is a good comrade, and always cheerful. Besides, what should he be proud about? Are not his father, his glorious mother and himself from the Gallic plebs, like the rest of us?"

"Do you not know, Douarnek, that often it happens that the proudest people are the very ones who have risen from the lowest ranks?"

"Victorin is not proud!"

"Does he not, during war, sleep unsheltered with his head upon the saddle of his horse, like the rest of us horsemen?"

"Brought up by so virile a mother as his, he was bound to grow up a rough soldier, as he is."

"Are you not aware that in council he displays a maturity of judgment that many men of our age do not possess? In short, is it not his bravery, his kindness, his good judgment, his rare military qualities as a soldier and captain that caused him to be acclaimed general by the army, and one of the two Chiefs of Gaul?"

"Yes, but in electing him, all of us knew that his mother Victoria would always be near him, guiding him, instructing him, schooling him in the art of governing men, without neglecting, worthy matron that she is, to sew her linen near the cradle of her grandson, as is her thrifty habit."

"No one knows better than I how precious the advices of Victoria to her son are to our country. But what is it, then, that has changed? Is she not always there, watching over Victorin and Gaul that she loves with equal and paternal devotion? Come, now, Douarnek, answer me with a soldier's frankness. Whence comes the hostility that, I fear, is ever spreading and deepening against Victorin, our young and brave general?"

"Listen, Schanvoch. I am, like yourself, a seasoned soldier. Your moustache, although younger than mine, begins to show grey streaks. Do you want to know the truth? Here it is: We are all aware that the life of the camp does not make people chaste and reserved like young girls who are brought up by our venerated female druids. We also know, because we have emptied many a cup, that our Gallic wines throw us into a merry and riotous humor. We know, furthermore, that when he is in a garrison, the young soldier who proudly carries a cockade on his casque and caresses his brown or blonde moustache, does not long preserve the friendship of fathers who have handsome daughters, or of husbands who have handsome wives. But, for all that, you will have to admit, Schanvoch, that a soldier who is habitually intoxicated like a brute, and takes cowardly advantage of women, would deserve to be treated to a hundred or more stripes laid on well upon his back, and to be ignominiously driven from camp. Is not that so?"

"That is all very true, but what connection has it with Victorin?"

"Listen, friend Schanvoch, and then answer me. If an obscure soldier deserves such treatment for his shameful conduct, what should be done to an army chief who disgraces himself in such fashion?"

"Do you venture to say that Victorin has offered violence to women and that he is daily drunk?" I cried indignantly. "I say that you lie, or those who carried such tales to you lied. So, these are the unworthy rumors that circulate in the camp against Victorin! And can you be credulous enough to attach faith to them?"

"Soldiers are not quite so credulous, friend Schanvoch, but they are aware of the old Gallic proverb—'The lost sheep are charged to the shepherd.' Now, for instance, you know Captain Marion, the old blacksmith?"

"Yes, I know the brave fellow to be one of the best officers in the army."

"The famous Captain Marion, who can carry an ox on his shoulders," put in one of the soldiers, "and who can knock down the same ox with a blow of his fist—his arm is as heavy as the iron mace of a butcher."

"And Captain Marion," added another oarsman, "is a good comrade, for all that, despite his strength and military renown. He took a simple soldier, a former fellow blacksmith, for his 'friend in war,' or, as they used to say in olden times, took the 'pledge of brotherhood' with him."

"I am aware of the bravery, modesty, good judgment and austerity of Captain Marion," I answered him, "but why do you now bring in his name?"

"Have a little patience, friend Schanvoch, I shall satisfy you in a minute. Did you see the two Bohemian girls enter Mayence a few days ago in a wagon drawn by mules covered with tinkling bells and led by a Negro lad?"

"I did not see the women, but have heard them mentioned. But I must insist upon it, what has all this got to do with Victorin?"

"I have reminded you of the proverb—'The lost sheep are charged to the shepherd.' It would be idle to attribute habits of drunkenness and incontinence to Captain Marion, would it not? Despite all his simpleness, the soldier would not believe a word of such slanders; not so? While, on the other hand, the soldier would be ready to believe any story of debauchery about the said Bohemian strollers, and he would trust the narrator of the tale, do you understand?"

"I understand you, Douarnek, and I shall be frank in turn. Yes, Victorin loves wine and indulges in it with some of his companions in arms. Yes, having been left a widower at the age of twenty, only a few months after his marriage, Victorin has occasionally yielded to the headlong impulses of youth. Often did his mother, as well as myself, regret that he was not endowed with greater austerity in morals, a virtue, however, that is extremely rare at his age. But, by the anger of the gods! I, who have never been from Victorin's side since his earliest childhood, deny that drunkenness is habitual with him; above all I deny that he ever was base enough to do violence to a woman!"

"Schanvoch, you defend the son of your foster-sister out of the goodness of your heart, although you know him to be guilty—unless you really are ignorant of what you deny—"

"What am I ignorant of?"

"An adventure that has raised a great scandal, and that everybody in camp knows."

"What adventure?"

"A short time ago Victorin and several officers of the army went to a tavern on one of the isles near the border of the Rhine to drink and make merry. In the evening, being by that time drunk as usual, Victorin violated the tavern-keeper's wife, who, in her despair, threw herself into the river and was drowned."

"The soldier who misdemeaned himself in that manner," remarked one of the oarsmen, "would speedily have his head cut off by a strict chief."

"And he would have deserved the punishment," added another oarsman. "As much as the next man, I would find pleasure in bantering with the tavern-keeper's wife. But to offer her violence, that is an act of savagery worthy only of those Frankish butchers, whose priestesses, veritable devil's cooks, boil their prisoners alive in their caldrons."

I was so stupefied by the accusation made against Victorin that I remained silent for a moment. But my voice soon came to me and I cried:

"Calumny! A calumny as infamous as the act would have been. Who is it dares accuse Victoria's son of such a crime?"

"A well informed man," Douarnek answered me.

"His name! Give me the liar's name!"

"His name is Morix. He was the secretary of one of Victoria's relatives. He came to the camp about a month ago to confer upon grave matters."

"The relative is Tetrik, the Governor of Gascony," I said with increased stupefaction. "The man is the incarnation of kindness and loyalty; he is one of Victoria's oldest and most faithful friends."

"All of which renders the man's testimony all the more reliable."

"What! He, Tetrik! Did Tetrik confirm what you have just said?"

"He communicated it to his secretary, and confirmed the occurrence, while deploring the shocking excesses of Victorin's dissoluteness."

"Calumny! Tetrik has only words of kindness and esteem for Victoria's son."

"Schanvoch, I have served in the army for the last twenty-five years. Ask my officers whether Douarnek is a liar."

"I believe you to be sincere; only you have been shamefully imposed upon."

"Morix, the secretary of Tetrik, narrated the occurrence not to me only but to other soldiers in the camp for whose wine he was paying. We all placed confidence in his words, because more than once did I myself and several others of my companions see Victorin and his friends heated with wine and indulging in crazy feats of arms."

"Does not the ardor of courage heat up young heads as much as wine?"

"Listen, Schanvoch, I have seen—with my own eyes—Victorin drive his steed into the Rhine saying that he would cross the river on horseback; and he would certainly have been drowned had not another soldier and I rushed into a boat and fished him half drunk out of the water, while the current carried his horse away. And do you know what Victorin then said to us? 'You should have let me drink; the white wine of Beziers runs in this stream.' What I am telling you now is no calumny, Schanvoch, I saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears."

Despite my attachment to Victorin I could not but reply to the soldier's testimony, saying: "I knew him to be incapable of an act of cowardice and infamy; but I also knew him to be capable of certain acts of extravagance and hotheadedness."

"As to myself," replied another soldier, "more than once, as I mounted guard near Victorin's house which is separated from Victoria's by a little plot of flowers, have I seen veiled women leave his place at early dawn. They were of all colors and sizes, blondes and brunettes, tall and short, some robust and stout, others slender and thin. At least, that was the impression that the women left upon me, unless the gloaming deceived my sight, and it was always the same woman."

"I notice that you are too sincere to make any answer to that, friend Schanvoch," Douarnek said to me; indeed, I could raise no objection against the latter accusation. "You must, therefore, not feel surprised at our trust in the words of Tetrik's secretary. You must admit that the man who in a drunken fit takes the Rhine for a stream of Bezier's wine, and from whose house a procession of women is seen to issue in the morning, is quite capable, in a fit of inebriety, of doing violence to a tavern-keeper's wife."

"No!" I cried. "A man may be afflicted with the faults of his years in an aggravated degree, without therefore being an infamous fellow, a criminal!"

"See here, Schanvoch, you are the personal friend of our mother Victoria. You love Victorin as if he were your own son. Say to him—'The soldiers, even the grossest and most dissolute among them, do not like to see their own vices reproduced in the chief whom they have chosen. By your conduct, the army's affection is daily withdrawn more and more from you and is centering wholly upon Victoria.'"

"Yes," I answered thoughtfully, "and the process started since Tetrik, the Governor of Gascony, the relative and friend of Victoria, made his last visit to our camp. Until then our young chief was generally beloved, despite his little foibles."

"That is true. He is so good, so brave, so kind to all! He sat his horse so well! He had so bold a military bearing! We loved the young captain as an own child! We knew him as a babe, and rode him on our knees when still a little fellow, during the watches in the camp! Later we shut our eyes to his foibles, because parents are ever indulgent! But there can be no room for indulgence towards baseness!"

"And of this baseness," I replied, now more and more forcibly struck by the circumstance, which, recalling certain incidents to my mind, awakened a vague suspicion in me, "and of these acts of baseness there is no evidence other than the word of Tetrik's secretary?"

"The secretary repeated to us his own master's words."

During this conversation, to which I lent increasing attention, our bark, ever moving forward under the vigorous strokes of the four oarsmen, had traversed the Rhine and reached the opposite shore. The soldier's backs were turned to the bank on which we were about to land. I was so wholly absorbed in what I had just learned regarding the army's increasing disaffection towards Victorin, that I never once thought of casting my eyes upon the shore to which we were drawing near. Suddenly a sharp whizz struck our ears. I cried out: "Throw yourselves down flat upon your benches!"

It was too late. A volley of long arrows flew over our boat. One of the oarsmen was instantly killed, while Douarnek, whose back was still turned to the shore received one of the arrows in the back.

"This is the way the Franks receive parliamentarians during a truce," remarked the veteran without dropping his oar, and even without turning around. "This is the first time I have been hit in the back. An arrow in the back does not become a soldier. Pull it out quick, comrade," he added, addressing the oarsman who sat behind him.

But despite his intrepidity, Douarnek managed his oar with less vigor. Although the wound that he received was not serious, his face betrayed the pain that he felt; the blood flowed copiously.

"I told you so, Schanvoch," he proceeded to say. "I told you that your foliage of peace would prove a poor rampart against the treachery of the Frankish barbarians. Fall to, my lads! We must now row all the harder, seeing we are only three left. Our comrade yonder, who is bumping his nose against his bench, with his limbs stiffened, can no longer count as an oarsman!"

Douarnek had not finished his sentence before I dashed forward to the prow of the bark, and passing over the corpse of the soldier who lay dead across his bench seized one of the oak branches and waved it over my head as a signal of peace.

A second volley of arrows, that came flying from behind an embankment of the river, was the only answer to my appeal. One of the missiles grazed my arm, another broke off its point against my iron casque; but none of the soldiers was hit. We were then only a short distance from the shore. I threw myself into the water, swam a little distance, and as soon as my feet struck ground called out to Douarnek:

"Pull the bark safely beyond the reach of the arrows and drop anchor, then wait for me. If I am not back after sunset, return to camp and inform Victoria that I have either been made prisoner or killed by the Franks. She will take my wife Ellen and my son Alguen under her protection."

"I do not at all like the idea of leaving you alone in the hands of those barbarians, friend Schanvoch," answered Douarnek; "but to stay where we can be killed would be to deprive you of all possible means of return to our camp, should you be lucky enough to escape with your life. Courage, Schanvoch! We shall await the evening!"

And the bark pulled away, while I clambered up the embankment.

CHAPTER III.
THE HORDES OF THE FRANKS.

I had hardly reached the shore, always holding the green oak branch aloft, when I saw a large number of Franks, belonging to the hordes of their army, rush forward from behind the rocks where they had lain in ambush. They carried black bucklers and wore casques made of black calves' skin. Their arms, legs and faces were dyed black in order to escape detection when they march in the shadow of the forests or contemplate an attack in the night. Their appearance was rendered all the more hideous and strange, seeing that their chiefs were tattooed with a bright red on their foreheads, their cheeks and around their eyes. My long sojourn along the Rhine enabled me to speak the Frankish tongue with sufficient fluency.

The black warriors emitted savage yells, surrounded me from all sides and threatened me with their long knives, the blades of which also were blackened in the fire.

"A truce has been concluded, several days ago," I cried out to them; "I have come in the name of the chief of the Gallic army with a message to the chiefs of your hordes. Lead me to them. You surely will not kill an unarmed man?"

Saying this I drew my sword and threw it away. The barbarians immediately precipitated themselves upon me, redoubling their cries for my blood. Some of them unwound the cords of their bows, and, despite all my remonstrances, threw me to the ground and bound me fast.

"Let us flay him," said one. "We shall carry his skin to the chief Neroweg, the Terrible Eagle. It will serve him as a bandage to wrap his legs in."

I was well aware that the Franks often skinned their enemies alive with great dexterity, and that the chiefs of their hordes decked themselves triumphantly with such human spoils. The proposition that I be skinned alive was received with shouts of approval; those who held me down began to cast about for a convenient place to perform the operation; others started to sharpen their knives upon the pebbles.

At this juncture, the warrior in command of the band approached me. The man was horrible to behold. A bright red tattoo encircled his eyes and streaked his cheeks. The marks looked like bleeding wounds, standing off strongly against his blackened face. His hair, raised after the Frankish style over his forehead and tied in a knot on top of his head, fell back like the plume of a helmet over his shoulders, and was of a coppery yellow, due to the lime-water that those barbarians used in order to impart a warm bright color to their hair and beard.[1] Around his neck and his wrists he wore a necklace and bracelets of rough wrought tin. His raiment consisted of a casque of black calfskin; strips of black calfskin fastened with criss-cross bandelets, covered his thighs and lower extremities. A sword and a long knife hung from his belt. After fixedly looking at me for a moment, he raised his hand and letting it down on my shoulder said:

"I shall take and keep this Gaul for Elwig. He is my prisoner."

Muffled growls from several of the other black warriors greeted these words of their chief, who, raising his voice, proceeded to say:

"I, Riowag, will take this Gaul to the priestess Elwig. Elwig needs a prisoner for her auguries."

The chief's decision was acquiesced in by the majority of the black warriors; the growls ceased; and a mob of voices repeated in chorus:

"Yes, yes; the Gaul must be kept for Elwig!"

"He must be taken to Elwig!"

"It is many days since she consulted our tutelary deities!"

"And we," cried one of the black warriors who had bound me, "we object to having the prisoner delivered to Elwig. We want to flay him and present his skin in token of homage to the chief Neroweg, the Terrible Eagle; he will reward us with some present."

There is small choice between being skinned alive and being boiled in a brass caldron. I did not feel called upon to manifest my preferences, and took no part whatever in the debate. Already those who wished to flay me cast savage glances at those who insisted that I be boiled, and carried their hands to their knives, when one of the black warriors proposed a compromise to the chief:

"Riowag, do you want to deliver the Gaul to the priestess Elwig?"

"Yes," answered the chief; "yes, I want to, and it shall be done as I order!"

"And the rest of you," proceeded the conciliatory black warrior, "you wish to offer the Gaul's skin to the chief Neroweg?"

"That is what we propose to do!"

"Very well, you can be accommodated, both."

A profound silence fell all around at these conciliatory words. The black warrior proceeded:

"First, flay him alive, you will then have his skin; after that Elwig will boil his body in her caldron."

The compromise seemed at first to satisfy both parties, but Riowag, the captain of the band, objected:

"Do you not know that Elwig needs a living prisoner to render her auguries certain? You would be giving her only a corpse if you first flay the Gaul."

And he added in a terrific voice:

"Would you expose yourselves to the anger of the gods of the nether world by depriving them of a victim?"

At this threat a shudder ran through the surrounding black warriors, and the party that demanded my skin seemed about to yield to a superstitious terror.

The peacemaker, the warrior who had proposed that I be first flayed and then boiled, now spoke again:

"Some of you wish to present the Gaul as an offering to the great Neroweg, others of you wish to present him to the priestess Elwig. Now do you not see that to give to the one is to give to the other also? Is not Elwig Neroweg's sister?"

"And he would be the first to surrender the Gaul to the gods of the nether world, in order to render them propitious to our arms!" put in Riowag.

The captain of the black warriors pointed thereupon at me, and added imperiously:

"Take the Gaul on your shoulders and follow me!"

"We want to have his spoils," said one of the black warriors who were the first to seize me. "We want his casque, his cuirass, his blouse, his belt, his shirt. We want everything, down to his shoes!"

"The booty belongs to you," answered Riowag. "You will have it so soon as Elwig will have stripped the Gaul preparatorily to throwing him into her caldron."

"We shall go with you, Riowag," replied the black warriors who made the arrest, "otherwise others than ourselves will take possession of the plunder from the Gaul."

My perplexity was now at an end. I knew my fate. I was to be boiled alive. I would have gladly looked a useful or brave death in the face; but the death that awaited me seemed so barren and absurd, that I decided to make one more effort to save my life. Addressing the captain of the black warriors, I said:

"Your conduct is unjust. Frankish warriors have often come to the Gallic camp to solicit an exchange of prisoners. Those Franks have always been respected. A truce is now in force between us, during a truce only spies who furtively enter the camp are put to death. I have come in open daylight, with a green bough in my hand, and in the name of Victorin, the son of Victoria. I am the carrier of a message from them for the chiefs of the Frankish army. Take care! If you act without orders from them, they will be sorry for not having heard me, and they may make you pay dearly for your treachery towards a soldier, who comes unarmed, during a truce, and in broad daylight, with the bough of peace in his hand."

Riowag's answer to my words was a sign to his band. I was immediately raised up by four black warriors who placed me on their shoulders and carried me off in the tracks of their captain, who marched with a solemn air in the direction of the Frankish camp.

At the moment when the barbarians raised me on their shoulders, I overheard one of those who wished to flay me alive say to one of his companions in a mocking tone:

"Riowag is Elwig's lover; he wishes to make a present of the prisoner to his mistress."

These words enabled me to realize that Riowag, the captain of the band of black warriors, being the lover of the priestess Elwig, gallantly made her a present of my person, just as in our country bridegrooms offer a dove or a sheep to the young girl whom they love.

You will be astonished, my child, to find in this narrative that I have used words that sound almost droll in describing events that were so threatening to my life. Do not imagine that this is due to the circumstance that at the hour when I write these lines, I had escaped all danger. No. Even when the danger was most imminent—a danger from which I was almost miraculously delivered—I had full control of my spirit, and the old Gallic sense of humor, a thing so natural to our race, however long it lay torpid under the weight of the shame and the trials of slavery, revived in me as it did with so many others when we once more tasted the boon of freedom. The observations that you will encounter, and which I have reproduced as they occurred to me at times when death seemed inevitable, were sincere, they proceeded from my faith in that belief of our fathers that man never dies, that when he leaves this world he enters others in which he proceeds to live.

Carried upon the shoulders of the four black warriors, I traversed a section of the Frankish camp. The vast bivouac which was arranged without order, consisted of huts for the chiefs and tents for the soldiers. It was a sort of gigantic village of savages. Here and there lay their innumerable war chariots sheltered under rude sheds made of the trunks of trees. Their indefatigable small, lean, rough-coated and shaggy-maned horses, that they managed with a halter of cord for only bridle, were, as is the custom with these barbarians, tied to the wheels of the chariots or to the trunks of trees, the bark of which they gnawed at. The Franks themselves, barely clad in skins of animals, their hair and beard greasy with suet, presented an aspect that was repulsive, stupid and ferocious. Some of them were stretched out at full length in the warm rays of that sun that they started in search of from the depths of their dark northern forests. Others found amusement in the hunt for vermin over their hairy bodies; these barbarians lived in such filth that, although they were in the open air, their encampment exhaled a fetid odor.

At the sight of these undisciplined hordes, ill armed but innumerable, and whose forces were incessantly recruited by fresh migrations that poured down in mass from the glacial regions of the north to swoop upon the fertile and laughing fields of our Gaul as upon a prey, certain words of sinister omen that escaped the lips of Victoria came to my mind. Nevertheless supreme contempt speedily filled me for those barbarians, who, three or four times superior to our own armies in point of numbers, never had been able, despite many a bloody battle delivered for a number of years, to invade our soil, but found themselves every time driven back to the other side of the Rhine, our natural frontier.