Bissula. English
Page 56
CHAPTER LVI.
The camp on the lake shore had been taken, with great loss of life tothe Romans.
A camp wall and ditch had been hurriedly made in the few hours aftertheir arrival, merely for form's sake, because the good old Romancustom prescribed it, and Nannienus insisted upon its observance. Butthe Commander himself closed his eyes to the carelessness of the work.This camp was to be abandoned at dawn on the following morning and itsmen sent to garrison the one on the Idisenhang and to march in pursuitof the Barbarians. So the ditch was dug only a few feet deep, the wallerected only a few feet high, and other fortifications were omitted.The Alemanni instantly poured from all directions into the fortress,whose inmates were overcome by sleep and wine.
The old Duke had given them counsel taken from the songs of a wanderingbard, who had sung in his own hall, to the music of his harp, ancienttales of his race. The man was a Batavian and bore the names, an oddmedley, Julius Claudius Civilis Chlodomer. He went from tribe to tribeas far as they understood his language, singing and telling the oldsongs and legends. So he related how, three centuries before, hispeople, skilled in the use of arms, and led by his ancestor who, thougha German, had the same Roman names as his distant descendant, foughtfuriously against the Roman yoke and won many a victory, inspired byVeleda, a maiden prophetess of the Bructeri.
And he sang how once, one moonless, starless night, they attacked aRoman ship camp on the Rhine: the galleys were anchored in the river;on the shore were many tents. The Batavians first cut the main ropes,which wound around the poles stretching the tents; and the sleepers,buried, entangled, and held beneath them, were easily overpowered whilethus defenceless:
"Like plump fish captured In nets by night, They struggled, shouting Their tents beneath."
The old Duke had firmly impressed upon his mind these lines of theBatavians; they had seemed to him the best of all, and he now used whathe had learned.
The Romans were wakened first by the tents falling in upon them, by theglare of flames on all sides, and then by the Germans' shouts ofvictory. They scattered without offering the least resistance; saw theships, their nearest refuge, also burning; tried to climb to the campon the height, but beheld fire blazing there also, and fled, withoutaim or plan, to the right and left along the shore of the lake. Theywere pursued by few of the victors, who preferred, first of all, toseize the small Roman vessels and in these aid their comrades to boardthe proud biremes. These vessels would contain more men, and theirhigher decks were far better suited to climb the sides of the large wargalleys than the low fishing boats of the Alemanni. So it happened thatmany German boats drifted to the shore empty, their crews havingabandoned them to pursue in the smaller Roman vessels, the Romangalleys, or having already boarded them.
When Decius, with the little band of Illyrians, whom he had heldtogether around the wounded General and Ausonius, reached the burningcamp, even Saturninus, with the biremes blazing before his eyes,recognized reluctantly that here, too, all was lost, and anycontinuation of the battle impossible. He consented, hesitatingly, tothink only of flight. Rignomer, who had joined the General at the lakegate, was the first to discover, as he gazed watchfully to and fro,several deserted boats of the Alemanni drifting near them.
Leaping into the water, sometimes wading, sometimes swimming, hereached the first, climbed in, found the oars, rowed to the threeskiffs nearest, tied them together with the ropes tangled near thesteering oar, and soon brought his little fleet so close to the shorethat the wounded Commander could be placed in the largest one, whilethe whole band of fugitives--five or six in each--entered the others.By his advice they all removed the high Roman helmets, which could berecognized at a long distance, and the glittering Roman armor. At hissuggestion, too, they separated. Even Decius willingly followed thecounsel of the Batavian, an expert in sailing, in order not to attractthe enemy's attention so easily: thus they hoped to reach Arbor, on thesouthern shore, singly and undetected.
When Hariowald and his followers arrived, they found nothing to doexcept to take possession of all the Roman and German vessels whichstill lay unused near the land, and continue the pursuit of the wargalleys on the lake. Springing into a Roman transport boat, he orderedhis men to row him to Nannienus's galley, where the boarders, afteroverpowering the crew, had extinguished the flames. A man standing onthe lofty deck flung a rope ladder into the boat and gave Hariowald hishand to help him on board. It was now dawn; the Duke recognizedFiskulf, the fisherman.
"What!" cried the old Commander in astonishment. "Did Odin really saveyou? Then he is even more powerful and more gracious than I expected."
"It must be so," replied the man, with a happy laugh. "I was the firston deck, flung, the first brand into the main sail, and swung theItalian lord overboard like a lake salmon out of an ice-hole. But thenI saved the beautiful ship by putting out the flames. I thought: 'It isbetter to capture than to burn.' Did I keep my word?"
"You have surpassed it. And are you uninjured?"
"Not entirely: henceforth I shall have one ear less. It must be ownedthat the short swords of these Italians slice sharply, and they dealpowerful blows. Look, not even the mother who bore me with two earswould believe that one ever peered out under my hair here--he shaved itoff so smoothly."
The Duke held out his hand: "You shall be one of my followers, Fiskulf!You have learned to hear and to obey me."
"Yes, my lord, even with one ear! When I miss the second, I shallalways tell myself why I lost it."
"And how the Lofty One gave you back the life forfeited to him: neverforget that. But now we will pursue the Italians across the lake toArbor on their own splendid galley. Spread every sail!"
"Where shall we get them, my lord? They are all burned."
"Then stretch your mantles for sails. The north wind will help to fillthem; a fresh west northwest breeze will spring up at sunrise. See howthe waves are rippling already. The first red ray of morning isbreaking through yonder clouds. Quick, men, seize the Roman oars; themorning sun must greet us on the southern shore. Ha, do you behold itover yonder? Smoke and flames are rising in Arbor. Our eastern men, theHermunduri, and our kinsmen, now free, though hitherto under theforeign yoke, have kept their promise. Up! On to Arbor to celebrate thethird victory of one night!"
He seized the helm himself. The proud galley of the Romans turned herprow away from the northern shore, and being now rowed by theconquerors, moved majestically across the lake. The mantles of theAlemanni, brown, blue, yellow, and red, filled in the freshnorthwestern breeze, and the well-built ship darted swiftly through thewater, which reflected the clear sky in the increasing brightness ofthe morning and shone with a wonderful azure hue. The waves broke infoam before the bow, tossing their white spray high into the air;little rosy clouds were floating in the eastern sky and were mirroredin the lake.
With the folds of his dark mantle around him, his white locksfluttering, his head crowned with a shining white helmet, Hariowald'stall figure stood forth in strong relief against the sky, as heremained at the helm erect and motionless, his spear flung over hisshoulder. So the ship and her helmsman gradually vanished beyond thesight of the eyes watching them intently from the northern shore.
Rignomer, peering from behind his sail, also saw and recognized him."They can upbraid me as much as they please," he muttered. "Where isBrinno, who tried to oppose him? They can say what they choose. Eventhough in human form, it is still _he_!"