Beric the Briton

by G. A. Henty

  “A good hiding place,” Beric said, “but I see no mode of retreat, and if a peasant were to lead a party of Romans to the entrance you would be caught in a trap.”

  “We have only been here ten days,” Gatho said, “and never stop long in one place; but it has the disadvantage you speak of. However, we have always one or two men posted lower down, at points where they can see any bodies of men ascending the hills. They brought us notice of your coming when you were far below, so you see we are not likely to be taken by surprise, and the Roman soldiers are not fond of night marches among the mountains.”

  As it was some hours since the Britons had partaken of their meal they were quite ready to join the Gauls in another, and the carcass of a wild boar hanging up near the huts was soon cut up and roasting over a fire, the Britons contributing wine and flour to the meal. After it was over there was a long talk, and after consulting together Gatho and his band unanimously agreed in asking Beric to take command of the whole party.

  “We all know you, Beric,” Gatho said. “None could like you have fought a lion barehanded, and I know that there was no one in the ludus who was your match with the sword, while Boduoc and the other five were infinitely superior to any of us in strength. Besides, you are well versed in Roman ways, and have led an army against them, therefore we all are ready to accept you as our leader and to obey your orders if you will take us.”

  “I will do so willingly, Gatho. I do not wish to have more than fifty men with me, for it would be difficult to find subsistence for a larger number. A hundred is the outside number, and doubtless we shall be able to gather other recruits should we choose to raise the band to that number; but all who follow me must obey me as implicitly as did my own tribesmen in our struggle with the Romans, and must swear to do no harm to innocent people, and to abstain from all violence and robbery. I am ready to be a leader of outlaws but not of brigands. I desire only to live a free life among the mountains. If the Romans come against us we will fight against them, and the spoil we may take from them is lawful booty, to be used in exchange for such things as we may require. But with the peasants we will make friends, and if we treat them well they will bring us news of any expeditions that may be on foot for our capture. As I said I have money enough to buy everything we want at present, and can obtain more if necessary, so that there is no reason for us to rob these poor people of their goods. Here we are too near Rome for them to be disaffected, but further south we shall find them not unwilling to aid us, for the provinces are ground into the dust by the exactions necessary to pay for the cost of the rebuilding of Rome and to support the extravagance of Nero.”

  The Gauls cheerfully took the required oath.

  “You, Gatho, will continue to act as my lieutenant with your Gauls, Boduoc commands the Britons under me. It may be necessary at times for the band to divide, as when game is scarce we may find a difficulty in keeping together, especially if we recruit our band up to a hundred. I am determined to have no malefactors who have fled from justice nor riotous men among us. I should prefer that they should be chiefly your countrymen, but we will not refuse gladiators of other nations who have been captured as prisoners of war. We want no escaped slaves among us. A man who has once been a slave might try to buy his pardon and freedom by betraying us. We will be free men all, asking only to live in freedom among the mountains, injuring none, but determined to fight and die in defence of that freedom.”

  These sentiments were warmly welcomed by the Gauls. The next day the number of men on the lookout was increased, and the band, breaking up into small parties, scattered among the mountains in pursuit of wild boars and goats. Some were to return, successful or not, at night to the encampment, and on the following day to take the place of those on watch, and relays were provided so that during the week each would take a turn at that duty.

  Never did men enjoy a week's hunting with greater zest than the Britons. To them life seemed to begin anew, and although the skies were bluer and the mountains higher and rougher than those of Britain, it seemed to them that they were once again enjoying their native air, and of an evening rude chants of Gaul and Britain echoed among the rocks.

  Porus, the Syrian, stood somewhat apart from the rest, not understanding the tongue of the others, and he therefore became naturally the special companion of Beric; for having been six years in Rome he spoke Latin fluently.

  “It is I who must go down to get you news, Beric,” he said one day. “You Britons could not disguise yourselves, for even if you stained your cheeks and dyed your hair your blue eyes and your height would betray you at once. The Gauls, too, though shorter than you, are still much taller and broader men than the Romans, and there are none of them who speak the language well enough to ask a question without their foreign tongue being detected. I am about the height of the Romans, and am swarthier than the Gauls, and could, if I borrowed the dress of one of the goatherds, pass among them without notice. It would certainly be well, as you were saying, to know what is being done below, and whether there is any idea of sending troops up into the mountains to search for us.

  “You may be sure that after the scare you gave Nero, and the defeat of his guards, the matter will not be allowed to drop, and that they will search all Italy for you. I should think that, at first, they will seek for you in the north, thinking that you would be likely, after taking to the hills—which you would be sure to do, for such a party could never hope to traverse the plains unnoticed —to keep along the chain to the north, cross the Cisalpine plains, and try the passage of the great mountains.”

  “At any rate it will be well, Porus, to know what they are doing. If they are at present confining their search to the northern range we can stay where we are with confidence. I should be sorry to move, for we are well placed here; there is good water and game is abundant. We certainly shall soon lack wine, but for everything else we can manage. We have meat in abundance, and have flour to last for some time, for both we and the Gauls eat but little bread; besides, if pushed, we can do as the peasants do, pound up acorns and beechnuts and make a sort of bread of them.”

  “Very well, Beric, I will go down tomorrow.”

  Early in the morning, however, two of the men on sentry came in and said that they observed the glitter of the sun on spearhead and armour far down the hillside.

  “If they are after us,” Beric said, “as I expect they are, they have doubtless learned that we are somewhere in this part of the mountains from the man of whom we bought the wine and flour. I don't suppose he intended to do us harm, but when he went down to purchase fresh supplies he may well have mentioned that a party of strong men of unusual height, and with fair hair, had bought up his stock, paying for it honestly, which would perhaps surprise him more than anything. If the news had come to the ears of any of the officials, they, knowing the hue and cry which was being made for us, would have sent word at once to Praeneste or Rome. We must at once recall those who are away. Philo, take a couple of brands and go and light the signal fire.”

  A pile of dry wood had been placed in readiness upon a projecting rock a mile away and standing in position where it was visible from a considerable extent of the hillside. It had been settled that the parties of hunters who did not return at nightfall should occasionally send one of their number to a point whence he could get a view of the beacon.

  “Directly the pile is well alight, Philo, pluck up green bushes and tufts of grass and throw upon it, so as to make as much smoke as possible.”

  There were eighteen men in the encampment, and four out on guard. Boduoc and Gatho were both away, and as soon as Philo had started with the brands Beric and Porus set out with the two scouts.

  “That was where we saw them,” one of them said, pointing far down the hillside, “but by this time they will no doubt have entered the wooded belt.”

  “We must find out something about their numbers,” Beric said. “Not that I wish to fight; for were we to inflict losses upon them they would more than ever make
efforts to overtake us. Still, it will be as well to know what force they may think sufficient to capture us.”

  “I will go down through the forest,” Porus said, “doubtless they will have some light armed troops with the spearmen; but they must be fleet indeed if they overtake me after all my training.”

  “Do not let them see you if you can help it, Porus, or they will follow close behind you, although they might not overtake you, and that might bring on a fight.”

  “I will be careful;” and leaving his buckler behind him, Porus started on his way down the mountain.

  In an hour and a half he returned. “I have had a good view of them,” he said; “they have halted at the place where we got the flour. There are a hundred heavy armed troops and a hundred archers and slingers.”

  “They have come in strength,” Beric said; “it shows that they do not hold the Britons cheaply. We will return at once to the camp. By this time the hunters should be back.”

  Sending one of the men to call in the other sentries, they returned to the huts. Boduoc, with a party of ten men, had already come in, and said that they had seen Gatho's party making their way down from a point high up in the mountains.

  “We will pause no longer,” Beric said, “we shall meet them as they descend; take the flour and what little wine remains, and let us be going. Scatter the fire and extinguish the brands; unless they have found some goatherd who has marked us coming and going, they may not find this place. I hope they will not do so, as it would encourage them by the thought that they had nearly captured us.”

  The party had ascended the mountain half a mile when they met Gatho returning.

  “I like not to retreat without fighting,” he said, when he had heard from Beric of the coming of the Romans and their force; “but I agree with you that it is better not to anger them farther.”

  “I want three of the fleetest footed of your men, Gatho, to stay behind with Porus and watch them, themselves unseen. We will cross over the crest of the hills to the eastern side, Porus. Do you mark that tall craig near the summit; you will find one of us there, and he will lead you to our camping place. I want to know whether the Romans, after spending the day searching the hills, go back through the forest, or whether they encamp here. In the one case we can return, in the other it will be better to move south at once. We could laugh at their heavy armed spearmen, but their archers and slingers carry no more weight than we do, and would harass us sorely with their missiles, which we have no means of returning.”

  As soon as the men to remain with Porus were chosen, the rest of the band proceeded on their way.

  CHAPTER XIX: OUTLAWS

  It was late at night before Porus with the three Gauls joined the rest of the band in their new encampment on the eastern slope of the hills.

  “As soon as the moon rises, Beric, we must be up and moving. The Romans are in earnest. When they came through the forest they ascended for some little distance, and then the spearmen halted and the light armed troops scattered in parties of four searching the country like dogs after game. They were not very long before they discovered signs of us, whether footmarks or broken twigs I know not, but following them they soon came upon the entrance of the ravine. No doubt our marks were plain enough there, for the spearmen were brought down. What happened then I know not; no doubt they entered and found that we had gone. At any rate, in a short time they set out briskly up the mountain, the spearmen as before keeping together, and the light armed men scattering.

  “All day they searched, and it was well that you crossed the crest. They halted for the night halfway between the forest and the summit, and I determined to learn something of their intentions. So after it was dark I laid aside my arms and crawled into the camp. The ground was broken and rough, and there was no great difficulty in getting close to their fires. I learned that the whole of the legion at Praeneste had been sent into the mountains, and that there were twenty parties of equal force; they were but a mile and a half apart, and considered that they could search every foot of the ground for thirty miles along, and would assuredly discover us if we were still in this part. More than that, troops from Corfinium and Marrubium had started to search the eastern slopes, and between them they made sure that they should catch you, now that they had found, by the heat of the earth where our fire had been, that we must have been there but an hour or so before their arrival.”

  “If that is the case we must make our way to the south at once,” Beric said. “It is well indeed that we decided to retreat without fighting, for had we retired, closely pursued by their archers, their shouts would certainly have been heard by some of the other parties. It is fortunate we did not light a fire; had we done so it might have brought some of the troops from Marrubium, which cannot be far distant from here, upon us. The moon will not be up for three hours yet, and it is useless to try to make our way among these mountains until we have her light, therefore let all lie down to sleep; I will keep guard and will rouse you when it is time to move.”

  Beric sat listening intently for any sound that would tell of the approach of foemen. He had, however, but small fear that the Romans were moving at present. It would be even more difficult for them than for his men to make their way about in the darkness; besides, the day must have been an extremely fatiguing one for them. They had, doubtless, started long before dawn, had had to climb the mountains, and had been all day on their feet. They would scarcely recommence the search before morning. Easy on this score, his thoughts turned to Rome. That Aemilia had gained the shelter of the Catacombs he had no doubt, and he wondered how she fared there among the Christian fugitives. As to Norbanus he had but slight hopes of ever seeing him alive. Nero's vengeance always extended to the families of those who offended him, and Norbanus would certainly be held responsible for the flight of Aemilia. He thought it indeed probable that as soon as Aemilia left, Norbanus would have called his friends together, and, having opened his veins, would die as Piso had done discussing philosophy with them.

  As soon as the moon was fairly up he aroused his companions and they started along the hillside. It was difficult work making their way on, now descending into a deep ravine, now climbing a rugged slope, now passing along a bare shoulder. There was no pause until day broke, when they descended into a gorge and lay down among some clumps of bushes, one man being sent half a mile down while two others were posted on each side of the ravine. They had good reason for hope, however, that they had got beyond the point to which the searching parties would extend on the eastern side of the hill. The day passed without alarms, although the sentries above more than once heard the sounds of distant trumpets. As soon as the sun set they continued their way, halting again until the moon rose, and then keeping south until daybreak.

  They were sure now that they were far beyond the parties of Romans, but after a few hours' sleep they again pressed on, and at night lighted their fires and prepared for a longer stay. But the orders of Nero were so imperative that the troops, having thoroughly searched the mountains at the point where they had ascended them, united, and also moved south in a long line extending from the summit of the hills to the lower edge of the forest; and after two days' halt the fugitives again moved south, and continued their journey until they found themselves among the wild and lofty hills of Bruttium.

  But their numbers had swollen as they went, for the other fugitive bands among the hills were also driven south by the advance of the Romans, and it was a miscellaneous body of gladiators, escaped slaves, and malefactors, in all over five hundred strong, that crossed the mountains into Bruttium. There was a general wish among them that Beric should take the command of the whole. This, however, he absolutely declined to do, upon the ground that it was impossible for so large a body of men to keep together, as there would be no means of feeding them. Scattered about they would find an ample supply of meat from the wild goats, boars and semi-wild swine, but together, they would soon scare away the game. From among the gladiators, however, he picked out
sufficient men to raise his own force to a hundred strong, and separating from the rest he led them, guided by a charcoal burner, to one of the wildest and most inaccessible points in the promontory.

  Here they were safe from pursuit. Bruttium, now called Calabria, is a chain of rugged hills, at that time thickly covered with wood, and although it was possible fairly to search the Apennines in the centre of Italy with six or seven thousand men, a large army would fail to find a band of fugitives in the recesses of the mountains of the south. On the evening of their arrival at the spot they determined to make their headquarters, Beric held a sort of council of war, the whole of the band, as was the custom both in Gaul and Britain, joining in the deliberations.

  “So far,” Beric began, “we have retreated without fighting; Rome cannot complain that we have been in insurrection against her, we have simply acted as fugitives; but as there is nowhere else whither we can retire, we must turn upon them if they again pursue us. We must then regard this as our abode for a long time, and make ourselves as comfortable as we can. Huts we can erect of the branches of trees, the skins of the goats we kill will provide us with bedding, and if needs be with clothing. Meat will not fail us, for should game become scarce we can buy goats and sheep from the shepherds who come up with their flocks and herds from the villages by the sea. But besides this we need many things for comfort. We must have utensils for cooking, and drinking cups, and shall need flour and wine; we must therefore open communications with one of the towns by the sea. This is the great difficulty, because of all things I fear treachery; for nigh a year we fought the Romans at home, and could have fought them for twenty more had we not been betrayed and surrounded.