Bissula. English

by Felix Dahn

  CHAPTER XLV.

  Ausonius was deeply grateful to his preserver, certainly; and he hadwished to bestow a transcendent reward. Yet he was very keenlyexasperated by this rude, fierce, foolish, nay, ungrateful disdain. Andbefore the Tribune, too--the younger man.

  This exasperation took full possession of him even amidst his deepgrief for his nephew's crime. From the day of his birth neither thefates nor men had often denied any wish of this spoiled favorite ofFortune. Even the desire for poetic talent had been granted by theMuses, and, as he believed, in lavish abundance; while hiscontemporaries denied him no recognition, but lavished on him everyhonor for which he longed in any department. His imperial pupil loadedhim with the highest dignities and honors in the gift of the State; hewas one of the richest, most highly educated men in the Western Empire;he was agreeable, vivacious, well-bred, almost handsome in feature, andnot yet very old. Thousands of the most aristocratic Roman women wouldhave considered themselves fortunate if--

  And this Barbarian girl refused him! It was incomprehensible, and hedetermined not to tolerate this "folly."

  As she did not appear at breakfast at the usual hour, he sent Prosperfor her. The old man returned without having accomplished his errand.Bissula was not in her tent, and could not be found anywhere in thecamp.

  Ausonius was startled. Then he said to himself: "Oh, nonsense. Shecannot possibly escape from a walled Roman camp which is guarded by aSaturninus." Yet he finished his early meal hurriedly and anxiously,and went out to look for her, alone. He wished to spare his futurewife, which Bissula certainly was, the mortification of being draggedby freedmen or slaves from some hiding-place into which her silly,childish obstinacy might have led her. First he hastened to thepine-tree: in vain. She was not concealed there; now, in broaddaylight, one could see through the branches distinctly. He went to hertent and entered: it was empty. But as he was leaving it again he sawthe broad foot-prints of the bear, and followed the trail: it ledsouthward, to the lake gate, the Porta Decumana. He had nearly reachedit, when he met Saturninus.

  "Turn back, I beg of you," said the latter kindly.

  "Isn't she there?"

  "Yes! I discovered her by accident, looking down from the wall. She hashidden herself behind beams and rubbish near the Porta Decumana, like asick birdling which creeps into some corner to die alone with its headunder its wing. Give her time! Perhaps she will submit to it."

  Ausonius yielded reluctantly as the Tribune, with gentle force, tookhis arm, turned him in the opposite direction, and led him back. He wasthoroughly angry, and besides, felt ashamed in Saturninus's presence.

  "Soon, I hope," he said angrily.

  "Yes," replied the Tribune slowly. "Unless--unless some one else haswon her heart."

  "That she positively denied. She was enraged at the mere question; andfalsehood is the perverse little thing's smallest fault. She is stillscarcely more than a child. You see how she behaves. Only a child, anuntutored child, could be led into such conduct."

  But the Roman General shrugged his shoulders. "Let us wait. I would farrather see her yours than a Barbarian's. But think of the offer made bythat Adalus! That can only--"

  "Certainly. But it doesn't prove that she loves him."

  He opposed with angry obstinacy a conjecture which might foreverfrustrate his wishes, and rejected the suggestion of his friend themore vehemently, the more persistently this fear, though repressed,constantly returned to his mind.

  "By the way," he asked the Tribune, to change the conversation, "whatdo you mean to do with the prisoners? Let them both escape?"

  "Impossible! My duty--"

  "But my nephew must not die."

  "It would be the best thing that could happen," growled the Illyrian,"for himself and his opposite men (for this selfish fellow has nofellow mortals). But I feared that it would be the result of yourindulgence. Well, comfort yourself. As I promised life to the slave,the mere tool, the Caesar can send the instigator to the mines too. Butyou are paying no heed to my words. Where are your thoughts?"

  Ausonius had suddenly stopped. Thrusting the staff he carried violentlyinto the earth he exclaimed: "Listen! Suppose I should go to hernow--at once? Explain everything, persuade her? Last evening, in herexcitement, she probably did not hear or understand. Just think ofit--Consul!"

  But his companion smiled and drew his reluctant friend forward: "Lether alone, Ausonius. You will only frighten her more. Perhaps a Germanfisher-lad is dearer to her heart than a Roman Consul."

  "Inconceivable!"

  "Yes, yes! Very intelligible. I will confess to you that she vehementlyentreated me--"

  "What, what!--when?"

  "Just now, when I climbed down the wall to her and tried to speak foryou. She besought me to protect her--from your wooing."

  "Ungrateful girl!" exclaimed Ausonius wrathfully. This appeal to theTribune against him wounded him most bitterly; he had the feeling:Youth naturally combines against age.

  "Beware," replied the Tribune earnestly, "lest you should yourself bevery ungrateful." But this did not suit the Roman's deeply offendedvanity.

  "Since you have now suddenly become--what shall I call it?--herguardian or defender against me--"

  "I did not seek the position."

  "Nor did you decline it. Then tell your ward my firm, resolute will:She must go with me to-morrow in one of Nannienus's galleys to theEmperor at Vindonissa, then to Burdigala. I will follow your advice: Iwill not go into the forests with you; grief, anger, too muchexcitement of many kinds, are making me ill--I feel it. First of all, Imust obtain the dispensation from the Emperor to permit me, a Senator,to marry my freedwoman. That is now the thing nearest to my heart. Andplease see that it is clear to her, perfectly clear, that she hasobtained no legal right whatever from my words spoken yesterday aboutliberation. You remarked at the time, very justly, that my words didnot make her free: the form required by law was lacking. The words weremerely a promise. If I choose, she is still my slave, but no longeryours, tell her that. In Burdigala, after she has tasted Roman life,let her choose which she would prefer: to become the Consul's wife, orbe his slave and a she-bear's playmate. I cannot force her to wed me,but tell her that I will never permit her to return to her Barbarianland."

  Saturninus would have tried to soothe the excited man, but a loudsignal from the tubas summoned both leaders to the wall.

  The Roman trumpets were joyously greeting the galleys under the commandof Nannienus which, with all their canvas spread to catch the southeastwind, came swiftly nearer and nearer. It was a proud and imposingspectacle.

  After the gallant Comes of Britannia, himself a Breton skilled insailing, had discovered the culpable neglect of the ships and the fraudof the guilty magistrates in Arbor, he had toiled night and day,ceaselessly and untiringly, that he might take to his friend andcomrade, Saturninus, the ships and reenforcements on which his wholeplan for the encircling and destruction or unconditional surrender ofthe Alemanni was based. So, in the course of these few days and nights,he had actually succeeded in putting the dilapidated ships intoseaworthy condition; and, besides old trading vessels and fisher boatsof the largest size, he had a number of new galleys built which, thoughby no means to be compared with the proud fleet of the Venetian orBrigantinian lake which, a century and a half before, had ruled theseshores and waters, could yet render sufficient service in seeking outthe hiding-places of the Barbarians along all three sides of the land,and intercepting any flight they might attempt across the lake from theTribune.

  Nannienus's twenty high-decked ships of war, when not lying at anchorbut fighting at full speed, would sink, by the mere weight of theirshock, when driven by oars and sails, whole swarms of the littleBarbarian boats, if they had the temerity to attack them. And to eachof these large ships he had assigned two or three smaller flat-decked,shallow boats, to land provisions and troops and facilitate intercoursebetween the biremes (which required considerable depth of water whenthey lay at anchor) and
the shore, often bordered for a considerabledistance by marshes.

  Probably more than sixty sail now appeared, in the full radiance of themost brilliant September sunshine, opposite to the Idisenhang, some atanchor, some in an unbroken chain forming a sort of bridge of boatsfrom the place of anchorage to the shore.

  The various forms of the sails (for in the pressure of haste all sortsof Barbarian ones had been added to the triangular Latin form of theRomans--ancient Celtic used on the lake from primeval days, andAlemannic) and their motley colors, principally dazzlingly white, butmany deep yellow, gleaming in the sunlight, swelled by the freshbreeze; the surging, swarming life of the soldiers thronging from theships to the shore, and from the shore to the ships; the greetings ofold comrades; the joyful recognition of what had been accomplished inArbor; the threatening outcries against the Barbarians, who must now bethoroughly extirpated--the whole presented a scene full of splendor,life, movement, and warlike uproar.