by Eugène Sue
Twenty paces from me I saw the car in which my mother, Henory my wife, Martha the wife of Mikael, their children, and several young women and girls of the family had taken refuge. Several men of our kindred and tribe, who had run like myself to the cars, were defending them against the Romans. Among the defenders I saw the two saldunes, fastened to each other by the iron chain, the symbol of their pledge of brotherhood. Both were young, beautiful and valiant. Their clothes were in tatters, their heads and chests naked and bloody. But their eyes flashed fire, and a scornful smile played on their lips, as, armed only with their staffs, they fearlessly fought the Roman legionaries sheathed in iron, and the Cretans clad in jackets and thigh-pieces of leather. The large dogs of war, shortly unchained, leaped at the throats of their assailants, often bearing them over backwards with their furious dashes. Their terrible jaws not being able to pierce either helmet or breastplate, they devoured the faces of their victims, killing without once letting go their grips. The Cretan archers, almost without defensive armor, were snatched by the legs, arms, shoulders, anywhere. Each bite of these savage dogs carried away a chunk of bleeding flesh.
Several steps from where I lay, I saw an archer of gigantic stature, calm in the midst of the tumult, choose from his quiver his sharpest arrow, lay it on the string of his bow, pull it with a sinewy arm, and take long aim at one of the two chained saldunes, who, dragged down by the fall of his comrade, now dead by his side, could only fight on one knee. But so much the more valiantly did he ply his iron-capped staff. He swung it before him with such tireless dexterity that for some time none dared to brave its blows, for each stroke carried death. The Cretan archer, waiting for the proper moment, was again aiming at the saldune, when old Deber-Trud bounded forth. Held tight where I lay under the heap of dead which was crushing me, unable to move without causing intense pain in my wounded thigh, I summoned all my remaining strength to cry out:
“Hou! Hou! Deber-Trud — at the Roman.”
The dog, increasingly excited by my voice, which he recognized, dashed with one bound upon the Cretan, at the moment when the arrow hissed from the string, and buried itself, still quivering, in the stalwart breast of the saldune. With this new wound his eyes closed, his heavy arms let fall the staff, his other knee gave way, his body sank to the ground; but by a last effort, the saldune rose on both knees, snatched the arrow from the wound, and threw it back at the Roman legionaries, calling in a voice still strong, and with a smile of supreme contempt:
“For you, cowards, who shelter your fear and your bodies under plates of iron. The breastplate of the Gaul is his naked bosom.”
And the saldune fell dead upon the body of his brother-in-arms.
Both of them were avenged by Deber-Trud. The terrible dog had hurled down and was holding under his enormous paws the Cretan archer, who was uttering frightful cries. With one bite of his fangs, as dangerous as those of a lion, the dog tore his victim’s throat so deeply that two jets of warm blood poured out on the archer’s chest. Though still alive, the man could utter no sound. Deber-Trud, seeing that his prey still lived, fell upon him, roaring furiously, swallowing or throwing aside shreds of severed flesh. I heard the sides of the Cretan crack and grind under the teeth of Deber-Trud, who dug and dug, burying his bloody muzzle up to the eyes in the man’s chest. Then a legionary ran up and transfixed Deber-Trud with one thrust of his lance. The dog gave not a groan. He died like a good war-dog, his monstrous head plunged in the Roman’s entrails.
After the death of the two saldunes, the defenders of the chariots fell one by one. My mother Margarid, Martha, Henory, and the young girls of the family, with burning eyes and cheeks, their hair flying, their clothes disordered from the struggle, their arms and bosoms half uncovered, were running fearlessly from one end of the chariot to the other, encouraging the combatants by voice and gesture, and casting at the Romans with no feeble or untrained hands short pikes, knives, and spiked clubs. At last the critical moment came. All the men were killed, the chariot, surrounded by bodies piled half way up its sides, was defended only by the women. There they were, with my mother Margarid, five young women and six maidens, almost all of superb beauty, heightened by the ardor of battle.
The Romans, sure of this prize of their obscene revels, and wishing to take it alive, consulted a moment on a plan of attack. I understood not their words, but from their coarse laugh, and the licentious looks which they threw upon the Gallic women, there could be no doubt as to the fate which awaited them. I lay there, broken, pinned fast; breathless, full of despair, horror, and impotent rage I lay there, seeing a few steps from me the chariot in which were my mother, my wife, my children. — Oh, wrathful heavens! — like one unable to awake from a horrible dream, I lay there condemned to see all, hear all, and yet to remain motionless.
An officer of savage and insolent mien advanced alone towards the chariot and addressed to the women some words in the Latin tongue which the soldiers received with roars of revolting laughter. My mother, calm, pale, and terrible, exhorted the young women around her to maintain their self-control. Then the Roman, adding a word or two, closed with an obscene gesture. Margarid happened at that moment to have in her hand a heavy axe. So straight at the officer’s head she hurled it, that he reeled and fell. His fall was the signal for the attack. The legionaries pressed forward to the capture of the chariot. Then the women rushed to the scythes, which on each side defended the cart, and plied them with such vigor and harmony, that the Romans, seeing a great number of their men killed or disabled, conceived a wholesome fear for such terrible arms, so intrepidly plied. They suspended the attack, and, applying their long lances after the fashion of crow-bars, succeeded, without approaching too near, in shattering the handles of the scythes. This safeguard demolished, a new attack commenced. The issue was not doubtful. While the scythes were falling under the blows of the soldiers, my mother hurriedly said a few words to Martha and Henory. The two, with a look of pride and determination on their faces, ran towards the cover which sheltered the children. Margarid also spoke to the young childless women, and they, as well as the young girls, took and piously kissed her hands.
At that moment, the last scythes fell. Margarid seized a sword in one hand and a white cloth in the other. She stepped to the front of the chariot, waved the white cloth, and threw away the sword, as if to announce to the enemy that all the women wished to give themselves up. The soldiers, at first astonished at the proposed surrender, answered with laughs of ironical consent. Margarid seemed to be awaiting a signal. Twice she impatiently cast her eyes toward the shelter, where the two women had gone. Evidently, as the signal she seemed to wait for was not given, she was trying to distract the enemy’s attention, and again waved her cloth, pointing alternately to the town of Vannes and to the sea.
The soldiers, unable to take in the meaning of these gestures, looked at one another questioningly. Then Margarid, after another hasty glance at the redoubt, exchanged a few words with the girls round about her, seized a dagger, and, in quick succession struck three of the maidens, who had nobly bared their chaste bosoms to the knife. Meanwhile the other young women dispatched one another with steady hands. They had just fallen when Martha reappeared from the enclosure where the children had been hidden during the battle. Proud and serene, she held her two little daughters in her arms. A spare wagon-pole stood in front of her, the upper extremity of which was at a considerable elevation from the ground. She leaped on the edge of the car; a cord was around her neck. She passed the end of the cord through the ring at the extremity of the pole. Margarid steadied it in both hands. Martha leaped into the air with outspread arms, and hung there, strangled. Her two little children, instead of falling to the ground, remained suspended on either side of her breast, for she had passed the noose around their necks also.
All this occurred so rapidly, that the Romans, at first struck dumb with astonishment and fear, had no time to prevent the heroic deaths. They had barely recovered from their amazement when Margarid, see
ing all her family either dying or dead at her feet, raised to heaven her blood-stained knife, and exclaimed in a calm and steady voice:
“Our daughters shall not be outraged; our children shall not be enslaved; all of us, of the family of Joel the brenn of the tribe of Karnak, dead, like our husbands and brothers, for the liberty of Gaul, are on our way to rejoin them above. Perhaps, O Hesus, all this spilled blood will appease you;” and with a hand which did not waver, she plunged the dagger into her own heart.
All these terrible events which happened around the Chariot of Death I was compelled to behold, as I lay nearby, pinned to the ground. My wife Henory not having emerged from the enclosure, I concluded that she had put an end to herself there, first putting to death my little ones Sylvest and Syomara. My brain began to reel, my eyes closed; I felt that I was dying, and thanked Hesus for not leaving me behind alone when all my dear ones were to enter together upon the other life in the unknown world.
But, no, it was here below, on earth, that I was to return to life — to face new torments after those I had just undergone.
CHAPTER VIII.
AFTER THE BATTLE.
AFTER I HAD beheld my mother and all the other women of the tribe die to escape the shame and outrages of slavery, the blood which I had lost caused me to swoon away. A long time passed in which I was bereft of reason. When my senses returned, I found myself lying on straw, along with a great number of other men, in a vast shed. At my first motion I found myself chained by the leg to a stake driven into the ground. I was half clad; they had left me my shirt and breeches, in a secret pocket of which I had hidden the writings of my father and of my brother Albinik, together with the little gold sickle, the gift of my sister Hena. A dressing had been put on my wounds, which no longer occasioned me much pain. I experienced only a great weakness and dizziness which made my last memories a confused mass. I looked about me. I was one of perhaps fifty wounded prisoners, all chained to their litters. At the further end of the shed were several armed men, who did not bear the appearance of regular Roman troops. They were seated round a table, drinking and singing. Some among them, who carried short-handled scourges twisted of several thongs and terminating in bits of lead, detached themselves from time to time from the group, and walked here and there with the uncertain gait of drunken men, casting jeering looks on the prisoners. Next to me lay an aged man with white hair and beard, very pale and thin. A bloody band half hid his forehead. He was sitting up, his elbows on his knees, and his face between his hands. Seeing him wounded and a prisoner, I concluded he was a Gaul. I did not err.
“Good father,” I said to him, laying my hand lightly upon the old man’s arm, “where are we?”
Slowly raising his sad and mournful visage, the old prisoner answered compassionately:
“Those are the first words you have spoken for two days.”
“For two days?” I repeated, greatly astonished. I was unable to believe so much time had passed since the battle of Vannes. I sought to recall my wandering memory. “Is it possible? What, I have been here two days?”
“Yes, and you have been unconscious, in a delirium. The physician who dressed your wounds made you take several potions.”
“Now I recall it confusedly. And also — a ride in a chariot?”
“Yes, to come here from the battle-ground. I was with you in the chariot, whither they carried you wounded and dying.”
“And here we are — ?”
“At Vannes.”
“Our army?”
“Destroyed.”
“Our fleet?”
“Annihilated.”
“O, my brother, and your courageous wife Meroë, both dead also!” flashed through my mind. “And Vannes, where we are,” I added aloud to my companion, “Vannes is in the power of the Romans?”
“Even as the whole of Brittany, they say.”
“And the Chief of the Hundred Valleys?”
“He has fled into the mountains of Ares with a handful of cavalry. The Romans are in pursuit of him.” Then raising his eyes to heaven, he continued, “May Hesus and Teutates protect that last defender of the Gauls!”
I had put these questions while my thoughts were still disordered. But when I recalled the struggle at the chariot of war, the death of my mother, my father, my brother Mikael, my brother’s wife and his two children, and finally, the almost certain death of my own wife with her son and daughter — for up to the moment when I lost consciousness I had not seen Henory leave the shelter behind the chariot — when I recalled all that, I heaved, in spite of myself, a great sigh of despair at finding myself alone in the world. I buried my face in the straw to shut out the light of day.
One of the tipsy keepers became irritated at hearing my moans, and showered several cruel blows of the scourge, accompanied with oaths, upon my shoulders. Forgetting the pain in the shame that I felt at the thought of me, the son of Joel, being struck with the lash, I leaped to my feet notwithstanding my weakness, intending to throw myself upon the keeper. But my chain, sharply tightened by the jerk, checked me, and made me trip and fall upon my knees. The keeper, enabled by the length of his scourge to keep out of the prisoners’ reach, thereupon redoubled his blows, lashing me across the face, chest, and back. Other keepers ran up, fell upon me, and slipped manacles of iron upon my wrists.
Oh, my son, my son! You, for whose eyes I write all this down, obedient to the wishes of my father, never do yourself forget, and let also your sons preserve the memory of this outrage, the first that our stock ever underwent. Live, that you may avenge the outrage in due time. And if you cannot, let your sons wreak vengeance upon the Romans therefore.
With my feet chained and my hands in irons, unable to move, I did not wish to afford my tormentors the spectacle of impotent rage. I closed my eyes and lay still, betraying neither anger nor grief, while the keepers, provoked by my calmness, beat me furiously. Presently, however, a strange voice having interposed and spoken a few angry words in the Latin tongue, the blows ceased. I opened my eyes and three new personages stood before me. One of them was speaking rapidly to the keepers, gesticulating angrily, and pointing at me from time to time. This man was short and stout; he had a very red face, white hair and pointed grey beard. He wore a short robe of brown wool, buck-skin stocks, and low leather boots; he was not dressed in the Roman fashion. Of the two men who accompanied him, one, dressed in a long black robe, had a grave and sinister mien. The other held a casket under his arm. While I was gazing at these persons, my aged neighbor called my attention with a rapid glance to the fat little man with the red face and the white hair, who was conversing with the keepers, and said to me with a look of anger and disgust:
“The horse-dealer; the horse-dealer!”
“What are you talking about?” I answered him, unable to understand what he meant. “A horse-dealer?”
“That is what the Romans call the slave merchants.”
“How! They traffic in wounded men?” I asked the old man in surprise. “Are there men who buy the dying?”
“Do you not know,” he answered with a somber smile, “that after the battle of Vannes there were more dead than living, and not an unwounded Gaul? Upon these wounded men, in default of more able-bodied prey, the slave-dealers who follow the Roman army fell like so many ravens upon corpses.”
There was no more room for doubt. I realized that I was a slave. I had been bought. I would be sold again. The “horse-dealer,” having finished speaking to the keepers, approached the old man, and said to him in Gallic, but with an accent that proved his foreign origin:
“My old Pierce-Skin — how has your neighbor come on? Has he at last recovered from his stupor? Is he at last able to speak?”
“Ask him,” snapped the old man, turning over on the straw. “He’ll answer you himself.”
The “horse-dealer” thereupon walked over to my side. He seemed no longer angry. His countenance, naturally jovial, was beaming. Putting his two hands on his knees, he stooped down to me; grinned
at me; and spoke to me hurriedly, often putting questions which he answered himself, not seeming to care whether I heard him or not.
“You have, then, recovered your spirits, my fine Bull? Yes? Ah, so much the better! By Jupiter, it’s a good sign. Now your appetite will return, and it is returning, isn’t it? Still better! Before eight days you will be in fine feather. Those brutes of keepers, always in their cups, scourged you, did they? Yes? I’m not a bit surprised — they never do anything else. The wine of Gaul makes them stupid. To strike you! To strike you! And that when you can hardly stand up; besides the fact that in men of the Gallic race, choler is likely to produce bad results. But you are no longer angry, are you? No! So much the better! It is I who should be provoked at those tipsters. Suppose the fury raging in your blood had stifled you! But, bah! those brutes care little for making me lose twenty-five or thirty gold sous, which you will presently be worth to me, my fine Bull. But for greater safety I’ll have you taken to a shelter where you will be alone and better off than here. It was occupied by a wounded fellow who died last night — a superb fellow. That was a loss! Ah, commerce is not all gain. Come, follow me.”