VIII.
DISGRACE.
While these things were happening, for the most part in the sight ofall, Sergius had been able to gain a moment's speech with the dictator.Forcing his way through the crowd of tribunes and officers who throngedthe praetorium, he had found Fabius seated before his tent, and hadtold his story in the fewest words possible.
Naked but for his torn tunic and his cothurni, covered from head tofoot with blood and mire, his left arm hanging useless, and his facelike the face of a dead man, neither his miserable plight nor his storybrought softness to the stern lips and brow of the general.
"You have come to tell me this?" he said, when the other had finishedspeaking. "Do I not know it _now_?" and he pointed to the heights.Then he turned away and spoke with some one at his side, while Sergiusstood, with downcast eyes, swaying and scarcely able to keep his feet.
Among those around him his fate seemed hardly a matter of conjecture,but a thrill went through the company when Minucius, who had beenvainly urging the dictator to support the guards of the passes, nowturned away in disgust, and, noting the disgraced officer, as if forthe first time, cried out in a loud voice:--
"What, my friend! have not the lictors attended to you, yet, forventuring to play the man?"
Sergius felt the added danger to which the master-of-the-horse hadexposed him by using his insubordination to point such a moral to hiscommander; but the face of the dictator gave no sign that he had evenheard the taunting challenge. Calmly he gave his orders for cautiousscouting, for breaking camp, and for the army to resume its patientmarch of observation, along the flank of the retiring foe. Then, whenone after another had retired to fulfil his commands, he turned againto the waiting tribune.
"I have been considering your fault," he said slowly, "and I had markedyou out as a much needed victim for the rods and axe. Go to mymaster-of-the-horse and thank him for your life. His taunt wasdoubtless meant to destroy you, in order that he might play thedemagogue over your fate. I accept it as a challenge to myself-control. It is more necessary that I should show myself wise andforbearing than that one fool should perish for his folly. Go back toRome, and tell them that I have many soldiers who can fight, and that Iwant only those who can obey."
Utterly exhausted, Sergius struggled vainly to withstand this last,crushing blow. His composure was unequal to the task, and, sinkingupon his knees, as the dictator turned toward the tent, he could onlystretch out one hand and murmur:--
"The axe, my master; I pray you, the axe."
Fabius paused a moment and eyed him grimly. Then his rugged, wearyface softened slightly.
"I trusted you," he said. "Could you not trust me for a little while?But go to Rome, as I bade you--only there shall others go with you, andyou shall bear for your message, instead of that one, this: that thereis no room for wounded men in my camp."
"But I shall be well in two days--in one--I am well now if you say it."
Fabius shook his head slowly.
"Aesculapius has not been unhonoured by me," he said, "and he has toldme that you will be but a burden for many days. For this reason go toRome, and for two others that you shall not tell of: one, forpunishment because you could not obey, and one, because the time willcome soon when Rome shall need even the men who can only fight."
Sergius saw the hopelessness of struggling against his softened fate,bitter though it was. Open disgrace, indeed, had been turned aside;but, on the other hand, he was doomed to inaction during times when allRome longed only to strike, and he could not but feel that he hadfallen far in the estimation of his general.
The Lion's Brood Page 9