XV.
"WITHIN THE RAILS."
It was then that Sergius first realized that Caius Manlius, his friend,the brother of Marcia, was indeed dead; but the time for such thoughtsivas short. Clenching his teeth in a paroxysm of anger, he againturned to follow Paullus and Decius, who had passed into the ranks ofthe legions and joined themselves to the personal volunteers of thepro-consul, Servilius.
The great column was moving now, steadily gathering impetus, and therewas little speech between the generals. Servilius gazed with gloomybrows at the consul and the half dozen men that remained to him, and noquestion as to the fate of the right wing was asked or answered.
"How fight they on the left?" asked Paullus, after a moment's pause.
"The allies skirmish with the Numidians," replied Servilius.
"You mean that the Numidians skirmish with them," said Paullus.
That was all, and the two soldiers turned to their task.
The slingers' bullets fell no longer, or only scattering ones, droppingfrom above, told that these hornets had fallen back and sought refugebehind their lines; but the roar of battle rolled furiously from thefront.
"It is the standards that oppose at last," commented Paullus. "Theranks are not too close--yet. Let us go forward."
Servilius protested, but the other waved him back.
"Here is _your_ place who command, my Servilius," said the consul; anda smile, sad rather than bitter, lit up the harsh lines of his face."It is I, having no command, who can justly ply the sword."
Sergius followed, and in a few moments the increasing pandemonium toldthat the front was not far ahead. The dust filled their eyes, and theycould see nothing beyond; but the signs were for the veteran to read.Soon there was no more headway to be made through the dense mass; thecorpses of the slain were thick beneath their feet, half-naked Gaulsand Spaniards in white and purple mingled with the dead of the legions,and still the column pushed forward and still the slain lay closer.
"They give ground. We are driving in their centre," gasped Sergius.
Paullus had been frowning grimly, but now he turned to Marcus Deciusand showed his wolfish teeth in his old-time smile.
"What do you say, decurion?" he asked.
"We drive them, surely; but--"
"Yes, truly, _but_--do you hear those cries on the flank? We drivetheir Iberians, their Celts; it is the Africans that let us plunge onlike one of Varro's stupid bulls: then they put the sword in our side.Could you fight now? I tell you we are already driven within therails. If the gods keep Hasdrubal slaying my runaways, there may behope; if he be a general, there is none."
And still the column's headway seemed hardly checked, though the criesand the clashing of arms resounded, now, from both flanks as well asfrom the front, while, in the depths of its vitals, men were crushedtogether till they could scarce breathe. A rumour, too, like those Pansends to dismay soldiers, ran quickly from heart to heart, rather thanfrom lip to lip. It was that Hasdrubal had circled the rear and,falling upon the allied cavalry, had scattered the left wing as he hadthe right; that the Numidians pursued and slaughtered: but where nowwere the cavalry of Gaul and Spain, the winners of two victories? Asullen roar from the far distant rear seemed to answer; but thelanguage was one that few could read--few of that host. Oh! for anhour of the veterans that slumbered on the shores of Trebia andTrasimenus! Oh! for an hour of Fabius, who lingered at Rome, powerlessand discredited. Who were these that wore the armour, that wielded theponderous javelins of Rome's legions? From under the bronze helmetsgorgeously fierce with their great crests peered eyes--stupid,wondering eyes dazed by the uproar, blinded by the dust; eyes wherein,while as yet there was little of fear, still less was there of theknowledge of danger to be met and overcome; eyes that had but latelywatched sheep upon the Alban hills, eyes that were used only to theflour dust when their owners kneaded dough behind the Forum.
Ahead, around, the standards were tossing as if upon the billows of anangry sea. Was that a silver horse's head that flashed far to theright?
"Look!" cried Sergius, striking Decius with his elbow.
"You can see better now," muttered the veteran. "The flour is bread,and the bread of battle is mire kneaded of dust and blood."
The eyes of Paullus were turned upward in strange prayer.
"Grant me not, O Jupiter, my life this day!"
It needed no eye of veteran to read the sentence that was writ.Driven, at last, within the rails, as went the saying, there was noroom in all that weltering mass to use the sword, much less the pilum.On every side the barbarians of Africa, of Spain, of Gaul raged andslew--for even advance now was checked, and the Celts had turned andlashed the front with their great swords that rose and fell, crimson tothe hilt, crimson to the shoulder, crimson to every inch of theirwielders' huge bodies. The Spaniards, too, were stabbing fast andfuriously, while all along both flanks the African squares, betweenwhich the weight of the column had forced its narrow length, thrustwith their long sarissas and rained their pila upon the doomed monsterin their midst: a war elephant, wounded to the death, with sides hungwith javelins and streaming with blood, rocking and trumpeting inhelpless agony.
Sergius watched the dull, hopeless look deepening in the eyes of theyoung soldiers. They reminded him of the beeves in the shambles of theelder Varro. Even the voice of Pan could not wake such men. Were theynot there to die for the traditions of Rome? It was true that everypath leading to Pan's country bristled with spears, but only a fewcould fully know this, and these awaited their turn with the rest.
The press seemed to loosen somewhat. Perhaps the assailants had drawnback to gain breath for a final onslaught; but, instinctively, thestaggering lines of the Roman column opened out into the spaceafforded, and its four faces writhed forward bravely, pitifully. Itwas then that Sergius saw the consul for the last time. He had turnedback from where he had forced his way to the head of the column; hisarms were battered and blood-stained, and he reeled painfully in hissaddle, for Paullus had mounted again, that he might the better be seenby the legionaries. His wandering eyes took in every detail of theirhopeless plight; the last sparks of fire seemed to die out in him, andhis head drooped upon his chest. Then, slowly, he dismounted, havingordered his horse to kneel, and the beast, unable to rise again, rolledover on its side. Paullus watched it with almost an expression ofpity, and then dragged himself to a flat rock and sat down.
Decius had sought to aid him, but the other thrust him rudely back."It is only the smaller bone," he said. "One of their accursedstingers hit me."
At that moment a rider covered with foam and dust and blood dashed upto the group and, reining his steaming animal to its haunches, leapedto the ground.
Paullus raised his eyes.
"It is time for you to escape, Cneius Lentulus," he said. "You have ahorse."
"It is for you, my father; that this day be not further darkened by thedeath of a consul. My horse is good, and there are still gaps betweentheir squadrons. Ride to the east--"
"And you?"
"I am but a tribune."
"And a young man, my Cneius. Where is Varro?"
"Fled."
"And the pro-consuls?"
"Both fallen."
"And you would have it said, my Cneius, that the Republic degenerates?that not one of this year's consuls dares die with his men, while bothof last year's were Romans? Truly, it would be a much darker dayshould I escape with Varro than if I die with Regulus and Servilius;besides, I have no humour for further charges and trials, in order thatthe rabble may vindicate their favourite butcher. But do you go,Cneius, and tell them that you have seen me sitting in my colleague'sshambles."
There were tears in Lentulus' eyes, and he still strove to persuade hisgeneral to accept the horse, but, at that moment, new shoutings andclashing of arms announced what must prove the final attack.
"They come again, my father," said Decius calmly.
The roar of battle swelled up, all ab
out the doomed column. In frontand flanks, Africans, Gauls, and Spaniards charged in unbroken lines,and soon forced the deploying but weakened maniples back into theirweltering mass; in the rear, the attack was less continuous, forHasdrubal's horsemen were exhausted with slaying, and he hurled them inalternate squadrons, now on this point, now on that, wherever the Romanline showed relics of strength or firmness. So the front worked back,driven by sheer weight in the direction where the pressure was least.
Paullus still sat, with drooping head, faint with fatigue and loss ofblood, while Decius, Sergius, and Lentulus stood by him, helplesslyawaiting the end. A rush of fugitives swept by and almost overwhelmedthe wounded man; but Decius passed his arm around him, and the pressslackened.
"It is time for you to mount and ride, Cneius Lentulus;" and the consulraised his head again, while the old-time spirit of command flashed inhis eyes. "You shall be my envoy to the fathers. Bid them fortify andgarrison the city; go--"
A new rush broke in upon his words,--a rush, in which the whole frontwas borne back a spear's length beyond them. Sergius was thrown down,but some one raised him, dazed and stunned, and seemed to bear himalong. A moment, and he found himself standing once more upon hisfeet. Cneius Lentulus and his horse were gone; Paullus and MarcusDecius were left alone far beyond--no, not alone. He saw the tunics ofthe Iberians, now all as purple as their borders, thronging around; hesaw his general and his comrade give their throats to the sharp,slender swords; and then he saw, far ahead, amid the Carthaginiansyntagmata, a swarthy, smiling face with crisp, curling beard; he sawthe brown-bronze corselet rich with gold, the meteor helmet withostrich plumes floating between its horns, the snowy mantle borderedwith Tyrian purple; and he saw the white head of the horse whose feetneeded now no dye of art to stain them vermilion. All the fury ofbattle, all the madness of revenge overwhelmed him in an instant;despair was gone, thoughts of past and future were swept away by thesurge of one overmastering idea: he must reach that man and kill him.He looked around at the scattered, reeling maniples. A standard bearerwas lying at his feet, striving with his remnant of strength to wrenchthe silver eagle from its staff, that he might hide it under his cloak;but the death rattle came too quickly. Sergius picked up the standard.
"Come," he said, "there is the enemy." And then, without a glance tonote whether his appeal was regarded, he rushed blindly forward.
It was a discipline inspired by tradition rather than taught by drillsand punishments that came to the Roman recruit, and now it played itspart. These peasants, these artisans whose eyes had seen naught saveunaccustomed horrors through all the day, turned at once to answer thesummons of the eagle. Sergius heard the feeble shout of battle thatrose behind him, heard the scattered clanging of sword and shield, andwhen he struck the long pikes of the first square, it was with theforce of half a dozen broken maniples welded into a solid mass.
Still the sarissas held firm. Perhaps two lines went down, but thepila rained their slant courses from the rear; the feeble rush wasstopped, and the legionaries struggled helplessly upon the spears.Sergius saw nothing but the dark, bearded face among thesquares--scarcely nearer than before. Had he not read in a little bookwritten by one, Xenophon, a Greek, and purchased, at great cost, at theshop of Milo, the bookseller in the Argiletum, how Oriental armies wonor lost by the life or death of their leaders? He would kill Hannibal!Would to the gods that Paullus had fallen in the Cinctus Gabinus!Paullus, too much of an infidel to think of such old-time immolation;but there was yet one last appeal.
Seizing the tough staff of the standard almost at the end, he whirledit around his head and let it go at full swing; the silver eagleflashed in the light of the setting sun, as it described great arcs,and plunged down amid the hostile ranks; a hoarse cry went up: the verydeity of the legion was amid its foes! no Roman so untried as not tohear its call. The short swords hacked and stabbed among the spears;the first square swayed and rocked, shivered into fragments, and,hurled back upon the second, bore it, too, down in the mingled rush ofpursuers and pursued. On every side of the dwindling band ofassailants, front, flanks, and rear, the pikes dipped and plunged, theGallic swords hissed through the air, the Spaniards ravened andstabbed; but, to the Romans, flanks and rear were nothing: it was thefront, the Libyans, the lost eagle.
And now, at last, it was won; the advance had been checked by thecloser welding of the syntagmata, half his men were down; but Sergius,still unhurt, had stooped and raised the standard, kissing its crimsonbeak and wings. Then he looked up.
Half the space between himself and the bearded horseman had vanished,and the latter was no longer talking carelessly with those about. Hissteady gaze was fixed upon the young Roman, as if studying the exactmeasure of strength that remained to him. There was nothing else forit. Again the great staff described great circles through the air, andagain the crimson eagle soared and stooped, and the white stallionreared and snorted, as it struck the earth before him; again theshattered fragment of an army hurled itself, wounded and weary andbleeding, among the ever thickening spears; yes, and forced its way aquarter, half the remaining distance, until Sergius, whose eyes hadnever for a moment forsaken those of the Carthaginian, saw them growtroubled, saw the black, bushy brows draw together. Then his enemyturned and spoke a few hurried words to an attendant, gesticulatingfreely, until the man whirled his horse about and drove back throughthe throng. When Sergius looked into the face of the general again, itwore a disdainful smile--the smile of a Zeus that watches the sons ofAloeus pile mountain on mountain in the vain effort to storm Olympus.Again Hannibal was careless and unconcerned; again he laughed and jokedgayly with his attendants; his soldier's eye had set the limit ofRome's last paroxysm, and it fell short of the spot where he sat--notby much, but enough. All that remained was for the arrows of Apollo todo their work, and now he had set these to the string.
Wearily and yet more wearily the wolves bit and tore their way; thenthey came staggering to a stand, three spear lengths from the losteagle, and then the pressure behind seemed to slacken, and the serriedspears in front bore them slowly backward.
All was over. Sergius' eyes, dim and bloodshot, wandered, at last,from the contemptuous smile that had held them, and rested upon thescore of men, for the most part wounded, that remained about him. Foran instant the spears and swords ceased their work, and the dense massof lowering faces that surrounded the last of the legions rolled back.Lanes appeared between the syntagmata; a chorus of wild cries swelledup--swept nearer, and the furious riders of the desert came gallopingthrough every interspace. To them had been granted, for a mark ofhonour, the ending of the battle. It was only a single rush, abrandishing and plunging of javelins retained in grasp, a little moreblood spattered upon the horses' necks and bellies. No legionary wasstanding when the tempest had gone by, and there, among his men, withface turned from the red earth to the reddening sky, lay Lucius SergiusFidenas, in slumber fitting for a Roman patrician when the black day ofCannae was done.
The Lion's Brood Page 16