The Death of the Gods
Page 42
XVIII
At sunrise they saw the Persians. The enemy was advancing slowly.Experienced soldiers estimated their number at nearly two hundredthousand. Hill after hill unmasked new bodies of men, and theglittering of the arms on these detachments, in spite of distance anddust, was almost dazzlingly bright. The Romans, with hardly a word inthe ranks, left the valley of the previous night and ranged themselvesin battle-order. Their faces were stern, but not sad. Danger nowstifled their hatred, and all looks were fixed upon the Emperor,Christians as well as Pagans seeking to surmise from his expressionwhether they might still hope for success.
At that hour Julian was beaming with joy. Long, long, had he awaitedthis encounter with the Persians, awaited the miracle in which victorywould give him such renown and power that the Galileans could nolonger resist. He was haughty as one of the old heroes of Hellas.Danger seemed to spiritualise him; and a gay and terrible light was inhis eyes.
The heavy and dusty morning of the twenty-second of July seemed theprelude to a day of burning heat, and the Emperor objected to wear abreastplate, and remained clad in a light silken tunic. Victor, thegeneral, came up holding a coat-of-mail, and said--
"Caesar, I have had a bad dream; tempt not fate; wear armour!"
Julian silently waved his hand in negation. The old man fell on hisknees--
"Put it on! Have pity on your slave!... This battle will beperilous...."
Julian took a shield, flung the light purple of his chlamys over hisshoulder, and vaulting on horseback said--
"Let me be, old friend! I need nothing."
He vanished, his golden-crested helm glittering for a while in thesun, while Victor anxiously followed him with his eyes.
Julian disposed his army in a peculiar form, like a crescent. Theenormous half-circle was to bury its two points in the Persian massand squeeze it inwards from two sides. The right wing was commandedby Dagalaif, the left by Hormizdas, Julian and Victor leading thecentre. The trumpets sounded. The earth trembled under the softand heavy tread of the Persian elephants, wearing huge plumes ofostrich-feathers on their foreheads. Turrets of hide were lashed onthe back of the beasts by thick thongs; and each turret held fourarchers, who shot flaming arrows of tow and pitch.
The Roman horse did not stand the first shock. With deafening roarsand raised trunks the elephants opened their huge moist gullets. Thelegionaries felt in their faces the hot wind of the monsters, maddenedbefore battle by a special drink made of wine, pepper, and spices.With foot spikes painted in vermilion and tipped with steel, theelephants disembowelled horses, and their trunks whirled horsemen fromthe saddle and dashed them against the ground. The torrid heat of theafternoon raised from the trumpeting beasts a rank odour of sweatwhich made the horses wince, rear, and tremble violently.
One cohort had already taken flight. It happened to be a body ofChristians. Julian pursued them, and striking the chief decurion fullin the face, cried furiously--
"Cowards! I suppose praying is the only thing you are good for?"
The light Thracian archery and Paphlagonian skirmishers now advancedagainst the elephants. Behind them marched Illyrians, skilful throwersof the leaded javelins, the "Martiobarbuli." Julian gave the order toaim arrows, stones, and javelins at the legs of the elephants. Anarrow struck an enormous Indian beast in the eye. He trumpeted andreared, the girths snapped, saddle and leather turret slid and upset,shedding the Persian archers like birds from a nest. Confusionfollowed among the huge pachyderms. Wounded in the legs they staggeredand fell, and their squadron became little more than a mountain ofgrey masses. Their feet in air, their trunks bleeding, their armoursmashed, they lay amid ruins of the turrets, half crushed horses, andpiles of Roman and Persian dead.
At last the elephants took flight, and rushed headlong against thePersians, trampling them underfoot. This particular danger had beenforeseen by the barbarian tacticians. The previous instance of thebattle under Nizibis had shown that an army may be defeated by its ownallies. Now the mahouts began to slash the monsters with curvedcutlasses between the two joints of the spine lying nearest the skull;a single blow in this exact spot sufficing to kill outright thelargest and strongest of the great beasts. The cohorts ofMartiobarbuli charged, clambering over the wounded and pursuing thosein flight.
At this instant Julian galloped to support the left wing. On that siderode the Persian _Clibanarii_, a famous body of cavalry, bound man toman by a strong chain, and clad in invulnerable scale-armour. Theyreceived the waves of battle like a row of bronze equestrian statues.They could only be wounded through narrow slits left for mouth andeyes.
Against the Clibaniars Julian sent his old faithful friends, theBatavians and the Celts. They would die for a smile from Caesar, gazingat him with eyes of childlike adoration. The right wing of the Romanswas assailed by Persian chariots, drawn by galloping zebras. Scytheswere affixed to their axles, which, sweeping along with incredibleswiftness, mowed legs from horses and heads from soldiers, and loppedbodies in half, easily as the reaper's sickle takes the corn.
Towards the end of the day, weighed down in their overheated armour,the Clibaniars wavered. Julian massed all his forces against them.They broke, and re-formed, but their ranks at last became confused andfled. A cry of triumph broke from the Emperor's lips. He gallopedahead, pursuing the fugitives, not perceiving that he was far inadvance of his main body. A few body-guards surrounded the Caesar,amongst them old General Victor. This old man, though wounded in thehand, was unconscious of his hurt, not quitting the Emperor's side fora moment, and shielding him time after time from mortal blows. He knewthat it was as dangerous to approach a fleeing army as to enter afalling building.
"Take heed, Caesar!" he shouted. "Put on this mail of mine!" but Julianheard him not, and still rode on, on--his breast lying bared to drinkin the wind--as if he, unsupported, unarmed, and terrible, was huntinghis countless enemies by glance and gesture only from the field.Laughter was on his lips; through the cloud of dust, raised by thefurious gallop of the horse, shone the Boeotian helmet, and theoutspread folds of his chlamys streamed into two great wings ofpurple, that seemed to bear him farther and yet farther.
In front, a small detachment of Saracens was in flight. One of thesehorsemen, turning in his saddle, recognised Julian by his raiment, andpointing him out to his comrades, uttered a guttural cry like that ofan eagle--
"_Malek, malek!_ ... The king, the king!"
All wheeled round, and at full gallop sprang upright, standing ontheir saddles, their long white vestments streaming, and lances poisedabove their heads. The Emperor saw the bronzed face of a young robber,one little more than a lad. Riding rapidly towards him on a Bactriandromedary, from whose shaggy hair lumps of dry mud swung and dangled,Victor parried two lances aimed at the Emperor by Bedouins. Then thelad on the camel aimed, his fierce look glittering and white teethshowing while he cried gleefully--
"_Malek, malek!_"
"That boy is happy," was the thought that flashed through Julian'smind, "and I too...."
He had no time to finish; the lance hissed, and grazing the skin ofhis right hand, glanced over the ribs and buried itself below theliver. Julian thought the wound a slight one, and seizing thedouble-edged barb to withdraw it, cut his fingers. Blood gushed out.Julian uttered a cry, flung his head back, fixed his staring eyes onthe pale sky, and slid from his horse into the arms of the guard.
Victor supported him with tender veneration, gazing with tremblinglips at the closed eyes of his sovereign. The tardy cohorts in therear came up.