The Brass Bell Part 10

"If none of those eleven women found in the chariot were living, my wife is dead."

"Isn't that too bad--too bad! Your wife had already borne you two children; you four would have made a fine deal. Ah, what a lost treasure!"

I repressed a gesture of impotent anger at the scoundrel, and answered:

"Yes, they would have billed us as the Bull and the Heifer!"

"Surely! And since Caesar is going to distribute much of your depopulated country among his veterans, those who have no reserve prisoners will be under the necessity of buying slaves to cultivate and re-people their parcels of land. You are of that strong rustic race, and consequently I have hopes of getting a good price for you from some new colonist."

"Listen to me. I would rather know that my son and daughter were dead, like their mother, than have them saved to be slaves. Nevertheless, since there were found near the chariot some children who had survived--a thing that astonishes me, since the women of Gaul always strike with a firm and sure hand when it is a case of s.n.a.t.c.hing their race from shame--it is possible that my children may be among those found. How can I find out?"

"What good will finding out do you?"

"I will at least have with me my two children."

The "horse-dealer" began to laugh, shrugged his shoulders, and answered:

"Then you didn't hear me? By Jupiter, I advise you not to be deaf--you would be returned to me. I told you that I neither bought nor sold children."

"What does that matter to me?"

"Among a hundred purchasers of slaves for farm-hands, there would not be ten so foolish as to buy a man and his two children, without their mother. So that to offer you for sale with two brats, if they are still living, would make me lose half your value by burdening your purchaser with two useless mouths. Do you catch on; thick-head? No, for you look at me with a ferocious and stupefied air. I repeat that if I had been obliged to buy the two children in one lot with you, or even if they had been given to me to boot, in the market, like old Pierce-Skin, my first care would have been to have put you up for sale without them. Do you understand at last, double and triple block that you are?"

At last I did understand; heretofore I had not dreamed of such refinement of torture in slavery. To think that my two children, if alive, might be sold, I know not where, or to whom, and taken far from me! I had not thought it possible. My heart swelled with grief. So great was my suffering that I almost supplicated the "horse-dealer." I said to him:

"You are deceiving me. What can my children do? Who would wish to buy such poor little things, so young? useless mouths--as you said yourself?"

"Oh, those who carry on the trade in children have a separate and a.s.sured patronage, especially if the children are favored with pretty features. Are your young ones good-looking?"

"Yes," I answered in spite of myself. Before me was the vision of the charming fair faces of my little Sylvest and Syomara, who looked as much alike as twins and whom I had embraced a moment before the battle of Vannes. "Oh yes, they were good-looking. They were like their mother, who was so beautiful--!"

"If they had good looks, be easy, my fine Bull. They will be easy to dispose of. The dealers in children have for their especial patrons the decrepit and surfeited Roman Senators, who love fresh fruits. By the way, they have announced the near arrival of the patrician Trymalcion, a very rich and very n.o.ble man, an old and very capricious expert. He is traveling through the Roman colonies of southern Gaul, and is expected here, they say, on his galley which is as splendid as a palace. No doubt he would like to take back to Italy some graceful specimens of Gallic brats. If your children are pretty, their fate is a.s.sured, for the patrician Trymalcion is one of my partner's patrician customers."[19]

At first I listened to the "horse-dealer," without catching his meaning.

But I was presently seized with a vertigo of horror at the idea that my children, who might unfortunately have escaped the death which their far-sighted mother had intended for them, might be carried to Italy to fulfill such a monstrous destiny. I felt neither anger nor fury, but a grief so great, and a fear so terrible, that I kneeled on the straw, and in spite of my manacles, stretched my pleading hands toward the "horse-dealer." Not finding words to utter my feelings, I wept, kneeling.

The "horse-dealer" looked at me in great surprise, and said:

"Well, well! What is it, my fine Bull? What ails you?"

"My children!" was all I could say, for sobs choked me. "My children! if they are living!"

"Your children?"

"What you said--the fate that awaits them--if they are sold to those men--"

"How? Their fate causes you alarm?"

"Hesus! Hesus!" I exclaimed, calling on the G.o.d in my lamentation. "It is horrible!"

"Are you going crazy?" demanded the "horse-dealer." "And what is there so horrible in the fate which awaits your children? Ah, what barbarians you are in Gaul, indeed. But, know: there is no life easier nor more flowery than that of these little flute-players and dancers with which these rich old fellows amuse themselves. If you could see them, the little rogues, their foreheads crowned with roses, their flowery robes spangled with gold, their rich earrings adorning their heads. And the little girls, if you could see them with their tunics and--"

I could contain myself no longer. A b.l.o.o.d.y mist pa.s.sed before my eyes.

Furiously and desperately I leapt on the vile fellow. But my chain again tightening sharply, I stumbled and fell back on the straw. I looked around me--not a stick nor a stone. Then, crazed with rage, I doubled upon my chain, and gnawed at it like a wild animal.

"What a brute of a Gaul!" exclaimed the "horse-dealer," shrugging his shoulders, and keeping well out of reach. "There he is, roaring and jumping and grinding at his chain like a staked wolf, and all because he has been told that his children, if they are pretty, are to live in the midst of wealth, ease and pleasure! What would it have been, then, fool that you are, if they were ugly or deformed? Do you know to whom they would have been sold? They would have been sold to those rich lords, who are so curious to read the future in the palpitating entrails of children freshly slaughtered for divination."[20]

"Oh, Hesus!" I cried, filled with hope at the thought, "let it be so with mine, despite their beauty! Oh, death for them! Only let them enter the other world in their innocence, and live near their chaste mother."

I could no longer hold back my tears.

"Friend Bull," began the "horse-dealer" in a dissatisfied tone, "I was not a bit mistaken in putting you down in my tablet as violent and hot-headed. But I fear lest you have a fault worse than these--I mean a tendency towards tears. I have seen sullen slaves melt away like the snows of winter under a spring sun, dry up like parchment, and cause great loss to their owners by their pitiful appearance. So, look out for yourself. There remain but fifteen days before the auction at which you are to be sold. It is a short while to restore you to your natural fles.h.i.+ness, to give you a fresh and rested complexion, a sleek and supple skin, in short, all those signs of vigor and health which allure the experts, jealous of possessing a sound and robust slave. To obtain this result, I wish to spare nothing, neither good food, nor care, nor any of those little artifices known to us to make our merchandise show off to advantage. On your part you must second my efforts. But if, on the contrary, you do not get over your fits of anger, if you begin to weep, if you begin to make yourself miserable, to waste away, so to speak, vainly dreaming of your children, instead of affording me honor and profit by your good figure, as a good slave should who is jealous of his master's interests,--beware, friend Bull, beware! I am not a novice in my business. I have carried it on for many years and in many lands. I have subdued more intractable fellows than you. I have made Sardinians docile, and Sarmatians as gentle as lambs, so you can judge of my skill.[21] Therefore, believe me, do not expect yourself to cause me harm by pining away. I am very mild, very gentle. I am not at all fond of chastis.e.m.e.nts; often they leave marks which lower a slave's value. Nevertheless, if you oblige me to, you will make the acquaintance of the jail for recalcitrants. Consider that, friend Bull. It will soon be meal-time; the physician says that you can now be put upon a substantial diet. You will be brought boiled chicken, oatmeal wet with gravy of roast sheep, good bread, and some good wine and water. I shall know whether you have eaten with a good appet.i.te and in a manner to recuperate your strength, instead of losing it in weeping. So then, eat; it is the only way of gaining my favor. Eat plenty, eat often--I'll see that you have it. You will never eat too much to please me, for you are far from being well-fed, and that's what you must be, well-fed, before fifteen days, the time of the auction. I leave you to these reflections; pray the G.o.ds that they improve you. If not--oh, if not, I weep for you, friend Bull."

So saying the "horse-dealer" shut the heavy door of the room behind him, leaving me chained within.

CHAPTER X.

THE LAST CALL TO ARMS.

But for my uncertainty concerning the fate of my children, immediately upon the "horse-dealer's" departure I would have killed myself by b.u.t.ting my head against the wall of my prison, or by refusing all nourishment. Many Gauls had thus escaped the doom of slavery. But I felt that I should not die before doing what I could to s.n.a.t.c.h them from the destiny which menaced them.

I examined my room to see whether, my strength once restored, there was any chance for escape. Three sides of the room were solid wall, the other was a thick part.i.tion re-enforced with beams, between two of which opened the door which was always carefully bolted without. A bar of iron crossed the window, leaving an opening too narrow to give me pa.s.sage. I examined my chain, and the rings, one of which was riveted to my leg, the other to one of the cross-bars of the bed. It was impossible for me to unchain myself, even at my greatest strength. I then thought of a plan, a trick, to put myself in the good graces of the "horse-dealer,"

so as to obtain from him information of my little Sylvest and Syomara.

With that end in view, it would not do to repine, to appear sad or afraid of the lot reserved for the children. I feared I might not be able to carry out the role, for I came of a race unaccustomed to deceit and lying. The Gauls either triumphed or died.

On the evening of that same day when, regaining consciousness, I had become aware of my slavery, I witnessed a spectacle of terrible grandeur. It raised my courage. I could no longer despair for the safety and liberty of Gaul. The night was about to fall, when I heard the tramping of several troops of cavalry arriving at a walk in the great public square of Vannes, which I could see from the narrow window of my prison. I looked out, and beheld the following scene.

Two cohorts of Roman infantry, and one of cavalry, both in battle array, surrounded a vacant s.p.a.ce, in the middle of which rose a large scaffold of timber. On the platform was a heavy block, such as is used for chopping meat on. Beside the block stood a Moor of gigantic stature and bronzed of color. His arms and legs were bare, his hair was bound with a scarlet band; he wore a coat and a pair of short trousers of tanned skin, splashed here and there with dark red; in his hand was an axe.

In the distance sounded the long clarions of the Romans, playing a funeral march. The sound drew nearer. One of the cohorts that were drawn up on the square opened its ranks, forming a double row. Through this lane the clarioneers entered. They preceded a troop of steel-clad legionaries. After the troop came the prisoners taken in the Gallic army, tied two and two. Then came the women and children, also in bonds. More than two stone's throws separated me from these captives. At such a distance I could not distinguish their features, try as I might.

Nevertheless, my little son and daughter might be among them. The prisoners, of all ages and s.e.xes, closed in by the two rows of soldiers, were stationed at the foot of the platform. Still more troops marched into the square; after them, five and twenty captives were led in, in single file, but not chained. I recognized them by their free and haughty pace. They were the chiefs and elders of the town and tribe of Vannes, all white-haired fathers.[22] Among them, marching last, I distinguished two druids and a bard of the college of the forest of Karnak, marked, the first by their long white robes, the second by his tunic striped with purple. Then appeared more Roman infantry; finally, between two escorts of white-robed Numidian cavalry, Caesar, on horse-back, in the midst of his officers. I recognized the scourge of Gaul by his armor, which was the same he wore when, aided by my brother Mikael the armorer, I was carrying him off in full panoply on my horse.

Oh, how at the sight of the man I cursed anew my stupid astonishment, that so unfortunately proved the safety of my country's butcher.

Caesar drew rein a short distance from the platform, and made a sign with his hand. Immediately the twenty-five prisoners, the bard and druids pa.s.sing last, mounted with calm tread the steps of the scaffold.

One by one they placed their white heads on the block, and each one of the venerable heads, stricken off by the axe of the Moor, rolled at the feet of the bound captives.

The bard and the two druids were the only ones left. The three rushed together in a final embrace, they raised their faces and their hands towards heaven, and intoned in a loud voice the song of Hena, the virgin of the isle of Sen, uttered at the hour of her voluntary sacrifice on the rocks of Karnak, that song which had been the signal for the rising of Brittany against the Romans:

"Hesus, Hesus! By the blood which is about to flow, clemency for Gaul!"

"Gauls, by the blood which is about to flow, victory to our arms!"

And the bard added:

"The Chief of the Hundred Valleys is safe. There is hope for our arms!"