The Brass Bell Part 14

"And that is not all, infamous scoundrel! I have lost the confidence of the centurion to whom I sold you. He reproached me with having outrageously deceived him; with having sold him, instead of a lamb, a tiger who exercised his teeth upon rich patricians. He wanted to sell you right back. To sell you back, as if anyone would consent to buy--after such an exhibition! As well buy a wild beast. Luckily for me, I received the deposit before witnesses. The fierceness of your nature will not set aside the contract; the centurion has no choice but to keep you. He'll keep you, I warrant, but he'll make you pay dear for your criminal instincts. Oh, you don't know the life that awaits you in the _ergastula_! You don't know--"

"But my son," I asked, interrupting the "horse-dealer," well knowing that he would answer out of cruelty. "Is my son also sold? To whom?"

"Sold? And who do you think would still want him? Sold? Better say given away. You bring bad luck to everybody, double traitor. Did not your ragings and the shrieks of that mis-born limb teach everyone that he is of your beastly blood? No one offered even an obole for him! Who would buy a wolf's whelp? Anyway, I was going to speak to you about that son of yours, to delight your father's heart. Know that he was given to boot by my partner at the end of the sale, to the same purchaser to whom he sold the grey-haired matron, who will be good to turn a mill-wheel."

"And that purchaser," I enquired, "who is he? What is he going to do with my son?"

"That purchaser is the centurion--your master!"

"Hesus!" I exclaimed, hardly able to believe what I heard. "Hesus, you are kind and merciful. At least I shall have my son near me."

"Your son near you! Then you are as stupid as you are scoundrelly. Ah, do you imagine that it is for your paternal contentment that your master has burdened himself with that wolf-cub? Do you know what your master said to me? 'I have only one means of subduing that savage beast you sold me, you egregious cheat.--The chances are, that madman loves his little one. I'll keep the wolf-whelp in a cage, and the son will answer to me for the father's docility.--At the father's first, and least offence, he will see the tortures which he will make his cub suffer, under my very eyes.'"

I paid no further attention to what the "horse-dealer" said--I was at least sure of seeing you, or of knowing that you were near me, my child.

That will help me to bear the awful grief caused to me by the fate of my little daughter Syomara, who, two days later, was carried into Italy on board the galley of the patrician Trymalcion.

My father Guilhern was not granted time to finish his narrative.

Death--oh, what a death!--death overtook him the very day after he traced the above last lines. I preserve them together with the little bra.s.s bell that my father got from the "horse-dealer."

The narrative of the sufferings of our race, I, Sylvest, shall continue in obedience to my father Guilhern, the same as he obeyed the behest of his father Joel the brenn of the tribe of Karnak.

Hesus was merciful to you, O, my father.--You died ignorant of the life of your daughter Syomara--

It is left to me to narrate my sister's fate.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A short distance from the town of St. Nazaire, which is still in existence.

[2] The patriotism of the Russians in burning Moscow in order to starve and drive out Napoleon's army is justly admired. But how much more admirable was the heroic patriotism of these old Gauls! Not only Brittany, but almost a third of Gaul was delivered to the flames. See Caesar, _De Bello Gallico_, lib. VII, ch. XIV. Also Amedee Thierry, _History of the Gauls_, vol. III, p. 103: "The Chief of the Hundred Valleys was heard with calm and resignation. Not a murmur interrupted him, not an objection was raised against the heavy sacrifice which he demanded. It was with one voice that the heads of the tribes voted the ruin of their fortunes and the scattering of their families. This terrible remedy was at once applied to the country which they feared would be occupied by the enemy ... On every hand one perceived nothing but the fire and smoke of burning habitations. In the light of these flames, across the ruins and the ashes of their homes, an innumerable population wended their way towards the frontier, where shelter and food awaited them. Their sorrow and suffering was not without consolation, since it would lead to the safety of their country."

[3] The shark.

[4] A Gallic war cry, signifying "Strike at the head--down with them."

[5] A troop composed of cavalry (_mahrek_) and footmen (_droad_).

"A certain number of Gallic cavalrymen chose among the foot-soldiers an equal number of the most agile and courageous. Each of the latter attended a horseman, and followed him in battle. The cavalry fell back upon them if it was in danger, and the footmen ran up; if a wounded horseman fell from his charger, the foot-soldier succored and defended him. When it became necessary to make a rapid advance or retreat, exercise had made these foot-soldiers so agile that, hanging on by the manes of the horses, they kept up with the cavalry in its rapid movement."--Caesar, _De Bello Gallico_, book I, ch. XLVIII.

[6] In this body of cavalry each horseman was followed by two equerries, mounted and equipped, who remained behind in the body of the army. When the battle was on, should the horseman be dismounted, the equerries gave him one of their horses. If then the horseman's horse was killed, or the horseman himself dangerously wounded, he was carried from the field by one of the equerries, while the other took his place in the ranks. This body of cavalry was called the _trimarkisia_, from two words which in the Gallic tongue signify "three horses."--Amedee Thierry, _History of the Gauls_, vol. I, p. 130. See also Pausanius, book X.

[7] "The Gauls had also their Pindars and their Tyrteuses, bards exercising their talent to sing in heroic verse the deeds of great men, and to inculcate in the people the love of glory."--Latour d'Auvergne, _Gallic Origins_, p. 158.

[8] "The Gauls hold that it is a disgrace to live subjugated, and that in all war there are but two outcomes for the man of courage--to conquer or to die."--Nicolas Damasc; see also Strabo, serm. XII.

[9] "Caesar in his Commentaries, and after him the later historians, took the t.i.tle of command held by this hero of Gaul for his proper name, and, by corruption, wrote _Vercingetorix_ in place of Ver-cinn-cedo-righ, Chief of the Hundred Valleys," observes Amedee Thierry (_History of the Gauls_, vol. III, p. 86). "Vercingetorix, a native of Auvergne, was the son of Celtil, who, guilty of conspiring against the freedom of his city, expiated on the pyre his ambition and his crime. The young Gaul thus became heir to the goods of his father, whose name he nevertheless blushed to bear. Having become the idol of his people, he traveled to Rome and saw Caesar, who attempted to win his good graces. But the Gaul rejected the friends.h.i.+p of his country's enemy. Returned to his native land he labored secretly to reawaken among his people the spirit of independence, and to raise up enemies against the Romans. When the hour to call the people to arms was come, he showed himself openly, in druid ceremonies, in political meetings; everywhere, in short, he was seen employing his eloquence, his fortune, his credit, in a word all his means of action upon the chiefs and on the mult.i.tude, to spur them on to reconquer the rights of old Gaul."--Thierry.

[10] Here are Caesar's own words on this extraordinary event, taken from his _Ephemerides_, or diary, wherein with his own hand he was accustomed to enter day by day what of interest had occurred to him. These words are transmitted to us by Servius:

"Caius Julius Caesar, c.u.m dimicaret in Gallia, et ab hoste raptus, equo ejus portaretur armatus, occurrit quidam ex hostibus qui c.u.m nosset et insultans ait: Ceco Caesar! quod in lingua Gallorum dimitte significat.

Et ita factum est ut dimitteretur.

"Hoc autem dicit ipse Caesar in Ephemeride sua ubi propriam commemorat felicitatem."--Ex Servio LXI. Aeneid, edit. Amstelod, type Elsevir, 1650, ex antiquo Vatic. Extemp. cap. VIII.

"One can see by this pa.s.sage," adds d'Auvergne, "that Caesar, having been released by the Gaul who had made him prisoner and who was carrying him off on his horse fully armed from the field of battle, believed the saving of his life to be due to the very word which was intended to be his death sentence: to the word _sko_, which Caesar wrote _ceco_, and which he falsely interpreted to mean _release_ when the word in Gallic in reality means _kill_, _strike_, _beat down_. Everything points to the conclusion that fear or stupefaction having seized the Gauls, in whose power Caesar completely was, at the mere mention of his name, he owed his safety to the sheer astonishment of his captor."

[11] "During the fight, which lasted from the seventh hour until the evening, not a Gaul was seen turning his back (aversum hostem nemo videre potuit)."--Caesar, _De Bello Gallico_, ch. x.x.xVII.

[12] "When the Romans drew near the chariots they came face to face with a new enemy, the war dogs. These were with difficulty exterminated by the archers."--Pliny, book LXXII, chap. C.

[13] The total destruction of the Gallic fleet was the result of an extremely dangerous invention by the Romans, who, by means of scythes fastened to long poles, cut the stays which held the masts. These fell, and the Gallic vessels, deprived of sails and motion, were reduced to impotence. See Caesar, _De Bello Gallico_, book III, ch. XIV, XV.

[14] See Pliny, Quintilian, Seneca, etc. Cited by Wallon in his _History of Slavery in Antiquity_, vol. II, p. 329.

[15] About $100 or $120 in modern money. This was at the time the market price of a slave. (Wallon, _History of Slavery in Antiquity_, vol. II, p. 329.)

[16] Slaves had no name of their own. They were given indiscriminately all sorts of soubriquets, even to the names of animals. (Givin, p. 339.)

[17] It was the custom to throw in "for good measure," upon the purchase of a lot of slaves for labor or for pleasure, a few old men who were nothing but skin and bones. See Plautus, _Bachid._ IV, _Prospera_ IV; and _Terence_, _Eun._ Cited by Wallon, _History of Slavery in Antiquity_, vol. II. p. 56.

[18] There were in the selling of slaves, as in the vending of animals established grounds ent.i.tling the purchaser to recover in full or in part his purchase price. Six months were allowed for causes of the first cla.s.s to manifest themselves, a year for the latter.

Deafness, dumbness, short-sightedness, tertiary or quaternary ague, gout, epilepsy, polyp, varicose veins, a breath indicating an internal malady, sterility among the women--such were the grounds accepted for complete abrogation of the contract. As to moral defects, nothing was said. Nevertheless, the merchant was not allowed to ascribe to a slave qualities he did not possess. One was bound above all to make known whether a slave possessed a tendency toward suicide. (Wallon, _History of Slavery in Antiquity_, vol. II, p. 63.)

[19] We do not dare to expatiate on these monstrosities. We shall only cite the words of the lawyer Heterus: "Shamelessness is a crime in a free man--a duty in a freedman--and a necessity in a slave." For further details of the abominable and precocious depravity into which slaves and their children were dragged, see Wallon, _History of Slavery in Antiquity_, p. 266, following.

[20] "Masters disemboweled their slaves, to search for prognostications in their entrails."--Wallon, vol. II, p. 251.

[21] The characteristics of different nationalities of slaves had pa.s.sed into bywords with the dealers. Thus they said "timid as a Phrygian,"

"vain as a Moor," "deceitful as a Cretan," "intractable as a Sardinian,"

"fierce as a Dalmatian," "gentle as an Ionian," etc., etc. (Wallon, vol.

II, p. 65.)

[22] Caesar wished to make a severe example. So "He put the Senate to death, and sold the rest at auction."--Caesar, _De Bello Gallico_, book III, ch. XVI.

[23] See Wallon, vol. II, ch. III, for the singular means employed by the "horse-dealers" to rejuvenate their slaves.

[24] The Gauls in the north and west of France attached so much importance and dignity to the length of their hair that the provinces they inhabited were called "Long-haired Gaul." (Latour d'Auvergne, Gallic Origins.)

[25] When prisoners of war were sold as slaves, they were made to wear wreaths of the leaves of trees as a distinctive sign. (Wallon.)

[26] "The magic philters of Media and Circe of old were nothing but pharmaceutical brews of an action as diversified as powerful. Several of these narcotic or exhilarators, which threw a man into an incredible moral prostration, or else into a fit of frenzy, were long employed among the Romans. The slave merchants used them to overcome and enervate their more unconquerable captives."--_Philosophic Dictionary_, p. 345.