The Brass Bell Part 5

Still the bark of Albinik and Meroe played with the rocks and surges of those dangerous roads, sometimes drawing off sh.o.r.e, sometimes in.

"You are the best and most courageous pilot I have ever met with, I, who have in my life traveled so much on the sea," said Caesar to Albinik when he had regained dry land, and, with Meroe, had left the boat.

"To-morrow, if the weather is fair, you will guide an expedition, the destination of which you will know at the moment of setting sail."

CHAPTER V.

INTO THE SHALLOWS.

The following day, at sunrise, the wind being favorable and the sea smooth, the Roman galleys were to sail. Caesar wished to be present at the embarkment. He had Albinik brought to him. Beside the general was a soldier of great height and savage mien. A flexible armor, made of interwoven iron links, covered him from head to foot. He stood motionless, a statue of iron, one might say. In his hand he held a short, heavy, two-edged axe. Pointing out this man, the interpreter said to Albinik:

"You see that soldier. During the sail he will stick to you like your shadow. If through your fault or by treason, a single one of the galleys grates her keel, he has orders to kill you and your companion on the instant. If, on the contrary, you carry the fleet to harbor safely, the general will overwhelm you with gifts. You will then give the most happy mortals cause for envy."

"Caesar shall be satisfied," answered Albinik.

Followed by the soldier with the axe, he and Meroe went up into the galley Pretoria which was to lead the fleet. She was distinguished from the other s.h.i.+ps by three gilded torches placed on the p.o.o.p.

Each galley carried seventy rowers, ten sailors to handle the sails, fifty light-armed archers and slingers, and one hundred and fifty soldiers cased in iron from top to toe.

When the galleys had pulled out from sh.o.r.e, the praetor, military commandant of the fleet, told Albinik, through an interpreter, to steer for the lower part of the bay of Morbihan, in the neighborhood of the town of Vannes, where the Gallic army was a.s.sembled. Albinik with his hand at the tiller was to convey to the interpreter his orders to the master of the rowers. The latter beat time for the rowers, according to the pilot's orders, with an iron hammer with which he rapped on a gong of bra.s.s. As the speed of the Pretoria, whose lead the rest of the Roman fleet followed, needed quickening or slackening, he indicated it by quickening or slowing the strokes of the hammer.

The galleys, driven by a fair wind, sailed northward. As the interpreter had done before, so now the oldest sailors admired the bold manoeuvre and quick sight of the Gallic pilot. After a sail of some length, the fleet found itself near the southern point of the bay of Morbihan, and knew that now it was to enter into those channels, the most dangerous on all the coast of Brittany because of the great number of small islands, rocks and sand banks, and above all, because of the undercurrents, which ran with irresistible violence.

A little island situated in the mouth of the bay, which was still more constricted by two points of land, divided the inlet into two narrow lanes. Nothing in the surface of the sea, neither breakers nor foam nor change in the color of the waters gave token of the slightest difference between the two pa.s.ses. Nevertheless, in one lay not a rock, while the other was strewn with danger. In the latter channel, after a hundred strokes of the oars, the s.h.i.+ps in single file, led by the Pretoria, would have been dragged by a submarine current toward a reef of rocks which was visible in the distance, and over which the sea, calm everywhere else, broke tumultuously. The commanders of the several galleys could perceive their peril only one by one; each would be made aware of it only by the rapid drifting of the galley ahead of him. Then it would be too late. The violence of the current would drag and hurl vessel upon vessel. Whirling in the abyss, fouling the bottom, and cras.h.i.+ng into one another, their timbers would part and they would sink into the watery depths with all on board, or else dash themselves on the rocky reef. A hundred more strokes of the oar, and the fleet would be annihilated in this channel of ruin.

The sea was so calm and beautiful that not one of the Romans had any suspicion of danger. The rowers accompanied with songs the measured fall of their oars. Of the soldiers some were cleaning their arms; some were stretched out in the bow asleep; others were playing at huckle-bones. A short distance from Albinik, who was still at the helm, a white haired veteran with battle-scarred face was seated on one of the benches in the p.o.o.p, between his two sons, fine young archers of eighteen or twenty years. They were conversing with their father, each with one arm familiarly laid on a shoulder of the old warrior, whom they thus held tight in their embrace; all three seemed to be talking in pleasant confidence, and to love one another tenderly. In spite of the hatred he entertained for the Romans, Albinik could not help sighing with pity when he thought of the fate of these three soldiers, who did not imagine they were so near the jaws of death.

Just then one of those light boats used by the Irish seamen shot out from the bay of Morbihan by the safe channel. Albinik had, on his journeys, made frequent voyages to the coast of Ireland, an island that is inhabited by people of Gallic stock. They speak a language almost the same as that of the Gauls, yet difficult to understand for one who had not been as often on their coast as Albinik had.

The Irishman, either because he feared that he would be pursued and caught by one of the men-of-war which he saw approaching, and wished to avoid that danger by coming up to the fleet of his own accord, or else because he had useful information to give, steered straight toward the Pretoria. Albinik shuddered. Perhaps the interpreter would question the Irishman, and he might point out the danger which the fleet ran in taking one of the pa.s.sages. Albinik therefore gave orders to bend to the oars, in order to get inside the channel of destruction before the Irishman could join the galleys. But after a few words exchanged between the military commandant and the interpreter, the latter ordered them to wait for the boat which was drawing near, so as to ask for tidings of the Gallic fleet. Albinik obeyed; he did not dare to oppose the commandant for fear of arousing suspicion. Before long the little Irish shallop was within hailing distance of the Pretoria. The interpreter, stepping forward, hailed the Irishman in Gallic:

"Where do you come from, and where are you bound to? Have you met any vessels at sea?"

At these questions the Irishman motioned that he did not understand.

Then he began in his own half-Gallic tongue:

"I am coming to the fleet to give you news."

"What language does the man speak?" said the interpreter to Albinik. "I do not catch his meaning, although his language does not seem entirely strange."

"He speaks half Irish, half Gallic," answered Albinik. "I have often trafficked on the coasts of his country. I understand the tongue. The fellow says he has steered up to us to give us important news."

"Ask him what his news is."

"What information have you to give?" called Albinik to the Irishman.

"The Gallic vessels," answered he, "coming from various ports of Brittany, joined forces yesterday evening in the bay I have just left.

They are in great number, well armed, well manned, and cleared for action. They have chosen their anchorage at the foot of the bay, near the harbor of Vannes. You will not be able to see them till after doubling the promontory of A'elkern."

"The Irishman carries us favorable tidings," cried Albinik to the interpreter. "The Gallic fleet is scattered on all sides; part of the s.h.i.+ps are in the river Auray; the others, still more distant, towards the bay of Audiern, and Ouessant. At the foot of this bay, for the defense of Vannes, are but five or six poor merchantmen, barely armed in their haste."

"By Jupiter!" exclaimed the interpreter, "the G.o.ds, as always, are favorable to Caesar!"

The praetor and the officers, to whom the interpreter repeated the false news given by the pilot, seemed also overjoyed at the dispersion of the fleet of Gaul. Vannes was thus delivered into the hands of the Romans almost without defenses on the sea side.

Then Albinik said to the interpreter, indicating the soldier with the axe:

"Caesar has suspected me. The G.o.ds have been kind to allow me to prove the injustice of his suspicions. Do you see that islet, about a hundred oar-lengths ahead?"

"I see it."

"In order to enter the bay, we must take one of two pa.s.sages, one to the right of the islet, the other to the left. The fate of the Roman fleet is in my hands. I could pilot you by one of these pa.s.sages, which to the eye is exactly like the other, and an undercurrent would tow your galleys onto a sunken reef. Not one would escape."

"What say you?" exclaimed the interpreter. As for Meroe, she gazed at her husband in pained surprise, for, by his words, he seemed finally to have renounced his vengeance.

"I speak the truth," answered Albinik. "I'll prove it to you. That Irishman knows as well as I the dangers attendant upon entering the bay he has just left. I shall ask him to go before us, as pilot, and in advance I shall trace for you the route he will take. First he will take the channel to the right of the islet; then he will advance till he almost touches that point of land which you see furthest off; then he will make a wide turn to the right until he is just off those black rocks which tower over yonder; that pa.s.s behind us, those rocks shunned, we shall be safely in the bay. If the Irishman executes this manoeuvre from point to point, will you still suspect me?"

"No, by Jupiter!" answered the interpreter. "It would then be absurd to entertain the least doubt of your good faith."

"Judge me then," said Albinik, and he addressed a few words to the Irishman, who consented to pilot the s.h.i.+ps. His manoeuvring tallied exactly with what Albinik had foretold. The latter, having given to the Romans this testimony of his truthfulness, deployed the fleet in three files, and for some time he guided them among the little islands with which the bay was dotted. Then he ordered the rowers to rest on their oars. From this place they could not see the Gallic fleet, anch.o.r.ed at the furthest part of the bay at almost two leagues' distance, and screened from all eyes by a lofty promontory.

"Now," said Albinik to the interpreter, "We now run only one danger; it is a great one. Before us are s.h.i.+fting sandbanks, occasionally displaced by the high tides; the galleys might ground there. It is necessary, then, that I reconnoitre the pa.s.sage plummet in hand, before bringing the fleet into it. Let them rest as they are on their oars. Order the smallest boat your galley has to be launched, with two rowers. My wife will take the tiller. If you have any suspicion, you and the soldier with the axe may accompany us in the boat. Then, the pa.s.sage reconnoitred, I shall return on board to pilot the fleet even to the mouth of the harbor of Vannes."

"I no longer suspect," answered the interpreter. "But according to Caesar's order, neither the soldier nor I may leave you a single instant."

"Let it be as you wish," a.s.sented Albinik.

A small boat was lowered from the galley. Two rowers descended into it, with the soldier and the interpreter; Albinik and Meroe embarked in their turn; and the boat drew away from the Roman fleet, which was disposed in a crescent, waiting on its oars, for the pilot's return.

Meroe, seated at the helm, steered the boat according to the directions of her husband. He, kneeling and hanging over the prow, sounded the pa.s.sage by means of a ponderous lead fastened to a long stout cord.

Behind the little islet which the boat was then skirting stretched a long sand-bar which the tide, then ebbing, was beginning to uncover.

Beyond the sand-bar were several rocks fringing the bank. Albinik was just about to heave the lead anew; while seeming to be examining on the cord the traces of the water's depth, he exchanged a rapid look with his wife, indicating with a glance the soldier and the interpreter. Meroe understood. The interpreter was seated near her on the p.o.o.p; then came the two rowers on their bench; and at the farther end stood the man with the axe, behind Albinik, who was leaning at the bow, his lead in his hand. Rising suddenly he made of the plummet a terrible weapon. He imparted to it the rapid motion that a slinger imparts to his sling. The heavy lead attached to the cord struck the soldier's helmet so violently that the man sank to the bottom of the boat stunned with the blow. The interpreter rushed forward to the aid of his companion, but Meroe seized him by the hair and pulled him back; loosing his balance he toppled into the sea. One of the two rowers, who had raised his oar at Albinik, immediately rolled headlong overboard. The movement given to the rudder by Meroe made the boat approach so close to the rocky islet that she and her husband both leaped on it. Rapidly they climbed the steep rocks.

There was now but one obstacle to their reaching sh.o.r.e. That was the sand-bar, one part of which, already uncovered by the sea, was in motion, as could be seen from the air bubbles which continually rose to the surface. To take that way to reach the rocks of the sh.o.r.e was to die in the abyss hidden under the treacherous surface. Already the couple heard, from the other side of the island, which hid them from view, the cries and threats of the soldier, who had recovered from his daze, and the voice of the interpreter, whom the rowers had doubtlessly pulled out of the water. Thoroughly familiar with these coasts, Albinik discovered, by the size of the gravel and the clearness of the water that covered it, that the sand-bar some paces off was firm. At that point, he and Meroe crossed, wading up to their waists. They reached the rocks on the sh.o.r.e, clambered up nimbly, and then stopped a moment to see if they were pursued.

The man with the axe, hampered by his heavy armor and being, no more than the interpreter, accustomed to move upon slippery rocks covered with seaweed, such as were those of the islet which they had to cross in order to reach the fugitives, arrived after many efforts opposite the quicksands, which were now left high and dry by the tide. Furious at the sight of Albinik and his companion, from whom he saw himself separated by only a narrow and level sand-bar, the soldier thought the pa.s.sage easy, and dashed on. At the first step he sank in the quicksand up to his knees. He made a violent effort to clear himself but sank deeper yet, up to his waist. He called his companions to his aid, but hardly had he called when only his head was above the abyss. Then the head also disappeared. The soldier raised his hands to heaven as he sank. A moment later only one of his iron gauntlets was to be seen convulsively quivering above the sand. Presently nothing was to be seen--nothing except some bubbles of air on the surface of the quagmire.

The rowers and the interpreter, seized with fear, remained motionless, not daring to risk certain death in the capture of the fugitives.

Feeling safe at last, Albinik addressed these words to the interpreter:

"Say thou to Caesar that I maimed myself to inspire him with confidence in the sincerity of my offers of service. My design was to conduct the Roman fleet to certain perdition, sacrificing my companion and myself.

Accident changed my plan. Just as I was piloting you into the channel of destruction, whence not a galley would have come back, we met the Irishman who informed me that the Gallic s.h.i.+ps, since yesterday a.s.sembled in great numbers and trimmed for fight, are anch.o.r.ed at the foot of the bay, two leagues off. Learning that, I changed my plan. I no longer wished to cast away the galleys. They will be annihilated just the same, but not by a snare or by treachery; it will come about in valorous combat, s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p, Gaul to Roman. Now, for the sake of the fight to-morrow, listen well to this: I have purposely led your galleys into the shallows, where in a few minutes they will be left high and dry on the sands. They will stay there grounded, for the tide is falling. To attempt to disembark is to commit suicide; you are surrounded on all sides by moving quicksands like the one in which your soldier and his axe have just been swallowed up. Remain on board of your s.h.i.+ps.

To-morrow they will be floated again by the rising tide. And to-morrow, battle--battle to the finish. The Gaul will have once more showed that NEVER DID BRETON COMMIT TREASON, and that if he glories in the death of his enemy, it is because he has killed his enemy fairly."

Then Albinik and Meroe, leaving the interpreter terrified by their words, turned in haste to the town of Vannes to give the alarm, and to warn the crews of the Gallic fleet to prepare for combat on the morrow.

On the way, Albinik's wife said to him: