The Lion\'s Brood

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Suddenly peals of laughter broke from the group of Carthaginian
officers that had ridden behind and who now clustered around him. The
calm that no devotion, no suffering, no danger of men could move, was
gone; the schalischim had turned from his measuring of the enemy to
smile and jest with his friends. Thereupon they threw back their heads
and laughed loud and long; and then the Africans noted it, and hoarse
cries of joy broke from their ranks. "The schalischim must be sure of
victory. Praise be to Melkarth!" Sergius saw a captain of one of the
squares run out and touch his forehead to the earth before his
commander; but no Roman heard the man's words pregnant with fate.

"Now, my father, let The Lion's Brood lead the beasts of all the fields
to their feast. We hunger, father, we hunger!"

And Hannibal had made answer, pointing northward toward the
plume-crested sea of blazing bronze, "Lo! friend; there are your meat
and wine."

Then a new roar of acclamation broke upward and rolled away to the
east. Two richly armed riders parted from the group and dashed off:
Maharbal, light and slender, bending far over his horse's neck, rode
headlong in Numidian fashion to his Numidians; Hasdrubal, erect and
dignified, galloped to head the Gaulish and Spanish horse upon the
banks of Aufidus; trumpets, drums, cymbals, crashed out in mad,
barbaric discords; and, with their horse-head standards tossing amid
the forest of spears, the Carthaginian line drove forward to the attack.

Running fast before the line of battle, Sergius could still make out,
even through the dust, those same naked men with lynx-hide bucklers,
dotting the plain at regular intervals, and each man's right arm seemed
always whirling about his head. The Roman light troops had pushed on
to skirmish, and now they began to fall back, though no arrow or
javelin could have reached them--could have flown to the foe. Sergius
watched in surprise their confusion and terror as they sought to plunge
among the legionaries or hide themselves behind the horsemen; nor had
they fled unscathed. Here a man ran by screaming and clasping his
shattered hand to his breast; then another staggered up, with arm
hanging broken at his side, while the big drops of blood fell slowly
from his fingers; and yet a third appeared, pale and helpless,
supported between two companions.

Sounds, too, now dull and heavy, and again ringing and metallic, seemed
to punctuate the roar of the advancing host. Sergius saw a horseman
near him clap his hand to his forehead and plunge headlong to the
earth: horses reared and snorted, some fell with ugly, red blotches on
their breasts and throats; the clangour and the thuds came
faster--faster; for now the clay and leaden bullets of the slingers
fell in showers, like hailstones, and it was good armour that turned
them.

Manlius had leaped down to aid a friend who was reeling helplessly,
with both eyes beaten out, and, a moment later, he approached Sergius,
holding up a slinger's bullet. The red had sunken into the lines of
the stamped inscription, and displayed them in hideous relief, "This to
your back, sheep!"

"That is always the way with barbarians," sneered Marcus Decius. "No
blow without an insult--look! They shall have blows themselves, soon,
that will need no insults to piece them out."

Paullus had watched with eagerness, with anxiety, for the signal to
advance. Varro seemed to hesitate, while the great masses of Rome,
lashed by the bitter rain of the slings, writhed and groaned in anguish
and rage; the light troops had disappeared, and the Balearians, now
close at hand, leaped and slung without let or hindrance. Then it was
that Paullus, waiting no longer, made a sign to his trumpeters.
"Scatter me that rabble!" he cried, and the cavalry clarions raised
their voices in one long, swelling peal of sound.

"Close! close!" rose the shout of battle, and the Roman horse dashed
forward into the dust cloud--forward upon the slingers that suddenly
were not there, had vanished, as it were, into the earth itself.

The straight trumpets and curved horns of the legions were ringing
behind them, stirred to life at last, but the horsemen did not hear.
What were those looming up ahead? Not naked slingers--armoured
cavalry! Hasdrubal with his Gauls and Spaniards were before them--upon
them; and all sense and volition were lost in the terrific shock.

Line after line went down, as if at touch, while fresh lines poured on
over the heaving mass of men and horses, until those who were face to
face seemed to fight upon a hill. Fiercer grew the pressure, tighter
and more dense the throng; horses, crushed together, powerless to move,
snorted and tossed their heads in terror, while the riders leaned
forward and grappled with those opposite. Weapons first, then hands
clutching at throats were doing the deadly work, and the dead, man and
horse, stood fast amid the press, unable even to fall and become merged
into the hideous, purple thing beneath their feet.

Mere weight, though, was beginning to tell. The human ridge that had
marked the joining of battle seemed far back among the enemy, and
squadron after squadron, in close array, breasted its top and plunged
down to mingle with the living or take their places among the dead.
The Romans were giving ground, slowly, stubbornly, but unmistakably,
and still, above the shouts and shrieks, the trampling and the clash of
weapons, the groans and the hard, short breathing, they could hear the
harsh voice of the consul, Paullus, urging his men to make battle
firmly.

Backward, steadily backward; and now, in one of those mad rushes, in
which men who seemed immovably wedged were swirled about like the water
in a maelstrom, Sergius found himself close to the consul, with Manlius
but a few paces in front. The thin, cruel lips had writhed away from
the white teeth, the helmet was gone, and the scant, black hair was
dabbled with blood that flowed from a slight cut upon the general's
brow; the snake-like eyes sought those of the young patrician with a
look wherein exultation and despair were strangely mingled.

"To the earth! to the earth, all!" he cried, at the same moment
plunging his sword into his horse's throat, and lighting firmly on his
feet, as the animal sank suddenly down. "We _must_ stand. Gods! where
are the legions? Clashing shields and waving javelins, while we are
cut to pieces! Gods! they shall pay for it!" Then he drew close to
Sergius' ear and whispered as calmly as if in the praetorium: "Learn,
now, a lesson of war, my son. Hannibal destroys us piecemeal, choosing
where he is strong and we are weak, while Varro allows _his_ strength
to stand and rest and wait for its turn to come. Down! down all!"

Outnumbered, outarmed, borne down and back, the Roman cavalry still
fought, but the press had grown looser, the mass less dense; and now,
at the word of the consul, all that could hear his voice obeyed the
order of despair, ancient as the day of Lake Regillus. Man after man
sprang to earth. Here was freer swing for weapons, here was surer
foothold, better chance to stand fast, and, for a moment, the thronging
foe seemed to recoil before the determined onslaught.

But it was not recoil. It was only the devouring of the foremost by
that red monster underneath. Who could recoil, with the squadrons
still pouring on, over the hill of corpses behind? Beaten, a man could
but die in his place, and that much they did. Many, too, had followed
the Roman example, leaping from their steeds and fighting hand to hand,
till the cavalry battle had changed into a thousand combats of man
against man.

It was here that Caius Manlius fell. Sergius was but a few feet from
him when he saw the youth sway gently, and, bowing his head, sink down.
He had made an effort to push to his side, and then the front of the
enemy seemed to receive some new impetus and surged forward over the
spot. What mattered it? He had seen the red spear point peeping out
between his friend's shoulders. He was dead, as they would all soon
be, and the couch was purple and kinglike. At that moment, he felt his
arm gripped hard, and turned to look into the consul's face.

"Do you not see it is over?" said Paullus, sharply.

"How?"

"We are falling back--_forced_ back--faster and faster. We are where
we first stood. Do you see that sapling by the river? I marked it
before we rode out. Soon we shall break; come!"

"Where?" asked Sergius.

"Where there may yet be hope, if the gods will it,--if they strike down
Varro: the centre, the legions. I do not believe they have fairly
advanced their standards yet."

"Do we fly?" and, as he spoke, Sergius frowned darkly.

"Fool! We _fight_. Later, perhaps, we shall die, but not here. In
the _centre_--"

As he spoke, a new, swirling rush seemed to carry them away, still
together, first with furious violence, then more slowly.

"Ah! it has come," said the consul, quietly. "This way. The dust is
blinding, but I think the sun is behind us." Pushing on and striking
right and left as he went, Aemilius Paullus fought a pathway through
flying and pursuing men. Sergius followed and once, when he saw the
consul cut down the boy who had stood near and talked to them that
morning, he stopped still and shuddered.

Paullus paused and laughed at him over his shoulder.

"A flying man in the path of a general is much worse than a dead one,"
he said. "Besides, none of them can save his life in that
direction--so it is nothing."

At that moment, indeed, the prophecy that no man of the Roman cavalry
would escape, seemed fair for fulfilment. Few fought on, and these
were soon ridden down, while Gauls and Spaniards thundered upon the
rear of such as sought safety of the rein, and slew them with steady,
measured strokes. Only the consul with perhaps a dozen others were,
for the time, safe. They were clear of the rout; within the protecting
reach of the great, legionary column, that was but just beginning to
move, and they turned, gasping for breath, and, with dazed eyes,
watched the flight and pursuit sweep by along the river bank.

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 thoughts
ivas short. Clenching his teeth in a paroxysm of anger, he again
turned to follow Paullus and Decius, who had passed into the ranks of
the legions and joined themselves to the personal volunteers of the
pro-consul, Servilius.

The great column was moving now, steadily gathering impetus, and there
was little speech between the generals. Servilius gazed with gloomy
brows at the consul and the half dozen men that remained to him, and no
question 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, dropping
from above, told that these hornets had fallen back and sought refuge
behind their lines; but the roar of battle rolled furiously from the
front.

"It is the standards that oppose at last," commented Paullus. "The
ranks 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; and
a 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 told
that the front was not far ahead. The dust filled their eyes, and they
could 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; the
corpses of the slain were thick beneath their feet, half-naked Gauls
and 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 Decius
and 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 drive
their Iberians, their Celts; it is the Africans that let us plunge on
like 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 the
rails. If the gods keep Hasdrubal slaying my runaways, there may be
hope; if he be a general, there is none."

And still the column's headway seemed hardly checked, though the cries
and the clashing of arms resounded, now, from both flanks as well as
from the front, while, in the depths of its vitals, men were crushed
together till they could scarce breathe. A rumour, too, like those Pan
sends to dismay soldiers, ran quickly from heart to heart, rather than
from lip to lip. It was that Hasdrubal had circled the rear and,
falling upon the allied cavalry, had scattered the left wing as he had
the right; that the Numidians pursued and slaughtered: but where now
were the cavalry of Gaul and Spain, the winners of two victories? A
sullen roar from the far distant rear seemed to answer; but the
language was one that few could read--few of that host. Oh! for an
hour of the veterans that slumbered on the shores of Trebia and
Trasimenus! Oh! for an hour of Fabius, who lingered at Rome, powerless
and discredited. Who were these that wore the armour, that wielded the
ponderous javelins of Rome's legions? From under the bronze helmets
gorgeously 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 the
knowledge of danger to be met and overcome; eyes that had but lately
watched sheep upon the Alban hills, eyes that were used only to the
flour dust when their owners kneaded dough behind the Forum.

Ahead, around, the standards were tossing as if upon the billows of an
angry sea. Was that a silver horse's head that flashed far to the
right?

"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 no
room 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 and
slew--for even advance now was checked, and the Celts had turned and
lashed the front with their great swords that rose and fell, crimson to
the hilt, crimson to the shoulder, crimson to every inch of their
wielders' huge bodies. The Spaniards, too, were stabbing fast and
furiously, while all along both flanks the African squares, between
which the weight of the column had forced its narrow length, thrust
with their long sarissas and rained their pila upon the doomed monster
in their midst: a war elephant, wounded to the death, with sides hung
with javelins and streaming with blood, rocking and trumpeting in
helpless agony.

Sergius watched the dull, hopeless look deepening in the eyes of the
young soldiers. They reminded him of the beeves in the shambles of the
elder Varro. Even the voice of Pan could not wake such men. Were they
not there to die for the traditions of Rome? It was true that every
path leading to Pan's country bristled with spears, but only a few
could fully know this, and these awaited their turn with the rest.

The press seemed to loosen somewhat. Perhaps the assailants had drawn
back to gain breath for a final onslaught; but, instinctively, the
staggering lines of the Roman column opened out into the space
afforded, and its four faces writhed forward bravely, pitifully. It
was then that Sergius saw the consul for the last time. He had turned
back from where he had forced his way to the head of the column; his
arms were battered and blood-stained, and he reeled painfully in his
saddle, for Paullus had mounted again, that he might the better be seen
by the legionaries. His wandering eyes took in every detail of their
hopeless plight; the last sparks of fire seemed to die out in him, and
his head drooped upon his chest. Then, slowly, he dismounted, having
ordered his horse to kneel, and the beast, unable to rise again, rolled
over on its side. Paullus watched it with almost an expression of
pity, 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 accursed
stingers hit me."

At that moment a rider covered with foam and dust and blood dashed up
to the group and, reining his steaming animal to its haunches, leaped
to the ground.

Paullus raised his eyes.

"It is time for you to escape, Cneius Lentulus," he said. "You have a
horse."

"It is for you, my father; that this day be not further darkened by the
death of a consul. My horse is good, and there are still gaps between
their 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 both
of last year's were Romans? Truly, it would be a much darker day
should I escape with Varro than if I die with Regulus and Servilius;
besides, I have no humour for further charges and trials, in order that
the rabble may vindicate their favourite butcher. But do you go,
Cneius, and tell them that you have seen me sitting in my colleague's
shambles."

There were tears in Lentulus' eyes, and he still strove to persuade his
general to accept the horse, but, at that moment, new shoutings and
clashing of arms announced what must prove the final attack.

"They come again, my father," said Decius calmly.

The roar of battle swelled up, all about the doomed column. In front
and flanks, Africans, Gauls, and Spaniards charged in unbroken lines,
and soon forced the deploying but weakened maniples back into their
weltering mass; in the rear, the attack was less continuous, for
Hasdrubal's horsemen were exhausted with slaying, and he hurled them in
alternate squadrons, now on this point, now on that, wherever the Roman
line 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 of
blood, while Decius, Sergius, and Lentulus stood by him, helplessly
awaiting the end. A rush of fugitives swept by and almost overwhelmed
the wounded man; but Decius passed his arm around him, and the press
slackened.

"It is time for you to mount and ride, Cneius Lentulus;" and the consul
raised his head again, while the old-time spirit of command flashed in
his eyes. "You shall be my envoy to the fathers. Bid them fortify and
garrison the city; go--"

A new rush broke in upon his words,--a rush, in which the whole front
was borne back a spear's length beyond them. Sergius was thrown down,
but some one raised him, dazed and stunned, and seemed to bear him
along. A moment, and he found himself standing once more upon his
feet. Cneius Lentulus and his horse were gone; Paullus and Marcus
Decius were left alone far beyond--no, not alone. He saw the tunics of
the Iberians, now all as purple as their borders, thronging around; he
saw his general and his comrade give their throats to the sharp,
slender swords; and then he saw, far ahead, amid the Carthaginian
syntagmata, a swarthy, smiling face with crisp, curling beard; he saw
the brown-bronze corselet rich with gold, the meteor helmet with
ostrich plumes floating between its horns, the snowy mantle bordered
with Tyrian purple; and he saw the white head of the horse whose feet
needed now no dye of art to stain them vermilion. All the fury of
battle, all the madness of revenge overwhelmed him in an instant;
despair was gone, thoughts of past and future were swept away by the
surge of one overmastering idea: he must reach that man and kill him.
He looked around at the scattered, reeling maniples. A standard bearer
was lying at his feet, striving with his remnant of strength to wrench
the 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 to
note whether his appeal was regarded, he rushed blindly forward.

It was a discipline inspired by tradition rather than taught by drills
and punishments that came to the Roman recruit, and now it played its
part. These peasants, these artisans whose eyes had seen naught save
unaccustomed horrors through all the day, turned at once to answer the
summons of the eagle. Sergius heard the feeble shout of battle that
rose behind him, heard the scattered clanging of sword and shield, and
when he struck the long pikes of the first square, it was with the
force of half a dozen broken maniples welded into a solid mass.

Still the sarissas held firm. Perhaps two lines went down, but the
pila rained their slant courses from the rear; the feeble rush was
stopped, and the legionaries struggled helplessly upon the spears.
Sergius saw nothing but the dark, bearded face among the
squares--scarcely nearer than before. Had he not read in a little book
written by one, Xenophon, a Greek, and purchased, at great cost, at the
shop of Milo, the bookseller in the Argiletum, how Oriental armies won
or 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 whirled
it around his head and let it go at full swing; the silver eagle
flashed 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 very
deity of the legion was amid its foes! no Roman so untried as not to
hear 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 of
pursuers and pursued. On every side of the dwindling band of
assailants, front, flanks, and rear, the pikes dipped and plunged, the
Gallic swords hissed through the air, the Spaniards ravened and
stabbed; but, to the Romans, flanks and rear were nothing: it was the
front, the Libyans, the lost eagle.

And now, at last, it was won; the advance had been checked by the
closer welding of the syntagmata, half his men were down; but Sergius,
still unhurt, had stooped and raised the standard, kissing its crimson
beak 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. His
steady gaze was fixed upon the young Roman, as if studying the exact
measure of strength that remained to him. There was nothing else for
it. Again the great staff described great circles through the air, and
again the crimson eagle soared and stooped, and the white stallion
reared and snorted, as it struck the earth before him; again the
shattered fragment of an army hurled itself, wounded and weary and
bleeding, among the ever thickening spears; yes, and forced its way a
quarter, half the remaining distance, until Sergius, whose eyes had
never for a moment forsaken those of the Carthaginian, saw them grow
troubled, saw the black, bushy brows draw together. Then his enemy
turned and spoke a few hurried words to an attendant, gesticulating
freely, until the man whirled his horse about and drove back through
the throng. When Sergius looked into the face of the general again, it
wore a disdainful smile--the smile of a Zeus that watches the sons of
Aloeus pile mountain on mountain in the vain effort to storm Olympus.
Again Hannibal was careless and unconcerned; again he laughed and joked
gayly with his attendants; his soldier's eye had set the limit of
Rome's last paroxysm, and it fell short of the spot where he sat--not
by much, but enough. All that remained was for the arrows of Apollo to
do their work, and now he had set these to the string.

Wearily and yet more wearily the wolves bit and tore their way; then
they came staggering to a stand, three spear lengths from the lost
eagle, and then the pressure behind seemed to slacken, and the serried
spears in front bore them slowly backward.

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