Woe to the Conquered, B.C. 73-71

Front matter

WOE TO THE CONQUERED B.C. 73-71 BY ALFRED CLARK AUTHOR OI-' "A DARK PLACE OF THE EARTH " IN TWO VOLU.MEH VOL. II. LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY LIMITED St. I-imstan's Souse Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. 1S93. [AU rights reserved.} LONDON 1 TRINTED UY WILLIAM CLOWES AN U SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHAKING CROSS. CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAI'TEK PAGE I. A Disastrous Expedition ... ... ... i II. Lost in the Forest ... ... ... 13 III. Among the Forest-Folk ... ... ... 36 IV. The Runaway Slave ... ... ... 57 V. Held for Ransom ... ... ... ... 84 VI. The Temple oe Æsculapius ... ... 10S VII. Malo's Message ... ... ... ... 130 VIII. W7ith the Slave-Army ... ... ... 141 IX. The Tribune's Quest ... ... ... 164 X. A Stranger ... ... ... ... 175 XI. Walls have Ears ... ... ... ... 199 XII. The Tribune's Daughter ... ... 216 XIII. Lovers ... ... ... ... ... 234 XIV. Home ... ... ... ... .. 256 XV. "VæVictis!" ... ... ... ...

Chapter I

A DISASTROUS EXPEDITION. A COHORT of Roman soldiers was encamped in a small oasis, on the borders of the Libyan Desert. It was a picturesque scene. The grove of date palms, with their black columnar stems and golden-coloured fruit clustering under their dark crowns, were the only trees in sight. Round the oasis stretched a sea of sand in gentle undulations, like the long slumbrous swell of an ocean subsiding after a storm. The soldiers were scattered through the little village, sleeping, idling, or gambling under the palms. A few were busy cooking, while others were filling goatskin water-bags and hollow gourds VOL. II. B with water from the well. In the middle of the village was a small skin tent, in the door of which sat the leader of the expedition, Lucius Lollius Murella, tribune, consulting with his centurions.

Before them stood two or three miserable-looking Libyans of the village, who were being questioned as to the nature of the desert stretching to the north. The pink light of sunset was shining through the palm stems over the scene. For some weeks Lucius and his cohort had been engaged in chastising a powerful tribe of desert Libyans who had defied the Roman arms, and they were now on their way back to Castrum Novum. The expedition had been successful in subduing and humbling the rebellious tribe ; but this had only been effected after some loss of life, not so much from the weapons of the savages as from the privations and dangers of the desert. On their march into the enemies' country the Romans had been much harassed by the attacks of wild beasts, especially of lions. More than once lions had sprung into the camp at night, and had carried away soldiers who were lying round the watch-fires.

A number of the Libyan baggage bearers who had straggled behind, owing to the weight of their loads, had been carried off, at A DISASTROUS EXPEDITION. 3 different times, in broad daylight. On one occasion a furious wild elephant had attacked the whole body while on the march, and had put them all to flight. It was only driven off by the arrows of the Libyan auxiliaries, after it had trampled to death two of the soldiers. When, therefore, after the chastisement of the rebellious tribe, it was announced that the march back to Castrum Novum would commence the next day, all the soldiers came in a body to their leader to ask that they might not return by the way they had come — through "the lions' country," as they called it — but might go across the desert. Upon making inquiries of the friendly Libyans who accompanied them, Lucius learnt that it would take six days to cross the desert, and that there was not a single oasis, pool, or spring on the way.

All the water required on the journey would have to be obtained at a small village about two days' journey distant, and carried with them in skins. Upon informing his men of the difficulties of the route across the desert, they still begged that they might go that way in preference to the other, and Lucius acceded to their wish. On arrival at the village, which consisted of three or four small huts, in a palm grove on the borders of this formidable desert, they commenced to make preparation for the six days' march before them, across the arid, sandy waste. It took two days to get from the shallow village well water enough to suffice the party for six days, but at length all the water-skins and gourds were full. Lucius had determined to offer a sacrifice and to take the auspices before they commenced the march across the desert.

When the centurions reported that all was in readiness for the start, he ordered the soldiers to be called together and drawn up in a hollow square. Standing in the midst of his men, with his officers round him, he offered the sacrifice. One of the decurions acted as the popa, or priest, and slew the victim, a kid, after sprinkling salt on its head. He then opened the body and, taking out the liver, handed it to his commander for inspection. But, in taking it from the man, Lucius let it slip through his fingers and it fell on the sand. A cry rose from the soldiers, for it was an ominous accident. When, too, it was found, on inspection, that there were black spots on the liver and other unfavourable signs, the start was postponed till the next day. The following afternoon, just as they were about to start, the junior centurion, whose duty it was to A DISASTROUS EXPEDITIO.V. 5 carry the standard of the cohort, uttered a cry of dismay.

He exclaimed, with consternation in his face, that the standard, which was planted in the ground before the commander's tent, refused to move ! On inspection, Lucius found that the pointed end of the staff had become wedged in a crack in the rock under the sand. A slight effort of strength sufficed to free it, but the circumstance deeply impressed the soldiers, who regarded it as a very bad omen. It was late in the afternoon when the cohort started with the intention of making a long march before dawn. Every superfluous article was left behind in order that more water might be carried. The Libyans staggered under their heavy loads, while every soldier carried his share of the precious fluid. Soon they were out of sight of the village, and in the interminable, fast-darkening desert. Two of the Libyans of the village led the way, guiding their course by the stars.

Accustomed to the loose sand of the desert, they strode quickly on, while the soldiers laboured heavily and silently after them. A short halt of only a couple of hours was made at midnight. As soon as the first grey streaks of dawn appeared along the horizon, the weary party halted in the open desert. Their first care was to provide shelter for the water-skins throughout the coming day. A sort of tent was formed of spears and cloths, and the skins and gourds were laid underneath it on the sand. Each soldier then erected some kind of shelter for himself, and the long hot day began. It was evident to Lucius at the close of the day, upon inspecting their supply of water, that unless they husbanded it, and pushed on quicker, they would be reduced to great straits in a day or two. The hot, dry wind had already evaporated much of the water in the skins, and their reduced bulk alarmed him.

The soldiers, too, had been drinking freely, regardless of everything but their parching thirst. Lucius at once issued an order for bidding any one, under pain of death, from drink ing except at stated intervals and with the rest. As soon as it was cool enough they started again, and travelled, without intermission, all night. In the morning, while the water-skins were being piled under the improvised tent, a thirsty soldier, a half-bred, was caught in the act of drinking from a gourd. He was brought before Lucius, and stern and prompt punishment followed. His dead body was left to the vultures in the desert as a warning to the rest. A DISASTROUS EXPEDITION. 7 At the end of the third day Lucius saw that the supply of water left was not sufficient even for the next day, and they had still nearly three days' journey before them.

It was of no use attempting to conserve it, and issue it in driblets to the men, for the sun drank twice as fast as all the men together. The water in the skins, too, had become, from the evaporation, extremely brackish and nauseous. The afternoon of the fourth day came, and there was not a drop of water left. While the sun was still high in the heavens they started again, and trudged through the sand all that night. Morning came, but they still kept on their course, for there was no object in stopping. They had nothing to drink, and their throats were too parched and dry for them to eat. Every minute's delay on the march would but prolong their sufferings. The sun rose slowly into the blue vault above them, and blazed over the desert. Noonday came, and still the soldiers marched on, hardly able to drag their weary limbs along.

They had thrown away their loads, and some, in spite of the orders and threats of the centurions and decurions, had even thrown down their shields and spears, and, with hanging heads and swinging arms, were following the two guides who, with unabated pace, were leading the way. Behind came the Libyans, still carrying their loads. They were more accustomed than the soldiers to thirst and fatigue, and so trudged along, silent and uncomplaining. A hoarse cry from his men startled Lucius. Looking round, he saw a soldier lying on his back, with his face, flushed purple, turned to the sky. The man had received a sunstroke. Lucius stopped, and called on his men to halt and pick him up. A centurion and one or two of the men stopped, and bending over the fallen man ex amined his face. The rest marched on.

" He is dead, tribune," said the centurion, hoarsely. " Let him lie ; " and, without making any attempt to ascertain whether he really was dead, they all went on after their comrades. Soon another fell on the sand, and then another, but no one halted or looked back. It was now afternoon, and still the weary march went on. To the swimming heads and burning eyes of the soldiers the desert seemed like a sea of fire round them. Lucius' head ached and his eyes throbbed with the heat and glare ; his throat and lips were parched and painful, and he A DISASTROUS EXPEDITION. 9 staggered and reeled at every step like a drunken man. " Water ! water ! " The cry was raised by dozens of hoarse voices, in tones of ecstasy. Raising his eyes and looking in the direction in which the soldiers were all hurrying, Lucius saw, far away on the horizon, what appeared to be a grove of palm trees, with water glimmering in the midst, floating like an island, on a sea of airy nothing.

A throb of delight passed through every fibre of his body, and he turned to the Libyan guides. One of them was gesticulating energetically with his hand and shaking his head ; while the other, with a grim smile on his face, was watching the soldiers as they hurried eagerly off towards the oasis they thought they saw. Lucius' heart sank, for it was only a mirage. The beautiful, palm-girt pool, looking so near and so real, was but empty air. It was hard, bitterly hard, to be dying of thirst in the desert, while such a phantasm mocked them in the distance. Mean while the soldiers, who, had they not been mad dened by thirst, would have recognized the floating vision to be nothing but a mirage, were hurrying as fast as they could towards it. There was no time to be lost in calling them back, and Lucius ran, as fast as his sailing limbs would allow him, through the sand after them.

"Come back, men!" he shouted as he ran, straining his swollen throat ; " 'tis no water, but only the mirage. Come back ! come back ! " It was some time before they could be induced to return, either by his orders or the blows and curses of the centurions. The mirage seemed to them too distinct and clear not to be real, and though they at length obeyed orders and resumed once more their former line of march, their eyes were constantly turned towards it in doubt and longing. Though" they were going away from it, the mirage seemed, every moment, to become clearer and nearer. The dry eyes of the soldiers glittered, and their seared faces twitched, as they gazed on the mocking devil of the desert. They looked and longed till they could restrain them selves no longer. Their sufferings had made them fierce and unreasonable.

Furious glances began to be cast from their bloodshot eyes at the two Libyan guides striding calmly on ahead away from the tempting vision. Savage oaths and mutterings came from their blackened swollen lips. Suddenly the storm broke. " Comrades, we are betrayed ! " exclaimed a A DISASTROUS EXPEDITION. 11 man in the front ranks, and his words seemed to rattle in his dry throat. " These cursed barbarians are leading us away from the water, that we may die of thirst in the desert ! " "Cut them down! Spear them! Hurl them to Hades! Water! water!" rose from dozens of throats furiously. The unfortunate guides turned, amazed. Seeing by the maddened glare in the soldiers'eyes, and by the steel that flashed in their hands, that evil was intended them, they ran towards Lucius, and, throwing themselves at his feet, clasped him round the knees.

The soldiers crowded round, thirsting for the blood of the men who, they supposed, had betrayed them. All discipline was at an end, and all considerations of justice, mercy, or policy were disregarded. In spite of the orders, threats, and even entreaties of their leader and of the centurions and other officers, the two guides were dragged away. The sand was soon red with the blood that flowed from the countless wounds that the soldiers inflicted on them in their fury. Then, with hoarse cries, the mutineers started off, each man for himself, towards the mirage that still floated on the horizon. All hope of restoring discipline, or of bringing the soldiers to a sense of their bad conduct and folly, was now fled. All that Lucius could do was to follow his men and die with them. He set off, holding his hands to his throbbing head.

He was nearly blind from the glare, and his face burned as though a flame of fire had passed over it. He seemed to himself to be sinking in a sea of molten metal, which surged and heaved round him in waves of fire. His men were still ahead, and they seemed to his disturbed vision to be reeling and dancing and leaping up and down. Presently he passed some thing intensely black and still floating on the brilliant sea round him ; then another, and then a third. They were the bodies of soldiers, but he neither stopped nor thought of them. Sparks seemed to be flying from his eyes. He could distinguish nothing, for the desert round him appeared to be red-hot. Suddenly he felt as if something had burst in his brain. He stopped, staggered for a moment, and then fell senseless on the sand.

Chapter II. Lost In The Forest

But Marcia was not dead. When the slave-girl Anais burst into the banquet room and gasped out her terrible news of the rise of the slaves, Marcia had for some moments been un able, from surprise and horror, to rise and flee. It was not till the slaves entered the room that she quite realized the peril she was in. She then sprung to her feet and looked wildly round for her relatives. Pusilla and Lollia had already fled from the room. Bibulus lay, convulsed with terror, on the couch, and the tribune, with the carver's knife in his hand, was standing in the doorway, divesting himself of his toga and preparing for action. She was about to spring towards him when the slaves made their rush on Pollio. Several of them ran between her and the tribune, but they were so intent on murdering their master that they took no notice of her for the moment.

Though thus cut off from retreat into the atrium, Marcia did not lose her presence of mind. She had noticed, while sitting at the banquet, a door at the other end of the room, opening into a dark passage. She now rushed to this door, hoping to find a way out of the house through it. The passage led into a small covered court surrounded by bedchambers. A lamp was burning on a bracket on the wall, and by its light, as well as by that which streamed from the banquet-room, she saw that there was no way out of the court except by the door by which she had entered. To go back would, she felt, be madness, for the sounds she heard showed what awful deeds were being done in the banquet-room. After a moment's hesitation she opened the door of one of the chambers and sprang in. The room was small and windowless and very dark.

A lofty bed of carved wood stood in it, and to this Marcia groped her way. One side of it, that against the wall, was boarded up to the height of about two feet. There was sufficient space between it and the wall to enable Marcia to creep behind it and hide herself. She stood cowering behind the bed, pale and trembling, and clasping her hands convulsively. She was in an agony of fear, more on account of those dear to her than for herself. Her blood ran cold as she thought that perhaps her uncle was at that moment being murdered. She knew that her aunt and cousin had escaped from the banquet room, but the possibility that they had fallen into the hands of the slaves outside made her shudder to think of. Of her own peril and possible fate she thought little. The certainty she felt that Macro and the litter-bearers and other slaves would not join the rebels, but would come to their help, served in some measure to reassure her, and prevent her from giving way altogether to terror and despair.

Meanwhile she listened tremblingly to the loud cries of the slaves. They seemed to her like the yells of demons let loose. She fancied she heard shrieks as of women, and, every now and then, the groaning of men, wounded or in torture. Gradually the shouting and noise grew less and more distant ; for the slaves, their bloody work over, were scattering themselves through the mansion. The sound of blows showed that they were breaking open boxes and plundering the rooms. Presently a party of them entered the court, and Marcia, trembling in every limb, awaited their approach. They were shouting insanely, and talking and laughing vociferously. They ran sacked the bedchambers, and appeared, from the angry ejaculations some of them uttered, to be disappointed at not finding anything of value. Two of them entered the room in which Marcia was hidden, and the light from their torches streamed into every corner of it.

She hardly dared to breathe, and her heart beat so loudly that she almost feared that it would betray her. She heard one of the men say something, in savage guttural tones, to his fellow, and felt him strike the bed with an axe or some heavy iron implement. They were not more than a few seconds in the chamber, yet it seemed many minutes to the terrified girl. She was in an agony of fear lest they should look under the bed and see her feet. This they did not do, but left the chamber, after striking a few random blows at the furniture and ornaments. The looting of the villa went on for nearly an hour, and then the various noises grew gradually fainter, till a silence reigned through the mansion almost as awful as the recent uproar. The slaves had carried off everything they thought worth removal, and had fled.

Marcia resolved to leave her hiding-place, and to trust to the darkness for escape from the house, and so slipped out from behind the bed. As she stood in the doorway of the chamber listening, she heard a sound that showed that a new danger threatened her. It was the faint crackling of flames. Almost at the same moment a cloud of dense, pungent smoke entered the room. She saw that the slaves, having plundered the house, had set it on fire. Trembling at the thought of being shut up in a burning house, she felt her way in the dark through the court and along the passage into the fatal banquet-room. The room was full of dense smoke, which came from a fire kindled in a corner of it. The flickering of the flames only faintly illuminated the apartment, and Marcia could not see anything distinctly.

Covering her mouth with the sleeve of her tunic, and going cautiously forward, she attempted to make her way across the room to where she thought the door leading to the atrium stood. As she felt her way with her feet, they struck against something lying on the floor. Shaking with horror, she bent over it, and saw c vol. n. that it was the corpse of Bibulus. His features were unrecognizable, partly because it was so dark, and also because they had been terribly disfigured by his murderers ; but she knew him by his dress. Feeling sick and faint, she turned away and advanced a pace or two forward. And then her heart stood still ; for, at her feet, she saw dimly the body of a woman. With a low cry of terror she bent over it, for she feared, for a moment, that it might be the corpse of Pusilla or Lollia.

But the slender figure lying there belonged to neither of them. It was the slave-girl Anais. She was lying half across the dead body of Pollio, with her arms clasped round it. As Marcia bent over her the girl moved slightly, showing that she was yet alive. "Child! child!" she exclaimed, grasping the prostrate girl by the arm. " Why are you lying here? Rise and come out ; the villa is on fire ! " But Anais neither moved nor made reply. " Are you hurt ? Nevertheless you must rise and come out. Come, child, come ! " So saying, she unclasped the girl's arm from about the dead body of Pollio, and putting her own arms under her, raised her to her feet. As she did this, her armlet slipped off and fell on the floor. Catching the girl by the wrist and dragging her along, she made for a door that she saw dimly before her, for she was suffocating from the smoke.

The room they entered was also dark and full of smoke, but at the end of a passage beyond, Marcia saw a faint light and rushed to it. It proved to be a door leading out into the garden at the back of the house. On reaching the open air, Marcia stood, for some moments, panting with her efforts to breathe, and with scalding tears, the effect of the smoke, running down her face. They had scarcely emerged from the house when Marcia heard the voices of men approaching. Thinking they were some of the mutinous slaves, she seized Anais again by the arm, and dragging her along, for the girl seemed bewildered, ran in among the shrubs and evergreens of the garden. They hurried along over the beds and walks till they reached the end of the garden. Here they were confronted by a wall, but soon found in it an open wicket, passing through which they found themselves in the park that surrounded the mansion.

After glancing hastily round to see if any of the slaves were in sight, Marcia ran, with Anais, some distance into the park, till they came to a large spreading oak, under which they halted for breath. It was not snowing, but the ground was covered two or three inches deep with the snow that had fallen in the afternoon. The glare of the burning house was visible through the trees, and was getting brighter and redder every minute. The faint roaring of the flames could also be heard. Marcia's thoughts as she stood under the oak, with her hand fast clasped in the slave-girl's, were of the saddest. The discovery she had made of the dead bodies of Pollio and Bibulus had thrown her into the deepest despair. She had but little hope now that any of her relatives had escaped the massacre. She felt sure that, if the choking smoke had permitted her to search the banquet room, she would have found her uncle lying there dead, and that her aunt and cousin had met the same fate outside.

While buried in these sad thoughts, she had not felt the bitter coldness of the night-air. She was clad in the thin garments only that she had put on for the banquet. The chaplet of flowers she had worn at the feast was still on her bare head. The numbness in her feet and the tingling of her fingers soon warned her that they could not stay where they were. She knew that Macro and the slaves with him would come to look for her as soon as they knew that she was still living, but mean while she did not know where to go or what to do. The idea of passing the night in the open frost, with the snow on the ground, appalled her. " Anais, do you know of any hut, or shelter of any kind, where we may go and wait in safety till the morning ? " she asked of her companion ; but the girl made no reply. " Poor child !

She is overwhelmed by the horrors she has witnessed," thought Marcia, com passionately, remembering the girl's passionate love for her dead master. While she hesitated, undecided what to do, the pain in her limbs produced by the intense cold again warned her that they should be moving. To remain there would be to perish. She resolved to make for the road along which they had come the previous evening, in hope of finding her way back to the farm, or of meeting with help or shelter on the way. Anything was better than to remain where they were, in such thin garments, and bare headed and barefooted. Holding Anais by the hand, she started off in what she believed was the right direction. In order to avoid meeting with any of the revolted slaves, she made a long circuit to the south, and, after going a considerable distance, turned westward.

Up to this point she had guided herself by the glare of the burning villa, but now the dense forest hid it from view. It was hard work tramping through the ankle-deep snow, but it soon had the effect of warming them, and ere long the pains Marcia had felt in her limbs passed off. The moon was still in the heavens, and its beams, reflected by the pure white snow, gave ample light for them to see their way. By this time they had left the confines of Pollio's estate, and were well in the forest. At any other time Marcia would have shuddered at the bare idea of being in the heart of the forest at dead of night with only a slave-girl with her. But now, firm in the belief that every step was bringing them nearer to Pusilla's farm, she stepped out boldly and unhesitatingly. She had other things to think of than of the strangeness of the time and place.

She scarcely noticed the weird beauty of the scenes they passed through, which seemed to change every hour, as the moon sank over the hills. While the moon was overhead, the shadow cast by the trees was small, and directly beneath them. The forest was then well lit up, and objects at a considerable distance were clearly visible. But as the moon sank, and the shadows grew longer till they ran into one another, the scene changed. Darkness surrounded the two girls on all sides, and the way before them was discernible only for a few yards. Sometimes they passed down avenues of oak trees, the leafless branches of which meeting over head threw a chequered pattern on the path beneath. Next they came on groups of pine trees, their pendulous branches laden with snow, and looking, as they stood against the pearly sky, like gigantic cones of frosted silver.

Then they entered groves of white-barked leafless beeches which cast strange shadows on the snow. Sometimes they passed through open glades of the forest, where the moonlight shone clearly. At other times they came on bits of forest so dark and gloomy that, in order to avoid them, Marcia turned aside and went some way round rather than pass through them. For more than two hours had the two girls been plodding wearily through the snow, and they were now both utterly exhausted. Though Anais did not complain, she lagged so much that Marcia could hardly drag her along. At length, wearied to the last degree, and in despair, Marcia stopped. The terrible truth that they had lost themselves now forced itself on her mind. No signs of the path or of any human habitation could be seen. The dense, dark, interminable forest stretched all round them.