The Bra.s.s Bell.
by Eugene Sue.
PREFACE
_The Bra.s.s Bell_; or, _The Chariot of Death_ is the second of Eugene Sue"s monumental serial known under the collective t.i.tle of _The Mysteries of the People; or History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages_.
The first story--_The Gold Sickle; or, Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen_--fittingly preludes the grand drama conceived by the author. There the Gallic people are introduced upon the stage of history in the simplicity of their customs, their industrious habits, their bravery, lofty yet childlike--such as they were at the time of the Roman invasion by Caesar, 58 B. C. The present story is the thrilling introduction to the cla.s.s struggle, that starts with the conquest of Gaul, and, in the subsequent seventeen stories, is pathetically and instructively carried across the ages, down to the French Revolution of 1848.
D. D. L.
CHAPTER I.
THE CONFLAGRATION.
The call to arms, sounded by the druids of the forest of Karnak and by the Chief of the Hundred Valleys against the invading forces of the first Caesar, had well been hearkened to.
The sacrifice of Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, seemed pleasing to Hesus. All the peoples of Brittany, from North to South, from East to West, rose to combat the Romans. The tribes of the territory of Vannes and Auray, those of the Mountains of Ares, and many others, a.s.sembled before the town of Vannes, on the left bank, close to the mouth of the river which empties into the great bay of Morbihan. This redoubtable position where all the Gallic forces were to meet, was situated ten leagues from Karnak, and had been chosen by the Chief of the Hundred Valleys, who had been elected Commander-in-Chief of the army.
Leaving behind them their fields, their herds, and their dwellings, the tribes were here a.s.sembled, men and women, young and old, and were encamped round about the town of Vannes. Here also were Joel, his family, and his tribe.
Albinik the mariner, together with his wife Meroe left the camp towards sunset, bent on an errand of many days" march. Since her marriage with Albinik, Meroe; was the constant, companion of his voyages and dangers at sea, and like him, she wore the seaman"s costume. Like him she knew at a pinch how to put her hand to the rudder, to ply the oar or the axe, for stout was her heart, and strong her arm.
In the evening, before leaving the Gallic army, Meroe dressed herself in her sailor"s garments--a short blouse of brown wool, drawn tight with a leather belt, large broad breeches of white cloth, which fell below her knees, and shoes of sealskin. She carried on her left shoulder her short, hooded cloak, and on her flowing hair was a leathern bonnet. By her resolute air, the agility of her step, the perfection of her sweet and virile countenance, one might have taken Meroe for one of those young men whose good looks make maidens dream of marriage. Albinik also was dressed as a mariner. He had flung over his back a sack with provisions for the way. The large sleeves of his blouse revealed his left arm, wrapped to the elbow in a b.l.o.o.d.y bandage.
Husband and wife had left Vannes for some minutes, when Albinik, stopping, sad and deeply moved, said to Meroe:
"There is still time--consider. We are going to beard the lion in his den. He is tricky, distrustful and savage. It may mean for us slavery, torture, or death. Meroe, let me finish alone this trip and this enterprise, beside which a desperate fight would be but a trifle. Return to my father and mother, whose daughter you are also!"
"Albinik, you had to wait for the darkness of night to say that to me.
You would not see me blush with shame at the thought of your thinking me a coward;" and the young woman, while making this answer, instead of turning back, only hastened her step.
"Let it be as your courage and your love for me bid," replied her husband. "May Hena, my holy sister, who is gone, protect us at the side of Hesus."
The two continued their way along the crests of a chain of lofty hills.
They had thus at their feet and before their eyes a succession of deep and fertile valleys. As far as eye could reach, they saw here villages, yonder small hamlets, elsewhere isolated farms; further off rose a flourishing town crossed by an arm of the river, in which were moored, from distance to distance, large boats loaded with sheaves of wheat, casks of wine, and fodder.
But, strange to say, although the evening was clear, not a single one of those large herds of cattle and of sheep was to be seen, which ordinarily grazed there till nightfall. No more was there a single laborer in sight on the fields, although it was the hour when, by every road, the country-folk ordinarily began to return to their homes; for the sun was fast sinking. This country, so populous the preceding evening, now seemed deserted.
The couple halted, pensive, contemplating the fertile lands, the bountifulness of nature, the opulent city, the hamlets, and the houses.
Then, recollecting what they knew was to happen in a few moments, soon as the sun was set and the moon risen, Albinik and Meroe; shivered with grief and fear. Tears fell from their eyes, they sank to their knees, their eyes fixed with anguish on the depths of the valleys, which the thickening evening shade was gradually invading. The sun had disappeared, but the moon, then in her decline, was not yet up. There was thus, between sunset and the rising of the moon, a rather long interval. It was a bitter one for husband and wife; bitter, like the certain expectation of some great woe.
"Look, Albinik," murmured the young woman to her spouse, although they were alone--for it was one of those awful moments when one speaks low in the middle of a desert--"just look, not a light: not one in these houses, hamlets, or the town. Night is come, and all within these dwellings is gloomy as the night without."
"The inhabitants of this valley are going to show themselves worthy of their brothers," answered Albinik reverently. "They also wish to respond to the voice of our venerable druids, and to that of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys."
"Yes; by the terror which is now come upon me, I feel we are about to see a thing no one has seen before, and perhaps none will see again."
"Meroe, do you catch down there, away down there, behind the crest of the forest, a faint white glimmer!"
"I do. It is the moon, which will soon be up. The moment approaches. I feel terror-stricken. Poor women! Poor children!"
"Poor laborers; they lived so long, happy on this land of their fathers: on this land made fertile by the labor of so many generations! Poor workmen; they found plenty in their rude trades! Oh, the unfortunates!
the unfortunates! But one thing equals their great misfortune, and that is their great heroism. Meroe! Meroe!" exclaimed Albinik, "the moon is rising. That sacred orb of Gaul is about to give the signal for the sacrifice."
"Hesus! Hesus!" cried the young woman, her cheeks bathed in tears, "your wrath will never be appeased if this last sacrifice does not calm you."
The moon had risen radiant among the stars. She flooded s.p.a.ce with so brilliant a light that Albinik and his wife could see as in full day, and as far as the most distant horizon, the country that stretched at their feet.
Suddenly, a light cloud of smoke, at first whitish, then black, presently colored with the red tints of a kindling fire, rose above one of the hamlets scattered in the plain.
"Hesus! Hesus!" exclaimed Meroe. Then, hiding her face in the bosom of her husband who was kneeling near her, "You spoke truly. The sacred orb of Gaul has given the signal for the sacrifice. It is fulfilled."
"Oh, liberty!" cried Albinik, "Holy liberty!----"
He could not finish. His voice was smothered in tears, and he drew his weeping wife close in his arms.
Meroe did not leave her face hidden in her husband"s breast any longer than it would take a mother to kiss the forehead, mouth, and eyes, of her new born babe, but when she again raised her head and dared to look abroad, it was no longer only one house, one village, one hamlet, one town in that long succession of valleys at their feet that was disappearing in billows of black smoke, streaked with red gleams. It was all the houses, all the villages, all the hamlets, all the towns in the laps of all those valleys, that the conflagration was devouring. From North to South, from East to West, all was afire. The rivers themselves seemed to roll in flame under their grain and forage-laden barges, which in turn took fire, and sank in the waters.
The heavens were alternately obscured by immense clouds of smoke, or reddened with innumerable columns of fire. From one end to the other, the panorama was soon nothing but a furnace, an ocean of flame.
Nor were the houses, hamlets, and towns of only these valleys given over to the flames. It was the same in all the regions which Albinik and Meroe had traversed in one night and day of travel, on their way from Vannes to the mouth of the Loire, where was pitched the camp of Caesar.[1]
All this territory had been burned by its inhabitants, and they abandoned the smoking ruins to join the Gallic army, a.s.sembled in the environs of Vannes. Thus the voice of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys had been obeyed--the command repeated from place to place, from village to village, from city to city:
"In three nights, at the hour when the moon, the sacred orb of Gaul shall rise, let all the countryside, from Vannes to the Loire, be set on fire. Let Caesar and his army find in their pa.s.sage neither men nor houses, nor provisions, nor forage, but everywhere, everywhere cinders, famine, desolation, and death."
It was done as the druids and the Chief of the Hundred Valleys had ordered.[2]
The two travelers, who witnessed this heroic devotion of each and all to the safety of the fatherland, had thus seen a sight no one had ever seen in the past; a sight which perhaps none will ever see in the future.
Thus were expiated those fatal dissensions, those rivalries between province and province, which for too long a time, and to the triumph of their enemies, had divided the people of Gaul.
CHAPTER II.
IN THE LION"S DEN.
The night pa.s.sed. When the next day drew to its close Albinik and Meroe had traversed all the burnt country, from Vannes to the mouth of the Loire, which they were now approaching. At sunset they came to a fork in the road.