"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 G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.s; 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 G.o.ds 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 sh.o.r.es 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.sailants had drawn back to gain breath for a final onslaught; but, instinctively, the staggering lines of the Roman column opened out into the s.p.a.ce 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. .h.i.t 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?"