CHAPTER VIII.
AFTER THE BATTLE.
After I had beheld my mother and all the other women of the tribe die toescape the shame and outrages of slavery, the blood which I had lostcaused me to swoon away. A long time passed in which I was bereft ofreason. When my senses returned, I found myself lying on straw, alongwith a great number of other men, in a vast shed. At my first motion Ifound myself chained by the leg to a stake driven into the ground. I washalf clad; they had left me my shirt and breeches, in a secret pocket ofwhich I had hidden the writings of my father and of my brother Albinik,together with the little gold sickle, the gift of my sister Hena. Adressing had been put on my wounds, which no longer occasioned me muchpain. I experienced only a great weakness and dizziness which made mylast memories a confused mass. I looked about me. I was one of perhapsfifty wounded prisoners, all chained to their litters. At the furtherend of the shed were several armed men, who did not bear the appearanceof regular Roman troops. They were seated round a table, drinking andsinging. Some among them, who carried short-handled scourges twisted ofseveral thongs and terminating in bits of lead, detached themselvesfrom time to time from the group, and walked here and there with theuncertain gait of drunken men, casting jeering looks on the prisoners.Next to me lay an aged man with white hair and beard, very pale andthin. A bloody band half hid his forehead. He was sitting up, his elbowson his knees, and his face between his hands. Seeing him wounded and aprisoner, I concluded he was a Gaul. I did not err.
"Good father," I said to him, laying my hand lightly upon the old man'sarm, "where are we?"
Slowly raising his sad and mournful visage, the old prisoner answeredcompassionately:
"Those are the first words you have spoken for two days."
"For two days?" I repeated, greatly astonished. I was unable to believeso much time had passed since the battle of Vannes. I sought to recallmy wandering memory. "Is it possible? What, I have been here two days?"
"Yes, and you have been unconscious, in a delirium. The physician whodressed your wounds made you take several potions."
"Now I recall it confusedly. And also--a ride in a chariot?"
"Yes, to come here from the battle-ground. I was with you in thechariot, whither they carried you wounded and dying."
"And here we are--?"
"At Vannes."
"Our army?"
"Destroyed."
"Our fleet?"
"Annihilated."[13]
"O, my brother, and your courageous wife Meroe, both dead also!" flashedthrough my mind. "And Vannes, where we are," I added aloud to mycompanion, "Vannes is in the power of the Romans?"
"Even as the whole of Brittany, they say."
"And the Chief of the Hundred Valleys?"
"He has fled into the mountains of Ares with a handful of cavalry. TheRomans are in pursuit of him." Then raising his eyes to heaven, hecontinued, "May Hesus and Teutates protect that last defender of theGauls!"
I had put these questions while my thoughts were still disordered. Butwhen I recalled the struggle at the chariot of war, the death of mymother, my father, my brother Mikael, my brother's wife and his twochildren, and finally, the almost certain death of my own wife with herson and daughter--for up to the moment when I lost consciousness I hadnot seen Henory leave the shelter behind the chariot--when I recalledall that, I heaved, in spite of myself, a great sigh of despair atfinding myself alone in the world. I buried my face in the straw to shutout the light of day.
One of the tipsy keepers became irritated at hearing my moans, andshowered several cruel blows of the scourge, accompanied with oaths,upon my shoulders. Forgetting the pain in the shame that I felt at thethought of me, the son of Joel, being struck with the lash, I leaped tomy feet notwithstanding my weakness, intending to throw myself upon thekeeper. But my chain, sharply tightened by the jerk, checked me, andmade me trip and fall upon my knees. The keeper, enabled by the lengthof his scourge to keep out of the prisoners' reach, thereupon redoubledhis blows, lashing me across the face, chest, and back. Other keepersran up, fell upon me, and slipped manacles of iron upon my wrists.
Oh, my son, my son! You, for whose eyes I write all this down, obedientto the wishes of my father, never do yourself forget, and let also yoursons preserve the memory of this outrage, the first that our stock everunderwent. Live, that you may avenge the outrage in due time. And if youcannot, let your sons wreak vengeance upon the Romans therefore.
With my feet chained and my hands in irons, unable to move, I did notwish to afford my tormentors the spectacle of impotent rage. I closed myeyes and lay still, betraying neither anger nor grief, while thekeepers, provoked by my calmness, beat me furiously. Presently, however,a strange voice having interposed and spoken a few angry words in theLatin tongue, the blows ceased. I opened my eyes and three newpersonages stood before me. One of them was speaking rapidly to thekeepers, gesticulating angrily, and pointing at me from time to time.This man was short and stout; he had a very red face, white hair andpointed grey beard. He wore a short robe of brown wool, buck-skinstocks, and low leather boots; he was not dressed in the Roman fashion.Of the two men who accompanied him, one, dressed in a long black robe,had a grave and sinister mien. The other held a casket under his arm.While I was gazing at these persons, my aged neighbor called myattention with a rapid glance to the fat little man with the red faceand the white hair, who was conversing with the keepers, and said to mewith a look of anger and disgust:
"The horse-dealer; the horse-dealer!"
"What are you talking about?" I answered him, unable to understand whathe meant. "A horse-dealer?"
"That is what the Romans call the slave merchants."[14]
"How! They traffic in wounded men?" I asked the old man in surprise."Are there men who buy the dying?"
"Do you not know," he answered with a somber smile, "that after thebattle of Vannes there were more dead than living, and not an unwoundedGaul? Upon these wounded men, in default of more able-bodied prey, theslave-dealers who follow the Roman army fell like so many ravens uponcorpses."
There was no more room for doubt. I realized that I was a slave. I hadbeen bought. I would be sold again. The "horse-dealer," having finishedspeaking to the keepers, approached the old man, and said to him inGallic, but with an accent that proved his foreign origin:
"My old Pierce-Skin--how has your neighbor come on? Has he at lastrecovered from his stupor? Is he at last able to speak?"
"Ask him," snapped the old man, turning over on the straw. "He'll answeryou himself."
The "horse-dealer" thereupon walked over to my side. He seemed no longerangry. His countenance, naturally jovial, was beaming. Putting his twohands on his knees, he stooped down to me; grinned at me; and spoke tome hurriedly, often putting questions which he answered himself, notseeming to care whether I heard him or not.
"You have, then, recovered your spirits, my fine Bull? Yes? Ah, so muchthe better! By Jupiter, it's a good sign. Now your appetite will return,and it is returning, isn't it? Still better! Before eight days you willbe in fine feather. Those brutes of keepers, always in their cups,scourged you, did they? Yes? I'm not a bit surprised--they never doanything else. The wine of Gaul makes them stupid. To strike you! Tostrike you! And that when you can hardly stand up; besides the fact thatin men of the Gallic race, choler is likely to produce bad results. Butyou are no longer angry, are you? No! So much the better! It is I whoshould be provoked at those tipsters. Suppose the fury raging in yourblood had stifled you! But, bah! those brutes care little for making melose twenty-five or thirty gold sous,[15] which you will presently beworth to me, my fine Bull. But for greater safety I'll have you taken toa shelter where you will be alone and better off than here. It wasoccupied by a wounded fellow who died last night--a superb fellow.That was a loss! Ah, commerce is not all gain. Come, follow me."
He set to work to unfasten my chain by a secret spring. I asked him whyhe always called me "Bull." I would have preferred by far the keeper'slash to the jovial loquacity
of this trafficker in human flesh. Certainnow that I was not dreaming, still I could hardly accept the reality ofwhat I saw. Unable to resist, I followed the man. At least I would nolonger be under the eyes of the keepers who beat me, and the sight ofwhom made my blood boil. I made an effort to raise myself, but myweakness was still excessive. The "horse-dealer" unhooked the chain, andheld one end. As my hands were still shackled, the man with the longblack robe and the one who carried the casket took me under the arms,and led me to the extremity of the shed. They made me mount severalstairs and enter a small room that was lighted through an iron-barredopening. I looked through the opening and recognized the great square ofthe town of Vannes, and, in the distance, the house where I had oftengone to see my brother Albinik and his wife. In the room were a stool, atable, and a long box of fresh straw, in place of the one in which theother slave had died. I was made to sit on the stool. The black-robedman, a Roman physician, examined my two wounds, constantly conversing inhis own language with the "horse-dealer." He took various salves fromthe casket which his companion was carrying, dressed my hurts, and wentto render his services to the other slaves, not, however, before helpingthe "horse-dealer" to fasten my chain to the wooden box which servedas my bed. The physician then took his departure, and left me alone withmy master.