"You must and will survive me, my noble friend! The Tribune will soon lie where he belongs: on his shield. But you still belong to Burdigala, in your tasteful house filled with rare works of art (what hospitality I enjoyed there the last time I was wounded!), or to Rome, in the Senate; not here, in the marshy forests of these Alemanni. Why (you always liked to accompany the Emperor to Vindonissa)--why did you, a man of peace and of leisure, join this military campaign? It has no attraction for you! What have you to obtain on the Barbarian shores of this lake?"

"I? I am seeking for something here," replied Ausonius, after some little hesitation.

"Laurels of Mars to add to those of Apollo?"

"Not at all; only--a memory!"

Herculanus cast a sharp glance full of meaning at his uncle.

"Or, if you prefer it, a dream, the fulfilment of a dream. I believe in dreams."

"Of course," said the Tribune, smiling, "like all poets! I care more for waking thoughts."

"When I reached the army over yonder in Vindonissa, a lovely charming memory of a child rose vividly before me; a child equally bewitching in mind and person, whom I knew and loved here several years ago."

"A boy?"

"No, a girl."

"Ho, ho, pedagogue of the Emperor!" cried the Tribune, laughing.

Herculanus did not enter into the jest; he was silently watching Ausonius's every look.

"Oh, calm yourself! Bissula is a girl about twelve years old--that is--she was in those days. She and a Sarmatian boy brought to Arbor every week the fish her uncle had caught on the northern shore of the lake. And how delightfully she talked! Even her Barbarian Latin sounded sweetly from her cherry-red lips. We became the best of friends. I gave her--she would accept neither money nor costly jewels--trifling articles, especially seeds of fine Gallic fruit and flowers from Garumna for her little garden. She told me strange stories of the gods and fauns in the woods, the nymphs in the lakes and springs here in the country,--but she gave them different names,--and the mountain giants opposite, whose white heads glittered in the sunset light. And I--I--"

"You read the 'Mosella' to her, of course!" laughed Saturninus.

"Certainly. And the little Barbarian girl showed a better appreciation of it than the great Roman general. It was not the fish that pleased her best--"

"I can easily believe it: she had better ones herself, you said just now."

"But the descriptions of the vineyards and villas along the river. And when I told her that in my home on the Garumna were far, far handsomer and richer houses, full of marble, gold, bronze, and ivory, adorned with brightly painted walls and mosaics; that I myself owned the most beautiful palaces and magnificent gardens full of leaping water, foreign stags and deer, and birds with sweet songs or brilliant plumage; when I spoke of the deep blue of the sky and the golden light of the sun in the glorious land of Aquitania where almost perpetual summer reigned, she could not hear enough in prose and verse of the splendor of our country and the magnificence and art of our life. Once she clapped her little hands in surprise and delight, exclaiming: 'Oh, father, I should like to see that too. Just one day!' But I had grown so fond of the gay, sweet child that, with a thrill of joy at the thought, I answered: 'Come, my little daughter, not for a day--forever. If your guardian will consent, I will adopt you as my child and take you to Burdigala. How gladly my wife will welcome you! My daughters will treat you as a dear sister. You shall become a Roman maiden!'

"But, like a frightened deer, she sprang from my lap, ran off, leaped into her boat, rowed swiftly across the lake, and did not return for many days. I was full of anxiety lest I had driven her away forever. At last--it was a time of complete peace--I had myself rowed across the lake to its northern shore and guided to her hut in the forest. But she had scarcely caught sight of me when, with a loud cry of terror, she climbed into a huge oak as nimbly as a woodpecker and hid herself among the branches. She would not come down again until I had solemnly promised, in the presence of her uncle and her grandmother, not to take her away and never even to say a word about it: 'For,' she said, with tears in her eyes, 'in that hot country I should die of homesickness for my own family, the neighbors, nay, even for the mountain, the meadow, and lake, like the forest flowers transplanted from the marshy soil into dry sand.'"

"A sensible child," remarked the Tribune thoughtfully, stroking his beautiful brown beard. "So she is pretty?"

"I think so!" cried Herculanus: the voice sounded almost savage.

"Why, nephew, you have never seen her."

"But you have described her to us often enough! I could paint her, with her bright red locks."

"And her name is Bissula?" Saturninus added.

"Yes, 'the little one,'" replied Ausonius, "for she is very slender and delicate of limb. I then saw her regularly again, but kept my promise not to ask her to go with me. When I bade her farewell, she wept with a child's loving tears. 'With you,' she said 'I part from a warm, bright, beautiful world, into which, as it were, I peeped, standing on tiptoe, over a curtain.'

"Recently, on reaching Vindonissa--during my journey through the country I had thought much of the charming child--I saw her before me in a dream the first night, encircled by a poisonous serpent. Her eyes were raised to mine, imploring help, I woke with a cry, and my heart grew heavy at the thought of what might befall the lovely girl--for she must have become beautiful--if our cohorts bring all the horrors of war into the forests along the shore of the lake. And I confess, it was principally to see that child again--perhaps to protect her until the war should be over--that I entreated the Emperor to permit me to join this expedition."