Ausonius was deeply grateful to his preserver, certainly; and he had wished to bestow a transcendent reward. Yet he was very keenly exasperated by this rude, fierce, foolish, nay, ungrateful disdain. And before the Tribune, too--the younger man.

This exasperation took full possession of him even amidst his deep grief for his nephew's crime. From the day of his birth neither the fates nor men had often denied any wish of this spoiled favorite of Fortune. Even the desire for poetic talent had been granted by the Muses, and, as he believed, in lavish abundance; while his contemporaries denied him no recognition, but lavished on him every honor for which he longed in any department. His imperial pupil loaded him with the highest dignities and honors in the gift of the State; he was one of the richest, most highly educated men in the Western Empire; he was agreeable, vivacious, well-bred, almost handsome in feature, and not yet very old. Thousands of the most aristocratic Roman women would have considered themselves fortunate if--

And this Barbarian girl refused him! It was incomprehensible, and he determined not to tolerate this "folly."

As she did not appear at breakfast at the usual hour, he sent Prosper for her. The old man returned without having accomplished his errand. Bissula was not in her tent, and could not be found anywhere in the camp.

Ausonius was startled. Then he said to himself: "Oh, nonsense. She cannot possibly escape from a walled Roman camp which is guarded by a Saturninus." Yet he finished his early meal hurriedly and anxiously, and went out to look for her, alone. He wished to spare his future wife, which Bissula certainly was, the mortification of being dragged by freedmen or slaves from some hiding-place into which her silly, childish obstinacy might have led her. First he hastened to the pine-tree: in vain. She was not concealed there; now, in broad daylight, one could see through the branches distinctly. He went to her tent and entered: it was empty. But as he was leaving it again he saw the broad foot-prints of the bear, and followed the trail: it led southward, to the lake gate, the Porta Decumana. He had nearly reached it, when he met Saturninus.

"Turn back, I beg of you," said the latter kindly.

"Isn't she there?"

"Yes! I discovered her by accident, looking down from the wall. She has hidden herself behind beams and rubbish near the Porta Decumana, like a sick birdling which creeps into some corner to die alone with its head under its wing. Give her time! Perhaps she will submit to it."

Ausonius yielded reluctantly as the Tribune, with gentle force, took his arm, turned him in the opposite direction, and led him back. He was thoroughly angry, and besides, felt ashamed in Saturninus's presence.

"Soon, I hope," he said angrily.

"Yes," replied the Tribune slowly. "Unless--unless some one else has won her heart."

"That she positively denied. She was enraged at the mere question; and falsehood is the perverse little thing's smallest fault. She is still scarcely more than a child. You see how she behaves. Only a child, an untutored child, could be led into such conduct."

But the Roman General shrugged his shoulders. "Let us wait. I would far rather see her yours than a Barbarian's. But think of the offer made by that Adalus! That can only--"

"Certainly. But it doesn't prove that she loves him."

He opposed with angry obstinacy a conjecture which might forever frustrate his wishes, and rejected the suggestion of his friend the more vehemently, the more persistently this fear, though repressed, constantly returned to his mind.

"By the way," he asked the Tribune, to change the conversation, "what do you mean to do with the prisoners? Let them both escape?"

"Impossible! My duty--"

"But my nephew must not die."

"It would be the best thing that could happen," growled the Illyrian, "for himself and his opposite men (for this selfish fellow has no fellow mortals). But I feared that it would be the result of your indulgence. Well, comfort yourself. As I promised life to the slave, the mere tool, the CÆsar can send the instigator to the mines too. But you are paying no heed to my words. Where are your thoughts?"

Ausonius had suddenly stopped. Thrusting the staff he carried violently into the earth he exclaimed: "Listen! Suppose I should go to her now--at once? Explain everything, persuade her? Last evening, in her excitement, she probably did not hear or understand. Just think of it--Consul!"

But his companion smiled and drew his reluctant friend forward: "Let her alone, Ausonius. You will only frighten her more. Perhaps a German fisher-lad is dearer to her heart than a Roman Consul."

"Inconceivable!"

"Yes, yes! Very intelligible. I will confess to you that she vehemently entreated me--"

"What, what!--when?"

"Just now, when I climbed down the wall to her and tried to speak for you. She besought me to protect her--from your wooing."

"Ungrateful girl!" exclaimed Ausonius wrathfully. This appeal to the Tribune against him wounded him most bitterly; he had the feeling: Youth naturally combines against age.

"Beware," replied the Tribune earnestly, "lest you should yourself be very ungrateful." But this did not suit the Roman's deeply offended vanity.

"Since you have now suddenly become--what shall I call it?--her guardian or defender against me--"

"I did not seek the position."

"Nor did you decline it. Then tell your ward my firm, resolute will: She must go with me to-morrow in one of Nannienus's galleys to the Emperor at Vindonissa, then to Burdigala. I will follow your advice: I will not go into the forests with you; grief, anger, too much excitement of many kinds, are making me ill--I feel it. First of all, I must obtain the dispensation from the Emperor to permit me, a Senator, to marry my freedwoman. That is now the thing nearest to my heart. And please see that it is clear to her, perfectly clear, that she has obtained no legal right whatever from my words spoken yesterday about liberation. You remarked at the time, very justly, that my words did not make her free: the form required by law was lacking. The words were merely a promise. If I choose, she is still my slave, but no longer yours, tell her that. In Burdigala, after she has tasted Roman life, let her choose which she would prefer: to become the Consul's wife, or be his slave and a she-bear's playmate. I cannot force her to wed me, but tell her that I will never permit her to return to her Barbarian land."

Saturninus would have tried to soothe the excited man, but a loud signal from the tubas summoned both leaders to the wall.

The Roman trumpets were joyously greeting the galleys under the command of Nannienus which, with all their canvas spread to catch the southeast wind, came swiftly nearer and nearer. It was a proud and imposing spectacle.

After the gallant Comes of Britannia, himself a Breton skilled in sailing, had discovered the culpable neglect of the ships and the fraud of the guilty magistrates in Arbor, he had toiled night and day, ceaselessly and untiringly, that he might take to his friend and comrade, Saturninus, the ships and reËnforcements on which his whole plan for the encircling and destruction or unconditional surrender of the Alemanni was based. So, in the course of these few days and nights, he had actually succeeded in putting the dilapidated ships into seaworthy condition; and, besides old trading vessels and fisher boats of the largest size, he had a number of new galleys built which, though by no means to be compared with the proud fleet of the Venetian or Brigantinian lake which, a century and a half before, had ruled these shores and waters, could yet render sufficient service in seeking out the hiding-places of the Barbarians along all three sides of the land, and intercepting any flight they might attempt across the lake from the Tribune.

Nannienus's twenty high-decked ships of war, when not lying at anchor but fighting at full speed, would sink, by the mere weight of their shock, when driven by oars and sails, whole swarms of the little Barbarian boats, if they had the temerity to attack them. And to each of these large ships he had assigned two or three smaller flat-decked, shallow boats, to land provisions and troops and facilitate intercourse between the biremes (which required considerable depth of water when they lay at anchor) and the shore, often bordered for a considerable distance by marshes.

Probably more than sixty sail now appeared, in the full radiance of the most brilliant September sunshine, opposite to the Idisenhang, some at anchor, some in an unbroken chain forming a sort of bridge of boats from the place of anchorage to the shore.

The various forms of the sails (for in the pressure of haste all sorts of Barbarian ones had been added to the triangular Latin form of the Romans--ancient Celtic used on the lake from primeval days, and Alemannic) and their motley colors, principally dazzlingly white, but many deep yellow, gleaming in the sunlight, swelled by the fresh breeze; the surging, swarming life of the soldiers thronging from the ships to the shore, and from the shore to the ships; the greetings of old comrades; the joyful recognition of what had been accomplished in Arbor; the threatening outcries against the Barbarians, who must now be thoroughly extirpated--the whole presented a scene full of splendor, life, movement, and warlike uproar.