The words uttered by Adalo, evidently from sincere belief, and with warm feeling, produced a deep impression. Herculanus shrugged his shoulders scornfully. Saturninus, with a grave face, gazed silently into vacancy--into the future. After a long pause, Ausonius found words:

"I have never seen that side of the question. Is this your wisdom?"

"I say once more, it is the wisdom of our wise men; Duke Hariowald taught me. But the necessity of our people cries so loudly that even an inexperienced youth must understand its call: Land or destruction! So, in the name of our whole league of peoples, I ask (we Alemanni yield in courage to no race on earth), do you wish to gain us, our spears, forever against all your enemies, especially the false Franks, our evil neighbors and yours? Do you desire that?"

The Romans listened intently; no one interrupted him in his appeal.

"Well, there is a way, but only one." He paused.

"Speak," urged Saturninus eagerly.

"Vacate all the land which you still occupy but can hold only by constant fighting, the country northward between this lake and the right bank of the Rhine to where the Main empties into it beneath your stronghold of Mogontiacum, and all the region south of the lake to the chain of the Cisalpine region."

"Insolent fellow!" shouted Herculanus. The other army leaders also did not spare words of wrath. "Not bad!" said Ausonius, smiling. Saturninus alone was silent; he was thinking how the great military hero, Aurelian, had given up, in a manner very similar to the way asked here, Trajan's proud conquest, Dacia, and thereby, for a long time, pacified the Goths on the Danube.

But Adalo continued: "Do it, do it half voluntarily; do it for the most valuable compensation; for I tell you, it must be done very soon. Then it will be exacted without compensation in return. Do it willingly; for there is a proud prediction current among our people: the Alemanni will some day pasture their horses from the snows of the Alps to the woods of the Vosges."

Ausonius rose indignantly. "Not another word! For our sole answer take to your people the old Roman war-cry, 'Woe to the Barbarians!'"

"Woe to the Barbarians!" repeated the army leaders, with loud shouts.

"Before I go," said the youth,--he struggled fiercely to subdue the agitation, the terrible anxiety which now sent a tremor through every limb,--"listen to another message. You have captured a daughter of our people." Six eyes were bent upon him with the keenest attention. "I am commissioned to ransom her." In spite of every effort to appear calm and cold his voice trembled.

"Are you Bissula's relative? She has no brother," said Ausonius suspiciously.

"Or her lover?" asked Herculanus.

The youth's face flamed, his brow knit wrathfully. "Neither her kinsman nor her betrothed lover. I am commissioned--I have already said so--to ransom her. Name the price."

Ausonius was about to utter a refusal, but Saturninus hastily anticipated him.

"You would pay any price as ransom?"

"Any."

"Is she a princess or a noble's daughter, that your people set so high a value upon her liberty?"

"She is a free maiden of our people, and has as much right to our protection as a queen."

"Well, your protection has been of little service to her," cried Herculanus, laughing.

"I will give her weight in silver, nay, if needful, in gold--her full weight."

"Pshaw!" replied Ausonius, smiling, "that isn't saying much. The little one doesn't weigh heavily. Don't trouble yourself: I will not release her."

"Pardon me, Prefect," said Saturninus quietly, yet without averting his eyes an instant from Adalo, "I must again remind you that the Barbarian girl is not your slave, but mine."

"What? O ye gods!" cried Adalo, wild with grief and horror.

He hastily advanced two paces toward the Roman. "Is it possible? Is it true? Say no, Ausonius." The voice of the usually defiant youth now sounded almost pleading.

"Unfortunately it is true," replied the Prefect sullenly.

But Saturninus, who now knew what he wished to learn, answered calmly: "The captive is my property. And she cannot be bought with gold. But I will release her, if you--" he rose, approached Adalo and whispered into his ear.

The youth burst forth angrily: "The location of our fortification and the strength of our force? Come into the woods, Roman: you will learn there."

Saturninus stepped back coldly. "As you choose. Never will the red-haired maiden see her people."

"And consider, Barbarian," hissed Herculanus, "we need not use the rack to torture a maiden."

Adalo, with a fierce cry, gripped the hilt of the short sword at his side. But he controlled himself and only cast a look at Herculanus, who, unable to endure it, blinked and turned his eyes away.

Adalo, tortured by deep anguish, gazed inquiringly, searching into the characters and dispositions of the two men; first into Saturninus's stern, handsome face, then his glance scanned Ausonius's features, kindly in expression, but wholly lacking the impress of a firm will. He sighed heavily. But, conscious that the eyes of all were fixed intently upon him, he summoned his whole strength, and said quietly: "If any harm should befall her, her people will take terrible vengeance." The firmly repressed, yet intense fury in the brief words, did not fail to make an impression.

Adalo, without any gesture of farewell, turned to leave the tent, and was already standing under the curtains at the entrance, when Saturninus cried: "And what name has the envoy of the Alemanni?"

The youth turned quickly and, comprehending the whole group in a single glance, exclaimed: "Adalo, son of Adalger. You shall remember it." He passed outside the tent as he spoke.

"Uncle," cried Herculanus, "wasn't that the fellow's name? Yes, yes, it is he: the 'Mars of the Alemanni!' Seize him--and the war is over!"

Before Ausonius could answer, Saturninus, hurrying out of the tent, said: "Beware, Ausonius! Nothing in heaven or on earth seems to be sacred to this nephew of yours. But that Barbarian's eyes must be quickly bandaged again; their glance is like an eagle's." He hastened after the envoy.

Ausonius, vexed by many things, said very irritably, in a tone almost never heard from the lips of the kind-hearted noble: "I have long been displeased with you, nephew Herculanus. I am very much displeased. Very! Extremely!"

He passed him with a hasty step, harshly thrusting aside the arms which Herculanus stretched toward him with a soothing gesture. The nephew's eyes followed him with a glance that boded evil.