"They have gotten their butcher for consul," she went on; "now let him lead them. How long before they will be begging for the swords they have despised! Let them alone! Let Hannibal work his will; then we shall stand forth, like the exiled Camillus, to defend a Rome purged of its black blood--a Rome worth defending--"

But Sergius had recovered from his surprise, and his face was serious, as he interrupted the torrent of words.

"Patrician and plebeian must stand or fall together, my Marcia," he said quietly. "It is the Republic that we shall defend, and defend the more bravely because it is, in a way, defenceless. If a time of madness come upon a parent, do we not guard her the more tenderly who cannot guard herself?--ay, and even against the foolish acts she may herself attempt?"

"And you--you--a Sergius, will serve under this Varro?" she exclaimed.

"Truly," he said bowing, "I am a Roman, and the barbarians are in Italy. When they are gone, I will fight Varro on the rostra, in the Senate. Perhaps I shall even lead my clients to drag him, stabbed, from his house."

She was gazing at him with great, round eyes in which the contempt and anger began to give place to a softer look--a look which no man might hope quite to interpret; then she threw her head to one side and laughed, but the laugh was short and nervous.

"I congratulate your eloquence and patriotism, as I sympathize with your unpropitious gallantry. May Venus make happy your next pursuit of a pretty slave."

Again she laughed, and this time her laugh was unfeignedly malicious.

Sergius flushed crimson; Torquatus looked scandalized and stern; but before either could answer, she was gone.

"You will return to the army, then?" said the old man, hurriedly and as if to cover his annoyance. "How soon will your strength be sufficient?"

"I shall set out to-night," said Sergius. The flush had gone from his face, and he was very pale, while his voice sounded as if from far away. "By so doing I shall journey by easier stages, and shall avoid accompanying the consul; nor will he reach the camp before me."

"There is talk of new levies," said Torquatus, vaguely.

"Yes, and there will be fighting soon."

"Flaminius fought."

"May Jupiter avert the omen! and you will forgive me, my father, if I bid you a too hasty farewell? I had not determined to go so soon--but it is best. And there is preparation to be made."

Torquatus followed him silently to the door, and watched the light of his torches till it died out below the hill; then he shook his head with a puzzled, sad expression.

"Yes, truly," he said; "let the omen be lacking."

XIII.

THE RED FLAG.

The red flag fluttered in the breeze above the tent of Varro.

Months had come and gone since the plebeians had triumphed in the Field of Mars; months of weary lying in camp, months of anxious watching, months of marches and countermarches. Contrary to the expectations of Sergius, neither of the new consuls had gone straight to the legions, and the pro-consuls, Servilius and Regulus, remained in command.

Paullus had busied himself in preparing for the coming spring, levying new men and new legions, and directing from the city a policy not unlike that of Fabius; while Varro, on the other hand, as if maddened by his sudden elevation, rushed from Senate House to Forum and from Forum to every corner where a mob could congregate; everywhere rolling his eyes and waving his hands, now shrieking frantic denunciations against the selfish, the criminal, the traitorous n.o.bles who had brought the war to Italy and sustained it there by their wicked machinations and contemptible cowardice; now congratulating his hearers that the people had at last taken the conspirators by the throat and had elected a fearless consul, an incorruptible consul, an able consul, one who would soon show the world that there were men outside of the three tribes. Then he would fall to mapping out his campaign--a different plan for each cl.u.s.ter of gaping listeners, but each ending in such a slaughter of invaders as Italy had never seen, and a picture of the long triumph winding up the Sacred Way, of Hannibal disappearing forever within the yawning jaws of the Tullianum. At times, when his imagination ran riot most, he went so far as to depict with what luxuriance the corn would grow on the farm of that happy man whose land should be selected by the great consul, the plebeian consul, the consul Varro, for his slaughter of the enemies of the Roman people.

To these harangues Paullus and the n.o.bles listened in wonder and disgust--even in terror; and when, at length, the consuls set out to take command of the greatest army Rome had ever put into the field, the story was pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth of how Fabius had spoken with Paullus and warned him that he must now do battle against two commanders: Hannibal and his own colleague; and of how Paullus had answered in words that told more of foreboding than of hope.

Even the Senate seemed to have fallen under the coa.r.s.e spell of this mouthing ranter. News had come that Hannibal was at Cannae, had seized upon the Roman stores in the citadel there; that, strongly posted, he was scouring the country in all directions; that the allies could not be expected to stand another season of ravage; and so, when the consuls set out to take command of the legions, it was with the express direction of the fathers to give battle on the first favourable opportunity.

Still, there was room left them for some discretion, and when Paullus had viewed the country along the banks of the Aufidus, level as it lay and open to the sweep of cavalry, his soldier eye told him that the opportunity was not here, and that, with a short delay, the enemy must, in the lack of safe forage, retire to more favourable ground.

Then followed quarrels and denunciations and furious mouthings; but Varro did not neglect to use one day of his command to lead the army forward to a point between the Carthaginians and the sea, whence it would be impossible for Paullus to hope to withdraw them safely in the face of the foe.

It was on the first of s.e.xtilis that Hannibal offered battle; but this was Paullus' day, and he had lain quiet in camp, "Sulking," as his colleague exultantly put it, "because a plebeian's generalship had kept another do-nothing patrician commander from running away." Then the next morning broke--Varro's day--and the red flag fluttered from the spear above Varro's tent.

A group of men were gathered before the quarters occupied by certain of the special cavalry: mounted volunteers, for the most part of rank, who served out of respect to the consul, Paullus. Fully armed, with horses held near by, they were already prepared to ride out at the word, and they listened to the din of preparation going on on every side, and watched the crimson signal of battle that now flapped lazily in the wind and again hung limp against its staff.

"The butcher has his way at last," remarked a youth who had scarce offered up his first beard; but the man he addressed, Marcus Decius, growled in reply:--

"Wait, only wait, my little master, and we shall see who is the butcher and who is the fat steer."

"But," put in another of the company, "have you not heard that our camp beyond the stream had no water yesterday? that the Numidians cut them off from it? Doubtless we are to cross over to its relief."

Decius rose from his buckler, upon which he had been resting, and swept his arm out across the country.

"All one," he said; "water or blood; this bank or that! Look! No room for our infantry to spread out; level ground for their horse to sweep clean. You have never been close to the Numidians, my master?" and he pointed to the scar across his forehead. "They ride fast and strike hard--when the country pleases them."

The boy laughed carelessly, but said nothing, while he who had spoken third hesitated a moment and frowned. Then he said in a lower voice:--

"You are an old soldier, Marcus,--a head decurion once,--and you would do better than try to terrify men of less experience."

Decius ground his teeth, and his eyes flashed, but he lowered his voice when he replied:--

"I thank you, Caius Manlius, for the reminder; and I also may recall to you that I am neither the only nor the highest officer who is serving as volunteer to-day, because Varro must have legions commanded by butchers and bakers and money-lenders. I, too, am a plebeian, and I cast my pebble for my order (whereat the infernal G.o.ds are doubtless now rejoicing); but I am also, as you say, an old soldier, and hold the camp to be no place for the tricks of the Forum. As for frightening recruits, if words and the sight of old scars will frighten them, they had best ride north to-day hard and fast."

Manlius' face flushed at the reminder of his own lost command, and, as if by consent, both men glanced over at another who stood near them, leaning on his spear. Drawn by the centred attention of the two, Lucius Sergius turned from his inspection of the rising mists, beyond which lay the Carthaginian forces, and looked silently and sadly at his friends: Manlius, the brother of his mistress, parted from him for a while by petty embarra.s.sments and diverse duties, but, for the last days, closer than ever in kindred service and fellowship; and Decius, the st.u.r.dy comrade of the Campanian raid, the man who talked, now like Ulysses, now like Thersites, but who always fought like Diomed; the very Nisus who had saved his life. It seemed, too, as if the others understood the import of his glance, for Decius turned away ostentatiously, and sought to arrange the leathern straps of his corselet skirt, while Manlius strode over and grasped Sergius' hand.

"The butcher showed us better favour than he intended, when he put others in our commands," he said gayly. "We shall fight side by side, and perhaps my sister may be pleased to play the siren no longer.

Besides, I am well satisfied to be free from any of the responsibilities of this day."

"Marcia is no songstress of the rock, my Caius," said Sergius, half sadly, half playfully; "unless her heart be the rock from which she sings--a rock to me; but the G.o.ds have given men other things, when women do not choose to love:--things that will serve to stir us today.

Afterward we shall be still." Then, noting that the young man who had first addressed Decius was now watching their talk with troubled face, he raised his voice cheerfully. "Tribune or volunteer, it is all one to me. Do we not serve under Aemilius Paullus and his Illyrian auspices? After this day, friends, we shall see no more pulse-eaters in Italy."

Suddenly, a blast of trumpets rang clear, above the noise of preparation; lieutenants dashed hither and thither, their legs bent along their horses' sides; several cohorts marched past, to man the rampart nearest the foe, while from behind came the louder rattle of arms, and the earth shook under the tread of the legions, pressing on through the porta dextra, and spreading out in three great columns that plunged down the slope into the Aufidus, and rose again, and pushed out into the plain on its southern bank. Hastati, principes, triarii--they marched in order of battle, ready to face about at the moment of attack, while, as they deployed, the famished Romans across the river swarmed down, under shelter of the protecting lines, and, lying thick in the turbid water below, drank as if their parched tongues and lips would never soften.

The morning mists were clearing. Strange sounds and rumblings came also from the south and west, and the red flag hung limp upon the spear.

Still the legions streamed on, but no orders had come to the special volunteers, and Sergius began to wonder whether they were to be left to guard the camp, as an added indignity to their rank. He ascended the rampart, with Manlius and Decius, and strove to pierce the distance in the west. Now and then a broad flash of light seemed to shine before his eyes, and ever there came to his ears the rumble of tramping thousands; the dust, too, was thickening, to take the place of the scattered mists, and the wind blew it up in blinding clouds into the face of Rome's battle.

"G.o.ds! what is Terrentius Varro doing!" cried Decius suddenly, and the three turned at his voice. A nodding forest of crests, red and black, rising a cubit above the uncovered helmets of the legionaries, seemed to fill the eastern plain and extend almost to where the Adriatic beat upon the shingle. "Look at his front! Look at how closely the maniples are crushed together! G.o.ds! they are almost 'within the rails' already."

Sergius looked, and the frown upon his brow deepened.

"Eighty thousand men," he muttered; "and we shall scarce outflank their forty thousand. Does Varro wish to cast aside every advantage! G.o.ds!

what gain is there in such depth? and he might--"

"Evidently you do not understand the strategy of great commanders who have studied war."

The voice that interrupted was cynical and scornful, to a degree that men hated the speaker even before they saw him; and, when the three wheeled quickly, his face gave nothing to dispel the bad impression. A tall, gaunt man, in plain and somewhat battered armour; a face sharp-featured, very dark, and deeply lined wherever the wrinkles lay that expressed pride and contempt and violent pa.s.sions; lowering brows from beneath which shone little beady, cunning eyes that opponents feared and distrusted: this was Lucius Aemilius Paullus, the conqueror of Illyria, the man who had barely escaped conviction for his peculations, the colleague of Varro the butcher, a patrician of the bluest blood in Rome, a knave in pecuniary matters, selfish and ungoverned, but a brave and wary soldier from cothurni to crest.