The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, the Mother of the Camps

Although cruelly decimated, still our army thrilled with the ardor of the fray as, massed along the bluffs of the river, it witnessed the enemy's disastrous rout, upon which the rays of the westering sun shed their parting light. At that sublime moment, the soldiers struck up in chorus the heroic chant of the bard to the words and melody of which they had stepped to battle in the morning:

"This morning we say: —‘How many are there of these barbarous hordes,Who thievishly aspire to rob us of land.Of homes, of wives, and of sunshine?Yes, how many are there of these Franks?’"This evening we'll say: —‘Make answer, thou sod, red drenchedIn the blood of the stranger;Make answer, ye deep-rolling waves of the Rhine;Make answer, ye crows that flutter for carrion,Make answer – make answer!How many were they,These robbers of land, of homes, of wives and of sunshine?Aye, how many were there,Of these blood-thirsty, ravenous Franks?’"

The last strophes of the refrain were falling from the lips of our soldiers when, from the other side of the river – which was so wide at that place that the opposite bank could hardly be distinguished, veiled moreover, as it was by the rising evening haze – I noticed a gleam that, rapidly gaining in brightness and extent, soon spanned the horizon like the reflection of a gigantic conflagration.

Victorin immediately cried:

"Our brave Marion has carried out his plans at the head of his picked men and the allied tribes on the other side of the Rhine. He marched with them upon the camp of the Franks. The last reserve force of the barbarians must have been cut to pieces, and their huts and wagons given over to the flames! By Hesus! Rid at last of the neighborhood of those savage marauders, Gaul will now enjoy the sweets of a friendly peace! Oh, my mother! Your prayers have been heard!"

Victorin had just uttered these words with a face beaming with bliss, when I saw a considerable body of our soldiers belonging to different cavalry and infantry corps of the army marching slowly towards him. All of these soldiers were old men. Douarnek marched at their head. When the body had drawn near, Douarnek advanced alone a few steps and said in a grave and firm voice:

"Listen, Victorin! Each legion of cavalry, each cohort of infantry, chose its oldest soldier. They are the comrades who accompany me yonder. Like myself, they have known you from the day of your birth; like myself they have seen you as a baby in the arms of Victoria, the Mother of the Camps, the august mother of the soldiers. We long have loved you out of love both for her and yourself. We acclaimed you our general and one of the two Chiefs of Gaul. We, veterans in war, have loved you as our son while we obeyed you as our father. And then came the day when, ever obeying you as our general and a Chief of Gaul, our love for you was less – "

"And why did your love for me decline?" Victorin interrupted, struck by the solemn tone of the old soldier. "Why, pray, did your love for me decline?"

"Because we respected you less. But if you have faults, we also have ours; to-day's battle proves it to us. We have come to make the admission to you."

"Let us hear it," replied Victorin affectionately; "let us hear what are my faults and which are yours!"

"Your faults, Victorin, are these – you love too much, much more than is meet, both wine and pretty girls!"

"By all the sweethearts that you have had, my old Douarnek, by all the cups that you have emptied and that you will still empty, why such words on the evening of a battle that we have won?" merrily answered Victorin, who was slowly returning to his natural weakness, now no longer held under by concern for the battle. "In truth! There was no need for you and your comrades to put yourselves to the trouble of reproaching me with my peccadillos. Speak up frankly, are these reproaches that are usual from soldier to soldier?"

"From soldier to soldier, no, Victorin!" resumed Douarnek with severity, "but from soldier to general, yes! We freely chose you our chief; we must speak freely to you! The more we have loved you, you, young man, the more we have honored you, all the more are we entitled to say to you: Keep yourself at the height of your mission!"

"I endeavor to, brave Douarnek, by fighting at my best, by leading our legions in the hottest of the fray."

"All is not said when one has done his duty in battle. You are not a captain only, you are also a Chief of Gaul!"

"Be it so! But why, in the name of all the devils, do you imagine, my brave Douarnek, that as a general and a Chief of Gaul I should be less sensitive than a soldier to the splendor of two beautiful black or blue eyes, or to the bouquet of good old white or red wine?"

"The man chosen by free men should, even in matters that appertain to his private life, observe wise moderation if he wishes to be beloved, obeyed and respected. Have you observed such moderation? No! And accordingly, having seen you swallow a pea, we have believed you capable of gulping down an ox. It is in that that we did wrong!"

"What! My boys!" the young general replied smiling. "Did you really think I had such a maw as to be able to swallow a whole ox?"

"We often saw you in your cups – we knew you to be a runner after girls. We were told that on one occasion, being intoxicated, you violated a woman, a tavern-keeper's wife on one of the isles of the Rhine, who thereupon killed herself in despair. We believed the story. Were we perhaps mistaken in that?"

"Malediction!" cried Victorin indignantly and with grief depicted on his face. "And you believed such a thing of my mother's son!"

"Yes," answered the veteran, "yes – in that lay the wrong that we did. So that we each did wrong – you and we. We have come to notify you that we are ready to forget the past, and that our hearts remain loyal to you. We wish you, in turn, to forgive us, so that we may love you and you us as in the past. Is it agreed, Victorin?"

"Yes," answered Victorin, deeply moved by the veteran's loyal and touching words; "it is agreed."

"Your hand!" replied Douarnek, "in the name of our comrades."

"Here it is," said the young general, stooping down over his horse's neck in order cordially to clasp the veteran's hand. "I thank you for your frankness, my children. I shall be to you as you are to me for the glory and peace of Gaul. Without you I can do nothing; although it is the general who carries the triumphal chaplet, it is the soldier's bravery that weaves it, and imparts to it the purple of his own blood!"

"It is, then, agreed, Victorin," Douarnek replied with moistening eyes. "Our blood belongs to you, to the last drop – and to our beloved Gaul – to your glory!"

"And to my mother who made me what I am," interrupted Victorin with increasing emotion; "and to my mother our respect, our love, our devotion, my children!"

"Long live the Mother of the Camps!" cried Douarnek in a resonant voice. "Long live Victorin, her glorious son!"

Douarnek's companions, the rest of the soldiers and officers, in short, all of us present at this scene joined in the cheers of Douarnek:

"Long live the Mother of the Camps! Long live Victorin, her glorious son!"

The whole army thereupon set itself in march back to the camp while, under the protection of a legion that was ordered to watch our prisoners, the medical druids and their aides remained on the field of battle to gather the dead, and tend the wounded, both Frank and Gallic.

It was a superb summer's night, that in which the army struck the road to Mayence. As it marched, the banks of the Rhine re-echoed to the chant of the bard:

"This morning we say: —‘How many are there of these barbarous hordes,Who thievishly aspire to rob us of land.Of homes, of wives, and of sunshine?Yes, how many are there of these Franks?’"This evening we'll say: —‘Make answer, thou sod, red drenchedIn the blood of the stranger;Make answer, ye deep-rolling waves of the Rhine;Make answer, ye crows that flutter for carrion,Make answer – make answer!How many were they,These robbers of land, of homes, of wives and of sunshine?Aye, how many were there,Of these blood-thirsty, ravenous Franks?’"

CHAPTER XIV

THE HOMEWARD RIDE

In his haste to inform his mother of our splendid victory, Victorin passed the command of the troops to one of the oldest chiefs. We changed our tired horses for two fresh ones which were always led by the reins ready for Victorin's use, and he and I rode rapidly towards Mayence.

The night was serene; the moon shone superbly among myriads of stars – those unknown worlds where we shall proceed to live when we leave this world. Strange! In the very midst of the ineffable bliss that I experienced at the triumph of our army, a triumph that insured the peace and prosperity of Gaul; in the very midst of the pleasurable thoughts of soon again seeing your mother and you, my son, after a hard day's fighting; in the very midst of all these pleasing emotions a sudden fit of profound melancholy came over me, a painful presentiment saddened my heart.

In the fulness of my gratitude to the gods, I had raised my eyes to heaven in order to thank them for our success. The moon shed its brilliant light upon our path. I know not for what reason, but that moment my thoughts traveled back to our ancestors, and I recalled with sad piety all the glorious, the touching and the terrible deeds that they had done, and upon which also the sacred luminary of Gaul shed its never-ceasing light generations and generations ago. The sacrifice of Hena; the journey of Albinik the mariner and his wife Meroë to Caesar's camp, across a region that was heroically given up to the flames by our fathers during their war with the Romans; the nocturnal expeditions of Sylvest the slave to the secret meetings of the Sons of the Mistletoe and to the palace of Faustina, his escape and flight from the circus of Orange where he came near being devoured by ferocious beasts; and finally the bold insurrections, the formidable revolts, the signal for which was ever given by the courses of the moon, as prearranged by our venerable druids; all these events that lay in the distant past rose at that moment before my mind like pale phantoms of the past.

The merry voice of Victorin drew me from my meditations:

"What are you dreaming about? How can you, one of the vanquishers in this fair day's battle, be as mute as one of the vanquished?"

"Victorin, I was thinking of days that are no more – of events that took place during the centuries that have rolled by – "

"A curious thought!" replied the young general; and giving a loose to his exuberant feelings he proceeded to say: "Let us leave the past to the empty cups and the departed sweethearts! As for me, I am thinking first of all of my mother's joy when she will learn of our victory; next, my thoughts run, and they run strongly, upon the burning black eyes of Kidda the Bohemian girl, who is waiting for me. When I left her this morning, at the close of the protracted banquet to which she drew me by a ruse, she made an appointment with me for this evening. This will be a well rounded day, Schanvoch! A battle in the morning, and, in the evening, a festive supper with a charming sweetheart on my knees! Ah! It is pleasurable to be a soldier and twenty years of age!"

"Listen, Victorin. So long as the cares of battle lay upon your mind, I saw you wise, thoughtful and grave, as becomes a Chief of Gaul, and at all points worthy of your mother and yourself – "

"And by the beautiful eyes of Kidda, am I not still worthy of myself when my thoughts turn to her after battle?"

"Do you know, Victorin, that Douarnek's mission to you in the name of the whole army is an evidence of the proud independence that animates our soldiers, whose free will alone made you a general? Do you realize that such words, pronounced by such men, are not, and will not be vain – and that it will be fatal to forget them?"

"Why, Schanvoch! It was a whim of veterans who grieve over their lost youth – old men's words, censuring pleasures that their age can no longer taste."

"Victorin, you affect an indifference that your heart does not share. I saw you touched, deeply affected by the language of that old soldier – and also by the attitude of his comrades."

"One feels so happy on the evening of a battle won, that everything pleases. Besides, although his words were peevish enough, did they not betoken the army's affection for me?"

"Do not deceive yourself, Victorin! The army's affection for you ebbed – it returned at floodtide with to-day's great victory. But, be careful! Fresh acts of imprudence will furnish the basis for fresh calumnies, started by those who would wish to undo you – "

"And who wishes to undo me?"

"A chief always has rivals who envy him secretly; and you will not have every day a triumph on the battle field to confound those envious souls with. Thanks to the gods, the utter annihilation of these barbarous hordes insures the peace of our beloved Gaul for many a year to come!"

"All the better, Schanvoch! All the better! Becoming again one of Gaul's most obscure citizens, and hanging my sword, that will have become useless, beside that of my father, I shall then be free to empty innumerable cups without restraint, and to make love to all the Bohemian girls of the universe!"

"Victorin! Be careful, I repeat! Remember the words of the old soldier!"

"The devil take the old soldier and his foolish harangue! At this hour I think only of Kidda! Ah! Schanvoch, if you only saw her dance with her short skirt and her silvery corsage!"

"Be careful! Both the camp and the town have their eyes upon those Bohemian dancers! Your friendly relations with them will make a scandal! Take my advice! Be reserved in your conduct; at any rate, veil your amours in secrecy and obscurity!"

"Obscurity? Secrecy? No hypocrisy! I love to display to the eyes of all, the sweethearts that I am proud of! And I am even prouder of Kidda than of to-day's victory!"

"Victorin! Victorin! Be careful, or that woman will be fatal to you!"

"Oh! Schanvoch! If you heard Kidda sing and dance, accompanying herself with a tambourine – Oh! If you heard and saw her you would become as crazily in love with her as I am! But," added the young general breaking off the thread of his delighted description, and pointing ahead of him, "look at yonder torches! Heaven be praised! It is my mother! In her anxiety to know the issue of the day she must have ridden out towards the battle field! Oh, Schanvoch! I am young, impetuous, ardent after pleasures, that never leave me. I enjoy them with the delight of intoxication – and yet, I swear to you by my father's sword, I would exchange all my future pleasures for the happiness that I am about to experience when my mother will press me to her heart!"

Saying this, the young general gave the reins to his horse and without waiting for me rode forward to meet Victoria, who was, indeed, approaching. When I reached the group, they had both alighted. Victoria held Victorin in a close embrace, and was saying to him in accents impossible to describe:

"My son, I am a happy mother!"

It was only then that I perceived by the light of the torches of Victoria's escort that her right hand was bandaged. Victorin inquired with anxiety:

"Are you wounded, mother?"

"Only slightly," answered Victoria. And addressing me she extended her hand affectionately, saying:

"Brother, you are with us! My heart overflows with joy!"

"But who gave you the wound?"

"The Frankish woman whom Ellen and Sampso brought to my house after your departure – "

"Elwig!" I cried horrified. "Oh! The accursed creature! She has approved herself worthy of her race!"

"Schanvoch," Victoria said to me gravely, "we must not curse the dead. She whom you call Elwig lives no more – "

"Mother!" cried Victorin with increased anxiety. "Dear mother! Are you certain the wound is slight?"

"Here, my son; I shall let you see it!"

And in order to reassure Victorin, she unwound the bandage in which her right hand was wrapped.

"You can see for yourself," she added. "I cut myself only in two places in the palm of my hand as I sought to disarm the woman."

Indeed, the wounds that my foster-sister exhibited were two long but by no means deep cuts. They were in no respect serious.

"And Elwig was armed?" I inquired, seeking to recollect the events of the previous evening. "Where could she have found a weapon? Unless last evening, before starting to swim after us, she picked up her knife from the beach and hid it under her clothes."

"And how and when did the woman try to stab you, mother? Were you alone with her?"

"I asked Schanvoch to have Elwig brought to me at noon; I wanted to see her and give her my help. Ellen and Sampso brought her to me. I happened to be speaking with Robert, the chief of our reserves; we were considering measures for the defense of the camp and town in the event of our army's defeat. Elwig was taken to a contiguous apartment, and Schanvoch's wife and sister-in-law left the stranger alone while I sent for an interpreter to help us understand each other. At the close of my conversation with Robert on military matters, he asked me for some help for the widow of an old soldier. That took me to the chamber where Elwig was waiting for me. I went in for some silver pieces which I kept in a little casket in which were also several Gallic jewels, necklaces and bracelets that I inherited from my mother – "

"If the casket was open," I cried, the savage cupidity of Neroweg's sister flashing through my mind, "Elwig, like the true daughter of a race of thieves, must have wished to seize some of the precious articles."

"And that was how it happened, Schanvoch. When I entered, the young Frankish woman was holding in her hand a gold necklace of exquisite workmanship. She was contemplating it greedily. The moment she saw me she dropped the necklace at her feet, and crossing her arms over her breast she looked at me for a moment in silence and with a savage expression. Her pale face became red with shame and rage. She then gave me a somber look, and pronounced my name. I supposed she asked whether I was Victoria. I nodded my head affirmatively and said: 'Yes, I am Victoria.' I had hardly uttered the words when Elwig threw herself at my feet. Her forehead almost touched the floor, as if she humbly implored my protection. The woman must doubtlessly have profited by the movement to draw her knife from under her clothes without my perceiving it. I stooped down to raise her, when she suddenly leaped up, and with eyes that shot fire sought to stab me, while saying 'Victoria!' 'Victoria!' in a tone of rooted hatred."

Although the danger was over, Victorin shuddered at the report that his mother was making; he approached her, gently took the wounded hand between his own, and kissed it tenderly and lovingly.

"When I saw Elwig's knife raised over me," added Victoria, "my first and involuntary movement was to parry the blow and try to seize the knife, while I cried aloud to Robert for help. Robert rushed in and saw me struggling with Elwig. I was cut in the hand and my blood flowed. Robert believed me dangerously wounded, drew his sword, seized Elwig by the throat, and despatched her before I had time to stay his hand. I deplore the death of the Frankish woman – she came voluntarily to my house."

"You pity her, mother!" cried Victorin. "That creature thievish and savage like the rest of her kith! You pity her! I feel certain that she followed Schanvoch only in order to find an opportunity to introduce herself into your house, cut your throat and then rob you!"

"I pity her for being born of such a stock," answered Victoria sadly. "I pity her for having harbored murder in her heart."

"Believe me," I said to my foster-sister. "That woman's death is a just punishment; besides it puts an end to a life that was soiled with crimes at which nature shudders. May it have pleased the gods that, like Elwig, her brother Neroweg lost his life to-day, and that his stock may be extinguished in him. I will otherwise regret all my life that I did not finish the man when I had a chance. I have a presentiment that his descendants will be fatal to mine."

Victoria gave me a look of astonishment at hearing me utter these words, the sense of which she could not comprehend.

But Victorin turned her thoughts and mine into other channels, exclaiming:

"Hesus be blessed, mother! This was a happy day for Gaul! You escaped a grave danger, and our arms are victorious! The Franks are driven from our frontier! – "

Victorin broke off; he seemed to listen to a sound in the distance; with flashing eyes he resumed:

"Do you hear, mother? Do you hear the song that the wind carries to our ears?"

We all remained silent; and repeated in chorus by thousands of voices tremulous with the joy of triumph, the following refrain reached us across the stillness of the night:

"This morning we said: —‘How many are there of these barbarians?’This evening we say: —‘How many were there of these blood-thirsty Franks!’"

PART II

DOMESTIC TRAITORS

CHAPTER I

GATHERING SHADOWS

Several years have elapsed since I wrote for you, my child, the account that closed with the great battle of the Rhine.

The utter annihilation of the Frankish hordes and the simultaneous destruction of their establishment on the other side of the river, freed Gaul of the perpetual fear that she stood in, of a threatened invasion of barbarians. Perhaps from their retreat in the woods of northern Germany the Franks are now only awaiting a favorable opportunity to swoop down again upon Gaul. But for all the joy of this deliverance, I now resume my narrative after having experienced years of bitter sorrow. Great misfortunes have befallen me across this interval. I have seen a frightful intrigue of hypocrisy and malice unfold before my eyes. Since then an incurable sadness has taken possession of my soul. I left the borders of the Rhine for Brittany; here I established myself with your second mother and you, my son, at the identical place that long ago was the cradle of our family – near the sacred stones of Karnak, the witnesses of the heroic sacrifice of our ancestress Hena.

Only yesterday, as I was returning from the fields with you – from a soldier I have become a field laborer like our fathers in the days of their independence – only yesterday I pointed out to you, on the border of the stream, two hollow willow trees; they were old. Their age must now be more than three hundred years. They are so very, very old that they no longer put forth but a few straggling leaves. You asked me to tie a rope between the two trees for you to swing yourself. You noticed with surprise that I grew sad at your request, and that I suddenly became pensive.

It occurred to me how, nearly three hundred years ago, by a strange coincidence it occurred to Sylvest and his sister Syomara to tie a rope between those identical trees in order to disport themselves. Nor were, alas! those recollections the only ones that those two centenarian trunks brought back to my mind. I said to you:

"Look at those two trees with sadness and veneration, my son. One of our ancestors, Guilhern, the son of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak, died an atrocious death bound to one of them; Guilhern's son, a lad a little older than yourself and named Sylvest, was tied to the other willow to die the same death as his father. An unexpected accident snatched him from the frightful fate."3

"And what was their crime?" you asked me.

"The crime of the father and of his son was to have tried to escape from bondage, so as not to be forced to cultivate under a master's whip, with the slave's collar on their necks and chains to their feet, the fields that were their own patrimony. They wished to escape cultivating those fields for the benefit of the Romans who had robbed them of them."

My answer astonished you still more, my child – you who always lived happy and free, who until now have known no other grief than that of the loss of your dear mother, of whom you have preserved only a vague memory. You were barely four years and two months old a short time after the victory that Gaul won over the Franks on the border of the Rhine.

You will remember that I broke off our conversation, and that I relapsed into one of those fits of melancholy that I find it impossible to overcome every time I recall the terrible domestic catastrophes that befell us on the Rhine. But I always regain courage when I remember the duty imposed upon me by our ancestor Joel, who lived nearly three hundred years ago in the same place where we are now again established after our family's having experienced innumerable vicissitudes.