CHAPTER XXXVII.
After allowing the excitement of the multitude time to find vent, theold Duke gave the twelve heralds a sign, and they hurried into thethick grove of oaks rustling behind the ash-tree. Then he struck theshield, saying: "Justice has now been done according to righteous lawand the noble will of the people.
"The judge has done his work: now listen to your Duke, army of theAlemanni!"
Deep silence instantly followed: all eyes rested intently uponHariowald, who sprang up, took the shield from the tree, slipped it onhis left arm, and grasping the spear with his right hand, said from thehigh stone step, his voice, now in a totally different tone, ringingout with mighty resonance over the people:
"Many of you, I know,--and not the worst spearmen,--have silentlydissented or openly grumbled because I have so long delayed leading youto battle. The foe was in the land, and we shrank into the forests; hewas burning halls and huts, and we were watching the smoke and flamesrise at a distance and remaining inactive. Gradually, even from thefarthest districts, the men faithful to the league and obedient to theoath joined us: still the Duke delayed. And meanwhile the enemy wasfortifying his camp. Yes, we knew it--any morning from the fortress onthe opposite side of the lake the proud galleys might bring almost asmany warriors as the camp already contained. Why did the old man stilldelay? When would he fight?"
"Yes, yes, why delay? When shall we go to battle?" Many voicesimpatiently repeated.
"He delayed," the Duke went on, his voice rising in tones of thunder,"because he did not wish to strike part, not even half, but all, all,as many as could be reached,--all the murderers, the burners of homes,whom the boy in the imperial purple has again sent from across the laketo attack our free people!
"To-morrow (faithful men reported it to me before the news reached theRoman General), early to-morrow morning the proud galleys will sailacross the lake and anchor off the shore close to the camp; andto-morrow, after midnight, old Hariowald will lead you to storm thecamp and the ships at the same time!"
Then the long-repressed battle fury broke out in a terrible tumult;frantic shouts and wild clanking of weapons echoed through the air.
"Look," Hariowald continued, "the heralds are already bearing from thesacred grove of the gods of our country, from the mysterious gloom ofthe forest darkness, never illumined by a sunbeam, the victoriousbadges of our tribes and districts which they have taken from theancient oaks."
A shout of joy, somewhat subdued by reverence, greeted the processionof twelve heralds, who now, in pairs, with measured tread, came frombeyond the ash-tree and gave the badges to the representatives of thevarious districts and clans, who stepped forward from the circle toreceive them.
Ebarvin seized the symbol of the Ebergau: the boar's head withthreatening tusks fastened to a cross-pole on a lofty spear. Adalograsped a similar shaft, which supported a pair of huge stag's antlers.Almost all the monsters of the primeval forest and the animals sacredto the gods were used in a similar way. Beside the huge horns of theaurochs and the bison rose the broad antlers of the elk. Odin's wolf,Donar's bear, and Loeki's fox opened their jaws threateningly. Zio'ssword, pointing straight upward, surmounted a shaft painted blood-red;another had Donar's hammer between two zigzag red lightnings forgedfrom iron; three lances bore each a horse's head and neck, and from thenecks the manes--respectively black, red, and brown--still fluttered.On other poles the bald eagle, the golden eagle, and the Alpine vulturespread their wings and extended their talons in attitudes of menace. Awinged dragon carved from wood had been covered with the skins of thering adder and the copper adder, which rustled in the wind. And as,like the manes of the horses, the hair of the wild beasts had been lefthanging in a strip from the head to the tail, and long red, yellow, andblue streamers fluttered from the cross-poles, there was no lack of therustling, waving motion, to which we moderns are accustomed in banners.
Under these streamers was also many a trophy,--a fragment cut from acaptured dragon standard, or a scrap of a purple pennon which the Romansquadrons and cohorts had long carried under the _labarum_ or standardof the cross, for they had abjured the pagan eagles.
When the representatives of the districts and families had receivedtheir beloved and honored emblems and returned to the ranks, the Dukewent on:
"Hail to you, ancient symbols of conflict and witnesses of victory!Hail and greeting, ye emblems consecrated to the gods! In yourpresence, looking into the future, seized by the power of the godsinvisibly hovering around you, I will venture to utter a prophecy:
"Comrades in arms, Alemanni! do not doubt this time that victory willbe ours. You know that it is not the custom of old Hariowald to boastbefore acting: but this time I predict to you certain, complete,glorious, joyous victory.
"All our gods will unite to aid us to-morrow. Not least of them Loeki,the flame-creator. Tents and ships will vanish in fire. The lake nymphwill drag many hundreds down in her net. The terrible earth-goddesswill open her mysterious bosom, on which the insolent aliens havetrodden with iron feet: she will pour forth the avengers, the sons ofher country, into the midst of the enemy's strongest fortress! For theLofty One blinded the hated foe, so that they chose in our wholedistrict the spot for their camp most fatal to them. And when they flyfrom the tents to the galleys, amid the terrors of the night, by theflickering glare of their burning fortifications--they will find on thelake the same destruction in fire and blood.
"If the last of the flying ships, with masts and prows half burned,pursued and harried by our swift boats, should really succeed inreaching the southern shore and the harbor fortress from which theysailed forth so victoriously, who knows--I will not say more--who knowswhether they may not find there an unexpected doom?
"No! Silence still! Hear me to the end.
"Before I dissolve the assembly and send you all to prepare yourweapons in the best way, to polish the points and blades, and to eatand drink enough,--not over much, then afterwards--do you hear--toseek sleep soon, very soon, for you will have no slumber to-morrownight--hear one thing more: you must make one resolve before thisbattle!
"Remember, men, how from generation to generation these Romans havesinned against our people; how again and again they have broken faithand treaty; how they will not even grant us the poor land we havewrested from the marsh and the primeval forest; how, in violation oftreaties, they have pushed their fortresses farther and farther intoour boundaries; how they forced thousands of our ancestors to fightnaked and unarmed with wild beasts on the blood-stained sand of theirarenas in the city by the Tiber, gloating, safe in their high seats,over the death-agonies of our kinsmen under the paws and rent by theteeth of roaring monsters; how they forced thousands of our young meninto their cohorts and made them shed their blood, often far beyond thesalt sea!
"Ha, Alemanni of the Black Forest, do you still know how they invitedyour King Widigab to a banquet and murdered him over the wine-cup? Haveyou forgotten, Alemanni of the Ebergau, who submitted to them oncondition that you should live according to your own laws, how on thesmallest pretext, they had your free men scourged by their lictors? Doyou still recollect, Alemanni from the Breisgau, how they asked apeaceful passage through your country, and then encamped near thesacred grove of the goddess Ostara, asked permission to visit the agedpriest of eighty and his great-granddaughter, the girl of sixteen, inthe grove (it was a General and one of their shaven priests, with ahundred warriors), and inquired what was your most sacred thing? Andwhen the maiden unsuspiciously showed the sacred bronze vessels whichthe gracious goddess had once sent down to you on the rainbow, how theysuddenly seized both, and the Christian priest, before the eyes of theunarmed people, shamefully profaned the sacred vessel; how the Generalslew the venerable priest and dragged the young priestess away tocaptivity and disgrace, and how their warriors set fire to the sacredgrove?
"Do you still remember, men of the Alpgau, how, in the midst of peace,a centurion dishonored your Count's young wife by her own hearthstone,
so that she hanged herself by her girdle?
"Have you forgotten how often they have bound our girls together, yesand our boys, too, like beasts of burden, by their long locks, anddriven them forth to a life of disgrace from which the pure gods ofAsgard turn their faces, crimson with shame and wrath?
"You have _not_ forgotten these things! I hear it! I see it! Well then,do as I advise: _Take no prisoners!_ Kill them all! Do not spare one;disdain all ransom. Let the whole army,--leaders, horse and foot,--bededicated to Odin and to Zio. You will: I see it! Then repeat the wordsafter me and swear:
"To thee, Odin, doomed, And to wrathful Zio, Be all who live within the camp And on the rocking galleys. Soon will ye bathe in blood, O gods so mighty, From ankle to knee!"
Swinging their weapons in frantic excitement the gathered thousandsrepeated the terrible oath.
"I will dismiss the army at once; only hear one thing more--your Duke'svow. The many thousand mailed men who broke into the peaceful districtscaptured one single prisoner, a defenceless woman, a merry littlemaiden. Many of you, I think, know her."
"Bissula! The little one! The fair one! The red-elf, Suobert's child!"So shouted hundreds of voices.
"Yes, Bissula, Suobert's daughter. Well then: whoever releases her,whoever brings her to me from the Roman camp after the battle, shallreceive the Duke's whole share of the booty."
A grateful but sorrowful glance from Adalo rested upon him: the youngnoble no longer dared to hope.
"The circle is dissolved, the assembly is over," the old commandercontinued; he then turned the upright stone resting against the trunkof the tree and descended the steps.
The bands, with loud acclamations for the Duke, instantly scattered inall directions down the sides of the mountain, each division followingthe symbols borne in front of its own district and tribe.
Adalo was going too; but the Duke motioned to him to remain, took fromhis hand the stag standard and gave it to Sippilo, who bore it proudlydown the Holy Mountain.