The Gold Sickle; Or, Hena, The Virgin of The Isle of Sen. A Tale of Druid Gaul

"That's right. One soon gets tired of beef only. Is that all, my boy?"

"They also demanded three hundred horses to furnish new equipages to the Roman cavalry, besides two hundred wagons of forage."

"And why not? The poor horses must be fed," continued Joel sneeringly. "But there must be some more orders. If they begin to issue orders, why stop at all?"

"The provisions were to be taken in wagons as far as Poitou and Touraine."

"And what is the wide maw that is to swallow up those bags of wheat, those muttons, those heads of beef and those barrels of hydromel?"

"Above all," added the traveler, "who is to pay for all those provisions?"

"Pay for them!" replied Albinik. "Why, nobody. It is a forced impost."

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Joel.

"And the wide maw that is to gulp up the provisions is none other than the Roman army, which is wintering in Touraine and Anjou."

A shudder of rage mixed with disdain ran through the family of the brenn. "Well, Joel," the unknown traveler remarked, "do you still think that it is a long way from Touraine to Britanny? The distance does not seem to me long, seeing that the officers of Cæsar come calmly and without escort, empty-pursed and swinging high their canes, to provision their army here."

Joel no longer laughed; he dropped his head and remained silent.

"Our guest is right," put in Albinik; "these Romans came empty-pursed and swinging high their canes. One of them even raised his cane over old Ronan, the oldest magistrate of Vannes, who, like you, father, objected strongly to the Roman exaction."

"And yet, children, what else can we do but laugh at these demands. To levy these provisionings upon us and the neighboring tribes of Vannes; to force us to carry the requisitions to Touraine and Anjou with our oxen and horses which the Romans will surely keep also, and all that at the very season of the late sowing and of our autumn labors; to ruin next year's harvest; – why, that is to reduce us to living upon the grass that would have fed the cattle that they rob us of!"

"Yes," said Mikael the armorer; "they want to take away our wheat and our cattle, and leave the grass to us. By the iron of the lance that I was forging this very morning, it shall be the Romans who, under our blows, will bite the grass on our fields!"

"Vannes is now preparing to defend herself if attacked," added the mariner. "They have begun to throw up trenches in the neighborhood of the port. All our sailors are to be armed, and if the Roman galleys attack us by sea, never will the sea crows have had a like feast of corpses upon our beach."

"While crossing to-night the other tribes," resumed Mikael, "we spread the news and sounded the alarm. The magistrates of Vannes have also sent out messengers in all direction ordering that fires be lighted from hill to hill, and thereby give immediate notice of the imminent danger from one end of Britanny to the other."

Without once dropping her distaff, Mamm' Margarid had listened to the report given by her sons. When they stopped speaking she calmly said:

"As to those Roman officers, my sons, were they not sent back to their army – after a thorough caning?"

"No, mother; they were lodged in jail at Vannes, all except two of their soldiers whom the magistrates charged to declare to the Roman general that no provisions whatever were to be furnished him, and that his officers were to be as hostages."

"It would have been better to give the officers a thorough caning and drive them in disgrace out of the town," replied Mamm' Margarid. "That is the way thieves are treated, and these Romans tried to rob us."

"You are right, Margarid," said Joel; "they came to rob us – to starve us! to carry away our harvests and our cattle!" And Joel, now in a towering rage, added: "By the vengeance of Hesus! To think of their taking our fine turn-out of six young oxen with skins slick as wolves! Our four yokes of black bulls that have such a beautiful white star in the center of their foreheads!"

"And our beautiful white heifers with yellow heads!" said Mamm' Margarid shrugging her shoulders and never quitting her distaff, "our sheep whose fleece is so nice and thick… Come, a good caning for these Romans!"

"And the powerful horses of the stock of your magnificent stallion Tom-Bras," put in the traveler. "They will, after all, have to draw your harvest to Touraine, and will then serve to replace the worn-out horses of the Roman cavalry… True, to them, the labor will not be excessive … because you will now probably discover that it is not far from Touraine to Britanny."

"Well may you mock, friend," said Joel. "You were right, and I confess myself to have been wrong. Oh! If only the provinces of Gaul had from the start confederated themselves against the first assault of the Romans! If united they had put forth but one-half the efforts that they put forth separately – we would not now be exposed to the insolent demands and to the threats of these heathens! Well may you mock!"

"No, Joel, I will mock no longer," gravely answered the traveler. "The danger is near; the hostile camp lies only a twelve day's march from here; the refusal of the magistrates of Vannes and the imprisonment of the Roman officers – all that means speedy war – a merciless war, as only the Romans know how to wage! If we are vanquished it means to us death on the battle field, or slavery far away! The slave merchants follow the tracks of the Roman army; they are greedy after prey. Whatever survives, whether whole or wounded – men, young women, girls, children – all are sold at auction like cattle for the benefit of the vanquisher, and are forthwith consigned by the thousands to Italy or to Southern Gaul where the Romans are settled! Arrived at their destination, the male slaves of robust frame are often forced to fight ferocious animals in the circus for the amusement of their masters; the young women and girls, even the children are subjected to monstrous debaucheries. Such is war with the Romans if vanquished!" cried the stranger. "Will you allow yourselves to be vanquished? Will you submit to such disgrace? Will you deliver to them your wives, your sisters, your daughters and children, ye Gauls of Britanny?"

Hardly had the traveler uttered these words when the whole family of Joel – men, women, young girls, children – all down to the dwarfy Stumpy, rose to their feet and with their eyes shooting fire, their cheeks inflamed, cried tumultuously, waving their arms:

"War! War! War!"

Joel's large battle mastiff, fired by these cries, rose on his hind legs and laid his fore-paws on the breast of his master, who, while caressing his enormous head said:

"Yes, old Deber-Trud, like our tribe you will hunt the Romans… The quarry shall be for you… Your jaws shall be red with blood!.. Wow! Wow, Deber-Trud! At the Romans! At the Romans!"

Hearing the well-known war-cry, the mastiff responded with furious barks, displaying fangs as redoubtable as a lion's. Hearing Deber-Trud, the outside watch-dogs, as well as those locked up in the kennels, answered him. Frightful was the war-cry raised by the pack.

"A good omen, friend Joel," observed the traveler. "Your dogs bark death to the enemy."

"Yes, yes; death to the enemy!" cried the brenn. "Thanks be to the gods, in our Breton Gaul, on the day of peril, the watch-dog becomes a war-dog! the draw-horse becomes a war-horse! the ox of the field a war-ox! the harvest carts chariots of war! the laborer a warrior! even our peaceful and fruitful earth turns to war and devours the stranger! at every step he finds a grave in our fathomless marshes, and his vessels vanish in the whirlpools of our bays which are more terrible in their calm than in the tempest of their fury!"

"Joel," now said Julyan, who had left the body of his friend, "I promised Armel to meet him to-morrow yonder – Such a death would be pleasant to me… To die fighting the Romans is a duty… What shall I do?"

"Ask to-morrow one of the druids of Karnak."

"And our sister Hena," said Albinik the mariner to his mother. "It is nearly a year I have not seen her… She is surely still the pearl of the Isle of Sen? My wife Meroë charged me to remember her to Hena."

"You will see her to-morrow," answered Mamm' Margarid; and laying down her distaff she arose. It was the signal for the family to retire. Mamm' Margarid looked around and said:

"Let us retire, my children; it is late; to-morrow at break of day we must begin our war preparations;" and turning to the traveler:

"May the gods grant you a good rest and pleasant dreams!"

CHAPTER VIII

FAREWELL!

Agreeable to his promise, Joel pushed off his boat early the next morning, accompanied by his son Albinik the mariner, and took the unknown traveler to the island of Kellor, seeing he did not dare to land at the sacred precincts of the Isle of Sen. The brenn's guest said a few words in a low voice to the ewagh who mounts perpetual guard in the island's house. He seemed to be struck with respect and answered that Talyessin, the oldest of the living druids, who then was at the Isle of Sen together with his wife Auria, expected a traveler since the previous evening.

Before leaving Joel, the stranger said to his host: "I hope neither you nor your family will forget your resolution of yesterday. This day a call to arms will resound from one end of Breton Gaul to the other."

"You may rest assured that I and the rest of my tribe will be the first to respond to the call."

"I believe you. The issue now is whether Gaul shall fall into slavery or shall rise again to the height of her one-time power and glory."

"But should I not, at this moment when I am to leave you, know the name of the brave man who sat at my hearth? The name of the wise man who speaks with so much soundness and loves his country so warmly?"

"Joel, my name shall be 'Soldier' so long as Gaul is not free; and if we ever meet again, I shall call myself 'Your Friend,' seeing that I am that."

Saying these words the unknown traveler stepped into the ewagh's boat that was to take him from Kellor to the Isle of Sen. Before the boat, which was under charge of the ewagh, put off, Joel asked the latter whether he would be permitted to wait at the house for his daughter Hena, who was to come on that day to visit the family. The ewagh informed him that his daughter would not start for the shore until evening. Sorry at not being able to take Hena with him, the brenn re-entered his boat and returned alone with Albinik.

Towards noon, Julyan went to consult the druids of the forest of Karnak upon whether he should take the immediate and voluntary death which would be a pleasure to him, seeing he was to rejoin Armel, or seek death in battle against the Romans. The druids answered him that having sworn to Armel upon his brotherhood faith to die with him, he should be faithful to his promise, and that the ewaghs would bring the body of Armel with the usual ceremonies in order to place it upon the pyre where Julyan would find his place at moon-rise. Happy at being able so soon to join his friend, Julyan was about to leave Karnak, when he saw the stranger, who had been the guest of Joel and who now returned from the Isle of Sen, approaching through the forest in the company of Talyessin. The latter said a few words to the other druids, who forthwith surrounded the traveler with great eagerness and marks of respect. The younger ones of the druids received him as a brother, the elder ones as a son.

Recognizing Julyan, the traveler said to him:

"As you are to return to the brenn of the tribe, wait a little; I shall give you a letter for him."