Stanley Waterloo

“ I was awakened by noises in the wood to the north, and, seizing my weapons, slipped into the dense bushes at the edge of the forest. The noise I had heard was that of the loud voices of men, and I did not know who these strange wanderers might be. They emerged presently upon the beach, a great company of men, women and children. Some of the men gathered about my fire curiously and there was discussion, but they made no search in the wood. They thought, doubtless, that it had been built by some wandering hunter whom their advance had frightened. ”

“ It is like a woman, soft and smiling and caressing, at least upon the surface; it is like a stallion pawing and tossing his white mane; it is like a green forest bending and heaving before the wind; it is like an unbounded sheet of shimmering, supple glass, supine beneath a calm; and, at last, it is like a herd of wild beasts, roaring and hungry and devouring. Let none count our Mediterranean as harmless as compared with the mighty western ocean. The leopard is more treacherous than the lion! ”

“ We had found the little cave in which we were now concealed, and in a way intrenched, for none could force the narrow entrance; had found good hunting, and so, gloomily but healthily enough, we abode together, planning, it seemed vainly, some scheme of retribution. We chafed and raged, thus helpless, like the great wild elk with antlers caught in the thicket, or the huge bear sometimes imprisoned in a pitfall of the rocks. The life we led was trying; in some unguarded moment we might be stolen upon and slain by Wolf and his followers, and, besides, our little cave was colder than the other. ”

“ There was no frolicking beneath the moon in any of the scattered hamlets; the labourer in the field looked often toward the wood; the hunter moved with senses more alert; the wild beasts themselves one thought were seeking deeper harbourage; it was as if all nature were afraid; the very winds seemed whispering repeatedly, in fear, the one word—“Cæsar!”
The alarm had come across the sea from the Veneti. A little vessel of that friendly people had eluded the Roman ships patrolling the Gallic shores, and so reached Britain with news of recent movements of the devastator. ”

“ So, the possession of a salt spring—though there were many within the length and breadth of the great forest—was something to be guarded and to be fought for to the death. Many a spear had been thrown, many a sword thrust, many an arrow sped, and many an axe had risen and fallen about the salt springs. What wonder that we fought for them as we would fight for home and wives and children—doing stern battle, to whatever end might come! ”

“ Not for me was it to hunt or fight with Six Toes to the end. Not for me to take my mate and live the full Cave man’s life; not for me to be with the brave clan as it waxed in numbers and in strength until it became the greatest in all that changing region of what men call the Dardogne Valley, where our spear and arrow-heads are sometimes dug from deep in the earth, and where little children prattle in the vineyards. ”

“ Swiftly we circled in beside them and cast up our grappling hooks and, shouting our hoarse war cry, poured over the unprotected bulwarks and upon the deck, there to hew down or take captive the weak Veneti crew. Death rose to greet us!
Leaping to their feet, shouting the Roman battle cry, a full hundred armed legionaries who had lain concealed upon that treacherous deck—even as our feet touched wood—were upon us with cast javelins and spear and sword. We were lost in the mass of them, each one of us surrounded and defending himself against too many. ”

“ There rose from the forest edge, though far away up the river, a roar so fearful and appalling, so dreadful and far-reaching, that all the world seemed dazed from the moment the sound tore across the valley and, even before these echoes died away, the herd of feeding elk leaped forward together in frantic bounds and swept close beside us in their flight, carrying with them the mother cow. The great cave tiger was abroad, though not yet near, and before him all living things must flee. ”

“ As in the surges of a growing storm, each succeeding wave crept further up the shore and the fight was soon on land. Though hate is in my heart for them, let none speak lightly of the dauntless courage or the stern hardihood and discipline of the Roman soldiers. Those ranks of iron pressed forward, though we raged among them with our chariots and met them manfully on foot with blows as fierce as their own and thrusts as deadly. But what could avail such ragged and open charge as made the wild Britons against an advancing wall which ever renewed itself as it was broken here and there? ”

“ Raging like a bull aurochs was Big Bow when he learned that Little Toes was lost to him, and that the wonderful skin was lost as well, and deep were his threats of vengeance upon Limp; but I—I, Scar, the Strong—told him that I would slay him if evil came to Limp through him; and he did not dare to hurt him. Not always do the lake people fight for their friends—we were but rude; but I had for Limp a liking which was my own, and I am sometimes hard of mood. And soon there were other necklaces of shell and pebbles, and amulets and anklets of coloured shells worn by the young women. ”

“ We were not as yet a great force, we rovers of the sea, though each year our strength increased. Our sharp-prowed ships were swifter than those of others, our sails bore better, and our arms were stronger at the oars in failing winds, but as either clan or tribe we, as yet, made no great war. We were but bold adventurers, each captain fighting for himself and his own following. Of religion we knew but Odin and the strong gods with him. ”

“ Men are but foolish with women and unreasoning as the queer brown bird which lines its nest with glittering things. But she always smiled, this Red Leaf, and she was so small and slender and had such eyes, asking so much and telling so much, that the fancy ever grew upon me that I wanted her in a hut of my own that I might but play with her and bring her warm furs and feed her well. What need had I, Scar, of one of the great woman creatures of my tribe save for the cooking and the making of skin garments? ”

“ The villages, indeed, were almost little countries by themselves, having scant relationship with each other, save at the Folk-Moot—which, even now, was not an old thing, but which gave to us a form and saved much bloodshed—though ties of blood were strong and, among themselves, though so separated and each clinging to his clan or village, the Cherusci dwelt in rude brotherly accord. It is but fair to say as much of those of other tribes often our feudal enemies. Of vices, we had but two, the lust for fighting and the vast drinking of strong mead to glorious drunkenness. ”

“ There, before the altar and the beastly red-heated image of the leering god, side by side stood Elissa and Phalos, the grim high priest, he stern in his power so manifested, she proud and erect as she passed my child into his waiting hands. How a blasting picture can transform a man!
In all the world of living men there was not another then so strong as I; in all the wastes and desert places of the vast forests there was not a wild beast more ferocious; in all the earth or in the heavens above there was no being with more swift and certain mission! ”

“ The world seemed full of living things fleeing in wild terror before approaching evil. The earth was crowded with the desperate fugitives; the sky above was filled with thousands of them. Showing against the briefly lightened clouds, screaming their different cries, were an innumerable host of seafowl sweeping over us in whirling flight, and, as they neared the mountain, streaming away by some common instinct in a great mass toward the northwest, seeking, it might be, the shores of the sea from which we had come. ”

“ She and old Ox would not trample upon the green space, but would let the plants grow and ripen their seeds there. “So I shall have more seeds for the winter,” thought she, “and shall not have to go afar for a part of them, at least.” And so they guarded the patch of barley and millet, and it grew lustily, and the seeds ripened, and from the fruitful patch old Feather garnered in the autumn quite a store of seeds, to add to that which she gleaned in long journeyings across the plain, and between the rocks where a little soil might be, or in the forest openings. ”

“ Should not his thoughts and desires dwell only on sterner and graver matters—the fight, the chase, the keen searching for the honey stores and the protection of the herds? This puzzlement I can by no means decide, but this I know that ever I follow my own will carelessly, and so have had much pleasure without effort, save to smell or look or listen. Why should I not? Does not the brawniest and most soil or blood stained warrior smack his lips over the rich juices of the cooked bird, and do not his eyes gleam as the mead runs down his tickled gullet? ”

“ Always some of the old women or old men remained at home to keep the fires alight. Our life was fierce and simple. We thought little, and cared not, save for the moment. We were hungry and must eat; we were cold and must seek warmth; we were in peril and must flee or fight; we had the elementary passions and must mate; we had rages sometimes and sought to slay. There were not many of us in the long gorge or valley, though nature had made it a place abounding in caves everywhere. ”

“ I had a dreamy vision in my mind of some rocky gorge, of enemies coming up from a sloping river bank, of a desperate struggle there, and of my own part therein, which seemed to end with a murderous bowshot from behind, driving a shaft through my body; but what had happened afterward? Where had they carried me and how could I be living after such fearful hurt? I fumbled still at my breast seeking the arrow-head, and found at last what I had mistaken for it. ”

“ I saw but as an instant’s vision Elissa sink to earth in a white swoon, and bounded with my child toward the entrance where the fray was raging, while about and behind me rose first the groan and then the yell of vengeance of the frenzied worshippers. Naught for the moment checked me with my circling axe seeking more blood. I reached nearly to my followers, so near to Aradnus that I tossed the child to him over the intervening heads and had the joy of seeing him, upon my shout, bound away with it toward our vessel and so preserve its safety. ”

“ Round and round he swam in his terror and perplexity, and then darted to shore and made off through the marsh grass toward the lake. I shot at him as he left the water and before he reached the high grass, but struck him only in the ham, where the arrow stuck. Then I rushed wildly after him. An otter can run with no little speed on land, but not so swiftly as a man, and I was up with the fleeing animal in a moment, striking fiercely at him with my bow. In his desperation he faced me snarlingly, even leaping at me in his rage. ”

“ I bounded across the space between us, leaping to Phalos even as he took the child and was about to face the grinning idol, and then, as he turned at my hoarse shout and our eyes met glaringly, I drove that Assyrian axe down through that head, down through that crafty brain, down sheer between the hating eyes, and, as I caught the child, he fell crumplingly as any poled bull of one of his own sacrifices! ”

“ Proud were we Vikings, for was not ours the blood of the bold races of the forest who had swept up the Elbe five hundred years ago and, dividing into kindred tribes, Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, had seized upon all Jutland and, from hunters and river fishers, had become most bold and skilful sailors and the most adventurous of rovers of the sea? Already there came dread to the dwellers at the riversides and all along the Gallic coast and, sometimes, even to the shores of Britain, when our shield ships showed their sails against the distant sky. ”

“ I had become a joyous copper-seeker and earnest artisan! My fortunes should be henceforth joined with those of Hammer, as he would have it, and as it was now pledged. What if we should somewhere find the red substance in abundance and perhaps not so firmly imbedded in such rock! What things would happen then! Utterly abandoned were we now in this quest to come. What cared we for the women or the breaking of the horses or the wild chase of the stag or urus? ”

“ They were my comrades; they were of the wanderers and raiders, my own restless, often marauding tribe, who had come from afar, facing perils all unknown, of fighting men or fighting beast, but led on ever by an instinct for plundering and adventure. We knew, as yet, no other tribe like ours or one of which we were afraid. They were brawny men, these brother tribesmen, but among them all was none to boast a front so bull-like nor of such brawn and strength as mine. ”

“ So I alone had the axe, and soon, in our hunting as in the littler things, like the getting away of a vine in our paths through the forest, as compared with the axe the club was a feeble thing. The sharp stone could shear the little things, and the sharp and heavy stone, driven deeply, could bring death where the club might only stun or bruise. With the axe I could readily open a way along the thick skin of a slain thing, making easy the stripping for the flint flakes, and with the axe I could divide the body. We must all have axes! ”