The merchant, hoping at last to please so fastidious a customer, went up to the cage, opened it, and brought out three children, draped in long white veils which hid their faces. Two of the children corresponded in height to my son and daughter; the other was smaller. The smallest one was the first to be unveiled to the eyes of the old man. I recognized her as the daughter of one of my relatives, whose husband was killed in the defense of the chariot; the mother had killed herself with the other women of the family, forgetting in that supreme moment, to kill the little one. The girl was sickly and without beauty. Patrician Trymalcion looked her over rapidly and made an impatient gesture with his hand, as if annoyed that they should dare to offer to his sight so unattractive an object. She was, accordingly, taken back to the cage by a keeper. The other two children remained, still veiled.

I was eagerly watching these events from the corner of the "horse-dealer's" stall, my arms pinioned behind my back with double iron manacles, my legs chained and my feet fastened by fetters of enormous weight. I still felt under the influence of the sorcery that had been practiced upon me. Nevertheless, my blood, so long frozen in my veins, began to circulate more and more freely. A slight tremor occasionally went through my limbs. The spell was breaking. I was not the only one to tremble. The young Gallic women and the matron, forgetting their own shame and despair, experienced in their hearts of maid, of wife, or mother, a frightful horror at the fate of the children offered to that detestable old man.

Although half nude, they no longer thought of withdrawing themselves from the licentious looks of the spectators who were crowding at the entrance to the booth. Their eyes brooded with motherly terror upon the two veiled children, while the matron, bound to the post, her eyes glittering and her teeth set in impotent fury, raised her chained arms to heaven as if to call down the punishments of the gods upon such monstrosities.

At a sign from lord Trymalcion, the veils dropped—I recognized you both—you, my son Sylvest and your sister Syomara. You were both pale and wan; you were shivering with fear. Anguish was depicted in your tear-bathed faces. The long blonde hair of my little girl fell upon her shoulders. She dared not raise her eyes, neither did you; you held each other by the hand, closely clasped. Despite the terror that disfigured her face, I beheld my daughter in her singular and infantine beauty—accursed beauty! At sight of her Trymalcion's dead eyes lighted up and glistened like glowing coals in the middle of his wrinkled, paint-covered visage. He stood up, stretched out his emaciated arms towards my daughter as if to seize his prey, while a shocking smile disclosed his yellow teeth. Terror-stricken, Syomara threw herself back and clung to your neck. The merchant quickly tore you from each other and brought Syomara to the old man. The latter impatiently pushed away with his foot the slave that crouched on the ground before him, and grabbing my little girl, took her between his knees. He easily subdued the efforts she made to escape, while she uttered piercing cries; he violently snapped the strings that fastened my little girl's robe, and stripped her half naked in order to examine her chest and shoulders. While this was going on, the merchant was holding you back, my son, and I—the father of the two victims—I, loaded with chains, beheld the spectacle. At the sight of this crime of the patrician Trymalcion, outraging the chastity of a child, the three fettered Gallic women and the matron made a desperate but vain effort to break from their irons, and began to pour out a torrent of imprecations and groans.

Trymalcion finished complacently his disgusting examination, and said a few words to the merchant. Immediately a keeper replaced the robe on my girl, who was more dead than alive, wrapped her up in her long white veil, which he tied around her, and taking the slender burden under his arm, held himself in readiness to follow the old man, who was taking some gold from his purse to pay the merchant. At that moment of supreme despair—you and your sister, poor little ones bewildered with terror, cried out as if you believed you would be heard and succored:

"Mother! Father!"

Up to that moment I had witnessed the scene panting, almost crazy with grief and rage. Slowly my heart, struggling against the sorcery of the "horse-dealer," was gaining the upper hand. But at that cry, uttered by you and your sister, the charm broke with a clap. All my intelligence, all my courage rushed back to me. The sight of you two gave me such a shock, it threw me into such a transport of rage that, unable to break my irons, I rose upon my feet, and, with my hands still pinioned behind me, my legs still loaded with heavy chains, I bounded out of my stall with two leaps, and fell like a thunderbolt upon the old patrician. The shock caused the old man to roll under me. In default of the liberty of my hands to strangle him, I bit him in the face, near the neck. The "horse-dealers" and their keepers threw themselves upon me; but bearing with all my weight upon the hideous old debauchee, who was howling at the top of his voice, I kept my teeth in his flesh. The monster's blood filled my mouth—a shower of whip lashes and blows from sticks and stones rained upon me—yet I budged not. No more than our old war dog Deber-Trud the man-eater did I drop my prey.—No!—Like the dog, when I did let go, it was only to carry away between my teeth—a strip of flesh, a bleeding mouthful that I spat back into Trymalcion's hideous, tortured face, as he had spat at the Gallic women.

"Father! Father!" you cried out to me through the tumult. Wishing then to approach you two, my children, I stood up, an object of terror—aye, terror. For a moment a circle of fear surrounded the Gallic slave, with his load of irons.

"Father! Father!" you cried again, stretching out your little arms, in spite of the keepers who held you back. I made a bound toward you, but the merchant, from the top of the cage where you had been confined, suddenly threw a large piece of cloth over my head. At the same time I was seized by the legs, thrown down, and tied with a thousand bonds. The cloth, which covered my head and shoulders, was tied down around my neck, and through it they made a gap, which unfortunately permitted me to breathe—I had hoped to smother.

I felt myself being carried across to my own booth, where I was thrown on the straw, incapable of making the slightest motion. Quite a while later I heard the centurion, my new master, in a sharp altercation with the "horse-dealer" and the merchant who had sold Syomara to Trymalcion. Presently they all went out. Silence reigned around me. Some time later, the dealer returned; he approached me; he kicked me angrily; he tore off the cover from my face, and said to me in a voice trembling with rage:

"Scoundrel! Do you know what it has cost me, that mouthful of flesh you tore out of the face of the noble Trymalcion? Do you know, ferocious beast? That mouthful of flesh cost me twenty sous of gold! More than half of what I sold you for, for I am responsible for your misdeeds, wretch! while you are in my stall, double villain! So that it is I who have made a present of your daughter to the old man. She was sold to him for twenty gold sous, which I paid in his stead. He insisted upon it. And even so I got off cheaply. He demanded that indemnity."[33]

"That monster is not dead! Hena! he is not dead!" I cried in despair. "And my daughter is not dead either! Hesus, Teutates, take pity on my daughter!"

"Your daughter, gallows bird! Your daughter is in Trymalcion's hands, and it is upon her he will wreak his revenge on you. He rejoices over the circumstance in advance. He sometimes is taken with savage caprices, and is rich enough to indulge them."

I was unable to make answer to these words, save with long drawn out moans.

"And that is not all, infamous scoundrel! I have lost the confidence of the centurion to whom I sold you. He reproached me with having outrageously deceived him; with having sold him, instead of a lamb, a tiger who exercised his teeth upon rich patricians. He wanted to sell you right back. To sell you back, as if anyone would consent to buy—after such an exhibition! As well buy a wild beast. Luckily for me, I received the deposit before witnesses. The fierceness of your nature will not set aside the contract; the centurion has no choice but to keep you. He'll keep you, I warrant, but he'll make you pay dear for your criminal instincts. Oh, you don't know the life that awaits you in the ergastula! You don't know—"

"But my son," I asked, interrupting the "horse-dealer," well knowing that he would answer out of cruelty. "Is my son also sold? To whom?"

"Sold? And who do you think would still want him? Sold? Better say given away. You bring bad luck to everybody, double traitor. Did not your ragings and the shrieks of that mis-born limb teach everyone that he is of your beastly blood? No one offered even an obole for him! Who would buy a wolf's whelp? Anyway, I was going to speak to you about that son of yours, to delight your father's heart. Know that he was given to boot by my partner at the end of the sale, to the same purchaser to whom he sold the grey-haired matron, who will be good to turn a mill-wheel."

"And that purchaser," I enquired, "who is he? What is he going to do with my son?"

"That purchaser is the centurion—your master!"

"Hesus!" I exclaimed, hardly able to believe what I heard. "Hesus, you are kind and merciful. At least I shall have my son near me."

"Your son near you! Then you are as stupid as you are scoundrelly. Ah, do you imagine that it is for your paternal contentment that your master has burdened himself with that wolf-cub? Do you know what your master said to me? 'I have only one means of subduing that savage beast you sold me, you egregious cheat.—The chances are, that madman loves his little one. I'll keep the wolf-whelp in a cage, and the son will answer to me for the father's docility.—At the father's first, and least offence, he will see the tortures which he will make his cub suffer, under my very eyes.'"

I paid no further attention to what the "horse-dealer" said—I was at least sure of seeing you, or of knowing that you were near me, my child. That will help me to bear the awful grief caused to me by the fate of my little daughter Syomara, who, two days later, was carried into Italy on board the galley of the patrician Trymalcion.

* * * * *

My father Guilhern was not granted time to finish his narrative.

Death—oh, what a death!—death overtook him the very day after he traced the above last lines. I preserve them together with the little brass bell that my father got from the "horse-dealer."

The narrative of the sufferings of our race, I, Sylvest, shall continue in obedience to my father Guilhern, the same as he obeyed the behest of his father Joel the brenn of the tribe of Karnak.

Hesus was merciful to you, O, my father.—You died ignorant of the life of your daughter Syomara—

It is left to me to narrate my sister's fate.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A short distance from the town of St. Nazaire, which is still in existence.

[2] The patriotism of the Russians in burning Moscow in order to starve and drive out Napoleon's army is justly admired. But how much more admirable was the heroic patriotism of these old Gauls! Not only Brittany, but almost a third of Gaul was delivered to the flames. See Caesar, De Bello Gallico, lib. VII, ch. XIV. Also Amedee Thierry, History of the Gauls, vol. III, p. 103: "The Chief of the Hundred Valleys was heard with calm and resignation. Not a murmur interrupted him, not an objection was raised against the heavy sacrifice which he demanded. It was with one voice that the heads of the tribes voted the ruin of their fortunes and the scattering of their families. This terrible remedy was at once applied to the country which they feared would be occupied by the enemy ... On every hand one perceived nothing but the fire and smoke of burning habitations. In the light of these flames, across the ruins and the ashes of their homes, an innumerable population wended their way towards the frontier, where shelter and food awaited them. Their sorrow and suffering was not without consolation, since it would lead to the safety of their country."

[3] The shark.

[4] A Gallic war cry, signifying "Strike at the head—down with them."

[5] A troop composed of cavalry (mahrek) and footmen (droad).

"A certain number of Gallic cavalrymen chose among the foot-soldiers an equal number of the most agile and courageous. Each of the latter attended a horseman, and followed him in battle. The cavalry fell back upon them if it was in danger, and the footmen ran up; if a wounded horseman fell from his charger, the foot-soldier succored and defended him. When it became necessary to make a rapid advance or retreat, exercise had made these foot-soldiers so agile that, hanging on by the manes of the horses, they kept up with the cavalry in its rapid movement."—Caesar, De Bello Gallico, book I, ch. XLVIII.

[6] In this body of cavalry each horseman was followed by two equerries, mounted and equipped, who remained behind in the body of the army. When the battle was on, should the horseman be dismounted, the equerries gave him one of their horses. If then the horseman's horse was killed, or the horseman himself dangerously wounded, he was carried from the field by one of the equerries, while the other took his place in the ranks. This body of cavalry was called the trimarkisia, from two words which in the Gallic tongue signify "three horses."—Amedee Thierry, History of the Gauls, vol. I, p. 130. See also Pausanius, book X.

[7] "The Gauls had also their Pindars and their Tyrteuses, bards exercising their talent to sing in heroic verse the deeds of great men, and to inculcate in the people the love of glory."—Latour d'Auvergne, Gallic Origins, p. 158.

[8] "The Gauls hold that it is a disgrace to live subjugated, and that in all war there are but two outcomes for the man of courage—to conquer or to die."—Nicolas Damasc; see also Strabo, serm. XII.

[9] "Caesar in his Commentaries, and after him the later historians, took the title of command held by this hero of Gaul for his proper name, and, by corruption, wrote Vercingetorix in place of Ver-cinn-cedo-righ, Chief of the Hundred Valleys," observes Amedee Thierry (History of the Gauls, vol. III, p. 86). "Vercingetorix, a native of Auvergne, was the son of Celtil, who, guilty of conspiring against the freedom of his city, expiated on the pyre his ambition and his crime. The young Gaul thus became heir to the goods of his father, whose name he nevertheless blushed to bear. Having become the idol of his people, he traveled to Rome and saw Caesar, who attempted to win his good graces. But the Gaul rejected the friendship of his country's enemy. Returned to his native land he labored secretly to reawaken among his people the spirit of independence, and to raise up enemies against the Romans. When the hour to call the people to arms was come, he showed himself openly, in druid ceremonies, in political meetings; everywhere, in short, he was seen employing his eloquence, his fortune, his credit, in a word all his means of action upon the chiefs and on the multitude, to spur them on to reconquer the rights of old Gaul."—Thierry.

[10] Here are Caesar's own words on this extraordinary event, taken from his Ephemerides, or diary, wherein with his own hand he was accustomed to enter day by day what of interest had occurred to him. These words are transmitted to us by Servius:

"Caius Julius Caesar, cum dimicaret in Gallia, et ab hoste raptus, equo ejus portaretur armatus, occurrit quidam ex hostibus qui cum nosset et insultans ait: Ceco Caesar! quod in lingua Gallorum dimitte significat. Et ita factum est ut dimitteretur.

"Hoc autem dicit ipse Caesar in Ephemeride sua ubi propriam commemorat felicitatem."—Ex Servio LXI. Aeneid, edit. Amstelod, type Elsevir, 1650, ex antiquo Vatic. Extemp. cap. VIII.

"One can see by this passage," adds d'Auvergne, "that Caesar, having been released by the Gaul who had made him prisoner and who was carrying him off on his horse fully armed from the field of battle, believed the saving of his life to be due to the very word which was intended to be his death sentence: to the word sko, which Caesar wrote ceco, and which he falsely interpreted to mean release when the word in Gallic in reality means kill, strike, beat down. Everything points to the conclusion that fear or stupefaction having seized the Gauls, in whose power Caesar completely was, at the mere mention of his name, he owed his safety to the sheer astonishment of his captor."

[11] "During the fight, which lasted from the seventh hour until the evening, not a Gaul was seen turning his back (aversum hostem nemo videre potuit)."—Caesar, De Bello Gallico, ch. XXXVII.

[12] "When the Romans drew near the chariots they came face to face with a new enemy, the war dogs. These were with difficulty exterminated by the archers."—Pliny, book LXXII, chap. C.

[13] The total destruction of the Gallic fleet was the result of an extremely dangerous invention by the Romans, who, by means of scythes fastened to long poles, cut the stays which held the masts. These fell, and the Gallic vessels, deprived of sails and motion, were reduced to impotence. See Caesar, De Bello Gallico, book III, ch. XIV, XV.

[14] See Pliny, Quintilian, Seneca, etc. Cited by Wallon in his History of Slavery in Antiquity, vol. II, p. 329.

[15] About $100 or $120 in modern money. This was at the time the market price of a slave. (Wallon, History of Slavery in Antiquity, vol. II, p. 329.)

[16] Slaves had no name of their own. They were given indiscriminately all sorts of soubriquets, even to the names of animals. (Givin, p. 339.)

[17] It was the custom to throw in "for good measure," upon the purchase of a lot of slaves for labor or for pleasure, a few old men who were nothing but skin and bones. See Plautus, Bachid. IV, Prospera IV; and Terence, Eun. Cited by Wallon, History of Slavery in Antiquity, vol. II. p. 56.

[18] There were in the selling of slaves, as in the vending of animals established grounds entitling the purchaser to recover in full or in part his purchase price. Six months were allowed for causes of the first class to manifest themselves, a year for the latter.

Deafness, dumbness, short-sightedness, tertiary or quaternary ague, gout, epilepsy, polyp, varicose veins, a breath indicating an internal malady, sterility among the women—such were the grounds accepted for complete abrogation of the contract. As to moral defects, nothing was said. Nevertheless, the merchant was not allowed to ascribe to a slave qualities he did not possess. One was bound above all to make known whether a slave possessed a tendency toward suicide. (Wallon, History of Slavery in Antiquity, vol. II, p. 63.)

[19] We do not dare to expatiate on these monstrosities. We shall only cite the words of the lawyer Heterus: "Shamelessness is a crime in a free man—a duty in a freedman—and a necessity in a slave." For further details of the abominable and precocious depravity into which slaves and their children were dragged, see Wallon, History of Slavery in Antiquity, p. 266, following.

[20] "Masters disemboweled their slaves, to search for prognostications in their entrails."—Wallon, vol. II, p. 251.

[21] The characteristics of different nationalities of slaves had passed into bywords with the dealers. Thus they said "timid as a Phrygian," "vain as a Moor," "deceitful as a Cretan," "intractable as a Sardinian," "fierce as a Dalmatian," "gentle as an Ionian," etc., etc. (Wallon, vol. II, p. 65.)

[22] Caesar wished to make a severe example. So "He put the Senate to death, and sold the rest at auction."—Caesar, De Bello Gallico, book III, ch. XVI.

[23] See Wallon, vol. II, ch. III, for the singular means employed by the "horse-dealers" to rejuvenate their slaves.

[24] The Gauls in the north and west of France attached so much importance and dignity to the length of their hair that the provinces they inhabited were called "Long-haired Gaul." (Latour d'Auvergne, Gallic Origins.)

[25] When prisoners of war were sold as slaves, they were made to wear wreaths of the leaves of trees as a distinctive sign. (Wallon.)

[26] "The magic philters of Media and Circe of old were nothing but pharmaceutical brews of an action as diversified as powerful. Several of these narcotic or exhilarators, which threw a man into an incredible moral prostration, or else into a fit of frenzy, were long employed among the Romans. The slave merchants used them to overcome and enervate their more unconquerable captives."—Philosophic Dictionary, p. 345.

[27] "The higher priced slaves were kept in a sort of cage, which drew, by its air of mystery, the attention of the connoisseurs."—Wallon, vol. II, p. 54.

[28] The slave was obliged to lift weights, to march, to leap, to prove his vigor and agility. (Wallon, vol. II, p. 59.)

[29] The feet of women and children were daubed with white clay. (Wallon.)

[30] See Petronius for details of Roman patrician "fashions."

[31] For these shameful manners, which respect for humanity renders unpicturable, see Tacitus, Martial, Juvenal, and above all Petronius.

[32] See above authors.

[33] The master was civilly responsible for the acts of his slave, the same as for those of his dog. (Wallon, vol. II, p. 183.)

THE END