And now the clangour of cymbals and the roll of drums came up on the breezes from the south, and, with them, a strange uproar of barbarous shouts and cries. Then it was that the Roman legionaries began to crash their heavy javelins against their great, oblong shields until the din drowned everything else, and the thunder of Jove himself might have roared in vain.
Sergius had ridden up the bank, almost at the consul's rein, and his eyes wandered eagerly over Varro's array. Eight full legions with their quota of allies seemed welded into one huge column: Romans on the right, Italians on the left. The sun was well up, and its rays played upon a very sea of bronze from which the feathered crests rose and shivered like foam. Far beyond the column, on the extreme left, he could make out squadrons of allied horse, and then he turned to take his place amid the cavalry of the city: young men well born, burning with courage and ardour and wrath. Despite himself his heart rose with a leap of triumph. A moment later he caught the little, beady eyes of the consul looking through him, as it were, while the thin mouth beneath writhed itself into a sneer.
"You hope? That is well," said Paullus. "Young men fight better and die better when they hope; but I will show you how a Roman soldier can give up his life for naught. I would wish," he added with lowered voice and speaking as if in self-communion, "that more of our horsemen had adopted the Greek arms. Reed spears and ox-hide bucklers will not stand long against heavy cavalry. A temple to Mars the avenger, if I had but a front of Illyrian horse! See now! There are the scum!"
His voice rose eagerly at the last words, and Sergius turned from the dark face now flashing with a sudden animation, and looked southward over the plain. For a moment the dust was too thick; then it seemed to clear away, and the Carthaginian army burst into view.
Undulating like the open sea and rolling steadily on like the long, slow sweep of billows upon a level shore, the glory of barbaric war drew near. On their left, resting upon the river's bank, rode the Spanish and Gallic cavalry, strengthened here and there by a horse and man in full armour like those of the Clinabarians; and the face of Paullus clouded again when he noted what opponents he must meet: men, horses, arms—all heavier than his own with the exception of a few turmae newly equipped in the Greek fashion. Beyond them, thrown back in echelon, marched Africans in little squares of sixteen front. These had substituted for their own equipment the Roman spoils of Trasimenus and Trebia. Then, and again somewhat in advance, came alternate companies of Gauls and Spaniards spread out in long thin array; the former stripped to the navel, their hair tied up in a tufted knot, and bearing their great swords upon their shoulders; the Spaniards glittering in their purple-bordered tunics of snowy linen. The waving pikes of phalanges told of more Africans who seemed to lie in echelon beyond, while far away, toward the low hills overgrown with copsewood that formed the eastern horizon, clouds of swift-moving dust, amid which shadows darted hither and thither at seeming random, marked the presence of the wild riders of Numidia who were to face the horsemen of Italy and of the Latin name. In front of all, the plain was dotted with naked men advancing at regular intervals and bearing small bucklers of lynx-hide—the famous Balearic slingers that always opened the day of battle for Carthage. The heart of Sergius swelled within him, beating hard and fast under the tension of the moment. Only a few minutes more, and those magnificent armies would crash together, not to part until the plain should be heaped with corpses that were now men; until the gods should adjudge the sovereignty of Italy. Then he grew calm, calm as the consul himself, and gazed enraptured upon the picture, as if it meant no more than art and show—only the wind came fresher from the south, and the fine dust, ground up by marching thousands, smarted and blinded his eyes.
Nearer and nearer they drew, with steady, slow advance, while Rome stood still and awaited their coming. And now a commotion seemed to start from the far distant south: the roar of voices, the blinding flash of the sun on tossing swords, a cloud of dust distinct upon the plain, a clump of horse-head standards rising amid it, and a group of riders urging their galloping steeds along the invaders' front. Rich armour of strange pattern shone among them, and, a length ahead of the rest, Sergius could see a white stallion with close-cropped mane, and hoofs and fetlocks stained vermilion, that danced and curvetted and arched its proud neck under the touch of a master. He was not an over-tall man, but his figure as he rode seemed well knit and graceful. His armour was of brown-bronze scale-work, rich with gold and jewels, while a white mantle fringed with Tyrian purple hung from his shoulders; a helmet of burnished gold, horned and crested, gleamed like a star upon his head, while, even at the distance, even through the swirl, of dust, Sergius saw the crisp curled, black beard, and dreamed that he caught the flash of dark, deep-set eyes. There was no need of the beating of weapons against shields, no need of the roar and howls and shrill screaming in a score of tongues to tell the stranger's name. Most of the soldiers kept ranks, but here and there a Gaul would bound forward, dancing with strange leaps and whirling his sword about his head, to throw himself prone before and beneath the vermilion hoofs that never paused or swerved in their gallop. Not a movement, not a glance of the rider gave sign of acknowledgment or recognition; not a look was cast upon the grovelling form, safe or hurt or maimed—only the soldier's comrades howled their plaudits, mingled with laughter and rude jeers whenever the devotee lay still or writhed or rose staggering from some stroke of the vermilion hoofs.
But when the horseman drew bridle before the extreme left of the centre, and, with eyes shaded by his hand, gazed long and earnestly at the Roman array, the plaudits that had greeted his passage died away into low murmurs and then silence. "The general is studying the enemy. Be silent! Who knows but he would commune with Baal and Moloch? Be silent!" So the word ran around and through the African squares.
Suddenly peals of laughter broke from the group of Carthaginian officers that had ridden behind and who now clustered around him. The calm that no devotion, no suffering, no danger of men could move, was gone; the schalischim had turned from his measuring of the enemy to smile and jest with his friends. Thereupon they threw back their heads and laughed loud and long; and then the Africans noted it, and hoarse cries of joy broke from their ranks. "The schalischim must be sure of victory. Praise be to Melkarth!" Sergius saw a captain of one of the squares run out and touch his forehead to the earth before his commander; but no Roman heard the man's words pregnant with fate.
"Now, my father, let The Lion's Brood lead the beasts of all the fields to their feast. We hunger, father, we hunger!"
And Hannibal had made answer, pointing northward toward the plume-crested sea of blazing bronze, "Lo! friend; there are your meat and wine."