Sergius followed, and in a few moments the increasing pandemonium told that the front was not far ahead. The dust filled their eyes, and they could see nothing beyond; but the signs were for the veteran to read. Soon there was no more headway to be made through the dense mass; the corpses of the slain were thick beneath their feet, half-naked Gauls and Spaniards in white and purple mingled with the dead of the legions, and still the column pushed forward and still the slain lay closer.
"They give ground. We are driving in their centre," gasped Sergius.
Paullus had been frowning grimly, but now he turned to Marcus Decius and showed his wolfish teeth in his old-time smile.
"What do you say, decurion?" he asked.
"We drive them, surely; but—"
"Yes, truly, but—do you hear those cries on the flank? We drive their Iberians, their Celts; it is the Africans that let us plunge on like one of Varro's stupid bulls: then they put the sword in our side. Could you fight now? I tell you we are already driven within the rails. If the gods keep Hasdrubal slaying my runaways, there may be hope; if he be a general, there is none."
And still the column's headway seemed hardly checked, though the cries and the clashing of arms resounded, now, from both flanks as well as from the front, while, in the depths of its vitals, men were crushed together till they could scarce breathe. A rumour, too, like those Pan sends to dismay soldiers, ran quickly from heart to heart, rather than from lip to lip. It was that Hasdrubal had circled the rear and, falling upon the allied cavalry, had scattered the left wing as he had the right; that the Numidians pursued and slaughtered: but where now were the cavalry of Gaul and Spain, the winners of two victories? A sullen roar from the far distant rear seemed to answer; but the language was one that few could read—few of that host. Oh! for an hour of the veterans that slumbered on the shores of Trebia and Trasimenus! Oh! for an hour of Fabius, who lingered at Rome, powerless and discredited. Who were these that wore the armour, that wielded the ponderous javelins of Rome's legions? From under the bronze helmets gorgeously fierce with their great crests peered eyes—stupid, wondering eyes dazed by the uproar, blinded by the dust; eyes wherein, while as yet there was little of fear, still less was there of the knowledge of danger to be met and overcome; eyes that had but lately watched sheep upon the Alban hills, eyes that were used only to the flour dust when their owners kneaded dough behind the Forum.
Ahead, around, the standards were tossing as if upon the billows of an angry sea. Was that a silver horse's head that flashed far to the right?
"Look!" cried Sergius, striking Decius with his elbow.
"You can see better now," muttered the veteran. "The flour is bread, and the bread of battle is mire kneaded of dust and blood."