"No battle—and yet no army," repeated Decius, in a murmurous monotone, when, for a moment, there were silence and space around him. "We marched by the Lake Trasimenus, and the fog lay thick upon us. Then came a noise of shouts and clash of arms and shrieks, but we saw nothing—only sometimes a great, white, naked body swinging a huge sword, and again a black man buried in his horse's mane that waved about him as he rushed by—only these things and our own men falling—falling without ever a chance to strike or to see whence we were stricken."
The crowd shuddered.
"And the elephants?"
"I did not see them. They say they are all dead."
"And the consul?"
"I do not know."
Just then the cripple from the steps was pushed forward.
"Flaminius is dead. He died fighting, as a Roman consul should. But you? What are you, to let the pulse-eaters at him. You should have seen how we dealt with them off the Aegusian Islands."
"Or at Drepana?" sneered the horseman, roused from his lethargy by the other's taunt.
"That was what a patrician consul brought us to," muttered the cripple, glancing at Sergius. "Do you know what the Claudian did? When the sacred chickens would not eat, he cried out, 'Then they shall drink,' and ordered them thrown overboard. How could soldiers win when an impious commander had first challenged the gods?"