"Traitorously!" exclaimed the young woman. "And to oppress a free people—is that loyalty? To reduce the inhabitants to slavery, to exile them by herds with iron collars on their necks—is that loyalty? To massacre old men and children, to deliver the women and virgins to the lust of soldiers—is that loyalty? And now, you would hesitate, after having marched a whole day and night by the lights of the conflagration, through the midst of those smoking ruins which were caused by the horror of Roman oppression? No! No! to exterminate savage beasts, all means are good, the trap as well as the boar-spear. Hesitate? Hesitate? Answer, Albinik. Without mentioning your voluntary mutilation, without mentioning the dangers which we brave in entering this camp—shall we not be, if Hesus aids our project, the first victims of that great sacrifice which we are going to make to the Gods? Come, believe me; he who gives his life has nothing to blush for. By the love which I bear you, by the virgin blood of your sister Hena, I have at this moment, I swear to you, the consciousness of fulfilling a holy duty. Come, come, the evening is passing."
"What Meroë, the just and valiant, finds to be just and valiant, must be so," said Albinik, pressing his companion to his breast.
"Yes, yes, to exterminate savage beasts all means are good, the trap as well as the spear. Who gives his life has no cause to blush. Come!"
The couple hastened their pace toward the lights of the camp of Caesar. After a few moments, they heard close at hand, resounding on the earth, the measured tread of several soldiers, and the clashing of their swords on their iron armor. Presently they distinguished the invaders' red crested helmets glittering in the moonlight.
"They are the soldiers of the guard, who keep vigil around the camp," said Albinik. "Let us go to them."
Soon the travelers reached the Roman soldiers, by whom they were immediately surrounded. Albinik, who had learned in the Roman tongue these only words: "We are Breton Gauls; we would speak with Caesar," addressed them to his captors; but these, learning from Albinik's own admission that he and his companion were of the provinces that had risen in arms, forthwith took them prisoners, and treated them as such. They bound them, and conducted them to the camp.
Albinik and Meroë were first taken to one of the gates of the entrenchment. Beside the gate, they saw, a cruel warning, five large wooden crosses. On each one of these a Gallic seaman was crucified, his clothes stained with blood. The light of the moon illuminated the corpses.
"They have not deceived us," said Albinik in a low voice to his companion. "The pilots have been crucified after having undergone frightful tortures, rather than pilot the fleet of Caesar along the coast of Brittany."
"To make them undergo torture, and death on the cross," flashed back Meroë, "is that loyalty! Would you still hesitate? Will you still speak of 'treachery'?"
Albinik answered not a word, but in the dark he pressed his companion's hand. Brought before the officer who commanded the post, the mariner repeated the only words which he knew in the Roman tongue: