"To my own hall; it is still standing."
Bissula uttered a cry when she saw her two friends fall backward; but the next instant her senses failed. A soldier whom she had repeatedly tried to thrust aside turned angrily: he meant to strike his troublesome comrade, as he supposed the person to be. Then he recognized the young girl, and his wrath instantly vanished.
"Go back, little one!" he exclaimed. "You'll get killed here!"
And, with kindly intent, he flung her toward the left; but the clumsy fellow exerted too much strength, or the weight of the dainty figure was too light; she struck her head so violently against one of the beams of her old hiding-place that she lay stunned and senseless where she had fallen.
"Bissula!" Adalo called again through the gaping cleft in the door. But he received no answer.
CHAPTER XLIX.
The Adeling and his followers would probably soon have forced their way through this gate, one of whose wings had already caught fire and was beginning to glow and smoke more and more, while the other was splitting wider and wider under the heavy blows of the axe, had not the battle on the opposite side of the camp taken a turn which was also to prove decisive for the conflict around the Porta Decumana. Scarcely had Bissula fallen unconscious, when down every street in the camp that led from the north toward this southern gate, riders, riderless horses, foot-soldiers, and slaves came rushing in a wild flight with frantic cries.
"Fly," cried a warrior in scale armor, dashing past Herculanus and Davus. "The Barbarians are upon us!"
"The camp is taken!" shouted a Celt, hurrying out of a side street.
"They have climbed over the wall at the Prætorian Gate."