The conflagration did not extend to this part of the camp. He glided into a tent and hid himself, for he still had cause to fear his own countrymen almost as much as the Barbarians. Here he found a short dagger, like those worn by the Thracians, which he thrust into his belt; he then put down the long-handled heavy axe, which had burdened him while running.
Ausonius dead! Perhaps all who knew of that incident were dead too! He could not shake off the thought while peering cautiously between two folds of the tent, watching for a way of escape between Romans and Barbarians.
CHAPTER LI.
Herculanus was mistaken: Ausonius was not slain. In the attempt to leap from one cart to another he had fallen between them and slightly hurt his foot. But Decius and some legionaries of the Twenty-second Cohort had helped him up again and taken him at once to the Decumanian Gate. Here, meanwhile, the Tribune had quickly made his arrangements, gathering the fugitives arriving singly around a body of his Illyrians, to whom he also entrusted the standard.
"Where is the ala of mailed riders whom I ordered here, forbidding them to dismount? We need them now at the head of the sortie."
"Alas, Tribune, in the turmoil, in the pressure on the gate and the walls, we all dismounted and fought on foot. Our horses are gone; they dashed down the side streets."
"This is Herculanus's discipline of his men! So--we have no horsemen. Well then, the spears to the front! The wounded in the centre! Here, Ausonius, behind my troop! There. Draw back the bolts; throw the gate open. We will fight our way through to the ships. Forward! On!"
Then the gate, hitherto so firmly defended, its right wing half shattered, the left half burned, opened from within, and the Romans, summoning their last strength, led by their able General in person, and stimulated to a final supreme effort by his example and the prospect of safety, burst out of the camp. The shock was terrible, and the effect of the unexpected attack upon the Barbarians was very great. All who had been standing on the narrow strip of ground between the gate and the ditch were hurled into it. Adalo was not among the number; he had gone back for a moment to direct the preparation of a bridge of logs which was to lead directly to the gate; then he intended to have his men run across with beams to batter the already weakened timbers and break it down completely. So he escaped the fall into the ditch, which Sippilo shared, but as in the plunge from the wall, uninjured. The boy climbed nimbly up the southern side. He had lost the helmet in his first tumble, but held fast to his spear and shield this time too.
For a moment, it is true, it seemed as if the Romans, as soon as they had passed through the gate and obtained a view of the lake, would disperse again in fresh terror; for meanwhile the attack on the ships and the camp below had apparently succeeded.
Hitherto the defenders on the walls had waited longingly for Nannienus, and looked in vain over the Barbarians and their flaring pitch torches toward the lake. But now that they had reached the open country outside the camp, they saw a vast conflagration on the shore. Surrounded by the tumult of the battle raging immediately about them, they had been unable to hear the noise of the conflict which had commenced below half an hour before; but they now perceived all that Saturninus had long since concluded by the absence of his brave friend: the fleet itself was being most hotly assailed.