Coloring like hers, alas! will forever escape him, unless he should paint
Her face with a lily's lustre, on which the breath of a rose hath rested."
Ah, my friend, with the feelings that come to me, I am often ashamed of the half century I bear with me. Fain would I sacrifice something to Anteros--most willingly my gray hairs!
A short time ago the little maid amazed us all (Saturninus was even more surprised than I; for I am already beginning to believe her almost supernatural) by showing strategic insight. It was mentioned that while making a tour on the southwestern wall I had saved her little hut from burning, while our cohorts usually flung the torch with eager zeal into the wooden houses of the Barbarians. Then Saturninus remarked that by accident another building had been spared, a house with a lofty gable roof rising on a hill farther toward the southwest. None of our reconnoitring parties had marched in that direction. My nephew called one of his men and ordered two of them to ride over the next day and burn the dwelling down.
Suddenly the girl, with flashing eyes, cried: "How stupid!" and laughed. Courtesy is not her favorite virtue, and she and my nephew waste little love on each other. "How stupid!" she repeated, "The building is very solid, the fence inclosing it very high; it is almost a citadel like your camp here; and it is between you and the lake--to which you must fly if my people come. You could fortify yourselves there again, if you are forced to leave here as the fox darts from its burrow."
Herculanus laughed sneeringly; but Saturninus cast a glance from the top of the wall to that hill and the lofty building, and said in the quiet tone which quells contradiction: "I myself had resolved to have the dwelling burned to-morrow. But the child is right. The solid house will not be burned, but perhaps, later, occupied--when the ships arrive."
If those ships would only come! The eager Tribune is fairly consumed with impatience for action. Already he has gone across the lake repeatedly in a wretched rotting boat belonging to the Barbarians, which we found hidden among the thickest growth of rushes near Bissula's hut, and urged Nannienus to hasten. But the latter might truthfully say with Homer: "Why dost thou urge one who is willing?" We cannot make up in days for the neglect of months. The Emperor's own miserable officials do him more harm than the Barbarians. And we do not even know where these strange defenders of the country have vanished.
Ah, that reminds me of another anecdote of the little maid. How constantly she steals into my thoughts! Of course--in jest and earnest--we have tried to obtain information about the hiding--places of the enemy from the only captive of whose possession hitherto we can boast; but there we "victors" met with small success, as you may guess.
"Where are your heroes hiding?" I asked once laughing, toward the end of a meal in my tent. "Truly, their heroism is as hard to find as themselves."
"They will hardly have told this little maid," replied Saturninus. "For Barbarian women can probably keep secrets no better than Roman ones. She does not know."