"No. But she was very much pleased when she saw the she-bear; her face flushed and paled. So much pleased that I asked, as you did just now: 'Bissula, do you know each other? How does it happen that the beast will have nothing to do with anybody except you? Hark! how friendly her growl sounds: why doesn't she treat us the same?'
"'Oh,' replied Bissula, laughing, 'she comes from our country and she knows that I am the only one who understands her Alemanni language. Don't you believe me? Well, then ask her,' she added, still laughing, shaking back her curling locks, 'maybe she will tell you.'
"In short, the monster would not leave her side, and followed her into the tent when she went to bed. So the bear's growling waked me. I started up and saw by the light of the campfire a man, running at full speed, vanish around the corner of the nearest tent.
"I rushed in. The young girl had seen nothing--she had fallen asleep. She was trying to soothe the furious animal, which, bleeding from a dagger thrust in its right fore-paw, was angrily crunching in its jaws a piece of brown cloth. At last Bissula, while washing the wound, coaxed it away. Here it is."
He gave it to Saturninus. The Roman General examined it closely.
"This is certainly--but stay! Do you speak first, Rignomer. What do you think it is?"
"A fragment from the hem of a mantle."
"What kind of a mantle?"
"A Roman one: a sagum,"
"Who wear brown mantles--the only ones?"