"Ha!" laughed the young man fiercely, "that a second Emperor may entice away from me a second spouse, as a bishop the first bride, an Emperor the first wife led astray? No! truly there are no more Romans; but still fewer Roman women. Pleasure, love of ornament, and love of power, are the three Graces whom they invoke. Have you ever heard that the priests among these barbarians befool the young girls? or their kings entice wives from the hearths of their free husbands? I have not. But a people without gods, without native warriors, without true wives, without children--such a people can no longer live. A people that has every reason to tremble before its own slaves, ten times more numerous than itself! If thou hadst only seen the murderous dark looks with which the slaves of Zeno, the usurer, threatened their lord and the slave-master, as they were just now driven in chains through the street! But I myself? How stands it with me? I have been everywhere, and held many different offices in Rome, in Ravenna, in Byzantium: soldier, magistrate, writer--all with success; and yet I found it all--vain, hollow. I have tried everything, it is all naught. Now, returned home to the town of my fathers, I find it ruled by a usurer from Byzantium and a sensualist and brawler from Mauritania; and the only one who still makes any opposition to this alliance, is not thou, and not I; we are only two honourable Romans! no: a Christian priest, whose fatherland, as he boasts, is not the Roman Empire, but heaven!--I have had enough of it!--I say it again: a people without gods, without wives, without mothers, without children--a people whose battles are fought by levied barbarians--such a people can no longer live! It must die; and that soon. Come, then, come, ye Alemanni! I cannot swallow hemlock. I will fall with the clang of the tuba, and imagine that I am falling under Camillus or Scipio."
Cornelius was wildly excited. Severus seized him by both shoulders:
"Promise me not to seek death until you see the next battle lost, and that you will be willing to live if we conquer."
Cornelius nodded, sadly smiling, "I think I can boldly promise that. Thou and thy conquering sword--you will no longer keep back the quickly approaching ruin."
At this moment a shrill blast from the tuba struck on their ear. The curtain of the inner bath was torn aside; an armed burgher rushed in and cried: "Hasten, Severus; now they are coming. German horsemen are galloping hither out of the western forest on the other side of the river!"
CHAPTER VII.
With the help of the messenger and the bath attendants, Severus was quickly armed. Accompanied by Cornelius he hastened to the Vindelician gate, there to mount the high wall, which afforded a prospect far and wide. The exertion made him very hot, for it was now mid-day; the burning rays of the sun fell vertically on his heavy helmet.
At the gate he was met by a centurion of the Tribune; Leo had already seen from the Capitol the horsemen swarming out of the western forest. He sent word there were only about a hundred Germans: he would himself immediately lead his cavalry to the gates, for he was able again to mount his horse.
Severus ordered the soldier to follow him for the moment on to the walls. With Cornelius he looked intently over the plain, which stretched from the left farther bank of the river as far as the western forest.
After long observation he turned. He was about to speak to Cornelius; but his eyes fell on two country people who were anxiously looking in the same direction.