But, stepping carefully out from the door of the Basilica, he saw at the corner of the great square whole swarms, yes, hundreds of Germans, on foot--not the few horsemen whom they had so long observed--and they were advancing straight towards the church.
"To fight one's way through! Impossible! Back! through the priest's house!"
He fled through the nave of the church, past the still raised stone slab into the house of Johannes. But the noise came towards him in that direction also, loud laughing and shouting, and he saw approaching a crowd of Germans with a stout Roman at their head, whom they had heavily laden with wine-skins.
As quickly as his heavy armour would allow him, he turned back into the Basilica, sprang--this seemed the only possible place of safety--into the open vault, pulled down the stone slab, and immediately heard the Germans pouring into the church through both entrances. Shouting and exulting the conquerors greeted each other over the head of the imprisoned commandant of Juvavum.
CHAPTER XIV.
We will join the drinking Germans above, rather than the Tribune raging in impotent wrath below the marble floor.
"Welcome in victory, ye brave Bajuvaren!"
"For that we thank you, ye clever Alemanni!"
"Did we not entice them out well?" said another comrade in arms. "First of all we--that is, Liuthari, our famous king's famous son, and two of his followers--surprised a post of five Moorish horsemen, whom the Tribune of the Capitol had sent out against us as spies. But we know the forests better than those brown Africans. Four were dead, or prisoners, before they were aware of it. One escaped--alas! But it seems he was not able to tell much. Then a little company of us slipped across the river--an Alemannian horse can swim like a swan--and galloped to you Bajuvaren in the eastern mountains, in order that at the right time the call of the heron should be answered by the cry of the eagle."
"And this time you also, ye heavy-stepping Bajuvaren, contrary to your manner and custom, actually came at the right time," teased Suomar, another Alemannian.