“Serves the old rascal right. Hope it will sink.”
“It’s sure to sink in those big waves,” said Crassus. “Come on,” and down he went into the quarry, where they looked behind the stone heaps and every place they could think of, in vain. Next some one said that perhaps even now Bevis might be in the sycamores, up in the boughs, so they went there and looked, and actually pushed a soldier up into one tree to see the better. After which they went down to the lower ground and searched along the nut tree hedge, some one side, some another, and two up in the mound itself.
“Wherever can he be?” said Crassus. “It’s extraordinary. And Pompey, too.”
“Both of them nowhere.”
“I can’t make it out. Thrust your sword into those ferns.” So they continued hunting the hedge.
Now the way Val Crassus and his cohort came to hunt for Caesar Bevis was like this: At the moment when Pompey pounced on Caesar, the rest of the Pompeians, a little way off, were scattering before Mark Antony and Scipio Cecil, who had attacked them front and rear. Mark Antony, though he had (to him unaccountably) missed Ted, saw the eagle which he had lost before him, and, calling to Cecil, pursued with fury. So terrific was their onslaught, especially as Scipio’s cohort was quite fresh, that the Pompeians gave way and ran, not knowing where their general was, and some believing they had seen him fly the combat. This pursuit continued for a good distance, almost down to the group of elms to which Bevis and Mark used to run when they came out from their bath.
As the Pompeians ran, Val Crassus, driven along by the throng, caught his foot against one who had tumbled, and fell. When he got up he found the rest had gone on and left him behind with several stragglers who had escaped at the side of the crowd. As he stood, dubious what to do, and looking round for Pompey, several more stragglers gathered about him, till by-and-by he had a detachment. Still he was uncertain what to do, whether to go after Mark and endeavour to check the rout, or whether to stay there and rally the Pompeians, if possible, to him.
By this time the fugitives, with Antony and Scipio hot on their rear, had gone through the gate to which the hollow way or waggon-track led, and were out of sight. Val Crassus moved towards the rising ground to view what happened in the meadows beyond, when two Pompeians came running to him, and said that Pompey had got Caesar Bevis prisoner.
These were the two who had been hoisted up into the sycamore-tree, at Pompey’s order, to slash down at the four defenders. So long as Bevis stood there afterwards watching Scipio drive his recent assailants away, they dared not descend. They had seen Bevis fight like a paladin; and though he was alone they dared not come down. But when Pompey pounced on him, and they went fencing at each other, past the tree, and some distance, they slipped out of the tree, which was very large, but equally short, so that they had not half the depth to fall that Charlie had.
They dreaded to go near the two leaders, for the moment, but watched the main fight, and hesitated to go near it, too, as their friends were in distress. When they turned, Pompey and Caesar were both gone: they looked the other way, and the Pompeians were in full flight. They hid for a few minutes in the bowl-like hollow, where the moor-cock was cooked; and when they ventured to peep out, saw Val Crassus, with the soldiers who had rallied around him. They ran to him with the story of Caesar’s capture, and that Ted was holding him, and could but just manage it.