Part 19 (1/2)

One of the young officers with Suetonius had taken a great fancy to Beric, and frequently invited him to spend the evening with him at their halting places. When they approached Ma.s.silia he said, ”I have some relations in the city, and I will obtain leave for you to stay with me at their house while we remain in the town, which may be for some little time, as we must wait for s.h.i.+pping. My uncle is a magistrate, and a very learned man. He is engaged in writing a book upon the religions of the world, and he seldom remains long at any post. He has very powerful friends in Rome, and so is able to get transferred from one post to another. He has been in almost every province of the empire in order to learn from the people themselves their religions and beliefs. I stayed with him for a month here two years since on my way to Britain, and he was talking of getting himself transferred there, after he had been among the Gauls for a year or two; but his wife was averse to the idea, protesting that she had been dragged nearly all over the world by him, and was determined not to go to its furthest boundaries. But I should think that after the events of the last year he has given up that idea. I know it will give him the greatest possible pleasure to converse with one who can tell him all about the religions and customs of the Britons in his own language.”

Ma.s.silia was by far the largest city that the Britons had entered, and they were greatly surprised at its magnitude, and at the varieties of people who crowded its streets. Even Boduoc, who professed a profound indifference for everything Roman, was stupefied when he saw a negro walking in the train of a Roman lady of rank.

”Is it a human being, think you,” he murmured in Beric's ear, ”or a wild creature they have tamed? He has not hair, but his head is covered with wool like a black sheep.”

”He is a man,” Beric replied. ”Across the sea to the south there are brown men many shades darker than the people here, and beyond these like lands inhabited by black men. Look at him showing his teeth and the whites of his eyes. He is as much surprised at our appearance, Boduoc, as we are at his. We shall see many like him in Rome, for Pollio tells me that they are held in high estimation as slaves, being good tempered and obedient.”

”He is hideous, Beric; look at his thick lips. But the creature looks good tempered. I wonder that any woman could have such an one about the house. Can they talk?”

”Oh, yes, they talk. They are men just the same as we are, except for their colour.”

”But what makes them so black, Beric?”

”That is unknown; but it is supposed that the heat of the sun, for the country they inhabit is terribly hot, has in time darkened them. You see, as we have gone south, the people have got darker and darker.”

”But are they born that colour, Beric?”

”Certainly they are.”

”If a wife of mine bore me a child of that colour,” Boduoc said, ”I would strangle it. And think you that it is the heat of the sun that has curled up their hair so tightly?”

”That I cannot say--they are all like that.”

”Well, they are horrible,” Boduoc said positively. ”I did not think that the earth contained such monsters.”

Soon after the captives were lodged in a prison, Pollio came to see Beric, and told him that he had obtained permission for him to lodge at his uncle's house, he himself being guarantee for his safe custody there; accordingly they at once started together.

The house was a large one; for, as Pollio had told Beric by the way, his uncle was a man of great wealth, and it was a matter of constant complaint on the part of his wife that he did not settle down in Rome. Pa.s.sing straight through the atrium, where he was respectfully greeted by the servants and slaves, Pollio pa.s.sed into the tablinum, where his uncle was sitting writing.

”This is the guest I told you I should bring, uncle,” he said. ”He is a great chief, young as he looks, and has given us a world of trouble. He speaks Latin perfectly, and you will be able to learn from him all about the Britons without troubling yourself and my aunt to make a journey to his country.”

Norba.n.u.s was an elderly man, short in figure, with a keen but kindly face. He greeted Beric cordially.

”Welcome, young chief,” he said. ”I will try to make your stay here comfortable, and I shall be glad indeed to learn from you about your people, of whom, unfortunately, I have had no opportunity hitherto of learning anything, save that when I journeyed up last year to the northwest of Gaul, I found a people calling themselves by the same name as you. They told me that they were a kindred race, and that your religion was similar to theirs.”

”That may well be,” Beric said. ”We are Gauls, though it is long since we left that country and settled in Britain. It may well be that in some of the wars in the south of the island a tribe, finding themselves overpowered, may have crossed to Gaul, with which country we were always in communication until it was conquered by you. We certainly did not come thence, for all our traditions say that the Iceni came by s.h.i.+p from a land lying due east from us, and that we were an offshoot of the Belgae, whose country lay to the northwest of Gaul.”

”The people I speak of,” the magistrate said, ”have vast temples constructed of huge stones placed in circles, which appear to me to have, like the great pyramids of Egypt, an astronomical signification, for I found that the stones round the sacrificial altars were so placed that the sun at its rising threw its rays upon the stone only upon the longest day of summer.”

”It is so with our great temples,” Beric said; ”and upon that day sacrifices are offered. What the signification of the stones and their arrangements is I cannot say. These mysteries are known only to the Druids, and they are strictly preserved from the knowledge of those outside the priestly rank.”

”Spare him for today, uncle,” Pollio said laughing. ”We are like, I hear, to be a fortnight here before we sail; so you will have abundant time to learn everything that Beric can tell you. I will take him up now, with your permission, and introduce him to my aunt and cousins.”

”You will find them in the garden, Pollio. Supper will be served in half an hour. Tomorrow, Beric, we will, after breakfast, renew this conversation that my feather brained young nephew has cut so short.”

”My Aunt Lesbia will be greatly surprised when she sees you,”

Pollio laughed as they issued out into the garden. ”I did not see her until after I had spoken to my uncle, and I horrified her by telling her that the noted British chief Beric, who had defeated our best troops several times with terrible slaughter, was coming here to remain under my charge until we sail for Rome. She was shocked, considering that you must be a monster of ferocity; and even my pretty cousins were terrified at the prospect. I had half a mind to get you to attire yourself in Roman fas.h.i.+on, but I thought that you would not consent. However, we shall surprise them sufficiently as it is.”

Lesbia was seated with her two daughters on couches placed under the shade of some trees. Two or three slave girls stood behind them with fans. A dalmatian bore hound lay on the ground in front of them. Another slave girl was singing, accompanying herself on an instrument resembling a small harp, while a negro stood near in readiness to start upon errands, or to fetch anything that his mistress might for the moment fancy. Lesbia half rose from her reclining position when she saw Pollio approaching, accompanied by a tall figure with hair of a golden colour cl.u.s.tering closely round his head. The Britons generally wore their hair flowing over their shoulders; but the Iceni had found such inconvenience from this in making their way through the close thickets of the swamps, that many of them--Beric among the number--had cut their hair close to the head. With him it was but a recurrence to a former usage, as while living among the Romans his hair had been cut short in their fas.h.i.+on. The two girls, who were fifteen and sixteen years old, uttered an exclamation of surprise as Beric came near, and Lesbia exclaimed angrily:

”You have been jesting with us, Pollio. You told me that you were going to bring Beric the fierce British chief here, and this young giant is but a beardless lad.”