groan. He died like a good war-dog, his monstrous head plunged in the
Roman's entrails.[12]

After the death of the two _saldunes_, the defenders of the chariots
fell one by one. My mother Margarid, Martha, Henory, and the young girls
of the family, with burning eyes and cheeks, their hair flying, their
clothes disordered from the struggle, their arms and bosoms half
uncovered, were running fearlessly from one end of the chariot to the
other, encouraging the combatants by voice and gesture, and casting at
the Romans with no feeble or untrained hands short pikes, knives, and
spiked clubs. At last the critical moment came. All the men were killed,
the chariot, surrounded by bodies piled half way up its sides, was
defended only by the women. There they were, with my mother Margarid,
five young women and six maidens, almost all of superb beauty,
heightened by the ardor of battle.

The Romans, sure of this prize of their obscene revels, and wishing to
take it alive, consulted a moment on a plan of attack. I understood not
their words, but from their coarse laugh, and the licentious looks which
they threw upon the Gallic women, there could be no doubt as to the
fate which awaited them. I lay there, broken, pinned fast; breathless,
full of despair, horror, and impotent rage I lay there, seeing a few
steps from me the chariot in which were my mother, my wife, my
children.--Oh, wrathful heavens!--like one unable to awake from a
horrible dream, I lay there condemned to see all, hear all, and yet to
remain motionless.

An officer of savage and insolent mien advanced alone towards the
chariot and addressed to the women some words in the Latin tongue which
the soldiers received with roars of revolting laughter. My mother, calm,
pale, and terrible, exhorted the young women around her to maintain
their self-control. Then the Roman, adding a word or two, closed with an
obscene gesture. Margarid happened at that moment to have in her hand a
heavy axe. So straight at the officer's head she hurled it, that he
reeled and fell. His fall was the signal for the attack. The legionaries
pressed forward to the capture of the chariot. Then the women rushed to
the scythes, which on each side defended the cart, and plied them with
such vigor and harmony, that the Romans, seeing a great number of their
men killed or disabled, conceived a wholesome fear for such terrible
arms, so intrepidly plied. They suspended the attack, and, applying
their lo