Syomara, who cut off the head of the Roman who
ravished her, and carrying the head under the skirt of her robe to her
husband, said to him these proud and chaste words: 'No two men living
can boast of having possessed me!' Why did I not yield to Caesar?"

"Meroe!"

"Perhaps you would then have been avenged! faint heart! weak spirit!
Must then the outrage be completed, the ignominy swallowed, before your
anger is kindled?"

"Meroe, Meroe!"

"It is not enough for you, then, that the Roman has proposed to your
wife to sell herself, to deliver herself to him for gifts? It is to your
wife--do you hear!--to your wife, that Caesar made that offer of shame!"

"You speak true," answered the mariner, feeling anger fire his heart at
the memory of these outrages, "I was a spiritless fellow----"

But his companion went on with redoubled bitterness:

"No, I see it now. This is not enough. I should have died. Then perhaps
you would have sworn vengeance over my body. Oh, they arouse pity in
you, these Romans, of whom we wish to make an offering to the gods! They
are not accomplices to the crime which Caesar attempted, say you?
Answer! Would they have come to my aid, these soldiers, these brave
warriors, if, instead of relying on my own courage and drawing my
strength from my love for you, I had cried, implored, supplicated,
'Romans, in the name of your mothers, defend me from the lust of your
general'? Answer! Would they have come at my call? Would they have
forgotten that I was a Gaul--that Caesar was Caesar? Would the 'generous
hearts' of these brave fellows have revolted? After rape, do not they
themselves drown the infants in the blood of their mothers?----"

Albinik did not allow his companion to finish. He blushed at his lack of
heart. He blushed at having an instant forgotten the horrible deeds
perpetrated by the Romans in their impious war. He blushed at having
forgotten that the sacrifice of the enemies of Gaul was above all else
pleasing to Hesus. In his anger, he rang out, for answer, the war song
of the Breton seamen, as if the wind could carry his words of defiance
and death to Caesar where he stood on the bank:

Tor-e-benn! Tor-e-benn![4]
As I was lying in my vessel I heard
The sea-eagle calling, in the dead of night.
He called his eaglets and all the birds of the shore.
He said to them as he called:
'Arise ye, all--come--come.
It is no longer the putrid flesh of the dog or sheep