ll took place under my own eyes--I saw
it all. Were I to have lived all the days I am to live in the next world
and into all infinity, yet will the remembrance of that frightful day,
and of the days; that followed it, be ever vivid before me, as vivid as
it is now, as it was, and as it ever will be.

Joel my father, Margarid my mother, Henory my wife, my two children
Sylvest and Syomara, as well as my brother Mikael the armorer, his wife
Martha, and their children, to mention only our nearest relatives, had,
like all the rest of our tribe, gathered in the Gallic camp. Our war
chariots, covered with cloth, had served us for tents until the day of
the battle at Vannes. During the night, the council, called together by
the Chief of the Hundred Valleys, and Tallyessin, the oldest of the
druids, had met. Several mountaineers of Ares, mounted on their tireless
little horses, were sent out in the evening to scout the area of the
conflagration. At dawn they hastened back to report that at six leagues'
distance from Vannes they saw the fires of the Roman army, encamped that
night in the midst of the ruins of the town of Morh'ek. The Chief of the
Hundred Valleys concluded that Caesar, to escape from the circle of
devastation and famine that was drawing in closer and closer upon his
army, had left the wasted country behind him by forced marches, and
intended to offer battle to the Gauls. The council resolved to advance
to meet Caesar, and to await him on the heights which overlooked the
river Elrik. At break of day, after the druids had invoked the blessings
of the gods, our tribe took up its march for its post in the battle.

Joel, mounted on his high-mettled stallion Tom-Bras, commanded the
_Mahrek-Ha-Droad_,[5] of which myself and my brother Mikael were
members, I as a horseman, Mikael as a foot-soldier. According to the
custom of the army, it was our duty to fight side by side, I on
horse-back, he afoot, and mutually support each other. The war chariots,
armed with scythes at the hubs, were placed in the center of the army,
with the reserve. In one of them were my mother and wife, the wife of
Mikael, and our children. Some young lads, lightly armed, surrounded the
chariots and were with difficulty holding back the great war-dogs,
which, after the example of Deber-Trud, the man-eater, were howling and
tugging at their leashes, already scenting battle and blood. Among the
young men of the tribe who were in the array, were two wh