hem. They must not be allowed to reach the lake from
the camp as reinforcements to the defenders of the galleys, but to
increase their alarm. This is your task: Saturninus, if he live, will
make it hard enough for you."

"So my post will be at the southern gate?"

"Yes; and to it I have sent, if by any means she can reach
it--Bissula!"

"Thanks!"

"Do not thank me! For I forbid you to fight for the girl; you must
fight solely for victory. Yet have no anxiety. If she is still alive,
she will be rescued. I have relieved Zercho and Sippilo from every
other duty, and given them only one charge--to find and protect the
young girl. But you I need for higher work. I fear one man only in the
whole army," he added in a lower tone--"Saturninus. He is like the old
leaders they had in their better days, the days of which my grandfather
and father told me with horror, when it was almost impossible for the
most heroic courage to defeat a Roman army. Who knows whether Ebarbold
will strike him down? We must let the King have the first chance; he
has the prior claim: but if the Roman should be the one who survives
and I do not reach and kill him after the King's fall, before you (I
shall make every effort to do it), do you, son of Adalger, provide that
Saturninus shall not lead his army in closed ranks down to the lake:
detain him as long as you can stand."

"As long as I can! But I wondered when you set the fisherman his task.
If the Roman galleys cross the lake here, how can you know whether he
will be able to reach them from the shore? They will anchor, not come
to the land. How is Fiskulf to get from the storming of the Roman camp
here?"

"He will not share the assault," replied Hariowald, laughing, as he
stroked his beard complacently. "And he will not go by land to the
galley, but by the lake."

"Swimming?"

"No, rowing. Know what no one has yet learned; for crowds are
garrulous. Besides the most distant Alemanni districts, I have secretly
won as allies the Hermunduri, who drink the water of the Main, and
induced them to send us reinforcements for this war. You supposed that
the boats in the two forest-covered swamps on the east and west of the
Idisenhang were filled solely with people unable to bear arms, after I
had brought most of the men here? No, my friend! The boats, almost
three hundred, in the two marshes are not empty of men. The women and
children are to be put ashore to-night; more than two thousand Alemanni