ugh the portals of Avernus.

The distance to the heights was not great,--four or five miles at the
utmost,--but half an hour had passed, and still the spectacle, wilder
and more brilliant than ever, remained unexplained. For a stretch of
miles, the hills above, beyond, and below were all ablaze with rushing
flames that seemed guided by no sentient agency; then, suddenly, a
single torch glanced out from a small grove of trees a short distance
ahead and darted diagonally across their path. Decius stopped for an
instant, with trembling knees; but Sergius bounded forward to intercept
the torch-bearer, and the veteran followed from sheer shame.

Up, down to the ground, up again, and then around in frantic waving
circles swept the flame: a mad bellowing rolled through the night,
until the tribune himself almost checked his stride in awe-struck
wonder. The next instant the torch, if torch it was, seemed to
flounder to the earth, from which it rose again and came driving
directly toward him, explained at last,--an ox with a great bundle of
blazing fagots fastened between its horns, blinded, frantic with pain
and terror.

Sergius sprang aside, as the beast dashed by; but Decius, roused once
more to the possibility of independent thought and action, stepped
toward it and, as it passed, plunged his sword between its heaving ribs.

"What now, my master?" he said, flushing with shame at his fears of the
last hour--perhaps the bravest hour of his life. "Does the lying
Carthaginian seek to terrify Quintus Fabius, the dictator, as he
terrified Marcus Decius, the decurion?"

"Yes, truly," replied Sergius, gloomily; "and he will succeed even
better. No general, and, least of all, ours, would lead out his army
in the night against such a spectacle. Come, it is necessary that we
should reach the camp," and, turning once again, they fell to running
in a more southern direction, where a dim glow in the sky seemed to
tell of the watchfires of an army.

At first no sound broke the stillness of the night, save the laboured
breathing of the weary runners and the strokes of their leathern
cothurni upon the hard ground; but soon other noises came to mingle
with these and, at last, to drown them: the lowing of thousands of
cattle, now scattered far and wide over the plain and hillsides, and
then the distant clash of arms and the cries of combatants.

Day began to dawn, just as the fugitives came in sight of the Roman
camp with the arm