d only to the
flour dust when their owners kneaded dough behind the Forum.

Ahead, around, the standards were tossing as if upon the billows of an
angry sea. Was that a silver horse's head that flashed far to the
right?

"Look!" cried Sergius, striking Decius with his elbow.

"You can see better now," muttered the veteran. "The flour is bread,
and the bread of battle is mire kneaded of dust and blood."

The eyes of Paullus were turned upward in strange prayer.

"Grant me not, O Jupiter, my life this day!"

It needed no eye of veteran to read the sentence that was writ.
Driven, at last, within the rails, as went the saying, there was no
room in all that weltering mass to use the sword, much less the pilum.
On every side the barbarians of Africa, of Spain, of Gaul raged and
slew--for even advance now was checked, and the Celts had turned and
lashed the front with their great swords that rose and fell, crimson to
the hilt, crimson to the shoulder, crimson to every inch of their
wielders' huge bodies. The Spaniards, too, were stabbing fast and
furiously, while all along both flanks the African squares, between
which the weight of the column had forced its narrow length, thrust
with their long sarissas and rained their pila upon the doomed monster
in their midst: a war elephant, wounded to the death, with sides hung
with javelins and streaming with blood, rocking and trumpeting in
helpless agony.

Sergius watched the dull, hopeless look deepening in the eyes of the
young soldiers. They reminded him of the beeves in the shambles of the
elder Varro. Even the voice of Pan could not wake such men. Were they
not there to die for the traditions of Rome? It was true that every
path leading to Pan's country bristled with spears, but only a few
could fully know this, and these awaited their turn with the rest.

The press seemed to loosen somewhat. Perhaps the assailants had drawn
back to gain breath for a final onslaught; but, instinctively, the
staggering lines of the Roman column opened out into the space
afforded, and its four faces writhed forward bravely, pitifully. It
was then that Sergius saw the consul for the last time. He had turned
back from where he had forced his way to the head of the column; his
arms were battered and blood-stained, and he reeled painfully in his
saddle, for Paullus had mounted again, that he might the better be seen
by the legionaries. His wandering eyes took in every detail of the