urned again, and in a longer line--a thicker one; and the light
javelins and naked black bodies had become long, stout spears and
glittering corselets, while at their head rode a slender man with forked
beard, and his black eyes seemed to burn in his head like coals. So,
with one barbaric roar, the whole array poured down over the allied
cavalry, and these were like the dust of the trampled field.

VII.

PUNISHMENT.

Sergius hardly knew what was happening. He was conscious that the
stride of his horse had been checked by a dense mass of plunging
animals in front--a mass that grew more dense and more tangled with
every instant. Those behind were still endeavouring to press forward,
and those in front were hurled back upon them or were striving
frantically to break through the rearmost squadrons and escape; while,
shrill above the clash of arms and the shouts and screams, rose a name
that Sergius found himself listening to with a sort of curious interest.

"Maharbal! Maharbal!" came the cry, nearer and nearer.

At the first moment of the check, Marcus Decius had pushed the sturdy
horse that he rode well to the fore. He saw Hostilius riding back,
waving one arm and crying out incoherent words: his spear was gone, and
the head of a Spaniard's lance had been thrust through his shoulder and
broken off, so that a third of the shaft hung from the wound.

Then what had happened and the hopelessness of it all became apparent.
Like the veriest fools they had ridden into the snare, and Maharbal,
the Carthaginian, with at least two thousand Spanish and African
horsemen, was thundering on their front and flanks: their front--but in
a moment, their rear; for now those who had not been ridden down at the
first onset or become inextricably entangled with their fellows broke
away over the plain, carrying their officers with them in a mad frenzy
of flight; while other Numidians--fresh riders on fresh steeds--urged
the pursuit and smote down the hindermost.

Decius found himself riding in the middle of the press. His face was
as imperturbable as ever, though he glanced over his shoulder from time
to time as if to note how much nearer death had come. Sergius galloped
close behind him, careless and abstracted, his rein lying loose on his
charger's steaming neck. Then, of a sudden, a resolve seemed to come
to him. Straightening himself, he urged the weary horse forward
through the fugitives till he drew up even with Host