gone forward an immense distance before they could have reached him; and when some fifty javelins were all aimed a little in advance, he stopped his horses, galloping at full speed, and turning them round suddenly, flew off in quite a different direction. When he saw our cavalry in confusion, he rushed into the very midst of us, and with those thriceaccursed scythes at the wheels, mowed us down like grass. I am almost ashamed to say it, but really he twice drove through our ranks, despite all our efforts to oppose him. Nay, what seems almost incredible is, that one of our men having seized his horse's rein, he ran along the pole, and thrust a javelin into the fellow's throat, and regained his seat with perfect ease, while his chariot was in full speed; and when he saw our javelins flying after his chariot, he leaped out amongst us, with no other defence than his bronzed buckler, and laid about him with his sword, like another Cæsar. Our men were panic-struck; they could not be made to believe that they were contending with a mortal, and fled from him as if he had been Mars himself; and it was almost impossible to rally them. Indeed, I feel certain that the day would have been

lost, if our general had not, just at this crisis, sent me up with a fresh detachment, by whom the brave fellow was surrounded, and escape was rendered impossible. However, he was not dismayed, but resolved to sell his life as dearly as possible. We offered to spare it if he would surrender himself peaceably; but he scornfully asked whether we could be such fools as to hope to glut our eyes with the spectacle of himself walking in chains at our triumph. The thought seemed to goad him to madness; he fought tenfold more desperately, -and at last fell, covered with wounds."

CHAPTER IX.

The grey morn

Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke Before the icy wind slow rolls away.

There tracks of blood

Even to the forest's depth, and scattered arms,

And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments

Death's self could change not, mark the dreadful path

Of the outsallying victors.

SHELLEY'S QUEEN MAB.

As Pudens and Linus pursued their way, the former detailing the events of the recent battle, and the latter listening with a tearful eye and a heavy heart to the glorious, but fatal, exploits of Brennus, they approached a large fire, which, like the radiant column that guided the wanderings of the Hebrews of old, had served to direct their benighted steps. Melancholy, indeed, was the spectacle which the lurid glare of this fire revealed to them, and well worthy of being exhibited by such a

light; for this light proceeded from the funeral pyre !

On entering the Roman camp, they found all bustle and activity; for, with the exception of some few who had returned from the pursuit, and who had fallen asleep in the midst of the dead, from sheer exhaustion and fatigue, none were idle.

Some were, with soldiers' stealthy tears, bearing their relatives or comrades to the flames; others were tending the wounded ; some were securing prisoners; and others heaping together the spoil. Here, persons were turning over the heaps of mangled bodies to find their friends; and there two or three were contending for the right of paying the last kind offices to some disfigured corpse, which all claimed, but none could identify.

The battle had been comparatively inconsiderable, as far as the numbers of the contending parties were concerned, but it had been attended with prodigious carnage; for the Britons fought desperately; and after their Prince had been slain, and their King had been defeated, many rushed recklessly upon the swords of the Romans. Some, indeed, not finding their wives and little ones where they

had left them, or where they fancied they had, for in their distraction they often deceived themselves, returned again to the unequal contest; while many of the poor peasantry are even reported to have slain their wives and children, prompted by a mixture of despair and cruel compassion, lest they should fall into the hands of their hardly more merciless victors. As may be supposed, Pudens beheld this scene with emotions which he cared not to manifest, feeling that they could meet with no sympathy in this moment of excitement. It was to him as though one of his friends had slain another equally beloved by him. Neither the victors nor the vanquished were his foes; and when the sounds of preparation for a carouse after victory fell in heart-revolting dissonance upon his ears, he, instinctively as it were, strolled away from the Roman camp, and passed silently and sorrowfully into the deserted quarters of the Britons.

Here all was still as death; for indeed scarce aught but death surrounded him, except that now and then a feeble groan was heard from some indiscriminate heap, where the superincumbent load of chill mortality seemed to press out the waning, but still lingering, life of the