266 The Arch-Druid : [SEPT. 



Mountains ; and whenever the Roman squadrons encamped for the 

 night, her troops rarely failed to cut off the stragglers. Sergius Publi- 

 cola was naturally maddened by this teasing hostility. In vain, how- 

 ever, he dispatched cohort after cohort in pursuit. No traces could be 

 found of the foe, who remained securely sheltered in their mountain and 

 forest recesses. 



Such was the posture of affairs, when one morning a loud shout in the 

 camp apprized Sergius that something unusual had occurred. On rush- 

 ing out to ascertain the cause of the uproar, he was met outside his tent 

 by a band of soldiers bearing with them, as captives, Caradoc and Car- 

 tismandua. As the Dacian listened to the details of the capture of these, 

 his two bitterest enemies, his soul sprang to his eyes in rapture. The 

 chief obstacles to his supremacy were now in his power. What, then, 

 should prevent him from confirming himself in the possession of at least 

 South Wales ? For a few minutes he stood like one " demented," as 

 these dreams of conquest passed before him ; then, suddenly starting 

 from his reverie, re-entered his tent, and beckoned his satellites to 

 follow. 



Here, throwing himself along his military couch, he cast a stern 

 eye on the prisoners. The man possessed apparently little besides 

 youth, and a certain noble air of hauteur, to recommend him : but 

 his wife, in addition to her beauty, seemed to concentrate all the 

 haughtiness of a high-born race in her single person. Her step was 

 proud, as if she disdained the very earth she trod on ; her person 

 slender, but majestic, and fashioned in the finest mould of sym- 

 metry ; her hair black as the brow of midnight ; her countenance pale 

 and oval ; her lip restless, and expressive of profound sensibility ; her 

 eye dark full piercing but rendered eloquently feminine by the 

 occasional gleams of gentleness and melancholy that shot forth from 

 under the long fringe of its lashes. At any other period, she might 

 possibly have inspired her conqueror with feelings akin to softness ; but 

 now austerer thoughts engrossed him, and he beheld in Cartismandua, 

 not the captive queen and beauty, but the unwearied and therefore 

 detested enemy. 



(t For you," he said, turning a vindictive glance on Caradoc, " the 

 fate of a rebel is reserved. But I war not with woman, and your wife 

 there is free to depart ; at least" he added, with insulting bitterness 

 " when she has received sufficient warning from the sight of her hus- 

 band's punishment. What, ho ! there ;" and at the sound of their com- 

 mander's voice, his guards stepped forward, and by his directions drag- 

 ged the captives towards an open space, encircled by the Roman 

 encampment. The Dacian himself followed, and having taken his sta- 

 tion in front of a squadron drawn up for the occasion, declared aloud, 

 that as Caradoc had been found in arms against his only legitimate 

 sovereign the Emperor, he was no prisoner of war, but an arch rebel 

 and traitor ; that as such, his back should be forthwith submitted to the 

 scourge, and he himself be detained a slave among the refuse of the 

 camp till the emperor's pleasure should be known. 



" Let me die," said the British prince, as he heard this harsh sen- 

 tence ; " let me die, I implore you, like a warrior ; I will meet death 

 without a sigh, but let me not be exposed to the mockery of your whole 

 camp." 



A scornful laugh from Sergius, and a shout from his ferocious soldiery 



