latter saluted respectfully; but the angry Prefect did not, or would
not, see the farewell.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Ever since the preceding day the rain clouds, which had so long densely
veiled the mountain peaks and hung in gray curtains to the shore of the
lake, had grown lighter and lighter. Scattered fragments still floated
over the forest; but the mists were dispersing from Sentis and Toedi.
And before the sun of that day sank behind the wooded heights of the
western shore, it burst through the cloud rack for the first time in a
long while, illumining lake and country for a few minutes with a
blood-red glow. The fishes leaped greedily after the flies which were
sunning themselves in the beams and flew feebly, with damp wings, close
to the surface of the water: then the radiant ball disappeared behind
the long cloud curtain.

The herons flew screaming from the rushes toward the land. The wind
seemed to be rising. The clouds swept across the sky, sometimes in one
direction, sometimes in another. The waves of the lake, obeying the
former course of the wind, rolled in a direction opposite to the clouds
above them.

The Batavian mercenaries of the Lower Rhine were encamped outside of
the northern gate of the camp, the Porta Praetoria, but a little toward
the west. The centurion, a man about forty years old, long in the
service of Rome, who was adorned with neck-chains and various badges of
honor on his breast-plate bestowed for gallant deeds, was fanning the
smoking fire, which they were loath to have die out in the cold damp
woods.

"There!" he muttered, "there it goes. I invoked both gods, Vulcan and
Loki, in vain. Vulcan won't help me, because I am a Barbarian; Loki
because I serve the Romans. We mercenaries no longer have any gods to
aid us, because we belong to no nation."

"Ha, Rignomer," laughed another in the group, a youth whose downy red
beard was just beginning to grow, "I care for only one god among them
all--the god of victory."

"And he, Odin, is the very one who has deserted us, Brinno. Everywhere
the Germans are conquering; that is, the peoples who are fighting
against Rome, not we German mercenaries, who battle for the Caesar. And
in every conflict the men who bleed are we mercenaries."

"Because these cunning Romans always put us in the place which is most
severely threatened," Brinno cried angrily.

"Because Odin is hostile to us," whispered the centurion. "We mus