Читать книгу Voices from the Dust - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 6

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The circling years rolled, and, despite battle, raid, and deadly ambushment, the great road crept on.

And the proprætor Julius, Octavius Metellus, scarred veteran of the ceaseless wars, minor poet, great soldier, and famous engineer, grey-headed, haggard of face and sterner than of yore, stood in the midst of Augusta, the proud walled city, his officers grouped attentive about him, for he was busied upon many concerns and amongst them the laying out of divers new streets and fortifications.

“Here,” said he, striking heel to ground, “here, as I reckon it, is the very heart of our city as she is and shall be. So here, sirs, will we set up a stone that shall be a notable mark for the measuring of our city to her walls and beyond. So many miles from this stone east or west, north or south, reaching on even unto the very gates of that Rome I shall ne’er see more. Here, then, shall stand yon stone to remain henceforth—ay, long after we are forgot. See to it, sirs, and——”

A trumpet brayed suddenly, armour rang, feet tramped and were still.

“Ah, what’s here? You, Vitellius, go see. Nay, here comes one shall tell us.”

A tall centurion strode up, grimed with battle and dusty from sandal to plume.

“Why, it is Spartacus of the Seventh, I think?”

“The same, sir, with prisoners new taken out o’ the south.”

“Let them approach.”

So came they, a miserable company, battered, bloody, drooping in their bonds, reeling in their gait; one only of whom bore his head proudly aloft, a very tall man he, fair-haired, with fierce blue eyes, who, beholding the grey-headed, lean-faced proprætor, started and glared, his look aflame with sudden, passionate hate.

“Dog of a Roman!” he cried, uplifting chained fists. “I am Bran, King of the Regni, prisoner,—yet unconquered still, scorning Rome and all her works and hating thee, Metellus, in this my death-hour—hating thee in life present and to be! So, thus I spit on and defy thee, Roman dog!”

“Slayer of women!” said Metellus, his haggard brow unruffled, his voice serene. “Truly Death hath found thee. Strike me off his kingly head!”

“Here, sir?” enquired one.

“Indeed! Our stone yonder shall serve, for I must see him die.”

“Watch then, dog!” laughed Bran, turning towards the great stone that lay hard by, a stone something wider and longer than a man. “We Britons die as we live, unfearing. Well, Death taketh us all somewhen, Roman, me to-day, thee hereafter. But somewhere, at some time, we shall live again to hate and fight anew—and next time I’ll watch thee die! So look to it thou Roman dog!”

Then Bran, unclasping from brawny throat his golden torque, cast it aside, glanced up to heaven and round about, laughed defiantly, and falling on his knees before the stone, bowed his unconquered head to the stroke....

And presently they set up the great stone, wet with the blood of the last British King, planting it deep, for the useful purposes of survey: a mark for unborn generations to wonder at, a mark that, broken and battered, stands to-day for each and all to see—the imperishable London Stone.