Spartacus

9S SPARTACUS
standards of Gannicus. ‘Keep fast in your ranks,
retiarius. It is only a ruse.’
Circling like swallows, the horsemen drew off,
leaving here and there a hamstrung horse or a slain
rider. But Gannicus’s ranks were broken, and, looking
up at the words of Crixus, the German slaves beheld
an unexpected sight.
Shielded under the cavalry ruse, Varinus had set
the legion in motion. Rank on rank, steadily, Samnite
shields poised to guard the right breast, and elbows
crooked behind pila for the thrust, they advanced
at a pace that grew ever swifter. Swallows skimmed the
near-by hills, there was a drowsy hum of bees in a
tree, a slave coughed and coughed, with dust in his
throat. The Germans gazed appalled.
In a moment the crash of the Roman attack
echoed up through the valley like the noise of a comber
on a shaking rock. Now the inferiority of the newly
forged long swords of the slaves became plain. Hacking
and hewing, the slaves fell back before the deadly in¬
thrust of the pilum. Cleft through the breast in
the moment of swing or recovery,^ they fell like
butchered cattle. Round on the left wing of the slaves
rode the Roman cavalry again, and the defeat turned
to rout. Screaming, the Germans fled from the terror
of the Masters’ attack.
Crixus sat his horse behind his Gauls and ate
pensively at a handful of plums he had stolen from
an orchard.
‘Were Kleon the Greek here he would tell me that
the battle is lost. But I am no General. Therefore I
think it is won.’
Too late Varinus perceived the same. Like an
avalanche the Gauls, wheeling at the roar of their
horns, fell on the flank of the pursuing Romans, for
Crixus, seeing the lie of the land, had placed them a