Saturninus cast one more glance at the top of the wall: countless bands of Barbarians were appearing on it. Then, in a voice whose tones rang above the din of battle, he shouted the order: "Leave the camp! Follow this standard! To the Porta Decumana! Close ranks! If you open them, you will be lost!" These words had their effect. Often had these soldiers proved that this solid closing of their ranks was the best, nay, the only means of repelling the assault of the Germans. The hope of reaching their comrades on the ships revived their courage; retreating toward the south, fighting as they marched, they followed their trusted leader. The pursuers from the north and east pressed hotly upon them; but the Romans moving southward received considerable reënforcements from the east and the west, where the cross streets from both sides ran into the one extending from north to south--the Via Media. Meanwhile the troops defending the eastern and western gates had heard the war-cry of the Alemanni within the camp and the shouts of their own fugitives, and giving up the hopeless resistance, they thronged, according to a standing rule in the camp, into the long central street which led to the Porta Decumana, the gate assigned for the Roman line of retreat. True, the troops from the western gate, where the assailants had already made considerable progress, poured down in great confusion; but Dedus and Ausonius led the legionaries of the Twenty-second Cohort from the eastern gate in good order. Saturninus saw the two leaders from the distance, but separated by the whole flood of marching men, they could not meet. So the columns, overtaken and pressed by the Barbarians only in the rear, gradually reached in better order the spot where the Via Principalis, near the Decumanian Gate, intersected the long central street leading to it. Here all the baggage, with many hundred carts and wagons, was piled together. Such a barricade, a valuable defence to German bands on the migrations, was the most dangerous obstacle and interruption to the Roman order of marching and fighting; for no matter whether the attempt to pass was made by going around or climbing over it, in either case the firmly closed ranks were broken into little groups, nay sometimes even separated into individual warriors, who were forced to press forward or climb over the wagons one behind another. But the old Duke had not studied the plan of the camp in vain: he had noted accurately where the baggage, the carts and wagons were placed, and eagerly distributed all the bands of his men who poured toward him. They came from the three gates north, west, and east, which they had long since forced open, and they passed through the streets of the camp in such a manner, as they pressed forward in pursuit, that they pushed from all sides down the long and the cross streets upon the fugitives, just at this exact point. CHAPTER L.