There was a great attendance of the Kentish chieftains in the hall of Gerguint and of many from the court, and there was our marriage, and ceremonies by the Druids--whose former power, as well as the length of some few of them, had been curtailed by good King Lud--and abundant feasting and drinking and music by the harpists; and so we two, thus joined before all, found happily what life may hold. The winter passed, and spring came, and in the bursting of stream and bud and song of bird there was not more warmth and glory than in ours. So passed the days. Then, as the summer neared, a pall fell on the land! It was in the air, a vague unrest and dread. There was no frolicking beneath the moon in any of the scattered hamlets; the labourer in the field looked often toward the wood; the hunter moved with senses more alert; the wild beasts themselves one thought were seeking deeper harbourage; it was as if all nature were afraid; the very winds seemed whispering repeatedly, in fear, the one word--“Cæsar!” The alarm had come across the sea from the Veneti. A little vessel of that friendly people had eluded the Roman ships patrolling the Gallic shores, and so reached Britain with news of recent movements of the devastator. He had, it seemed, been engaged in suppressing a revolt of the Treviri, who lay somewhere near the Rhine, but, meanwhile, had given orders that a great number of ships should be made in readiness for his army at a port called Itius, lying nearest to the shores of Britain. That he had it in mind to once more make a descent upon the islanders was, so the Veneti messengers declared, a thing assured. It was this fell news which had sped through Britain and had aroused the sudden dread of which I have already spoken. What time the scathe might come no man could tell. But if there were trembling throughout Britain there came also the courage which goes with desperation. Feuds were forgotten, as were boundaries, and there ensued wide summoning and a gathering of the many princes to consider swiftly what might be done in the impending struggle with the invader. It was agreed that Cadwallon as the chief among the southeastern rulers of the island, and in sort an overlord of some, should have the supreme command, and then the warriors came from every part, ranging themselves under their own leaders and forming, at last, a great force of charioteers and archers and spearmen and hosts of the wild skin-clad forest men, an army numerous as the leaves, but all in bands and with little discipline or order. So in and about the southern hills the great force hung. Then, one day, at noontime, there showed across the sea a mighty spread of sail. Cæsar would strike!