But little recked I of it all. I only sought and slew with my hardened following. Then, later, fell Avaricum, and Cæsar, his army fed and rested, turned toward Vercingetorix, who, after some well fought but unavailing battles, entrenched himself in the city of Alesia, where he awaited the issues. Alesia was a town of the Mandubii and one well fortified and of importance, founded anciently, it was related, as a trading-place of the Phœnicians. It lay upon the flat crest of a great hill, almost a mountain, and was protected on two sides by the rivers Lutosa and Osera. In the front the mountain sloped down into a plain a league in width, behind which, at some distance, rose other hills which surrounded the plain completely. The army of Vercingetorix now occupied the wide slope of the city’s hill down to the plain and had made before it a long deep trench and a stone wall the height of a man throughout. Upon the plain and nearer the hills were arrayed the Romans, who began at once a gigantic work of encircling fortifications such as I had never seen before and which gave me new comprehension of the utter inflexibility and hungry and all-conquering resolve of this great Cæsar. None other could have devised so vast a plan, and by no other army than his could it be executed. The inner circuit of this enclosing zone was a full ten miles in length and, gigantic as was the work, there was built in front of it a trench twenty feet in depth and of the same width, and, within this and nearer the fortifications, two other trenches each fifteen feet deep and wide, and filled with water let in from the river. All this was as a hindrance and protection against any sudden sally by the Gauls, of whom there were with Vercingetorix some hundred thousand. Not only this, but, at a distance and in the rear of Cæsar’s army, was erected another and longer line of defense against the Gauls elsewhere, who were rallying in great numbers to come to Vercingetorix’s assistance. I had somewhere heard a strange tale of a huge serpent which had coiled its vast length around an Afric village and engulfed the starving groups as they came forth in desperation, and the thought came to me again with this coiling of the awaiting serpent, Cæsar. There were sharp conflicts as the work progressed, for we made frequent sallies from our wall, and there was one fight of the cavalry which caused great loss on both sides and might have ended still more hardly for the Romans had not Cæsar sent to their aid a great force of the Germans who were with him, and who fought solidly and well together. Much it enraged me to behold these Germans, for they were somewhat of the same blood as my own.