Boys -- Juvenile fiction; England -- Juvenile fiction
As the Pompeians ran, Val Crassus, driven along by the throng, caught
his foot against one who had tumbled, and fell. When he got up he found
the rest had gone on and left him behind with several stragglers who had
escaped at the side of the crowd. As he stood, dubious what to do, and
looking round for Pompey, several more stragglers gathered about him,
till by-and-by he had a detachment. Still he was uncertain what to do,
whether to go after Mark and endeavour to check the rout, or whether to
stay there and rally the Pompeians, if possible, to him.
By this time the fugitives, with Antony and Scipio hot on their rear,
had gone through the gate to which the hollow way or waggon-track led,
and were out of sight. Val Crassus moved towards the rising ground to
view what happened in the meadows beyond, when two Pompeians came
running to him, and said that Pompey had got Caesar Bevis prisoner.
These were the two who had been hoisted up into the sycamore-tree, at
Pompey’s order, to slash down at the four defenders. So long as Bevis
stood there afterwards watching Scipio drive his recent assailants away,
they dared not descend. They had seen Bevis fight like a paladin; and
though he was alone they dared not come down. But when Pompey pounced
on him, and they went fencing at each other, past the tree, and some
distance, they slipped out of the tree, which was very large, but
equally short, so that they had not half the depth to fall that Charlie
had.
They dreaded to go near the two leaders, for the moment, but watched the
main fight, and hesitated to go near it, too, as their friends were in
distress. When they turned, Pompey and Caesar were both gone: they
looked the other way, and the Pompeians were in full flight. They hid
for a few minutes in the bowl-like hollow, where the moor-cock was
cooked; and when they ventured to peep out, saw Val Crassus, with the
soldiers who had rallied around him. They ran to him with the story of
Caesar’s capture, and that Ted was holding him, and could but just
manage it.
Val Crassus immediately hastened to the sycamores, but when he arrived,
found no one, for Pompey had fled, and Bevis was on the flake. Val
turned angrily on the two who had brought him this intelligence, but
they maintained their story, and being now in for it, added various
other particulars; how Caesar had got up once, and how Ted pulled him
down again, so that, most likely, Bevis had got away again, and Ted was
chasing him.
Crassus shouted, but received no answer; then he went through the firs,
and came back to the sycamores, and next to the quarry, where he stood
within a yard or two of Bevis without seeing him. Unable to discover
either Pompey or Bevis, Crassus was now minutely searching the broad
mound of the nut tree hedge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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