"Meroe," answered Albinik with a sigh, "then, after ending our lives here, even as the soldiers, brave warriors after all, we shall be resurrected elsewhere with them. They will say to me: 'It was not through bravery, with the lance and the sword, that you overcame us. No, you slew us without a combat, by treason. You watched at the rudder, we slept in peace and confidence. You steered us on the rocks--in an instant the sea swallowed us. You are like a cowardly poisoner, who would send us to our death by putting poison in our food. Is that an act of valor? No, no longer do you know the open boldness of your fathers, those proud Gauls who fought us half naked, who railed at us in our iron armor, asking why we fought if we were afraid of wounds or death.'" "Ah!" exclaimed Meroe, sadly and bitterly, "Why did the druidesses teach me that a woman ought to escape the last outrage by death! Why did your mother Margarid tell us so often, as a noble example to follow, the deed of your grandmother Syomara, who cut off the head of the Roman who ravished her, and carrying the head under the skirt of her robe to her husband, said to him these proud and chaste words: 'No two men living can boast of having possessed me!' Why did I not yield to Caesar?" "Meroe!" "Perhaps you would then have been avenged! faint heart! weak spirit! Must then the outrage be completed, the ignominy swallowed, before your anger is kindled?" "Meroe, Meroe!" "It is not enough for you, then, that the Roman has proposed to your wife to sell herself, to deliver herself to him for gifts? It is to your wife--do you hear!--to your wife, that Caesar made that offer of shame!" "You speak true," answered the mariner, feeling anger fire his heart at the memory of these outrages, "I was a spiritless fellow----" But his companion went on with redoubled bitterness: "No, I see it now. This is not enough. I should have died. Then perhaps you would have sworn vengeance over my body. Oh, they arouse pity in you, these Romans, of whom we wish to make an offering to the gods! They are not accomplices to the crime which Caesar attempted, say you? Answer! Would they have come to my aid, these soldiers, these brave warriors, if, instead of relying on my own courage and drawing my strength from my love for you, I had cried, implored, supplicated, 'Romans, in the name of your mothers, defend me from the lust of your general'? Answer! Would they have come at my call? Would they have forgotten that I was a Gaul--that Caesar was Caesar? Would the 'generous hearts' of these brave fellows have revolted? After rape, do not they themselves drown the infants in the blood of their mothers?----"