It was the horrible reality. Twenty paces from me I saw the car in which my mother, Henory my wife, Martha the wife of Mikael, their children, and several young women and girls of the family had taken refuge. Several men of our kindred and tribe, who had run like myself to the cars, were defending them against the Romans. Among the defenders I saw the two _saldunes_, fastened to each other by the iron chain, the symbol of their pledge of brotherhood. Both were young, beautiful and valiant. Their clothes were in tatters, their heads and chests naked and bloody. But their eyes flashed fire, and a scornful smile played on their lips, as, armed only with their staffs, they fearlessly fought the Roman legionaries sheathed in iron, and the Cretans clad in jackets and thigh-pieces of leather. The large dogs of war, shortly unchained, leaped at the throats of their assailants, often bearing them over backwards with their furious dashes. Their terrible jaws not being able to pierce either helmet or breastplate, they devoured the faces of their victims, killing without once letting go their grips. The Cretan archers, almost without defensive armor, were snatched by the legs, arms, shoulders, anywhere. Each bite of these savage dogs carried away a chunk of bleeding flesh. Several steps from where I lay, I saw an archer of gigantic stature, calm in the midst of the tumult, choose from his quiver his sharpest arrow, lay it on the string of his bow, pull it with a sinewy arm, and take long aim at one of the two chained _saldunes_, who, dragged down by the fall of his comrade, now dead by his side, could only fight on one knee. But so much the more valiantly did he ply his iron-capped staff. He swung it before him with such tireless dexterity that for some time none dared to brave its blows, for each stroke carried death. The Cretan archer, waiting for the proper moment, was again aiming at the _saldune_, when old Deber-Trud bounded forth. Held tight where I lay under the heap of dead which was crushing me, unable to move without causing intense pain in my wounded thigh, I summoned all my remaining strength to cry out: "Hou! Hou! Deber-Trud--at the Roman." The dog, increasingly excited by my voice, which he recognized, dashed with one bound upon the Cretan, at the moment when the arrow hissed from the string, and buried itself, still quivering, in the stalwart breast of the _saldune_. With this new wound his eyes closed, his heavy arms let fall the staff, his other knee gave way, his body sank to the ground; but by a last effort, the _saldune_ rose on both knees, snatched the arrow from the wound, and threw it back at the Roman legionaries, calling in a voice still strong, and with a smile of supreme contempt: "For you, cowards, who shelter your fear and your bodies under plates of iron. The breastplate of the Gaul is his naked bosom."[11] And the _saldune_ fell dead upon the body of his brother-in-arms.