Thereupon all the Gallic captives, men, women, and children present at the execution, all together repeated the last words of the druids, acclaiming them with so powerful a voice that the air shook even in my prison. After that supreme chant, the three placed their sacred heads in turn upon the block, and went the same way as the elders of Vannes. As the bard's and the druids' heads rolled upon the scaffold, all the captives took up the war-cry of the druids--"Strike the Roman! Strike at the head!"--in a voice so fierce and menacing that the legionaries, lowering their lances, hurriedly surrounded the unarmed and chained prisoners in a circle of iron, bristling with lance heads. But that mighty voice of their brothers and sisters had reached the wounded men shut up in the slave-shed, and all, myself included, answered the refrain: "Strike the Roman! Strike! Strike at the head! Strike the Roman hard!" Thus ended the war in Brittany. Thus ended the call to arms made by the druids from the heights of the sacred rocks of the forest of Karnak, after the sacrifice of Hena--the call to arms that led to the battle of Vannes. But in my lonely cell I did not yet lose hope. Our native Gaul, although invaded on all sides, would still resist. The Chief of the Hundred Valleys, forced to leave Brittany, had gone to arouse the regions still unvanquished. CHAPTER XI. THE SLAVES' TOILET. Night fell, and with it my spirits, in my lonely prison. Hesus! Hesus! I was left to the torture, not alone of my thoughts about my sacred and beloved country, but also of my reflections concerning the misfortunes of my family. Alas, at every wound inflicted upon our country our families bleed. Forcibly resigned to my lot, I little by little regained my natural strength, encouraged each day by the hope of obtaining from the "horse-dealer" some intelligence of my children. I described them to him as accurately as possible. Every day his report was that among the captives seen there were none answering to my description, but that several merchants made a practice of hiding their choice slaves from all eyes until the day of the public sale. The dealer also informed me that the patrician Trymalcion, whose very name now made me shudder with horror, had arrived at Vannes in his galley. The evening before the sale, the dealer entered my room. It was, almost dark. He brought in the meal himself, and waited on me. He brought as an extra a flagon of old Gallic wine. "Friend Bull," said he, with his habitual joviality, "I am satisfied with you. Your skin is almost filled up. You have no more crazy spells of anger, and if you don't appear exceedingly joyous, at least I no longer find you sad and tearful. We will drink this flagon together, to your happy placing with a good master, and to the gain which I shall get by you." "No," I answered, "I shall not drink." "And why not?" "Servitude sours wine, especially the wine of the country where one was born."