"This evening we'll say:-- 'Make answer, thou sod, red drenched In the blood of the stranger; Make answer, ye deep-rolling waves of the Rhine; Make answer, ye crows that flutter for carrion, Make answer--make answer! How many were they, These robbers of land, of homes, of wives and of sunshine? Aye, how many were there, Of these blood-thirsty, ravenous Franks?'" And the several detachments of our troops ran up the plateau at the double quick to the refrain of the chant that flew from mouth to mouth until it reached the rearmost ranks. Our army was promptly deployed on the crest of the plateau that dominated the vast plain whose edge was bordered by the curve of the Rhine in the distant horizon. Instead of awaiting the attack from that advantageous position, Victorin wished, by sheer audacity, to terrify the enemy. Despite our numerical inferiority, he issued the orders to pounce down upon the Franks from the crest of our elevated position. At the same moment, the enemy's column, which, deceived by the feigned retreat of our cohorts, had allowed itself to be lured into the defile, was being hurled back into the plain by the Gallic troops which confronted them. Our whole army thereupon reassumed the offensive, and not unlike an avalanche our full forces poured down from the summit of the plateau. The battle began; it was engaged all along the line. I promised Victoria not to leave the side of her son. Nevertheless, such was the impetuosity with which, from the very start of the action, he dashed upon the enemy at the head of a legion of cavalry, that the flux and reflux of the melee at first separated me from him. We were at the time engaged hand to hand with a picked, well mounted and well armed body of Franks. Their soldiers wore neither casque nor cuirass; but their double jackets of hides covered with long hair and their iron-lined fur caps, were the equivalent of our own armor. These Franks fought with fury, often with stupid ferocity. I saw several allow themselves to be killed like animals while, at the hottest of the battle, they madly sought to hack off the head of some fallen Gaul with their axes in order to make to themselves a trophy of the gory spoils. I was defending myself against two of these horsemen, and my hands were full; a third barbarian, a warrior who had been unhorsed and disarmed, clinched my leg and sought to pull me off the saddle, and as he found his efforts vain bit me with such rage in the ankle that his teeth cut through the leather of my gaiter and penetrated to the very bone. Without neglecting my two mounted adversaries, I found time to deal a blow with my mace upon this third Frank's skull. Freed from him, I was vainly endeavoring to discover and join Victorin, when I descried Neroweg, the Terrible Eagle, only a few paces from me, in the melee which his gigantic stature overtowered. At the sight of that man, there