The first cohorts of Petulants and the Heruli had departed on the previous night. Their comrades the Celts and Batavians were preparing to follow them. Cintula issued his orders in a peremptory tone. Savage murmurs were running through the crowd. An insubordinate soldier had just been beaten to death. Decensius strode hither and thither, pen behind ear, documents in hand. In the great courtyards, under a dark sky, thick-wheeled covered chariots were waiting for the soldiers' wives and children. Women, parting from the country where they were born, were stretching out their arms to the woods and fields. Others were kissing the maternal soil, and weeping at the thought that their dust should be buried in a strange land. Others, more resigned and sullen in their pain, had wrapped handfuls of earth in little bundles, to carry with them as tokens. A lean dog, with ribs to be counted through his skin, was licking the grease of an axle-tree. Suddenly he darted away and began to howl, muzzle in the dust. Everybody, thrilled by the sound, turned round to watch him. A legionary angrily thrashed the poor beast, who fled into a field with his tail between his legs, and, halting there, renewed his howlings in a yet more plaintive key. This dog's cry, wailing through the impressive silence of the twilight, shook the nerves of all who heard it. The Sarmatian Aragaris belonged to the number chosen to leave the north. He was bidding farewell to the faithful Strombix-- "Oh, cousin, cousin! why are you leaving me?" whined Strombix, between mouthfuls of soup, which Aragaris had given up to him. Grief had taken away his own appetite. "Be quiet, fool!" the consolatory Aragaris was remarking; "there are too many women groaning already!... It would be more useful if you, who belong to the country, would tell me what forests we shall have to pass through?" "What do you mean, cousin? There are no forests there; only sand and rocks." "And how does one get shelter from the sun?" asked the incredulous Aragaris. "It's a desert! It's as hot there as under a cook's oven, and there's not a drop of water." "What! No water? And how about beer?" "They don't even know what beer means!" "You're lying!" "May I be struck blind, cousin, if in all Mesopotamia and Syria you find a keg of beer or of honey." "Then it's all over, brother! If it's hot there, and there's neither water, beer, nor honey, they're simply hunting us to the end of the world like oxen to the slaughter!" "Hunting you on to the horns of the Devil, cousin!" and Strombix wept yet more bitterly. At that moment there came a distant rumble, and din of voices. The two friends ran out of the barracks; a crowd of soldiers were rushing over the wooden bridge towards Lutetia. The cries came nearer; wild agitation seized the garrison; the soldiery poured out upon the road in a dense shouting mass, in spite of the orders, threats, and even blows of the centurions. "What has happened?" asked a veteran.