The worthy pair were now stragglers behind the army, because Aragaris according to his custom had got dead drunk in a plundered village and Strombix had been thrashed. The little Syrian had made a fruitless attempt to obtain the favours of a handsome Frankish girl. This sixteen-year-old-beauty, daughter of a barbarian killed in the fight, had administered to him two such blows that he had fallen on his back and had then fairly stamped upon him. "She wasn't a girl but a devil," declared Strombix. "I hardly took hold of her and she nearly broke every rib in my body." The note of the trumpet became more and more distinct. Aragaris, sniffing the wind like a blood-hound, noticed the smell of smoke; the bivouacs must be but a short way off. The night became pitch dark. They could hardly make out the road; the path was lost in marshes in which they leapt from tussock to tussock. Fog began to rise. Suddenly from a great yew, with branches from which moss hung like long grey beards, something fled away with a harsh cry. Strombix crouched down with fear. It was a black cock. They finally lost their bearings. Strombix climbed a tree. "The bivouacs lie northwards--not far off. There's a wide river below." "The Rhine, the Rhine!" exclaimed Aragaris. "Now go ahead!" They slid down through the birches and aspen trees a hundred years old. "Cousin, I'm drowning!" yelled Strombix. "Somebody's hauling me by the feet!" "Where are you?" With great difficulty Aragaris extricated him, and, swearing, took him on his shoulders. Under his feet the Sarmatian felt the stems of faggots laid down by the Romans. This causeway of faggot work led to the great road hewn not long before through the forest by the army of Severus, Julian's general. The barbarians, according to their custom, had blocked and encumbered the track with enormous trunks of trees. These trunks had to be clambered over. Sometimes rotten, moss-covered, and crumbling under foot, and sometimes hard and slippery with rain, they made the march most difficult; and it was by roads like these, always in fear of an attack, that the army of about thirteen thousand men had to move. That army every Imperial general except Severus had traitorously abandoned. Strombix was cursing his comrade-- "I won't go a step farther, heathen! I'd rather lie down on the dead leaves and die; at least I should not see your damned visage--huh! Unbeliever! It's easy to see that you don't wear the cross! Is it a Christian's business to drag along a road like this, and what are we pushing on to? The rods of the centurion. I won't go a step farther." Aragaris hauled him on by main force, and, when the road became more practicable, carried shoulder-high the whimsical companion who kept abusing and pummelling him all the time and shortly fell soundly asleep on those mighty pagan shoulders.