A year after this night Cæsar had put an end to Gaulish liberty. The strength, the courage and the heroic resistance of this great people whose ancestors had in one of their daring wanderings over Europe encamped on the ruins of Rome, was now crushed under the fortune and genius of the conqueror. By the glare of vast conflagrations, Belgium, the perpetual focus of revolt against oppression, was traversed by three Roman armies, and bridges thrown over the Scheldt opened the passage to the country of the Menapians. One day a detached company of the legion of the vanguard followed the banks of the river, guided, it is said, by a mysterious being. Twice the sun had sunk to rest without their returning. German horsemen sent on their track towards the middle of the night were stopped at the sight of a strange spectacle. Raging flames agitated by the wind were devouring the foundations of a tower which had protected a castle of colossal proportions. The ground was lit by the glare of the fire and strewn with the dead bodies of the Roman soldiers. In the midst of them, on a mound of the dead, was stretched motionless, covered with wounds, pierced all over by darts, the enormous body of a giant. From one of his huge arms, from which the hand was severed, ran on the ground a rivulet of black blood. Over his head bent a warrior. After some moments of suspense the eyes of the giant opened. The warrior instantly raised himself, parting his long, flowing hair from off his pale and beautiful face. Then his eyes suddenly flashed with extraordinary brightness--he approached near to the monster's ear, shouting out these words:-- "Antigon! Antigon! I must call loudly, is it not true?--so that thine ear may catch the sound? Well, now listen to me, Antigon! Oh! thou art not quite dead, thou canst yet understand and remember! A year has elapsed since--truly, truly, thy wounds are ghastly and bleeding and sweet to look upon!--Yes, it was on a summer night, two lovers floated together on the river. Oh! thy den was not as bright as this night--Two lovers thou knowest!--two lovers who only spoke of love, their hearts filled with gentle thoughts. Look, look, how well one sees one's shadow here in thy blood.--One of the two lovers was a bard. Oh! oh! thy dying eyes flash! Thou didst kill him, and the other--But where are thy terrible hands, Antigon? The other, that feeble woman--Thou hearest me? She lives to avenge him!"