Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/66

Rh victories. But I was younger then and not long married. Around and before me lay the doubts and dangers of an arduous campaign in an unknown land; so that, under the stars at times, and ever to the accompaniment of the breakers on this rocky shore (it has changed but little), I felt inspired to voice the hopeless valour of the Durotriges."

I suppose my look indicated the blankness of my mind on the subject of the Durotriges.

"The inhabitants of this region—Belgæ our historians deemed them," he explained. "Less capably armed than the similar tribes of Gaul, they vied with them in desperate courage. For three days and three nights the tribesmen here withstood the Second Legion, yielding only foot by foot until they had covered their retirement to their great hill-fortress, two hours' march yonder to the north."

"Maiden Castle!" I exclaimed; for, about eight miles distant from the place we stood on, there exists to this day a stronghold such as he described, a camp so colossal in its scope, so ambitious in its scheme of ramparts, that it is scarcely credible as the achievement of a primitive people, toiling almost literally with their hands alone. Inferior, neither to the Pyramids nor the Sphinx in its solitary grandeur, it would certainly be much visited by our tourists were it but placed say in China or Peru.

"Dunium we called it. There the entire tribe assembled with their flocks and herds well secured, and there they might have held us at bay until we wearied of the siege or until Claudius recalled us, had it not been for one weakness to which the inhabitants of this island were ever prone."

"And that was?" I inquired.

"They were too late, being over-sanguine in a false security. Dunium was feverishly begun, it would appear,