Short Fiction - Fyodor Sologub (best romance ebooks .txt) 📗

position in the troop and said in a whisper to his neighbour, also a young man:

“These children are perhaps the offspring of that same rebellious gang. I’d cut them up with joy. Our Centurion has become too sensitive and is losing the true valour of a soldier.”

But his friend replied in displeasure: “Why should we fight with children? What glory would there be in that? It is enough for us to fight with those who can defend themselves.”

Lucillus thereupon turned red and was silent.

The soldiers approached the children. The children ceased their game and stood at the side of the road and gazed at the soldiers, wondering at their fine horses, at their shining armour, their sunburnt faces. They wondered, lisped, stared⁠—stared with widely-opened eyes.

Suddenly one of the children, the beautiful boy Lin, cried out an unexpected word, and his black eyes glowed with sacred rage:

“Murderers!”

And he pointed his little hand at the Centurion, who for his part went past gloomily, not hearing what the child said.

The children, frightened at the words of little Lin, crowded round him and implored him not to say anything more. And they whispered:

“Let’s run, else they’ll kill us all.”

And the girls began to cry. But beautiful Lin got free of the little crowd and fearlessly shook his fist in the faces of the soldiers, and once more cried out:

“Executioners! Torturers of innocent people!”

His black eyes glowed with rage and he repeated his cries:

“Executioners! Executioners!”

The children wailed aloud in order to smother the sound of the boy’s words, and several of them took him by the arms and drew him away, but he broke away from them and turned to the horsemen of the emperor and cursed them once more.

The horsemen stopped, and the youngest of them exclaimed:

“Spawn of unbelievers. They’ve got the taint in their hearts. They ought to be destroyed. There’s no room in the world for those who insult the Roman warrior.”

And even the older soldiers went to the Centurion and said:

“The impudence of these rascals deserves condign punishment. Command us to go after them and slaughter them. We should destroy the unbelievers whilst they are young and weak, for when they grow up they will be capable of combining and doing much damage.”

And the Centurion yielded and said:

“You go after them, kill those who shouted at us and punish the rest, so that they may remember to the end of their days what it means to insult the Roman soldier.”

And the Centurion and the troop of horse turned back and galloped through the dust after the children.

Lin saw the soldiers coming after them and cried to the others:

“Leave me. You cannot save me, but if we all flee together then we shall all be killed by this dishonourable and pitiless troop. I will go and meet them. They will kill me only, and I have no wish to go on living in a world where such ugly things are done.”

Lin stopped, and his tired and frightened companions could not drag him further. They all came to a standstill and the horsemen quickly came up and surrounded them.

The drawn swords gleamed in the sunlight. The children trembled, burst into sobs, and clung close together in a bunch.

The fiery Dragon of the sky urged the soldiers to murder, inflamed their blood, and was ready even to kiss the innocent blood of the children and to breathe his sultry heat upon their dismembered bodies. But the boy Lin came bravely forth from the crowd and thus addressed the Centurion:

“Old man, it was I who called your men murderers and executioners, I who cursed you and called down vengeance from the true lord upon you. These others are only children trembling and weeping. They are afraid that your wicked men will kill them and that they will follow and kill our fathers and mothers. They are submissive unto you. Therefore, if you are not yet sated with murder, kill me only. I am not afraid of you; I hate you. I despise your sword and your unjust sway over our country. I do not wish to live on the earth which is trampled by the horses of your false troops. My hands are weak, and I am not yet tall enough to fight you or I would. So kill me whilst you have the chance.”

The Centurion listened in astonishment, but answered:

“No, cockatrice, not as you will but as I will. You shall die, but not you only.”

And to the troops he said:

“Kill them all. Don’t leave one of the serpent brood alive. The words of this bold boy will have fallen as seed in their hearts. Kill them all without mercy, big and little, babes also.”

The soldiers fell upon them and cut them to bits with their merciless swords. The gloomy valley and the dusty road became tremblingly vocal with children’s shrieks. The misty horizon echoed painfully, and echoed again and was silent. The horses deflated their nostrils and smelt the smoking blood, and with their iron-shod hoofs they trod on the poor bodies.

Then the warriors returned to the road laughing joyfully and cruelly. They hastened homeward to their camp conversing and rejoicing.

But the road went on, still went on dusty as ever, ravaged by the fiery eyes of the Dragon. Afternoon turned to evening and the Dragon effaced himself in shadow, but there came no evening coolness. The wind, as if enchanted by silence and fear, lay asleep. The sultry Dragon sinking into darkness looked in the eyes of the Centurion and seemed to smile a calm and dreadful smile. The twilight was calm and sultry and shadowy; the beat of the horses’ feet was even and rhythmical and drowsy, and the Centurion felt sad at heart.

So measured was the beat of the sounding hoofs, and so grey, so hopeless and unlifting was the column of dust in which they moved, that it seemed as if they were on an endless journey. The greyer became the night the more lonely and remote they seemed,