They were late in
arriving. The thirty days had passed, and there were no signs of the
coming deliverers. Eager eyes were straining from the heights of the
plateau; but nothing was seen save the tents of the legions or the busy
units of men at work on the walls and trenches. Anxious debates were held
among the beleaguered chiefs. The faint-hearted wished to surrender before
they were starved. Others were in favor of a desperate effort to cut their
way through or die. One speech Caesar preserves for its remarkable and
frightful ferocity. A prince of Auvergne said that the Romans conquered to
enslave and beat down the laws and liberties of free nations under the
lictors' axes, and he proposed that sooner than yield they should kill and
eat those who were useless for fighting.
Vercingetorix was of noble nature. To prevent the adoption of so horrible
an expedient, he ordered the peaceful inhabitants, with their wives and
children, to leave the town. Caesar forbade them to pass his lines.
Cruel--but war is cruel; and where a garrison is to be reduced by famine
the laws of it are inexorable.
But the day of expected deliverance dawned at last. Five miles beyond the
Brenne the dust-clouds of the approaching host were seen, and then the
glitter of their lances and their waving pennons. They swam the river.
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