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"A line which, setting out from the mouth of the Tann, follows the course of that river, then that of the Rhone, the Iser, the Alps, the Rhine, the Vosges, the Ædnian hills, the Loire, the Vienne, and comes at last to rejoin the Garonne, by turning the plateau of Arvernia: that line would nearly circumscribe the possessions of the Gallic race.
He did full justice to the courage and friendship of the youths, and likewise to the fact that Odorik had provoked the quarrel, and had been slain in fair fight; but the choice lay with the father, and perhaps in his heart the politic Visigoth could not regret that Arvernia should lose a champion sure to stand up for Roman or national claims. Odo listened in silence, leaning on his axe.
"I came not away till his life was secure." "Is it truth?" demanded the old Goth. "Romans have slippery ways." Meinhard was quick to bear testimony that no man in Arvernia doubted the word of an AEmilius; but Marcus, taking a small dagger from his belt, held it out, saying "His son said that he would know this token." Odo felt it.
He had arrived only a day or two previously at the villa, exhausted by his journey, and though declaring that his dear mountain breezes must needs restore him, and that it was a joy to inhale them, yet, as he heard of the oppressions that were coming on his people, the mountain gales could only 'a momentary bliss bestow, and AEmilius justly feared that the decay of his health had gone too far for even the breezes and baths of Arvernia to reinvigorate him.
This was done, and young Lucius also took a summons from the Bishop to the deacons of the Church in the town, authorising the use of the sacred vessels to raise the ransom, but almost all of these had been already parted with in the time of a terrible famine which had ravaged Arvernia a few years previously, and had denuded all the wealthy and charitable families of their plate and jewels.
So much of the spirit of Vercingetorix survived among the remnant of his tribe that Arvernia had never been overrun and conquered, but had held out until actually ceded by one of the degenerate Augusti at Ravenna, and then favourable terms had been negotiated, partly by AEmilius the Senator, as he was commonly called, and partly by the honoured friend who sat beside him, another relic of the good old times when Southern Gaul enjoyed perfect peace as a favoured province of the Empire.
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