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Updated: May 5, 2025
But stopping, he added: "I forgot that I have but one hand left. I cannot climb." The face of the young woman saddened as she replied: "You are suffering, Albinik? Alas, you, thus mutilated!" "Is the sea-wolf caught without a lure?" "No." "Let the fishing be good," answered Albinik, "and I shall not regret having given my hand for bait."
Shortly thereafter, at the moment that Albinik and Meroë, fatigued with their long journey, were about to throw themselves into bed in their clothes, the interpreter appeared at the entry. The uplifted cloth disclosed several Spanish soldiers. "Caesar wishes to converse with you immediately," said the interpreter to the mariner. "Follow me."
"Why have you deserted the Gallic camp!" Albinik answered not a word, but unwrapped the bloody bandage in which his arm was swathed. The Romans then saw that his left hand was cut off. The interpreter resumed: "Who has thus mutilated you?" "The Gauls." "But you are a Gaul yourself?" "Little does that matter to the Chief of the Hundred Valleys."
Thoroughly familiar with these coasts, Albinik discovered, by the size of the gravel and the clearness of the water that covered it, that the sand-bar some paces off was firm. At that point, he and Meroë crossed, wading up to their waists. They reached the rocks on the shore, clambered up nimbly, and then stopped a moment to see if they were pursued.
In his hand he held a short, heavy, two-edged axe. Pointing out this man, the interpreter said to Albinik: "You see that soldier. During the sail he will stick to you like your shadow. If through your fault or by treason, a single one of the galleys grates her keel, he has orders to kill you and your companion on the instant.
When the galleys had pulled out from shore, the praetor, military commandant of the fleet, told Albinik, through an interpreter, to steer for the lower part of the bay of Morbihan, in the neighborhood of the town of Vannes, where the Gallic army was assembled. Albinik with his hand at the tiller was to convey to the interpreter his orders to the master of the rowers.
Perhaps the interpreter would question the Irishman, and he might point out the danger which the fleet ran in taking one of the passages. Albinik therefore gave orders to bend to the oars, in order to get inside the channel of destruction before the Irishman could join the galleys.
I was half clad; they had left me my shirt and breeches, in a secret pocket of which I had hidden the writings of my father and of my brother Albinik, together with the little gold sickle, the gift of my sister Hena. A dressing had been put on my wounds, which no longer occasioned me much pain. I experienced only a great weakness and dizziness which made my last memories a confused mass.
The rowers and the interpreter, seized with fear, remained motionless, not daring to risk certain death in the capture of the fugitives. Feeling safe at last, Albinik addressed these words to the interpreter: "Say thou to Caesar that I maimed myself to inspire him with confidence in the sincerity of my offers of service.
Are you not prisoners at our mercy?" said the interpreter to them, pointing to the soldiers, motionless at the door of the tent. "Willingly or unwillingly, I will be obeyed." Albinik reflected that resistance was impossible. Death he was not afraid of; but to die was to renounce his plans at the moment when they seemed to be prospering.
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