the more he should wonder that such a people should be slaves to
what seemed to him childish superstitions.

The next morning, after a consultation with some of the minor chiefs,
a hundred men were summoned to attend on the following day. They
were picked out from families where there were two or more males
of working age, so that there would be as little disturbance of
labour as possible. It was principally in companies of a hundred
that Beric had seen the Romans exercised, and he had learned every
order by heart from first to last. The manoeuvres to be taught were
not of a complicated nature. To form in fighting order six deep,
and to move in column, were the principal points; but when the next
day the band assembled, Beric was surprised and vexed to find that
the operations were vastly more difficult than he expected. To
begin with, every man was to have his place in the line, and the
tribesmen, though eager to learn, and anxious to please their young
chief, could not see that it mattered in what order they stood.
When, however, having arranged them at first in a line two deep,
Beric proceeded to explain how the spears were to be held, and
in what order the movements were to be performed,--the exercise
answering to the manual and platoon of modern days,--the
tribesmen were unable to restrain their laughter. What difference
could it make whether the hands were two feet apart or three, whether
the spears were held upright or sloped, whether they came down to
the charge one after another or all together? To men absolutely
unaccustomed to order of any kind, but used only to fight each in
the way that suited him best, these details appeared absolutely
ludicrous.

Beric was obliged to stop and harangue them, pointing out to them