They soon learned that there was other work to do.  In a brief time the irrepressible Wittekind was in the field again, with a new levy of Saxons at his back, and the tranquillity of the land, established at such pains, was once more in peril.  Theoderic, one of Charlemagne’s principal generals, hastily marched towards them with what men he could raise, and on his way met the army sent to repel the Slavonians.  They approached the Saxon host where it lay encamped on the Weser, behind the Sundel mountain, and laid plans to attack it on both sides at once.  But jealousy ruined these plans, as it has many other well-laid schemes.  The leaders of the Slavonian contingent, eager to rob Theoderic of glory, marched in haste on the Saxons, attacked them in their camp, and were so completely defeated and overthrown that but a moity of their army escaped from the field.  The appearance of these fugitives in the camp of Theoderic was the first he knew of the treachery of his fellow generals and their signal punishment.

The story of this dreadful event was in all haste borne to Charlemagne.  His army had been destroyed almost as completely as that of Varus on a former occasion, and in nearly the same country.  The distressing tidings filled his soul with rage and a bitter thirst for revenge.  He had done his utmost to win over the Saxons by lenity and kindness, but this course now seemed to him useless, if not worse than useless.  He determined to adopt opposite measures and try the effect of cruelty and severe retribution.  Calling together his forces until he had a great army under his command, he marched into Saxony torch and sword in hand, and swept the country with fire and steel.  All who would not embrace Christianity were pitilessly exterminated.  Thousands were driven into the rivers to be baptized or drowned.  Carnage, desolation, and destruction marked the path of the conqueror.  Never had a country been more frightfully devastated by the hand of war.

All who were concerned in the rebellion were seized, so far as Charles could lay hands on them.  When questioned, they lay all the blame on Wittekind.  He was the culprit, they but his instruments.  But Wittekind had vanished, the protesting chiefs and people were in the conqueror’s hands, and, bent on making an awful example, he had no less than four thousand five hundred of them beheaded in one day.  It was a frightful act of vengeance, which has ever since remained an ineradicable blot on the memory of the great king.

[Illustration:  The baptism of Wittekind.]