a very few attendants.  Instead of making use of his ordinary equipage, the parading of which would have attracted attention to his movements, he had some mules taken from a neighboring bake-house, and harnessed into his chaise.  There were torch-bearers provided to light the way.  The cavalcade drove on during the night, finding, however, the hasty preparations which had been made inadequate for the occasion.  The torches went out, the guides lost their way, and the future conqueror of the world wandered about bewildered and lost, until, just after break of day, the party met with a peasant who undertook to guide them.  Under his direction they made their way to the main road again, and advanced then without further difficulty to the banks of the river, where they found that portion of the army which had been sent forward encamped, and awaiting their arrival.

[Illustration:  CROSSING THE RUBICON]

[Sidenote:  Caesar at the Rubicon.] [Sidenote:  His hesitation at the river.]

Caesar stood for some time upon the banks of the stream, musing upon the greatness of the undertaking in which simply passing across it would involve him.  His officers stood by his side.  “We can retreat now” said he, “but once across that river and we must go on.”  He paused for some time, conscious of the vast importance of the decision, though he thought only, doubtless, of its consequences to himself.  Taking the step which was now before him would necessarily end either in his realizing the loftiest aspirations of his ambition, or in his utter and irreparable ruin.  There were vast public interests, too, at stake, of which, however he probably thought but little.  It proved, in the end, that the history of the whole Roman world, for several centuries, was depending upon the manner in which the question new in Caesar’s mind should turn.

[Sidenote:  Story of the shepherd trumpeter.]

There was a little bridge across the Rubicon at the point where Caesar was surveying it.  While he was standing there, the story is, a peasant or shepherd came from the neighboring fields with a shepherd’s pipe—­a simple musical instrument, made of a reed, and used much by the rustic musicians of those days.  The soldiers and some of the officers gathered around him to hear him play.  Among the rest came some of Caesar’s trumpeters, with their trumpets in their hands.  The shepherd took one of these martial instruments from the hands of its possessor, laying aside his own, and began to sound a charge—­which is a signal for a rapid advance—­and to march at the same time over the bridge “An omen! a prodigy!” said Caesar.  “Let us march where we are called by such a divine intimation. The die is cast.”

[Sidenote:  Caesar crosses the Rubicon.]

So saying, he pressed forward over the bridge, while the officers, breaking up the encampment, put the columns in motion to follow him.