“What time is it?” inquired his general.  The fellow replied it lacked one hour of morn.  Caesar skirted the sleeping camp, and soon came out again on the highroad.  There was a faint paleness in the east; a single lark sang from out the mist of grey ether overhead; an ox of the baggage train rattled his tethering chain and bellowed.  A soft, damp river fog touched on Drusus’s face.  Suddenly an early horseman, coming at a moderate gallop, was heard down the road.  In the stillness, the pounding of his steed crept slowly nearer and nearer; then, as he was almost on them, came the hollow clatter of the hoofs upon the planks of a bridge. Caesar stopped. Drusus felt himself clutched by the arm so tightly that the grasp almost meant pain.

“Do you hear?  Do you see?” muttered the Imperator’s voice in his ear.  “The bridge, the river—­we have reached it!”

“Your excellency—­” began Drusus, sorely at a loss.

“No compliments, this is the Rubicon; the boundaries of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy.  On this side I am still the Proconsul—­not as yet rightly deposed.  On the other—­Caesar, the Outlaw, the Insurgent, the Enemy of his Country, whose hand is against every man, every man’s hand against him.  What say you?  Speak! speak quickly!  Shall I cross?  Shall I turn back?”

“Imperator,” said the young man, struggling to collect his wits and realize the gravity of his own words, “if you did not intend to cross, why send the legion over to commence the invasion?  Why harangue them, if you had no test to place upon their loyalty?”

“Because,” was his answer, “I would not through my own indecision throw away my chance to strike.  But the troops can be recalled.  It is not too late.  No blood has been shed.  I am merely in a position to strike if so I decide.  No,—­nothing is settled.”

Drusus had never felt greater embarrassment.  Before he could make reply, Caesar had bidden Antiochus and the peasant boy remain in the roadway, and had led the young man down the embankment that ran sloping toward the river.  The light was growing stronger every moment, though the mist still hung heavy and dank.  Below their feet the slender stream—­it was the end of the season—­ran with a monotonous gurgle, now and then casting up a little fleck of foam, as it rolled by a small boulder in its bed.

“Imperator,” said Drusus, while Caesar pressed his hand tighter and tighter, “why advise with an inexperienced young man like myself?  Why did you send Curio away?  I have no wisdom to offer; nor dare proffer it, if such I had.”

“Quintus Drusus,” replied Caesar, sinking rather wearily down upon the dry, dying grass, “if I had needed the counsel of a soldier, I should have waited until Marcus Antonius arrived; if I had needed that of a politician, I was a fool to send away Curio; if I desire the counsel of one who is, as yet, neither a man of the camp, nor a man of the Forum, but who can see things with clear eyes, can tell what may be neither glorious nor expedient, but what will be the will,”—­and here the Imperator hesitated,—­“the will of the gods, tell me to whom I shall go.”