figure; now walking, now motionless, now silent, now speaking in indistinct monologue.  Drusus overheard only an occasional word, “Pompeius, poor tool of knaves!  I pity him!  I must show mercy to Cato if I can!  Sulla is not to be imitated!  The Republic is fallen; what I put in its place must not fall.”  Then, after a long pause, “So this was to be my end in life—­to destroy the Commonwealth; what is destined, is destined!” And a moment later Drusus saw the general coming up the embankment.

“We shall find horses, I think, a little way over the bridge,” said Caesar; “the sun is nearly risen.  It is nine miles to Ariminum; there we can find refreshment.”

The Imperator’s brow was clear, his step elastic, the fatigues of the night seemed to have only added to his vigorous good humour.  Antiochus met them.  The good man evidently was relieved of a load of anxiety.  The three approached the bridge; as they did so, a little knot of officers of the rear cohort, Asinius Pollio and others, rode up and saluted.  The golden rim of the sun was just glittering above the eastern lowlands.  Caesar put foot upon the bridge.  Drusus saw the blood recede from his face, his muscles contract, his frame quiver.  The general turned to his officers.

“Gentlemen,” he said quietly, “we may still retreat; but if we once pass this little bridge, nothing is left for us but to fight it out in arms.”

The group was silent, each waiting for the other to speak.  At this instant a mountebank piper sitting by the roadway struck up his ditty, and a few idle soldiers and wayfaring shepherds ran up to him to catch the music.  The man flung down his pipe, snatched a trumpet from a bugler, and, springing up, blew a shrill blast.  It was the “advance.”  Caesar turned again to his officers.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “let us go where the omens of the gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us! The die is now cast!"

And he strode over the bridge, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left.  As his feet touched the dust of the road beyond, the full sun touched the horizon, the landscape was bathed with living, quivering gold, and the brightness shed itself over the steadfast countenance, not of Caesar the Proconsul, but of Caesar the Insurgent.

The Rubicon was crossed!

Chapter XVII

The Profitable Career of Gabinius

Very wretched had been the remnants of Dumnorix’s band of gladiators, when nightfall had covered them from pursuit by the enraged Praenestians.  And for some days the defeated assassins led a desperate struggle for existence on the uplands above the Latin plain.  Then, when the hue and cry aroused by their mad exploit had died away, Dumnorix was able to reorganize his men into a regular horde of banditti.  In the sheltered valleys of the upper Apennines they found moderately safe and comfortable fastnesses,