’"Very like,” said my Father.  “But we shall have the Picts and their friends breaking through before long.  You cannot move all troops out of Britain to make you Emperor, and expect the North to sit quiet.”

’"I follow my destiny,” said Maximus.

’"Follow it, then,” said my Father, pulling up a fern root; “and die as Theodosius died.”

’"Ah!” said Maximus.  “My old General was killed because he served the Empire too well. I may be killed, but not for that reason,” and he smiled a little pale grey smile that made my blood run cold.

’"Then I had better follow my destiny,” I said, “and take my men to the Wall.”

’He looked at me a long time, and bowed his head slanting like a Spaniard.  “Follow it, boy,” he said.  That was all.  I was only too glad to get away, though I had many messages for home.  I found my men standing as they had been put—­they had not even shifted their feet in the dust, and off I marched, still feeling that terrific smile like an east wind up my back.  I never halted them till sunset, and’—­he turned about and looked at Pook’s Hill below him—­’then I halted yonder.’  He pointed to the broken, bracken-covered shoulder of the Forge Hill behind old Hobden’s cottage.

‘There?  Why, that’s only the old Forge—­where they made iron once,’ said Dan.

‘Very good stuff it was too,’ said Parnesius calmly.  ’We mended three shoulder-straps here and had a spear-head riveted.  The Forge was rented from the Government by a one-eyed smith from Carthage.  I remember we called him Cyclops.  He sold me a beaver-skin rug for my sister’s room.’

‘But it couldn’t have been here,’ Dan insisted.

’But it was!  From the Altar of Victory at Anderida to the First Forge in the Forest here is twelve miles seven hundred paces.  It is all in the Road Book.  A man doesn’t forget his first march.  I think I could tell you every station between this and——­’ He leaned forward, but his eye was caught by the setting sun.

It had come down to the top of Cherry Clack Hill, and the light poured in between the tree trunks so that you could see red and gold and black deep into the heart of Far Wood; and Parnesius in his armour shone as though he had been afire.

‘Wait!’ he said, lifting a hand, and the sunlight jinked on his glass bracelet.  ‘Wait!  I pray to Mithras!’

He rose and stretched his arms westward, with deep, splendid-sounding words.

Then Puck began to sing too, in a voice like bells tolling, and as he sang he slipped from Volaterrae to the ground, and beckoned the children to follow.  They obeyed; it seemed as though the voices were pushing them along; and through the goldy-brown light on the beech leaves they walked, while Puck between them chanted something like this: 

’Cur mundus militat sub vana gloria
Cujus prosperitas est transitoria? 
Tam cito labitur ejus potentia
Quam vasa figuli quae sunt fragilia.’