The Rubicon

I

It was growing late, but the proconsul apparently was manifesting no impatience. All the afternoon he had been transacting the routine business of a provincial governor listening to appeals to his judgment seat, signing requisitions for tax imposts, making out commissions, and giving undivided attention to a multitude of seeming trifles. Only Decimus Mamercus, the young centurion, elder son of the veteran of Praeneste, who stood guard at the doorway of the public office of the praetorium, thought he could observe a hidden nervousness and a still more concealed petulance in his superior’s manner that betokened anxiety and a desire to be done with the routine of the day. Finally the last litigant departed, the governor descended from the curule chair, the guard saluted as he passed out to his own private rooms, and soon, as the autumn darkness began to steal over the cantonment, nothing but the call of the sentries broke the calm of the advancing night.

Caesar was submitting to the attentions of his slaves, who were exchanging his robes of state for the comfortable evening synthesis. But the proconsul was in no mood for the publicity of the evening banquet. When his chief freedman announced that the invited guests had assembled, the master bade him go to the company and inform them that their host was indisposed, and wished them to make merry without him. The evening advanced. Twice Caesar touched to his lips a cup of spiced wine, but partook of nothing else. Sending his servants from his chamber, he alternately read, and wrote nervously on his tablets, then erased all that he had inscribed, and paced up and down the room. Presently the anxious head-freedman thrust his head into the apartment.

“My lord, it is past midnight. The guests have long departed. There will be serious injury done your health, if you take no food and rest.”

“My good Antiochus,” replied the proconsul, “you are a faithful friend.”

The freedman an elderly, half-Hellenized Asiatic knelt and kissed the Roman’s robe.

“My lord knows that I would die for him.”

“I believe you, Antiochus. The gods know I never needed a friend more than now! Do not leave the room.”

The general’s eyes were glittering, his cheeks flushed with an unhealthy colour. The freedman was startled.

“Domine, domine!” he began, “you are not well let me send for Calchas, the physician; a mild sleeping powder

For the first time in his long service of Caesar, Antiochus met with a burst of wrath from his master.

“Vagabond! Do you think a sleeping potion will give peace to me? Speak again of Calchas, and I’ll have you crucified!”

“Domine, domine! cried the trembling freedman; but Caesar swept on:

“Don’t go from the room! I am desperate to-night. I may lay violent hands on myself. Why should I not ask you for a poisoned dagger?”

Antiochus cowered at his master’s feet.

“Yes, why not? What have I to gain by living? I have won some little fame. I have conquered all Gaul. I have invaded Britain. I have made the Germans tremble. Life is an evil dream, a nightmare, a frightful delusion. Death is real. Sleep sleep forever sleep! No care, no ambition, no vexation, no anger, no sorrow. Cornelia, the wife of my love, is asleep. Julia is asleep. All that I loved sleep. Why not I also?”

“Domine, speak not so!” and Antiochus clasped the proconsul’s knees.

Caesar bent down and lifted him up by the hand. When he spoke again, the tone was entirely changed.

“Old friend, you have known me; have loved me. You were my pedagogue when I went to school at Rome. You taught me to ride and fence and wrestle. You aided me to escape the myrmidons of Sulla. You were with me in Greece. You shared my joy in my political successes, my triumphs in the field. And now what am I to do? You know the last advices from Rome; you know the determination of the consuls to work my ruin. To-day no news has come at all, and for us no news is the worst of news.”

“Domine,” said Antiochus, wiping his eyes, “I cannot dream that the Senate and Pompeius will deny you your right to the second consulship.”

“But if they do? You know what Curio reports. What then?”

Antiochus shook his head.

“It would mean war, bloody war, the upturning of the whole world!”

“War, or ” and Caesar paused.

“What, my lord?” said the freedman.

“I cease either to be a care to myself or my enemies.”

“I do not understand you, domine,” ventured Antiochus, turning pale.

“I mean, good friend,” said the proconsul, calmly, “that when I consider how little life often seems worth, and how much disaster the continuance of my act of living means to my fellow-men, I feel often that I have no right to live.”

Antiochus staggered with dread. Caesar was no longer talking wildly; and the freedman knew that when in a calm mood the proconsul was always perfectly serious.

“Domine, you have not rashly determined this?” he hinted.

“I have determined nothing. I never rashly determine anything. Hark! Some one is at the door.”

There was a loud military knock, and the clang of armour.

“Enter,” commanded Caesar.

Decimus Mamercus hastened into the room. So great was his excitement that his Roman discipline had forsaken him. He neglected to salute.

“News! news! Imperator! from Rome! News which will set all Italy afire!”

Whereupon the man who had but just before been talking of suicide, with the greatest possible deliberation seated himself on a comfortable chair, arranged his dress, and remarked with perfect coldness:

“No tidings can justify a soldier in neglecting to salute his general.”

Decimus turned red with mortification, and saluted.

“Now,” said Caesar, icily, “what have you to report?”

“Imperator,” replied Decimus, trying to speak with unimpassioned preciseness, “a messenger has just arrived from Rome. He reports that the Senate and consuls have declared the Republic in peril, that the veto of your tribunes has been over-ridden, and they themselves forced to flee for their lives.”

Caesar had carelessly dropped a writing tablet that he was holding, and now he stooped slowly and picked it up again.

“The messenger is here?” he inquired, after a pause.

“He is,” replied the centurion.

“Has he been duly refreshed after a hard ride?” was the next question.

“He has just come.”

“Then let him have the best food and drink my butler and cellarer can set before him.”

“But his news is of extreme importance,” gasped Decimus, only half believing his ears.

“I have spoken,” said the general, sternly. “What is his name?”

“He is called Quintus Drusus, Imperator.”

“Ah!” was his deliberate response, “send him to me when he will eat and drink no more.”

Decimus saluted again, and withdrew, while his superior opened the roll in his hands, and with all apparent fixity and interest studied at the precepts and definitions of the grammar of Dionysius Thrax, the noted philologist.

At the end of some minutes Quintus Drusus stood before him.

The young Praenestian was covered with dust, was unkempt, ragged; his step was heavy, his arms hung wearily at his side, his head almost drooped on his breast with exhaustion. But when he came into the Imperator’s presence, he straightened himself and tried to make a gesture of salutation. Caesar had risen from his chair.

“Fools!” he cried, to the little group of slaves and soldiers, who were crowding into the room, “do you bring me this worn-out man, who needs rest? Who dared this? Has he been refreshed as I commanded?”

“He would take nothing but some wine ” began Decimus.

“I would have waited until morning, if necessary, before seeing him. Here!” and while Caesar spoke he half led, half thrust, the messenger into his own chair, and, anticipating the nimblest slave, unclasped the travel-soiled paenula from Drusus’s shoulders. The young man tried to rise and shake off these ministrations, but the proconsul gently restrained him. A single look sufficed to send all the curious retinue from the room. Only Antiochus remained, sitting on a stool in a distant corner.

“And now, my friend,” said Caesar, smiling, and drawing a chair close up to that of Drusus, “tell me when it was that you left Rome.”

“Two days ago,” gasped the wearied messenger.

“Mehercle!” cried the general, “a hundred and sixty miles in two days! This is incredible! And you come alone?”

“I had Andraemon, the fastest horse in Rome. Antonius, Caelius, Cassius, Curio, and myself kept together as far as Clusium. There was no longer any danger of pursuit, no need for more than one to hasten.” Drusus’s sentences were coming in hot pants. “I rode ahead. Rode my horse dead. Took another at Arretium. And so I kept changing. And now I am here.” And with this last utterance he stopped, gasping.

Caesar, instead of demanding the tidings from Rome, turned to Antiochus, and bade him bring a basin and perfumed water to wash Drusus’s feet. Meantime the young man had recovered his breath.

“You have heard of the violence of the new consuls and how Antonius and Cassius withstood them. On the seventh the end came. The vetoes were set aside. Our protests were disregarded. The Senate has clothed the consuls and other magistrates with dictatorial power; they are about to make Lucius Domitius proconsul of Gaul.”

“And I?” asked Caesar, for the first time displaying any personal interest.

“You, Imperator, must disband your army and return to Rome speedily, or be declared an outlaw, as Sertorius or Catilina was.”

“Ah!” and for a minute the proconsul sat motionless, while Drusus again kept silence.

“But you my friends the tribunes?” demanded the general, “you spoke of danger; why was it that you fled?”

“We fled in slaves’ dresses, O Caesar, because otherwise we should long ago have been strangled like bandits in the Tullianum. Lentulus Crus drove us with threats from the Senate. On the bridge, but for the favour of the gods, his lictors would have taken us. We were chased by Pompeius’s foot soldiers as far as Janiculum. We ran away from his cavalry. If they hate us, your humble friends, so bitterly, how much the more must they hate you!”

“And the tribunes, and Curio, and Caelius are on their way hither?” asked Caesar.

“They will be here very soon.”

“That is well,” replied the proconsul; then, with a totally unexpected turn, “Quintus Drusus, what do you advise me to do?”

“I I advise, Imperator?” stammered the young man.

“And who should advise, if not he who has ridden so hard and fast in my service? Tell me, is there any hope of peace, of reconciliation with Pompeius?”

“None.”

“Any chance that the senators will recover their senses, and propose a reasonable compromise?”

“None.”

“Will not Cicero use his eloquence in the cause of peace and common justice?”

“I have seen him. He dare not open his mouth.”

“Ah!” and again Caesar was silent, this time with a smile, perhaps of scorn, playing around his mouth.

“Are the people, the equites, given body and soul over to the war party?”

Drusus nodded sadly. “So long as the consuls are in the ascendant, they need fear no revolution at home. The people are not at heart your enemies, Imperator; but they will wait to be led by the winning side.”

“And you advise?” pressed Caesar, returning to the charge.

“War!” replied Drusus, with all the rash emphasis of youth.

“Young man,” said Caesar, gravely, half sadly, “what you have said is easy to utter. Do you know what war will mean?”

Drusus was silent.

“Let us grant that our cause is most just. Even then, if we fight, we destroy the Republic. If I conquer, it must be over the wreck of the Commonwealth. If Pompeius on the same terms. I dare not harbour any illusions. The state cannot endure the farce of another Sullian restoration and reformation. A permanent government by one strong man will be the only one practicable to save the world from anarchy. Have you realized that?”

“I only know, Imperator,” said Drusus, gloomily, “that no future state can be worse than ours to-day, when the magistrates of the Republic are the most grievous despots.”

Caesar shook his head.

“You magnify your own wrongs and mine. If mere revenge prompts us, we are worse than Xerxes, or Sulla. The gods alone can tell us what is right.”

“The gods!” cried Drusus, half sunken though he was in a weary lethargy, “do you believe there are any gods?”

Caesar threw back his head. “Not always; but at moments I do not believe in them, I know! And now I know that gods are guiding us!”

“Whither?” exclaimed the young man, starting from his weary drowsiness.

“I know not whither; neither do I care. Enough to be conscious that they guide us!”

And then, as though there was no pressing problem involving the peace of the civilized world weighing upon him, the proconsul stood by in kind attention while Antiochus and an attendant bathed the wearied messenger’s feet before taking him away to rest.

After Drusus had been carried to his room, Caesar collected the manuscripts and tablets scattered about the apartment, methodically placed them in the proper cases and presses, suffered himself to be undressed, and slept late into the following morning, as sweetly and soundly as a little child.

II

On the next day Caesar called before him the thirteenth legion, the only force he had at Ravenna, and from a pulpit in front of the praetorium he told them the story of what had happened at Rome; of how the Senate had outraged the tribunes of the plebs, whom even the violent Sulla had respected; of how the mighty oligarchy had outraged every soldier in insulting their commander. Then Curio, just arrived, declaimed with indignant fervour of the violence and fury of the consuls and Pompeius; and when he concluded, the veterans could restrain their ardour and devotion no more, five thousand martial throats roared forth an oath of fealty, and as many swords were waved on high in mad defiance to the Senate and the Magnus. Then cohort after cohort cried out that on this campaign they would accept no pay; and the military tribunes and centurions pledged themselves, this officer for the support of two recruits, and that for three.

It was a great personal triumph for Caesar. He stood receiving the pledges and plaudits, and repaying each protestation of loyalty with a few gracious words, or smiles, that were worth fifty talents to each acclaiming maniple. Drusus, who was standing back of the proconsul, beside Curio, realized that never before had he seen such outgoing of magnetism and personal energy from man to man, one mind holding in vassalage five thousand. Yet it was all very quickly over. Almost while the plaudits of the centuries were rending the air, Caesar turned to the senior tribune of the legion.

“Are your men ready for the march, officer?”

The soldier instantly fell into rigid military pose. “Ready this instant, Imperator. We have expected the order.”

“March to Ariminum, and take possession of the town. March rapidly.”

The tribune saluted, and stepped back among his cohort. And as if some conjurer had flourished a wand of magic, in the twinkling of an eye the first century had formed in marching order; every legionary had flung over his shoulder his shield and pack, and at the harsh blare of the military trumpet the whole legion fell into line; the aquilifer with the bronze eagle, that had tossed on high in a score of hard-fought fights, swung off at the head of the van; and away went the legion, a thing not of thinking flesh and blood, but of brass and iron a machine that marched as readily and carelessly against the consuls of the Roman Republic as against the wretched Gallic insurgents. The body of troops cohort after cohort was vanishing down the road in a cloud of dust, the pack train following after, almost before Drusus could realize that the order to advance had been given.

Caesar was still standing on the little pulpit before the praetorium. Except for Curio and Drusus, almost all the vast company that had but just now been pressing about him with adulation and homage were disappearing from sight. For an instant the Imperator seemed alone, stripped of all the panoply of his high estate. He stood watching the legion until its dust-cloud settled behind some low-lying hills. Then he stepped down from the pulpit. Beyond a few menials and Drusus and that young man’s late comrade in danger, no one else was visible. The transaction had been so sudden as to have something of the phantasmagoric about it.

Caesar took his two friends, one by each hand, and led them back to his private study in the praetorium.

“The army is yours, Imperator,” said Curio, breaking a rather oppressive silence. “The newest recruit is yours to the death.”

“Yes, to the death,” replied the general, abstractedly; and his keen eyes wandered down upon the mosaic, seemingly penetrating the stone and seeking something hidden beneath. “The thirteenth legion,” he continued, “will do as a test of the loyalty of the others. They will not fail me. The eighth and the twelfth will soon be over the Alps. Fabius is at Narbo with three. They will check Pompeius’s Spaniards. I must send to Trebonius for his four among the Belgae; he is sending Fabius one.” And then, as if wearied by this recapitulation, Caesar’s eyes wandered off again to the pavement.

Drusus had an uneasy sensation. What was this strange mingling of energy and listlessness? Why this soliloquy and internal debate, when the moment called for the most intense activity? The general being still silent, his friends did not venture to disturb him. But Antiochus passed in and out of the study, gathering up writing materials, tablets, and books; and presently Drusus heard the freedman bidding an underling have ready and packed the marble slabs used for the tessellated floor of the Imperator’s tent a bit of luxury that Caesar never denied himself while in the field. Presently the proconsul raised his eyes. He was smiling; there was not the least cloud on his brow.

“There will be some public games here this afternoon,” he remarked, as though the sole end in view was to make their stay pleasant to his guests: “I have promised the good people of the town to act as editor, and must not fail to honour them. Perhaps the sport will amuse you, although the provincials cannot of course get such good lanista-trained men as you see at Rome. I have a new fencing school in which perhaps we may find a few threces and retiarii, who will give some tolerable sword and net play.”

“Hei!” groaned Curio, with a lugubrious whisper, “to think of it, I have never a sesterce left that I can call my own, to stake on the struggle!”

“At least,” laughed Drusus, “I am a companion of your grief; already Lentulus and Ahenobarbus have been sharing my forfeited estate.”

But the proconsul looked serious and sad.

“Vah, my friends! Would that I could say that your loyalty to my cause would cost you nothing! It is easy to promise to win back for you everything you have abandoned, but as the poets say, ’All that lies in the lap of the gods.’ But you shall not be any longer the mere recipients of my bounty. Stern work is before us. I need not ask you if you will play your part. You, Curio, shall have a proper place on my staff of legates as soon as I have enough troops concentrated; but you, my dear Drusus, what post would best reward you for your loyalty? Will you be a military tribune, and succeed your father?”

“Your kindness outruns your judgment, Imperator,” replied Drusus. “Save repelling Dumnorix and Ahenobarbus, I never struck a blow in anger. Small service would I be to you, and little glory would I win as an officer, when the meanest legionary knows much that I may learn.”

“Then, amice,” said Caesar, smiling, perhaps with the satisfaction of a man who knows when it is safe to make a gracious offer which he is aware will not be accepted, though none the less flattering, “if you will thus misappraise yourself, you shall act as centurion for the present, on my corps of praetoriani, where you will be among friends and comrades of your father, and be near my person if I have any special need of you.”

Drusus proffered the best thanks he could; it was a great honour one almost as great as a tribuneship, though hardly as responsible; and he felt repaid for all the weariness of his desperate ride to Ravenna.

And then, with another of those strange alternations of behaviour, Caesar led him and Curio off to inspect the fencing-school; then showed them his favourite horse, pointed out its peculiar toelike hoofs, and related merrily how when it was a young colt, a soothsayer had predicted that its owner would be master of the world, and how he Caesar, had broken its fiery spirit, and made it perfectly docile, although no other man could ride the beast.

The afternoon wore on. Caesar took his friends to the games, and watched with all apparent interest the rather sanguinary contests between the gladiators. Drusus noticed the effusive loyalty of the Ravenna citizens, who shouted a tumultuous welcome to the illustrious editor, but Caesar acted precisely as though the presidency of the sports were his most important office. Only his young admirer observed that as often as a gladiator brought his opponent down and appealed to the editor for a decision on the life or death of the vanquished, Caesar invariably waved his handkerchief, a sign of mercy, rather than brutally turned down his thumb, the sentence of death. After the games, the proconsul interchanged personal greetings with the more prominent townspeople. Drusus began to wonder whether the whole day and evening were to pass in this manner; and indeed so it seemed, for that night the Imperator dispensed his usual open-handed hospitality. His great banqueting hall contained indeed no army officers, but there were an abundance of the provincial gentry. Caesar dined apart with his two friends. The courses went in and out. The proconsul continued an unceasing flow of light conversation: witty comments on Roman society and fashion, scraps of literary lore, now and then a bit of personal reminiscence of Gaul. Drusus forgot all else in the agreeable pleasure of the moment. Presently Caesar arose and mingled with his less exalted guests; when he returned to the upper table the attendants were bringing on the beakers, and the Cisalpine provincials were pledging one another in draughts of many cyathi, “prosperity to the proconsul, and confusion to his enemies.” Caesar took a shallow glass of embossed blue and white bas-relief work, a triumph of Alexandrian art, poured into it a few drops of undiluted Caecuban liquor, dashed down the potion, then dropped the priceless beaker on to the floor.

“An offering to Fortuna!” he cried, springing from his couch. “My friends, let us go!” And quietly leaving the table on the dais, the three found themselves outside the banqueting hall, while the provincials, unconscious that their host had departed, continued their noisy revelry.

Drusus at once saw that everything was ready for departure. Antiochus was at hand with travelling cloaks, and assured the young man that due care had been taken to send in advance for him a complete wardrobe and outfit. The proconsul evidently intended to waste no time in starting. Drusus realized by the tone of his voice that Caesar the host had vanished, and Caesar the imperator was present. His words were terse and to the point.

“Curio, you will find a fast horse awaiting you. Take it. Bide at full speed after the legion. Take command of the rear cohorts and of the others as you come up with them. Lead rapidly to Ariminum.”

And Curio, who was a man of few words, when few were needed, saluted and disappeared in the darkness. Drusus followed the general out after him. But no saddle-horses were prepared for Caesar. Antiochus and one or two slaves were ready with lanterns, and led the general and Drusus out of the gloomy cantonment, along a short stretch of road, to a mill building, where in the dim light of the last flickers of day could be seen a carriage with mules.

“I have hired this as you wished,” said the freedman, briefly.

“It is well,” responded his patron.

Antiochus clambered upon the front seat; a stout German serving-man was at the reins. Caesar motioned to Drusus to sit beside him behind. There were a few necessaries in the carriage, but no other attendants, no luggage cart. The German shook the reins over the backs of the two mules, and admonished them in his barbarous native dialect. The dim shadow of the mill faded from sight; the lights of the praetorium grew dimmer and dimmer: soon nothing was to be seen outside the narrow circle of pale light shed on the ground ahead by the lantern.

The autumn season was well advanced. The day however had been warm. The night was sultry. There were no stars above, no moon, no wind. A sickening miasmic odour rose from the low flat country sloping off toward the Adriatic the smell of overripe fruit, of decaying vegetation, of the harvest grown old. There had been a drought, and now the dust rose thick and heavy, making the mules and travellers cough, and the latter cover their faces. Out of the darkness came not the least sound: save the creaking of the dead boughs on trees, whose dim tracery could just be distinguished against the sombre background of the sky.

No one spoke, unless the incoherent shouts of the German to the mules be termed speech. Antiochus and Caesar were sunk in stupor or reverie. Drusus settled back on the cushions, closed his eyes, and bade himself believe that it was all a dream. Six months ago he had been a student at Athens, wandering with his friends along the trickling Cephissus, or climbing, in holiday sport, the marble cone of Hymettus. And now he was a proscribed rebel! Enemies thirsted for his blood! He was riding beside a man who made no disclaimer of his intention to subvert the constitution! If Caesar failed, he, Drusus, would share in “that bad eminence” awarded by fame to the execrated Catilinarians. Was it was it not all a dream? Connected thought became impossible. Now he was in the dear old orchard at Praeneste playing micare with Cornelia and AEmilia; now back in Athens, now in Rome. Poetry, prose, scraps of oratory, philosophy, and rules of rhetoric, Latin and Greek inextricably intermixed, ideas without the least possible connection, raced through his head. How long he thus drifted on in his reverie he might not say. Perhaps he fell asleep, for the fatigue of his extraordinary riding still wore on him. A cry from Antiochus, a curse from the German, startled him out of his stupor. He stared about. It was pitch dark. “The gods blast it!” Antiochus was bawling. “The lantern has jolted out!”

To relight it under existing circumstances, in an age when friction matches were unknown, was practically impossible.

“Fellow,” said the proconsul’s steady voice, “do you know the road to Ariminum?”

The driver answered in his broken Latin that he was the slave of the stable keeper who had let the carriage, and had been often over the road, but to go safely in the dark was more than he could vouch for. The only thing the German saw to be done was to wait in the road until the morning, or until the moon broke out through the clouds.

“Drusus,” remarked the proconsul, “you are the youngest. Can your eyes make out anything to tell us where we are?”

The young man yawned, shook off his drowsiness, and stared out into the gloomy void.

“I can just make out that to our left are tall trees, and I imagine a thicket.”

“Very good. If you can see as much as that here, it is safe to proceed. Let us change places. I will take the reins. Do you, Drusus, come and direct me.”

“Oh! domine!” entreated Antiochus, “don’t imperil yourself to-night! I’m sure some calamity impends before dawn. I consulted a soothsayer before setting out, and the dove which he examined had no heart a certain sign of evil.”

“Rascal!” retorted his patron, “the omens will be more favourable when I please. A beast wants a heart no very great prodigy! men lose theirs very often, and think it slight disgrace. Change your seat, sirrah!”

Caesar took the reins, smote the mules, and went off at so furious a pace that the worthy Antiochus was soon busy invoking first one, then another, member of the pantheon, to avert disaster. Drusus speedily found that the general’s vision was far more keen than his own. Indeed, although the road, he knew, was rough and crooked, they met with no mishaps. Presently a light could be seen twinkling in the distance.

“We must get a guide,” remarked the Imperator decisively, and he struck the mules again.

They at last approached what the owl-like discernment of Caesar pronounced to be a small farmhouse with a few out-buildings. But it was no easy matter to arouse the drowsy countrymen, and a still more difficult task to convince the good man of the house that his nocturnal visitors were not brigands. At last it was explained that two gentlemen from Ravenna were bound for Ariminum, on urgent business, and he must furnish a guide for which he would be amply paid. As a result, the German driver at last resumed the reins, and sped away with a fresh lantern, and at his side a stupid peasant boy, who was almost too shy to make himself useful.

But more misfortune was in store. Barely a mile had they traversed, before an ominous crack proclaimed the splitting of an axletree. The cheap hired vehicle could go no farther.

“’Tis a sure sign the gods are against our proceeding this night,” expostulated Antiochus; “let us walk back to the farmhouse, my lord.”

Caesar did not deign to give him an answer. He deliberately descended, clasped his paenula over his shoulders, and bade the German make the best of his way back to Ravenna. The peasant boy, he declared, could lead them on foot until dawn.

The freedman groaned, but he was helpless. The guide, bearing the lantern, convoyed them out of the highroad, to strike what he assured them was a less circuitous route; and soon had his travellers, now plunged in quagmires that in daylight would have seemed impassable, now clambering over stocks and stones, now leaping broad ditches. At last, after thoroughly exhausting the patience of his companions, the wretched fellow confessed that he had missed the by-path, and indeed did not know the way back.

Antiochus was now too frightened to declare his warnings confirmed. Drusus liked the prospect of a halt on these swampy, miasmic fields little enough, But again the proconsul was all resources. With almost omniscience he led his companions through blind mazes of fallow land and stubble fields: came upon a brook at the only point where there appeared to be any stepping-stones; and at length, just as the murky clouds seemed about to lift, and the first beams of the moon struggled out into the black chaos, the wanderers saw a multitude of fires twinkling before them, and knew that they had come upon the rear cohort of the thirteenth legion, on its way to Ariminum.

The challenge of the sentry was met by a quick return of the watchword, but the effusively loyal soldier was bidden to hold his peace and not disturb his comrades.

“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.”

Drusus was silent; the other continued;

“Listen, Quintus Drusus. I do not believe in blind fate. We were not given wills only to have them broken. The function of a limb is not to be maimed, nor severed from the body. A limb is to serve a man; just so a man and his actions are to serve the ends of a power higher and nobler than he. If he refuse to serve that power, he is like the mortifying limb, a thing of evil to be cut off. And this is true of all of us; we all have some end to serve, we are not created for no purpose.” Caesar paused. When he began again it was in a different tone of voice. “I have brought you with me, because I know you are intelligent, are humane, love your country, and can make sacrifices for her; because you are my friend and to a certain extent share my destiny; because you are too young to have become overprejudiced, and calloused to pet foibles and transgressions. Therefore I took you with me, having put off the final decision to the last possible instant. And now I desire your counsel.”

“How can I counsel peace!” replied Drusus, warming to a sense of the situation. “Is not Italy in the hand of tyrants? Is not Pompeius the tool of coarse schemers? Do they not pray for proscriptions and confiscations and abolition of debt? Will there be any peace, any happiness in life, so long as we call ourselves freemen, yet endure the chains of a despotism worse than that of the Parthians?”

“Ah! amice!” said Caesar, twisting the long limp grass, “every enemy is a tyrant, if he has the upper hand. Consider, what will the war be? Blood, the blood of the noblest Romans! The overturning of time-honoured institutions! A shock that will make the world to tremble, kings be laid low, cities annihilated! East, west, north, south all involved so great has our Roman world become!”

“And are there not wrongs, abuses, Imperator, which cry for vengeance and for righting?” replied Drusus, vehemently. “Since the fall of Carthage, have not the fears of Scipio AEmilianus almost come true: Troy has fallen, Carthage has fallen; has not Rome almost fallen, fallen not by the might of her enemies, but by the decay of her morals, the degeneracy of her statesmen? What is the name of liberty, without the semblance! Is it liberty for a few mighty families to enrich themselves, while the Republic groans? Is it liberty for the law courts to have their price, for the provinces to be the farms of a handful of nobles?”

Caesar shook his head.

“You do not know what you say. This is no moment for declamation. Every man has his own life to live, his own death to die. Our intellects cannot assure us of any consciousness the instant that breath has left our bodies. It is then as if we had never hoped, had never feared; it is rest, peace. Quintus Drusus, I have dared many things in my life. I defied Sulla; it was boyish impetuosity. I took the unpopular and perilous side when Catilina’s confederates were sent to their deaths; it was the ardour of a young politician. I defied the rage of the Senate, while I was praetor; still more hot madness. I faced death a thousand times in Gaul, against the Nervii, in the campaign with Vercingetorix; all this was the mere courage of the common soldier. But it is not of death I am afraid; be it death on the field of battle, or death at the hands of the executioner, should I fall into the power of my enemies, I fear myself.

“You ask me to explain?” went on the general, without pausing for a question. “Hearken! I am a man, you are a man, our enemies are men. I have slain a hundred thousand men in Gaul. Cruel? No, for had they lived the great designs which the deity wills to accomplish in that country could not be executed! But then my mind was at rest. I said, ‘Let these men die,’ and no Nemesis has required their blood at my hands. What profit these considerations? The Republic is nothing but a name, without substance or reality. It is doomed to fall. Sulla was a fool to abdicate the dictatorship. Why did he not establish a despotism, and save us all this turmoil of politics? But Lentulus Crus, Pompeius, Cato, Scipio they are men with as much ambition, as much love of life, as myself. The Republic will fall into their hands. Why will it be worse off than in mine? Why shed rivers of blood? After death one knows no regrets. If I were dead, what would it matter to me if obloquy was imputed to my name, if my enemies triumphed, if the world went to chaos over my grave. It would not mean so much as a single evil dream in my perpetual slumber.”

Caesar was no longer resting on the bank. He was pacing to and fro, with rapid, nervous steps, crushing the dry twigs under his shoes, pressing his hands together behind his back, knitting and unknitting his fingers.

Drusus knew enough to be aware that he was present as a spectator of that most terrible of all conflicts a strong man’s wrestle with his own misgivings. To say something, to say anything, that would ease the shock of the contest that was the young man’s compelling desire; but he felt as helpless as though he, single handed, confronted ten legions.

“But your friends, Imperator,” he faltered, “think of them! They have made sacrifices for you. They trust in you. Do not abandon them to their enemies!”

Caesar stopped in his impetuous pacings.

“Look here,” he exclaimed, almost fiercely, “you wish to be happy. You are still very young; life is sweet. You have just forsaken wealth, friends, love, because you have a fantastic attachment for my cause. You will live to repent of your boyish decision. You will wish to win back all you have lost. Well, I will give you the chance; do what I tell you, and you shall ride into Rome the hero of Senate and people! The consuls will be to you all smiles. Pompeius will canvass for you if you desire to become a candidate for curule office before you reach the legal age limit. Cicero will extol your name in an immortal oration, in which he will laud your deed above the slaying of the dangerous demagogue Maelius by Servilius Ahala. Will you do as I shall bid you?”

Drusus’s eyes had been riveted on those of the general. He saw that at Caesar’s side was girded a long slender dagger in an embossed silver sheath. He saw the Imperator draw out the blade halfway, then point off into the river where the water ran sluggishly through a single deep mist-shaded pool.

“Do you understand?” went on Caesar, as calmly as though he had been expounding a problem of metaphysics. “You can take this ring of mine, and by its aid go through the whole legion, and obtain the best horses for flight, before anything is discovered. Your conscience need not trouble you. You will only have done as I earnestly requested.”

The cold sweat started to Drusus’s forehead, his head swam; he knew that it was more than the mist of the river-fog that drifted before his eyes. Then, filled with a sudden impulse, he sprang on the general and wrenched the dagger from its sheath.

“Here!” cried Caesar, tearing back the mantle from his breast.

“There!” cried Drusus, and the bright blade glinted once in the air, and splashed down into the dark ripple. He caught the Imperator about the arms, and flung his head on the other’s neck.

“Oh! Imperator,” he cried, “do not desert us. Do not desert the Commonwealth! Do not hand us back to new ruin, new tyrants, new wars! Strike, strike, and so be merciful! Surely the gods have not led you thus far, and no farther! But yesterday you said they were leading us. To-day they still must guide! To you it has been given to pull down and to build up. Fail not! If there be gods, trust in them! If there be none slay me first, then do whatever you will!”

Caesar shook himself. His voice was harsh with command.

“Unhand me! I must accomplish my own fate!” and then, in a totally different tone, “Quintus Drusus, I have been a coward for the first time in my life. Are you ashamed of your general?”

“I never admired you more, Imperator.”

“Thank you. And will you go aside a little, please? I will need a few moments for meditation.”

Drusus hesitated. His eyes wandered off to the river. In one spot it was quite deep.

“Phui!” said the proconsul, carelessly, “I am too brave for such a venture now. Leave me on my embankment, like Diogenes and his tub.”

Drusus clambered part way up the slope, and seated himself under a stunted oak tree. The light was growing stronger. The east was overshot with ripples of crimson and orange, here blending into lines each more gorgeous than a moment before. The wind was chasing in from the bosom of Adria, and driving the fleeting mists up the little valley. The hills were springing out of the gloom, the thrushes were swinging in the boughs overhead, and pouring out their morning song. Out from the camp the bugles were calling the soldiers for the march; the baggage trains were rumbling over the bridge. But still below on the marge lingered the solitary 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!