ked our road; and the
magistrate told him, out of his own Book, I believe, that, whatever his
Gods might be, he should pay proper respect to Caesar.'

'What did you do?' said Dan.

'Went on. Why should _I_ care for such things, my business being to
reach my station? It took me twenty days.

'Of course, the farther North you go the emptier are the roads. At last
you fetch clear of the forests and climb bare hills, where wolves howl
in the ruins of our cities that have been. No more pretty girls; no more
jolly magistrates who knew your Father when he was young, and invite you
to stay with them; no news at the temples and way-stations except bad
news of wild beasts. There's where you meet hunters, and trappers for
the Circuses, prodding along chained bears and muzzled wolves. Your pony
shies at them, and your men laugh.

'The houses change from gardened villas to shut forts with watch-towers
of grey stone, and great stone-walled sheepfolds, guarded by armed
Britons of the North Shore. In the naked hills beyond the naked houses,
where the shadows of the clouds play like cavalry charging, you see
puffs of black smoke from the mines. The hard road goes on and on--and
the wind sings through your helmet-plume--past altars to Legions and
Generals forgotten, and broken statues of Gods and Heroes, and thousands
of graves where the mountain foxes and hares peep at you. Red-hot in
summer, freezing in winter, is that big, purple heather country of
broken stone.

'Just when you think you are at the world's end, you see a smoke from
East to West as far as the eye can turn, and then, under it, also as far
as the eye can stretch, houses and temples, shops and theatres, barracks
and granaries, trickling along like dice behind--always behind--one
long, low, rising and falling, and hiding and showing line of towers.
And that is the Wall!'

'Ah!' said the children, taking breath.

'You may well,' said Parnesius. 'Old men who have followed the Eagles
since boyhood say nothing in the Empire is more wonderful than first
sight of the Wall!'

'Is it just a Wall? Like the one round the kitchen-garden?' said Dan.

'No, no! It is _the_ Wall. Along the top are towers with guard-houses,
small towers, between. Even on the narrowest part of it three men with
shields can walk abreast, from guard-house to guard-house. A little
curtain wall, no higher than a man's neck, runs along the top of the
thick wall, so that from a distance you see the he