he
Conqueror's less than seven hundred;[101] the Spanish Armada not two
hundred.

E. 8.--Caesar was resolved this time to be in sufficient strength, and
no longer despised his enemies. He brought with him five out of
his eight legions, some thirty thousand infantry, that is, and two
thousand horse. The rest remained under his most trusted lieutenant,
Labienus, to police Gaul and keep open his communications with Rome.
According to Polyaenus[102] (A.D. 180), he even brought over with him
a fighting elephant, to terrify the natives and their horses. There
is nothing impossible about the story; though it is not likely Caesar
would have forgotten to mention so striking a feature of his campaign.
One particular animal we may be sure he had with him, his own famous
charger with the cloven hoof, which had been bred in his own stud, and
would suffer on its back none but himself. On it, as the rumour went,
it had been prophesied by the family seer that he should ever ride to
victory.

E. 9.--It was, as the Emperor Napoleon has calculated, on July
21 that, at sun-set this mighty armament put out before a gentle
south-west air, which died away at midnight, leaving them becalmed
on a waveless sea. When morning dawned Britain lay on their left, and
they were drifting up the straits with the tide. By and by it turned,
oars were got out, and every vessel made for the spot which the events
of the previous year had shown to be the best landing-place.[103]
Thanks to Caesar's foresight the transports as well as the galleys
could now be thus propelled, and such was the ardour of the soldiers
that both classes of ships kept pace with one another, in spite of
their different build. The transports, of course, contained men enough
to take turns at the sweeps, while the galley oarsmen could not be
relieved. By noon they reached Britain, and found not a soul to resist
their landing. There had been, as Caesar learnt from "prisoners," a
large force gathered for that purpose, but the terrific multitude of
his ships had proved quite too demoralizing, and the patriot army had
retired to "higher ground," to which the prisoners were able to direct
the invader.

E. 10.--There is obviously something strange about this tale. There
was no fighting, the shore was deserted, yet somehow prisoners were
taken, and prisoners singularly well informed as to the defenders'
strategy. The story reads very much as if these useful individuals
were really deserters