s, is that your General thinks well of you."

'"Roma Dea!" said Pertinax, sitting up. "What can you guess what Maximus
thinks, you old horse-coper?"

'Just then (you know how near the brutes creep when one is eating?) a
great dog-wolf jumped out behind us, and away our rested hounds tore after
him, with us at their tails. He ran us far out of any country we'd ever
heard of, straight as an arrow till sunset, towards the sunset. We came at
last to long capes stretching into winding waters, and on a grey beach
below us we saw ships drawn up. Forty-seven we counted--not Roman galleys
but the raven-winged ships from the North where Rome does not rule. Men
moved in the ships, and the sun flashed on their helmets--winged helmets of
the red-haired men from the North where Rome does not rule. We watched,
and we counted, and we wondered; for though we had heard rumours
concerning these Winged Hats, as the Picts called them, never before had
we looked upon them.

'"Come away! Come away!" said Allo. "My Heather won't protect you here. We
shall all be killed!" His legs trembled like his voice. Back we went--back
across the heather under the moon, till it was nearly morning, and our
poor beasts stumbled on some ruins.

'When we woke, very stiff and cold, Allo was mixing the meal and water.
One does not light fires in the Pict country except near a village. The
little men are always signalling to each other with smokes, and a strange
smoke brings them out buzzing like bees. They can sting, too!

'"What we saw last night was a trading-station," said Allo. "Nothing but a
trading-station."

'"I do not like lies on an empty stomach," said Pertinax. "I suppose" (he
had eyes like an eagle's), "I suppose _that_ is a trading-station also?"
He pointed to a smoke far off on a hill-top, ascending in what we call the
Pict's Call:--Puff--double-puff: double-puff--puff! They make it by raising
and dropping a wet hide on a fire.

'"No," said Allo, pushing the platter back into the bag. "That is for you
and me. Your fate is fixed. Come."

'We came. When one takes Heather, one must obey one's Pict--but that
wretched smoke was twenty miles distant, well over on the east coast, and
the day was as hot as a bath.

'"Whatever happens," said Allo, while our ponies grunted along, "I want
you to remember me."

'"I shall not forget," said Pertinax. "You have cheated me out of my
breakfast."

'"What is a handful of crushed oats to a Roman?" he said