breathe
more freely.

"What a coward I am!" he cried, aloud. "It's because I'm doing wrong in
leaving home as I did after receiving my father's commands. But I
couldn't help it. Something forced me to come away, and it was only
because I felt that I ought to be at father's side.

"Perhaps it wasn't cowardice," he muttered, after a pause. "It may have
been prudence--the desire to make sure of reaching the army without
being turned back. And I'm such a boy that this great warrior would
have laughed at me and perhaps have looked at me mockingly as he felt my
arms. I've done quite right, and I'll keep to myself and join nobody
till I get to the army, where I shall be safe."

After a time Marcus started off again, keeping a sharp look-out along
the road as he proceeded, till, some time later, he saw afar off a flash
of light, then another, which proved that the first had come from the
marching warrior's helmet, and once more Marcus slackened his pace.

He saw no more of the man that day, but, as the evening was closing in,
upon the slope of a wooded mountain the boy caught sight of a
goat-herd's hut, where he obtained bread and milk, and the peasant who
lived there asked him if he was a companion of the big warrior who had
been there a short time before.

Marcus shook his head, and soon after continued his journey, keeping a
stricter watch than ever, but seeing no more of the man. But he turned
aside into the forest as soon as he found a suitable place offering
shelter and a soft, dry couch, and was soon after plunged in a restful
sleep which lasted till the grey dawn, when he suddenly started into
wakefulness, disturbed, as he was, by the rattling of armour.

Marcus shrank back among the undergrowth which had been his shelter,
waking fully to the fact that he had lain down to sleep not above a
dozen yards from where the man had made his couch, while, in all
probability, had he continued his journey for those few paces the night
before, he would have stumbled upon him he sought to avoid.

There was nothing for it but to wait for a while so as to give his
fellow-traveller time to get some distance ahead, and, when he thought
that he might start, Marcus went on again slowly, with the result that,
during that day, he caught sight of the man twice over steadily plodding
on, but never once looking back or hesitating as to his path.

When night closed in again, the country had become far more hilly, and,
as Marcus