ound silence, under the dark shadow of an
overhanging bush, it is no wonder that the captain and his comrade began
to think the time very long, yet it was only a few minutes after he had
left them that their guide returned.

"Only a single family," he whispered--"three men, two women, and four
children. We have nothing to fear, but we must pass on in silence."

The discovery of those natives obliged them to continue the march up the
bed of the stream much longer than they had intended, and the night was
far advanced before they thought it prudent to leave the water and
pursue the journey on dry land.

Fortunately the country was open and comparatively free from underwood,
so that they made progress much more rapidly; nevertheless, it was not
thought safe to take rest until they had placed many a mile between them
and the natives, who, it was thought probable, would be started in
pursuit of them by the youth to whom Bladud had given chase.

Much wearied, and almost falling asleep while they advanced, the
travellers halted at last in a dense thicket, and there, lying down
without food or fire, they were soon buried in profound repose.

CHAPTER NINE.

HOMECOMING.

It is beyond the scope of this tale to describe minutely all that befell
our adventurers on their long, fatiguing, and dangerous march through
ancient Gaul, which land at that time had neither name nor history.

Suffice it to say that, after numerous adventures with savage beasts,
and scarcely less savage men, and many hair-breadth escapes and
thrilling incidents by flood and field, they at last found themselves on
the shores of that narrow channel which separated the northern coast of
Gaul from the white cliffs of Old Albion. They were guided thereto, as
we have said, by the Pole-star, which shone in our sky in those days
with its wonted brilliancy, though, probably, astronomers had not yet
given to it a local habitation in their systems or a distinctive name.

Of course their passage through the land had been attended with great
variety of fortune, good and bad. In some parts they met with natives
who received them hospitably and sent them on their way rejoicing.
Elsewhere they found banditti, fortunately in small bands, with whom
they had to fight, and once they were seized and imprisoned by a tribe
of inhospitable savages, from whom they escaped, as it were, by the skin
of their teeth.

In all these vicissitudes the gigantic frame and the mild,