reply, Caesar had bidden Antiochus and the peasant boy remain in the
roadway, and had led the young man down the embankment that ran
sloping toward the river. The light was growing stronger every moment,
though the mist still hung heavy and dank. Below their feet the
slender stream--it was the end of the season--ran with a monotonous
gurgle, now and then casting up a little fleck of foam, as it rolled
by a small boulder in its bed.

"Imperator," said Drusus, while Caesar pressed his hand tighter and
tighter, "why advise with an inexperienced young man like myself? Why
did you send Curio away? I have no wisdom to offer; nor dare proffer
it, if such I had."

"Quintus Drusus," replied Caesar, sinking rather wearily down upon the
dry, dying grass, "if I had needed the counsel of a soldier, I should
have waited until Marcus Antonius arrived; if I had needed that of a
politician, I was a fool to send away Curio; if I desire the counsel
of one who is, as yet, neither a man of the camp, nor a man of the
Forum, but who can see things with clear eyes, can tell what may be
neither glorious nor expedient, but what will be the will,"--and here
the Imperator hesitated,--"the will of the gods, tell me to whom I
shall go."

Drusus was silent; the other continued;--

"Listen, Quintus Drusus. I do not believe in blind fate. We were not
given wills only to have them broken. The function of a limb is not to
be maimed, nor severed from the body. A limb is to serve a man; just
so a man and his actions are to serve the ends of a power higher and
nobler than he. If he refuse to serve that power, he is like the
mortifying limb,--a thing of evil to be cut off. And this is true of
all of us; we all have some end to serve, we are not created for no
purpose." Caesar paused. When he began again it was in a different tone
of voice. "I have brought you with me, because I know you are
intelligent, are humane, love your country, and can make sacrifices
for her; because you are my friend and to a certain extent share my
destiny; because you are too young to have become overprejudiced, and
calloused to pet foibles and transgressions. Therefore I took you with
me, having put off the final decision to the last possible instant.
And now I desire your counsel."

"How can I counsel peace!" replied Drusus, warming to a sense of the
situation. "Is not Italy in the hand of tyrants? Is not Pompeius the
tool of coarse schemers? Do they not pray for proscripti