wed his head slanting like a
Spaniard. "Follow it, boy," he said. That was all. I was only too glad
to get away, though I had many messages for home. I found my men
standing as they had been put--they had not even shifted their feet in
the dust, and off I marched, still feeling that terrific smile like an
east wind up my back. I never halted them till sunset, and'--he turned
about and looked at Pook's Hill below him--'then I halted yonder.' He
pointed to the broken, bracken-covered shoulder of the Forge Hill behind
old Hobden's cottage.

'There? Why, that's only the old Forge--where they made iron once,' said
Dan.

'Very good stuff it was too,' said Parnesius calmly. 'We mended three
shoulder-straps here and had a spear-head riveted. The Forge was rented
from the Government by a one-eyed smith from Carthage. I remember we
called him Cyclops. He sold me a beaver-skin rug for my sister's room.'

'But it couldn't have been here,' Dan insisted.

'But it was! From the Altar of Victory at Anderida to the First Forge in
the Forest here is twelve miles seven hundred paces. It is all in the
Road Book. A man doesn't forget his first march. I think I could tell
you every station between this and----' He leaned forward, but his eye
was caught by the setting sun.

It had come down to the top of Cherry Clack Hill, and the light poured
in between the tree trunks so that you could see red and gold and black
deep into the heart of Far Wood; and Parnesius in his armour shone as
though he had been afire.

'Wait!' he said, lifting a hand, and the sunlight jinked on his glass
bracelet. 'Wait! I pray to Mithras!'

He rose and stretched his arms westward, with deep, splendid-sounding
words.

Then Puck began to sing too, in a voice like bells tolling, and as he
sang he slipped from Volaterrae to the ground, and beckoned the children
to follow. They obeyed; it seemed as though the voices were pushing them
along; and through the goldy-brown light on the beech leaves they
walked, while Puck between them chanted something like this:

'Cur mundus militat sub vana gloria
Cujus prosperitas est transitoria?
Tam cito labitur ejus potentia
Quam vasa figuli quae sunt fragilia.'

They found themselves at the little locked gates of the wood.

'Quo Caesar abiit celsus imperio?
Vel Dives splendidus totus in prandio?
Dic ubi Tullius----'

Still singing, he took Dan's hand and wheeled him round to face Una as
she came out of the gate. It shut