e General, who propped his
eye-corners open with his gouty fingers, and stared at us like a fish.

'"I shall know them again, Caesar," said Rutilianus.

"Very good," said Maximus. "Now hear! You are not to move man or shield
on the Wall except as these boys shall tell you. You will do nothing,
except eat, without their permission. They are the head and arms. You
are the belly!"

'"As Caesar pleases," the old man grunted. "If my pay and profits are not
cut, you may make my Ancestors' Oracle my master. Rome has been! Rome
has been!" Then he turned on his side to sleep.

'"He has it," said Maximus. "We will get to what _I_ need."

'He unrolled full copies of the number of men and supplies on the
Wall--down to the sick that very day in Hunno Hospital. Oh, but I
groaned when his pen marked off detachment after detachment of our
best--of our least worthless men! He took two towers of our Scythians,
two of our North British auxiliaries, two Numidian cohorts, the Dacians
all, and half the Belgians. It was like an eagle pecking a carcass.

'"And now, how many catapults have you?" He turned up a new list, but
Pertinax laid his open hand there.

'"No, Caesar," said he. "Do not tempt the Gods too far. Take men, or
engines, but not both; else we refuse."'

'Engines?' said Una.

'The catapults of the Wall--huge things forty feet high to the
head--firing nets of raw stone or forged bolts. Nothing can stand
against them. He left us our catapults at last, but he took a Caesar's
half of our men without pity. We were a shell when he rolled up the
lists!

'"Hail, Caesar! We, about to die, salute you!" said Pertinax, laughing.
"If any enemy even leans against the Wall now, it will tumble."

'"Give me the three years Allo spoke of," he answered, "and you shall
have twenty thousand men of your own choosing up here. But now it is a
gamble--a game played against the Gods, and the stakes are Britain,
Gaul, and perhaps Rome. You play on my side?"

'"We will play, Caesar," I said, for I had never met a man like this man.

'"Good. Tomorrow," said he, "I proclaim you Captains of the Wall before
the troops."

'So we went into the moonlight, where they were cleaning the ground
after the Games. We saw great Roma Dea atop of the Wall, the frost on
her helmet, and her spear pointed towards the North Star. We saw the
twinkle of night-fires all along the guard towers, and the line of the
black catapults growing smaller and smaller in the d