n their dog.
When I have shown their men the secret short ways across our bogs, they
will kick me like one."

'"Then I should not be in haste to show them those ways," said Pertinax,
"till I were sure that Rome could not save the Wall."

'"You think so? Woe is me!" said the old man. "I only wanted peace for my
people," and he went out stumbling through the snow behind the tall Winged
Hats.

'In this fashion then, slowly, a day at a time, which is very bad for
doubting troops, the War came upon us. At first the Winged Hats swept in
from the sea as they had done before, and there we met them as before--with
the catapults; and they sickened of it. Yet for a long time they would not
trust their duck-legs on land, and I think when it came to revealing the
secrets of the tribe, the little Picts were afraid or ashamed to show them
all the roads across the heather. I had this from a Pict prisoner. They
were as much our spies as our enemies, for the Winged Hats oppressed them,
and took their winter stores. Ah, foolish Little People!

'Then the Winged Hats began to roll us up from each end of the Wall. I
sent runners Southward to see what the news might be in Britain; but the
wolves were very bold that winter among the deserted stations where the
troops had once been, and none came back. We had trouble too with the
forage for the ponies along the Wall. I kept ten, and so did Pertinax. We
lived and slept in the saddle riding east or west, and we ate our worn-out
ponies. The people of the town also made us some trouble till I gathered
them all in one quarter behind Hunno. We broke down the Wall on either
side of it to make as it were a citadel. Our men fought better in close
order.

'By the end of the second month we were deep in the War as a man is deep
in a snow-drift or in a dream. I think we fought in our sleep. At least I
know I have gone on the Wall and come off again, remembering nothing
between, though my throat was harsh with giving orders, and my sword, I
could see, had been used.

'The Winged Hats fought like wolves--all in a pack. Where they had suffered
most, there they charged in most hotly. This was hard for the defender,
but it held them from sweeping on into Britain.

'In those days Pertinax and I wrote on the plaster of the bricked archway
into Valentia the names of the towers, and the days on which they fell one
by one. We wished for some record.

'And the fighting? The fight was always hottest to left a