d valley, which leads right
through, and then when we get to the top of the pass begins to go down
again, when we shall find it getting warmer every hour till we are once
more in the plains amongst the green fields and forests of the enemy's
country. Look there at that stream," and the old soldier pointed to the
dingy-coloured rushing waters which flowed by the side of the level
which their leader had chosen as the site of that night's camp.

"Yes, I see; and it isn't fit to drink," said Marcus.

"Snow water," said the old man, shortly. "Well, which way does it run?"

"Why, towards us, of course."

"Well, by this time to-morrow, if it's like one that I tramped by with
your father years ago, we shall have found it coming out from underneath
a bed of ice, left it behind, and on the other side of the hill come
upon another flowing right away to the north and west; and alongside of
that road will be our road, right into the enemy's country, and the
enemy posted every here and there to stop us from reaching the plain--
that is, if Julius and your father have not driven them right away. But
most likely they have, and all our troubles now will come from the
rear."

Serge's remarks, based upon old experience, proved to be pretty correct,
for the troubles of the little force began to come thick and fast. Up
to the time of that last halt the attacks had been made by the little
parties, each under its own leader, and they came from front, rear, and
flanks, in all directions, for the rush made by one portion of a tribe
would act as the signal for others to follow suit, and it frequently
happened that the Roman soldiers were completely surrounded. But now as
they moved on towards the north and west, the pass they had entered and
which wound or zig-zagged its way more into the mountain chain which
divided the land of the Gauls from the Roman dominions, closed in more
and more, beginning as a beautiful open valley and gradually changing
its nature as it rose till it assumed the nature of a gorge or rift.
The sides were no longer soft grassy slopes broken by little vales which
afforded shelter for the enemy, and from which they made their fiercest
rushes, coming down like furious torrents from the hills and often in
company with the streams by whose sides they made their way, but hour by
hour grew steeper till they assumed the nature of rugged walls,
impassable to any but climbers or the goats that browsed their sterile
paths