reeze which wafted its coolness
from the snowy pass.

To one ignorant of the horrors that lurked behind, it was one grand
display of armed men, with their armour glittering and standards on
high, marching in different bodies as if to take part in some glorious
pageant to be held in the mighty, rugged amphitheatre whose walls were
mountains and whose background was formed by the piled-up masses of ice
and snow, here silvery, there dazzling golden in the blaze of the
afternoon sun, and farther back beauteous with the various azure tints,
from the faintest tinge to the deepest purple, in the rifts and chasms
far on high.

There was a grim meaning behind it all as the troops under the command
of Caius Julius swept round by slow degrees to seize upon and hold the
different little valleys leading into the amphitheatre, and all in a
slow orderly fashion suggesting merely change of position, and as if
collision with the Gallic force was the last thing likely to occur.

For as the Roman soldiery gradually advanced as if the distant pass were
the object they held in view, ready for pressing through it in one long
extended column, the barbarian troops gradually fell back, to form
themselves into one vast dam whose object it was to check the Roman
human river and roll it back broken and dismembered, ready for final
destruction in the plains they had invaded.

There were moments when, as he stood beside the line of stalwart men
with whom he had been placed, Marcus' thoughts were wholly upon the
scene of which, from high up on a slope of one of the valleys, he had a
most comprehensive view; and he too was ready to forget what was behind,
as for an hour he watched and waited, until as if by magic the marching
and changing of position of the thousands before his eyes had ceased.

It was evening then, with the sun sinking behind the hills in the rear
of the now concentrated Roman army, while the Gauls who filled the
amphitheatre and faced them were lit up, and their armour and weapons
blazed as if turned to fire by the orange glow which rose and filled the
mountain hollows and the pass beyond with its ever-deepening reddening
haze.

Naturally enough Marcus took his stand close by Serge, who seemed to
have quite recovered from the injuries which he had received, and stood
up bronzed and sturdy, with his face lit up with the expectancy of one
whose training taught him to foresee a triumph for the Roman arms.

"Are we all ready, Se