e truth, which was, that Cassius had been
defeated, and his camp had fallen into the hands of the enemy. He
immediately collected together as large a force as he could command, and
marched to the relief of his colleague. He found him, at last, posted
with a small body of guards and attendants upon the top of a small
elevation to which he had fled for safety. Cassius saw the troop of
horsemen which Brutus sent forward coming toward him, and supposed that
it was a detachment from Antony's army advancing to capture him. He,
however, sent a messenger forward to meet them, and ascertain whether
they were friends or foes. The messenger, whose name was Titinius, rode
down. The horsemen recognized Titinius, and, riding up eagerly around
him, they dismounted from their horses to congratulate him on his
safety, and to press him with inquiries in respect to the result of the
battle and the fate of his master.

Cassius, seeing all this, but not seeing it very distinctly, supposed
that the troop of horsemen were enemies, and that they had surrounded
Titinius, and had cut him down or made him prisoner. He considered it
certain, therefore, that all was now finally lost. Accordingly, in
execution of a plan which he had previously formed, he called a servant,
named Pindarus, whom he directed to follow him, and went into a tent
which was near. When Brutus and his horsemen came up, they entered the
tent. They found no living person within; but the dead body of Cassius
was there, the head being totally dissevered from it. Pindarus was never
afterward to be found.

Brutus was overwhelmed with grief at the death of his colleague; he was
also oppressed by it with a double burden of responsibility and care,
since now the whole conduct of affairs devolved upon him alone. He found
himself surrounded with difficulties which became more and more
embarrassing every day. At length he was compelled to fight a second
battle. The details of the contest itself we can not give, but the
result of it was, that, notwithstanding the most unparalleled and
desperate exertions made by Brutus to keep his men to the work, and to
maintain his ground, his troops were borne down and overwhelmed by the
irresistible onsets of his enemies, and his cause was irretrievably and
hopelessly ruined.

When Brutus found that all was lost, he allowed himself to be conducted
off the field by a small body of guards, who, in their retreat, broke
through the ranks of the enemy o