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scarcely deserved the name of regiment now. They were quiet years disturbed only by the news that Magnus Maximus had got himself proclaimed emperor. This made little difference to us, but when the troops in Gaul denounced the emperor Gratianus, Magnus Maximus saw that his chance had come—to try for two provinces instead of one. He raised troops wherever he could lay hands on them and stripped the Wall of its best men. In a week he undid the work of ten years and we were left naked to defend the frontier with our bare hands. When I, in my turn, received orders to send half my men, I would not do it. Together with Quintus I rode down to Eburacum, where I knew Maximus was, and asked to see him.
    “I have heard of you,” he said. “You bear my name. You served Fullofaudes and Theodosius well, but you do not wish to serve me. Give me a reason why I do not have you executed or broken?”
    “Because you cannot afford it,” I said. “Not one man can you afford to waste. I serve Rome as well as this island, and the safety of both depends on her frontiers.”
    “I am the Emperor.”
    “That is disputed by one emperor in Rome and by another in the east. I will believe it when they are dead.”
    “I shall not fail.”
    “Of course not. To you, Caesar, the throne; to us the war.”
    He tried hard to smile. “In my service you could have had a regiment, or perhaps a legion. You could have gone far.”
    “To my death in a Gaulish mist?”
    “You may do that yet when I return.”
    “When you return, Caesar, I shall be with my cohort on the Wall. Or dead under it.”
    He looked anxious then. “The Wall must be held,” he said.
    “It has never yet been taken by direct assault.” I looked at him and added, slowly, “Only by betrayal.”
    We returned to our forts. We had kept our men, but we were lucky to be alive.
    He failed, of course. He destroyed Gratianus, but the son of the man who had helped him to power proved another matter. And so Theodosius I became the last sole emperor of the Roman world, while we shivered in the rain and prayed that the Picts might leave us alone.
    Then one day a strange tribesman came to the north gate and said he wished to see me.
    “Well?” I asked. I was curious, for he wore the marks of the Epidoni of whom I had heard much but seen nothing.
    “I bear a message for the tribune of the Tungri.”
    “You may give it to me then,” I said.
    “I have a friend who wishes to see you.”
    “Who is this friend without a name?”
    “I was to say that you would know him when you saw him.”
    “So.”
    “He is two days march to the north and waits upon the coast.”
    “And is that all you have to say?”
    “It is all I was told to say.”
    “It is a clumsy trap,” said Quintus. “Do not go.”
    I turned back to the dark man before me. “And if I do not go?”
    He looked disconcerted. “My friend told me to say—come for the sake of an old friendship.”
    I felt very cold. “I will come,” I said. “But not alone.”
    “My friend expected that. But you must carry a green branch or not come at all.”
    “It is agreed.”
    I took Quintus and twenty men from the fort. Quintus was quietly curious but he asked no questions. For two days we rode north along the old military road, built by Agricola, and then, with the wind in our faces we made towards the sea. It was very cold, but we came at last to a long beach of silver sand. The wind blew in the sharp grass and the sea birds walked among the wet flats, for it was low tide and the sea was calm. On the beach, among the tufted dunes, stood a small tent, and a wood fire burned smokily in front of it. Away to the right with its prow over the sand, lay a long narrow boat with a dragon head, the sails furled below the single mast. I left Quintus, and rode down to the sand with the guide trotting beside me. He had heard us coming for he came out of the tent and stood motionless, waiting for me as I rode forward, the green branch in my sword