“No, there mustn’t, and there arn’t, without you go a long journey round, and that a general is not likely to do. Passes through the mountains are a long way apart; and besides, of course our new captain knew the way that Caius Julius was going, and this is the way he meant to follow if he had come on.”
“Are you sure?” said the boy, doubtingly.
“Certain, my lad, or I wouldn’t go this way.”
Serge had struck for the right, and he proved to be right indeed, for before an hour had passed the adventurers had good proof, the old soldier suddenly giving vent to a grunt of satisfaction.
“What is it, Serge?” cried Marcus, eagerly, seeing that the old man was smiling.
“I’m right,” he said.
“What! Can you see anything?”
“Yes; look yonder, boy.”
Marcus gazed in the direction the old man pointed, carefully scanning the distance, but seeing nothing save the undulating stony plain with here and there a stunted tree, and in one part a depression like an old river bed.
“Well,” he said; at last; “I can see nothing.”