[All except the Emperor and Maximus go out to the right.
Maximus.
[After a time, rises from the stone where he has been seated and goes up to the Emperor.] My sick brother!
Julian.
Rather wounded than sick. The deer that is pierced by the hunter’s shaft seeks the thicket where its fellows cannot see it. I could no longer endure to be seen in the streets of Antioch;—and now I shrink from showing myself to the army.
Maximus.
No one sees you, friend; for they grope in blindness. But you shall be as a physician to restore their sight, and then they shall behold you in your glory.
Julian.
[Gazing down into the ravine.] How far beneath us! How tiny they seem, as they wind their way forward, amid thicket and brushwood, along the rocky river-bed!
When we stood at the mouth of this defile, all the leaders, as one man, made for the pass. It meant an hour’s way shortened, a little trouble spared,—on the road to death.