As he reflected he glanced occasionally up at the tall figure of a youthful Briton beside him—a noble of the tribe of the Brigantes—whom the soldiers had nicknamed 'Rufus' on account of his auburn hair.
These two had become such close friends that the prefect of the camp had likened them to Nisus and Euryalus, for they were inseparable. 'His amor unus erat pariterque in bella ruebant.'
'Rufus' was employed as an 'explorator'—a pioneer, or scout, along the wall, as he had an exact knowledge of the country, but he was at the moment engaged upon a piece of sculpture—having a natural gift for the chisel—and was putting a final touch to the figure of a lion standing above a dead stag.
He stooped and drew a stopper of clay from the lion's mouth, and at once a stream of water broke through and flashed into the trough.
'Euge! Macte virtute, puer!' cried Castus in delight; ''tis a superb fountain head! And the carving is wondrous, for though thou hast seen the stag thou hast not the lion; yet there he stands full of pride and challenge on his kill, just as I have seen him in the Circus Maximus in Rome.
'By the way,' he continued, 'I have ordered Scaevola, the camp's head mason, to cut that altar which we promised to set up to Sylvanus when we brought down the famous Grindon stag—that great hart o' grease—which every officer in Corstopitum had hunted in vain.'
As he spoke he rose up and laid his tablet and style aside.
'How jealous they all were,' he continued. 'How the Prefect doubted its weight and sneered at its tynes and the bay and tray!'
'I think,' replied his friend with a laugh, 'that he would willingly himself have set up an altar to every god from Jupiter Optimus Maximus to our local Mogon, had he had the luck to grass him.'
'The Forum would have been lined with them,' assented his friend, smiling also. 'Well, this is the inscription I gave to Scaevola to cut on the one altar we promised—he was cheap at one.