"
'He looked at me a long time, and bowed his head
slanting like a Spaniard. "Follow it, boy," he said. That
was all. I was only too glad to get away, though I had
many messages for home. I found my men standing as
they had been put - they had not even shifted their feet in
the dust, and off I marched, still feeling that terrific smile
like an east wind up my back. I never halted them till
sunset, and' - he turned about and looked at Pook's Hill
below him - 'then I halted yonder.' He pointed to the
broken, bracken-covered shoulder of the Forge Hill
behind old Hobden's cottage.
'There? Why, that's only the old Forge - where they
made iron once,' said Dan.
'Very good stuff it was too,' said Parnesius calmly. 'We
mended three shoulder-straps here and had a spear-head
riveted. The Forge was rented from the Government by a
one-eyed smith from Carthage. I remember we called
him Cyclops. He sold me a beaver-skin rug for my sister's room.'
'But it couldn't have been here,' Dan insisted.
'But it was! From the Altar of Victory at Anderida to the
First Forge in the Forest here is twelve miles seven
hundred paces.
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