In the old days the Legions kept silence before their Emperor . So did not we ! You could hear the solid roar run West along the Wall as his chair was carried rocking through the crowds . The garrison beat round him -- clamouring , clowning , asking for pay , for change of quarters , for anything that came into their wild heads . That chair was like a little boat among waves , dipping and falling , but always rising again after one had shut the eyes . ' Parnesius shivered . ` Were they angry with him ? ' said Dan . ` No more angry than wolves in a cage when their trainer walks among them . If he had turned his back an instant , or for an instant had ceased to hold their eyes , there would have been another Emperor made on the Wall that hour . Was it not so , Faun ? ' ` So it was . So it always will be , ' said Puck . ` Late in the evening his messenger came for us , and we followed to the Temple of Victory , where he lodged with Rutilianus , the General of the Wall . I had hardly seen the General before , but he always gave me leave when I wished to take Heather . He was a great glutton , and kept five Asian cooks , and he came of a family that believed in oracles . We could smell his good dinner when we entered , but the tables were empty . He lay snorting on a couch . Maximus sat apart among long rolls of accounts . Then the doors were shut . '
`` These are your men , '' said XXXXX to the General , who propped his eye-corners open with his gouty fingers , and stared at us like a fish . '
Asian Dan General Maximus Parnesius Wall clamouring evening hour trainer