This phantom was of unusual
size, and of beauty more than human, so far as its lineaments could be
traced in the early dawn. What is singular, however, in the story, on any
hypothesis which would explain it out of Caesar's individual condition, is,
that others saw it as well as he; both pastoral laborers, (who were
present, probably, in the character of guides,) and some of the sentinels
stationed at the passage of the river. These men fancied even that a
strain of music issued from this aerial flute. And some, both of the
shepherds and the Roman soldiers, who were bolder than the rest, advanced
towards the figure. Amongst this party, it happened that there were a few
Roman trumpeters. From one of these, the phantom, rising as they advanced
nearer, suddenly caught a trumpet, and blowing through it a blast of
superhuman strength, plunged into the Rubicon, passed to the other bank,
and disappeared in the dusky twilight of the dawn. Upon which Caesar
exclaimed:--"It is finished--the die is cast--let us follow whither the
guiding portents from Heaven, and the malice of our enemy, alike summon us
to go.
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