48 CYMBELINE.

‘““T must go on to Rome, and see him myself,” said Imogen.

And then Pisanio helped her to dress in boy’s clothes, and sent her
on her way, and went back to the Court. Before he went, he gave her
the drink he had had from the Queen.

Imogen went on, getting more and more tired, and at last came to
acave. Some one seemed to live there, but no one was in just then.
So she went in, and as she was almost dying of hunger, she took some
food she saw there, and had just done so, when an old man and two boys
came into the cave. She was very much frightened when she saw them,
for she thought that they would be angry with her for taking their food,
though she had meant to leave money for it on the table. But to her
surprise they welcomed her kindly. She looked very pretty in her boy’s
clothes, and her face was good, as well as pretty.

“You shall be our brother,” said both the boys; and so she stayed
with them, and helped to cook the food, and make things comfortable.
But one day when the old man, whose name was Bellarius, was out
hunting with the two boys, Imogen felt ill, and thought she would try
the medicine Pisanio had given her. So she took it, and at once became
like a dead creature, so that when Bellarius and the boys came back from
hunting, they thought she was dead, and with many tears and funeral
songs, they carried her away, and laid her in the wood, covered with
flowers.

They sang sweet songs to her, and strewed flowers on her, pale
primroses, and the azure harebell, and eglantine, and furred moss, and
went away sorrowful. No sooner had they gone than Imogen awoke,
and not knowing how she came there, nor where she was, went wandering
through the wood.

Now while Imogen had been living in the cave, the Romans had
decided to attack Britain, and their army had come over, and with them
Leonatus, who had grown sorry for his wickedness against Imogen, so
had come back, not to fight with the Romans against Britain, ee with
the Britons against Rome. So as Imogen cremilaneil alone, she met
with Lucius, the Roman general, and took service with him as his page.

When the battle was fought between the Romans and Britons,
Bellarius and his two boys fought for their own country, and Leonatus,
disguised as a British peasant, fought beside them. The Romans had