The general turned to his officers.
"Gentlemen," he said quietly, "we may still retreat; but if we once pass this little bridge, nothing is left for us but to fight it out in arms." The group was silent, each waiting for the other to speak.

At this instant a mountebank piper sitting by the roadway struck up his ditty, and a few idle soldiers and wayfaring shepherds ran up to him to catch the music.

The man flung down his pipe, snatched a trumpet from a bugler, and, springing up, blew a shrill blast.

It was the "advance." Caesar turned again to his officers.
"Gentlemen," he said, "let us go where the omens of the gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us! _The die is now cast!"_ And he strode over the bridge, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left.

As his feet touched the dust of the road beyond, the full sun touched the horizon, the landscape was bathed with living, quivering gold, and the brightness shed itself over the steadfast countenance, not of Caesar the Proconsul, but of Caesar the Insurgent.
The Rubicon was crossed!.