THE WHITE FAWN
retire to Spain, where he held out against Sulla's rule. The Red General sent armies to subdue him, but Sertorius, as clever as he was brave, succeeded in escaping by sea. A violent storm nearly broke up his fleet of ships. He landed again in the south of Spain, near the water-passage now known as the Strait of Gibraltar. At this point he met a parry of seamen, who had just come back from the western sea.
“Where have you been?” he asked these sailors.
“Sir," they said, “we have been on the great sea, as far as the Fortunate Islands, a thousand miles from here.”
“What kind of islands are they?”
“Rain seldom falls there; the breeze blows soft; the air is sweet; the soil is rich. We think these islands must be the Happy Fields of which the poet Homer sings.”
“I will go and see this happy land for myself,” said Sertorius.
But his plan was never carried out. He crossed to Morocco, and helped the prince of the Moors to regain his lost throne; and while he was in Africa a message came to him from Spain.
“We look to you,” was the message, “as our captain, to defend us against the Romans.”
So here was a Roman, acting as leader of the Spanish people against his own republic. This
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