Out of the mists of early English history emerges an exciting and moving story of the boy Orlex, his sister Una, and his friend Mandubracius, Prince of the Trinovantes tribe.

The time is 55 B.C., and the great Roman general, Caesar, is preparing to invade the mysterious, unknown isle called Briton. News of the invasion has traveled ahead of his approaching fleet, and the scattered English tribes are making ready either to fight or to join the invader.

Orlex and Mandubracius are sent to greet the emissary of Caesar. Captured on the way back by enemy Kentish tribesmen, Orlex, by a trick, frees the prince. Orlex himself eventually reaches Caesar and joins the great general's forces in Rome. Una, too, through a strange turn of fate, finds herself in Rome—a place of endless wonder to the two cave-dwelling children from Briton.

The story of their exciting adventures in Rome and of Caesar's thundering conquest of Briton is, in effect, the story of one great step in the march of civilization.

From the dust jacket