d.

"Is there a special hall for the Dying Gladiator?" asked Rollo.

"No," said Mr. George, "not for the Dying Gladiator alone. But many of
the halls in these museums are named from the most celebrated statue
that there is in them. And I knew that the room where the Dying
Gladiator is placed was called by that name."

So they walked on, and presently they came to the room. There were a
great many large statues in it; but among them it was very easy to
recognize at once the one which they had come to see, both on account of
the conspicuous situation in which it was placed, and also from its
form. Here is a representation of it.

[Illustration: STATUE OF THE GLADIATOR.]

Mr. George and Rollo both looked upon the statue for a few minutes in
silence.

"Yes," said Rollo, at length, "yes, I see. He is dying. He is sinking
gradually down."

"Do you see the wound in his side?" asked Mr. George.

"Yes," replied Rollo, "and the drops of blood coming out."

"He has dropped his sword," said Mr. George. "It is lying there near his
hand."

"What a short sword!" said Rollo. "There are some other things lying on
the ground beneath him, but I do not know what they are."

"Nor I," said Mr. George. "One of them seems to be a sort of trumpet.
People think from that that this man was a herald."

"But I thought he was a gladiator," said Rollo.

"They call him a gladiator," replied Mr. George, "but nobody really
knows what the statue was originally intended for. You see it was dug up
out of a heap of rubbish, just as almost all these statues were, and
people have to guess what they were intended for. This statue was dug up
in a garden--a garden belonging to an ancient Roman villa."

"What does that cord around his neck mean?" asked Rollo.

"They think it means that the man was a Gaul. The Gauls used to wear
such cords, I believe."

"I thought he was a Dacian," said Rollo.

"I suppose it is uncertain who he was," replied Mr. George; "but look at
his face. See the expression of it. It is an expression of mingled
suffering and rage, and yet he looks as if he were so far gone as to
begin to be unconscious of every thing around him."

"Yes," said Rollo; "he does not seem to notice us at all."

"In that," said Mr. George, "is shown the great skill of the sculptor,
to express such different, and, as one would think, almost conflicting
emotions in the same face, at the same time."

After looking at the statue some time longer