exclaimed Fabia. "He is in frightful danger.
You know Dumnorix will have a great band of gladiators, and there is
no force in Praeneste that can be counted on to restrain him."

"My dear lady," said Curio, laughing, "I am praising the happy Genius
that brought you here. We Caesarians are taught by our leaders never to
desert a friend in need; and Drusus has been a very good friend to us,
especially by using all his influence, very successfully, for our
cause among the Praenestians and the people of those parts. When did
you say that Dumnorix would pass through the town?"

"Early to-morrow, possibly," replied the Vestal.

"_Phui!_ Dismiss all care. I'll find out at once how many gladiators
he took with him to Anagnia. Some of his gang will be killed in the
games there, and more will be wounded and weak or disabled. I am
tribune, and I imagine I ought not to be out of the city over
night,[110] but before daybreak to-morrow I will take Antonius and
Sallustius and Quintus Cassius; and perhaps I can get Balbus and our
other associates to go. We will arm a few slaves and freedmen; and it
will be strange indeed if we cannot scatter to the four winds
Dumnorix's gladiators, before they have accomplished any mischief."

[110] This was the law, that the tribunes might always be ready to
render help (_auxilium_) to the distressed.

"The gods reward you!" said Fabia, simply. "I will go back to the
Temple, and pray that my nephew be kept from harm; and you also, and
your friends who will defend him."

Curio stood in the atrium a long time after the Vestal had left.

"The gods reward you!" he repeated. "So _she_ believes in the gods,
that there are gods, and that they care for us struggling men. Ah!
Caius, Caius Curio; if the mob had murdered you that day you protected
Caesar after he spoke in the Senate in favour of the Catilinarians,
where would you be to-day? Whence have you come? Whither do you go?
What assurance have you that you can depend on anything, but your own
hand and keen wits? What is to become of you, if you are knocked on
the head in that adventure to-morrow? And yet that woman believes
there are gods! What educated man is there that does? Perhaps we
would, if we led the simple lives our fathers did, and that woman
lives. Enough of this! I must be over letters to Caesar at Ravenna till
midnight: and then at morn off to gallop till our horses are
foundered."

Chapter X

Mamercus Guards the Door