he suspicious porter, cursed Falto, cursed
every slave and freedman on the estate, cursed Mamercus for not
leaving some word about the possibility of his coming from Rome.
Agias's imprecations spent themselves in air; and he was none the
happier. Would Drusus never come? The time was drifting on. The sun
had been up three or more hours. At any instant the gladiators might
arrive.

Then again there was a clatter of hoofs, at the very moment when Agias
had again remounted to the loophole. There were voices raised in
questions and greetings; slave-boys were scampering to and fro to take
the horses; Drusus with Pausanias and the Mamerci had returned from
Lanuvium. Agias pressed his head out the loophole and screamed to
attract attention. His voice could not penetrate the domestic hubbub.
Drusus was standing shaking hands with a couple of clients and
evidently in a very good humour over some blunt rustic compliment.
Mago was nowhere to be seen. Agias glanced up the road toward
Praeneste. The highway was straight and fairly level, but as it went
over a hill-slope some little way off, what was that he saw upon
it?--the sun flashing on bright arms, which glinted out from the
dust-cloud raised by a considerable number of men marching!

"Drusus! Master Drusus!" Agias threw all his soul into the cry. As if
to blast his last hope, Drusus hastily bowed away the salves and aves
of the two clients, turned, and went into the villa. Agias groaned in
agony. A very few moments would bring Dumnorix to the villa, and the
young slave did not doubt that Gabinius was with the lanista to direct
the attack. Agias tore at his chains, and cursed again, calling on all
the Furies of Tartarus to confound the porter and Falto. Suddenly
before the loophole passed a slave damsel of winning face and
blithesome manner, humming to herself a rude little ditty, while she
balanced a large earthen water-pot on her head. It was Chloe, whom the
reader has met in the opening scene of this book, though Agias did not
know her name.

"By all the gods, girl!" he cried frantically, "do you want to have
your master slaughtered before your very eyes?"

Chloe stopped, a little startled at this voice, almost from under her
feet.

"Oh, you, Master Assassin!" she sneered. "Do you want to repeat those
pretty stories of yours, such as I heard you tell last night?"

"Woman," cried Agias, with all the earnestness which agony and fear
could throw into face and voice, "go