twinkling had taken in the
situation. Mamercus, who felt within himself that he, by his
oversight, had been the chief blunderer, to vent his vexation smote
Falto so sound a cuff that the under villicus sprawled his full
length.

"Go to the ergastulum and fetch Agias this instant," cried Drusus, in
thundering accents, to the trembling Mago, who had appeared on the
scene.

Mago disappeared like magic, but in an instant a din was rising from
the front of the house,--cries, blows, clash of steel. Into the
peristylium, where the angry young master was standing, rushed the old
slave woman, Lais.

"_Hei! hei!_" she screamed, "they are breaking in! Monsters! a hundred
of them! They will kill us all!"

Drusus grew calm in an instant.

"Barricade the doors to the atrium!" he commanded, "while I can put on
my armour. You, Mamercus, are too old for this kind of work; run and
call in the field-hands, the clients, and the neighbours. Cappadox,
Falto, and I can hold the doors till aid comes."

"I run?" cried the veteran, in hot incredulity, while with his single
hand he tore from its stout leather wall-fastenings a shield that had
been beaten with Punic swords at the Metaurus.[114] "I run?" he
repeated, while a mighty crash told that the front door had given way,
and the attackers were pouring into the atrium. And the veteran had
thrust a venerable helmet over his grizzled locks, and was wielding
his shield with his handless left arm, while a good Spanish
short-sword gleamed in his right hand.

[114] The great battle won in 207 B.C. over Hasdrubal.

The others had not been idle. Cappadox had barred both doors leading
into the front part of the house. Drusus had armed, and Falto,--a more
loyal soul than whom lived not,--burning to retrieve his blunder, had
sprung to his patron's side, also in shield and helm.

"They will soon force these doors," said Drusus, quietly, growing more
composed as closer and closer came the actual danger. "Falto and I
will guard the right. Cappadox and you, Mamercus, if you will stay,
must guard the left. Some aid must come before a great while."

But again the veteran whipped out an angry oath, and thundered, "You
stay, you soft-fingered Quintus! You stay and face those German
giants! Why, you are the very man they are after! Leave fighting to an
old soldier! Take him away, Cappadox, if you love him!"

"I will never leave!" blazed forth Drusus. "My place is here. A Livian
always faces his