foes. Here, if needs be, I will die." But before he
could protest further, Cappadox had caught him in his powerful arms,
and despite his struggles was running with him through the rear of the
house.

Pandemonium reigned in the atrium. The gladiators were shivering fine
sculptures, ripping up upholstery, swearing in their uncouth Celtic or
German dialects, searching everywhere for their victim in the rooms
that led off the atrium. A voice in Latin was raising loud
remonstrance.

"_AEdepol!_ Dumnorix, call off your men! Phaon hasn't led our bird into
the net. We shall be ruined if this keeps on! Drusus isn't here!"

"By the Holy Oak, Gabinius," replied another voice, in barbarous
Latin, "what I've begun I'll end! I'll find Drusus yet; and we won't
leave a soul living to testify against us! You men, break down that
door and let us into the rest of the house!"

Mamercus heard a rush down one of the passages leading to the
peristylium. The house was almost entirely deserted, except by the
shrieking maids. The clients and freedmen and male slaves were almost
all in the fields. The veteran, Falto, and Pausanias, who had come in,
and who was brave enough, but nothing of a warrior, were the only
defenders of the peristylium.

"You two," shouted Mamercus, "guard the other door! Move that heavy
chest against it. Pile the couch and cabinet on top. This door I will
hold."

There was the blow of a heavy mace on the portal, and the wood sprang
out, and the pivots started.

"Leave this alone," roared Mamercus, when his two helpers paused, as
if to join him. "Guard your own doorway!"

"Down with it!" bellowed the voice of the leaders without. "Don't let
the game escape! Strike again!"

Crash! And the door, beaten from its fastenings by a mighty stroke,
tumbled inward on to the mosaic pavement of the peristylium. The light
was streaming bright and free into that court, but the passageway from
the atrium was shrouded in darkness. Mamercus, sword drawn, stood
across the entrance.

"By the god Tarann!"[115] shouted Dumnorix, who from the rear of his
followers was directing the attack. "Here is a stout old game-cock!
Out of the way, greybeard! We'll spare you for your spirit. Take him,
some of you, alive!"

[115] The Gallic thunder-god.

Two gigantic, blond Germans thrust their prodigious bodies through the
doorway. Mamercus was no small man, but slight he seemed before these
mighty Northerners.

The Germans had intended