are very young to wish to die,” said the Libyan, grimly.  Agias did not argue.  Mago left him.  By climbing up a rude stool, Agias could peer through the loophole, which by great luck commanded a fairly ample view of the highway.  Drusus he naturally expected would come from the south, toward Praeneste.  And thence every moment he trembled lest Dumnorix’s gang should appear in sight.  But every distant dust-cloud for a long time resolved itself sooner or later into a shepherd with a flock of unruly sheep, or a wagon tugged by a pair of mules and containing a single huge wine-skin.  Drusus came not; Dumnorix came not.  Agias grew weary of watching, and climbed painfully down from the stool to eat his raw porridge.  Hardly had he done so than a loud clatter of hoofs sounded without.  With a bound that twisted his confined ankles and wrists sadly, Agias was back at his post.  A single rider on a handsome bay horse was coming up from the direction of Rome.  As he drew near to the villa, he pulled at his reins, and brought his steed down to a walk.  The horseman passed close to the loophole, and there was no mistaking his identity.  Agias had often seen that pale, pimpled face, and those long effeminate curls in company with Lucius Ahenobarbus.  The rider was Publius Gabinius, and the young Greek did not need to be told that his coming boded no good to Drusus.  Gabinius looked carefully at the villa, into the groves surrounding it, and then up and down the highway.  Then he touched the spur to his mount, and was gone.

  [112] Puls, the primitive Italian food.

Agias wrung his manacled hands.  Drusus would be murdered, Cornelia’s happiness undone, and he himself would become the slave of Lucius Ahenobarbus, who, when he had heard Phaon’s story, would show little enough of mercy.  He cursed the 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!