Presently a door opened at the other end of the courtyard, and some one with a lantern began to come toward the entrance.  Long before the stranger was near, Ahenobarbus thought he was rising like a giant out of the darkness; and when at last Dumnorix—­for it was he—­was close at hand, both Roman and Greek seemed veritable dwarfs beside him.

Dumnorix—­so far as he could be seen in the lantern light—­was a splendid specimen of a northern giant.  He was at least six feet five inches in height, and broad proportionately.  His fair straight hair tumbled in disorder over his shoulders, and his prodigiously long mustaches seemed, to the awed Ahenobarbus, almost to curl down to his neck.  His breath came in hot pants like a winded horse, and when he spoke, it was in short Latin monosyllables, interlarded with outlandish Gallic oaths.  He wore cloth trousers with bright stripes of red and orange; a short-sleeved cloak of dark stuff, falling down to the thigh; and over the cloak, covering back and shoulders, another sleeveless mantle, clasped under the chin with a huge golden buckle.  At his right thigh hung, from a silver set girdle, by weighty bronze chains, a heavy sabre, of which the steel scabbard banged noisily as its owner advanced.

“Holla!  Pratinas,” cried the Gaul, as he came close.  “By the holy oak! but I’m glad to see you!  Come to my room.  Have a flagon of our good northern mead.”

“Hist,” said the Greek, cautiously.  “Not so boisterous.  Better stay here in the dark.  I can’t tell who of your men may hear us.”

“As you say,” said Dumnorix, setting down the light at a little distance and coming closer.

“You remember that little affair of last year,” said Pratinas, continuing;—­“how you helped me get rid of a witness in a very troublesome law case?”

“Ha! ha!” chuckled the giant, “I wish I had the sesterces I won then, in my coffer now.”

“Well,” replied Pratinas, “I don’t need to tell you what I and my noble friend here—­Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus—­have come for.  A little more business along the same line.  Are you our man?”

“I should say so,” answered Dumnorix, with a grin worthy of a baboon.  “Only make it worth my while.”

“Now,” said Pratinas, sinking his voice still lower, “this affair of ours will pay you well; but it is more delicate than the other.  A blunder will spoil it all.  You must do your best; and we will do the fair thing by you.”

“Go on,” said the Gaul, folding his huge paws on his breast.

“Have you ever been in Praeneste?” questioned Pratinas.

“I matched two mirmillones[62] of mine there against two threces[63] of another lanista, and my dogs won the prize; but I can’t say that I am acquainted with the place,” answered the other.

  [62] Gladiators equipped as Gaulish warriors.

  [63] Buckler men.

“You should find out, then,” said Pratinas, “for here lies your work.”  And then he proceeded, with occasional prompting from the better-informed Ahenobarbus, to point out the location of Drusus’s estate, and the character and habits of the man whom Dumnorix was cheerfully proposing to put out of the way.  Dumnorix assented and bade him go on, with hoarse grunts; and when the Greek had concluded, growled out in his barbarous Latin:—­