"Congratulations!" was his greeting. "Dumnorix has already started. He
has my orders; and now I must borrow your excellent freedman, Phaon,
to go to Præneste and spy out, for the last time, the land, and
general our army. Let him start early to-morrow morning. The time is
ample, and unless some malevolent demon hinder us, there will be no
failure. I have had a watch kept over the Drusus estate. An old sentry
of a steward, Mamercus,--so I learn,--has been afraid, evidently, of
some foul play on the part of the consul-designate, and has stationed
a few armed freedmen on guard. Drusus himself keeps very carefully on
his own premises. This is all the better for us. Dumnorix will dispose
of the freedmen in a hurry, and our man will be in waiting there just
for the gladiators. Phaon will visit him--cook up some errand, and
inveigle him, if possible, well out in the colonnade in front of the
house, before Dumnorix and his band pass by. Then there will be that
very deplorable scuffle, and its sad, sad results. Alas, poor Drusus!
Another noble Livian gathered to his fathers!"

"I don't feel very merry about it," ventured Lucius. "I don't need
Drusus's money as much as I did. If it wasn't for Cornelia, I would
drop it all, even now. Sometimes I feel there are avenging
Furies--_Diræ_, we Latins call them--haunting me."

Pratinas laughed incredulously. "Surely, my dear fellow," he began,
"you don't need to have the old superstitions explained away again, do
you?"

"No, no," was his answer; Lucius capitulating another time.

So it came to pass that Pratinas had an interview with Phaon, Lucius's