in the semi-darkness.

"You are Pratinas?" he asked, speaking Latin with a northern accent.
The Hellene nodded, and replied softly: "Yes. No noise. Tell Dumnorix
to come quietly."

The two stepped in on to the flags of a courtyard, and the doorkeeper,
after rebolting, vanished into the building. Ahenobarbus could only
see that he was standing in a large stone-paved court, perhaps one
hundred and forty feet wide and considerably longer. A colonnade of
low whitewashed pillars ran all about: and behind them stretched rows
of small rooms and a few larger apartments. There were _tyros_
practising with wooden swords in one of the rooms, whence a light
streamed, and a knot of older gladiators was urging them on, mocking,
praising, and criticising their efforts. Now and then a burly
gladiator would stroll across the court; but the young noble and his
escort remained hidden in shadow.

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