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.