We shall be cut to pieces." "We have more than fifty," retorted Dumnorix, viciously.

"I will sacrifice them all, rather than have the attack fail!--" But before he could speak further, to the din of the fighting at the doors of the peristylium was added a second clamour without.

And into the atrium, sword in hand, burst Caius Curio, and another young, handsome, aquiline-featured man, dressed in a low-girt tunic, with a loose, coarse mantle above it,--a man known to history as Marcus Antonius, or "Marc Antony "; and at their backs were twenty men in full armour.
The courage of the lanista had failed him.

Already Drusus's reinforcements in the peristylium had become so numerous and so well armed that the young chieftain was pushing back the gladiators and rapidly assuming the offensive.

Gabinius was the first to take flight.
He plunged into one of the rooms off the atrium, and through a side door gained the open.