ets, a detachment of milites stationarii, or military police, in
whose hands was the maintenance of law and public order, rode over the
western hills, coming hotfoot from Calleva, thirty miles away. They fell
upon the barbarians, taking them by surprise; these forgot their
quarrels and made common cause against this sudden foe. At once bloody
battle was waged beneath the stars; the pillared halls rang to the clang
of weapons and the thud of armed feet. Men in armor of bronze came
crashing to the ground with their blood spreading from them darkly over
the marble floors; in the courtyards men at every moment stumbled over
bodies of the dead and dying.

And an hour before dawn there arrived from the west a body of footsore
miners, armed for the most part with picks, which it appeared they were
skilled in using in a variety of ways. These combined with the
stationarii; for an hour red death swept through hall and court and
chamber, to the tune of the yelling of the human wolf-pack loosed for
blood. At the end of it the barbarians, harried before and behind,
unable to rally, fell into panic and started to flee, laden with what
spoil they could bear away. By dawn what was left of the villa was again
in Roman hands, a wreck mighty in its desolation, epitome of the
splendor that had been and the tragedy that was to come. The pendulum of
Time had started on its inevitable downward course, and where had been
power and grandeur were but the ashes of pomp and pride.

IV

Now, four days after that night when Wardo had betrayed his lord in the
house of Chloris, men coming up from the mine, at sunset when the day's
work was done, were herded by their overseers and guards into the bare
open space at the mouth of the mine. The superintendent came among them,
a grizzled man, hard-faced, as became his lot, and spoke. Beside him was
a slave whom some there recognized as from the villa, travel-stained and
dropping with fatigue, just arrived with letters from his lord.

"An attack hath been made upon the house of our lord by barbarians and
insurgents," said the superintendent, glancing over the tablets he held.
"It was repulsed, but with loss upon both sides. The barbarians came
from the Silva Anderida, and it is thought that they are being
reinforced by others, and will try again. My lord is hard pressed, for
the house is crowded with guests gathered for the marriage feast of our
lady. The attack hath been stubborn beyond belief; the b