[154] Net and trident men.

"_Hei!_" groaned Curio, with a lugubrious whisper, "to think of it, I
have never a sesterce left that I can call my own, to stake on the
struggle!"

"At least," laughed Drusus, "I am a companion of your grief; already
Lentulus and Ahenobarbus have been sharing my forfeited estate."

But the proconsul looked serious and sad.

"_Vah_, my friends! Would that I could say that your loyalty to my
cause would cost you nothing! It is easy to promise to win back for
you everything you have abandoned, but as the poets say, 'All that
lies in the lap of the gods.' But you shall not be any longer the mere
recipients of my bounty. Stern work is before us. I need not ask you
if you will play your part. You, Curio, shall have a proper place on
my staff of legates as soon as I have enough troops concentrated; but
you, my dear Drusus, what post would best reward you for your loyalty?
Will you be a military tribune, and succeed your father?"

"Your kindness outruns your judgment, Imperator," replied Drusus.
"Save repelling Dumnorix and Ahenobarbus, I never struck a blow in
anger. Small service would I be to you, and little glory would I win
as an officer, when the meanest legionary knows much that I may
learn."

"Then, amice," said Caesar, smiling, perhaps with the satisfaction of a
man who knows when it is safe to make a gracious offer which he is
aware will not be accepted, though none the less flattering, "if you
will thus misappraise yourself, you shall act as centurion for the
present, on my corps of _praetoriani_,[155] where you will be among
friends and comrades of your father, and be near my person if I have
any special need of you."

[155] General's body-guard of picked veterans.

Drusus proffered the best thanks he could; it was a great honour--one
almost as great as a tribuneship, though hardly as responsible; and he
felt repaid for all the weariness of his desperate ride to Ravenna.

And then, with another of those strange alternations of behaviour,
Caesar led him and Curio off to inspect the fencing-school; then showed
them his favourite horse, pointed out its peculiar toelike hoofs, and
related merrily how when it was a young colt, a soothsayer had
predicted that its owner would be master of the world, and how
he--Caesar,--had broken its fiery spirit, and made it perfectly docile,
although no other man could ride the beast.

The afternoon wore on. Caesar took his friends to the gam