and with the quarters of the slaves around it, and higher
up there stretched a dense pine forest protecting the whole
establishment from avalanches and torrents of stones from the
mountain peak above.

Under the portico, whose pillars were cut from the richly-coloured
native marbles, reposed the two friends on low couches.

One was a fine-looking man, with a grand bald forehead, encircled
with a wreath of oak, showing that in his time he had rescued a
Roman's life. He also wore a richly-embroidered purple toga, the
token of high civic rank, for he had put on his full insignia as a
senator and of consular rank to do honour to the ceremonial. Indeed
he would not have abstained from accompanying the procession, but
that his guest, though no more aged than himself, was manifestly
unequal to the rugged expedition, begun fasting in the morning chill
and concluded, likewise fasting, in the noonday heat. Still, it
would scarcely have distressed those sturdy limbs, well developed
and preserved by Roman training, never permitted by him to
degenerate into effeminacy. And as his fine countenance and well-
knit frame testified, Marcus AEmilius Victorinus inherited no small
share of genuine Roman blood. His noble name might be derived
through clientela, and his lineage had a Gallic intermixture; but
the true Quirite predominated in his character and temperament. The
citizenship of his family dated back beyond the first establishment
of the colony, and rank, property, and personal qualities alike
rendered him the first man in the district, its chief magistrate,
and protector from the Visigoths, who claimed it as part of their
kingdom of Aquitania.

So much of the spirit of Vercingetorix survived among the remnant of
his tribe that Arvernia had never been overrun and conquered, but
had held out until actually ceded by one of the degenerate Augusti
at Ravenna, and then favourable terms had been negotiated, partly by
AEmilius the Senator, as he was commonly called, and partly by the
honoured friend who sat beside him, another relic of the good old
times when Southern Gaul enjoyed perfect peace as a favoured
province of the Empire. This guest was a man of less personal
beauty than the Senator, and more bowed and aged, but with care and
ill-health more than years, for the two had been comrades in school,
fellow-soldiers and magistrates, working simultaneously, and with
firm, mutual trust all their days.

The dress of the visi