d the harsh
encouraging voice of the man pretty close at hand, all of which taught
him that the enemy had been checked in their retreat and were being
horribly routed by the reinforcements--a cohort of dog and man.

"The young ruffians!" said Marcus, softly, as, unwillingly dragging
himself from where he could have the satisfaction of hearing the
punishment that was being awarded, he hurried back into the villa and
stopped in the court, where he sank upon his knees by the cool, plashing
fountain, whose clear waters he tinged as he bathed his face and swollen
eye.

He had some intention of hurrying back to the scene of battle to look
upon the damaged vines, and see if any prisoners had been made; but,
while he was still occupied in his surgical effort to make his injured
eye see as well as the other, he was startled into rising up and turning
to face the owner of a deep, gruff voice, who had approached him
unheard, to growl out:

"Well, you were a pretty fellow, boy! Why didn't you beat 'em?"

The speaker was a big, thick-set, grizzled man of fifty, his bare arms
and legs brown-skinned, hairy and muscular, his chest open, and his
little clothing consisting of a belted garment similar to that worn by
the boy, at whom he gazed with a grim look of satisfaction which lit up
his rugged face and fine eyes.

"Weren't running away, were you?"

"No!" shouted Marcus, angrily. "I kept at it till you came, Serge. But
there were six."

"Yes, I know. You didn't go the right way to work. Were they at the
grapes?"

"Yes. They woke me up; I had been writing, and I dropped asleep."

"Writing?" said the man contemptuously and with a deep grunt of scorn.
"Enough to send anybody to sleep on a day like this. I say, lucky for
you I came back!"

"Yes," said Marcus, giving his face a final wipe; "I was getting the
worst of it."

"Course you were. That's reading and writing, that is. Now, if you had
been taught to be a soldier instead of a volumer, you'd have known that
when the enemy's many more than you, you ought to attack him in bits,
not take him all at once and get yourself surrounded. Yes, it's lucky
for you I came."

"Yes, and I hope you gave them something to remember it," said the boy,
with his eyes fixed upon the stout crook upon which the new-comer
leaned.

"Oh yes, I made them feel this," said the man, with a chuckle; "and old
Lupus tickled them up a bit and made them squeak."

"That's right," cried Marc