"Barricade the doors to the atrium!" he commanded, "while I can put on my armour. You, Mamercus, are too old for this kind of work; run and call in the field-hands, the clients, and the neighbours. Cappadox, Falto, and I can hold the doors till aid comes." "I run?" cried the veteran, in hot incredulity, while with his single hand he tore from its stout leather wall-fastenings a shield that had been beaten with Punic swords at the Metaurus.[114] "I run?" he repeated, while a mighty crash told that the front door had given way, and the attackers were pouring into the atrium. And the veteran had thrust a venerable helmet over his grizzled locks, and was wielding his shield with his handless left arm, while a good Spanish short-sword gleamed in his right hand. [114] The great battle won in 207 B.C. over Hasdrubal. The others had not been idle. Cappadox had barred both doors leading into the front part of the house. Drusus had armed, and Falto,--a more loyal soul than whom lived not,--burning to retrieve his blunder, had sprung to his patron's side, also in shield and helm. "They will soon force these doors," said Drusus, quietly, growing more composed as closer and closer came the actual danger. "Falto and I will guard the right. Cappadox and you, Mamercus, if you will stay, must guard the left. Some aid must come before a great while." But again the veteran whipped out an angry oath, and thundered, "You stay, you soft-fingered Quintus! You stay and face those German giants! Why, you are the very man they are after! Leave fighting to an old soldier! Take him away, Cappadox, if you love him!" "I will never leave!" blazed forth Drusus. "My place is here. A Livian always faces his foes. Here, if needs be, I will die." But before he could protest further, Cappadox had caught him in his powerful arms, and despite his struggles was running with him through the rear of the house. Pandemonium reigned in the atrium. The gladiators were shivering fine sculptures, ripping up upholstery, swearing in their uncouth Celtic or German dialects, searching everywhere for their victim in the rooms that led off the atrium. A voice in Latin was raising loud remonstrance. "_AEdepol!_ Dumnorix, call off your men! Phaon hasn't led our bird into the net. We shall be ruined if this keeps on! Drusus isn't here!" "By the Holy Oak, Gabinius," replied another voice, in barbarous Latin, "what I've begun I'll end! I'll find Drusus yet; and we won't leave a soul living to testify against us! You men, break down that door and let us into the rest of the house!" Mamercus heard a rush down one of the passages leading to the peristylium. The house was almost entirely deserted, except by the shrieking maids. The clients and freedmen and male slaves were almost all in the fields. The veteran, Falto, and Pausanias, who had come in, and who was brave enough, but nothing of a warrior, were the only defenders of the peristylium.