"Yes," said Rollo, at length, "yes, I see. He is dying. He is sinking gradually down."
"Do you see the wound in his side?" asked Mr. George.
"Yes," replied Rollo, "and the drops of blood coming out."
"He has dropped his sword," said Mr. George. "It is lying there near his hand."
"What a short sword!" said Rollo. "There are some other things lying on the ground beneath him, but I do not know what they are."
"Nor I," said Mr. George. "One of them seems to be a sort of trumpet. People think from that that this man was a herald."
"But I thought he was a gladiator," said Rollo.
"They call him a gladiator," replied Mr. George, "but nobody really knows what the statue was originally intended for. You see it was dug up out of a heap of rubbish, just as almost all these statues were, and people have to guess what they were intended for. This statue was dug up in a garden—a garden belonging to an ancient Roman villa."
"What does that cord around his neck mean?" asked Rollo.
"They think it means that the man was a Gaul. The Gauls used to wear such cords, I believe."