ffocated by it, unable to shake it
off, for they tied it fast, I stood there, blind, realizing that the
Emperor still believed me guilty, was inexorable and meant me to be torn
to pieces then and there; believing, as I did, that my immunity from
attack was due to the effect of my gaze on the beasts I made mild.

Now you, who read, know that I was not devoured. But I had no shred of
hope left. I thought that my end had come. I anticipated only the agony of
great fangs rending my flesh.

I felt only the hot breath of a beast snuffing at my legs. Perhaps I
fainted. Certainly my next sensation was of lying on the sand, with
several unseen animals growling near me and one or more snuffing at my
feet and legs.

The amphitheater was quiet, even hushed.

Then, suddenly, a lion uttered a full-throated, coughing roar, jagged and
rumbling. When it died away a universal yell arose from the populace. I
heard cries of:

"He is innocent!"

"Set him free!"

"We behold the justice of the gods!"

"This proves him guiltless!"

"Festus or Phorbas, he is not guilty!"

And other such exclamations.

Ridiculously, what passed through my mind, besides disgust at the foul
odor of the quilt about my head, was the thought that, if I had known that
ferocious beasts would avoid me even when they could not see my gaze, I
should, on that unforgettable moonlit evening in Sabinum, have gone off
home to my cottage, to Septima, and have missed my encounter with Vedia,
and our night in her traveling coach.

Then I heard the voices of the animal-tenders essaying, with their long-
handled tridents, to chase back into their cages the beasts loose about
me.

Soon someone cut my ankle-thongs and the cords about the quilt, also my
arm-thongs. The quilt was twitched from my face and I was assisted to my
feet. The amphitheater was full of the yells of the populace, affirming my
innocence and the manifest intervention of the gods in my behalf. I rolled
my gaze around the audience and sought to interpret the demeanor of the
Imperial retinue.

Then, as I gazed at the Emperor, too far off for me to make out his
expression, the yells altered their quality.

I turned round.

I saw, running towards me across the sand, Agathemer!

Behind him was an official in the robes of a magistrate!

Behind him six more human shapes, four lictors convoying two bound
prisoners.

Agathemer embraced me and I him.

"Saved," he breathed, "we've got 'em and most