rejoined Mr. George. "It is celebrated all over the
world. Byron wrote a very fine stanza describing it."

"What was the stanza?" asked Rollo.

"I don't remember it all," said Mr. George. "It was something about his
sinking down upon the ground, leaning upon his hand, and the expression
of his face showed, though he yielded to death, he conquered and
triumphed over the pain. Then there is something about his wife and
children, far away in Dacia, his native land, where he had been captured
in fighting to protect them, and brought to Rome to fight and die in the
Coliseum, to make amusement for the Roman populace."

"I wish you could remember the lines themselves," said Rollo.

"Perhaps I can find them in the Guide Book," said Mr. George.

So saying, Mr. George opened the Guide Book, and turned to the index.

"I believe," said he, "that the statue of the Dying Gladiator is in the
Capitol."

"We have not been there yet, have we?" asked Rollo.

"Yes," replied Mr. George; "we went there the first day, to get a view
from the cupola on the summit. But there is a museum of sculptures and
statues there which we have not seen yet. You see the Capitol Hill was
in ancient times one of the most important public places in Rome, and
when the city was destroyed, immense numbers of statues, and inscribed
marbles, and beautiful sculptured ornaments were buried up there in the
rubbish and ruins. When, finally, they were dug out, new buildings were
erected on the spot, and all the objects that were found there were
arranged in a museum. Ah! here it is," he added. "I have found the
lines."

So Mr. George read the lines as follows. He read them in a slow and
solemn manner.

"I see before me the gladiator lie;
He leans upon his hand; his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony;
And his drooped head sinks gradually low;
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder shower; and now
The arena swims around him--he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

"He heard it, but he heeded not; his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away.
He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play;
There was their Dacian mother--he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday.
All this rushed with his blood. Sha