He turns to Lavinia) Farewell.

LAVINIA. You forget: I must follow before you are cold.

FERROVIUS. It is true. Do not envy me because I pass before you
to glory. (He goes through the passage).

THE EDITOR (to the Call Boy) Sickening work, this. Why can't they
all be thrown to the lions? It's not a man's job. (He throws
himself moodily into his chair).

The remaining gladiators go back to their former places
indifferently. The Call Boy shrugs his shoulders and squats down
at the entrance to the passage, near the Editor.

Lavinia and the Christian women sit down again, wrung with grief,
some weeping silently, some praying, some calm and steadfast.
Androcles sits down at Lavinia's feet. The Captain stands on the
stairs, watching her curiously.

ANDROCLES. I'm glad I haven't to fight. That would really be an
awful martyrdom. I AM lucky.

LAVINIA (looking at him with a pang of remorse). Androcles: burn
the incense: you'll be forgiven. Let my death atone for both. I
feel as if I were killing you.

ANDROCLES. Don't think of me, sister. Think of yourself. That
will keep your heart up.

The Captain laughs sardonically.

LAVINIA (startled: she had forgotten his presence) Are you there,
handsome Captain? Have you come to see me die?

THE CAPTAIN (coming to her side) I am on duty with the Emperor,
Lavinia.

LAVINIA. Is it part of your duty to laugh at us?

THE CAPTAIN. No: that is part of my private pleasure. Your friend
here is a humorist. I laughed at his telling you to think of
yourself to keep up your heart. I say, think of yourself and burn
the incense.

LAVINIA. He is not a humorist: he was right. You ought to know
that, Captain: you have been face to face with death.

THE CAPTAIN. Not with certain death, Lavinia. Only death in
battle, which spares more men than death in bed. What you are
facing is certain death. You have nothing left now but your faith
in this craze of yours: this Christianity. Are your Christian
fairy stories any truer than our stories about Jupiter and Diana,
in which, I may tell you, I believe no more than the Emperor
does, or any educated man in Rome?

LAVINIA. Captain: all that seems nothing to me now. I'll not say
that death is a terrible thing; but I will say that it is so real
a thing that when it comes close, all the imaginary things--all
the stories, as you call them--fade into mere dreams beside that
inexorable reality. I know now that I am not dying for stories or
dreams.