erns in among the frightened men who stood like posts for him to
drive around. He missed them by a hand's breadth--less! He took
delight in driving at them, turning in the last half-second, smiling at
a blanched face as he wheeled and wove new figures down another zigzag
avenue of men. The frenzy of the team inspired him; the rebellion of
the stallions, made mad by the persistent, sudden turns, aroused his own
astonishing enthusiasm. He accomplished the impossible! He made new
laws of motion, breaking them, inventing others! He became a god in
action, mastering the team until it had no consciousness of any self-
will, or of any impulse but to loose its full strength under the
directing will of genius.

The team tired first. It was its waning speed that wearied him at last.
The mania that owned him could not tolerate the anticlimax of declining
effort, so his mood changed. He became morose--indifferent. He reined
in, tossed the reins to an attendant and began to walk toward the tunnel
entrance, clothed as he was in nothing but the practise loin-cloth of a
gladiator.

A dozen senators implored him to wait and clothe himself. He would not
wait. He ordered them to bring his cloak and overtake him. Then he
observed Narcissus, standing near the horse-gate, waiting to summon his
trained gladiators for an exhibition:

"Not this time, Narcissus. Next time. Follow me." He waited for a
moment for Narcissus. That gave the substitute time to come down from
the box and go hurrying ahead into the tunnel-mouth; he went so fast
(for he knew the emperor's moods) that the attendants found it hard to
keep up; most of them were half a dozen paces in the rear. A senator
gave Commodus his cloak. He took Narcissus by the arm and strode ahead
into the tunnel, muttering, ignoring noisy protests from the senators,
who warned him that the guards were not yet there.

Then there was sudden silence; possibly a consequence of Caesar's mood,
or the reaction caused by chill and tunnel-darkness after sunlit sand.
Or it might have been the shadow of impending tragedy. A long scream
broke the silence, thrice repeated, horrible, like something from an
unseen world. Instantly Narcissus leaped ahead into the darkness,
weaponless but armed by nature with the muscles of a panther. Commodus
leaped after him; his mood reversed again. Now emulation had him; he
would not be beaten to a scene of action by a gladiator. He let his
cloak