ce,
he struck madly again and again, until the shapeless figure lay limp and
still. One roof covered the first slain of Europe and of Asia.

Simon's veins were throbbing and quivering with the unwonted joy of
action. All the energy stored up in those years of repose came in a
flood at this moment of need. Standing in the darkness of the cell, he
saw, as in a map of fire, the outlines of the great Barbaric host, the
line of the river, the position of the settlements, the means by which
they might be warned. Silently he waited in the shadow until the moon
had sunk. Then he flung himself upon the dead man's horse, guided it
down the gorge, and set forth at a gallop across the plain.

There were fires on every side of him, but he kept clear of the rings of
light. Round each he could see, as he passed, the circle of sleeping
warriors, with the long lines of picketed horses. Mile after mile and
league after league stretched that huge encampment. And then, at last,
he had reached the open plain which led to the river, and the fires of
the invaders were but a dull smoulder against the black eastern sky.
Ever faster and faster he sped across the steppe, like a single
fluttered leaf which whirls before the storm. Even as the dawn whitened
the sky behind him, it gleamed also upon the broad river in front, and
he flogged his weary horse through the shallows, until he plunged into
its full yellow tide.

* * * * *

So it was that, as the young Roman centurion--Caius Crassus--made his
morning round in the fort of Tyras he saw a single horseman, who rode
towards him from the river. Weary and spent, drenched with water and
caked with dirt and sweat, both horse and man were at the last stage of
their endurance. With amazement the Roman watched their progress, and
recognised in the ragged, swaying figure, with flying hair and staring
eyes, the hermit of the eastern desert. He ran to meet him, and caught
him in his arms as he reeled from the saddle.

"What is it, then?" he asked. "What is your news?"

But the hermit could only point at the rising sun. "To arms!" he
croaked. "To arms! The day of wrath is come!" And as he looked, the
Roman saw--far across the river--a great dark shadow, which moved slowly
over the distant plain.

V

THE CONTEST

In the year of our Lord 66, the Emperor Nero, being at that time in the
twenty-ninth year of his life and the thirteenth of his reign, set sail
for