not do so?' hissed the nearest, a man of gigantic
proportions and development of strength. 'Why should I not leap out of
the arena where these men place me to play a fool's part; and scrambling
over the ranges of seats, plunge this dagger into his heart? Ye gods!
were I once to begin to clamber up, no force could stop me from reaching
him, were he at the very topmost range! And I will--why not?'

'You would gain but an instant's revenge,' said the other, striving to
soothe him, 'and you would lose--'

'What? My life, would you say?' retorted the first. 'I know it. I know
well, that before I could strike him thrice, I would myself be beaten
down, a corpse. But one blow from me would be sufficient for him. Ay,
though I used not my knife at all, but only my hardened fist. Would it
not be a fine revenge, say you, thus to kill him? It was on account of
my strength of arm that he laid toils for my capture, and for that alone
he most valued me. Why not, then, prove its quality upon himself? With a
single blow I could crush in his proud head like an egg shell. Then let
them kill me--I care not.'

'And yet the life once lost by you cannot be gained again,' responded
the other.

'O feeble-minded!' said the first, with disdain. 'Have I ever so dearly
cared for life that I should thus guard it at the expense of honor?
While I was a free man, in my native Rhodes, with my wife and children
around me, did I not then risk my life among the very first? And am I
likely to value it the more now that I am a slave, with wife torn from
me and sent I know not where, with children slain one by one, as the
only means of capturing me, with the accursed livery of the arena placed
upon me that I may administer to their gaping appetite for blood? Can
all this make me love my life more than I have ever loved it before?'

'But wait--only wait. There will come a time--'

'Ay, ay; there will come a time is what all say, and will continue to
say, and yet the time comes not. There is never any time like the
present. All around me are thousands of men, once free and now chained
into slavery--and chained, perhaps, more through their own indolence
than by the power of their masters; and yet they lie supine, and call
upon each other to wait! And to-morrow there will be a thousand such in
the arena, and instead of rising up together in their strength, they
will fight only with each other. What might not that thousand
accomplish, were they to act togethe