ut
on the arena was a deep shadow, forming a kind of black involved grating
through which glittered the golden sand. That was a spectacle in which
the whole delight of the audience consisted in looking at a lingering
death. Never before had men seen such a density of crosses. The arena
was packed so closely that the servants squeezed between them only with
effort. On the edges were women especially; but Crispus, as a leader,
was raised almost in front of Caesar's podium, on an immense cross,
wreathed below with honeysuckle. None of the victims had died yet,
but some of those fastened earlier had fainted. No one groaned; no one
called for mercy. Some were hanging with head inclined on one arm,
or dropped on the breast, as if seized by sleep; some were as if in
meditation; some, looking toward heaven, were moving their lips quietly.
In this terrible forest of crosses, among those crucified bodies, in
that silence of victims there was something ominous. The people who,
filled by the feast and gladsome, had returned to the Circus with
shouts, became silent, not knowing on which body to rest their eyes, or
what to think of the spectacle. The nakedness of strained female forms
roused no feeling. They did not make the usual bets as to who would die
first,--a thing done generally when there was even the smallest number
of criminals on the arena. It seemed that Caesar himself was bored, for
he turned lazily and with drowsy expression to arrange his necklace.

At that moment Crispus, who was hanging opposite, and who, like a man
in a faint or dying, had kept his eyes closed, opened them and looked at
Caesar. His face assumed an expression so pitiless, and his eyes flashed
with such fire, that the Augustians whispered to one another, pointing
at him with their fingers, and at last Caesar himself turned to that
cross, and placed the emerald to his eye sluggishly.

Perfect silence followed. The eyes of the spectators were fixed on
Crispus, who strove to move his right hand, as if to tear it from the
tree.

After a while his breast rose, his ribs were visible, and he cried:
"Matricide! woe to thee!"

The Augustians, hearing this mortal insult flung at the lord of the
world in presence of thousands, did not dare to breathe. Chilo was half
dead. Caesar trembled, and dropped the emerald from his fingers. The
people, too, held the breath in their breasts. The voice of Crispus was
heard, as it rose in power, throughout the amphitheatr