play in the exertion of a struggle. The murmur rose to
shouts, and eager questions were put: "Where do the people live who
can produce such a giant?" He stood there, in the middle of the
amphitheatre, naked, more like a stone colossus than a man, with a
collected expression, and at the same time the sad look of a barbarian;
and while surveying the empty arena, he gazed wonderingly with his blue
childlike eyes, now at the spectators, now at Caesar, now at the grating
of the cunicula, whence, as he thought, his executioners would come.

At the moment when he stepped into the arena his simple heart was
beating for the last time with the hope that perhaps a cross was waiting
for him; but when he saw neither the cross nor the hole in which it
might be put, he thought that he was unworthy of such favor,--that he
would find death in another way, and surely from wild beasts. He was
unarmed, and had determined to die as became a confessor of the "Lamb,"
peacefully and patiently. Meanwhile he wished to pray once more to the
Saviour; so he knelt on the arena, joined his hands, and raised his
eyes toward the stars which were glittering in the lofty opening of the
amphitheatre.

That act displeased the crowds. They had had enough of those Christians
who died like sheep. They understood that if the giant would not defend
himself the spectacle would be a failure. Here and there hisses were
heard. Some began to cry for scourgers, whose office it was to lash
combatants unwilling to fight. But soon all had grown silent, for no one
knew what was waiting for the giant, nor whether he would not be ready
to struggle when he met death eye to eye.

In fact, they had not long to wait. Suddenly the shrill sound of brazen
trumpets was heard, and at that signal a grating opposite Caesar's podium
was opened, and into the arena rushed, amid shouts of beast-keepers, an
enormous German aurochs, bearing on his head the naked body of a woman.

"Lygia! Lygia!" cried Vinicius.

Then he seized his hair near the temples, squirmed like a man who feels
a sharp dart in his body, and began to repeat in hoarse accents,--

"I believe! I believe! O Christ, a miracle!"

And he did not even feel that Petronius covered his head that moment
with the toga. It seemed to him that death or pain had closed his eyes.
He did not look, he did not see. The feeling of some awful emptiness
possessed him. In his head there remained not a thought; his lips merely
repeated,