he Circus over all Rome. For the rest he heard nothing, neither
the howling of dogs nor the uproar of the people nor the voices of the
Augustians, who began all at once to cry,--

"Chilo has fainted!"

"Chilo has fainted!" said Petronius, turning toward the Greek.

And he had fainted really; he sat there white as linen, his head fallen
back, his mouth wide open, like that of a corpse.

At that same moment they were urging into the arena new victims, sewed
up in skins.

These knelt immediately, like those who had gone before; but the weary
dogs would not rend them. Barely a few threw themselves on to those
kneeling nearest; but others lay down, and, raising their bloody jaws,
began to scratch their sides and yawn heavily.

Then the audience, disturbed in spirit, but drunk with blood and wild,
began to cry with hoarse voices,--

"The lions! the lions! Let out the lions!"

The lions were to be kept for the next day; but in the amphitheatres the
people imposed their will on every one, even on Caesar. Caligula alone,
insolent and changeable in his wishes, dared to oppose them, and there
were cases when he gave command to beat the people with clubs; but even
he yielded most frequently. Nero, to whom plaudits were dearer than all
else in the world, never resisted. All the more did he not resist now,
when it was a question of mollifying the populace, excited after the
conflagration, and a question of the Christians, on whom he wished to
cast the blame of the catastrophe.

He gave the sign therefore to open the cuniculum, seeing which, the
people were calmed in a moment. They heard the creaking of the doors
behind which were the lions. At sight of the lions the dogs gathered
with low whines, on the opposite side of the arena. The lions walked
into the arena one after another, immense, tawny, with great shaggy
heads. Caesar himself turned his wearied face toward them, and placed
the emerald to his eye to see better. The Augustians greeted them with
applause; the crowd counted them on their fingers, and followed eagerly
the impression which the sight of them would make on the Christians
kneeling in the centre, who again had begun to repeat the words, without
meaning for many, though annoying to all, "Pro Christo! Pro Christo!"

But the lions, though hungry, did not hasten to their victims. The ruddy
light in the arena dazzled them and they half closed their eyes as if
dazed. Some stretched their yellowish bodies lazily;