ir eyes gloatingly fixed on
the bloody throat of the one and the indented talons of the other.

'Habet! (he has got it!) habet!' cried they, with a sort of yell,
rubbing their nervous hands.

'Non habeo, ye liars; I have not got it!' shouted the host, as with a
mighty effort he wrenched himself from those deadly hands, and rose to
his feet, breathless, panting, lacerated, bloody; and fronting, with
reeling eyes, the glaring look and grinning teeth of his baffled foe,
now struggling (but struggling with disdain) in the gripe of the sturdy
amazon.

'Fair play!' cried the gladiators: 'one to one'; and, crowding round
Lydon and the woman, they separated our pleasing host from his courteous
guest.

But Lydon, feeling ashamed at his present position, and endeavoring in
vain to shake off the grasp of the virago, slipped his hand into his
girdle, and drew forth a short knife. So menacing was his look, so
brightly gleamed the blade, that Stratonice, who was used only to that
fashion of battle which we moderns call the pugilistic, started back in
alarm.

'O gods!' cried she, 'the ruffian!--he has concealed weapons! Is that
fair? Is that like a gentleman and a gladiator? No, indeed, I scorn
such fellows.' With that she contemptuously turned her back on the
gladiator, and hastened to examine the condition of her husband.

But he, as much inured to the constitutional exercises as an English
bull-dog is to a contest with a more gentle antagonist, had already
recovered himself. The purple hues receded from the crimson surface of
his cheek, the veins of the forehead retired into their wonted size. He
shook himself with a complacent grunt, satisfied that he was still
alive, and then looking at his foe from head to foot with an air of more
approbation than he had ever bestowed upon him before:

'By Castor!' said he, 'thou art a stronger fellow than I took thee for!
I see thou art a man of merit and virtue; give me thy hand, my hero!'

'Jolly old Burbo!' cried the gladiators, applauding, 'staunch to the
backbone. Give him thy hand, Lydon.'

'Oh, to be sure,' said the gladiator: 'but now I have tasted his blood,
I long to lap the whole.'

'By Hercules!' returned the host, quite unmoved, 'that is the true
gladiator feeling. Pollux! to think what good training may make a man;
why, a beast could not be fiercer!'

'A beast! O dullard! we beat the beasts hollow!' cried Tetraides.

'Well, well said Stratonice, who was now