he great
point of assault; and Nobilior, now wheeling his charger with no less
adroitness than his opponent, directed his spear full on the helmet of
his foe. Berbix raised his buckler to shield himself, and his
quick-eyed antagonist, suddenly lowering his weapon, pierced him through
the breast. Berbix reeled and fell.

'Nobilior! Nobilior!' shouted the populace.

'I have lost ten sestertia,' said Clodius, between his teeth.

'Habet!--he has it,' said Pansa, deliberately.

The populace, not yet hardened into cruelty, made the signal of mercy;
but as the attendants of the arena approached, they found the kindness
came too late--the heart of the Gaul had been pierced, and his eyes were
set in death. It was his life's blood that flowed so darkly over the
sand and sawdust of the arena.

'It is a pity it was so soon over--there was little enough for one's
trouble,' said the widow Fulvia.

'Yes--I have no compassion for Berbix. Any one might have seen that
Nobilior did but feint. Mark, they fix the fatal hook to the body--they
drag him away to the spoliarium--they scatter new sand over the stage!
Pansa regrets nothing more than that he is not rich enough to strew the
arena with borax and cinnabar, as Nero used to do.'

'Well, if it has been a brief battle, it is quickly succeeded. See my
handsome Lydon on the arena--ay--and the net-bearer too, and the
swordsmen! oh, charming!'

There were now on the arena six combatants: Niger and his net, matched
against Sporus with his shield and his short broadsword; Lydon and
Tetraides, naked save by a cincture round the waist, each armed only
with a heavy Greek cestus--and two gladiators from Rome, clad in
complete steel, and evenly matched with immense bucklers and pointed
swords.

The initiatory contest between Lydon and Tetraides being less deadly
than that between the other combatants, no sooner had they advanced to
the middle of the arena than, as by common consent, the rest held back,
to see how that contest should be decided, and wait till fiercer weapons
might replace the cestus, ere they themselves commenced hostilities.
They stood leaning on their arms and apart from each other, gazing on
the show, which, if not bloody enough, thoroughly to please the
populace, they were still inclined to admire, because its origin was of
their ancestral Greece.

No person could, at first glance, have seemed less evenly matched than
the two antagonists. Tetraides, though not