The interest of the public was wound up very high. Eumolpus had at first won their favor; but the gallantry of Lydon, and his well-timed allusion to the honour of the Pompeian lanista, had afterwards given the latter the preference in their eyes.
'Holla, old fellow!' said Medon's neighbor to him. 'Your son is hardly matched; but never fear, the editor will not permit him to be slain--no, nor the people neither; he has behaved too bravely for that. Ha! that was a home thrust!--well averted, by Pollux! At him again, Lydon!--they stop to breathe. What art thou muttering, old boy 'Prayers!' answered Medon, with a more calm and hopeful mien than he had yet maintained.
'Prayers!--trifles! The time for gods to carry a man away in a cloud is gone now. Ha! Jupiter! what a blow! Thy side--thy side!--take care of thy side, Lydon!'
There was a convulsive tremor throughout the assembly. A fierce blow from Eumolpus, full on the crest, had brought Lydon to his knee.
'Habet!--he has it!' cried a shrill female voice; 'he has it!' It was the voice of the girl who had so anxiously anticipated the sacrifice of some criminal to the beasts.
'Be silent, child!' said the wife of Pansa, haughtily. 'Non habet!--he is not wounded!'
'I wish he were, if only to spite old surly Medon,' muttered the girl.
Meanwhile Lydon, who had hitherto defended himself with great skill and valor, began to give way before the vigorous assaults of the practised Roman; his arm grew tired, his eye dizzy, he breathed hard and painfully.
The combatants paused again for breath.
'Young man,' said Eumolpus, in a low voice, 'desist; I will wound thee slightly--then lower thy arms; thou hast propitiated the editor and the mob--thou wilt be honorably saved!'
'And my father still enslaved!' groaned Lydon to himself. 'No! death or his freedom.'
At that thought, and seeing that, his strength not being equal to the endurance of the Roman, everything depended on a sudden and desperate effort, he threw himself fiercely on Eumolpus; the Roman warily retreated--Lydon thrust again--Eumolpus drew himself aside--the sword grazed his cuirass--Lydon's breast was exposed--the Roman plunged his sword through the joints of the armor, not meaning, however, to inflict a deep wound;Lydon, weak and exhausted, fell forward, fell right on the point: it passed through and through, even to the back. Eumolpus drew forth his blade; Lydon still made an effort to regain his balance--his sword left his grasp--he struck mechanically at the gladiator with his naked hand, and fell prostrate on the arena. With one accord, editor and assembly made the signal of mercy--the officers of the arena approached--they took off the helmet of the vanquished. He still breathed; his eyes rolled fiercely on his foe; the savageness he had acquired in his calling glared from his gaze, and lowered upon the brow darkened already with the shades of death; then, with a convulsive groan, with a half start, he lifted his eyes above. They rested not on the face of the editor nor on the pitying brows of his relenting judges. He saw them not; they were as if the vast space was desolate and bare; one pale agonizing face alone was all he recognized--one cry of a broken heart was all that, amidst the murmurs and the shouts of the populace, reached his ear. The ferocity vanished from his brow; a soft, a tender expression of sanctifying but despairing love played over his features--played--waned--darkened! His face suddenly became locked and rigid, resuming its former fierceness. He fell upon the earth.
'Look to him,' said the aedile; 'he has done his duty!'
The officers dragged him off to the spoliarium.
'A true type of glory, and of its fate!' murmured Arbaces to himself, and his eye, glancing round the amphitheatre, betrayed so much of disdain and scorn, that whoever encountered it felt his breath suddenly arrested, and his emotions frozen into one sensation of abasement and of awe.
Again rich perfumes were wafted around the theatre; the attendants sprinkled fresh sand over the arena.
'Bring forth the lion and Glaucus the Athenian,' said the editor.
And a deep and breathless hush of overwrought interest, and intense (yet, strange to say, not unpleasing) terror lay, like a mighty and awful dream, over the assembly.