Customarily, while Palus flourished, each day began with beast-fights, the noon pause was filled in by exhibitions of athletes, acrobats, jugglers, trained animals and such like, and the surprise; then the gladiatorial shows lasted from early afternoon till an hour before sunset. Palus and Murmex appeared about mid-afternoon and were matched against the victors in the earlier fights. Each located himself at one focus of the ellipse of the arena, at which points two simultaneous fights were best seen by the entire audience. There they began each fight, not simultaneously, but alternately, till all their antagonists were disposed of, most killed and some spared. The spectators seldom hurried Murmex to end a fight; they never hurried Palus. His longest delay in finishing with an adversary, even his manifest intention to exhaust an opponent rather than to wound him, never elicited any protest from any onlooker. All, breathless, fascinated, craned to watch the perfection of his method, every movement of his body, all eyes intent on the point of his matchless blade.

Last of the day's exhibitions, came the fencing match between Palus and Murmex, at the center of the arena, empty save for those two and their two lanistae. All others in the arena, including the surgeons, their helpers and the guards, drew off to positions close under the podium wall.

Murmex and Palus fenced in all sorts of outfits, except that neither ever fought as a retiarius. Mostly both were equipped as secutors, but they fought also as murmillos, Greeks, Gauls, Thracians, Samnites and dimachaeri, or one in any of these equipments against the other in any other.

Sometimes they delighted the populace by donning padded suits liberally whitened with flour or white clay, their murmillos' helmets similarly whitened, and then attacking each other with quarter-staffs of ash, cornel-wood or holly. A hit, of course, showed plainly on the whitened suits. As neither could injure the other in this sort of fight, and as they were willing to humor the populace, each was careless about his guard and reckless in his attack. Even so hits were infrequent, since each, even when most lax, had an instinctive guard superior to that of the most expert and cautious fencer among all other contemporary fighters. Even when, very occasionally, if Palus happened to be in a rollicking mood, each substituted a second quarter-staff for his shield and, as it were, travestied a dimachaerus, as what might be called a two-staff-man or a double-staff-man, hits were still not frequent. Each had a marvellously impregnable defence and they were very evenly matched in the use of the quarter-staff in place of a shield as they were in everything else. Palus fought better with his left hand attacking and his right defending, Murmex better the other way, but each was genuinely ambidextrous and used either hand at will, shifting at pleasure. When, amid the flash of their staffs, either scored, the hit brought a roar of delight from the upper tiers, even from the front rows, for the most dignified senators caught the infection of the general enthusiasm and so far forgot themselves as to yell like street urchins in their ecstasy.

Except in this farcical sort of burlesque fight neither ever scored a hit on the other, in all the years throughout which their combats finished each day of every gladiatorial exhibition. Yet the audience never tired of their bloodless bouts and, while the nobility and gentry never joined in, the populace invariably roared a protest if they saw the lanistae make a move to separate them, and yelled for them to go on and fence longer.

The interest of the populace was caused by the fact, manifest and plain to all, that, while Murmex and Palus loved each other and had no intention of hurting each other, their matches had no appearance whatever of being sham fights. From the first parade until they separated every stroke, feint, lunge and thrust appeared to be in deadly, venomous earnest and each unhurt merely because, mortal as was his adversary's attack, his guard was perfect.

It seemed, in fact, as if each man felt so completely safe, felt so certain that his guard would never fail him, and at the same time felt so sure that his crony's guard was equally faultless, that there was no danger of his injuring his chum, that each attacked the other precisely as he attacked any other adversary. It was commonly declared among expert swordsmen and connoisseurs of sword-play, as among recent spectators, when, talking over the features of an exhibition after it was over, that practically every thrust, lunge or stroke of either in these bouts would have killed or disabled any other adversary; certainly it appeared so to me every time I saw them fence and especially while watching their bouts after I returned from my year at Baiae, for after that I never missed a gladiatorial exhibition in the Colosseum. To my mind Palus and Murmex were manifestly playing with each other, like fox-cubs or Molossian puppies or wolf-cubs; yet the sport so much resembled actual attack and defence, as with nearly grown wolf-cubs, that it gave less the impression of play between friends than that of deadly combat between envenomed foes. Many a time I have heard or overheard some expert or connoisseur or enthusiast or provincial visitor, prophesy somewhat in this fashion:

"Some day one of those two is going to kill the other unexpectedly and unintentionally and by mistake. Each thinks the other will never land on him; each thinks the other has a guard so impregnable that it will never be pierced; each uses on the other attacks so unexpected, so sudden, so subtle, so swift, so powerful, so sustained, so varied that no third man alive could escape any one of them. It is almost a certainty that that sort of thing cannot go on forever. One or the other of them may age sufficiently to retire from the arena, as did Murmex Frugi, safe and unscarred, as he was not. But it is far more likely, since both are full of vitality and vigor, that neither will notice the very gradual approach of age, so that they will go on fighting with eyes undimmed, muscles supple and minds quick, yet not so quick, supple and keen as now: but the preternatural powers of one will wane a bit sooner than those of the other. And sooner or later one will err in his guard and be wounded or killed."

Most spectators agreed with such forecasts. What is more, most of the spectators admitted that, as they watched, each attack seemed certain to succeed; every time either man guarded it seemed as if he must fail to protect himself.

This, I think, explains the unflagging zest with which the entire audience, senators, nobles and commonality, watched their bouts, revelled in them, gloated over the memory of them and longed for more and more. Consciously or unconsciously, every onlooker felt that sometime, some bout would end in the wounding, disabling or death of one of the two. And so perfect was their sword-play, so unfeigned their unmitigated fury of attack, so genuine the impeccable dexterity of their defence that every spectator felt that the supreme thrill, even while so long postponed, was certain to arrive. More, each felt, against his judgment, that it was likely to arrive the next moment. It was this illogical but unescapable sensation which kept the interest of the whole audience, of the whole of every audience, at a white heat over the bouts of Murmex and Palus. I myself experienced this condition of mind and became infected with the common ardor. I found myself rehearsing to myself the incidents of their last-seen bout, anticipating the next, longing for it: though I never had rated myself as ardent over gladiatorial games, but rather as lukewarm towards them, and considered myself much more interested in paintings, statuary, reliefs, ornaments, bric-a-brac, furniture, fine fabrics and all artistries and artisanries. Yet I confessed to myself that, from the time I saw first a bout between them, anticipation of seeing them fence, or enjoyment of it, came very high among my interests and my pleasures.

To some extent, I think, the long and unequaled vogue of their popularity was due to the great variety of their methods and almost complete absence of monotony in their bouts.

Palus was left-handed, but for something like every third bout or a third of each bout he fought right-handed, merely for bravado, as if to advertise that he could do almost as well with the hand less convenient. Murmex was right-handed, but he too fought often left-handed, perhaps one- fifth of the time. So, in whatever equipment, one saw each of them fight both ways. Therefore as murmillos they fought both right-handed, both left-handed, and each right-handed against the other fighting left-handed. This gave a perpetually shifting effect of novelty, surprise and interest to every bout between them. They similarly had four ways of appearing as Greeks, Gauls, Samnites, Thracians, secutors or dimachaeri.

Their bouts as dimachaeri were breathlessly exciting, for it was impossible, from moment to moment, to forecast with which saber either would attack, with which he would guard; and, not infrequently, one attacked and the other guarded with both. When they fought in this fashion Galen, it always appeared to me, looked uneasy, keyed up and apprehensive. Yet neither ever so much as nicked, flicked or scratched the other in their more than sixty bouts with two sabers apiece.

More than a dozen times they appeared as Achilles and Hector, with the old-fashioned, full-length, man-protecting shield, the short Argive sword and the heavy lance, half-pike, half-javelin, of Trojan tradition. Murmex threw a lance almost as far and true as Palus and the emotion of the audience was unmistakably akin to horror when both, simultaneously, hurled their deadly spears so swiftly and so true that it seemed as if neither could avoid the flying death. Palus, true to his nickname, never visibly dodged, though Murmex's aim was as accurate as his own; he escaped the glittering, needle-pointed, razor-edged spear-head by half a hand's-breath or less by an almost imperceptible inclination of his body, made at the last possible instant, when it seemed as if the lance had already pierced him. It was indescribably thrilling to behold this.

Besides fencing equipped as Gauls, Samnites, Thracians and secutors they appeared in every combination of any of these and of Greeks and murmillos with every other. Palus as a dimachaerus against Murmex as a murmillo made a particularly delectable kind of bout. Almost as much so Murmex as a Gaul against Palus as a Thracian. And so without end.

After my return from Baiae Falco pampered me more than ever and, in particular, arranged to take me with him to all amphitheater shows and have me sit beside him in the front row of the nobles immediately behind the boxes of the senators on the podium. This does not sound possible in our later days, when amphitheater regulations are strictly enforced, as they had been under the Divine Aurelius and his predecessors. But, while Commodus was Prince much laxity was rife in all branches of the government. After the orgies of bribe-taking, favoritism and such like in the heyday of Perennis and of Cleander, all classes of our society became habituated to ignoring contraventions of rules. Under Perennis and later under Cleander not a few senators took with them into their boxes favorites who were not only not of senatorial rank, nor even nobles, but not Romans at all: foreign visitors, alien residents of Rome, freedmen or even slaves, and the other senators, as a class exquisitely sensitive to any invasion of their privileges by outsiders, winked at the practice partly because some of them participated in it, much more because they feared to suffer out-and-out ruin, if, by word or look, they incurred the disfavor of Perennis while he was all-powerful or, later, of the more omnipotent Cleander. When a senator saw another so violate propriety, privilege and law, he assumed that the acting Prefect of the Palace had been bribed and so dared not protest or whisper disapprobation.

Much more than the senators the nobles obtained secret license to ignore the rules, or ignored them without license, since, when so many violated the regulations, no one was conspicuous or likely to be brought to book. Falco, being vastly wealthy, probably bribed somebody, but I never knew: when I hinted a query he merely smiled and vowed that we were perfectly safe.

So I sat beside him through that unforgettable December day, at the end of which came the culmination of what I have been describing.

The day was perfect, clear, crisp, mild and windless. It was not cold enough to be chilling, but was cold enough to make completely comfortable a pipe-clayed ceremonial toga over the full daily garments of a noble or senator, so that the entire audience enjoyed the temperature and basked in the brilliant sunrays; for, so late in the year, as the warmth of the sun was sure to be welcome, the awning had not been spread. I, in my bizarre oriental attire, wore my thickest garments and my fullest curled wig and felt neither too cold nor too warm.

I never saw the Colosseum so brilliant a spectacle. It was full to the upper colonnade under the awning-rope poles, not a seat vacant. Spectators were sitting on the steps all up and down every visible stair; two or even three rows on each side of each stair, leaving free only a narrow alley up the middle of each for the passage in or out of attendants or others. Spectators filled the openings of the entrance-stairs, all but jamming each. In each of the cross-aisles spectators stood or crouched against its back-wall, ducking their heads to avoid protests from the luckier spectators in the seats behind them. The upper colonnade was packed to its full capacity with standees.

The program was unusual, gladiatorial exhibitions from the beginning of the show; and nothing else. The morning was full of brisk fights between young men; provincials, foreigners and some Italians, volunteer enthusiasts. The noon pause was filled in by routine fights of old or aging gladiators nearly approaching the completion of their covenanted term of service. It ended with a novelty, the encounter of two tight-rope walkers on a taut rope stretched fully thirty feet in the air. It was proclaimed that they were rivals for the favor of a pretty freedwoman and that they had agreed on this contest as a settlement of their rivalry. Certainly the two, naked save for breech-clouts and each armed with a light lance in one hand and a thin-bladed Gallic sword in the other, neared each other with every sign of caution, enmity and courage. Their sparring for an opening lasted some time, but was breathlessly interesting. The victor kept his feet on the rope and pierced his rival, who fell and died from the spear-wound or the fall or both.

During the noon pause the Emperor had left his pavilion. When he returned I, from my nearby location, was certain that Commodus himself had presided all the morning, but that now Furfur was taking his place. Certainly Palus and Murmex entered the arena soon after the noon pause and gave an exhibition almost twice as long as usual, killing many adversaries. Before the sun was half way down the sky, as Palus finished an opponent with one of his all but invisible punctures of the thigh-artery, the upper tiers first and then all ranks acclaimed this as the death of the twelve- hundredth antagonist who had perished by his unerring steel.

The daylight had not begun to dim when Murmex and Palus faced each other for the fencing bout which was to end the day. Each was equipped as a secutor, Murmex in silvered armor, Palus all in gold or gilded arms. Their swords were not regulation army swords, such a secutors normally carried, but long-bladed Gallic swords, the longest-bladed swords ever used by any gladiators.

They made a wonderful picture as the lanistae placed them and stepped back: Murmex, burly, stocky, heavy of build, thick-set, massive, with vast girth of chest and bull-neck, his neatly-fitting plated gauntlet, huge on his big right hand, his big plated boots planted solidly on the sand, his polished helmet, the great expanse of his silvered shield, his silvered kilt-strap-scales and silvered greave-boots brilliant in the cool late light; opposite him Palus, tall, lithe, graceful, slim, agile, all in gleaming gold, helmet, corselet, shield, kilt, greave-boots and all. They shone like a composite jewel set in the arena as a cameo in the bezel of a ring. And the picture they made was framed in the hoop of spectators crowding the slopes of the amphitheater, all silent after the gusts of cheers which had acclaimed the two as they took their places.

If possible, their feints and assaults were more thrilling than ever, unexpected, sudden, swift, all but successful. As always neither capered or pranced, Murmex not built for such antics, Palus by nature steady on his feet. But, except that their feet moved cannily, every bit of the rest of either's body was in constant motion and moved swiftly. The gleam and flicker of thrust and parry were inexpressibly rapid. Even the upper tiers craned, breathless and fascinated; and we, further forward, were numb and quivering with excitement.

I have heard a hundred eye-witnesses describe what occurred. There was close agreement with what I seemed to see as I watched.

Palus lunged just as Murmex made a brilliantly unpredictable shift of his position. The shift and lunge came so simultaneously that neither had, in his calculated, predetermined movement, time to alter his intention; Murmex, you might say, threw his throat at the spot at which Palus had aimed his lunge. The sword-point ripped his throat from beside the gullet to against the spine, all one side of it. He collapsed, the blood spouting.

Palus cast the dripping sword violently from him, the gleaming blade flying up into the air and falling far off on the sand. The big shield fell from his right arm. Both his hands caught his big helmet, lifted it and threw it behind him. On one knee he sank by Murmex and, with his left hand, strove to staunch the gushing blood.

Before Galen, before even the lanistae could reach the two, Murmex died.

Palus staggered to his feet and put up his gory hand to his yellow curls, with a convincingly agonized gesture of grief and horror.

He uttered some words, I heard his voice, but not the words. Folk say he said:

"I have killed the only match I had on earth, the second-best fighter earth ever saw."

The audience, I among them, stared, awe-struck and fascinated, at Commodus laying a bloody hand on his own head; we shuddered: I saw many look back and forth from Palus in the arena to the figure on the Imperial throne.

The guards ran, the surgeons' helpers ran, even Galen ran, but Aemilius Laetus reached Palus first, and, between the dazed and stunned lanistae, picked up the big golden helmet and replaced it on his head, hiding his features. The distance from the podium wall to the center of the arena is so great, the distance from any other part of the audience so much greater, that, while many of the spectators were astounded, suspicious or curious, not one could be certain that Palus was, beyond peradventure, the Prince of the Republic in person. Palus stood there, alternately staring at his dead crony and talking to Laetus and Galen.

The heralds had run up with the guards. Laetus, without any pretense of consultation with the dummy Emperor on the throne, spoke to the heralds and each stalked off to one focus of the ellipse of the arena. Thence each bellowed for silence, their deep-toned, resonant, loud, practiced voices carrying to the upper colonnade everywhere. Silence, deep already since Murmex received his death-wound and broken only by whispers, deepened. The amphitheater became almost still. Into the stillness the heralds proclaimed that next day the funeral games of Murmex Lucro would be celebrated in the Colosseum where he had died; that all persons entitled to seats in the Colosseum were thereby enjoined to attend, unless too ill to leave their homes: that all should come without togas, but, in sign of mourning for Murmex, wearing over their garments full-length, all- enveloping rain-cloaks of undyed black wool and similarly colored umbrella hats; that any person failing to attend so habited would be severely punished; that the show would be worth seeing, for, in honor of the Manes of Murmex, to placate his ghost, no defeated fighter would be spared and all the victors of the morning would fight each other in the afternoon.

Surely the tenth day before the Kalends of January, in December of the nine hundred and forty-fourth year of the City, [Footnote: 191 A.D.] the year in which Commodus was nominally consul for the seventh time, and Pertinax consul for the second time, saw the strangest audience ever assembled in the amphitheater of the Colosseum. I was there, seated, as on the day before, next my master, my gaudy Asiatic garments, like his garb of a noble of equestrian rank, hidden under a great raincoat and my face shaded by the broad brim of an umbrella hat.

The universal material conventional for mourners' attire is certainly appropriate and proper for mourning garb. For the undyed wool of black sheep, when spun and woven, results in a cloth dingy in the extreme. The wearing of garments made of it suits admirably with grief and gloom of spirit, deepens sadness, accentuates woe, almost produces melancholy. And the sight of it, when one is surrounded by persons so habited, conduces to dejection and depression. This equally was felt by the whole audience. Instead of being a space glaring in the sunlight shining on an expanse of white togas, the hollow of the amphitheater was a dingy area of brownish black under a lowering canopy of sullen cloud, for the sky was heavily overcast and threatened rain all day, though not a drop fell. The windless air was damp and penetratingly chilly, so that we almost shivered under our swathings. The discomfort of not being warm enough and the dispiriting effect of the grim sky and gloomy interior of the amphitheater was manifest in a sort of general impression of melancholy and apprehension.

Apprehension, or, certainly, uneasiness, pervaded the audience and, as it were, seemed to diffuse itself from the Imperial Pavilion, crowded, not, as usual, with jaunty figures in gaudy apparel, all crimson, blue, and green, picked out and set off by edgings of silver and gold, but with a solemn retinue, all hidden under dingy umbrella hats and swathed in rain- cloaks. To see the throne occupied by a human shape so obscured by its habiliments gave all beholders an uncanny feeling in which foreboding deepened into alarm. The appearance of the whole audience, still more of the Imperial retinue, was one to cause all beholders to interpret the garb of the spectators as ill-omened, almost as inviting disaster.

In the center of the arena was built up the pyre which was to consume all that was left of Murmex. It was constructed of thirty-foot logs, each tier laid across the one below it, the lower tiers of linden, willow, elm and other quick-burning woods, their interstices filled with fat pine-knots; the upper tiers of oak and maple, at which last I heard not a few whispered protests, for old-fashioned folk felt it almost a sacrilege that holy wood should be used to burn a gladiator, a man of blood. The pyre was thus a square structure thirty feet on a side and fully twenty feet high; each side showing silvered log-butts or log-ends, with gilded pine-knots all between; its top covered with laurel boughs, over which was laid a crimson rug with golden fringe, setting off the corpse of Murmex, which lay in the silver armor he had worn in his last fight, high on the mound of laurel boughs.

At each focus of the arena was placed a round marble altar, one to Venus Libitina, one to Pluto. By these the heralds took their stands and proclaimed that no offerings would be made at the altars except one black lamb at each, that every man slain in the day's fighting would be an offering to the Manes of Murmex, since the day would be occupied solely with the celebration of funeral games for the solace of his ghost.

The games began with a set-to of sixteen pairs of gladiators fighting simultaneously. After this was over the sixteen victors drew off towards one end of the arena and sixteen other pairs fought simultaneously. After them the victors of the first set paired off as the lanistae arranged and the eight pairs fought. The eight victors again rested while the survivors of the second set simultaneously fought as eight pairs. So they alternated till only two men survived. A third batch of thirty-two gladiators then fought in sixteen pairs: then the two survivors of the first and second batches fought. The heralds proclaimed that the sole survivor of the first sixty-four would fight again in the afternoon. So with the sole survivor of the third and fourth batches. This grim butchery gave a savage tone to the whole day. All the morning many pairs fought, till one of each pair was killed. But, after the fourth batch, every victor in any fight was reserved to fight again in the afternoon.

To my eyesight the figure on the throne, even under that broad hat-brim and enveloped in that thick rain-cloak, was manifestly Commodus in person. Unmistakably his was every Imperial gesture as he presided as Editor of the games.

During the noon interval, as usual, the Emperor retired to his robing-room under the upper tiers of the amphitheater. When again, after the noon interval, the throne was reoccupied, I felt certain that its occupant was Ducconius Furfur.

At any rate Palus appeared at once after the noon interval and the first fight was between him and the survivor of the sixty-four wretches, who had begun the day's butchery. Palus, of course, killed his man, but with more appearance of effort and less easily than any adversary he had ever faced under my observation. The people cheered his victory, but not so enthusiastically as usual. He did not appear again till the last event of the day, which was a series of duels between champions in two-horse chariots, driven by expert charioteers, they and the fighters equipped with arms and armor such as was used by both sides at the siege of Troy. Horses are seldom seen in the Colosseum and these pairs, frantic at the smell of blood, taxed to the utmost the skill and strength of their drivers, particularly as they were controlled by the old-fashioned reins of the Heroic period, the manipulation of which calls for methods different from those effective with our improved modern reins.

The charioteers were capable and their dexterous maneuvering for every advantage of approach and relative position won many cheers. Eight pairs fought, then the eight victors paired off, then the four victors, then the two. The sole survivor then retired and while he was out of the arena there entered a superb pair of bay horses, drawing a chariot of Greek pattern, in which, to the amazement of all beholders, was Narcissus, the wrestler, himself, habited as Automedon and acting as charioteer; while beside him, magnificent in a triple crested crimson-plumed helmet of the Thessalian type, in a gilded corselet of the style of the Heroic age, with gilded scales on its kilt-straps, with gilded greaves, with a big gilded Argive shield embossed with reliefs, and holding two spears, manifestly habited as Achilles, stood Palus.

When his refreshed antagonist reËntered in a Trojan chariot and armored and armed as Hector of Troy, Palus handed his two spears to his Automedon, leapt from his chariot, walked over to Hector's, and spoke to him. I heard it reported afterwards that he said:

"It would spoil the program for Hector to slay Achilles, but you have as much chance of killing me as I of killing you. I am so shaken by Murmex's death that I am not the man I was yesterday morning and up till then. I never felt so nearly matched as by you, not even by Murmex. Attack and spare not. I have given orders that, if you kill me, you shall not suffer for it in any way. I don't want to live, anyhow, now Murmex is dead."

Whether he said this or something else, he spoke earnestly and walked back to his chariot nearby, without any elasticity in his tread.

Narcissus, the wrestler, to the astonishment of the spectators, proved himself a paragon horse jockey. Everyone knew him as a wrestler, as reported the strongest man alive, as claimed by his admirers to have a more powerful hand-grasp than any rival, as the favorite wrestling-mate of the Emperor; all the notabilities had seen him and Commodus wrestle in the Stadium of the Palace; all Rome knew him for a crony of the Prince; yet no one had ever heard him praised or even mentioned as a charioteer. Yet he showed himself a matchless horseman. Hector's charioteer was a master, yet Narcissus outmaneuvered him, gained the advantage of angle of approach and, after many turns, gave Palus his chance. The two great lances flew almost simultaneously; but, as Achilles dodged, Hector fell dying of a mortal wound in the throat.

What followed was, apparently, according to the prearranged program and was indubitably in keeping with the equipment of the two champions and their charioteers; yet it horrified me, and I think all the senators and nobles as well as most of the audience. As Hector sprawled horridly on the sand Narcissus veered his pair and, as they passed the fallen man, Achilles leapt from his chariot. Drawing his Argive sword he slashed the dying man across his abdomen; then, sheathing his blade, he stood, one foot on his adversary's neck and, raising his lance and shield, shouted: "Enalie! Enalie! Enalie!" the old Greek invocation to the war-god. Then he threw aside his lance and shield and stripped off the armor from the dead. Arena-slaves carried it to the pyre and placed it upon it, by Murmex.

Narcissus had wheeled the chariot in a short circle and halted it as near Palus as he could keep it and control the frantic horse. Palus took from one of the hand-holds at the back of the chariot-rail a long leathern thong. With his dirk he slit each foot of the corpse between the leg-bone and the heel-tendon; through the slit he passed the thong, knotting it to his liking. The doubled thong he tied securely to the rear rim of the chariot-bed. Retrieving his lance and shield he posed an instant, every inch Achilles, stepped over Hector's naked corpse and mounted the chariot. From Automedon he took the reins and the whip, passing him his lance, yet retaining his great circular shield, nowise hampered by which he drove the chariot round and round the pyre, the picture, as all could see, he felt, of Achilles placating the ghost of Patroclus.

This exhibition shocked the whole audience, upper tiers and all. The ghost of a hiss breathed under the tense hush of the silent beholders. A shudder ran over the hollow of the amphitheater, as the dragged corpse, mauled by the sand and turning over, became a mere lump of pounded meat. The chill of the onlookers appeared to reach Palus. He halted his team near the pyre, arena-slaves dragged away Hector's corpse, one brought a lighted torch and Palus himself kindled the pyre at each of its four corners, walking twice round it. When it was enveloped in crackling flames, he mounted the chariot and Narcissus drove him out; drove him out, to the horror of all beholders by the Gate of Ill-omen.

After he vanished through that gate no amphitheater ever again beheld
Palus the Gladiator.

When he was gone all eyes were fixed on the kindling pyre. The flames blazed up all round it and above it, the smoke mounted skyward in a thick column, the crackle and roar of the flames was audible all over the amphitheater; so deep was the solemn stillness. I shall carry to my last living hour the vivid recollection of that picture: under the grim gray sky, framed in by the sable hangings which draped the upper colonnade, and by the clingy audience, against the yellow sand, that column of sooty smoke and below it the red glare of the blazing pyre.