"His blood shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him."—JOSHUA II. 19.
The heat was intense! The glare from the tribunes opposite seemed to sear the eyes, and from below there rose to the nostrils that awful sickening stench of human blood.
The public, frantic with excitement, was clapping and cheering; thousands of necks were craned to get a better view into the floor of the arena, thousands of fans were fluttering, children were laughing and women chattered incessantly, like a pack of monkeys.
And down below the baffled panther sent roar upon roar of rage into the seething cauldron of a thousand sounds.
The creature had been cheated to the last; a score of victims had been pushed into his lair to tempt him. He had stalked them in play at first, then more earnestly, finally with a mad desire for blood. But always his prey escaped him, invisible hands showed the means of escape; the crimson ladders seemed to multiply their numbers until all round the walls they showed innumerable paths to safety.
The panther seemed to know that those streaks of crimson were his mute enemies. He made several ineffectual dashes for them, but always his claws slid against the marble, and he fell back into the sand, snarling with rage.
Once or twice his prey was more attainable. He caught a foot, a leg, a hand; thrice he brought a huge, panting body to the ground, but even then he was cheated of his victory. Long iron grapnels, wielded by unseen hands, dragged the mangled limbs and torn bodies roughly from his clutch, leaving behind them trails of torn flesh and streams of blood, which only helped to exasperate the beast by their insufficiency.
And now the panther was like a black, snake-like fury, blind with rage and unsatisfied lust, with tail lashing like a whipcord and yellow eyes that gleamed like tiny suns. His jaws were red and dripping, his claws had been torn by the same grapnels that had snatched his prey from him.
He had ceased to roar, but snarl upon snarl escaped his panting throat. The public delighted in him. They loved to see the ferocious brute maddened by these tortures, beside which the agony of Tantalus was but the misery of a child.
Then Caligula rose to his feet and his heralds blew loud blasts upon their trumpets. In a moment silence fell on the entire arena; the pandemonium of shouts and laughter and shrieks of agony was hushed as if by the magic of an almighty power.
The Emperor was standing and desired speech, and all at once silence descended upon this vast concourse of people. Everyone rose, since the Cæsar was standing; all heads were turned towards the tribune, all eyes fixed upon the misshapen figure with its halo of gold round the grotesque head, and the metal thunderbolts held aloft in the hand.
The only sound that was not stilled at the Cæsar's bidding was—down below—the snarl of the angry panther.
"Citizens of Rome," began Caligula, as soon as he could make himself heard, "patricians of Rome! soldiers! senators! all my people! I—even I—your Cæsar, your Emperor, your god, do give you greeting! I have sought to please you and to make you happy on this my first day amongst you all."
Here he was interrupted by vociferous cheering. Next to shows and spectacles, to games and theatres, there was nothing that the people of Rome loved better than to hear impassioned speeches thundered at them either from the rostra in the Forum, or from any convenient spot whence the voice of a good speaker would rouse a sense of excitement or elation in their hearts. Demagogues and agitators, rhetoricians and poets were all sure of a hearing, if only they were sufficiently inspired and sufficiently eloquent. But it was not often that the Cæsar himself would pour forth imperial oratory into the delighted ears of his people, and a fervent speech from the Emperor at this moment, when excitement and exhilaration were at fever-pitch, was a pleasure which no one had foreseen but which filled everyone with delight.
"Glad am I," continued Caligula, when the excitement had calmed down momentarily, "that my efforts to please you have met with success."
"They have! They have!" yelled the enthusiastic crowd.
"The gods have indeed rewarded me—not beyond my deserts, for that were impossible—but in a just measure, by giving me the love of my people."
"Hail Cæsar! Hail the greatest and best of Cæsars!" came in deafening echoes from every side of the immense Amphitheatre.
"I thank you all! Your loyalty to-day has greatly cheered me. I—as your supreme lord and god—will shower my blessings upon you. As a god I am immortal; always I will watch over you, sitting at the right hand of Jupiter Victor, my father, from all times. But in my earthly shape I may not be with you always. There may come a time when god-like duties call me to Olympus. Then must a wise and just ruler take my place at the head of this great Empire."
"No! no! Hail to thee Cæsar! Immortal Cæsar!" cried the people, and Caligula, stricken with vanity as if with plague, was deaf to the ironical cheers that accompanied these cries.
"Immortal am I," he said, whilst his bloodshot eyes travelled restlessly over the sea of faces spread out before him. "Immortal, yet destined to leave you one day. When that day comes, there will be weeping in the city and moanings throughout the Empire, but the wise and just ruler who will follow in my wake will—while not able to console you for my loss—continue the good works which I have commenced. Citizens of Rome, patricians, soldiers, all listen to what I say."
His face now looked purple with excitement, his hoarse voice shook as it escaped his throat, and his hair, thin and lanky, seemed to stand upon end all round his large, bulging forehead.
A gentle breeze had caught the folds of his purple tunic, and it fluttered all round him with a curious swishing noise, like the sighing of creatures in pain.
The hand that held Jove's thunderbolt trembled visibly, and the perspiration was streaming down his face. There was not a man or woman present there at this moment who did not look upon him as an abject and hideous monster, there was no one there who did not loathe and despise him! And yet everyone listened, and not one voice was raised in derision at his senseless oratory.
Only the panther snarled, and its tail beat against the ground with a dull, monotonous sound.
And Dea Flavia, standing beside the monster, white as the lilies which now lay withered at her feet, listened to every word that he said, whilst Taurus Antinor gazed on her and saw again in her eyes that look of anticipation and of understanding, as of one who knows what is to come.
"Citizens of Rome," resumed the imperial mountebank after an impressive pause, "I have spent days and nights in communion with the gods, thinking of your welfare—of your welfare when I no longer will be amongst you all. And this is what I and the gods have decided. Listen to me, for the gods speak to you through my mouth—I, even I, your Cæsar and your god, do speak.
"There dwells amongst us all one whose divinity is almost equal to mine own—one who by her beauty and her grace hath found favour with the gods and with me. She is of the House of Cæsar, and hath name Dea Flavia; and I, the Cæsar, have called her Augusta, and set her up above all other women in Rome. She comes from the House of great Augustus himself, and it is a descendant of the great Augustus who alone will be worthy to wield the sceptre of Cæsar when it hath fallen from my grasp. Therefore this have I decided. The son of Dea Flavia shall in time to come follow in my footsteps, and make you happy and prosperous even as I have done; and because of this my decision must I give Dea Flavia as wife unto a man who is worthy of her. Many there are who have aspired to her hand, but all of them have I hitherto rejected, because not one of them had given proof of his courage or of his strength. Citizens of Rome, patricians, and soldiers all! What we must look for in your future ruler is valour in the face of death, coolness and intrepidity in the sight of danger. These qualities, which grace your present Cæsar, must be transmitted to his successor through Dea Flavia, the divine, and by a father who has given signal proof of his virtues. I have enjoined the Augusta Dea Flavia to bestow her hand on him who above all is worthy to be her lord. To this has she consented and to-day will she make her choice, and herewith do I call on you patricians who aspire to her hand to enter the lists in her honour. Give a proof of your valour, of your intrepidity, of your courage! Show that you are as valiant as the lion, as wary as the snake. Descend into the arena now, unarmed save for the hands which the gods have given you, and thus engage that unconquered monster in single combat! An even chance of life is given you! And I—even I your Cæsar—will give unto the victor the hand of the Augusta Dea Flavia in marriage!"
Even before his last words had echoed along the marble walls, deafening cries and cheers rent the air. Men shouted, women screamed and waved their fans, mantles were torn from every shoulder and swung overhead like flags.
"Hail to Cæsar! Hail to the best and greatest of Cæsars! Hail to the Augusta! Dea Flavia, hail!"
The shouts were incessant, even whilst Caligula, delighted with his oratory, exultant over the success of his plan, stood there trembling in every limb, with moist, purple face turned from right to left to receive the acclamations of his people. His tiny eyes blinked with the glare that struck fully at them from opposite, his throat was parched with screaming, his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth.
Excitement was overmastering him; the effort to appear outwardly sane and calm was too severe a tax upon his raging temper. The heat, too, no doubt turned him giddy, for suddenly, even whilst the cries of "Hail!" buzzed in his ears, he threw up his arms and tottered backwards, rigid as a log, whilst drops of foam gathered at the corners of his mouth.
It was Taurus Antinor who received the swooning Cæsar in his strong arms. Everyone else around was too excited to move. The Augustas, inwardly consumed with jealousy, were striving to keep up an appearance of dignity in the face of the insult which they deemed had been put upon them by this semi-deification of their kinswoman.
Dea Flavia, pale and silent, stood facing the people, with eyes that seemed to look on something unearthly far away. Her white robes, shimmering with precious stones, fell round her like a shroud, her lips were parted as with a cry that had died even before it had found birth in her throat. The public thought that she looked proud, and acclaimed her because of this strange aloofness which seemed to envelop her whole person. She did not look of this world at all. Even the eyes appeared sightless and dead.
When the Cæsar fell back, half fainting, she seemed to wake from her dream, a shudder went right through her as her eyes slowly turned from their vacant gaze to the prostrate figure of this inhuman monster, lying stricken like a felled brute, in the arms of the praefect of Rome.
Once again, and for the third time to-day, her eyes met those of Taurus Antinor, but this time it seemed to him that within their still mysterious depths he read something akin to an appeal.
As on that day in the Forum, intense pity—which had given birth to love—filled his heart for this beautiful young girl who seemed so lonely in the midst of all this pomp.
The purity of her soul appeared to him undimmed, even though he knew now that she had expected this awful thing all along, and that she was no stranger to this monstrous barter of her person for the attainment of a crazy Emperor's whim, or to make holiday for the rabble of Rome. In his sight her pride remained unshaken; only her loyalty and allegiance had been given to the Cæsar in the same way as his own had been. She, in her simple, womanly way, was rendering unto Cæsar that which was Cæsar's, and Taurus Antinor, whilst tenderly pitying her, felt that he had never loved her as fondly as he did now.
The curse of the dying freedwoman was indeed bearing fruit. Dea's favours, her loyalty, were turning to bitter malediction for the recipients. More than one man to-day, mayhap, would die an horrible death in the hope of winning her grace. And Taurus Antinor, in the silent depths of his soul, prayed unto God that the woman he loved should never—as Menecreta had foretold—be driven to beg for mercy from a heart that knew it not and find a pitiless ear turned to her prayers.
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Caligula had quickly shaken himself free from the arms that held him. The fainting fit which had threatened him passed away as swiftly as it had come. His lust of hate and revenge was so keen at this moment that it conquered all his physical weakness. When he realised that it was Taurus Antinor who was supporting him, he contrived to smile benignly and placidly upon him.
"I am well! I am well!" he reiterated cheerfully. "Did my voice carry all over the Amphitheatre? Did everyone hear what I said?"
"Everyone heard thy voice, O Cæsar!" said Taurus Antinor slowly, "and see the aspirant for the Augusta's hand has prepared to do battle for her sake!"