ANDROCLES.
Don’t think of me, sister. Think of yourself. That will keep your heart up.
The Captain laughs sardonically.
LAVINIA.
(startled: she had forgotten his presence) Are you there, handsome Captain? Have you come to see me die?
THE CAPTAIN.
(coming to her side) I am on duty with the Emperor, Lavinia.
LAVINIA.
Is it part of your duty to laugh at us?
THE CAPTAIN.
No: that is part of my private pleasure. Your friend here is a humorist. I laughed at his telling you to think of yourself to keep up your heart. I say, think of yourself and burn the incense.
LAVINIA.
He is not a humorist: he was right. You ought to know that, Captain: you have been face to face with death.
THE CAPTAIN.
Not with certain death, Lavinia. Only death in battle, which spares more men than death in bed. What you are facing is certain death. You have nothing left now but your faith in this craze of yours: this Christianity. Are your Christian fairy stories any truer than our stories about Jupiter and Diana, in which, I may tell you, I believe no more than the Emperor does, or any educated man in Rome?
LAVINIA.
Captain: all that seems nothing to me now. I’ll not say that death is a terrible thing; but I will say that it is so real a thing that when it comes close, all the imaginary things—all the stories, as you call them—fade into mere dreams beside that inexorable reality. I know now that I am not dying for stories or dreams. Did you hear of the dreadful thing that happened here while we were waiting?
THE CAPTAIN.
I heard that one of your fellows bolted, and ran right into the jaws of the lion. I laughed. I still laugh.