His eyes wandered along the row of loges. The praefect of the games was speaking and von Harben heard his voice, but the words did not reach his brain, for his eyes had suddenly met those of a girl.
He saw the anguish and hopeless horror in her face and he tried to smile as he looked at her, a smile of encouragement and hope, but she only saw the beginning of the smile, for the tears came and the image of the man she loved was only a dull blur like the pain in her heart.
A movement in the stands behind the loges attracted von Harben's eyes and he puckered his brows, straining his faculties to assure himself that he must be mistaken, but he was not. What he had seen was Gabula—he was moving toward the imperial loge, where he disappeared behind the hangings that formed the background of Caesar's throne.
Then the praefect ordered them from the arena and as von Harben moved across the sand he tried to find some explanation of Gabula's presence there—what errand had brought him to so dangerous a place?
The contestants had traversed but half the width of the arena returning to their cells when a sudden scream, ringing out behind them, caused them all to turn. Von Harben saw that the disturbance came from the imperial loge, but the scene that met his startled gaze seemed too preposterous to have greater substance than a dream. Perhaps it was all a dream. Perhaps there was no Castrum Mare. Perhaps there was no Validus Augustus. Perhaps there was no—ah, but that could not be true, there was a Favonia and this preposterous thing then that he was looking at was true too. He saw a black man holding Caesar by the throat and driving a dagger into his heart with the other, and the black man was Gabula.
It all happened so quickly and was over so quickly that scarcely had Caesar's shriek rung through the Colosseum than he lay dead at the foot of his carved throne, and Gabula, the assassin, in a single leap had cleared the arena wall and was running across the sand toward von Harben.
"I have avenged you, Bwana!" cried the black man. "No matter what they do to you, you are avenged."
A great groan arose from the audience and then a cheer as someone shouted: "Caesar is dead!"
A hope flashed to the breast of von Harben. He turned and grabbed Mallius Lepus by the arm. "Caesar is dead," he whispered. "Now is our chance."
"What do you mean?" demanded Mallius Lepus.