The day was hot, still and clear, and the July sunshine, still slant in the early morning, struck under the awning and long shafts of the mellow radiance brightened the sand.
From that doorway, craning over the heads of the wretches in front of me, I caught glimpses of the fury of several beasts as they vented their ferocity upon some ordinary criminals and assuaged their ravenous hunger on their blood and flesh.
My time was not far off, yet I still hoped against hope that Agathemer might, even yet, have caught the thieving murderers and would intervene before it was too late. I did not at all fear the beasts; I knew that no bear, panther, leopard, tiger or lion would hurt me, but I felt certain that, when the beasts left me unharmed, I should be recognized as Festus the Beast-Wizard: and then, as the scrutiny of the whole audience would be riveted on me, identified as Andivius Hedulio.
Narcissus was led out, stepping jauntily between his guards, treading springily, with no sign of panic or dejection, a pattern Hercules, naked save for a loin-cloth, his skin pink and fresh, in spite of his days in a dungeon, his mighty muscles rippling all over his huge form. The herald proclaimed to all that this was Narcissus, professional wrestler, for long the crony of Commodus, who had strangled his master and was to be punished for his treachery and crime by being torn to pieces in sight of all Rome.
They let out on him a full-grown, young Mauretanian lion, starved and ravenous. Narcissus was naked and empty-handed, his close-clipped hair, standing like the bristles of a brush, yellow as gold wire, shining in the sun. He stood almost as immobile as had Palus and faced the lion, which, after a bound or two towards him, flattened down on the sand and began to crawl nearer, preparing for a spring.
When it sprang Narcissus performed one of the most miraculous feats ever beheld in the amphitheater. He did not dodge but ducked slightly, the wide-spread, taloned paws missing his head on each side. His arms shot out as the lion sprang, and, though the brute came at him through the air like a log-arrow from a catapult, his hands gripped each side of the wide-open mouth and his thumbs pushed the inner corners of the lips between the parted upper and lower cheek-teeth. Therefore to close his jaws on his victim the lion had to crush a roll or fold of his own lips. This incredibly difficult feat prolonged his life a few breaths. The whole populace howled in ecstasy at the wretch's coolness, courage, strength, swiftness and adroitness.
The lion's momentum and weight bore Narcissus to the ground, but his thumbs did not slip nor his hold loosen. On the sand lion and man rolled and wrestled, for a brief time. Then the lion, lashing out with his hind legs, caught with the claws of one the wrestler's belly and half disemboweled him. Narcissus collapsed and the great fangs met in his throat.
The populace redoubled their yells.
When silence fell, after the lion had been chased back into his cage and the cage lowered down the lift-shaft, after the mangled corpse of Narcissus had been dragged away and sand sprinkled to hide the red patches where his blood had soaked it, I was haled forth and stood in the very center of the arena. From his perch the herald proclaimed that I was Phorbas, the slave of Pompeianus Falco of Carthage and Rome, who had plotted his master's death in order sooner to gain freedom from his testament, and had himself dealt Falco his deathblow. The populace jeered and booed at me.
I had, as Festus the Animal-Tender, often viewed the interior of the Colosseum from the arena. But never when I was myself the cynosure of all eyes. There I stood, naked except for a loin-cloth, empty-handed, my shoulder-brand and scarred back visible to half the spectators, glared at and reviled. From my viewpoint the spectacle was singularly magnificent: the dark blue sky overhead, varied by some large, solid-looking, white clouds; the fluttering banners waving from the awning poles; the particolored, sagging awning, shading half the audience; the beauty of the upper colonnade under the awning; the solidly packed throng of spectators which crowded the colonnade, the aisles, the steps and every seat in the hollow of the amphitheater; the dignified ease of the nobility in their spaced chairs, of the senators in their ample armchairs; the gorgeousness of the Imperial Pavilion, filled with a retinue brilliant in blue and silver, in green and gold, in white and crimson, about the hard, spare, soldierly figure on the throne.