“I didn’t,” Brinnaria snapped. “I prayed for him to be killed. I wish he had been. I’m not the only one who has recognized him. Aurelius has and he has told Antoninus; I watched him.”
“How could you?” Manlia exclaimed. “How could you watch anything but Almo?”
“I could and I did,” Brinnaria asseverated. “I’m looking all ways at once, just now. The news is all over the Imperial loge already. They are looking at me as well as at him. I hope he’ll be killed this next bout.” The lanista, in fact, at once matched Almo with another full-armed giant. Again Almo gave an exhibition of perfect swordsmanship. The Romans were as quick to appreciate form in fighting as we moderns are to applaud our best bail players; they recognized pre-eminence in the swordman’s art, as we acclaim the skill of a crack baseball pitcher or cricket bowler.
Almo caught the eye of spectator after spectator, till most of the audience on that side of the arena were watching the fight in which he took part to the exclusion of everything else that was going on. He displayed that perfect balance of all the mental and physical faculties, that instantaneous co-ordination of eye, brain and muscle, which only an occasional phenomenon can attain to. He made no mistakes, bore himself like a dancer on a tight-rope, circled about his adversary, warded off all his thrusts, lunges and rushes, turned aside his long sword with his small round shield without a trace of effort, and at his leisure found a joint in his body armor and pierced his heart with an ostentatiously difficult lunge delivered with the acme of apparent ease.
“There,” sighed Manlia, “I prayed hard.”
“So did I,” Brinnaria murmured, “but I prayed the other way. He ought to have been killed already. Numisia has recognized him and he has been recognized by three or four nobles along the coping. The rumor is spreading from each of them and running through the audience.” Manlia, in fact, looking about was aware of an unusual stir among the spectators, of notes being handed along and read, of whisperings, callings, signs, pointings; of messengers worming their way from row to row and from tier to tier.
Almo won his third bout. While it was in progress Manlia had seen one of the Emperor’s orderlies enter the arena from one of the small doors in the wall and confer with the chief lanista, who directed the fighting.
By the time Almo began a fourth bout half the audience was looking at him or at Brinnaria. There were thousands present who had survived the pestilence, who had been present fifteen years before when she had let herself down into the arena and had rescued the retiarius. They remembered her spectacular interference and were curious as to how she would now comport herself. Brinnaria, erect and calm, fanned herself placidly.
Almo won his fourth bout.
By this time the arrangements of the lanistas had been so far modified that, instead of a great throng of fighters, there were, in the whole immense arena, not more than twenty pairs.