With scarcely a breathing space Almo was pitted against a fifth adversary. By the time he had disposed of him the entire audience, fully a hundred thousand souls, were as well aware of what was going on as was Brinnaria herself. She was pale, but entirely collected. To Manlia she whispered venomously:
“Castor be thanked, he is certain to be killed, Aurelius has attended to that.” In fact the Roman sense of fair play was offended when the lanista gave Almo a mere moment of rest and then set against him a sixth antagonist. Murmurs ran from tier to tier, there were hoots and cat-calls.
Aurelius put up his hand and the people became still.
It was not often that the entire throng in the Colosseum focussed its attention on anyone fighter. That happened now. The dozen or more other pairs of fighters were ignored, all eyes were on Almo and his opponent—all eyes that did not stray towards Brinnaria.
Almo was not showing any signs of weariness, but he was plainly husbanding his strength. The sixth bout was tame—seldom had the Amphitheatre displayed so mild a set to. The heavy-armed man had seen Almo dispose of five like himself, he was timid; Almo was not timid, but he was cautious. The result was a tedious exhibition of fencing for position, each sword monotonously caught on the other shield. At the end Almo slashed his opponent’s wrist, feinted, pretended to be unable to avoid a clumsy thrust, slipped inside the big man’s guard and drove his sabre deep under his arm-pit.
The Colosseum rang with cheers.
Without so much as a sponging down or a mouthful of wine Almo was faced by a seventh fresh swordsman in complete armor. This time there were no caterwaulings or groans. Even the upper gallery had recognized Almo or been told who he was, even the populace had remembered or had been informed of the relation between Almo and Brinnaria. Everybody had recalled or been reminded of her rescue of the retiarius.
The audience collectively comprehended that Aurelius meant Almo to be defeated and put at an adversary’s mercy before Brinnaria, that he was testing her.
The habitual hubbub, hum, and buzz of undertones was checked to a very unusual degree, the Amphitheatre became almost still.
But when Almo fairly duplicated his first bout and neatly, almost without effort, cut his victim’s throat, the audience cheered him vociferously.