“Say not another word, my own dearest love,” she said, with passionate devotion. “I too know the duty of a true and loving heart. I follow you joyfully, and my last breath is yours. Now be yourself, all yourself, and never think again about me. If I were to be left alone in the world—then indeed I might claim your tears; but, as it is, death cures every ill.”
Quintus felt that Cornelia was equally right from her own point of view, as he, as a Christian, was from his. He kissed her once more on the white and trembling lips, which in happier days had spoken so many a fond and tender word, blessed her for her heroic faithfulness, swearing that in that other unknown land, where they would presently meet again in glory, he would yet save the soul that was one with his own.
Then he took her hand, and led her up the steps.
The little gate-way was thrown open, and they slowly stepped out on to the arena. Whether it was the intense daylight after the dismal twilight of the dungeon, or their own tension of nerve and sense—they saw nothing; neither the endless ranks of seats, the thousands of heads that filled the Amphitheatre to the top-most course, nor Caesar in his gold-embroidered pulvinar. Everything swam before their eyes in a grey mist, a blank chaos. They were alone, together, in the midst of this vast multitude. At their feet spread the arena with its yellow sands, like an island in an ocean.
Cornelia tottered; she would probably have lost consciousness if the hard rattle of the drum, and immediately after the loud voice of the master of the ceremonies proclaiming the names of the victims, had not startled her into life again.
A servant came up to Quintus, and handed him the short dagger-like sword.
“Be sure to throw it,” he whispered stealthily in his ear.
Quintus, who recovered an unhoped sense of self-protection as soon as he felt himself armed, looked enquiringly in the fellow’s face.
“If you value your life,” the slave repeated, “throw at him, throw the knife.” And he withdrew to his place behind the parapet.
What could he mean? No doubt, if Quintus were close to the lion, even in the event of his striking a fatal blow, it might be considered certain that in his very death-struggle the beast would mangle him. Still, a stab must be surer to hit than a throw; besides which he might be able to stab twice, he could not repeat the throw. The suggestion then must be the malicious trap of some enemy, or at best the brutal joke of a ruffian.