The doors at the farther end of the arena were now flung open, and an enormous lion, all tawny gold, his wide head loaded with a thick and flowing mane, came calmly and majestically out on to the arena. A large black lock of hair hung over his eyes.
Quintus at once recognized that very beast, which had flung itself so furiously against the bars of its cage as it stood on the quay at Ostia. He clutched the handle of his weapon with a convulsive grip; it suddenly felt so small, so ineffectual, that he thought the spectators that sat watching must laugh at the absurdity.
Cornelia was standing a few paces to one side of Quintus, as pale and motionless as a marble goddess.
The lion came deliberately towards them, and Quintus fixed his eye steadily on the glaring eye of the foe. Suddenly the brute seemed to hesitate. Could he have recognized the face, which had before so roused his ferocity? He lashed his flanks with his sweeping tail, and foaming slaver dripped from his jaws. The muscles of his huge paws twitched to strike—and now he crouched to spring. Every sinew was strained, and the next instant he flung himself straight at Quintus. At the same moment Cornelia had thrown herself in the line of the brute’s attack, while Quintus started aside. The girl’s unexpected movement may have startled the beast; he sprang short, and fell on the ground very near to Quintus, and as he fell the sword pierced his shoulder with such force, that it went up to the hilt.
What was this? What an unheard-of stroke of skill! The knife had hardly hit the lion, when he sank limp and helpless; he shuddered with a tremendous convulsion, and then rolled over stark and stiff in the sand.—He was dead.
Quintus could not believe his eyes—some demon, he thought, must have tricked his excited senses. How was it possible? One of these monstrous beasts, in whose side half a dozen of lances would sometimes be broken, before their tenacious vitality was spent—and this sudden death had resulted from a single stroke, though, it is true, a shrewd one?
But the uproarious applause of the crowd gave him no time to meditate upon the miracle.
“Mercy for Quintus Claudius!” was shouted in a thousand voices, and from every side.
“Caesar, release him! Pardon for Quintus Claudius!”
Pale as death, his lips set, his brows knit, Caesar sat impassible in the midst of the storm. Clodianus went up to him and, with a meaning smile, whispered something in his ear. Caesar angrily shook his head.[157]