"Why do you so often tremble?"
"Who knows whether some secret sin does not burden you?"
"Who knows whether your courage will not fail when danger--"
Just at that moment, drowning every other sound, a shrill shriek of horror, of mortal fear, rang from many hundred throats; a short, exulting roar could scarcely be heard through the tumult. "The tiger! The tiger is free!" rose from the arena.
And rushing thence in a dense crowd, frantic with terror, came men, women, and children, all struggling together. Everywhere they met other throngs, and, unable to go farther, jostled, pushed, stumbled, fell, and were trampled under foot.
Above them, on the first story of the Amphitheatre, directly opposite to the King, the broken chain trailing from its collar, crouched the huge tiger, lashing his flanks with his tail, his jaws wide open, hesitating between the spur of his fierce hunger and the fear of the torches and human beings. At last hunger conquered. The beast's eyes had rested upon one of the race-horses in front of the Amphitheatre, and lingered on it as though spellbound. A throng of people surged between the animal and its prey. The leap was almost beyond its powers; but greed urged on the monster and, with a low cry, it sprang over the heads of the multitude upon its chosen victim.
All the shrieking people pressed in the same direction. The horses shied; the tiger's leap fell short; he reached the ground scarcely two feet from the racer, which broke its halter and dashed away. The tiger never repeats a spring it has missed. Hasdrubal was shrinking back, as if ashamed; but as he stretched out his right fore-paw, it fell upon warm, soft, living flesh. A child, a little girl about four years old, in the gay, spangled dress of a Love, had been torn from the side of her mother and thrown down by the fugitives. There she was, lying on her face in the soft grass, the delicate rosy flesh between her head and shoulders rising above her little white dress. The tiger thrust his paw forward and held the child down by the neck--but only for an instant. Suddenly he drew back the length of his body, uttering a roar whose fury far exceeded any previous one, for an enemy advancing on foot dared to dispute possession of his prey. The great cat gathered himself to leap, the terrible leap which must overthrow any man. But before the beast could straighten himself for the bound, his adversary thrust a Vandal sword between the yawning jaws to the very hilt, and pierced the spine.
Carried down by the impetus of the blow, the man fell for a moment on the dead tiger; but he instantly sprang up, stepped back, and lifted the stupefied child from the ground.
"Gelimer! Hail to King Gelimer! Hail to the hero!" shouted the crowd. Even the Romans joined in the acclamation. "Are you unharmed, O King?" asked Thrasaric.
"As the child," said the latter, calmly, placing the little one in the arms of its weeping, trembling mother, who kissed the hem of the white royal mantle, stained with the wild beast's blood.