The Gladiators. A Tale of Rome and Judæa

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

With his eye fixed on his adversary, Esca was advancing, inch by inch, like a tiger about to spring. Covering the lower part of his face and most of his body with his buckler, and holding his short two-edged sword with bended arm and threatening point, he crouched to at least a foot lower than his natural stature, and seemed to have every muscle and sinew braced, to dash in like lightning when the opportunity offered. A false movement, he well knew, would be fatal, and the difficulty was to come to close quarters, as, directly he was within a certain distance, the deadly cast was sure to be made. Placidus, on the other hand, stood perfectly motionless. His eye was unusually accurate, and he could trust his practised arm to whirl the net abroad at the exact moment when its sweep would be irresistible. So he remained in the same collected attitude, his trident shifted into the left hand, his right foot advanced, his right arm wrapped in the gathered folds of the net which hung across his body, and covered the whole of his left side and shoulder. Once he tried a scornful gibe and smile to draw his enemy from his guard, but in vain; and though Esca, in return, made a feint with the same object, the former’s attitude remained immovable, and the latter’s snake-like advance continued with increasing caution and vigilance.

An inch beyond the fatal distance, Esca halted once more. For several seconds the combatants thus stood at bay, and the hundred thousand spectators crowded into that spacious amphitheatre held their breath, and watched them like one man.

At length the Briton made a false attack, prepared to spring back immediately and foil the netsman’s throw, but [pg 160]the wily tribune was not to be deceived, and the only result was that, without appearing to shift his ground, he moved an arm’s length nearer his adversary. Then the Briton dashed in, and this time in fierce earnest. Foot, hand, and eye, all together, and so rapidly, that the tribune’s throw flew harmless over his assailant’s head, Placidus only avoiding his deadly thrust by the cat-like activity with which he leaped aside; then, turning round, he scoured across the arena for life, gathering his net for a fresh cast as he flew. “Coward!” hissed Valeria, between her set teeth; while Mariamne breathed once more—nay, her bosom panted, and her eye sparkled with something like triumph at the approaching climax.

She was premature, however, in her satisfaction, and Valeria’s disdain was also undeserved. Though apparently flying for his life, Placidus was as cool and brave at that moment as when he entered the arena. Ear and eye were alike on the watch for the slightest false movement on the part of his pursuer; and ere he had half crossed the lists, his net was gathered up, and folded with deadly precision once more.

The tribune especially prided himself on his speed of foot. It was on this quality that he chiefly depended for safety in a contest which at first sight appeared so unequal. He argued from the great strength of his adversary, that the latter would not be so pre-eminent in activity as himself; but he omitted to calculate the effects of a youth spent in the daily labours of the chase amongst the woods and mountains of Britain. Those following feet had many a time run down the wild goat over its native rocks. Faster and faster fly the combatants, to the intense delight of the crowd, who specially affect this kind of combat for the pastime it thus affords. Speedy as is the tribune, his foe draws nearer and nearer, and now, close to where Mariamne stands with Calchas, he is within a stride of his antagonist. His arm is up to strike! when a woman’s shriek rings through the amphitheatre, startling Vitellius on his throne, and the sword flies aimlessly from the Briton’s grasp as he falls forward on his face, and the impetus rolls him over and over in the sand.

There is no chance for him now. He is scarcely down ere the net whirls round him, and he is fatally and helplessly entangled in its folds. Mariamne gazes stupefied on the prostrate form, with stony face and a fixed unmeaning stare. Valeria springs to her feet in a sudden impulse, forgetting for the moment where she is.

Placidus, striding over his fallen enemy with his trident raised, and the old sneering smile deepening and hardening on his face, observed the cause of his downfall, and inwardly congratulated himself on the lucky chance which had alone prevented their positions being reversed. The blood was streaming from a wound in Esca’s foot. It will be remembered that where Manlius fell, his sword was buried under him in the sand. On removing his dead body the weapon escaped observation, and the Briton, treading in hot haste on the very spot where it lay concealed, had not only been severely lacerated, but tripped up and brought to the ground by the snare.

All this flashed through the conqueror’s mind, as he stood erect, prepared to deal a blow that should close all accounts, and looked up to Valeria for the fatal sign.

Maddened with rage and jealousy; sick, bewildered, and scarcely conscious of her actions, the Roman lady was about to give it, when Licinius seized her arms and held them down by force. Then, with a numerous party of friends and clients, he made a strong demonstration in favour of mercy. The speed of foot, too, displayed by the vanquished, and the obvious cause of his discomfiture, acted favourably on the majority of spectators. Such an array of hands turned outwards and pointing to the earth met the tribune’s eye, that he could not but forbear his cruel purpose, so he gave his weapon to one of the attendants who had now entered the arena, took his cloak from the hands of another, and, with a graceful bow to the spectators, turned scornfully away from his fallen foe.

Esca, expecting nothing less than immediate death, had his eyes fixed on the drooping figure of Mariamne; but the poor girl had seen nothing since his fall. Her last moment of consciousness showed her a cloud of dust, a confused mass of twine, and an ominous figure with arm raised in act to strike; then barriers and arena, and eager faces and white garments, and the whole amphitheatre, pillars, sand, and sky, reeled ere they faded into darkness; sense and sight failed her at the same moment, and she fainted helplessly in her kinsman’s arms.