What happened for some moments after, I know not. There was a struggle at the portal; a female forced her way through the guards, rushed in alone, and flung herself upon the victim. The sight of a new prey roused the lion; he tore the ground with his talons; he lashed his streaming sides with his tail; he lifted up his mane and bared his fangs. But his approaching was no longer with a bound; he dreaded the sword, and came sniffing the blood on the sand, and stealing round the body in circuits still diminishing.
The confusion in the vast assemblage was now extreme. Voices innumerable called for aid. Women screamed and fainted, men burst into indignant clamors at this prolonged cruelty. Even the hard hearts of the populace, accustomed as they were to the sacrifice of life, were roused to honest curses. The guards grasped their arms, and waited but for a sign from the emperor. But Nero gave no sign.
I looked upon the woman’s face; it was Salome! I sprang upon my feet. I called on her name; called on her, by every feeling of nature, to fly from that place of death, to come to my arms, to think of the agonies of all that loved her.
She had raised the head of Constantius on her knee, and was wiping the pale visage with her hair. At the sound of my voice, she looked up, and, calmly casting back the locks from her forehead, fixed her eyes upon me. She still knelt; one hand supported the head—with the other she pointed to it as her only answer. I again adjured her. There was the silence of death among the thousands around me. A fire dashed into her eye—her cheek burned—she waved her hand with an air of superb sorrow.
“I am come to die,” she uttered, in a lofty tone. “This bleeding body was my husband—I have no father. The world contains to me but this clay in my arms. Yet,” and she kissed the ashy lips before her, “yet, my Constantius, it was to save that father that your generous heart defied the peril of this hour. It was to redeem him from the hand of evil that you abandoned your quiet home!—Yes, cruel father, here lies the noble being that threw open your dungeon, that led you safe through the conflagration, that, to the last moment of his liberty, only sought how he might preserve and protect you.” Tears at length fell in floods from her eyes. “But,” said she, in tones of wild power, “he was betrayed, and may the Power whose thunders avenge the cause of his people, pour down just retribution upon the head that dared—”
I heard my own condemnation about to be pronounced by the lips of my own child. Wound up to the last degree of suffering, I tore my hair, leaped upon the bars before me, and plunged into the arena by her side. The height stunned me; I tottered a few paces and fell. The lion gave a roar and sprang upon me. I lay helpless under him, I heard the gnashing of his white fangs above me.
An exulting shout arose. I saw him reel as if struck—gore filled his jaws. Another mighty blow was driven to his heart. He sprang high in the air with a howl. He dropped; he was dead. The amphitheater thundered with acclamations.
With Salome clinging to my bosom, Constantius raised me from the ground—the roar of the lion had roused him from his swoon, and two blows saved me. The falchion had broken in the heart of the monster.
The whole multitude stood up, supplicating for our lives in the name of filial piety and heroism. Nero, devil as he was, dared not resist the strength of popular feeling. He waved a signal to the guards; the portal was opened, and my children, sustaining my feeble steps, showered with garlands and ornaments from innumerable hands, slowly led me from the arena.