The tall champion to whom this remark was addressed, and who had that very morning, in company with his friend, bidden a farewell, that might be eternal, to wife and children, as indeed it was nothing unusual for him to do, softened doubtless by the remembrance, now exerted himself strenuously to give the fainting woman room. Without the use of any but nature’s weapons, and from sheer weight, strength, and resolution, the gladiators soon cleared an ample space in the middle of the street for their comrade and his charge; nor did they seem at all indisposed to a task which afforded opportunities of evincing their own physical superiority, and the supreme contempt in which they held the mass of their fellow‐citizens. Perhaps it was pleasant to feel how completely they could domineer over the crowd by the use of those very qualities which made their dying struggles a spectacle for the vulgar; perhaps they enjoyed the repayment in advance of some of the ribaldry and insult that would too surely accompany their end. At anyrate they shouldered the mob back with unnecessary violence, drove their spiked sandals into the feet of such as came under their tread, and scrupled not to strike with open hand or clenched fist any adventurous citizen who was fool enough to put himself forward for appeal or resistance. These, too, seemed terror‐stricken by this handful of resolute men. Accustomed to look on them from a safe distance in the amphitheatre, like the wild beasts with whom they often saw them fight, they were nearly as unwilling to beard the one as the other; and to come into collision with a gladiator in the street, was like meeting a tiger on the wrong side of his bars. So Hirpinus had plenty of room to undo the girl’s bands, and remove the stifling folds that muffled her head and throat.
“Where am I?” she murmured, as she began to breathe more freely, looking round bewildered and confused. “You are Esca’s friend. Surely I heard you say so. You will take care of me, then, for Esca’s sake.”
Instinctively she addressed herself to Hirpinus, instinctively she seemed to appeal to him for protection and encouragement. The veil had been taken from her head, and the beauty of the sweet pale face was not lost on the surrounding gladiators. Old Hirpinus looked at her with a comical expression, in which admiration and pity were blended with astonishment and a proud sense of personal appropriation in the defenceless girl who seemed utterly dependent on him. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. He had never known the happiness of a home; never had wife nor child: but at that moment his heart warmed to her as a father’s to a daughter.
