Almo won his third bout. While it was in progress Manlia had seen one of the Emperor’s orderlies enter the arena from one of the small doors in the wall and confer with the chief lanista, who directed the fighting.
By the time Almo began a fourth bout half the audience was looking at him or at Brinnaria. There were thousands present who had survived the pestilence, who had been present fifteen years before when she had let herself down into the arena and had rescued the retiarius. They remembered her spectacular interference and were curious as to how she would now comport herself. Brinnaria, erect and calm, fanned herself placidly.
By this time the arrangements of the lanistas had been so far modified that, instead of a great throng of fighters, there were, in the whole immense arena, not more than twenty pairs.
With scarcely a breathing space Almo was pitted against a fifth adversary. By the time he had disposed of him the entire audience, fully a hundred thousand souls, were as well aware of what was going on as was Brinnaria herself. She was pale, but entirely collected. To Manlia she whispered venomously:
“Castor be thanked, he is certain to be killed, Aurelius has attended to that.” In fact the Roman sense of fair play was offended when the lanista gave Almo a mere moment of rest and then set against him a sixth antagonist. Murmurs ran from tier to tier, there were hoots and cat-calls.
Aurelius put up his hand and the people became still.
It was not often that the entire throng in the Colosseum focussed its attention on anyone fighter. That happened now. The dozen or more other pairs of fighters were ignored, all eyes were on Almo and his opponent--all eyes that did not stray towards Brinnaria.
Almo was not showing any signs of weariness, but he was plainly husbanding his strength. The sixth bout was tame--seldom had the Amphitheatre displayed so mild a set to. The heavy-armed man had seen Almo dispose of five like himself, he was timid; Almo was not timid, but he was cautious. The result was a tedious exhibition of fencing for position, each sword monotonously caught on the other shield. At the end Almo slashed his opponent’s wrist, feinted, pretended to be unable to avoid a clumsy thrust, slipped inside the big man’s guard and drove his sabre deep under his arm-pit.