Then the gentle and cunning man, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus, made his way to the entrance where lecticarii were waiting with his litter.
"Can you hear the sound of running feet?" he inquired of the lady who sat beside him as they went away.
He turned with a smile and a movement of his hand. Then he answered calmly:
"Death is chasing a man through the garden yonder."
While Antipater was running towards the lion-house, that small tragedy of the arena was near its end.
The lights are burning low. Two have flickered for a little and gone out. The young men are watching with eager eyes.
"I can bear it no longer," says one, rushing to the gate of the arena, only to find that he could not open it.
The slave-girl utters a cry and steps forward and is caught and held by the carnifex.
Vergilius urges the leopard. He steps quickly, feinting with his lance; the cat darts along the farther side of the arena, roaring. Its eyes glow fiery in the dusk. The beast is become furious with continued baiting. Half the lamps are out and the light rapidly failing as Antipater rushes through the door. He falls beside the arena, rises and opens the gate.
"A lance," he whispers, and it is quickly put in his hands. "Come, come quickly, son of Varro," he whispers again. "The light is failing. He will tear you into shreds. Come through the gate here."
Vergilius had stopped, facing the leopard with lance raised.
"Not unless I have the wager," says he, calmly.
"You have won it," Antipater answers. "Come, good friend, be quick, I beg of you!"
Both moved backward through the gate, and before it closed there came a fling of claws on the floor. A black ball, bound hard with tightened sinew, rose in the air and shot across the arena and shook the gate which had closed in time to stop it.
"You are living, son of Varro, and I thank the God of my fathers," Antipater shouted, as he flung himself on a big divan, his breath coming fast. "I forgot the lights. I thought of them suddenly, and ran to save you. If I had been running in the games I should have won the laurel of Caesar."
"I was wrong--he could not have meant to slay me," thought Vergilius. "Not by the paws of the leopard."
Cyran stood near the door, weeping. Antipater rose and led her to Vergilius.