Beric the Briton : a Story of the Roman Invasion Part 28

Again Beric leaped upon it, coming down astride of its loins with all his weight, and seizing at once the two ropes. The lion uttered a roar of dismay and pain, and struck at him first with one paw and then with the other. By his coolness and quickness, however, he escaped all the blows, and then, when the lion seemed exhausted, he jerked tightly the cords, twisting them behind the lion's back and with rapid turns fastening them together. The lion was helpless now. Had Beric attempted to pull the cords in any other position it would have snapped them like pack thread, but in this position it had no strength, the pads of the feet being fastened together and the limbs almost dislocated. As the animal rolled over and over uttering roars of vain fury, Beric s.n.a.t.c.hed the cloth from its head, tore off another strip, twisted it, and without difficulty bound its hind legs together. Then he again wrapped it round the lion's head, and standing up bowed to the spectators.

A mighty shout shook the building. Never had such a feat been seen in the arena before, and men and women alike standing up waved their hands with frantic enthusiasm. Beric had not escaped altogether unhurt, for as the lion struck out at him it had torn away a piece of flesh from his side, and the blood was streaming down over his white skirt. Then he went up to Ennia, who was standing with closed eyes and hands clasped in prayer. She had seen nothing of the conflict, and had believed that Beric's death and her own were inevitable.

"Ennia," he said, "our G.o.ds have saved me; the lion is helpless."

Then she sank down insensible. He raised her on his shoulder, walked across the arena, pa.s.sed the barrier, and, ascending the steps, walked along before the first row of spectators and handed her over to her mother. Then he descended again, and bowed deeply, first to the emperor and then to the still shouting people.

The giver of the games advanced and placed on his head a crown of bay leaves, and handed to him a heavy purse of gold, which Beric placed in his girdle, and, again saluting the audience, rejoined Scopus, who was in a state of enthusiastic delight at the prowess of his pupil.

"You have proved yourself the first gladiator in Rome," he said.

"Henceforth the school of Scopus is ahead of all its rivals. Now we must get your side dressed. Another inch or two, Beric, and the conflict would not have ended as it did."

"Yes, if the lion had not been in such a hurry to strike, and had stretched its paw to the fullest, it would have fared badly with me," Beric said; "but it was out of breath and spiteful, and had not recovered from the blow and from the shock of my jumping on it, which must have pretty nearly broken its back. I knew it was a risk, but it was my only chance of getting its paws in that position, and in no other would my ropes have been strong enough to hold them."

"But how came you to think of fighting in that way?" Scopus asked, after the leech, who was always in attendance to dress the wounds of the gladiators, had bandaged up his side.

"I never expected to have to fight the beasts unarmed," Beric said, "but I had sometimes thought what should be done in such a case, and I thought that if one could but wrap one's cloak round a lion's head the beast would be at one's mercy. Had I had but a caestus I could have beaten its skull in, but without that I saw that the only plan was to noose its limbs. Surely a man ought to be able to overcome a blinded beast."

"I would not try it for all the gold in Rome, Beric, even now that I have seen you do it. Did you mark Caesar? There is no one appreciates valiant deeds more than he does. At first his countenance was cold--I marked him narrowly--but he half rose to his feet and his countenance changed when you first threw yourself on the lion, and none applauded more warmly than he did when your victory was gained. Listen to them; they are shouting for you again. You must go. Never before did I know them to linger after a show was over. They will give you presents."

"I care not for them," Beric said.

"You must take them," Scopus said, "or you will undo the favourable impression you have made, which will be useful to you should you ever enter the arena again and be conquered. Go, go!"

Beric again entered the arena, and the attendants led him up to the emperor, who presented him with a gold bracelet, saying:

"I will speak to you again, Beric. I had wondered that you and your people should have resisted Suetonius so long, but I wonder no longer."

Then Beric was led round the arena. Ladies threw down rings and bracelets to him. These were gathered up by the attendants and handed to him as he bowed to the givers. Norba.n.u.s, his wife, and daughter had already left their seats, surrounded by friends congratulating them, and bearing with them the still insensible girl. Having made the tour of the arena Beric again saluted the audience and retired.

One of the imperial attendants met them as they left the building.

"The emperor bids me say, Scopus, that when Beric is recovered from his wound he is to attend at the palace."

"I thought the emperor meant well towards you," Scopus said. "You will in any case fight no more in the arena."

"How is that?" Beric asked in surprise.

"Did you not hear the shouts of the people the last time you entered, Beric?"

"I heard a great confused roar, but in truth I was feeling somewhat faint from loss of blood, and did not catch any particular sounds."

"They shouted that you were free from the arena henceforth. It is their custom when a gladiator greatly distinguishes himself to declare him free, though I have never known one before freed on his first appearance. The rule is that a gladiator remains for two years in the ring, but that period is shortened should the people deem that he has earned his life by his courage and skill. For a moment I was sorry when I heard it, but perhaps it is better as it is. Did you remain for two years, and fight and conquer at every show, you could gain no more honour than you have done. Now I will get a lectica and have you carried out to the hills. You are not fit to walk."

They were joined outside by Porus and Lupus. The former was warm in his congratulation.

"By the G.o.ds, Beric, though I knew well that you would gain a great triumph in the arena when your time came, I never thought to see you thus fighting with the beasts unarmed. Why, Milo himself was not stronger, and he won thirteen times at the Olympian and Pythian games. He would have won more, but no one would venture to enter against him. Why, were you to go on practising for another five years, you would be as strong as he was, and as you are as skilful as you are strong it would go hard with any that met you. I congratulated myself, I can tell you, when I heard the people shout that you were free of the arena, for if by any chance we had been drawn against each other, I might as well have laid down my net and asked you to finish me at once without trouble."

"It was but a happy thought, Porus: if a man could be caught in a net, why not a lion blinded in a cloak? That once done the rest was easy."

"Well, I don't want any easy jobs of that sort," Porus said. "But let us go into a wine shop; a gla.s.s will bring the colour again to your cheeks."

"No, no, Porus," Scopus said. "Do you and Lupus drink, and I will drink with you, but no wine for Beric. I will get him a cup of hot a.s.s's milk; that will give him strength without fevering his blood.

Here is a place where they sell it. I will go in with him first, and then join you there; but take not too much. You have a long walk back, and I guess, Lupus, that your head already hums from the blow that Briton gave it. By Bacchus, these Britons are fine men!

I thought you had got an easy thing of it, when boom! and there you were stretched out like a dead man."

"It was a trick," Lupus said angrily, "a base trick."

"Not at all," Scopus replied. "You fought as if in war; and in war if you had an opponent at close quarters, and could not use your sword's point, you would strike him down with the hilt if you could.

As I have told you over and over again, you are a good swordsman, but you don't know everything yet by a long way, and you are so conceited that you never will. I hoped that drubbing Beric gave you a few days after he joined us would have done you good, but I don't see that it has. There are some men who never seem to learn.

If it had not been for you our ludus would have triumphed all round today; but when one sees a man we put forward as one of our best swordsmen defeated by a raw Briton, people may well say, 'Scopus has got one or two good men; there is Beric, he is a marvel; and Porus is good with the net; but as for the rest, I don't value them a straw."

The enraged gladiator sprang upon Scopus, but the latter seized him by the waist and hurled him down with such force that he was unable to rise until Porus a.s.sisted him to his feet. As to Scopus, he paid him no farther attention, but putting his hand on Beric's shoulder led him into the shop. A long draught of hot milk did wonders for Beric, and he proposed walking, but Scopus would not hear of it.

"Sit down here for five minutes," he said, "till I have a cup of wine with the others. I should think Lupus must need it pretty badly, what with the knock on the head and the tumble I have just given him. I am not sorry that he was beaten by your countryman, for since he has had the luck to win two or three times in the arena, his head has been quite turned. He would never have dared to lay his hand on me had he not been half mad, for he knows well enough that I could strangle him with one hand. The worst of him is, that the fellow bears malice. He has never forgiven you the thrashing you administered to him. Now I suppose he will be sulky for weeks; but if he does it will be worse for him, for I will cut off his wine, and that will soon bring him to his senses."

Scopus had gone but a few minutes when he returned with a lectica, which was a sort of palanquin, carried by four stout countrymen.

"Really, Scopus, it is ridiculous that I should be carried along the streets like a woman."

"Men are carried as well as women, Beric, and as you are a wounded man you have a double right to be carried. Here is a bag with all those ornaments you got. It is quite heavy to lift."

The bearers protested loudly at the weight of their burden when they lifted the lectica, but the promise of a little extra pay silenced their complaints. They were scarcely beyond the city when Beric, who was weaker from loss of blood than he imagined, dozed off to sleep, and did not wake till the lectica was set down in the atrium of the house on the Alban Hills.

Next morning he was extremely stiff, and found himself obliged to continue on his couch.

"It is of no use your trying to get up," Scopus said; "the muscles of your flank are badly torn, and you must remain quiet."

An hour later a rheda or four wheeled carriage drove up to the door, and in another minute Norba.n.u.s entered Beric's cubicle. There were tears in his eyes as he held out both hands to him. "Ah, my friend,"

he said, "how happy you must be in the happiness you caused to us!

Who could have thought, when I entertained, as a pa.s.sing guest, the friend of Pollio, that he would be the saviour of my family?

You must have thought poorly of us yesterday that I was not at the exit from the amphitheatre to meet and thank you. But I hurried home with Ennia, and having left her in charge of her mother and sister came back to find you, but you had left, and I could learn no news of you. I searched for some time, and then guessing that you had been brought home by Scopus, I went back to the child, who is sorely ill. I fear that the strain has been too much for her, and that we shall lose her. But how different from what it would have been! To die is the lot of us all, and though I shall mourn my child, it will be a different thing indeed from seeing her torn to pieces before my eyes by the lion. She has recovered from her faint, but she lies still and quiet, and scarce seems to hear what is said to her. Her eyes are open, she has a happy smile on her lips, and I believe that she is well content now that she has done what she deems her duty to her G.o.d. She smiled when I told her this morning that I was coming over to see you, and said in a whisper, 'I shall see him again, father.'"

"Would she like to see me now?" Beric said, making an effort to rise.

"No, not now, Beric. I don't think somehow that she meant that. The leech said that she must be kept perfectly quiet; but I will send a slave with a letter to you daily. Oh, what a day was yesterday!

The woes of a lifetime seemed centred in an hour. I know not how I lived as I sat there and waited for the fatal moment. All the blood in my veins seemed to freeze up as she was left alone in the arena. A mist came over my eyes. I tried to close them, but could not. I saw nothing of the amphitheatre, nothing of the spectators, nothing but her, till, at the sudden shout from the crowd, I roused myself with a start. When I saw you beside her I thought at first that I dreamed; but Aemilia suddenly clasped my arm and said, 'It is Beric!' Then I hoped something, I know not what, until Nero said that you must meet the lion unarmed.

"Then I thought all was over--that two victims were to die instead of one. I tried to rise to cry to you to go, for that I would die by Ennia, but my limbs refused to support me; and though I tried to shout I did but whisper. What followed was too quick for me to mark. I saw the beast spring at you; I saw a confused struggle; but not until I saw you rise and bow, while the lion rolled over and over, bound and helpless, did I realize that what seemed impossible had indeed come to pa.s.s, and that you, unarmed and alone, had truly vanquished the terrible beast.

"I hear that all Rome is talking of nothing else. My friends, who poured in all the evening to congratulate us, told me so, and that no such feat had ever been seen in the arena."

"It does not seem much to me, Norba.n.u.s," Beric said. "It needed only some coolness and strength, though truly I myself doubted, when Nero gave the order to fight without weapons, if it could be done. I cannot but think that Ennia's G.o.d and mine aided me."

"It is strange," Norba.n.u.s said, "that one so young and weak as Ennia should have shown no fear, and that the other Christians should all have met their fate with so wonderful a calm. As you know, I have thought that all religions were alike, each tribe and nation having its own. But methinks there must be something more in this when its votaries are ready so to die for it."

"Do not linger with me," Beric said. "You must be longing to be with your child. Pray, go at once. She must be glad to have you by her, even if she says little. I thank you for your promise to send news to me daily. If she should express any desire to see me, I will get Scopus to provide a vehicle to carry me to Rome; but in a few days I hope to be about."

"Your first visit must be to Caesar, when you are well enough to walk," Norba.n.u.s said. "They tell me he bade you come to see him, and he would be jealous did he know that he was not the first in your thoughts."