ead thrust forward, its tiny golden
eyes fixed before it, a curious snarl--like a grin--now and then
contorted the immobility of its powerful jaws. The sinewy tail beat a
restless tattoo on the floor of the cage.

Now and then when a jerk on the uneven ground disturbed it from its
ominous quietude, the brute would jump up suddenly--quick as the
lightning flash--and bound right across the cage, striking out with its
huge black paw to where one of the rearmost negro's back appeared
temptingly near.

The cunning precision with which that paw hit out exactly between two
iron bars highly pleased the public, and once when the mighty claws did
reach a back and tore it open from the shoulder to the waist, a wild
shout of delight, echoed and re-echoed by thousands upon thousands of
throats, shook the very walls of the gigantic Amphitheatre. Children
screamed with pleasure, the women applauded rapturously, the men shouted
"Habet! habet!" He has it! The unfortunate slave, who, giddy with the
loss of blood, rolled inanimate beneath the wheels of the cage.

It was at this moment, when the excited populace went nearly wild with
delight, that a loud fanfare of brass trumpets announced the approach of
the Caesar.

He entered his tribune preceded by an escort of his praetorian guard
with flying standards. At sight of him the huge audience rose to its
feet like one man and cheered him to the echoes, cheered him with just
the same shouts as those with which, a few moments ago, it had
acclaimed the ferocious prowess of the panther, cheered him with the
same shouts with which it would have hailed his death, his
assassination, the proclamation of his successor.

He was clad in a tunic of purple silk, wrought with the sun, moon and
stars in threads of gold and silver, and on his chest was the
breastplate of Augustus, which he had had dug up out of the vault where
the great Emperor lay buried. On his head was a diadem of jewels in
shape like the rays of the sun standing out all round his misshapen
head, and in his hands he carried a gold thunderbolt, emblem of Jove,
and a trident emblem of Neptune.

He was surrounded by his own guard, by a company of knights and a group
of senators and patricians, and immediately behind him walked his wife,
Caesonia, and his uncle, Claudius, the brother of Germanicus.

He came to the front of the tribune, allowing the populace a full view
of his grotesque person, and listening with obvious satisfaction