the fear of the
torches and human beings. At last hunger conquered. The beast's eyes
had rested upon one of the race-horses in front of the Amphitheatre,
and lingered on it as though spellbound. A throng of people surged
between the animal and its prey. The leap was almost beyond its powers;
but greed urged on the monster and, with a low cry, it sprang over the
heads of the multitude upon its chosen victim.

All the shrieking people pressed in the same direction. The horses
shied; the tiger's leap fell short; he reached the ground scarcely two
feet from the racer, which broke its halter and dashed away. The tiger
never repeats a spring it has missed. Hasdrubal was shrinking back, as
if ashamed; but as he stretched out his right fore-paw, it fell upon
warm, soft, living flesh. A child, a little girl about four years old,
in the gay, spangled dress of a Love, had been torn from the side of
her mother and thrown down by the fugitives. There she was, lying on
her face in the soft grass, the delicate rosy flesh between her head
and shoulders rising above her little white dress. The tiger thrust his
paw forward and held the child down by the neck--but only for an
instant. Suddenly he drew back the length of his body, uttering a roar
whose fury far exceeded any previous one, for an enemy advancing on
foot dared to dispute possession of his prey. The great cat gathered
himself to leap, the terrible leap which must overthrow any man. But
before the beast could straighten himself for the bound, his adversary
thrust a Vandal sword between the yawning jaws to the very hilt, and
pierced the spine.

Carried down by the impetus of the blow, the man fell for a moment on
the dead tiger; but he instantly sprang up, stepped back, and lifted
the stupefied child from the ground.

"Gelimer! Hail to King Gelimer! Hail to the hero!" shouted the crowd.
Even the Romans joined in the acclamation. "Are you unharmed, O King?"
asked Thrasaric.

"As the child," said the latter, calmly, placing the little one in the
arms of its weeping, trembling mother, who kissed the hem of the white
royal mantle, stained with the wild beast's blood.

Gelimer wiped his sword-blade on the tiger's soft skin and thrust it
into the sheath. Then he went back to his horse and stood drawn up to
his full height, leaning against its shoulder, his helmeted head held
proudly erect. He had retained as king the old helmet with the wings of
the black vulture (they seemed no