hat faith of itself could save her. That one
method remained! Peter had said that faith could move the earth to its
foundations.

Hence he rallied; he crushed doubt in himself, he compressed his whole
being into the sentence, "I believe," and he looked for a miracle.

But as an overdrawn cord may break, so exertion broke him. The pallor of
death covered his face, and his body relaxed. He thought then that his
prayer had been heard, for he was dying. It seemed to him that Lygia
must surely die too, and that Christ would take them to Himself in that
way. The arena, the white togas, the countless spectators, the light of
thousands of lamps and torches, all vanished from his vision.

But his weakness did not last long. After a while he roused himself, or
rather the stamping of the impatient multitude roused him.

"Thou art ill," said Petronius; "give command to bear thee home."

And without regard to what Caesar would say, he rose to support Vinicius
and go out with him. His heart was filled with pity, and, moreover, he
was irritated beyond endurance because Caesar was looking through the
emerald at Vinicius, studying his pain with satisfaction, to describe
it afterwards, perhaps, in pathetic strophes, and win the applause of
hearers.

Vinicius shook his head. He might die in that amphitheatre, but he could
not go out of it. Moreover the spectacle might begin any moment.

In fact, at that very instant almost, the prefect of the city waved a
red handkerchief, the hinges opposite Caesar's podium creaked, and out of
the dark gully came Ursus into the brightly lighted arena.

The giant blinked, dazed evidently by the glitter of the arena; then he
pushed into the centre, gazing around as if to see what he had to meet.
It was known to all the Augustians and to most of the spectators that
he was the man who had stifled Croton; hence at sight of him a murmur
passed along every bench. In Rome there was no lack of gladiators larger
by far than the common measure of man, but Roman eyes had never seen the
like of Ursus. Cassius, standing in Caesar's podium, seemed puny compared
with that Lygian. Senators, vestals, Caesar, the Augustians, and the
people gazed with the delight of experts at his mighty limbs as large as
tree-trunks, at his breast as large as two shields joined together,
and his arms of a Hercules. The murmur rose every instant. For those
multitudes there could be no higher pleasure than to look at those
muscles in