, which were parried by the
adroitness of the other. The African was quick and furious, but he could
do nothing against the cool and wary defense of his vigilant adversary.

At length, at a given signal, the combat was suspended, and the
gladiators were led away, not through anything like mercy or admiration,
but simply through a shrewd understanding of the best mode of satisfying
the Roman public. It was well understood that they would return again.

Now a large number of men were led into the arena. These were still
armed with the short sword. In a moment they had begun the attack. It
was not a conflict between two sides, but a general fight, in which
every man attacked his neighbor. Such scenes were the most bloody, and
therefore the most exciting. A conflict of this kind would always
destroy the greatest number in the shortest time. The arena presented a
scene of dire confusion. Five hundred armed men in the prime of life and
strength all struggled confusedly together. Sometimes they would all be
interlocked in one dense mass; at other times they would violently
separate into widely scattered individuals, with a heap of dead upon the
scene of the combat. But these would assail one another again with
undiminished fury; separate combats would spring up all around, the
victors in these would rush to take part in others, until at last the
survivors had once more congregated in one struggling crowd.

At length their struggles became weaker. Out of five hundred but one
hundred remained, and these were wearied and wounded. Suddenly a signal
was given, and two men leaped into the arena and rushed from opposite
sides upon this crowd. They were the African and the Batavian. Fresh
from their repose, they fell upon the exhausted wretches before them,
who had neither the spirit to combine nor the strength to resist. It
became a butchery. These two giants slaughtered right and left without
mercy, until they alone stood upright upon the arena, and the applause
of the innumerable throng came down in thunder to their ears.

These two again attacked each other, and attracted the attention of the
spectators while the bodies of the wounded and slain were being removed.
The combat was as fierce as before, and precisely similar. The African
was agile, the Batavian cautious. But finally the former made a
desperate thrust; the Batavian parried it, and returned a stroke like
lightning. The African sprang back and dropped his sword. But he