to play the Macedonian with me! I
am no puny Persian, I warrant thee! What, man! have I not fought
twenty years in the ring, and never lowered my arms once? And have I
not received the rod from the editor's own hand as a sign of victory,
and as a grace to retirement on my laurels? And am I now to be lectured
by a boy?' So saying, he flung the hand from him in scorn.

Without changing a muscle, but with the same smiling face with which he
had previously taunted mine host, did the gladiator brave the painful
grasp he had undergone. But no sooner was his hand released, than,
crouching for one moment as a wild cat crouches, you might see his hair
bristle on his head and beard, and with a fierce and shrill yell he
sprang on the throat of the giant, with an impetus that threw him, vast
and sturdy as he was, from his balance--and down, with the crash of a
falling rock, he fell--while over him fell also his ferocious foe.

Our host, perhaps, had had no need of the rope so kindly recommended to
him by Lydon, had he remained three minutes longer in that position.
But, summoned to his assistance by the noise of his fall, a woman, who
had hitherto kept in an inner apartment, rushed to the scene of battle.
This new ally was in herself a match for the gladiator; she was tall,
lean, and with arms that could give other than soft embraces. In fact,
the gentle helpmate of Burbo the wine-seller had, like himself, fought
in the lists--nay under the emperor's eye. And Burbo himself--Burbo,
the unconquered in the field, according to report, now and then yielded
the palm to his soft Stratonice. This sweet creature no sooner saw the
imminent peril that awaited her worse half, than without other weapons
than those with which Nature had provided her, she darted upon the
incumbent gladiator, and, clasping him round the waist with her long and
snakelike arms, lifted him by a sudden wrench from the body of her
husband, leaving only his hands still clinging to the throat of his foe.
So have we seen a dog snatched by the hind legs from the strife with a
fallen rival in the arms of some envious groom; so have we seen one half
of him high in air--passive and offenceless--while the other half, head,
teeth, eyes, claws, seemed buried and engulfed in the mangled and
prostrate enemy. Meanwhile, the gladiators, lapped, and pampered, and
glutted upon blood, crowded delightedly round the combatants--their
nostrils distended--their lips grinning--the