willingly meet, and cheerfully abide by, the
decision of the legitimate tribunal. This is no place for further
parley.'

'He says right,' said the praetor. 'Ho! guards--remove Arbaces--guard
Calenus! Sallust, we hold you responsible for your accusation. Let the
sports be resumed.'

'What!' cried Calenus, turning round to the people, 'shall Isis be thus
contemned? Shall the blood of Apaecides yet cry for vengeance? Shall
justice be delayed now, that it may be frustrated hereafter? Shall the
lion be cheated of his lawful prey? A god! a god!--I feel the god rush
to my lips! To the lion--to the lion with Arbaces!'

His exhausted frame could support no longer the ferocious malice of the
priest; he sank on the ground in strong convulsions--the foam gathered
to his mouth--he was as a man, indeed, whom a supernatural power had
entered! The people saw and shuddered.

'It is a god that inspires the holy man! To the lion with the
Egyptian!'

With that cry up sprang--on moved--thousands upon thousands! They rushed
from the heights--they poured down in the direction of the Egyptian. In
vain did the aedile command--in vain did the praetor lift his voice and
proclaim the law. The people had been already rendered savage by the
exhibition of blood--they thirsted for more--their superstition was
aided by their ferocity. Aroused--inflamed by the spectacle of their
victims, they forgot the authority of their rulers. It was one of those
dread popular convulsions common to crowds wholly ignorant, half free
and half servile; and which the peculiar constitution of the Roman
provinces so frequently exhibited. The power of the praetor was as a
reed beneath the whirlwind; still, at his word the guards had drawn
themselves along the lower benches, on which the upper classes sat
separate from the vulgar. They made but a feeble barrier--the waves of
the human sea halted for a moment, to enable Arbaces to count the exact
moment of his doom! In despair, and in a terror which beat down even
pride, he glanced his eyes over the rolling and rushing crowd--when,
right above them, through the wide chasm which had been left in the
velaria, he beheld a strange and awful apparition--he beheld--and his
craft restored his courage!

He stretched his hand on high; over his lofty brow and royal features
there came an expression of unutterable solemnity and command.

'Behold!' he shouted with a voice of thunder, which stilled the roar of
the c