=341. Beginning the Regular Gladiatorial Combats.=--The hunters of the beasts, duly reënforced by many others, reënter the arena again in grim procession. Approaching the editor’s seat on the podium they can be seen passing up their weapons for Cluentius, to let him satisfy himself that every edge is sharpened beyond the possibility of shamming. He hands back each spear or sword with a nod, then the long file straightens and every combatant lifts his right arm: “_Ave, prætor!_” sounds the deep chant, “_morituri te salutamus!_” “_Ave!_” answers Cluentius gesturing haughtily. “Low-browed scoundrels,” mutters Calvus to a fellow senator; “Most of them are lucky to end up this way and to escape the cross.--Ah! they begin.” First, however, to get well limbered, wooden swords are handed about, and the troop fence with one another skilfully yet harmlessly; but the people are waxing impatient--“Steel! Steel!” rings the shout from the whole amphitheater, and the dense array of women in the upper gallery is calling it as fiercely as the men on the ocean of benches. A terrific blast of trumpets sounds from mid-arena, and a gigantic lanista acting as a kind of umpire motions with his spear. Soon every heart in the myriads is thrilled by the clash of weapons. Cluentius (an unoriginal though free-spending magistrate) has arranged a very conventional series of combats. First two Britons dash about in chariots pelting each other with javelins. Their armor turns the darts for long, then one of the horses is wounded and while his driver is struggling to control him another missile strikes through a joint in the warrior’s armor. He totters in the car while all the amphitheater rises and yells together “_Habet!_” “He’s got it!”--and then as the poor wight tumbles back into the sands, “_Peractum est!_” “He’s done for!” [Illustration: GLADIATORS SALUTING THE EDITOR BEFORE JOINING IN MORTAL COMBAT.] Immediately there appears a grotesque figure, arrayed as Charon, the dead man’s ferryman. He bears a hammer wherewith he strikes the body of the victim to see if he is counterfeiting death. The fallen chariot warrior stirs not--and “Charon” with a long hook drags away the corpse into one of the dens under the podium. The benches are now leaping, gesticulating, and yelling--the noise is indescribable, and Cluentius’s friends hasten to tell him that the combats have started admirably.