The feelings of a warrior were not so entirely sunk in slavery as to permit Adonijah to assume the sword and buckler without experiencing a momentary elevation of soul. It was not till he found himself within the circle of the vast amphitheatre, and encountered the hostile glances of many thousand eyes, that he remembered that this was no battle-field, but the arena on which he was to be “butchered for a Roman spectacle.” Even in this bitter moment he confronted the spectators with unshrinking firmness, till among that living mass he distinguished the infant Lucius, and felt the tender emotions of his heart towards the child suffuse his eyes. Titus sat in state to view the spectacle with the lovely Jewish queen by his side. She, endowed with Mariamne’s talents and fatal beauty, yet wanting her nobility of mind and virtue, was become the absolute ruler of him whose mighty arm had enslaved her people,—that people whose miseries were then exhibiting before her eyes. Julius Claudius was seated near the lovers, apparently enjoying familiar converse with them both. His little son, gaily attired as Cupid, listlessly reclined his fair young head against his father’s knee. Art had supplied to his pale cheek the roses that pining for Adonijah had banished, but the glaring hue ill accorded with the fair delicate cheek, whose pallid tints it could not overcome. All this was marked by the Hebrew with painful interest, even in the present awful hour, for the child was the only thing left upon earth that he could love. The craving feeling for sympathy that exists in every human bosom, however cold and unpromising its exterior may be, led him to salute the infant Lucius by name. The boy raised his languid head and, recognising his unhappy friend, uttered a joyful cry, and, stretching forth his arms towards him, returned his greeting with delight, inviting him to join him by his lively and animated gestures. Half-unmanned, the gladiator turned away his tearful eyes from the child to his opponent. The face of his countryman was averted from him, and for a moment he expected to behold the familiar features of a friend. They faced each other, and the hostile names of Adonijah and Ithamar were mutually uttered on one side in the tone of defiance, on the other with amazement. Adonijah indeed, in recognising the war-wasted countenance of Ithamar, scarcely remembered that they had once been foes. Years of bondage and exile had nearly obliterated all traces of former hatred from his breast. No rival, but an old companion in arms appeared to stand before him—one who had fought for the same sacred cause, and was united with him in the same sad brotherhood of sorrow. He lowered the point of his weapon, saying as he did so, “Ithamar, in me you behold no hostile opponent; my hatred has perished with my country: I know no enemies but Romans.” He stretched forth his hand in token of amity, and anxiously awaited the answer of his foe.