THE CENTURION. Emperor! Where’s the Emperor? You ain’t the Emperor, are you? THE OX DRIVER. It’s the menagerie service. My team of oxen is drawing the new lion to the Coliseum. You clear the road. CENTURION. What! Go in after you in your dust, with half the town at the heels of you and your lion! Not likely. We go first. THE OX DRIVER. The menagerie service is the Emperor’s personal retinue. You clear out, I tell you. CENTURION. You tell me, do you? Well, I’ll tell you something. If the lion is menagerie service, the lion’s dinner is menagerie service too. This (_pointing to the Christians_) is the lion’s dinner. So back with you to your bullocks double quick; and learn your place. March. (_The soldiers start_). Now then, you Christians, step out there. LAVINIA. (_marching_) Come along, the rest of the dinner. I shall be the olives and anchovies. ANOTHER CHRISTIAN. (_laughing_) I shall be the soup. ANOTHER. I shall be the fish. ANOTHER. Ferrovius shall be the roast boar. FERROVIUS. (_heavily_) I see the joke. Yes, yes: I shall be the roast boar. Ha! ha! (_He laughs conscientiously and marches out with them_). ANDROCLES. I shall be the mince pie. (_Each announcement is received with a louder laugh by all the rest as the joke catches on_). CENTURION. (_scandalised_) Silence! Have some sense of your situation. Is this the way for martyrs to behave? (_To Spintho, who is quaking and loitering_) I know what you’ll be at that dinner. You’ll be the emetic. (_He shoves him rudely along_). SPINTHO. It’s too dreadful: I’m not fit to die. CENTURION. Fitter than you are to live, you swine. _They pass from the square westward. The oxen, drawing a waggon with a great wooden cage and the lion in it, arrive through the central arch._ ACT II Behind the Emperor’s box at the Coliseum, where the performers assemble before entering the arena. In the middle a wide passage leading to the arena descends from the floor level under the imperial box. On both sides of this passage steps ascend to a landing at the back entrance to the box. The landing forms a bridge across the passage. At the entrance to the passage are two bronze mirrors, one on each side. On the west side of this passage, on the right hand of any one coming from the box and standing on the bridge, the martyrs are sitting on the steps. Lavinia is seated half-way up, thoughtful, trying to look death in the face. On her left Androcles consoles himself by nursing a cat. Ferrovius stands behind them, his eyes blazing, his figure stiff with intense resolution. At the foot of the steps crouches Spintho, with his head clutched in his hands, full of horror at the approach of martyrdom.