So far both the tiros had escaped. They had instinctively avoided each other, and neither had butchered his opponent except in fair fight. Of the eight who survived, four were Samnites and mirmillos, four were net-throwers. They thought that the fight was over and that they might severally be regarded as victors, and might look for the gifts of crowns and money, or even of the foil which set them free from the horrid trade. They stepped back beyond the lines which the trainer had marked, resting on their arms, and expecting to be ushered out of the triumphal gate. The multitude had far other intentions. They were not yet sated with slaughter; they had not yet gloated long enough on faces convulsed with the death-agony; they wanted to see how the beautiful young Phrygian would look when an opponent stood over him with a sword at his throat. But the soul of Glanydon was filled with disgust and disdain. He loathed those fat, shouting, comfortable burghers, those hard-faced women, those finical dandies, of whom he felt that he could have driven a score before him like sheep. He strode to the barriers and set his back against them, refusing to fight. A yell of fury rose from the people. ‘Kill him!’ they shouted. ‘Kill him! scourge him! burn him! Why is he so afraid of cold steel? Why can’t he die like a man? Ho! scourgers, lash the youth into the combat again, to make the sides equal.’ The Briton stood as in a dream, and as his thoughts reverted to his home and the maiden whom he loved, the amphitheatre swam before his eyes. Five or six mastigophori came running up to him, and he felt the curling lash of one of them come stinging round his body. The agony aroused him. With a cry as of a wounded lion he sprang on the scourger, and with one buffet laid him senseless, while the others fled in confusion before him. Then, with the boldness of despair, he strode under the podium, and, raising his clenched fist, cursed the Emperor aloud. ‘Murderer of thy mother!’ he cried; ‘thou infamy of manhood, I will fight again. But think not that thou shalt escape. Speedily the doom shall overtake thee, and thy death shall be more shameful and horrible than mine.’ He had thundered forth so loudly his indignant words that they rang through the whole amphitheatre, and the wildest tumult arose. The Emperor cowered back in his seat, pale with superstitious terror, yet almost suffocated with rage; and his favourite page, springing up from the low stool at his feet, began to sprinkle his face with perfume.