‘Centurion, you hear!’ he said to Martialis in beseeching tones, ‘give up your sword as Caesar wills.’ ‘I will not, Asca, and do you forgive me if I hurt you in self‐defence.’ The legionary looked again to Caesar. ‘He refuses!’ ‘Then compel him,’ thundered the Emperor; ‘strike, man, strike!’ Thrilled by the terrible voice, and somewhat excited by the cries of the others, the Pretorian set his teeth in blind desperation, and levelled his heavy spear. With consummate ease Martialis evaded the thrust, and grasped the weapon with his hands. Continuing the same movement, he thrust the lance back athwart the body of the soldier, and threw him sprawling on his back. It was done in a second of time, and with astonishing power and celerity, but it gave what the attentive slave Plautus thought an excellent opportunity for interference. He had been lingering nighest of all, with the eye of a lynx on the movements of the Centurion. As the latter closed with Asca, he therefore sprang forward. He was a large and powerfully‐built man, and, had he been able to carry out his intention of grappling with the young officer off his guard, the latter would probably have been entangled and finally smothered by numbers. But quick as the slave’s movement was, it was late by a brief second, for he had been closely watched and suspected. As the soldier Asca went sprawling back, Martialis swerved, as swift as light, and met his new assailant with an unexpected blow of his clenched fist. No friendly affection for a comrade‐ in‐arms tempered the stroke, as in the case of Asca, but, on the contrary, his long sinewy arm shot out like a battering‐ram, and struck the on‐ coming slave off his feet. The dash and prowess of the young officer seemed to arouse something like a revolution of feeling in his favour, to judge by the tone of the exclamations which broke forth at his feat. Even a half‐stifled excited ‘_Euge!_’ of approval might have been heard. His reputation was general, but Asca, alone of all present, had seen him discomfit a boxer of the amphitheatres by a similar blow, dealt for the honour of the Legion in the camp at Rome, amid the delighted yells of packed thousands of his comrades. The senseless Plautus was lifted and carried out with a face crushed and disfigured for life. Martialis, with his weapon still undrawn, fell back to his former position. The slender fingers of Neæra glided into his, and he clasped them tight. ‘Hark!’ he said to her, as the raised tones of Tiberius bade them haste for a file of Pretorians, ‘’twill be no more child’s play—would it had been with others than my own comrades. But courage, my Neæra! Shelter yourself behind me, and when I fall, you know how to use your weapon; better the tomb for such as you than the pollution of these walls.’ ‘Alas, my father and mother!’ she murmured, as she nestled closer to his side.