The knotted veins, the corded muscles, the mighty strength of the combatants, as they rocked to and fro and panted with terrible efforts, impressed the onlookers with awe, and thrilled them with excitement. The immense Nubian was a mountain of bone and flesh. To move him was like moving a column of the palace. He followed no plan but that of trying to bore down his lighter antagonist by sheer weight and brute force. Martialis felt that these tactics, rude as they were, must finally prevail, if the contest were suffered to go on much longer. Mad with passion, he gathered every atom of his strength and art into a last frenzied effort. Finding it impossible to lift the ponderous, inanimate mass in his arms by main force, he swerved, as quick and sudden as light, and thrust forward his left hip, using it as a fulcrum, over which the astonished slave felt himself whirled from his feet with irresistible force. With his legs flying round in the air, like the spokes of a wheel, he was dashed on the floor with a tremendous concussion, which stunned him and shook the room. A yell of delirious excitement and triumph rang from the lips of Martialis, and he glanced round, like a tiger at bay, as if for the next victim. But nature has its limits, and the last supreme effort, added to the extraordinary exertion and excitement of the day, had begun to tell even on his frame of iron. As he drew himself back and clenched his hands for a desperate dash, his eyes seem to fill with blood—lights, faces, forms mingled in one confused gleam before him. The exultant shouts of the soldiers, unrepressed by the presence of Caesar, filled his ears like a muffled roar. He swayed dizzily for a brief second or two, and, as he passed his hand across his brow as if to clear his faculties from the mist which confused them, he was buried amid the forms of the soldiers. Their grasp restored him, and he struggled with renewed vigour. Once or twice, as he hurled the men right and left, he seemed on the point of breaking through the heaving mass, but numbers and exhaustion rendered the issue no longer doubtful. The Pretorians, whose feelings rather prompted them to shoulder their officer in triumph, clung tenaciously to him with firm hands. Only too pleased at the bloodless conclusion of the matter, they received their rough handling with good‐humoured jokes and entreaties, and used their united strength with a merciful purpose. At the first chance a belt was passed around their prisoner, and his arms securely buckled to his sides. Then the unfortunate Centurion perceived, at last, that all hope was gone. ‘Caesar! tyrant!’ he foamed, as he struggled frantically with his bonds, ‘why did I not bury my blade in your foul heart and relieve the world? Do your worst with me—I care nothing! But dare not to harm her; she is nobly born and of gentle blood; beware, therefore!’