Again the sound of two persons approaching restrained her, and caused her to shrink into a corner until they might pass. Unlike the others, these men had not been drinking, but advanced gravely and steadily, with a slow, deliberate pace, indicative of weighty reflection. These, also, were slaves; and before they emerged into sight from the surrounding darkness, AEnone could distinctly mark the low, plotting whisper with which they spoke, occasionally rising, from excess of emotion, into a louder key. As they came opposite to her, they paused--not seeing her, but simply seeming to be arrested by the vehemence of their debate; and again their words sank nearly into a whisper. 'Tell me why I should not do so?' hissed the nearest, a man of gigantic proportions and development of strength. 'Why should I not leap out of the arena where these men place me to play a fool's part; and scrambling over the ranges of seats, plunge this dagger into his heart? Ye gods! were I once to begin to clamber up, no force could stop me from reaching him, were he at the very topmost range! And I will--why not?' 'You would gain but an instant's revenge,' said the other, striving to soothe him, 'and you would lose--' 'What? My life, would you say?' retorted the first. 'I know it. I know well, that before I could strike him thrice, I would myself be beaten down, a corpse. But one blow from me would be sufficient for him. Ay, though I used not my knife at all, but only my hardened fist. Would it not be a fine revenge, say you, thus to kill him? It was on account of my strength of arm that he laid toils for my capture, and for that alone he most valued me. Why not, then, prove its quality upon himself? With a single blow I could crush in his proud head like an egg shell. Then let them kill me--I care not.' 'And yet the life once lost by you cannot be gained again,' responded the other. 'O feeble-minded!' said the first, with disdain. 'Have I ever so dearly cared for life that I should thus guard it at the expense of honor? While I was a free man, in my native Rhodes, with my wife and children around me, did I not then risk my life among the very first? And am I likely to value it the more now that I am a slave, with wife torn from me and sent I know not where, with children slain one by one, as the only means of capturing me, with the accursed livery of the arena placed upon me that I may administer to their gaping appetite for blood? Can all this make me love my life more than I have ever loved it before?' 'But wait--only wait. There will come a time--'