At the end of her story he said: “You have not gone to all this trouble and taken up so much of my time and confided to me all the secrets of your heart merely to ease your mind. There’s something you want me to do, some help you expect to gain from me. You have given me no inkling of what it is. What is it? Speak out!” “He is certain to be killed sooner or later,” she said, wringing her hands. “I want you to help me to save him.” “Save him!” Commodus echoed. “Isn’t he competent to save himself? Hasn’t he convinced you of his ability to protect himself--Sooner or later? Much later, very much later. And he’s more likely to be killed by old age than by any weapon in the hands of any man. “I’ll never understand women. No man can, I suppose. You’re bent, bound and resolved that he must die. You pour out gold like water to compass his death. You have Italy ransacked for dexterous cutthroats. He never turns a hair. It’s easy for him as for a Molossian dog to kill wolves. He enjoys it; disposes of every man who dare face him. You can’t find another bravo to take the risk, not for any money! Then, when he has proved himself the best fighter in Italy, you face about and all of a sudden you are in a wax for fear some one may kill him! “Nobody will ever kill him. You and I saw him dispose of more than a dozen expert gladiators, one after the other; you saw how daintily and adroitly he did, it. You have just described his fight with his predecessor. It was over almost before it was begun. The incumbent was a dead man from the moment he faced Almo. Both knew it, too, and, since then he has done for the pick of the blackguards from all Italy. If Ravax and his gang could find no one to face him, there is none; if no man of that crew could best him, not Ravax himself, no man can best him. Don’t you see?” “No, I don’t,” she said. “It will be just like his fights in the arena. No matter how often he wins, he is bound to lose at last.” “Don’t you believe it,” Commodus argued. “I remember him well. I was wild over him just after Father’s triumph and saw a good deal of him before he set out for Britain. I was then no such all-round expert at weapon-play as I have become since, but I was good for my age. I fenced with him repeatedly and I know his quality. I had all the best swordsmen in the capital pitted against him and not one of them was his match. Murmex Lucro did not come to Rome till after Father’s death. So I never saw Murmex and Almo fence. But let me tell you this: Murmex is the only man alive who can fence with me for points and make anything like my score. And Almo is the only man alive, except me, who is fit to face Murmex on equal terms. There are only two men on earth who could kill Almo in a fight with any kind of weapons--Murmex is one and I am the other. “Why, Almo is as safe in the Grove as I am in the Palace. Don’t you worry about him. Nobody will kill him; take it from me, I know.”