rigid and tense. Manlia glanced at her, followed her gaze and
became interested in the fight Brinnaria was watching. Before
them, not immediately below them, but some distance out in the
arena, fought a conspicuous pair of gladiators. One was a great
hulking full-armored brute of a Goth, helmeted and corseleted,
kilted in bronze-plated leather straps, booted, as it were, with
ample shin-guards of thick hide, bronze-plated like the straps
of his flapping kilt. He carried a big oval shield and threatened
with a long straight sword his adversary, a Roman in every
outline, a slender young man, barefoot, bare-legged, kilted
with the scantiest form of gladiator's body-piece and apron,
clad in a green tunic and carrying only the small round shield
and short sabre of a Thracian. He wore a helmet like a skull
cap with a broad nose-guard that amounted to a mask, above
which were small openings for his eyes.

Conning this pair Manlia's attention was riveted by the slighter man.
He was very light on his feet, jaunty of bearing and, as it were,
ablaze with self-confidence.

Manlia, who was an expert judge of sword-fighting, perceived
at once that he was a master of his art. His method for the
moment was to hold back, lead his opponent on and bide his
time. His attitudes and movements bespoke the most perfect
knowledge of sword play in all its finest details. But what most
held Manlia's attention was his beauty of form and a strange
something about him, a long-armed, long-legged appearance.
She turned to Brinnaria.

"I should have sworn," she said, "that there was not in all the