"Castor be thanked, he is certain to be killed, Aurelius has
attended to that." In fact the Roman sense of fair play was
offended when the lanista gave Almo a mere moment of
rest and then set against him a sixth antagonist. Murmurs
ran from tier to tier, there were hoots and cat-calls.

Aurelius put up his hand and the people became still.

It was not often that the entire throng in the Colosseum
focussed its attention on anyone fighter. That happened
now. The dozen or more other pairs of fighters were
ignored, all eyes were on Almo and his opponent--all eyes
that did not stray towards Brinnaria.

Almo was not showing any signs of weariness, but he
was plainly husbanding his strength. The sixth bout was
tame--seldom had the Amphitheatre displayed so mild
a set to. The heavy-armed man had seen Almo dispose
of five like himself, he was timid; Almo was not timid,
but he was cautious. The result was a tedious exhibition
of fencing for position, each sword monotonously
caught on the other shield. At the end Almo slashed his
opponent's wrist, feinted, pretended to be unable to avoid
a clumsy thrust, slipped inside the big man's guard and
drove his sabre deep under his arm-pit.

The Colosseum rang with cheers.

Without so much as a sponging down or a mouthful of wine
Almo was faced by a seventh fresh swordsman in complete