by Eugène Sue
Slavery often unnerves the brave and deepens the cowardice of the craven. The larger number of these compulsory gladiators, so far from being animated by hatred towards one another, were rather bound together by the fraternity of misfortune. The brave ones among them revolted at the thought of turning their valor to the entertainment of masters whom they abhorred, and of being reduced to the level of dogs in a pit. Accordingly, three of these slaves killed themselves the instant they stepped into the arena by plunging their swords into their own breasts before the couples could be arranged face to face; others, distracted with fear cast away both their swords and shields, wept and sobbed piteously, threw themselves upon their knees, and with suppliant arms extended towards the spectators, implored mercy. The response that they received was a storm of hisses. Among them there was an aged man. He ran towards one of the statues that represented pagan divinities and that were placed in the niches of the wall surrounding the arena. He seemed to place himself under the deity’s protection. But at a signal from the ediles’ tribunal, the Mercuries drew their long bars from the brasiers, and approached and threatened the old man and the kneeling slaves with the glowing ends of their instruments. Placed between the fear of being burned and the dread of a battle to death, the wretched beings resigned themselves to fight. The combat started. Some fought with the fury of despair, anxious to meet in death the end of their miseries; others, as soon as they felt themselves wounded dropped on their knees and presented their throats to their adversaries who were thus forced to kill their comrades amidst the thundering applause of the public; others still, riddled with wounds and hardly able to drag themselves over the sand, raised, as is the custom, the palm of their left hands towards the spectators in mute prayer for their lives. They forgot that only the professional gladiators had the right to the appeal, and that all slaves who enter the arena leave it only dead — either killed with the sword, or their heads crushed by the hammers of the Plutos. Finally, there were several others, who, being gravely wounded, feigned to be dead. One of these, a young and strong slave, had fought valiantly; his body was streaming blood; at the last blow he fell not far from the iron bars behind, which stood Sylvest. Sylvest himself believed the slave to be dead. The body, with the head still covered by the closed casque, lay motionless in a heap on the sand. One of the Mercuries noticed him drew near armed with his incandescent brass bar, the point of which was red as a burning coal, and passed it over one of the wounds of the prostrate slave. The raw flesh sizzled and smoked — the body remained motionless despite the excruciating pain — the Mercury believed the slave dead and walked away, but changing his mind he returned and thrust the burning end of the brass bar through one of the eye-holes into the slave’s visor. The point of the burning weapon must have penetrated the slave’s eye; this time, overcome by pain, he bounded up and emitting the roar of a bull goaded to the quick dropped down again. Two Plutos then drew near, and. striking the casque with their heavy hammers as if it ere an anvil, they turned the head so completely to pulp that Sylvest could see a nameless mixture of blood, brain and bits of bone squeeze through the cracks of the visor.
At this horrible spectacle, the crowning one of the butchery, Sylvest could no longer repress himself. In a loud voice he intoned the refrain of the Gallic chant that was sung at the last nocturnal gathering which he attended of the Sons of the Mistletoe:
“Oh, flow, flow, thou blood of the captive!
Drop, drop, thou dew of gore!
Germinate, sprout up, thou avenging harvest!”
Sylvest was not the only one of the Sons of the Mistletoe among his fellow slaves in the vault. Other voices took up the chant, and, to the cadence of the chains that they furiously shook, repeated with him:
“Oh, flow, flow, thou blood of the captive!
Drop, drop, thou dew of gore!
Germinate, sprout up, thou avenging harvest!”
The funeral song in the vault was drowned by the tumult that reigned outside. The arena was strewn with dead and dying bodies. The heralds-at-arms were heard to announce in stentorian voices:
“The patients! — The physicians!”
The announcement was hardly made when a large number of infirm old men wabbled into the circus. They were all richly dressed; some were held up by their slaves, others leaned heavily upon their canes. Among these aged patients there was also many a young man. All knelt down or huddled close to the dying. Each patient applied his greedy mouth to some wound, and pumped up the still warm blood that flowed from it. Some sought in the blood of these slaves the recovery of their wasted energies, others the cure for epilepsy. Here and there, physicians equipped with sharp lancets, ripped open the dead that were still warm, and took out of their bodies the liver which they used for a remedy. The physicians being supplied and the rich patients sufficiently gorged with blood, the Plutos despatched with their hammers the few bodies that still seemed to breathe, and aided by the Mercuries, removed the corpses, while other attendants of the circus covered the pools and streaks of blood with the dry sand of the arena that they raked over from end to end.
In the meantime the sight of the carnage and the odor of blood was exciting the wild animals. Their roarings redoubled; they bounded with fury in their cages, and with their powerful paws shook the bars that held them prisoners. At the sound of the roar of the wild animals that they were soon to become a prey to, Sylvest and the Gallic slaves intoned anew the refrain of the song of the Sons of the Mistletoe while they clanked their chains:
“Oh, flow, flow, thou blood of the captive!
Drop, drop, thou dew of gore!
Germinate, sprout up, thou avenging harvest!”
All the while, Sylvest and the other slaves kept their eyes steadily upon seigneur Diavolus and his boon companions. All were still hilarious and frolicsome. Diavolus was one of those who showed himself most obstinate in refusing to grant their lives even to the free gladiators, who, wounded by their adversaries, implored the public’s mercy with their outstretched left hand.
Nevertheless Sylvest felt certain that he noticed the slow effects of Four-Spices’ poison. The high color of his master’s face, at first excited by wine and by the eight of the sanguinary entertainment, was visibly paling, especially at his forehead, nose and chin that were becoming ashy. The same change was observable on the features of his young friends. But neither they nor Diavolus grew either less noisy or less hilarious. On the contrary. A farce had succeeded the recent tragedy on the arena. All of them received with boisterous laughter the appearance of their friend Norbiac, who, grotesquely accoutred, made a misstep and tripped as he walked into the arena.
That ridiculous and cowardly Gaul, the butt of all who knew him, both by reason of his self-sufficiency and his imbecility, having heard that at Rome fashionable seigneurs occasionally fought as gladiators, wished out of vanity to imitate them. His steel casque was topped by a gilded chimera of abnormal size; his lowered visor concealed his face; he was prudently cased in iron — gorget, cuirass, armlets, gauntlets, cuisses, greaves and gaiters made of iron scales. He reminded one of a turtle in its shell. Bending under the weight of the heavy armor, he walked with difficulty. Besides his armor he carried about him a complete arsenal, without mentioning his gilded buckler, the emblem of which was a lion painted in red and holding in his right paw a device inscribed with large letters. The device was Syomara’s name. Not yet having given up his hopes of conquering the Beautiful Gaul, the fop undoubtedly expected to touch her heart with a display of courage at the celebration where he must have learned that she was to be a performer herself.
Norbiac held a long sword in his hand, and in his belt a poniard was stuck on one side, a battle axe and a spiked club on the other. Before he had quite recovered his feet from his first slip, it was evident to all from the clumsiness and slowness of his gait that the openings in his visor were too low to enable him to see well through. Several times he essayed, but in vain, to raise the apertures even with his eyes, and the clumsy
and fruitless efforts were each time jeered with derisive laughter by the multitude.
The slave who was to combat with Norbiac entered by the opposite gate. Excepting his gladiator’s apron, no article of clothing, no armor covered his body. His only weapon was a long tin sword — a toy for children. The man, however, was young, agile and vigorous.
The heralds-at-arms and the trumpeters gave the signal for the combat. Covering with his buckler his body that already was amply protected by his heavy cuirass, Norbiac whirled his sword around him and threw himself into the defensive. The slave, on his part, being armed with a useless weapon, kept himself beyond the reach of his adversary’s strokes. He bided his time to attack his master hand to hand, fully aware that Norbiac’s weakness and inexperience would soon cause his arm to tire under the weight of the heavy sword. Indeed, the whirlings of the latter’s weapon soon became fainter, and from all parts of the circus, especially from the upper tiers, which were occupied by the populace, hisses and catcalls resounded.
The Gallic slaves applauded from the recess of their vault the insults that were being flung upon the craven perjurer, the stupid would-be imitator of the Romans. The ediles, however, could not allow a master and rich seigneur to serve any longer for the laughing stock of the crowd. They gave a signal to one of the Mercuries in the arena. The latter immediately drew one of his red-hot brass poles from the fire and pricked therewith the back of the slave, who was keeping safely out of the reach of Norbiac’s sword. The surprise and pain of the burn caused the slave to make a bound forward. With closed eyes he threw himself upon his adversary’s sword and thus received two large gashes in the face and on his breast. The smart blinded him with rage. He dropped his tin sword, precipitated himself upon his iron-cased adversary, pulled the iron-spiked club from the latter’s belt, and forthwith began to pummel the casque of Norbiac, who dropping to the ground, began to shriek and call for help, much to the delight of the crowd. But the slave’s strength was ebbing out with the blood that flowed from his deep wounds. His blows began to relax; the iron club slipped from his right hand; he raised his tremulous left to implore grace for his life; and rolled down on the sand near Norbiac, whose piercing screams had changed into pitiful moans, and who vainly sought to rise to his feet.
Although, as is the rule, the slave was beforehand destined to die, the spectators in the upper tiers cried out aloud: “Life to the slave! Mercy! Mercy!”
But the spectators in the lower tiers, as well as Diavolus and his friends, must have considered the granting of his life to a slave, who had just pummeled his master, an encouragement of a bad example. They demanded his death. At a sign from the edile’s tribunal, one of the Plutos crushed the head of the wounded man. Norbiac, in the meantime, had succeeded in rising to his feet Believed from his recent fright, his strength returned. He started to run, despite the weight of his heavy armor, with his arms outstretched before him like one whose eyes are bandaged. Thus he stumbled into the arms of one of the heralds, who led him out of the arena amidst universal hisses and cat-calls.
CHAPTER XIV.
ROMAN DAME AND COURTESAN.
THE INSTANT THAT the ridiculous and disgraceful figure of seigneur Norbiac was removed from the arena the slave, the friend of Four-Spices, remarked to Sylvest and his companions:
“Look, look at Diavolus and his friends — how their pallor increases and becomes greenish. Their eyes seem to be sinking in their orbits. The dark rings around them thicken perceptibly. Vengeance of heaven! The poison of Four-Spices is doing its work unerringly. But it seems that those hilarious seigneurs do not yet feel any pain. And still, there is one of them who is listlessly passing his hand over his forehead. His head seems to weigh heavily upon his shoulders. He is beginning to feel the effect of the poison.”
“And there is another one in the set, do you see him? who just sat down and who is putting his hands to his eyes. He looks dazed and giddy. That is two of them—”
The slave’s attention was at this moment drawn from the gallery, where the doomed Diavolus and his friends were seated, by a great commotion that ran over the amphitheater. The names of Faustina and Syomara ran from mouth to mouth, and reached the ears of Sylvest as if pronounced by one single voice composed of a thousand others.
Alas! Syomara inspired him with as much horror as dread. But at that supreme moment, when he was to have a last glimpse of his sister, he forgot both the courtesan and the magician. He only remembered the innocent child that he knew long ago, the sweet companion of his early childhood.
The trumpets brayed. All the spectators rose in their seats, leaned eagerly towards the arena, and cried in a voice tremulous with impatience and curiosity:
“There they are! — there they are!”
For an instant expectation was deceived. The first flourish of the trumpets did not yet announce the entrance of Faustina and Syomara, it only announced the entrance of Mont-Liban, who preceded them, but not yet in order to enter upon the mortal combat with Bibrix, because he came in alone, and the combat of the two gladiators was not to take place until after the duel between the courtesan and the grand dame. The giant entered the arena with a swagger amidst wild applause and cheers. Excepting his gladiator’s apron, an iron greave on his left leg and an iron armlet on his right arm, his body, as hirsute as a bear’s, and athletic as that of the pagan Hercules, was bare and oiled. By a refinement of pride his numerous scars were all painted red as if to enhance their splendor in the eye of the spectators. A casque of polished steel and visorless — he disdained the protection of a visor — covered his enormous head. With his left hand on his hip and holding two short and light swords in his right he made the tour of the arena casting defiant looks at the noble dames seated in the gallery, while the latter in their shamelessness waved their handkerchiefs at him and cried with ardor:
“Hail! Hail to Mont-Liban! Hail to the vanquisher of vanquishers!”
The flourishes of trumpets resounded anew, and the crowd now cried with certainty:
“There they are! There they are!”
It was Faustina and Syomara presenting themselves in the arena, the one by the northern, the other by the southern entrance.
Men and women, the whole vast audience, including the ediles themselves, again rose to their feet. A moment later the profoundest silence reigned over the spacious circus.
The noble dame and the courtesan stepped forward calm, resolute, their heads erect, self-possessed. They seemed to brave the eyes of the multitude that were centered upon them. It was long since they knew either modesty, decency or shame.
Faustina wore on her head the light casque of the pagan Minerva ornamented with a tuft of red feathers. Her short visor left uncovered her bold and pale visage with its large black eyes, its red lips and its heavy tresses of ebony hair interlaced with strings of pearls that reached up to and were lost under the ear-pieces of the casque. A simple net-work of gold that exposed the white skin of her bosom and imprisoned her supple, nervy body from the shoulder down to the hips, served her for cuirass, and was tightly buckled around her waist by a narrow gold belt incrusted with precious stones, from which her scarlet silk tunic, cut well above her bare knees, was suspended. Gaiters made of little scales of flexible gold and reaching up to her ankles enclosed her feet, allowing only the tip of her jewel-studded Morocco sandals to peep forth.
If frightful debaucheries and the expression of ferocious passions had not left their stamp on that female monster, she would have been beautiful, but of a beauty that was sinister because her eyes were fiery, and her forehead haughty as she entered upon the combat.
On the other hand, what with her exquisite armor and her resplendent beauty — because, to the utter amazement of Sylvest, her features preserved at that moment their wonted serenity and candor — Syomara presented a striking contrast to Faustina. Her Greek casque of chiseled silver, ornamented by a light tuft of blue feathers, left her enchanting face completely exposed to view. Her blonde hair, recently cut shor
t, loosely fell in heavy ringlets around and over her cheeks and ivory-white neck. Her nymph-like shape was, like Faustina’s, imprisoned in a net-work, but of silver, that left uncovered the pinkish tint of her skin. Her narrow silver belt, her short tunic of azure blue, trimmed with pearls, her gaiters of silver scales were all after the pattern of Faustina’s.
The expression of Syomara’s face was not haughty, brazen and somber as was the physiognomy of her rival. No. Her large eyes, sweet as her smile, seemed to announce tranquil confidence. When Sylvest saw his sister so ravishingly beautiful under her warrior’s casque, he again asked himself by what unimaginable prodigy did this child whom Trymalcion brought up, the celebrated courtesan, the poison-dealing witch, the hideous and sacrilegious desecrator of tombs, preserve the external appearance of charming ingenuousness.
The two women slowly crossed the arena in order to meet at the spot where Mont-Liban stood waiting for them with the short swords in his hand. The flooring that covered the crocodile’s tank and that was located in the middle of the circus, not being considered by him a fit place for the combat, the gladiator selected a spot so contiguous to the vault where the slaves were awaiting death, that when Faustina and Syomara approached Mont-Liban, Sylvest stood only a few paces away from his sister. Yielding to an involuntary impulse he threw himself back into the shadow of the vau’t to the end of escaping the eyes of Syomara. But a sense of mingled affection, dread and irresistible curiosity speedily brought him back to the railing. A power stronger than his will held him there. He was thus enabled to observe the face of Mont-Liban more carefully. His mien of braggart and brazen brutality yielded to a visible emotion. Pale and troubled in mind, holding a sword in each hand, with the left he offered one weapon to Faustina and with the right the other to Syomara. But the man’s hands trembled so violently at the moment when the two women were about to take the swords which he tendered to them, that his extreme perturbation did not escape Faustina. She cast upon him one of her penetrating looks, pondered an instant, and then, rejecting the sword which he offered her reached out for the other. —
