To the shouts which greeted him—“Placidus! Placidus!” “Hail to the tribune!” “Well done the patrician order!” and other such demonstrations of welcome—he replied by bowing repeatedly, especially directing his courtesies to that portion of the amphitheatre in which Valeria was placed. With all his acuteness, little did the tribune guess how hateful he was at this moment to the very woman on whose behalf he was pledged to engage in mortal strife—little did he dream how earnest were her vows for his speedy humiliation and defeat. Valeria, sitting there with the red spots burning a deeper crimson in her cheeks, and her noble features set in a mask of stone, would have asked nothing better than to have leapt down from her seat, snatched up sword and buckler, of which she well knew the use, and done battle with him, then and there to the death.
The tribune now walked proudly round the arena, nodding familiarly to his friends, a proceeding which called forth raptures of applause from Damasippus, Oarses, and other of his clients and freedmen. He halted under the chair of Cæsar, and saluted the Emperor with marked deference; then, taking up a conspicuous position in the centre, and leaning on his trident, seemed to await the arrival of his antagonist. He was not kept long in suspense. With his eyes riveted on Valeria, he observed the fixed colour of her cheeks gradually suffusing face, neck, and bosom, to leave her as pale as marble when it faded, and turning round he beheld his enemy, marshalled into the lists by Hippias and Hirpinus—the latter, who had slain his man, thus finding himself at liberty to afford counsel and countenance to his young friend. The shouts which greeted the new‐comer were neither so long nor so lasting as those that did honour to the tribune; nevertheless, if the interest excited by each were to be calculated by intensity rather than amount, the slave’s suffrages would have far exceeded those of his adversary.
Mariamne’s whole heart was in her eyes as she welcomed the glance of recognition he directed exclusively to her; and Valeria, turning from one to the other, felt a bitter pang shoot to her very marrow, as she instinctively acknowledged the existence of a rival. Even at that moment of hideous suspense, a host of maddening feelings rushed through the Roman lady’s brain. Many a sunburnt peasant woman, jostled and bewildered in the crowd, envied that sumptuous dame with her place apart, her stately beauty, her rich apparel, and her blazing jewels; but the peasant woman would have rued the exchange had she been forced to take, with these advantages, the passions that were laying waste Valeria’s heart. Wounded pride, slighted love, doubt, fear, vacillation, and remorse, are none the more endurable for being clothed in costly raiment, and trapped out with gems and gold. While Mariamne, in her singleness of heart, had but one great and deadly fear—that he should fail—Valeria found room for a thousand anxieties and misgivings, of conflicting tendencies, and chafed under a distressing consciousness that she could not satisfy herself what it was she most dreaded or desired.