EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
dagger into his heart with the other, and the black man was Gabula.
It all happened so quickly and was over so quickly that scarcely had Caesar's shriek rung through the Colosseum than he lay dead at the foot of his carved throne, and Gabula, the assassin, in a single leap had cleared the arena wall and was running across the sand toward von Harben.
“I have avenged you, Bwana!” cried the black man. “No matter what they do to you, you are avenged.”
A great groan arose from the audience and then a cheer as someone shouted: “Caesar is dead!”
A hope flashed to the breast of von Harben. He tumed and grabbed Mallius Lepus by the arm. “Caesar is dead,” he whispered. “Now is our chance.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Mallius Lepus.
“In the confusion we can escape. We can hide in the city and at night we can take Favonia with us and go away.”
“Where?” asked Mallius Lepus.
“God, I do not know,” exclaimed von Harben, “but anywhere would be better than here, for Fulvus Fupus is Caesar and if we do not save Favonia tonight, it will be too late.”
“You are right,” said Mallius Lepus.
“Pass the word to the others,” said von Harben. “The more there are who try to escape the better chance there will be for some of us to succeed.”
The legionaries and their officers as well as the vast multitude could attend only upon what was happening in the loge of Caesar. So few of them had seen what really occurred there that as yet there had been no pursuit of Gabula.
Mallius Lepus turned to the other prisoners. “The gods have been good to us,” he cried. “Caesar is dead and in the confusion we can escape. Come!”
As Mallius Lepus started on a run toward the gateway that led to the cells beneath the Coloseum, the shouting prisoners fell in behind him. Only those of the professional gladiators who were freemen held aloof, but they made no effort to stop them.
“Good luck!” shouted Claudius Taurus, as von Harben
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