He perceived, with amazement, that the givers of the entertainment, in their anxiety to set something absolutely new before their imperial guest, had arranged that the first games should take place in the air.  A battle was being fought overhead, on a level with the highest places, in a way that must surely be a surprise even to the pampered Romans.  Black and gold barks were jostling each other in mid-air, and their crews were fighting with the energy of despair.  The Egyptian myth of the gods of the great lights who sail the celestial ocean in golden barks, and of the sun-god who each morning conquers the demons of darkness, had suggested the subject of this performance.

The battle between the Spirits of Darkness and of Light was to be fought out high above the best rows of seats occupied by Caesar and his court; and the combatants were living men, for the most part such as had been condemned to death or to the hardest forced labor.  The black vessels were manned by negroes, the golden by fair-haired criminals, and they had embarked readily enough; for some of them would escape from the fray with only a few wounds and some quite unhurt, and each one was resolved to use his weapons so as to bring the frightful combat to a speedy end.

The woolly-haired blacks did not indeed know that they had been provided with loosely made swords which would go to pieces at the first shock, and with shields which could not resist a serious blow; while the fair-haired representatives of the light were supplied with sharp and strong weapons of offense and defense.  At any cost the spirits of darkness must not be allowed to triumph over those of light.  Of what value was a negro’s life, especially when it was already forfeited?

While Euryale and Melissa sat with eyes averted from the horrible scene going on above them, and the matron, holding her young companion’s hand, whispered to her: 

“O child, child! to think that I should be compelled to bring you here!” loud applause and uproarious clapping surrounded them on every side.

The gem-cutter Heron, occupying one of the foremost cushioned seats, radiant with pride and delight in the red-bordered toga of his new dignity, clapped his big hands with such vehemence that his immediate neighbors were almost deafened.  He, too, had been badly received, on his arrival, with shrill whistling, but he had been far from troubling himself about that.  But when a troop of “Greens” had met him, just in front of the imperial dais, shouting brutal abuse in his face, he had paused, chucked the nearest man under the chin with his powerful fist, and fired a storm of violent epithets at the rest.  Thanks to the lictors, he had got off without any harm, and as soon as he found himself among friends and men of rank, on whom he looked in speechless respect, he had recovered his spirits.  He was looking forward with intense satisfaction to the moment when he might ask Caesar what he now thought of Alexandria.