Drusilla has dared to cover her ears with her hands, not wanting to hear Agatha's first screams. When she reopens her eyes, expecting to be arrested, she realizes with surprise that nobody has noticed her gesture, so divided is the crowd in its reactions.
The second centurion is doing his job thoroughly. At first he caresses her long, retracted nipples, playing with the tit-tips, stretching them, raising her full, firm breasts up to the middle of her torso. This ritual preparation is incredibly erotic, the sweating skin frequently slips under the soldier's rough fingers. For final effect, the executioner grasps the left breast with such a firm hand he forces the nipple to bulge out.
Women are holding their breath at the very moment when the leather-covered jaws of the pliers seize the delicate breast tip. The centurion seems to hesitate fro a moment as if seized by doubt. He very quickly regains his wits and firmly clamps down the jaws of his terrible instrument.
Agatha's scream is ghastly. The centurion has instructions not to tear off the nipple, which retracts, badly chewed, and beads of sweat slither down the young martyr's face. She is still groaning when her other breast is equally mutilated. Her continuing howls strike the crowd, for they come from such a courageous fighter, and many start to identify themselves with her torment. The air is growing more and more stuffy.
Regulus pushes back the centurion. He hisses between his teeth, "That's nothing for now, you'll still be able to nurse your kids if you choose to live. Come on, abjure!!"
Time seems to stop still in the arena. A peculiar glow lights the Coliseum, as if the sun were prematurely shedding its last rays for the day. Two thin trickles of blood ooze from the aureoles mangled by the fiendish pliers. They spread out across the delicious face, weaving a savage mask of pain. Agatha groans "I loved you - GO TO HELL!"
Regulus is taking care to satisfy all the public. He gestures to the slaves charged with slowly turning the mechanism. Their sandals deeply thrust into the sand, arch with their effort in pushing, their chests drive the large bars like the anchor-winch on a ship.
[1] Amid the crowd, some start to shout "Abjure, Agatha!!! Agatha, abjure!!!"
A slave has just helped Nero to vomit, to make room for an excellent cake of honeyed myrtle berries from Sicily. He is displeased with the turn of events, but the posture of the Christian woman inspires a fiendish idea for better humiliating her. He pushes back the
analecta, the slave appointed to collect the leftovers from his meals. His orders, hammered at the ear of a large eunuch. are short and precise.
Before Regulusgives the order to resume the torture, his eyes lifted towards the threatening horizon, on of Nero's slaves comes with great strides up onto the platform. The huge Mandingo
[2] shakes his shoulders, letting fall his
sisyra, garment of rough furry skin, and exposes himself naked before the crowd, revealing a male member of exceptional size even for a black. Men snigger with jealousy, wishing they were armed themselves with such a club to whip Agatha's buttocks.
But the huge dick keeps bouncing from one buttock to another, an ebony tendril that can only whip but cannot penetrate. The distress of the big negro is almost comic now. He tries awkwardly to introduce his rod, too large, too soft, into the smaller of the openings offered him. To the hoots of the crowd, he ends up in despair, his face crimson. The word "miracle!" starts to spread along some of the tiers.
Archers are waiting for the black giant at the foot of the platform. Their bow-strings are quickly loosened. While the huge cadaver is carried off to the tigers, Regulus approaches Agatha again: "You bewitched him, didn't you, you bloody Christian? Very well, you're going to regret that his tool didn't screw you!"
Marcellus
[3] Aurelius is feeling an enormous weight on his chest, added to the very low atmospheric pressure. He is tired, weary beyond comprehension. Nevertheless he rises to seize a hollow ox horn.
When he mounts the platform his eyes meet the young woman's intense gaze. Don't do it, she seems to be saying with her huge green eyes, which he can't turn away from any more, although they are upside down. Gently he slowly introduces the point of the horn, careful not to wound the tender orifice with the roughness of its notched edges. He has not yet made up his mind, but his body has already started protecting the young martyr.
With a mechanical step, he goes down again to collect the bucket of molten lead, still bubbling. He slowly climbs back up on the platform, then he stops completely still. The crowd knows instinctively that something is about to happen. From afar, a thunderclap seems to signal the start of the disaster.
Suddenly MarcellusAureliushurls the bowl and its contents over Regulus. He leaps down the steps, seiaing a
pilum, and rushes towards the imperial lodge. From every corner spears and arrows come whistling. His body pierced, the centurion launches his
pilum in a supreme and terrible effort. The heavy lance, driven into the doric column, quivers for long moment aboveNero's head. Lying on the floor, the king of the world has soiled himself.
The glazed look of the legionary had alerted Regulusjust in time, his combat instinct made him jump back. A split second was enough for him to escape the burning showeer. Some drops start consuming his tunic, he furiously throws it behind him.
The crowd starts to thunder, echoing the thunderclaps which are coming closer, a deafening murmur of reproof, from where only a few shouts arise rise up, asking for the torture of the martyr to begin again.
Nerohas changed his clothes very quickly, he throws his soiled
peplum in the face of the large eunuch. The slave already knows he will be dead this evening, having witnessed the tyrant's weakness.
Regulus feels that, deep in its heart, the crowd is changing. The torture must be speeded up, even if Agatha perishes without denying her God. A sharp wind sends in a vanguard of raindrops. He removes his helmet and leans on Agatha. He looks for an instant at the grotesque growth which covers the beloved mound. With no more hesitation, he gives it a violent blow with his fist.
"HAA!" yells Agatha, letting out a long moan. The horn has almost disappeared into the bottom of her vagina, painfully blocked by the collar of her cunt. Only the edge is visible, a disconcerting white collar perched at the top of an exuberant jungle. It is a vulva of bone which seems to yawn for the whole arena to see.
A smouldering ladle is handed over to Regulus by the last centurion. The women can almost feel the corrosive touch of the molten lead, but it's not in the temple of Saturn that this priest will make his offering. Regulus raises the ladle very high, within sight of everyone and especially of Agatha. The burning liquid runs gently. The first drops hesitate over the edges of the horn, have time to smoulder and cool, embroidering a silver-plated collar which very quickly sets hard.
The flow accelerates a little. A sudden start and a long wail let the crowd know that the delicate membranes have just been attacked. A small cloud of smoke escapes, keeping rhythm with the discharges which seem to strike the perfect body. They punctuate her suffering, wracking her delectable figure for the pleasure of crowd.
A deafening crack breaks the hearts of the less cruel people. The tendons of Agatha's members, seized with pain, are yielding one after the other, as the fire has started to reach her entrails. Her shrieks touch even Regulus. Her lips, torn by her own biting, murmur "Kill me! Now, right now!!"
"First you must abjure, stop being obstinate" Her face, disfigured by suffering, falls.Regulusneeds a diversion, he must get the crowd behind him again. His fingers take careful hold of the edge of the horn, and he pulls it back out.
When he raises his head, he is surprised to see how much the black cloud has obscured horizon. He moves aside to let the centurion do his work, careful not to hinder Nero's view.
The red-hot pincers are glowing in the arena, the sun is completely obscured.
"ffffsssiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzz!" "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!"
"ffffsssiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzz!" "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!"
"ffffsssiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzz!" "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!"
"ffffsssiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzz!" "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh"
Ten, twenty times, the horrible sizzling precedes the scream of agony. Each time the pincers seem to be seeking their target for a few seconds, but this is only to let the woman better enjoy the wait. The first parts to be covered with revolting blisters of scarlet pus are the sides of her proud nipples, where the wooden pincers have already left bluish traces over them.
Next these blisters are thoroughly crushed, and the newly re-heated tongs start biting more deeply into the fleshy morsels of the young servant of God. In spite of the violent twisting of her bust to escape them, the kisses of fire gradually destroy her luscious breasts. They respond with frantic, restless movements, now slowing down. Larger pliers await their turn, women have understood from the start their awful purpose.
Regulus tries to score a success. He pushes back the zealous centurion. His hand plunges into the outraged slit. He pulls out and shows the silent crowd the lead moulded by the profaned sex-organs. The dark sculpture looks like a representation of rape and evil. But a different lead weight seems to be oppressing the arena. The crowd lower their heads under a first flash of lightning. Displeased with the failed effect, Regulus grabs for himself the pair of enormous pincers.
"YYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!" He has seized a long, smouldering nipple and is crushing it while he twists his instrument. Now he pulls a little, then more and more strongly. He steps back when the nipple and its broad aureole rip off at the same time, blackened with burned blood. Regulus hears a murmur of ecstatic anguish: "Deus, Deus meus, ut quid dereliquisti me?", "God, my God, why have you deserted me?"
[4]
The centurion has revived Agatha with smelling salts. He is the one who tears off the other nipple, he bites more deeply into the flesh and puts more effort into twisting and tearing the flesh.
Regulus turns his head to judge the feeling of this mob from which he himself has risen, his instinct tells him something serious is happening. A darkness like the end of the world seems to have fallen on the arena. Light rain makes its appearance.
Regulus does not even spare a glance for the superb, devastated body. He raises his arm to cut short the butchery, and he himself plunges the sword into the beloved belly, from the mutilated sex to the sternum.
A
haruspex, reader of omens, hastens to excavate the entrails with his wooden
culticula, trowel, to predict what is to come, as Nero has commanded. He soon lifts a face grey with anxiety, and chooses to tell a lie. "Caesar, I have seen you will have a long life, you will be surrounded by the love and respect of your whole people!"
Nero rises up. He gives the crowd a long farewell, unaware that his days are numbered. Unbeknown to him, the Seventh Legion, under command of Consul Galba,
[5] is one day's march away - the time is coming soon when he will have to beg a faithful slave to help him sink a sword into his own chest.
A downpour is now driving the crowd out.
THE END
[1] Original has 'l'estrade circulaire au gouvernail d'un navire', but Roman ships were steered with a steering-oar. A (relatively modern) ship's wheel seems to be implied, but an anchor-winch is closer and I think less anachronistic.
[2] People of West Africa – correctly, it's the name of a language, today usually called Mandekan, the national language of Mali, and widely spoken in neighbouring states.
[3] Original has Marcus here and subsequently, but previously he has been Marcellus.
[4] Original has "Quo vadis Domine?", "Where are you going, Lord?", words of Peter in the apocryphal Acts of Peter, when the apostle was fleeing fromRome and met a vision of Christ on the road (source of the title of Sienkiewicz's much-filmed novel). They seem out of place here, surely the words of Christ on the cross (from Psalm 22) are what the writer had in mind?
[5] Original has Alba, but it was Galba who raised and led LegioVII to march on Rome in 69. He had been Consul, but by then was Governor of Hispania Tarraconensis.