Her right arm lay on the cushioned parapet before her. She raised her hand, and made a slight, quick movement toward the right. No one but her lover saw her. Every eye but his was fixed on the man in the arena.
He turned, and with a firm and rapid step he walked across the empty space. Every heart stopped beating, every breath was held, every eye was fixed immovably upon that man. Without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right, and opened it.
The lady behind the door blushed and trembled. She waited to be freed from her dark prison. There was darkness and silence; still, she waited. Then, suddenly, the door opened. She rushed forth, blinded by the light streaming into her eyes and embraced the man that she so desired.
She froze. It was not him, it was but an arena slave.
There had come no priest, no dancing maidens, no choristers, the brass bells rang not their merry peals. The young man had opened the door to the right. A streak of orange lightning struck him in the chest, and he fell upon his back. The tiger's claws sank into his body, and with a final shriek he screamed the name of his lover as the beast's fanged maw sank into his throat.
If the princess could not have him no one else would.
However seeing the tiger's attack upon her lover, was to terrible to bear. The princess tried to scream, tears filling her eyes as she gasped for breath. Her decision had been wrong; utter horror racked her barbaric frame. Her every thought and movement, every muscle and fiber in her body pulsed with overwhelming, uncontrollable grief. She desperately reached out for her lover, once more to touch his face, to caress his cheek. But in her grief, she reached too far, and in an instant fell over the parapet to the arena floor. Her father, the king, frantically lunged for her trying to save his daughter. But even as king, his actions were doomed to failure. The princess fell to her death.
The mourner's doleful wailing wavered and stopped. A deafening silence fell over the crowd, then slowly a dull murmur began to run through the spectators. It gathered strength, becoming a drone, and then, finally, a roar! The king, silent in his inconsolable grief, looked up at the crowd, at the upwelling of grief for the death of the princess. The king stood up and passed his hand over the crowd; there was silence. The king declared that no more would die in this arena, and from that day forth the tribunal of barbaric justice judged no more.
And so the 'barbarian' king became on of the most learnéd rulers of the ancient world.