When the lot had fallen, then a cry rang from among the spectators, and a woman, wearing the white cloak of widowhood, would have fallen, had she not been caught and sustained by a man in a brown tunic and lacerna (short cloak).

Be not overcome, lady, said this man in a low tone. What thou losest is lent to the Lord.

Baudillas, sobbed the woman, she is my only child, and is to be sacrificed to devils.

The devil hath no part in her. She is the Lord’s, and the Lord will preserve His own.

Will He give her back to me? Will He deliver her from the hands of His enemies?

The Lord is mighty even to do this. But I say not that it will be done as thou desirest. Put thy trust in Him. Did Abraham withhold his son, his only son, when God demanded him?

But this is not God, it is Nemausus.

Nemausus is naught but a creature, a fountain, fed by God’s rains. It is the Lord’s doing that the lot has fallen thus. It is done to try thy faith, as of old the faith of Abraham was tried.

The poor mother clasped her arms, and buried her head in them.

Then the girl thrust aside such as interposed and essayed to reach her mother. The priestesses laid hands on her, to stay her, but she said:

Suffer me to kiss my mother, and to comfort her. Do not doubt that I will preserve a smiling countenance.

I cannot permit it, said the high priestess. There will be resistance and tears.

And therefore, said the girl, you put drops of oil or water into the ears of oxen brought to the altars, that they may nod their heads, and so seem to express consent. Let me console my mother, so shall I be able to go gladly to death. Otherwise I may weep, and thereby mar thy sacrifice.

Then, with firmness, she thrust through the belt of priestesses, and clasped the almost fainting and despairing mother to her heart.

Be of good courage, she said. Be like unto Felicitas, who sent her sons, one by one, to receive the crown, and who—blessed mother that she was—encouraged them in their torments to play the man for Christ.

But thou art my only child.

And she offered them all to God.

I am a widow, and alone.

And such was she.

Then said the brown-habited man whom the lady had called Baudillas:

Quincta, remember that she is taken from an evil world, in which are snares, and that God may have chosen to deliver her by this means from some great peril to her soul, against which thou wouldst have been powerless to protect her.

I cannot bear it, gasped the heart-broken woman. I have lived only for her. She is my all.

Then Perpetua gently unclasped the arms of her mother, who was lapsing into unconsciousness, kissed her, and said:

The God of all strength and comfort be to thee a strong tower of defence. And hastily returned to the basin.

The young man who before had noticed Perpetua, turned with quivering lip to his companion, and said:

The chain of priests and priestesses could not restrain the mob, that thrust forward to the great basin, to see the result.

Exclamations of every description rose from the throng.

He fell in!

Nay, he cast himself in. The god will withdraw the holy waters. It was impious. The fountain is polluted.

Was it not defiled when a dead tom-cat was found in it? Yet the fountain ceased not to flow.

The maiden floats!

Why should the god pick out the handsomest girl? His blood is ice-cold. She is not a morsel for him, scoffed a red-faced senator.

He rises! He is swimming.

He has grappled the damsel.

He is striking out! Bene! Bene!

Encourage not the sacrilegious one! Thou makest thyself partaker in his impiety!

The singular transformation that had taken place in the presiding deity of the fountain, from being a nymph into a male god, had not been sufficiently complete to alter the worship of the deity. As in the days of Druidism, the sacred source was under the charge of priestesses, and although, with the change of sex of the deity, priests had been appointed to the temple, yet they were few, and occupied a position of subordination to the chief priestess. She was a woman of sagacity and knowledge of human nature. She perceived immediately how critical was the situation. If Æmilius Lentulus were allowed to proceed with his speech he would draw to him the excitable Southern minds, and it was quite possible might provoke a tumult in which the temple would be wrecked. At the least, his words would serve to chill popular devotion.

The period when Christianity began to radiate through the Roman world was one when the traditional paganism with its associated rights, that had contented a simpler age, had lost its hold on the thoughtful and cultured. Those who were esteemed the leaders of society mocked at religion, and although they conformed to its ceremonial, did so with ill-disguised contempt. At their tables, before their slaves, they laughed at the sacred myths related of the gods, as absurd and indecent, and the slaves thought it became them to affect the same incredulity as their masters. Sober thinkers endeavored to save some form of religion by explaining away the monstrous legends, and attributing them to the wayward imagination of poets. The existence of the gods they admitted, but argued that the gods were the unintelligent and blind forces of nature; or that, if rational, they stood apart in cold exclusiveness and cared naught for mankind. Many threw themselves into a position of agnosticism. They professed to believe in nothing but what their senses assured them did exist, and asserted that as there was no evidence to warrant them in declaring that there were gods, they could not believe in them; that moreover, as there was no revelation of a moral law, there existed no distinction between right and wrong. Therefore, the only workable maxim on which to rule life was: Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we may die.

Over all men hung the threatening cloud of death. All must undergo the waning of the vital powers, the failure of health, the withering of beauty, the loss of appetite for the pleasure of life, or if not the loss of appetite, at least the faculty for enjoyment.

There was no shaking off the oppressive burden, no escape from the gathering shadow. Yet, just as those on the edge of a precipice throw themselves over, through giddiness, so did men rush on self-destruction in startling numbers and with levity, because weary of life, and these were precisely such as had enjoyed wealth to the full and had run through the whole gamut of pleasures.

What happened after death? Was there any continuance of existence?

Men craved to know. They felt that life was too brief altogether for the satisfaction of the aspirations of their souls. They ran from one pleasure to another without filling the void within.

Consequently, having lost faith in the traditional religion—it was not a creed—itself a composite out of some Latin, some Etruscan, and some Greek myth and cult, they looked elsewhere for what they required. Consciences, agonized by remorse, sought expiation in secret mysteries, only to find that they afforded no relief at all. Minds craving after faith plunged into philosophic speculations that led to nothing but unsolved eternal query. Souls hungering, thirsting after God the Ideal of all that is Holy and pure and lovable, adopted the strange religions imported from the East and South; some became votaries of the Egyptian Isis and Serapis, others of the Persian Mithras—all to find that they had pursued bubbles.

In the midst of this general disturbance of old ideas, in the midst of a widespread despair, Christianity flashed forth and offered what was desired by the earnest, the thoughtful, the down-trodden and the conscience-stricken—a revelation made by the Father of Spirits as to what is the destiny of man, what is the law of right and wrong, what is in store for those who obey the law; how also pardon might be obtained for transgression, and grace to restore fallen humanity.

Christianity meeting a wide-felt want spread rapidly, not only among the poor and oppressed, but extensively among the cultured and the noble. All connected by interest, or prejudiced by association with the dominant and established paganism, were uneasy and alarmed. The traditional religion was honeycombed and tottering to its fall, and how it was to be revived they knew not. That it would be supplanted by the new faith in Christ was what they feared.

The chief priestess of Nemausus knew that in the then condition of minds an act of overt defiance might lead to a very general apostasy. It was to her of sovereign importance to arrest the movement at once, to silence Æmilius, to have him punished for his act of sacrilege, and to recover possession of Perpetua.

She snatched the golden apple from the hand of the image, and, giving it to an attendant, said: Run everywhere; touch and summon the Cultores Nemausi.

The girl did as commanded. She sped among the crowd, and, with the pippin, touched one, then another, calling: Worshippers of Nemausus, to the aid of the god!

The result was manifest at once. It was as though an electrical shock had passed through the multitude. Those touched and those who had heard the summons at once disengaged themselves from the crush, drew together, and ceased to express their individual opinions. Indeed, such as had previously applauded the sentiments of Æmilius, now assumed an attitude of disapprobation.

Rapidly men rallied about the white-robed priestesses, who surrounded the silver image.

To understand what was taking place it is necessary that a few words should be given in explanation.

The Roman population of the towns—not in Italy only, but in all the Romanized provinces, banded itself in colleges or societies very much like our benefit clubs. Those guilds were very generally under the invocation of some god or goddess, and those who belonged to them were entitled Cultores or worshippers of such or such a deity. These clubs had their secretaries and treasurers, their places of meeting, their common chests, their feasts, and their several constitutions. Each society made provision for its members in time of sickness, and furnished a dignified funeral in the club Columbarium, after which all sat down to a funeral banquet in the supper room attached to the cemetery. These colleges or guilds enjoyed great privileges, and were protected by the law.

At a time when a political career was closed to all but such as belonged to the governing class, the affairs of these clubs engrossed the attention of the members and evoked great rivalry and controversies. One admirable effect of the clubs was the development of a spirit of fellowship among the members, and another was that it tended in a measure to break down class exclusiveness. Men of rank and wealth, aware of the power exercised by these guilds, eagerly accepted the offices of patron to them, though the clubs might be those of cord-wainers, armorers or sailmakers. And those who were ordinary members of a guild regarded their patrons with affection and loyalty. Now that the signal had been sent round to rally the Cultores Nemausi, every member forgot his private feeling, sank his individual opinion, and fell into rank with his fellows, united in one common object—the maintenance by every available man, and at every sacrifice, of the respect due to the god.

These Cultores Nemausi at once formed into organized bodies under their several officers, in face of a confused crowd that drifted hither and thither without purpose and without cohesion.

Æmilius found himself no longer hearkened to. To him this was a matter of no concern. He had sought to engage attention only so as to withdraw it from Perpetua and leave opportunity for her friends to remove her.

Now that this object was attained, he laughingly leaped from the balustrade and made as though he was about to return home.

But at once the chief priestess saw his object, and cried: Seize him! He blasphemes the god, founder of the city. He would destroy the college. Let him be conveyed into the temple, that the Holy One may there deal with him as he wills.

The Prefect of Police, whose duty it was to keep order, now advanced with the few men he had deemed necessary to bring with him, and he said in peremptory tone:

We can suffer no violence. If he has transgressed the law, let him be impeached.

Sir, answered the priestess, we will use no violence. He has insulted the majesty of the god. He has snatched from him his destined and devoted victim. Yet we meditate no severe reprisals. All I seek is that he may be brought into the presence of the god in the adytum, where is a table spread with cakes. Let him there sprinkle incense on the fire and eat of the cakes. Then he shall go free. If the god be wroth, he will manifest his indignation. But if, as I doubt not, he be placable, then shall this man depart unmolested.

Against this I have naught to advance, said the prefect.

But one standing by whispered him: Those cakes are not to be trusted. I have heard of one who ate and fell down in convulsions after eating.

That is a matter between the god and Æmilius Varo. I have done my duty.

Then the confraternity of the Cultores Nemausi spread itself so as to encircle the place and include Æmilius, barring every passage. He might, doubtless, have escaped had he taken to his heels at the first summons of the club to congregate, but he had desired to occupy the attention of the people as long as possible, and it did not comport with his self-respect to run from danger.

Throwing over him the toga which he had cast aside when he leaped into the pond, he thrust one hand into his bosom and leisurely strode through the crowd, waving them aside with the other hand, till he stopped by the living barrier of the worshippers of Nemausus.

You cannot pass, sir, said the captain of that party which intercepted his exit. The chief priestess hath ordered that thou appear before the god in his cella and then do worship and submit thyself to his will.

And how is that will to be declared? asked the young man, jestingly.

Sir! thou must eat one of the dedicated placenta.

I have heard of these same cakes and have no stomach for them.

Nevertheless eat thou must.

What if I will not?

Then constraint will be used. The prefect has given his consent. Who is to deliver thee?

Who! Here come my deliverers!

A tramp of feet was audible.

Instantly Æmilius ran back to the balustrade, leaped upon it, and, waving his arm, shouted:

To my aid, Utriculares! But use no violence.

Instantly with a shout a dense body of men that had rolled into the gardens dashed itself against the ring of Cultores Nemausi. They brandished marlin spikes and oars to which were attached inflated goat-skins and bladders. These they whirled around their heads and with them they smote to the left and to the right. The distended skins clashed against such as stood in opposition, and sent them reeling backward; whereat the lusty men wielding the wind-bags thrust their way as a wedge through their ranks. The worshippers of Nemausus swore, screamed, remonstrated, but were unable to withstand the onslaught. They were beaten back and dispersed by the whirling bladders.

The general mob roared with laughter and cheered the boatmen who formed the attacking party. Cries of Well done, Utriculares! That is a fine delivery, Wind-bag-men! Ha, ha! A hundred to five on the Utriculares! You are come in the nick of time, afore your patron was made to nibble the poisoned cakes.

The men armed with air-distended skins did harm to none. Their weapons were calculated to alarm and not to injure. To be banged in the face with a bladder was almost as disconcerting as to be smitten with a cudgel, but it left no bruise, it broke no bone, and the man sent staggering by a wind-bag was received in the arms of those in rear with jibe or laugh and elicited no compassion.

The Utriculares speedily reached Æmilius, gave vent to a cheer; they lifted him on their shoulders, and, swinging the inflated skins and shouting, marched off, out of the gardens, through the Forum, down the main street of the lower town unmolested, under the conduct of Callipodius.

The men who carried and surrounded Æmilius proceeded in rapid march, chanting a rhythmic song, through the town till they emerged on a sort of quay beside a wide-spreading shallow lagoon. Here were moored numerous rafts.

Now, sir, said one of the men, as Æmilius leaped to the ground, if you will take my advice, you will allow us to convey you at once to Arelate. This is hardly a safe place for you at present.

I must thank you all, my gallant fellows, for your timely aid. But for you I should have been forced to eat of the dedicated cakes, and such as are out of favor with the god—or, rather, with the priesthood that lives by him, as cockroaches and black beetles by the baker—such are liable to get stomach aches, which same stomach aches convey into the land where are no aches and pains. I thank you all.

Nay, sir, we did our duty. Are not you patron of the Utriculares?

Æmilius had sprung to his feet and called to the men to cease punting. They rested on their poles, awaiting further instructions, and the impetus given to the raft carried it among some yellow flags and rushes.

Callipodius said: I mostly admire the splendor of your intellect, that shines forth with solar effulgence. But there are seasons when the sun is eclipsed or obscured, and such is this with thee. Surely thou dost not contemplate a return to Nemausus to risk thy life without being in any way able to assist the damsel. Consider, moreover—is it worth it—for a girl?

Callipodius, said the young lawyer in a tone of vehemence, I cannot fly and place myself in security and leave her exposed to the most dreadful danger. I did my work by half only. What I did was unpremeditated, but that done must be made a complete whole. When I undertake anything it is my way to carry it out to a fair issue.

The house into which the widow lady and her daughter entered was that used by the Christians of Nemausus as their church. A passage led into the atrium, a quadrangular court in the midst of the house into which most of the rooms opened, and in the center of which was a small basin of water. On the marble breasting of this tank stood, in a heathen household, the altar to the lares et penates, the tutelary gods of the dwelling. This court was open above for the admission of light and air, and to allow the smoke to escape. Originally this had been the central chamber of the Roman house, but eventually it became a court. It was the focus of family life, and the altar in it represented the primitive family hearth in times before civilization had developed the house out of the cabin.

Whoever entered a pagan household was expected, as token of respect, to strew a few grains of incense on the ever-burning hearth, or to dip his fingers in the water basin and flip a few drops over the images. But in a Christian household no such altar and images of gods were to be found. A Christian gave great offense by refusing to comply with the generally received customs, and his disregard on this point of etiquette was held to be as indicative of boorishness and lack of graceful courtesy, as would be the conduct nowadays of a man who walked into a drawing-room wearing his hat.

Immediately opposite the entrance into the atrium, on the further side of the tank, and beyond the altar to the lares et penates, elevated above the floor of the court by two or three white-marble steps, was a semicircular chamber, with elaborate mosaic floor, and the walls richly painted. This was the tablinum. The paintings represented scenes from heathen mythology in such houses as belonged to pagans, but in the dwelling of Baudillas, the deacon, the pictures that had originally decorated it had been plastered over, and upon this coating green vines had been somewhat rudely drawn, with birds of various descriptions playing among the foliage and pecking at the grapes.

Around the wall were seats; and here, in a pagan house, the master received his guests. His seat was at the extremity of the apse, and was of white marble. When such a house was employed for Christian worship, the clergy occupied the seat against the wall and the bishop that of the master in the center. In the chord of the apse above the steps stood the altar, now no longer smoking nor dedicated to the Lar pater, but devoted to Him who is the Father of Spirits. But this altar was in itself different wholly from that which had stood by the water tank. Instead of being a block of marble, with a hearth on top, it consisted of a table on three, sometimes four, bronze legs, the slab sometimes of stone, more generally of wood.So represented in paintings in the Catacombs. There were two distinct types: the table in the Church and the tomb at the Sepulcher of the Martyr.

The tablinum was shut off from the hall or court, except when used for the reception of guests, by rich curtains running on rings upon a rod. These curtains were drawn back or forward during the celebration of the liturgy, and this has continued to form a portion of the furniture of an Oriental church, whether Greek, Armenian, or Syrian.

In like manner the tablinum, with its conch-shape termination, gave the type to the absidal chancel, so general everywhere except in England.

As soon as dusk began to veil the sky, Christians in parties of three and four came to the house of Baudillas. They belonged for the most part to the lowest classes. None were admitted till they had given the pass-word.

An ostiarius or porter kept the door, and as each tapped, he said in Greek: Beloved, let us love one another. Whereupon the applicant for admission replied in the same tongue, For love is of God.

Owing to the Greek element in the province, large at Massilia, Arelate and Narbo, but not less considerable at Nemausus, the Hellenic tongue, though not generally spoken, was more or less comprehended by all in the towns. The Scriptures were read in Greek; there was, as yet, no Italic version, and the prayers were recited, sometimes in Greek, sometimes in Latin. In preaching, the bishops and presbyters employed the vernacular—this was a conglomerate of many tongues and was in incessant decomposition, flux, and recomposition. It was different in every town, and varied from year to year.

In the sub-apostolic church it was customary for a banquet to be held in commemoration of the Paschal Supper, early in the afternoon, lasting all night, previous to the celebration of the new Eucharistic rite, which took place at dawn. The night was spent in hymn singing, in discourses, and in prayer.

But even in the Apostolic age, as we learn from St. Paul’s first Epistle to the Corinthians, great abuses had manifested themselves, and very speedily a change was made. The Agape was dissociated from the Eucharist and was relegated to the evening after the celebration of the Sacrament. It was not abolished altogether, because it was a symbol of unity, and because, when under control, it was unobjectionable. Moreover, as already intimated, it served a convenient purpose to the Christians by making their meetings resemble those of the benefit clubs that were under legal protection.

It may be conjectured that where the bulk of the members were newly converted, and were ignorant, there would speedily manifest itself among them a tendency to revert to their pagan customs, and a revolt against the restraints of Christian sobriety. And this actually took place, causing much embarrassment to the clergy, and giving some handle to the heathen to deride these meetings as scenes of gross disorder.

No sooner did persecution cease, and the reason for holding love-feasts no longer held, than they were everywhere put down and by the end of the fourth century had absolutely ceased.

In the third century Tertullian, in his Apology addressed to the heathen, gave a rose-colored description of the institution; but in his Treatise on Fasting addressed to the faithful, he was constrained to admit that it was a nursery of abuses. But this, indeed, common sense and a knowledge of human nature would lead us to suspect.

We are prone to imagine that the first ages of the Church saw only saints within the fold, and sinners without. But we have only to read the writings of the early Fathers to see that this was not the case. If we consider our mission stations at the present day, and consult our evangelists among the heathen, we shall discover that the newly converted on entering the Church, bring with them much of their past: their prejudices, their superstitions, their ignorance, and their passions. The most vigilant care has to be exercised in watching against relapse in the individual, and deterioration of the general tone. The converts in the first ages were not made of other flesh and blood than those now introduced into the sheepfold, and the difficulties now encountered by missionaries beset the first pastors of Christ fifteen and sixteen hundred years ago.

In an honest attempt to portray the condition of the Church at the opening of the third century, we must describe things as they were, and not as we should wish them to have been.

The atrium or courtyard was not lighted; there was sufficient illumination from above. The curtains of the tablinum were close drawn, as the reception chamber was not to be put in requisition that night. The triclinium or dining-room that received light through the doorway only would have been dark had not a lamp or two been kindled there.

About thirty persons were present, male and female, but no children. Some were slaves from believing households; there were a few freedmen. Some were poor artisans, weavers, bakers, and men who sold charcoal, a porter, and a besom-maker.

Quincta and Perpetua were the highest in social position of those present. A second deacon, named Marcianus, was there, a handsome man, peremptory in manner, quick in movement; in every point a contrast with his timid, hesitating brother in the ministry.

The bishop had not arrived when the Agape began, and the blessing was spoken by an aged and feeble presbyter. The tables were spread with viands, and the deacons and deaconesses ministered to those who reclined at them. There was not room for all in the dining-chamber, and a table and couches had been spread in the court for such as could not be accommodated within.

The proceedings were marked by the strictest propriety, the eating and drinking were in moderation, conversation was edifying, and general harmony prevailed. During the meal, a knocking was heard at the outer gate, and when the porter asked the name of the applicant for admission, the password was given, and he was admitted.

All rose to receive Castor, the bishop.

Recline again, my friends, said he. I have come from the house of Flavillus, the timber merchant on the stagna; his wife’s mother has endured that which is human. She sleeps, and her spirit is with the Lord. I have been delayed. I was doing the work of my Master. One, a stranger to the faith, questioned me, and I tarried to converse with him, and disclose to his dark mind some ray of light. If the supper be ended, I will offer thanks.

Then, standing at one of the tables, he made prayer to God, and thanked Him who had caused the corn to spring out of the earth, and had gathered the many grains into one bread; who had watered the vine from heaven, and had flushed the several grapes with generous juice, uniting the many into one bunch.

The thanksgiving ended, lights were introduced in considerable numbers. There is no twilight in southern climes; when night falls, it falls darkly. Now all who had eaten went to the impluvium, dipped their hands, and washed their lips, then wiped them on towels held by the deaconesses.

The tables were quickly removed, and the benches ranged in the triclinium, so as to accommodate all.

No sooner was the whole congregation assembled, than the president, Castor, invited all such as had a psalm, an interpretation, a vision, or an edifying narrative, to relate or recite it.

Then up started a little man, who held a lyre.

As an excuse for not appearing in time at the Agape, Castor had asserted that he had been engaged on his Master’s work elsewhere. That was true. He had been at the house of the timber merchant as we have seen, and he had been detained by Æmilius as he left it. This latter had been lying on his bed resting, whilst his garments were being dried.

He had overheard what had passed in the room of the dying woman.

When the bishop went forth, then Æmilius rose from his bed, cast the ample toga about him, and walked forth. He caught Castor as he descended to the water’s edge to be paddled away.

After a short salutation, the young lawyer said: A word with you, sir, if your time is as generously to be disposed of to a stranger as it is lavished on the poor and sick.

I am at your service, answered the bishop.

My name, said the young man, is Æmilius Lentulus Varo. My profession is the law. I am not, I believe, unknown in Nemausus, or at Arelate, where also I have an office. But you, sir, may not have heard of me—we have assuredly never met. Your age and gravity of demeanor belong to a social group other than mine. You mix with the wise, the philosophers, and not with such butterflies as myself, who am a ridiculous pleasure seeker—seeking and never finding. If I am not in error, you are Castor Lepidus Villoneos, of an ancient magisterial family in Nemausus and the reputed head of the Christian sect.

I am he, answered the bishop.

It may appear to you a piece of idle curiosity, said the young man, if I put to you certain questions, and esteem it an impertinence, and so send me away empty. But I pray you to afford me—if thy courtesy will suffer it—some information concerning a matter on which I am eager to obtain light. I have been in the apartment adjoining that in which the mother of the hostess lay, and I chanced—the partition being but of plank—to overhear what was said. I confess that I am inquisitive to know something more certain of this philosophy or superstition, than what is commonly reported among the people. On this account, I venture to detain you, as one qualified to satisfy my greed for knowledge.

My time is at your disposal.

You spoke to the dying woman as though she were about to pass into a new life. Was that a poetic fancy or a philosophic speculation?

It was neither, it was a religious conviction. I spoke of what I knew to be true.

Knew to be true! laughed Æmilius. How so? Have you traveled into the world of spirits, visited the manes, and returned posted up in all particulars concerning them?

No. I receive the testimony from One I can trust.

One! All men are liars. I knew a fellow who related that he had fallen into an epileptic fit, and that during the fit his spirit had crossed the Styx. But as he had no penny wherewith to pay the fare, I did not believe him. Moreover, he never told the story twice alike, and in other matters was an arrant liar.

Whom would you believe?

None, nothing save my own experience.

Not Him who made and who sustains your existence, my good sir?

Every house in Nemausus thrilled with life. Sleep was driven from the drowsiest heads. The tipsy were sobered at once. Those banqueting desisted from conversation. Music was hushed. Men rushed into the street. The beasts in the amphitheater, startled by the strange note, roared and howled. Slowly the chief magistrate rose, sent to summon an edile, and came forth. He was not quick of movement; it took him some time to resolve whether he or his brother magistrate was responsible for order; when he did issue forth, then he found the streets full, and that all men in them were talking excitedly.

The god Nemausus, the archegos, the divine founder and ancestor had spoken. His voice was rarely heard. It was told that before the Cimbri and Teutones had swept over the province, he had shouted. That had been in ages past; of late he had been sparing in the exercise of his voice. He was said to have cried out at the great invasion of the Helvetii, that had been arrested by Julius Cæsar; again to have trumpeted at the outbreak of Civilis and Julius Sabinus, which, however, had never menaced Narbonese Gaul, though at the time the god had called the worst was anticipated. The last time he had been heard was at the revolt of Vindex that preceded the fall of Nero.

Some young skeptics whispered: By Hercules, the god has a brazen throat.

It is his hunting horn that peals to call attention. What he will say will be revealed to the priestess.

Or what the priestess wishes to have believed is his message.

But this incredulous mood was exhibited by very few. None ventured openly to scoff.

The god hath spoken! this was the cry through the streets and the forum. Every man asked his fellow what it signified. Some cried out that the prince—the divine Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla)—had been assassinated, just as he was about to start from Rome for Gaul. Others that the privileges of the city and colony were going to be abrogated. But one said to his fellow, I augured ill when we heard that the god had been cheated of his due. No marvel he is out of humor, for Perpetua is esteemed the prettiest virgin in Nemausus.

I wonder that the rescue passed off without notice being taken of the affair by the magistrates.

Bah! it is the turn of the Petronius Alacinus now, and he will not bestir himself unnecessarily. So long as the public peace be not broken——

But it was—there was a riot, a conflict.

A farcical fight with wind-bags. Not a man was hurt, not a drop of blood flowed. The god will not endure to be balked and his sacrifice made into a jest.

He is hoarse with rage.

What does it all mean?

Then said a stout man: My good friend, it means that which always happens when the priesthood is alarmed and considers that its power is menaced—its credit is shaken. It will ask for blood.

There has been a great falling off of late in the worshipers of the gods and in attendance at the games.

This comes of the spread of the pestilent sect of the Christians. They are the enemies of the human race. They eat little children. The potter Fusius lost his son last week, aged six, and they say it was sacrificed by these sectaries, who stuck needles into it.

Bah! the body was found in the channel of the stream the child had fallen in.

I heard it was found half eaten, said a third.

Rats, rats, explained another standing by.

Well, these Christians refuse to venerate the images of the Augustus, and therefore are foes to the commonwealth. They should be rooted out.

You are right there. As to their religious notions—who cares about them? Let them adore what they will—onions like the Egyptians, stars like the Chaldeans, a sword like the Scythians—that is nothing to us; but when they refuse to swear by the Emperor and to offer sacrifice for the welfare of the empire then, I say, they are bad citizens, and should be sent to the lions.

The lions, laughed the stout man, seem to respond to the voice, which sounded in their ears, Dinner for you, good beasts! Well, may we have good sport at the games founded by Domitius Afer. I love to lie in bed when the circius (mistral) howls and the snowflakes fly. Then one feels snug and enjoys the contrast. So in the amphitheater one realizes the blessedness of life when one looks on at wretches in the hug of the bear, or being mumbled by lions, or played with by panthers.

Perhaps the only man whom the blast did not startle was Tarsius, the inebriated slave, who had been expelled the house of Baudillas, and who was engrossed only with his own wrongs, and who departed swearing that he excommunicated the Church, not the Church him. He muttered threats; he stood haranguing on his own virtues, his piety, his generosity of spirit; he recorded many acts of charity he had done. And I—I to be turned out! They are a scurvy lot. Not worthy of me. I will start a sect of my own, see if I do not.

Whilst reeling along, growling, boasting, confiding his wrongs to the walls on each side, he ran against Callipodius just as the words were in his mouth: I am a better Christian than all of them. I don’t affect sanctimoniousness in aspect, but I am sound, sound in my life—a plain, straight-walking man.

Are you so? asked Callipodius. Then I wish you would not festoon in such a manner as to lurch against me. You are a Christian. Hard times are coming for such as you.

Aye, aye! I am a Christian. I don’t care who knows it. I’m not the man to lapse or buy a libellus,Certain Christians bought substitutes to sacrifice in their room and receive a ticket (libellus) certifying that they had sacrificed. The Church was a little perplexed how to deal with these timorous members, who were termed libellatics. though they have turned me out.

Callipodius caught the fellow by the shoulder and shook him.

Man, said he. Ah, a slave! I recognize you. You are of the family of Julius Largus Litomarus, the wool merchant. Come with me. The games are in a few days, and the director of the sports has been complaining that he wanted more prisoners to cast to the beasts. I have you in the nick of time. I heard you with these ears confess yourself to be a Christian, and the sole worthy one in the town. You are the man for us—plump and juicy, flushed with wine. By the heavenly twins, what a morsel you will make for the panthers! Come with me. If you resist I will summon the crowd, then perhaps they will elect to have you crucified. Come quietly, and it shall be panthers, not the cross. I will conduct you direct to the magistrate and denounce you.

I pray you! I beseech you! I was talking nonsense. I was enacting a part for the theater. I am no Christian; I was, but I have been turned out, excommunicated. My master and mistress believe, and just to please them and to escape stripes, and get a few favors such as are not granted to the others, I have—you understand. The slave winked.

Beside Callipodius was a lad bearing a torch. He held it up and the flare fell over the face of the now sobered Tarsius.

Come with me, fellow, said Callipodius. Nothing will save you but perfect obedience and compliance with what I direct. Hark! was not that the howl of the beasts. Mehercule! they snuff you already. My good friend Æmilius Lentulus Varo, the lawyer, will be your patron; a strong man. But you must answer my questions. Do you know the Lady Quincta and her daughter? Quincta is the widow of Harpinius Læto.

Aye, aye! the wench was fished out of the pond to-day.

That is right. Where are they, do you know their house?

Yes, but they are not at home now.

Where are they then?

With the exception of the bishop, Marcianus, and a few others, all assembled at the Agape were struck with the liveliest terror. They entertained no doubt but that the sound that shook the walls was provoked by the outrage on the image of the tutelary god, following on the rescue of the victim allotted to him.

The pagan inhabitants of Nemausus were roused to exasperation. The priesthood would employ every available means to work this resentment to a paroxysm, and the result would be riot and murder, perhaps an organized persecution.

It must be understood that although the Roman State recognized other religions than the established paganism, as that of the Jews, and allowed the votaries freedom of worship, yet Christianity was not of this number. It was in itself illegal, and any magistrate, at his option, in any place and at any time, might put the laws in force against the members of the Church. Not only so, but any envious, bigoted, or resentful person might compel a magistrate to take cognizance of the presence of Christians in the district under his jurisdiction, and require him to capitally convict those brought before him.

The system in the Roman Commonwealth for the maintenance of order was that every man was empowered to act as spy upon and delate another. Any man might accuse his neighbor, his brother, before the court; and if he could prove his charge, the magistrate had no option—he must sentence. Consequently the Christians depended for their safety on the favor of their fellow-citizens, on their own abstention from giving offence.

The sole protection against false accusations in the Roman Commonwealth lay in the penalties to which an accuser was subject should he fail to establish his charge. But as on conviction a portion of the estate of the guilty person was handed over to the accuser, there was an inducement to delation.

Under the Julian and Claudian Cæsars the system had worked terribly. An entire class of men made denunciation their trade. They grew rich on the spoils of their victims, they spared none, and the judges themselves lived in fear of them. The evil became so intolerable that measures were taken to accentuate the risk to the accusers. If the Christians were not oftener denounced, the reason was that in the event of one lapsing, and through terror or pain abjuring Christ, then immediately the tables were turned, and the accuser was placed in danger of his life.

When an Emperor issued an edict against the Christians he enacted no new law; he merely required that the existing laws should be put in force against them, and all risk to delators was removed in that no delation was exacted. On such an occasion every citizen and householder was required to appear before the court and offer a few grains of incense on an altar to the genius of the empire or of the prince. Should any one refuse to do this, then he was convicted of high treason and delivered over to the executioner to be either tortured or put to death off-hand. When the magistrate deemed it important to obtain a recantation, then he had recourse to the rack, iron hooks, torches, thumbscrews as means of forcing the prisoner through pain to abjure Christ.

The Christians in Nemausus had lived in complete tranquillity. There had been no persecution. They had multiplied.

Master! said the old slave, moving uneasily on his stiff joint, before the even more nervously agitated master, Master, there is the freedwoman Glyceria below, who comes in charing. She has brought an idol of Tarranus under her cloak, and offers to set that with a lamp before the door. She is not a believer, she worships devils, but is a good soul and would save us. She awaits your permission.

The deacon was profoundly moved.

It must not be! It may not be! I—I am a deacon of the Church. This is known to be a Christian household. The Church is in my house, and here the divine mysteries are celebrated. If she had not asked my leave, and had—if—but no, I cannot sanction this. God strengthen me, I am distracted and weak. The slave remained. He expected that his master in the end would yield.

And yet, stammered Baudillas, He hath compassion on the infirm and feeble. He forgave Peter. May He not pardon me if—? Glyceria is a heathen woman. She does not belong to my family. I did not propose this. I am not responsible for her acts. But no—it would be a betrayal of the truth, a dishonor to the Church. He that confesseth me before men—no, no, Pedo, it may not be.

And now it is too late, said the slave. They are at the door.

Blows resounded through the house, and the roar of voices from the street surged up over the roof, and poured in through the opening over the impluvium. It was as though a mighty sea were thundering against the house and the waves curled over it and plunged in through the gap above the court.

You must open, Pedo. I will run upstairs for a moment and compose myself. Then—if it must be—but do not suffer the rabble to enter. If a prefect be there, or his underling and soldiers, let them keep the door. Say I shall be down directly. Yet stay—is the posticum available for escape?

Sir—the mob have detailed a party to go to the backs of the houses and watch every way of exit.

Perpetua was carried along at a swinging trot in the closed litter, till the end of the street had been reached, and then, after a corner had been turned, the bearers relaxed their pace. It was too dark for her to see what were the buildings past which she was taken, even had she withdrawn the curtains that shut in the litter; but to withdraw these curtains would have required her to exert some force, as they were held together in the grasp of Tarsius, running and striding at the side. But, indeed, she did not suppose it necessary to observe the direction in which she was being conveyed. She had accepted in good faith the assurance that the lectica had been sent by the rich Christian wool merchant, Largus Litomarus, and had acquiesced in her mother’s readiness to accept the offer, without a shadow of suspicion.

God had delivered her from a watery death, and she regarded the gift as one to be respected; her life thus granted her was not to be wilfully thrown away or unnecessarily jeopardized. Unless she escaped from the house of the deacon, she would fall into the hands of the rabble, and this was a prospect more terrifying than any other. If called upon again to witness a good confession, she would do so, God helping her, but she was glad to be spared the ordeal.

It was not till the porters halted, and knocked at a door, and she had descended from the palanquin, that some suspicion crossed her mind that all was not right. She looked about her, and inquired for her mother. Then one whom she had not hitherto noticed drew nigh, bowing, and said: Lady, your youthful and still beautiful mother will be here presently. The slaves who carry her have gone about another way so as to divert attention from your priceless self, should any of the mob have set off in pursuit.

The tone of the address surprised the girl. Her mother was not young, and although in her eyes that mother was lovely, yet Quincta was not usually approached with expressions of admiration for her beauty.

Again Perpetua accepted what was said, as the reason given was plausible, and entered the house. The first thing she observed, by the torch glare, was a statue of Apollo. She was surprised, and inquired, hesitatingly, Is this the house of Julius Largus Litomarus?

Admirable is your ladyship’s perspicuity. Even in the dark those more-than-Argus eyes discern the truth. The worthy citizen Largus belongs to the sect. He is menaced as well as other excellent citizens by the unreasoning and irrational vulgar. He has therefore instructed that you should be conveyed to the dwelling of a friend, only deploring that it should be unworthy of your presence.

May I ask your name, sir?

Septimus Callipodius, at your service.

I do not remember to have heard the name, but, she added with courtesy, that is due to my ignorance as a young girl, or to my defective memory.

It is a name that has not deserved to be harbored in the treasury of such a mind.

The girl was uneasy. The fulsome compliment and the obsequious bow of the speaker were not merely repugnant to her good taste, but filled her with vague misgivings. It was true that exaggeration and flattery in address were common enough at the period, but not among Christians, who abstained from such extravagance. The mode of speaking adopted by Callipodius stamped him as not being one of the faithful.

I will summon a female slave to attend on your ladyship, said he; and she will conduct you to the women’s apartments. Ask for whatever you desire. The entire contents of the house are at your disposal.

I prefer to remain here in the court till my mother shall arrive.

Alas! adorable lady! it is possible that you may have to endure her absence for some time. Owing to the disturbed condition of the streets, it is to be feared that her carriage has been stopped; it is not unlikely that she may have been compelled to take refuge elsewhere; but, under no circumstances short of being absolutely prevented from joining you, will she fail to meet you to-morrow in the villa Ad Fines.

Whose villa?

The villa to which, for security, you and your mother the Lady Quincta are to be conveyed till the disturbances are over, and the excitement in men’s minds has abated. By Hercules! one might say that the drama of the quest of Proserpine by Ceres were being rehearsed, were it not that the daughter is seeking the mother as well as the latter her incomparable child.

I cannot go to Ad Fines without her.

Lady, in all humility, as unworthy to advise you in anything, I would venture to suggest that your safety depends on accepting the means of escape that are offered. The high priestess has declared that nothing will satisfy the incensed god but that you should be surrendered to her, and what mercy you would be likely to encounter at her hands, after what has taken place, your penetrating mind will readily perceive. Such being the case, I dare recommend that you snatch at the opportunity offered, fly the city and hide in the villa of a friend who will die rather than surrender you. None will suspect that you are there.

What friend? Largus Litomarus is scarcely to be termed an acquaintance of my mother.

Danger draws close all generous ties, said Callipodius.

But my mother?

Your mother, gifted with vast prudence, may have judged that her presence along with you would increase the danger to yourself. I do not say so. But it may so happen that her absence at this moment may be due to her good judgment. On the other hand, it may also have chanced, as I already intimated, that her litter has been stayed, and she has been constrained to sacrifice.

That she will never do.

In that case, I shudder at the consequences. But why suppose the worst? She has been delayed. And now, lady, suffer me to withdraw—it is an eclipse of my light to be beyond the radiance of your eyes. I depart, however, animated by the conviction, and winging my steps, that I go to perform your dearest wish—to obtain information relative to your lady mother, and to learn when and where she will rejoin you. Be ready to start at dawn—as soon as the city gates are opened, and that will be in another hour.

Then Perpetua resigned herself to the female servants, who led her into the inner and more private portions of the house, reached by means of a passage called the Jaws (fauces).

Perpetua was aware that she was in a difficult situation, one in which she was unable to know how she was placed, and from which she could not extricate herself. She was young and inexperienced, and, on the whole, inclined to trust what she was told.

In pagan Rome, it was not customary for girls to be allowed the liberty that alone could give them self-confidence. Perhaps the condition of that evil world was such that this would not have been possible. When the foulest vice flaunted in public without a blush, when even religion demoralized, then a Roman parent held that the only security for the innocence of a daughter lay in keeping her closely guarded from every corrupting sight and sound. She was separated from her brothers and from all men; she associated with her mother and with female slaves only. She was hardly allowed in the street or road, except in a litter with curtains close drawn, unless it were at some religious festival or public ceremony, when she was attended by her relatives and not allowed out of their sight.

This was due not merely to the fact that evil was rampant, but also to the conviction in the hearts of parents that innocence could be preserved only by ignorance. They were unable to supply a child with any moral principle, to give it any law for the government of life, which would plant the best guardian of virtue within, in the heart.

Baudillas found that there were already many in the prison, who had been swept together by the mob and the soldiers, either for having refused to produce an image, or for having declined to sacrifice. To his no small surprise he saw among them the wool-merchant Julius Largus Litomarus. The crowd had surrounded his house, and as he had not complied with their demands, they had sent him to the duumvir,I employ the term Duumvir for convenience. As already stated, there were four chief magistrates, but two only had criminal jurisdiction. Petronius Atacinus, who had consigned him to prison till, at his leisure, he could investigate the charge against him.

The two magistrates who sat in court and gave sentence were Petronius Atacinus and Vibius Fuscianus, and they took it in turns to sit, each being the acting magistrate for a month, when he was succeeded by the other. Atacinus was a humane man, easy-going, related to the best families in the place, and acquainted with such as he was not allied with by blood or marriage. His position, in face of the commotion relative to the mutilation of the image and the rescue of Perpetua, was not an easy one.

In Rome and in every other important city, the flamen, or chief priest, occupied a post of considerable importance and influence. He sat in the seat at the games and in the theater next to the chief magistrates, and took precedence over every other officer in the town. Nemausus had such a flamen, and he was not only the official religious head in the place, but was also the flamen Augustalis, the pontiff connected with the worship of Augustus, which had become the predominant cult in Narbonese Gaul, and also head of the College of the Augustals, that comprised the very powerful body of freedmen. The priestess of the divine founder and giver of the fountain shared his dignity and authority. Between them they could exercise a preponderating power in the town, and it would be in vain for Petronius Atacinus, however easy-going he might be, and disinclined to shed blood, to pass over what had been done without affording satisfaction to the pagan party moved and held together by the priesthood.

Yet the duumvir judged that it would be eminently unadvisable for him to proceed with too great severity, and to punish too many persons. Christianity had many adherents in the place, and some of these belonged to the noble, others to the mercantile, families. The general wish among the well-to-do was that there should be no systematic persecution. An inquisitorial search after Christians would break up families, rouse angry passions, and, above all, disturb business.

Petronius had already resolved on his course. He had used every sort of evasion that could be practiced. He had knowingly abstained from enjoining on the keepers of the city gates the requisition of a passport from such as left the town. The more who fled and concealed themselves, the better pleased would he be.

Nevertheless, he had no thought of allowing the mutilation of the statue to pass unpunished, and he was resolved on satisfying the priesthood by restoring Perpetua to them. If he were obliged to put any to death, he would shed the blood only of such as were inconsiderable and friendless.

There was another element that entered into the matter, and which helped to render Atacinus inclined to leniency. The Cæsar at the time was M. Aurelius Antoninus, commonly known as Caracalla. He had been brought up from infancy by a Christian nurse, and was thought to harbor a lurking regard for the members of the religion of Christ. At any rate, he displayed no intolerance towards those who professed it. He was, himself, a ferocious tyrant, as capricious as he was cruel. He had murdered his brother Geta in a fit of jealousy, and his conscience, tortured by remorse, drove him to seek relief by prying into the mysteries of strange religions.

The duumvir Atacinus was alive to the inclinations and the temper of the prince, and was the more afraid of offending him by persecution of the Christians, as the Emperor was about shortly to visit Gaul, and might even pass through Nemausus.

If in such a condition of affairs the Christians were exposed to danger, it may well be inferred that, where it was less favorable, their situation was surrounded with danger. They were at all times liable to fall victims to popular tumults, occasioned sometimes by panic produced by an earthquake, by resentment at an accidental conflagration which the vulgar insisted on referring to the Christians, sometimes by distress at the breaking out of an epidemic. On such occasions the unreasoning rabble clamored that the gods were incensed at the spread of the new atheism, and that the Christians must be cast to the lions.

When Baudillas saw the wool merchant in the prison, he went to him immediately. Litomarus was sitting disconsolately on a stone bench with his back against the prison wall.

I did not go to the Agape, said he; I was afraid to do so. But I might as well. The people bellowed under my windows like bulls of Bashan.

And you did not exhibit an image?

No, I could not do that. Then the viatores of the ædiles took me in charge. I was hustled about, and was dragged off here. My wife fell down in a faint. I do not think she will recover the shock. She has been in a weak condition ever since the death of our little Cordula. We loved that child. We were wrapped up in her. Marcianus said that we made of the little creature an earthly idol, and that it was right she should be taken away. I do not know. She had such winning ways. One could not help loving her. She made such droll remarks, and screwed up her little eyes——

On account of the death in the family of the timber merchant, Æmilius left the house and took a room and engaged attendance in the cottage of a cordwainer a little way off. The house was clean, and the good woman was able to cook him a meal not drowned in oil nor rank with garlic.

He was uneasy because Callipodius did not return, and he obtained no tidings concerning Perpetua. The image of this maiden, with a face of transparent purity, out of which shone the radiance of a beautiful soul, haunted his imagination and fluttered his heart. He walked by the side of the flooded tract of land, noticed that the water was falling, and looked, at every turn he took, in the direction of Nemausus, expecting the arrival of his client, but always in vain.

He did at length see a boat approach, towards evening, and he paced the little landing-place with quick strides till it ran up against it; and then only, to his disappointment, did he see that Callipodius was not there. Castor disembarked.

On the strength of his slight acquaintance Æmilius greeted the bishop. The suspense was become unendurable. He asked to be granted a few words in private. To this Castor gladly consented.

He, the head of the Christian community, had remained unmolested. He belonged to a senatorial family in the town, and had relations among the most important officials. The duumvir would undoubtedly leave him alone unless absolutely obliged to lay hands on him. Nemausus was divided into two towns, the Upper and the Lower, each with its own water-supply, its own baths, and each distinct in social composition.

The lower town, the old Gallic city, that venerated the hero-founder of the same name as the town, was occupied by the old Volcian population and by a vast number of emancipated slaves of every nationality, many engaged in trade and very rich. These freedmen were fused into one order, as it was termed, that of the Liberti.

The upper town contained the finest houses, and was inhabited by the Roman colonists, by some descendants of the first Phocean settlers, and by such of the old Gaulish nobility as had most completely identified themselves with their conquerors. These had retained their estates and had enriched themselves by taking Government contracts.

Such scions of the old Gaulish houses had become fused by marriage and community of interest with the families of the first colonists, and they affected contempt for the pure-blooded old aristocracy who had sunk into poverty and insignificance in their decayed mansions in Lower Nemausus.

Of late years, slowly yet surely, the freedmen who had amassed wealth had begun to invade superior Nemausus, had built themselves houses of greater magnificence and maintained an ostentatious splendor that excited the envy and provoked the resentment of the old senatorial and knightly citizens.

The great natural fountain supplied the lower town with water, but was situated at too low a level for the convenience of the gentry of Upper Nemausus, who had therefore conveyed the spring water of Ura from a great distance by tunneling mountains and bridging valleys, and thus had furnished themselves with an unfailing supply of the liquid as necessary to a Roman as was the air he breathed. Thus rendered independent of the natural fountain at the foot of the rocks in Lower Nemausus, those living in the higher town affected the cult of the nymph Ura, and spoke disparagingly of the god of the old town; whereas the inferior part of the city clung tenaciously to the divine Nemausus, whose basin, full of unfailing water, was presented to their very lips and had not to be brought to them from a distance by the engineering skill of men and at a great cost.

Devotion to the god of the fountain in Lower Nemausus was confined entirely to the inhabitants of the old town, and was actually a relic of the old Volcian religion before the advent of the colonists, Greek and Roman. It had maintained itself and its barbarous sacrifice intact, undisturbed.

No victim was exacted from a family of superior Nemausus. The contribution was drawn from among the families of the native nobility, and it was on this account solely that the continuance of the septennial sacrifice had been tolerated.

Already, however, the priesthood was becoming aware that a strong feeling was present that was averse to it. The bulk of the well-to-do population had no traditional reverence for the Gaulish founder-god, and many openly spoke of the devotion of a virgin to death as a rite that deserved to be abolished.

From the cordwainer Æmilius had heard of the mutilation of the statue and of the commotion it had caused. This, he conjectured, accounted for the delay of Callipodius. It had interfered with his action; he had been unable to learn what had become of the damsel, and was waiting till he had definite tidings to bring before he returned. Æmilius was indignant at the wanton act of injury done to a beautiful work of art that decorated one of the loveliest natural scenes in the world. But this indignation was rendered acute by personal feeling. The disturbance caused by the rescue of the virgin might easily have been allayed; not so one provoked by such an act of sacrilege as the defacing of the image of the divine founder. This would exasperate passions and vastly enhance the danger to Perpetua and make her escape more difficult.

As Æmilius walked up from the jetty with the bishop, he inquired of him how matters stood with the Christians in the town and received a general answer. This did not satisfy the young lawyer, and, as the color suffused his face, he asked particularly after Perpetua, daughter of the deceased Harpinius Læto.

The bishop turned and fixed his searching eyes on the young man.

Why make you this inquiry? he asked.

Surely, answered Æmilius, I may be allowed to feel interest in one whom I was the means of rescuing from death. In sooth, I am vastly concerned to learn that she is safe. It were indeed untoward if she fell once more into the hands of the priesthood or into those of the populace. The ignorant would grip as hard as the interested.

She is not in the power of either, answered Castor. But where she is, that God knows, not I. Her mother is distracted, but we trust the maiden has found a refuge among the brethren, and for her security is kept closely concealed. The fewer who know where she is the better will it be, lest torture be employed to extort the secret. The Lady Quincta believes what we have cause to hope and consider probable. This is certain: if she had been discovered and given up to the magistrate the fact would be known at once to all in the place.

To break the image of the god was a wicked and a wanton act, said Æmilius irritably. Is such conduct part of your religion?

The act was that of a rash and hot-headed member of our body. It was contrary to my will, done without my knowledge, and opposed to the teaching of our holy fathers, who have ever dissuaded from such acts. But in all bodies of men there are hot-heads and impulsive spirits that will not endure control.

Your own teaching is at fault, said Æmilius peevishly. You denounce the gods, and yet express regret if one of you put your doctrine in practice.

If images were ornaments only, said the bishop, then they would be endurable; but when they receive adoration, when libations are poured at their feet, then we forbid our brethren to take part in such homage, for it is idolatry, a giving to wood and stone the worship due to God alone. But we do not approve of insult offered to any man’s religion. No, said Castor emphatically; Christianity is not another name for brutality, and that is brutality which insults the religious sentiment of the people, who may be ignorant but are sincere.

Æmilius paced the rope-walk in deep thought. He did not speak during several turns, and the bishop respected his meditation and kept silence as well.

Presently the young man burst forth with: This is fairly put, plausible and attractive doctrine. But what we lawyers demand is evidence. When was the revelation made? In the reign of the god Tiberius? That was two centuries ago. What proof is there that this be not a cleverly elaborated philosophy—as you say, a groping upwards—pretending to be, and showing off itself as, a lightening downwards?

The evidence is manifold, answered Castor. In the first place, the sayings and the acts of the Divine Revealer were recorded by evangelists who lived at the time, knew Him, heard Him, or were with those who had daily companied with Him.

Of what value is such evidence when we cannot put the men who gave it in the witness-box and cross-question them? I do not say that their evidence is naught, but that it is disputable.

There is other evidence, ever-living, ever-present.

What is that?

Your own reason and conscience. You, Æmilius Lentulus, have these witnesses in yourself. He who made you seated a conscience in your soul to show you that there is such a thing as a law of right and wrong, though, as far as you know, unwritten. Directly I spoke to you of the sin of murdering men to make pastime, your color changed; you knew that I was right. Your conscience assented to my words.

I allow that.

My friend, let me go further. When your mind is not obscured by passion or warped by prejudice, then you perceive that there is a sphere of holiness, of virtue, of purity, to which men have not yet attained, and which, for all you see, is unattainable situated as you are, but one into which, if man could mount, then he would be something nobler than even the poets have conceived. You have flashes of summer lightning in your dark sky. You reject the monstrous fables of the gods as inconsistent with what your reason and conscience tell you comport with divinity. Has any of your gods manifested himself and left such a record of his appearance as is fairly certain? If he appeared, or was fabled to have appeared, did he tell men anything about the nature of God, His will, and the destiny of man? A revelation must be in agreement with the highest aspirations of man. It must be such as will regulate his life, and conduce to his perfection and the advantage of the community. It must be such as will supply him with a motive for rejecting what is base, but pleasing to his coarse nature, and striving after that which is according to the luminous ideal that floats before him. Now the Christian revelation answers these conditions, and is therefore probably true. It supplies man with a reason why he should contend against all that is gross in his nature; should be gentle, courteous, kindly, merciful, pure. It does more. It assures him that the Creator made man in order that he might strive after this ideal, and in so doing attain to serenity and happiness. No other religion that I know of makes such claims; no other professes to have been revealed to man as the law of his being by Him who made man. No other is so completely in accordance on the one hand with what we conceive is in agreement with the nature of God, and on the other so completely accords with our highest aspirations.

I can say nothing to that. I do not know it.

Yes, you do know it. The babe declared it; gave you the marrow and kernel of the gospel: Love God and man.

To fear God is what I can understand; but to love Him is more than I can compass.

Because you do not know God.

I do not, indeed.

God is love.

A charming sentiment; a rhetorical flourish. What evidence can you adduce that God is love?

Creation.

The earth is full of suffering; violence prevails; wrong overmasters right. There is more of misery than of happiness, saving only to the rich and noble; they are at any rate supposed to be exempt, but, by Hercules, they seem to me to be sick of pleasure, and every delight gluts and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

That is true; but why is there all this wretchedness? Because the world is trying to get along without God. Look! The bishop stooped and took up a green-backed beetle. If I cast this insect into the water it will suffer and die. If I fling it into the fire it will writhe and perish in agony. Neither water nor fire is the element for which it was created—in which to exist and be happy. The divine law is the atmosphere in which man is made to live. Because there is deflection from that, and man seeks other ends than that for which he was made, therefore comes wretchedness. The law of God is the law man must know, and knowing, pursue to be perfectly happy and to become a perfect being.

Now I have you! exclaimed Æmilius, with a laugh. There are no men more wretched than Christians who possess, and, I presume, keep this law. They abstain from our merry-makings, from the spectacles; they are liable to torture and to death.

We abstain from nothing that is wholesome and partaken in moderation; but from drunkenness, surfeiting, and what is repugnant to the clean mind. As to the persecution we suffer, the powers of evil rebel against God, and stir up bad men to resist the truth. But let me say something further—if I do not weary you.

Baudillas had been lowered into the pit of the robur, and he sank in the slime half-way up his calves. He waded with extended arms, groping for something to which to cling. He knew not whether the bottom were even, or fell into deep holes, into which he might stumble. He knew not whether he were in a narrow well or in a spacious chamber.

Cautiously, in obscurity, he groped, uncertain even whether he went straight or was describing a curve. But presently he touched the wall and immediately discovered a bench, and seated himself thereon. Then he drew up his feet out of the mire, and cast himself in a reclining position on the stone seat.

He looked up, but could not distinguish the opening by which he had been let down into the horrible cess-pit. He was unable to judge to what depth he had been lowered, nor could he estimate the extent of the dungeon in which he was confined.

Perpetua, at Ad Fines, was a prey to unrest. She was in alarm for the safety of her mother, and she was disconcerted at having been smuggled off to the house of a man who was a stranger, though to him she owed her life.

The villa was in a lovely situation, with a wide outstretch of landscape before it to the Rhône, and beyond to the blue and cloudlike spurs of the Alps; and the garden was in the freshness of its first spring beauty. But she was in too great trouble to concern herself about scenery and flowers. Her thoughts turned incessantly to her mother. In the embarrassing situation in which she was—and one that was liable to become far more embarrassing—she needed the support and counsel of her mother.

Far rather would she have been in prison at Nemausus, awaiting a hearing before the magistrate, and perhaps condemnation to death, than be as at present in a charming country house, attended by obsequious servants, provided with every comfort, yet ignorant why she had been brought there, and what the trials were to which she would be subjected.

The weather had changed with a suddenness not infrequent in the province. The warm days were succeeded by some of raging wind and icy rains. In fact, the mistral had begun to blow. As the heated air rose from the stony plains, its place was supplied by that which was cold from the snowy surfaces of the Alps, and the downrush was like that to which we nowadays give the term of blizzard. So violent is the blast on these occasions that the tillers of the soil have to hedge round their fields with funereal cypresses, to form a living screen against a wind that was said, or fabled, to have blown the cow out of one pasture into that of another farmer, but which, without fable, was known to upset ricks and carry away the roofs of houses.

To a cloudless sky, traversed by a sun of almost summer brilliancy, succeeded a heaven dark, iron-gray, with whirling vapors that had no contour, and which hung low, trailing their dripping skirts over the shivering landscape.

Trees clashed their boughs. The wood behind the villa roared like a cataract. In the split ledges and prongs of limestone, among the box-bushes and junipers, the wind hissed and screamed. Birds fled for refuge to the eaves of houses or to holes in the cliffs. Cattle were brought under shelter. Sheep crouched dense packed on the lee side of a stone wall. The very ponds and lagoons were whipped and their surfaces flayed by the blast. Stones were dislodged on the mountain slopes, and flung down; pebbles rolled along the plains, as though lashed forward by whips. The penetrating cold necessitated the closing of every shutter, and the heating of the hypocaust under the house. In towns, in the houses of the better classes, the windows were glazed with thin flakes of mica (lapis specularis), a transparent stone brought from Spain and Cappadocia, but in the country this costly luxury was dispensed with, as the villas were occupied only in the heat of summer, when there was no need to exclude the air. The window openings were closed with shutters. Rooms were not warmed by fireplaces, with wood fires on hearths, but by an arrangement beneath the mosaic and cement floor, where a furnace was kindled, and the smoke and heated air were carried by numerous pipes up the walls on all sides, thus producing a summer heat within when all was winter without.

In the fever of her mind, Perpetua neither felt the asperity of the weather nor noticed the comfort of the heated rooms. She was incessantly restless, was ever running to the window or the door, as often to be disappointed, in anticipation of meeting her mother. She was perplexed as to the purpose for which she had been conveyed to Ad Fines. The slave woman, Blanda, who attended her, was unable or unwilling to give her information. All she pretended to know was that orders had been issued by Callipodius, friend and client of Æmilius Lentulus, her master, that the young lady was to be made comfortable, was to be supplied with whatever she required, and was on no account to be suffered to leave the grounds. The family was strictly enjoined not to mention to any one her presence in the villa, under pain of severe chastisement.

Blanda was kind and considerate, and had less of the fawning dog in her manner than was customary among slaves. It was never possible, even for masters, to trust the word of their servants; consequently Perpetua, who knew what slaves were, placed little reliance on the asseverations of ignorance that fell from the lips of Blanda. There was, in the conversation of Blanda, that which the woman intended to reassure, but which actually heightened the uneasiness of the girl—this was the way in which the woman harped continually on the good looks, amiability and wealth of her master, who, as she insisted, belonged to the Voltinian tribe, and was therefore one of the best connected and highest placed in the colony.

The knowledge that she had been removed to Ad Fines to insure her safety did not satisfy Perpetua; and she was by no means assured that she had thus been carried off with the approbation and knowledge of her mother, or of the bishop and principal Christians of her acquaintance in Nemausus. Of Æmilius Varo she really knew nothing save that he was a man of pleasure and a lawyer.

Adjoining the house was a conservatory. Citron trees and oleanders in large green-painted boxes were employed in summer to decorate the terrace and gardens. They were allowed to be out in mild winters, but directly the mistral began to howl, the men-servants of the house had hurriedly conveyed them within doors into the conservatory, as the gale would strip them of their fruit, bruise the leaves and injure the flowers.

In her trouble of mind, unable to go abroad in the bitter weather, impatient of quiet, Perpetua entered the citron-house and walked among the trees in their green tubs, now praying for help, then wiping the drops from her eyes and brow.

As she thus paced, she heard a stir in the house, the opening of doors, the rush of wind driving through it, the banging of valves and rattle of shutters. Then she heard voices, and among them one that was imperious. A moment later, Blanda ran to Perpetua, and after making a low obeisance said: The master is come. He desires permission to speak with you, lady, when he hath had his bath and hath assumed a change of raiment. For by the mother goddesses, no one can be many moments without and not be drenched to the bone. And this exhibits the master’s regard for thee, lady; his extreme devotion to your person and regard for your comfort, that he has exposed himself to cold and rain and wind so as to come hither to inquire if you are well, and if there be aught you desire that he can perform to content you.

What was Perpetua to do? She plucked some citron blossoms in her nervous agitation, unknowing what she did, then answered timidly: I am in the house of the noble Æmilius. Let him speak with me here when it suits his convenience. Yet stay, Blanda! Inquire at once, whether he brings me tidings of my dear mother.

The slave hasted away, and returned directly to inform Perpetua that her master was grieved to relate that he was unable to give her the desired information, but that he only awaited instructions from Perpetua to take measures to satisfy her.

Then the girl was left alone, and in greater agitation than before. She walked among the evergreens, putting the citron flowers to her nose, plucking off the leaves, pressing her hand to her brow, and wiping her distilling eyes.

The conservatory was unglazed. It was furnished with shutters in which were small openings like those in fiddles. Consequently a twilight reigned in the place; what light entered was colorless, and without brilliancy. Through the openings could be seen the whirling vapors; through them also the rain spluttered in, and the wind sighed a plaintive strain, now and then rising to a scream.

Perpetua still held the little bunch of citron in her hand; she was as unaware that she held it as that she had plucked it. Her mind was otherwise engaged, and her nervous fingers must needs clasp something.

When the deacon Baudillas and his faithful Pedo emerged from the river, and stood on the bank, they were aware how icy was the blast that blew, for it pierced their sodden garments and froze the marrow in their bones.

Master, said Pedo, this is the beginning of a storm that will last for a week; you must get under shelter, and I will give you certain garments I have provided and have concealed hard by in a kiln. The gates of the town are shut. I have no need to inform you that we are without the city walls.

Pedo guided the deacon to the place where he had hidden a bundle of garments, and which was not a bowshot distant from the mouth of the sewer. The kiln was small; it had happily been in recent use, for it was still warm, and the radiation was grateful to Baudillas, whose teeth were chattering in his head.

I have put here bread and meat, and a small skin of wine, said the slave. I advise you, master, to make a meal; you will relish your food better here than in the black-hole. Whilst we eat we consume time likewise; but the dawn is returning, and with it the gates will be opened and we shall slip in among the market people. But, tell me, whither will you go?

I would desire, were it advisable, to revisit my own house, said the deacon doubtfully.

And I would advise you to keep clear of it, said the slave. Should the jailer discover that you have escaped, then at once search will be made for you, and, to a certainty it will begin at your habitation. Then, with a dry laugh, he added, And if it be found that I have assisted in your evasion, then there will be one more likely to give sport to the people at the forthcoming show. Grant me the wild beasts and not the cross.

I will not bring thee into danger, faithful friend.

I cannot run away on my lame legs, said Pedo. Ah! as to those shows. They are to wind up with a water-fight—such is the announcement. There will be gladiators from Arelate sent over to contend in boats against a fleet of our Nemausean ruffians. On the previous day there will be sport with wild beasts. I am told that there have been wolves trapped during the winter in the Cebennæ, and sent down here, where they are retained fasting. I have heard their howls at night and they have disturbed my sleep—their howls and the aches in my thigh. I knew the weather would change by the pains in my joint. There is a man named Amphilochius, a manumitted slave, who broke into and robbed the villa of the master who had freed him. He is a Greek of Iconium, and the public are promised that he shall be cast to the beasts; but whether to the panthers, or the wolves, or bear, or given to be gored by a bull, that I know not. Then there is a taverner from somewhere on the way to Ugernum, who for years has murdered such of his guests as he esteemed well furnished with money, and has thrown their carcasses into the river. He will fight the beasts. There is a bear from Larsacus; but they tell me he is dull, has not yet shaken off his winter sleep, and the people fear they will get small entertainment out of him.

You speak of these scenes with relish.

Ah! master, before I was regenerate I dearly loved the spectacles. But the contest with bulls! That discovers the agility of a man. Falerius Volupius Servilianus placed rosettes between their horns and gave a prize to any who would pluck them away. That was open to be contested for by all the youths of Nemausus. There was little danger to life or limb, and it taught them to be quick of eye and nimble in movement. But it was because none were gored that the spectators wearied of these innocent sports and clamored for the butchery of criminals and the contests of gladiators. There was a fine Numidian lion brought by a shipmaster to Agatha; a big price was asked, and the citizens of Narbo outbid us, so we lost that fine fellow.

Ah, Pedo! please God that none of the brethren be exposed to the beasts.

I think there will not be many. The Quatuor-viri are slow to condemn, and Petronius Atacinus most unwilling of all. There are real criminals in the prison sufficient to satisfy an ordinary appetite for blood. But, see! we are discussing the amphitheater and not considering whither thou wilt betake thyself.

I have been turning the matter over, and I think that I will go first to Marcianus, my brother-deacon, and report myself to be alive and free, that he may inform the bishop; and I will take his advice as to my future conduct, and where I shall bestow myself.

He has remained unmolested, said the slave, and that is to me passing strange, for I have been told that certain of the brethren, when questioned relative to the mutilation of the statue, have accused him by name. Yet, so far, nothing has been done. Yet I think his house is watched; I have noticed one Burrhus hanging about it; and Tarsius, they say, has turned informer. See, master! the darkness is passing away; already there is a wan light in the east.

Had the mouth of the kiln been turned to the setting in place of the rising sun, we should not have felt the wind so greatly. Well, Pedo, we will be on the move. Market people from the country will be at the gates. I will consult with Marcianus before I do aught.

An hour later, Baudillas and his attendant were at the gate of Augustus, and passed in unchallenged. Owing to the furious mistral, accompanied by driving rain, the guards muffled themselves in their cloaks and paid little attention to the peasants bringing in their poultry, fish and vegetables for sale. The deacon and his slave entered unnoticed along with a party of these. In the street leading to the forum was a knot of people about an angry potter whose stall had been blown over by the wind. He had set boards on trestles, and laid out basins, pitchers, lamps, urns on the planks; over all he had stretched sail-cloth. The wind had caught the awning and beaten it down, upsetting and crushing his ware. The potter was swearing that he was ruined, and that his disaster was due to the Christians, who had exasperated the gods by their crimes and impieties.

Some looking on laughed and asked, shouting, whether the gods did not blow as strong blasts out of their lungs every year about the same time, and whether they did so because annually insulted.

But they don’t break my crocks, stormed the potter.

Charge double for what remain unfractured, joked an onlooker.

Come, master, said Pedo, plucking Baudillas by the sleeve. If that angry fellow recognize you, you are lost. Hold my cloak and turn down the lane, then we are at the posticum, at the back of the house. I know some of the family, and they will admit us.

The Quatuorvir Petronius Atacinus, who was on duty, occupied his chair in the stately Plotinian Basilica, or court of justice, that had been erected by Hadrian, in honor of the lady to whose ingenious and unscrupulous maneuvers he owed his elevation to the throne of the Cæsars. Of this magnificent structure nothing remains at present save some scraps of the frieze in the museum.

When the weather permitted, Petronius or his colleagues liked to hear a case in the open air, from a tribune in the forum. But this was impossible to-day, in the howling wind and lashing rain. The court itself was comparatively deserted. A very few had assembled to hear the trials. None who had a warmed home that day left it uncalled for. Some market women set their baskets in the doorway and stepped inside, but it was rather because they were wet and out of breath than because they were interested in the proceedings. Beside the magistrate sat the chief pontifex who was also Augustal flamen. Of pontifices there were three in the city, but one of these was a woman, the priestess of Nemausus.

Throughout the south of Gaul the worship of Augustus had become predominant, and had displaced most of the ancestral cults. The temples dedicated to Augustus exceeded in richness all others, and were crowded when the rest were deserted.

Jupiter was only not forgotten because he had borrowed some of the attributes of the Gallic solar deity, and he flourished the golden wheel in one hand and brandished the lightnings in the other. Juno had lent her name to a whole series of familiar spirits of the mountains and of the household, closely allied to the Proxumes, a set of domestic Brownies or Kobolds, who were chiefly adored and propitiated by the women, and who had no other temple than the hearth. At Tarasconum, the Phœnician goddess Britomartis reigned supreme, and her worship was stimulated by a grand annual procession and dramatic representation of her conquest over a dragon. At Nemausus the corresponding god of war was called Mars Britovius. But the Volcæ Arecomici were a peaceably-disposed people, and paid little devotion to the god of battles. The cult of the founder Nemausus did not flag, but that of Augustus was in the ascendant. All the freedmen were united in one great sodality under his invocation, and this guild represented an important political factor in the land. It had its religious officers, its flamines and seviri, attended by lictors, and the latter had charge of all the altars at the crossroads, and sat next to the civic functionaries in the courts, at banquets, in the theater. Rich citizens bequeathed large sums to the town and to the sodalities to be expended in public feasts, in largesses, and in gladiatorial shows. The charge of these bequests, as also their distribution, was in the hands of the flamines and seviri. The priesthood was, therefore, provided with the most powerful of all means for gaining and moving the multitude, which desired nothing better than bread and games.

Have that door shut! called the magistrate. It bangs in this evil wind, and I cannot even hear what my excellent friend Lucius Smerius is saying in my ear; how then can I catch what is said in court? Then, turning to the pontiff, he said: I detest this weather. Last year, about this time, I was struck with an evil blast, and lost all sense of smell and taste for nine months. I had pains in my loins and an ache in all my bones. I doubt if even the jests of Baubo could have made me laugh; I was in lower dumps than even Ceres. Even now, when seated far too long in this marble chair, I get an ache across my back that assures me I am no longer young. But I could endure that if my sense of taste had been fully restored. I do not relish good wine as of old, and that is piteous, and I really at times think of suicide.

It was the work of enchantment, said the pontiff. These Christians, in their orgies, stick pins into images to produce pains in those the figures represent.

How do you know this? Have you been initiated into their mysteries?

I——! The Immortals preserve me therefrom.

Then, by Pluto, you speak what you have heard of the gossips—old wives’ babble. I will tell you what my opinion is, Smerius. If you were to thrust your nose into the mysteries of the Bona Dea you would find—what? No more than did Clodius—nothing at all. My wife, she attends them, and comes home with her noddle full of all the tittle-tattle of Nemausus. It is so with the Christian orgies. I would not give a snap of the fingers for all the secrets confided to the initiated—neither in Eleusis nor in the Serapium, nor among the Christians.

These men are not like others; they are unsociable, brutish, arrogant.

Unsociable I allow. Brutish! The word is inapt; for, on the contrary, I find them very simple, soft-headed, pulp-hearted folk. They abstain from all that is boisterous and cruel. Arrogant they may be. There I am at one with you. Live and let live is my maxim. We have a score of gods, home made and foreign, and they all rub and tumble together without squabbling. Of late we have had Madame Isis over from Egypt, and the White Ladies,Fairies, adored at Nemausus. and the Proxumes, Victoria Augusta, Venus, and Minerva, make room for her without even a frown on their divine faces. And imperial Rome sanctions all these devotions. Why, did not the god Augustus build a temple here to Nemausus and pay him divine honors, though he had never heard him named before? Now this Christian sect is exclusive. It will suffer no gods to stand beside Him whom they adore. He must reign alone. That I call illiberal, narrow-minded, against the spirit of the age and the principle of Roman policy. That is the reason why I dislike these Christians.

Here come the prisoners. My good friend, do not be too easy with them. It will not do. The temper of the people is up. The sodality of Augustus swear that they will not decree you a statue, and will oppose your nomination to the knighthood. They have joined hands with the Cultores Nemausi, and insist that proper retribution be administered to the transgressors, and that the girl be surrendered.

It shall be done; it shall be so, said the Quatuorvir. Then, raising his hand to his mouth, and speaking behind it—not that in the roar of the wind such a precaution was necessary—he said to the pontiff: My dear man, a magistrate has other matters to consider than pleasing the clubs. There is the prince over all, and he is on the way to Narbonese Gaul. It is whispered that he is favorably disposed towards this Nazarene sect.

The Augustus would not desire to have the laws set at naught, and the sodalities are rich enough to pay to get access to him and make their complaint.

Well, well, well! I cannot please all. I have to steer my course among shoals and rocks. Keep the question of Christianity in the background and charge on other grounds. That is my line. I will do my best to please all parties. We must have sport for the games. The rabble desire to have some one punished for spoiling their pet image. But, by the Twins, could not the poor god hold his own head on his shoulders? If he had been worth an as, he would have done so. But there, I nettle you. You shall be satisfied along with the rest. Bring up the prisoners: Quincta, widow of Aulus Harpinius Læto, first of all.

The mother of Perpetua was led forward in a condition of terror that rendered her almost unconscious, and unable to sustain herself.

Quincta, said the magistrate, have no fear for yourself. I have no desire to deal sharply with you; if you will inform us where is your daughter, you shall be dismissed forthwith.

I do not know—— The poor woman could say no more.

Give her a seat, ordered Petronius. Then to the prisoner: Compose yourself. No doubt that, as a mother, you desire to screen your daughter, supposing that her life is menaced. No such thing, madame. I have spoken with the priestess, and with my good friend here, Lucius Smerius, chief pontiff, Augustal flamen, and public haruspex. He bowed to the priest at his side. I am assured that the god, when he spoke, made no demand for a sacrifice. That is commuted. All he desires is that the young virgin should pass into his service, and be numbered among his priestesses.

She will not consent, gasped Quincta.

I hardly need to point out the honor and advantage offered her. The priestesses enjoy great favor with the people, have seats of honor at the theater, take a high position in all public ceremonies, and are maintained by rich endowments.

She will never consent, repeated the mother.

Of that we shall judge for ourselves. Where is the girl?

I do not know.

How so?

She has been carried away from me; I know not whither.

When the old ewe baas the lamb will bleat, said the Quatuorvir. We shall find the means to make you produce her. Lady Quincta, my duty compels me to send you back to prison. You shall be allowed two days’ respite. Unless, by the end of that time, you are able and willing to give us the requisite information, you will be put to the question, and I doubt not that a turn of the rack will refresh your memory and relax your tongue.

I cannot tell what I do not know.

Remove the woman.

The magistrate leaned back, and turning his head to the pontiff, said: Did not your worthy father, Spurius, die of a surfeit of octopus? I had a supper off the legs last night, and they made me sleep badly; they are no better than marine leather. Then to the vigiles: Bring forward Falerius Marcianus.

The deacon was conducted before the magistrate. He was pale, and his lips ashen and compressed. His dark eyes turned in every direction. He was looking for kinsmen and patron.

You are charged, Falerius, with having broken the image of the god whom Nemausus delights to honor, and who is the reputed founder of the city. You conveyed his head to the house of Baudillas, and several witnesses have deposed that you made boast that you had committed the sacrilegious act of defacing the statue. What answer make you to this?

Marcianus replied in a low voice.

Blanda, what shall I do?

Æmilius had withdrawn immediately after the interview in the citron-house, and Perpetua was left a prey to even greater distress of mind than before.

Accustomed to lean on her mother, she was now without support. She drew towards the female slave, who had a patient, gentle face, marked with suffering.

Blanda, what shall I do?

Mistress, how can I advise? If you had been graciously pleased to take counsel of my master, he would have instructed you.

Alack! what I desire is to find my mother. If, as I suppose, she is in concealment in Nemausus, he will be unable to discover her. No clue will be put into his hand. He will be regarded with suspicion. He will search; I do not doubt his good will, but he will not find. Those who know where my mother is will look on him with suspicion. O Blanda, is there none in this house who believes, whom I could send to some of the Church?

Lady, answered the slave, there be no Christians here. There is a Jew, but he entertains a deadly hate of such as profess to belong to this sect. To the rest one religion is as indifferent as another. Some swear by the White Ladies, some by Serapis, and there is one who talks much of Mithras, but who this god is I know not.

If I am to obtain information it must be through some one who is to be trusted.

Lady, said the woman-slave, the master has given strict orders that none shall speak of you as having found a shelter here. Yet when slaves get together, by the Juno of the oaks, I believe men chatter and are greater magpies than we women; their tongues run away with them, especially when they taste wine. If one of the family were sent on this commission into the town, ten sesterces to an as, he would tell that you are here, and would return as owlish and ignorant as when he went forth. Men’s minds are cudgels, not awls. If thou desirest to find out a thing, trust a woman, not a man.

I cannot rest till I have news.

There has been a great search made after Christians, and doubtless she is, as thou sayest, in concealment, surely among friends. Have patience.

But, Blanda, she is in an agony of mind as to what has become of me.

The slave-woman considered for awhile, and then said:

There is a man who might help; he certainly can be relied on. He is of the strange sect I know, and he would do anything for me, and would betray no secrets.

Who is that?

His name is Pedo, and he is the slave to Baudillas Macer, son of Carisius Adgonna, who has a house in the lower town.

O Blanda! exclaimed Perpetua, it was from the house of Baudillas that I was enticed away. Then, after some hesitation, she added: That house, I believe, was invaded by the mob; but I think my mother had first escaped.

Lady, I have heard that Baudillas has been taken before the magistrate, and has been cast into the robur, because that in his house was found the head of the god; and it was supposed that he was guilty of the sacrilege, either directly or indirectly. He that harbors a thief is guilty as the thief. I heard that yesterday. No news has since been received. I mistrust my power of reaching the town, of standing against the gale. Moreover, as the master has been imprisoned, it is not likely that the slave will be in the empty house. Yet, if thou wilt tarry till the gale be somewhat abated and the rain cease to fall in such a rush, I will do my utmost to assist thee. I will go to the town myself, and communicate with Pedo, if I can find him. He will trust me, poor fellow!

I cannot require thee to go forth in this furious wind, said Perpetua.

And, lady, thou must answer to my master for me. Say that I went at thine express commands; otherwise I shall be badly beaten.

Is thy master so harsh?

Oh, I am a slave. Who thinks of a slave any more than of an ass or a lapdog? It was through a severe scourging with the cat that I was brought to know Pedo.

Tell me, how was that?

Does my lady care for matters that affect her slave?

Nay, good Blanda, we Christians know no difference between bond and free. All are the children of one God, who made man. Our master, though Lord of all, made Himself of no reputation, but took on Him the form of a servant; and was made subject for us.

That is just how Pedo talks. We slaves have our notions of freedom and equality, and there is much tall talk in the servants’ hall on the rights of man. But I never heard of a master or mistress holding such opinions.

Nevertheless this doctrine is a principle of our religion. Listen to this; the words are those of one of our great teachers: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Was he a slave who said that?

No; he was a Roman citizen.

That I cannot understand. Yet perhaps he spoke it at an election time, or when he was an advocate in the forum. It was a sentiment; very fine, smartly put, but not to be practiced.

There, Blanda, you are wrong. We Christians do act upon this principle, and it forms a bond of union between us.

The games that were to be given in the amphitheater of Nemausus on the nones of March were due to a bequest of Domitius Afer, the celebrated, or rather infamous, informer and rhetorician, who had brought so many citizens of Rome to death during the principate of Tiberius. He had run great risk himself under Caligula, but had escaped by a piece of adroit flattery. In dying he bequeathed a large sum out of his ill-gotten gains—the plunder of those whom he had destroyed, and whose families he had ruined—to be expended in games in the amphitheater on the nones of March, for the delectation of the citizens, and to keep his memory green in his native city.

The games were to last two days. On the first there would be contests with beasts, and on the second a water combat, when the arena would be flooded and converted into a lake.

Great anxiety was entertained relative to the weather. Unless the mistral ceased and the rain passed away, it would be impossible for the sports to be held. It was true that the entire oval could be covered in by curtains and mats, stretched between poles, but this contrivance was intended as shelter against sun and not rain. Moreover, the violence of the wind had rendered it quite impossible to extend the curtains.

The town was in the liveliest excitement. The man guilty of having mutilated the statue had been sentenced to be cast to the beasts, and this man was no vulgar criminal out of the slums, but belonged to one of the superior orders.

That a great social change had taken place in the province, and that the freedmen had stepped into power and influence, to the displacement of their former masters, was felt by the descendants of the first Ægypto-Greek colonists, and by the relics of the Gaulish nobility, but they hardly endured to admit the fact in words. The exercise of the rights of citizenship, the election of the officials, the qualification for filling the superior secular and religious offices, belonged to the decurion or noble families. Almost the sole office open to those below was that of the seviri; and yet even in elections the freedmen were beginning to exhibit a power of control.

Now, one of the old municipal families was to be humbled by a member being subjected to the degradation of death in the arena, and none of the Falerii ventured to raise a voice in his defence, so critical did they perceive the situation to be. The sodality of the Augustals in conclave had determined that an example was to be made of Marcianus, and had made this plain to the magistrates. They had even insisted on the manner of his execution. His death would be a plain announcement to the decurion class that its domination was at an end. The ancient patrician and plebeian families of Rome had been extinguished in blood, and their places filled by a new nobility of army factors and money-lenders. A similar revolution had taken place in the provinces by less bloody means. There, the transfer of power was due largely to the favor of the prince accorded to the freedmen.

In the Augustal colleges everywhere, the Cæsar had a body of devoted adherents, men without nationality, with no historic position, no traditions of past independence; men, moreover, who were shrewd enough to see that by combination they would eventually be able to wrest the control of the municipal government from those who had hitherto exercised it.

The rumor spread rapidly that a fresh entertainment was to be provided. The damsel who had been rescued from the basin of Nemausus had surrendered herself in order to obtain the release of her mother; and the magistrate in office, Petronius Atacinus, out of consideration for the good people of the town, whom he loved, and out of reverence for the gods who had been slighted, had determined that she should be produced in the arena, and there obliged publicly to sacrifice, and then to be received into the priesthood. Should she, however, prove obdurate, then she would be tortured into compliance.

Nor was this all. Baudillas Macer, the last scion of a decayed Volcian family, who had been cast into the pit of the robur, but had escaped, was also to be brought out and executed, as having assisted in the rescue of Perpetua from the fountain, but chiefly for having connived at the crime of Falerius Marcianus.

To the general satisfaction, the wind fell as suddenly as it had risen, and that on the night preceding the sports. The weather remained bitterly cold, and the sky was dark with clouds that seemed ready to burst. Not a ray of sunlight traveled across the arena and climbed the stages of the amphitheater. The day might have been one in November, and the weather that encountered on the northern plains of Germania.

The townsfolk, and the spectators from the country, came provided against the intemperance of the weather, wrapped in their warmest mantles, which they drew as hoods over their heads. Slaves arrived, carrying boxes with perforated tops, that contained glowing charcoal, so that their masters and mistresses might keep their feet warm whilst attending the games. Some carried cushions for the seats, others wolf-skin rugs to throw over the knees of the well-to-do spectators.

The ranges of the great oval were for the most part packed with spectators. The topmost seats were full long before the rest. The stone benches were divided into tiers. At the bottom, near the podium or breastwork confining the arena, were those for the municipal dignitaries, for the priests, and for certain strangers to whom seats had been granted by decree of the town council. Here might be read, Forty seats decreed to the navigators of the Rhône and Saone; at another part of the circumference, Twenty-five places appointed to the navigators of the Ardèche and the Ouvèze.

Above the ranges of seats set apart for the officials and guests were those belonging to the decurions and knights, the nobility and gentry of the town and little republic. The third range was that allotted to the freedmen and common townsfolk and peasants from the country, and the topmost stage was abandoned to be occupied by slaves alone. At one end of the ellipse sat the principal magistrates close to the podium at one end, and at the other the master of the games and his attendants, the prefect of the watch and of the firemen.

Two doors, one at each end, gave access to the arena, or means of exit. One was that of the vivarium, whence the gladiators and prisoners issued from a large chamber under the seats and feet of the spectators. The other door was that which conducted to the libitinum, into which were cast the corpses of men and the carcasses of beasts that had perished in the games.

Immediately below the seat of the principal magistrates and of the pontiffs was a little altar, on the breastwork about the arena, with a statue of Nemausus above it; and a priest stood at the side to keep the charcoal alight, and to serve the incense to such as desired to do homage to the god.

It was remarked that the attendance in the reserved seats of the decurions was meager. Such as were connected with the Falerian family by blood or marriage made it a point to absent themselves; others stayed away because huffed at the insolence of the freedmen, and considering that the sentence passed on Marcianus was a slight cast on their order.

On the other hand, the freedmen crowded to the show in full force, and not having room to accommodate themselves and their families in the zone allotted to them, some audaciously threw themselves over the barriers of demarcation and were followed by others, and speedily flooded the benches of the decurions.

When the magistrates arrived, preceded by their lictors, all in the amphitheater rose, and the Quatuor-viri bowed to the public. Each took a pinch from the priest, who extended a silver shell containing aromatic gums, and cast it on the fire, some gravely, Petronius with a flippant gesture. Then the latter turned to the Augustal flamen, saying: To the god Augustus and the divine Julia (Livia), and he threw some more grains on the charcoal.

Body of Bacchus! said he, as he took his seat, a little fizzling spark such as that may please the gods, but does not content me. I wish I had a roaring fire at which, like a babe out of its bath, I could spread my ten toes and as many fingers. Such a day as this is! With cold weather I cannot digest my food properly. I feel a lump in me as did Saturn when his good Rhea gave him a meal of stones. I am full of twinges. By Vulcan and his bellows! if it had not been for duty I would have been at home adoring the Lares and Penates. These shows are for the young and warm-blooded. The arms of my chair send a chill into my marrow-bones. What comes first? Oh! a contest with a bull. Well, I shall curl up and doze like a marmot. Wake me, good Smerius, when the next portion of the entertainment begins.

A bull was introduced, and a gladiator was employed to exasperate and play with the beast. He waved a garment before its eyes, then drove a sharp instrument into its flank, and when the beast turned, he nimbly leaped out of the way. When pursued he ran, then turned sharply, put his hands on the back of the bull, and leaped over it.

The people cheered, but they had seen the performance so often repeated that they speedily tired of such poor sport. The bull was accordingly dispatched. Horses were introduced and hooked to the carcass, which was rapidly drawn out. Then entered attendants of the amphitheater, who strewed sand where the blood had been spilt, bowed and retired.

Thereupon the jailer threw open the gates of the vivarium and brought forth the prisoners. These consisted of the taverner who had murdered his guests, the manumitted slave who had robbed his master, Baudillas, Marcianus and Perpetua.

A thrill of cruel delight ran through the concourse of spectators. Now something was about to be shown them, harrowing to the feelings, gratifying to the ferocity that is natural to all men, and is expelled, not at all by civilization, but by divine grace only.

It enhanced the pleasure of the spectators that criminals should witness the death of their fellows. Eyes scanned their features, observed whether they turned sick and faint, whether they winced, or whether they remained cool and callous. This gave a cruel zest to their enjoyment.

A bear was produced. Dogs were set on him, and he was worried till he shook off his torpor and was worked into fury. Then, at a sign from the manager of the games, the dogs were called off, and the man who had murdered his guests was driven forward towards the incensed beast.

The fellow was sullen, and gave no token of fear. He folded his arms, leaned against the marble podium, and looked contemptuously around him at the occupants of the tiers of seats.

The bear, relieved from his aggressors, seemed indisposed to notice the man.

Then the spectators roared to the criminal, bidding him invite the brute against himself. It was a strange fact that often in these horrible exhibitions a man condemned to fight with the beasts allowed himself a brief display of vanity, and sought to elicit the applause of the spectators by his daring conduct to the animal that was to mangle and kill him.

But the ill-humored fellow would not give this pleasure to the onlookers.

Then the master of the sports signed to the attendants to goad the bear. They obeyed, and he turned and growled and struck at them, but would not touch the man designed to be hugged by him.

After many vain attempts, amidst the hooting and roar of the people, a sign was made. Some gladiators leaped in, and with their swords dispatched the taverner.

The spectators were indignant. They had been shown no sport, only a common execution. They were shivering with cold; some grumbled, and said that this was childish stuff to witness which was not worth the discomfort of the exposure. Then, as with one voice, rose the yell: The wolves! send in the wolves! Marcianus to the wolves!

The master of the games dispatched a messenger to the Quatuorvir who was then the acting magistrate. He nodded to what was said, waved his hand in the direction of the master’s box, and the latter sent an attendant to the keeper of the beasts.

The jailer-executioner at once grasped the deacon Falerius Marcianus by the shoulders, bade him descend some steps and enter the arena.

Marcianus was deadly white. He shrank with disgust from the spot where the soil was drenched with the blood of the taverner, and which was not as yet strewn over with fresh sand. He cast a furtive look at the altar, then made an appealing gesture to the magistrate.

Come here, Cneius Marcianus, said Petronius. You belong to a respectable and ancient family. You have been guilty of an infamous deed that has brought disgrace on your entire order. See how many absent themselves this day on that account! Your property is confiscated, you are sentenced to death. Yet I give you one chance. Sacrifice to the gods and blaspheme Christ. I do not promise you life if you do this. You must appeal to the people. If they see you offer incense, they will know that you have renounced the Crucified. Then I will put the question to their decision. If they hold up their thumbs you will live. Consider, it is a chance; it depends, not on me, but on their humor. Will you sacrifice?

Marcianus looked at the mighty hoop of faces. He saw that the vast concourse was thrilled with expectation; a notion crossed the mind of one of the freedmen that Marcianus was being given a means of escape, and he shouted words that, though audible and intelligible to those near, were not to be caught by such as were distant. But the purport of his address was understood, and produced a deafening, a furious roar of remonstrance.

I will not sacrifice, said the deacon; I am a Christian.

Then Petronius Atacinus raised his hand, partly to assure the spectators that he was not opposing their wishes, partly as a signal to the master of the games.

Instantly a low door in the barrier was opened, and forth rushed a howling pack of wolves. When they had reached the center of the arena, they stood for a moment snuffing, and looked about them in questioning attitudes. Some, separating from the rest, ran with their snouts against the ground to where the recent blood had been spilt. But, all at once, a huge gray wolf, that led the pack, uttered a howl, and made a rush and a leap towards Marcianus; and the rest followed.

The sight was too terrible for the deacon to contemplate it unmoved. He remained but for an instant as one frozen, and then with a cry he started and ran round the ellipse, and the whole gray pack tore after him. Now and then, finding that they gained on him, he turned with threatening gestures that cowed the brutes; but this was for a moment only. Their red eyes, their gleaming teeth filled the wretched man with fresh terror, and again he ran.

The spectators clapped their hands—some stood up on their seats and laughed in ecstasy of enjoyment. Once, twice he made the circuit of the arena; and his pace, if possible, became quicker. The delight of the spectators became an intoxication. It was exquisite. Fear in the flying man became frantic. His breath, his strength were failing. Then suddenly he halted, half turned, and ran to the foot of the barrier before the seat of the Quatuor-viri, and extended his hand: Give me the incense! I worship Nemausus! I adore Augustus! I renounce Christ!

At the same moment the old monster wolf had seized him from behind. The arms of the deacon were seen for an instant in the air. The spectators stamped and danced and cheered—the dense gray mass of writhing, snarling beasts closed over the spot where Marcianus had fallen!

The acting magistrate turned to his fellow-quatuorvir, charged with co-ordinate judicial authority, on the left, and said: Your nose is leaden-purple in hue.

No marvel, in this cold. I ever suffer there with the least frost. My ear lobes likewise are seats of chilblain.

In this climate! Astonishing! If it had been in Britain, or in Germany, it might have been expected.

My brother-magistrate, said Vibius Fuscianus, I believe that here in the south we are more sensible to frost than are those who live under hyperborean skies. There they expect cold, and take precautions accordingly. Here the blasts fall on us unawares. We groan and sigh till the sun shines out, and then forget our sufferings. Who but fools would be here to-day? Look above. The clouds hang low, and are so dark that we may expect to be pelted with hail.

Many days had passed. All was calm in Nemausus. The games were over.

The day succeeding that we have described was warm and spring-like. The sun shone brilliantly. Every trace of the snow had disappeared, and the water-fight in the amphitheater had surpassed the expectations of the people. They had enjoyed themselves heartily.

All had returned to its old order. The wool merchant took fresh commands, and sent his travelers into the Cebennæ to secure the winter fleeces. The woman who had the flower-shop sold garlands as fast as she could weave them. The potter spread out a fresh collection of his wares and did a good business with them.

The disturbances that had taken place were no more spoken about. The deaths of Marcianus, Baudillas and Perpetua hardly occupied any thoughts, save only those of their relatives and the Christians.