“Say not ‘avenges,’ say ‘punishes.’”
“Someone is coming down the passage.”
“Is it a brother?”
“No, he makes no obeisance before the cross.”
“Then it is an executioner.”
The Emperor appeared in rags, dirty, with a handkerchief tied round his forehead. As he approached the Christians, whom in their white cloaks he took for Greeks, he became quiet and resolved to bargain with them.
“Are you Greeks?”
“Here is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but all are brothers in Christ! Welcome, brother!”
“It is the Wild Beast,” said Alexander.
The Emperor now recognised his escaped slave, and in his terror fell on his knees.