He was preparing to make a speech. An old rag-picker had just brought in a sensational piece of news—
"We're all doomed!... The Lord's hand is heavy on us.... Yesterday a neighbour of mine told me something which at first I refused to believe!"
"Tell us, good woman!"
"Well, it was at Gaza. The Pagans seized a convent. They made the nuns come out. They tied them to gallows in the market-place, beat 'em to death, and after rolling their warm bodies, all hacked to pieces, in grains of barley, threw 'em to the swine!"
"I saw myself," added a young weaver, "a Pagan at Hieropolis, who was eating the liver of a deacon!"
"What an abomination!" murmured the auditors crossing themselves.
With the help of Aragaris, Strombix clambered on to a table, which was still sticky with the spilth of wine, and striking an oratorical attitude, addressed the crowd, while Aragaris proudly contemplated his friend.
"Citizens," began Strombix; "how long shall we wait before we rebel? Don't you know that Julian has sworn, if he returns a conqueror from Persia, to gather together the holy defenders of the Church and throw them to beasts in the amphitheatre? To turn the porticoes of basilicas into granaries, and the churches into stables...."
A hump-backed old man, livid with fear, tumbled over on the tavern floor. It was the husband of the rag-picker, himself a glass-blower. Rising, he slapped his thigh despairingly, stared at the company, and faltered—
"Ah, what a situation!... And there are two hundred corpses in the wells and the aqueducts!"