“Nay, brother, you know I love best to be with you,” Hyacintha said, “but I would fain see you happier. Be not so faint-hearted; think of Rome, and all you will see and do there; and how proud I shall feel when I hear of my brother as foremost in all things in which young and noble Romans excel.”
“Nay, little sister, I crave only for peace and study. I know full well that, by my father’s orders, I shall be hunted about at Rome, as I have been at Verulam, and I shall have no Claudius to cheer me and help me there. I marvel much, Hyacintha, what has become of Ebba. If the faith of the Christian should be the real faith! It seemeth to give the weak strength and the faint-hearted courage, and for that alone it should be the faith for such as me.”
Hyacintha turned quickly from her contemplation of the water, and said, brightly—
“Nay, but Casca, there are brave and courageous ones who follow the old faith; you forget that everyone is not sad, and——”
“A coward like me”—Casca finished the sentence. “A coward like me! Well, little sister, you have courage enough for both. I hate bloodshed.”
“Oh, Casca! Think you that I love to see it? When my mother made me sit with her, when the wild boars and bulls were let loose on those poor slaves in the arena at Verulam, I hid my eyes. It is not that sort of courage I mean. I mean, courage for great and noble things. When the wild barbarians fell on our troop near Arles, I shuddered. And oh, Casca! when I saw thee brought in, bleeding so terribly, I could scarce bear it. I shall be glad to be in Rome, safe in the Vestal’s atrium, where I am to learn all that befits a priestess of the beautiful goddess Vesta. I dream of her; and she comes to me in white robes. I saw her last night walking on the sea—so calm and beautiful—and on her head burned a star, like that,” the child said, pointing to a planet which was setting in the eastern heaven, and shone with a steady radiance in the opal sky.
“The dangers of the way are nearly over now, and then it will be Rome, and I shall be learning all that I could never learn in Verulam.”
“And have you no longings for our mother and our father? I, who did not love them, or seem to be loved by them as you were, I have longings. Our beautiful mother and our noble father! He was hard enough on me—stern and hard—but then, while it is a gift of the gods to have a beautiful daughter like thee, Hyacintha, it is a curse for a brave man to have a weakling like me for an only son.”
Hyacintha was silent for a minute, and then said,
“If they had wanted me sorely it would have been hard to part, but my mother did not want me. Even Ebba was more to her than I was. And my father’s desire was that I should be a chosen priestess, as many of his race have been before; therefore, I am content. And it may be that our parents will return to Rome, if it be the great Emperor’s will—all he wills comes to pass. It was his will that the Christians should be put to death, and who could gainsay him?”