CHAPTER VIII.
It was past midnight. The Christians of the Subura had once more assembled in the quarry between the Appian and the Labicanian Ways. Among them stood Quintus, who had joined the congregation to-day for the first time.
The subterranean hall—not the small square vault where Eurymachus had taken refuge, but a large oval space, whose natural roof was here and there supported by pillars of artificial construction—was lighted by a lamp with five arms, which hung from the smoke-blackened vault. On each side, close to the wall, a natural ledge of tufa served for seats. These were given up to women and girls, mostly very humbly dressed, while the men occupied the farther end of the hall, some standing, some sitting on wooden stools, and some squatting on the ground.
Quintus was leaning, with eager, glistening eyes, against a pillar that was so built into a wall as to form a semicircular niche at one end of the hall, and opposite to him, against the corresponding pillar, stood Thrax Barbatus, his sinewy arms crossed over his breast.
The attention of the congregation had at first been centered on Quintus—who was welcomed with astonishment as a member of the little band—but it had gradually been diverted to another object. Behind an arm-chair stood the tall and commanding figure of an old man, who looked ninety at least. His still upright bearing and his weather-tanned face showed him to be a soldier; and yet an expression of touching gentleness and benevolence marked his features, a melancholy and tender gleam, as it were, that played round his expressive lips and half-closed eyes. Those eyes were blind, darkened by the unwholesome gloom of the Sardinian mines,[67] where, for three years, the old man had been buried alive. They were used to light, and to the free airs of heaven, those bright, bold warrior’s eyes; and when Tigellinus,[68] Nero’s favorite, had thrust him into blackness, because he had refused to tender false evidence, they grew fevered and dim in the twilight depths, and at last had darkened into endless night. The fall of Nero restored him to liberty. He had been taken on board ship by some kind-hearted mariners, carried first to Athens and then to Corinth, where his brethren in the faith received him gladly, and took charge of his maintenance. For some years he lived thus, a zealous member of the infant congregation, and a faithful guardian and preacher of the gospel. But at last he could contain himself there no longer. His homesickness for Rome, his native city, which he loved in spite of all her sins and crimes with the passion of a true-born Roman, grew more irresistible every day. An Egyptian merchant, who esteemed him highly, after taking him a long sea-voyage, brought him at last to the harbor of Ostia. For many weeks the venerable stranger had wandered in vain through all the fourteen regions of the city, hoping to find some friend of his early years; they were all without exception dead and gone. One day he sat down, sadly leaning on his staff, on the step of a fountain not far from the temple on the Quirinal. Here he was found by Euterpe, who, filled with pity, addressed the blind old man. They soon made the discovery that they were of the same faith, and now for five or six days he had been sharing the home of Diphilus; and though, at first, this had been somewhat of a burden to the carpenter, the liberality of Quintus Claudius had relieved him of all anxiety.
Calenus was now telling the assembled Christians some of the adventures of his youth, when he was fighting in Palestine. Eager devoutness was stamped on every face that watched him.
“Yes, my beloved,” he said, and his voice sank to deeper solemnity, “I can remember every detail as if it were yesterday. But I knew not what I was doing. My heart was holden, and my soul was darkened. It was not till long, long after, that the grace of God enlightened me.... It was at the time when the Jews keep their Passover. Our division had been sent to guard the state-prison, but I and a few of my comrades had been warned to keep ourselves ready to march at any moment, and within an hour the word was given to set out. We joined a noisy procession, headed by the Roman eagles, which flowed on up the hill where criminals are executed, outside Jerusalem. We could scarcely see or hear what was taking place, the people shrieked and howled so incessantly, evidently inflamed to the highest pitch by their priests and the scribes. However, we were ordered to let them have their way. At last, when I asked a woman what all the tumult was about, she replied: ‘They are going to crucify Jesus, the King of the Jews.’”
He ceased and bowed his head, as one self-convicted, and a death-like silence reigned in the room.
“Ah, my brethren!” he went on presently, in a tone of deep sorrow. “Would that some angel of God had been near in that awful hour to open my heart! In the ear of a heathen soldier, that name sounded like any other. Darkened and in ignorance, I kept guard on the spot where my Saviour was to die.”
Again he bowed his penitent head. But soon looking up again with renewed and joyful eagerness, he told them he had been mercifully permitted to see from afar the sublime face of the man, whom he had learned, years after, to recognize as the Redeemer of mankind. The pale features which had looked down on him, as in a vision, had been indelibly graven on his soul, and later, when the tidings of salvation had come home to him, the image had risen to new life, and shone radiantly upon him, like a star of promise, through the darkness of his sufferings and sorrows.