“Father, we can never understand each other. By all that is sacred....”
“I will not hear you!” interrupted the priest. “What can you say? Who it is that has entrapped you, and how far the ramifications of the plot extend, we shall learn in the course of enquiry. I came not as your judge, nor commissioned by the Senate. I came to save you. Confess you were led astray, abjure this superstition, which can never really have taken possession of your soul, offer a sacrifice of atonement to Jupiter Capitolinus—and all will be well. A year of exile—to Hellas perhaps, where I have crowds of friends—would be the worst that could befall you, and even this short banishment Caesar would no doubt remit at my entreaty. All is ready, and to-morrow morning early the ceremony can take place. Till then you will be a prisoner, but in my house,[94] and treated with the honor due to your name. Norbanus himself will escort you thither; he is waiting at the door of the prison. His highest officers will keep guard over you. Forwards then; let us leave this scene of disgrace—and may your bitter experience have taught you wisdom.”
But Quintus did not stir. His eyes were spellbound to the wall which, in the gloomy watches of the night, had revealed such strange histories. Each inscription, each name seemed to raise the image of some pale and suffering face. He felt at the bottom of his soul that now, here, the moment had come for giving expression in deeds to the reflection and resolve of those dark hours. Side by side, too, with the ecstatic enthusiasm of the convert, there surged up in his soul the unbending pride and iron will of his race. Should he be more cowardly, baser, weaker than the lowborn and wretched? His heart beat high at the thought, and the blood mounted to his brow.
“I cannot, Father,” he said, turning away.
“What? You cannot walk in the path, in which your father is ready to lead you? Or do you think it mean to confess the error of your ways? Give place to reason, Quintus! It is to no mortal, but to the gods alone that you have to confess your crime. Humility before the gods is no dishonor....”
“Your gods are not mine,” cried Quintus vehemently. “A confessor of the true God can never sacrifice to Jupiter Capitolinus.”
“Who is the true God, but he whose care and rule we see, wherever we turn our eyes, and feel in our souls? Are you so utterly degenerate, that you have learnt to confound the great universal spirit—whom our fathers worshipped as Jupiter, the Father of Light—with a mortal—with a Jewish revolutionary, whom the imperial governor silenced by death?”
“Nay Father, you misunderstand. We do not revere the crucified Saviour as God himself, only as our Master, who revealed the true God to us. Between the God of Christ and your idols there is a great gulf fixed. Your own noble nature associates with those idols of a false faith, aspirations and feelings, which have always been foreign to the spirit of that faith. If only you knew how the faith in the light I walk in glows through my whole being, you would expect the skies to fall, sooner than that I should pronounce the base denial you ask of me.”
“Mad fool!” cried the priest in great wrath. “You hold a tissue of lies as more precious than life and happiness, as higher than the honor of your family? Have done with this reckless mockery! Follow me, I command you!”
“Father!” groaned Quintus with growing anguish, “God is my witness, that I would shed every drop of blood in my body for you and for your happiness: only this one thing—I cannot—I cannot....”