‘Try the rack again.’
‘Spare me! spare me!’ he cried. ‘If you torture me, I shall say anything—any lie you ask me; but these stories about the Christians are not true.’
‘Will you now tell us all you know, without any more torture?’
‘I will.’
‘Did the Christians set fire to Rome?’
‘I did not see them doing it; but they were always talking about Christ being manifested in flaming fire, and about the burning of the world.’
‘That will do. Now give us some names.’
‘There are hundreds—there are thousands of them,’ said the renegade.
‘Then it will be all the easier for you to tell us some of them.’