“In the meantime,” quoth one of the bystanders, “they are in the hand not of Jove, but of Trajan, and he, I think, cannot now be accused of treating these wretches with too much lenity. You have all heard of that Tisias?”—“We have,” cried another; “but what was a single individual to this great assembly? what a sight will it be the day they are all executed!”
“I think,” said the same person who had inquired whether our Centurion were the Sabinus that had been in Britain,—“I think you are overrating the numbers of that assembly. I heard of no more than a dozen.”
This stranger (for such he seemed) had probably taken that day a considerable journey, for his tunic and boots were covered with dust. He was attired in the plainest manner, but notwithstanding, there was something about him which gave one the idea of rank superior to the company in which he was seated; and his complexion was so dark that I could not help thinking to myself,—I am not the only provincial in the room; here is certainly some well-born African or Asiatic.
“You have not told me, however,” said he, after a pause, “whether or not this be the Sabinus that was lately in Britain.”—“Sir,” said I, “it is the same; I myself came in the same ship with him, but a few days ago. He is a Centurion in the Prætorian Bands.”—“Yes,” replied the stranger, “I guessed in truth, it must be the same; for I remember no other of that [pg 246]rank bearing the same name.”—“If you are acquainted with him,” said I, “you may have an opportunity of seeing him immediately, for I expect him here every moment to conduct me to his father’s villa, which is hard by.”
“Well,” quoth the barber, who by this time had ended, without fresh misadventure, the trimming of the Cretan—“well, I hope he will stay for a moment when he does come, and then we shall be sure to hear the truth as to this story about the Christian assembly. They may talk as they please, but may Jove devote me, if I had Cæsar’s ring upon my finger for one night, this should be the last of them.”—“And how, friend,” said the stranger, “by what means, if I may ask you, should you propose so speedily to do away with this fast-spreading abomination?”—“Look ye, sirs,” quoth he, “I would place myself thus in my tribunal”—(he took his seat at a little table, beside a goblet of wine, as he spake,) “I would seat myself thus in the midst of a field, as Cato and the great Censors of old used to do. I would cause Rome to be emptied—man, woman, and child should pass before me; and every one that did not acknowledge the gods as he passed, by all the gods! he should sprawl upon a tree in presence of all the people. What avails watching, prying, spying, and surprising? I should make shorter work of it, I trow.”
“You may say what you will,” said one who had not before spoken, “I cannot bring myself to believe every thing I hear concerning their superstition.”—“Ay, goldsmith,” quoth the barber, “you were always fond of having an opinion of your own; and, pray, what is it that you have had occasion to know about the [pg 247]Christians, more than the rest of us who hear you? If you mean that you have seen some of them die bravely in the Amphitheatre, why, that we have all heard of at least, and I think nobody disputes it.”—“No, master barber,” replied he, “that is not what I was thinking of. I have seen your common thief-knave, when he knew he could do no better, brace you his nerves for the extremity, and die like a Hercules. I would rather judge of a man by his living than his dying.”—“True,” rejoins Virro; “and pray, what have you got to tell us about the life, then, of the Christians?”—“Not much,” said he, “you shall hear. My old mother (peace to her manes) was passing the Salarian one day last year, and there came by a hot-headed spark, driving four abreast in a chariot as fiercely as Nero in the Circus. He called out, that I believe, but the dame was deaf, and whether he tried to pull up, I know not, but the horses trod upon her as she fell. Another of the same sort came close behind, and I have been told they were running a race; but however that might be, on they both passed like a whirlwind, and my poor mother was left by herself among the flying dust. But the gods had mercy on her; they sent a kind heart to her aid. She was carried into one of the stateliest villas on that side of Tiber, and tended for six weeks by a noble lady, as if she had been not my mother, but her own; and this lady, friends—by Jove I suspected it not for long after—this lady was a Christian; but I shall not say how I found it out, nor would I mention the thing at all but among honest men. But where were these you spoke of taken?—I should like to know who they were.”
“They were taken,” said the stranger, “not far from [pg 248]the Appian Way, within one of the old monuments there,—a monument, it is said, of the Sempronii.”—“Of the Sempronii?” cried the goldsmith, “Phœbus Apollo shield us!” and from that moment he became as silent as hitherto he had been communicative.
The swarthy stranger, the silence yet continuing, arose from his seat, laid a piece of money upon the table, and moved towards the door. The barber also rose up, but he said to him, “Sit still, I pray you, my friend;” at the same time beckoning with his finger to the goldsmith, who, with a very dejected countenance, followed him into the street. What passed between them there, we perceived not; but the artificer re-entered not the chamber till some moments after we had heard the departing tread of the stranger’s horses. When he did come in again, he had the appearance of being in great confusion.