“God grant our prayer,” said Pontius, “and not ours only, but the prayer of all that know her, and have heard of this calamity!—Whatever the exertions of her family and their friends can accomplish, most surely shall not be awanting. Would that those who are linked to her by ties yet more sacred had the power, as they have the will, to serve her! Yet Hope must never be rejected. The investigations of this very night may produce the true accomplices of Cotilius; and then Trajan will be satisfied that the Christians stand guiltless of that treason.”
“Alas!” said I, “if this faith be a crime, how can any one hope to follow it without being continually liable to accidents as unfortunate? In Rome, at all events, what madness is it thus to tempt the fate which impends over the discovery of that which it must be so difficult, so impossible to conceal?”
The aged Priest laid his finger on his lips, and pointed to the window. I listened, and heard distinctly the [pg 292]shrill voices of the mutilated dancers, as they brake forth above the choral murmurs of the drums and cymbals, and I perceived that the bloody legend of Atys was once more the subject of their song.
The ancient waited till the voices were drowned again in the clamour of the instruments, and then said to me, “Young man, do you know to what horrid story these words of theirs refer? Do you know what sounds all these are designed to imitate? Do you know what terror—what flight—what blood—what madness are here set forth in honour of a cruel demon—or rather, I should say, for the gain of these miserable and maimed hirelings? Do you know all these things, and yet give counsel of flight and of cowardice to me, upon whose head the hand of Christ’s holy apostle hath been laid? Read, dear Valerius, read and ponder well.—My prayers, and the prayers of one that is far purer than me—they are ever with you. But now since I have introduced you to Pontius, why should I delay here any longer? He, both for your father’s sake and for your own, and for that of the faith, (of which you have had some glimpses) will abundantly aid you in all things. Deal not coldly nor distantly with him. I commit you into his hands, as a brand to be snatched from the burning.”
Pontius reached forth his hand and grasped mine in token of acquiescence in all the old man expressed. He, by and by, looking into the street, said, “These jugglers have now departed to their dens, and the gaping multitudes have dispersed. But I still see one person walking up and down, as if expecting somebody; and it seems to me that it is the same, Valerius, who [pg 293]was in your company.” I perceived that it was indeed Sabinus, whistling to himself on the bright side of the pavement. I therefore bade them adieu, saying, “Dear father, when shall I see you again, and when shall I hear farther of Athanasia?”—The old man pausing for a moment, said, “To-morrow at noontide be in the Forum, over against the statue of Numa. You will there find tidings.”
The Centurion plainly intimated that he took it for granted I had been engaged in something which I wished to keep from his knowledge; but such affairs made no great impression on him; and after laughing out his laugh, he bade me farewell by the portico of Licinius.
CHAPTER III.
In the morning I found my kinsman and his son extremely uneasy, in consequence of the absence of Xerophrastes, who had not returned during the night; but Sabinus came in while they were talking to me, and narrated, without hesitation, all he had seen and heard both in the garden of Trajan, and at the procession of the Galli. Young Sextus could scarcely be restrained by respect for his father, from expressing, rather too openly, his satisfaction in the course which the affairs of the disappointed lady appeared to be taking; while the orator muttered words which I thought boded not much of good to the ambitious pedagogue. The Centurion alone regarded all these things as matters of mere amusement, or so at least he seemed to regard them; for, as I have already hinted, I was not without my suspicion, that he was at bottom by no means well pleased with the contemplation of the future splendour of the Stoic.