“Oh, sir!” she answered, “believe not that I have been brought into this place, because of my being puffed up with emptiness of conceit. I know well that I am a poor, young, unlearned creature; but God gives not according to our deserts; and because I am poor and ignorant, must I therefore reject the promise of his riches, and the great light that has been manifested to me,—which, would to God it had also been to you, despite the perils which a dark world has thrown around it.”
“O Athanasia!” said young Sempronia, “I know the secrets of your heart, although you have kept from me some of them. Think, dear sister, of all the love that we bear to you—and, oh! think of Valerius.”
“The more, then, is the sacrifice!” said Athanasia. “Caius Valerius also is a Christian—at least I hope in God he will soon be sealed into our brotherhood.”
“Amen! amen!” said Aurelius.
The Priestess turned round when he uttered this, and observing that he also was fettered, “Blasphemer!” cried she, “behold the end of your frenzy. Your eyes are dim, your clay is already yearning, it may be, to be sprinkled into ashes; but behold your victim. Ye Gods that see all things, have mercy upon the errors of deceived, ensnared, murdered youth! Hoary Apostate! feeble though you be, may strength be given to you in [pg 333]anger, that you may taste the full struggle and the true agony. May you be strong to wrestle, that you may fall slowly, and feel your fall! Would to the Gods, just and merciful, that you might struggle and fall alone!”
“Rash woman,” said the manacled Saint, “most surely your last wish is mine. But why is it that you have come hither with cruel words, to imbitter equally the last moments of a life that is dear to you, and a life that you despise? You speak of ignorance and of deceit. Little know ye who are the deceived. We are the servants of the living God, whose light will soon shine abroad among the nations, and quench glimmering tapers, fashioned with the hands of men, with which, hitherto, ye have sat contented amidst darkness. Cæsar may bind and slay—but think ye that the spirit is his to do with it what he will? Think ye that chains and dungeons, and the sword of man can alter the course of things that are to be, or shake from its purpose the will of Him, in whom, blind and ignorant, ye refuse to behold the image of the Maker of all—shutting eyes, and ears, and your proud hearts; and blaspheming against the God of heaven, whose glory ye ascribe to stocks and stones, and to the ghosts of wicked and bloody tyrants, long since mouldered into dust,—and to the sun, and the moon, and the stars of the sky, which God set there to rule the day and the night, even as he lets loose his winds to scatter the leaves of the forest, and to lift up the waves of the great deep?—Leave us, I beseech you.—The young and the old are alike steadfast, for God is our strength, and he bestows it on them that ask for it in the name of the Redeemer.”
“Peace, thou accursed!” said the Priestess; “I serve the altar, and came not hither to hear the Gods of heaven and earth insulted by the lips of hardened impiety.—Athanasia! will you go with us, or will you stay here, and partake the fate of this madman?”
“O God!” cried the maiden; “how shall I speak that they may at length hear me!—Friends—dear friends—if you have any love, any compassion, I pray you kiss me once, and bid me farewell kindly, and lay my ashes in the sepulchre of my fathers—beside the urn of my mother. Fear not that I will disturb the repose of the place—I shall die in anger against no one, and I shall have rest at length when I am relieved from this struggle. Pardon, if in any thing besides I ever gave you pain—remember none of my offences but this—think of me kindly. And go now, dear friends; kiss my lips in love, and leave me to bear that which must be borne, since there is no escape but in lying, and in baseness, and in utter perdition here and hereafter. May the Lord strengthen his day soon, and may ye all bless the full light, although now ye are startled by the redness of the dawn! Farewell—kiss me, Velius—kiss me, Lucius—my aunt also will kiss me.”
They did kiss her, and tears were mingled with their embraces; and they said no more, but parted from her where she was. Palma himself lifted the desolate Sempronia from the ground, and he and her father carried her away senseless, her tresses sweeping the pavement as they moved.
The prisoners were alone. “The moment is come,” said Silo; “now, sir, prepare yourself to risk every thing where every thing may be gained.”