"You are enthusiastic for those outcasts."
"Not so, Lucullus. I wish to know the truth. All my life I have heard these reports. But yesterday for the first time I suspected that they might be false. I now question you earnestly, and I find that your knowledge is based upon nothing. I now remember that throughout all the world these Christians are peaceable and honest. They are engaged in no riots or disturbances, and none of these crimes with which they are charged can be proved against them. Why, then, should they die?"
"The emperor has good reasons no doubt for his course."
"He may be instigated by ignorant or malicous advisers."
"I think it is entirely his own design."
"The number of those that have been put to death is very large."
"O yes, some thousands; but plenty more remain. These, however, are out of reach, and that reminds me of my errand here. I bring you the imperial commission."
Lucullus drew from the folds of his military mantle a scroll of parchment, which he handed to Marcellus. The latter eagerly examined its contents. It appointed him to a higher grade, and commissioned him to search out and arrest the Christians in their hiding-places, mentioning particularly the Catacombs.
Marcellus read it with a clouded brow, and laid it down.
"You do not seem very glad."