Wolf’s trot broke into a run. Wider and wider were the leaps he made. Not once did he turn his head, his wolf’s brush standing out straight behind him. He cut sharply across the curve of the trail and was gone.—From “Love of Life,” copyrighted by The Macmillan Co., New York, and used by their kind permission.
THE SIGN OF THE CROSS
By Wilson Barrett
It was a festival day in Rome. Nero had decreed it. In the Circus was to be given a performance the like of which had never before been witnessed. The whole city was excited by the rumors of the numbers of Christians doomed to die, and of the ferocity of the beasts they were to encounter.
The dungeon beneath the amphitheatre in which the Christians were imprisoned was a large, gloomy, stone vault, destitute of furniture of any kind.
Great was the contrast between the dark, damp cell and the sunlit arena, crowded with eager, gayly dressed patricians. In the dungeon were scores of men and women waiting for the signal to pass forth to a certain and cruel death; in the auditorium was a seething mass of humanity, thousands upon thousands impatiently awaiting their coming forth, and gloating already in imagination upon the horrors they must undergo.
The roars of the hungry beasts could be faintly heard, even when the doors were closed; so could the equally merciless howls of the blood-thirsty populace. How they were to die had not been told the martyrs; only this they knew, that they were to die, and that every endeavor would be made to make their deaths as horrible, revolting and cruel as possible.
Among them were a few that trembled and felt sick with physical fear, but not one murmured. Their eyes were mentally fixed upon the Cross.
Again there was a loud call of the trumpets. The doors were thrown open, and the arena beyond could be seen by the prisoners, flooded with golden sunshine.
“Now, then, march!”