CHAPTER VI.
Sophronia, sobbing, threw her arms around her sister's neck. In rapid alternations of feeling the shining vision of a happy life passed before her mind. She saw her loving old father who guarded her so anxiously from every breath of air; she saw the youth whose pure love promised her long years of joy in the future. The girl's strength of mind vanished before this alluring picture, and she sank on the bosom of her sister, who, with a brave though sad face, clasped her in her arms as a mythological goddess of war would embrace an angel that belonged to the realms of another deity.
"Hasten hence," she said, throwing her ample himation around her sister's shoulders, and fastening the golden balteus about her hips. "You can follow my slave safely. No one will notice the exchange, especially amid the noisy tumult of the circus."
"No, I cannot accept this sacrifice," cried Sophronia, struggling with her own heart. "God forbids it."
"Your God is the God of Love," said Glyceria. "If on account of this God of Love you will not save yourself, I swear that this day shall long be mentioned by the world as a day of horrors. I know all the formulas, before which the beings of darkness tremble, at whose utterance the solid earth is shaken and blazing comets dash across the sky, sending down pestilences upon the living. If you sacrifice yourself to your God, I will sacrifice Rome to mine, and will destroy it so utterly that the centuries will find only fragments of its royal purple."
The pallid girl trembled in her frowning sister's arms.
The latter now quietly fastened the anadem she had taken from her head in her sister's hair, and drew her veil over her face.
"There, now you are safe. If you are asked who rescued you, say that it was a stranger. I wish to cause no one sorrow. Never mention my name."
The weeping girl embraced her sister, from whom she could not bear to part. Glyceria herself urged her away:
"Go, hasten. Do not kiss me; it is not well to kiss me. Destruction is on my lips."