This speech found favor with the soldiers. One said, “There may be hundreds of these skulking Christians down there, and we are little more than half a dozen.”
“This is not the sort of work we receive our pay for,” added another.
“It’s their sorceries I care for,” continued a third, “and not their valor.”
It required all the eloquence of Fulvius to screw up their resolution. He assured them there was nothing to fear; that the cowardly Christians would run before them like hares, and that they would find more gold and silver in the church than a year’s pay would give them. Thus encouraged, they went groping down to the bottom of the stairs. They could distinguish lamps at intervals, stretching into the gloomy length before them.
“Hush!” said one, “listen to that voice!”
An Altar with its Episcopal Chair, in the Cemetery of Saint Agnes.
From far away its accents came, softened by distance, but they were the notes of a fresh youthful voice, that quailed not with fear; so clear, that the very words could be caught, as it intoned the following verses:
“Dominus illuminatio mea, et salus mea; quem timebo?
