Then suddenly her sorrow changed into a frenzy of rage.
Bacchis seized her by the hair.
Aphrodisia had come to herself again; but, paralysed by terror, and unable to understand what was happening, she remained speechless and tearless.
Bacchis seized her by the hair, dragged her over the soiled floor, through the flowers and pools of wine, and cried:
“The cross! the cross! bring the nails! bring the hammer!”
“Oh!” said Seso to her neighbour; “I have never seen that. Let us follow them.”
All pressed forward to follow. And Chrysis, who alone knew the guilty one, and was alone the cause of everything, Chrysis followed too.
Bacchis went straight into the slaves’ chamber, a square apartment furnished with three mattresses on which they slept in couples when the nights were over. At the lower end, like an ever-present menace, stood a T-shaped cross which had never yet been used.
In the midst of the confused murmur of the young men and women, four slaves hoisted the martyr to the level of the branches of the cross.