A woman fell into hysterics and screamed. Some called out that she prophesied, others that she spake with tongues. Baudillas appeased the excitement. “The tongue she speaks,” said he, “is the Ligurian of the Cebennæ, and all she says is that she wishes she were safe with her children in the mountains, and had never come into the town. Now, indeed, it seems that the evil days foreseen by Pantilius Narbo will come on the Church. The people might forget that the god was robbed of his victim, but not that his image has been defaced.”
“Well done, I say!” shouted a man, thrusting himself forward. His face was inflamed and his eyes dazed. “I—I, Tarsius the slave, and Marcianus, the deacon, are the only Christians with any pluck about us. Cowards that ye all are, quaking at the moment of danger—hares, ye are, hares afraid of the whistling of the wind in the grass. I—I——”
“Remove that man,” said the bishop. “He has been drinking.”
“I—I drinking. I have supped the precious [pg 91]Ambrussian wine, too good for the rag-tag. Dost think I would pour out to him who binds brooms? Or to her—a washerwoman from the mountains? Ambrussian wine for such as appreciate good things—gold as amber, thick as oil, sweet as honey.”
“Remove him,” said the bishop firmly.
Hands were laid on the fellow.
Then turning to Marcianus, Castor said sternly, “You have acted inconsiderately and wrongly, against the decrees of the Fathers.”
“Aye!—of men who were timorous, and forbade others doing that from which they shrank themselves. I have not so learned Christ.”
“Thou thyself mayest be strong,” said Castor, “but thine act will bring the tempest upon the Church, and it will fall upon the weak and young.”
“Such as cannot stand against the storm are good for naught,” said Marcianus. “But the storm is none of my brewing. It had arisen before I intervened. The escape of the lady Perpetua from the fountain—that was the beginning, I have but added the final stroke.”