She here dropped her voice; the momentary animation, with which devotion and affection had inspired her, vanished;—and a darkness overspread all her features, a livid darkness,—like the coming of death—that made me shudder through every limb. Seizing my hand convulsively, and looking at me with a fearful eagerness, as if anxious to hear some consoling assurance from my own lips,—“Believe me,” she continued, “not all the torments they are preparing for me,—not even this deep, burning pain in my brow, which they will hardly equal,—could be half so [pg 305]dreadful to me, as the thought that I leave thee—”
Here, her voice again failed; her head sunk upon my arm, and—merciful God, let me forget what I then felt,—I saw that she was dying! Whether I uttered any cry, I know not;—but the Tribune came rushing into the chamber, and, looking on the maiden, said, with a face full of horror, “It is but too true!”
He then told me in a low voice, what he had just learned from the guardian of the prison, that the band round the young Christian’s brow was—oh horrible cruelty!—a compound of the most deadly poison,—the hellish invention of Orcus, to satiate his vengeance, and make the fate of his poor victim secure. My first movement was to untie that fatal wreath,—but it would not come away—it would not come away!
Roused by the pain, she again looked in my face; but, unable to speak, took hastily from her bosom the small silver cross [pg 306]which she had brought with her from my cave. Having prest it to her own lips, she held it anxiously to mine, and seeing me kiss the holy symbol with fervour, looked happy, and smiled. The agony of death seemed to have passed away;—there came suddenly over her features a heavenly light, some share of which I felt descending into my own soul, and, in a few minutes more, she expired in my arms.
Here ends the Manuscript; but, on the outer cover there is, in the hand-writing of a much later period, the following Notice, extracted, as it appears, from some Egyptian martyrology:—
“Alciphron,—an Epicurean philosopher, converted to Christianity A. D. 257, by a young Egyptian maiden, who suffered martyrdom in that year. Immediately upon her death he betook himself to the desert, and lived a life, it is said, of much [pg 307]holiness and penitence. During the persecution under Dioclesian, his sufferings for the faith were most exemplary; and, being at length, at an advanced age, condemned to hard labour, for refusing to comply with an Imperial edict, he died at the brass mines of Palestine, A. D. 297.—
“As Alciphron held the opinions maintained since by Arius, his memory has not been spared by Athanasian writers, who, among other charges, accuse him of having been addicted to the superstitions of Egypt. For this calumny, however, there appears to be no better foundation than a circumstance, recorded by one of his brother monks, that there was found, after his death, a small metal mirror, like those used in the ceremonies of Isis, suspended round his neck.”