The party reached the amphitheatre; it was crowded with spectators. Rumor had soon carried abroad the tidings that the triumphant general was to die by the lion’s mouth, for his Christianity. Some pitied him for what they called his folly: “What, die for a little incense thrown on the fire!” Others gloried in his expected death, for they hated the new faith. A few in secret prayed to God, to give their brother strength to undergo his fearful martyrdom, for they were Christians.
Eustace stood in the arena; his wife knelt by his side, his sons stood before him to meet the lion’s first bound. The crowd grew impatient—a sudden silence; a sound as of revolving hinges, and then a sullen roar, as with a bound the lion sprang into the centre of the amphitheatre. One look he cast on the youths; and then he bowed his head, crept to their feet and licked them; another, and another, was let loose; but the old lion kept guard over the family, and fought with the other lions, and drove them back to their dens.
“It is enough,” said the emperor, “he has a charm against the teeth of beasts; we will test his powers against the heat of fire; prepare the brazen ox.”
A fire was lighted beneath the animal, a vast hollow frame that represented an ox, and into the belly of which the victims were introduced through a door in the right side. As soon as it was heated to its utmost heat, the executioners hastened to throw their victims in; Eustace forbade them, and then clasping his wife in his arms, and followed by his sons, he moved slowly up the ladder that led to the horrid cell, and entered the belly of the brazen ox calmly and without fear.
For three days the fire was kept burning beneath the creature. On the third evening the beast was opened; within lay Eustace, his wife, and his sons, as it were in a deep and placid sleep. Not a hair of their heads was burnt, nor was the smell of fire upon their persons.
So died they all: the father, the wife, and the children. The people buried them with honor, and remembered with sorrow the martyrdom of the Christian general.
“The scene of the conversion,” said Thompson, “recalls to my mind Doddridge’s account of Colonel Gardiner, converted from his licentious life by an almost similar vision of our Saviour on the cross, and by an address not less effective than the words heard by the Eustace of your tale.”
“Few of my old monk’s tales are more true, in their leading features,” said Herbert, “than this of the trials of Eustace and his family. It has been told more than once as an authentic history, and you will find it alluded to in Butler’s ‘Lives of the Saints,’ where it is stated that a church at Rome was dedicated to the memory of St. Eustachius.”
“Surely the incident of the stag and the cross is very similar to that in the legend of St. Herbert.”
“Almost identical, Thompson,” rejoined Herbert; “in the foreign pictures the two incidents are generally depicted in nearly the same manner.”