"Excuse me, noble Sisinnius, if I arouse your fears or pain your feelings. You are not aware, perhaps, that an edict against the Christians has been this afternoon promulgated from the capital and on the plain of Mars. The two noble dames have been accused of belonging to the Christian conspiracy, and having been present early this morning at their secret meeting!"
This was said by Arthus in a tone of malicious insolence, which Sisinnius at another time would have subdued with contempt. But the tidings fell like a lightning-stroke upon him, paralyzed his self possession, and filled him with vague fears for his wife and her young friend.
"Please to rest," he said to Arthus, "for a few minutes in the atrium while the ladies get ready to accompany you." Then re-entering the parlor, he cautiously broke to them the news. But it had no effect on them as it had on him. They glanced smilingly at each other, and exclaimed, "Thanks to God," and announced their readiness to depart. Sisinnius urged Flavia to change her dress; but she declined.
"But this dress," he urged, "will witness against you and be your condemnation."
"Then I shall retain it. It is my bridal dress: is it fitting for the bride to leave it aside when going to meet her spouse?"
Addressing himself to Theodora, he found her of the same mind as Flavia.
"Alas! my poor wife!" he exclaimed, embracing her, "you too are resolved to die! Our lives have hitherto flowed along purely and musically as two streams which unite their currents and go laughing through the summer meadows. But we have reached the edge of a precipice, and may be separated for ever by death. I know the tiger-nature of Domitian. But I must gird myself to propitiate him. Oh! tell me that you will renounce this Christian sect! otherwise I have little hope."
"You know not, dear Sisinnius, what, you ask. Death shall not separate those who share in the future resurrection to a glorious immortality. Would you wish your wife to lose her hopes thereof in order to avoid a little temporal punishment? O my husband! I should die happily if I knew that you, too, had acknowledged the one true God and the Saviour of mankind who died to save us from sin and shame. I shall pray with my last breath, with my blood, that God may reveal himself to you. Then we would be again united in the world beyond the grave, never, never to be separated! For there is One above"—she looked and pointed upward, and Sisinnius imagined that there was something more than mortal about her—"there is One above who shall hereafter command the elements and force them to deliver up the portions of these mortal bodies that will have passed into their possession. Fire and water, earth and air, shall obey his order; and the ashes from the urn and the mould in the coffin, and the gaseous vapors in which our burned or corrupting flesh may evaporate will be restored; the bones shall stand up joint over joint in the tombs, and the flesh and nerves and sinews shall reclothe them, and the souls shall enter the arisen tenements of our bodies, and ascend like Jesus, triumphant, after having despised the sting of temporal death and achieved victory over the grave, to enjoy the unending, ineffable bliss prepared for those especially who by their blood confess him before men. Dear Sisinnius, if you be true to your own nature, if you do not stubbornly prevent the light from sinking into your mind and heart, I feel a presentiment that you shall know him, and shall then appreciate the littleness of earthly sufferings and death when endured for his love! Gladly do I proceed to resign the life of my body in order to secure that of my soul, particularly when it is given for him who for me, and for you, too, my husband, permitted himself to be nailed on a cross. With my very blood I shall beseech him to show you how great joy there is in suffering for his name, his person, and his cause. Dearest Lord Jesus!" she fervently prayed, sinking on her knees, "grant your unworthy servant this grace, and strengthen us in the hour of trial and combat to win the martyrs' fadeless palm!"
Sisinnius was affected to tears as he saw such proof of sincere devotion to himself, and at the same time to the religion of Christ. He thought that it could not be the religion it was described to be, when it could thus win and fill with happiness spirits so pure, so high, so unconscious of wickedness as those of Theodora and Flavia Domitilla.
Arthus was impatient. Impatient also was the Emperor Domitian. He was waiting in a large chamber of his palace, where, on an ivory altar, edged with gold, were placed two statues, one of Jupiter and the other of himself. A smoking censer swung in front of the altar, sustained on silver chains attached by a pulley to the ceiling. Soldiers with drawn swords stood in files along the sides of the room, while nearer to the altar were stalwart men, naked to the waist, and holding instruments of torture in their hands. These were Domitian's favorite gladiators, to utter a word against any of whom was certain death. Round their arms the veins and muscles swelled like twisted cords. The emperor was seated on a rich throne, the steps of which he at intervals descended and nervously paced the room. Terror sat on many faces as they saw his sunken eyes and knit brows. Terror, too, was in his own heart as he conjured up before his imagination the wide-spread and the hidden nature of the Christian conspiracy against his throne. Such he assumed it to be. Hence he had now surrounded himself with the gladiators, to whose fidelity and prowess he entrusted his safety against the dagger or the poisoned cup. Aurelian had been commissioned to lead a body of soldiers to the Appian Way, and to arrest Pope Clement and those with him. But he had returned without finding any trace of them, to the great chagrin of himself and the emperor. Those present heard the latter grinding his teeth like small wheels in machinery, and muttering broken curses with livid lips.