When the unhappy Isidorus discovered that through his cowardice and tergiversation, and through the confessions extorted from his distempered mind, a criminal charge had been trumped up against the fair Callirhoë, whose beauty and grace had touched his susceptible imagination, he was almost beside himself with rage and remorse. He protested to the Prefect Naso and his disreputable son, Calphurnius, that she was as innocent as an unweaned babe of the monstrous crime alleged against her—that of conspiracy to poison her beloved mistress.
"Accursed be the day," cried the wretched Isidorus, clenching his hands till his nails pierced the flesh, "accursed be the day when I first came to your horrid den to betray innocent blood. Would I had perished e'er it dawned."
"Hark you, my friend," said Naso, "do you remember by what means you promised to earn the good red gold with which I bought you?"
"Do not remind me of my shame in becoming a spy upon the Christians," cried the Greek with a look of self-loathing and abhorrence.
"Nay; 'by becoming one yourself,' that was the phrase as I wrote it on my tablets," sneered the prefect.
"Would that I could become one!" exclaimed the unhappy man.
"Suppose I take you at your word and believe you are one?" queried Naso with a malignant leer.
"What new wickedness is this you have in your mind?" asked the Greek.
"How would you like to share the doom of your friends, the old Jew and his pretty daughter, who are to be thrown to the lions to-day," went on the remorseless man, toying with his victim like a tiger with its prey.
"Gladly, were I but worthy," said the Greek. "Had I their holy hopes, I would rejoice to bear them company."