“No. They belong to Simon Magus, and obey only his word.”
“Lead me to them.”
The old man made a touching appeal to these rough men for permission to see his niece. Some large gold coins that he offered them had more influence than his eloquence. The assurance of the keeper that he would shield them as far as possible, decided the matter; and Beltrezzor was admitted into Mary’s dungeon.
The meeting between uncle and niece was affecting in the extreme. Mary had greatly changed since her imprisonment. A deadly pallor pervaded her beautiful countenance, and she had the air of one whose delicate nerves had almost given way under prolonged terrors. The old man clasped her in his arms, and the bitter tears fell from his face upon her golden hair.
“Oh uncle!” said she, “is it not horrible to contemplate? A young girl stripped and thrown to a lion [pg 318]before thousands of people! Are they not devils in human form who can witness such things?”
She trembled; her eyeballs started with horror; the cold drops stood on her forehead; she clung frantically to her uncle.
“Oh! I have thought of it,” she said, “until I shall go mad! And then to hear the lion roaring at night! It is fearful. He is kept very, very near me. Is not that cruel, cruel? I hear every sound he makes. I hear him growling and crunching when they feed him. I hear him yawning and whining as he impatiently paces his cage. Then at night he roars as if he thought he was in the pathless forest. Oh it freezes me! I cannot eat. I cannot sleep. I shall die!”
The head of the young woman fell upon the old man’s breast.
“Have you never thought, my child,” he said, tremulously, “of saving your life by renouncing your religion?”
“No, uncle! never! never!”