'I will hear it, if it is not to be kept.'
'It is for you to do with it as shall please you. I am the bosom friend, you may know, of Curio, the favorite slave of Fronto—'
'Must I not publish it?'
'Nay, that is not the matter, though it is somewhat to boast of. There is not Curio's fellow in all Rome. But that may pass. Curio then, as I was with him at the new temple, while he was busied in some of the last offices before the dedication, among other things, said: 'Is not thy master Piso of these Christians?' 'Yes,' said I, 'he is; and were they all such as he, there could be no truth in what is said of them.' 'Ah!' he replied, 'there are few among the accursed tribe like him. He has but just joined them; that's the reason he is better than the rest. Wait awhile, and see what he will become. They are all alike in the end, cursers, and despisers, and disbelievers, of the blessed gods. But lions have teeth, tigers have claws, knives cut, fire burns, water drowns.' There he stopped. 'That's wise,' I said, 'who could have known it?' 'Think you,' he rejoined, 'Piso knows it? If not, let him ask Fronto. Let me advise thee,' he added, in a whisper, though in all the temple there were none beside us, 'let me advise thee, as thy friend, to avoid dangerous company. Look to thyself; the Christians are not safe.' 'How say you,' I replied, 'not safe? What and whom are they to fear? Gallienus vexed them not. Is Aurelian——' 'Say no more,' he replied, interrupting me, 'and name not what I have dropped, for your life. Fronto's ears are more than the eyes of Argus, and his wrath more deadly than the grave.'
'Just as he ended these words, a strong beam of red light shot up from the altar, and threw a horrid glare over the whole dark interior. I confess I cried out with affright. Curio started at first, but quickly recovered, saying that it was but the sudden flaming up of the fire that had been burning on the altar, but which shortly before he had quenched. 'It is,' said he, 'an omen of the flames that are to be kindled throughout Rome.' This was Curio's communication. Is it not a secret worth knowing?'
'It tells nothing, Milo, but of the boiling over of the wrath of the malignant Fronto, which is always boiling over. Doubtless I should fare ill, were his power equal to his will to harm us. But Aurelian is above him.'
'That is true; and Aurelian, it is plain, is little like Fronto.'
'Very little.'
'But still I would that, like Gallienus, thou couldst only believe in the gods. The Christians, so it is reported, worship and believe in but a man,—a Jew,—who was crucified as a criminal, with thieves and murderers.' He turned upon me a countenance full of unaffected horror.
'Well, Milo, at another time I will tell you what the truth about it is. Here we are now, at the shop of Publius.'