No sooner had he uttered those words than Fronto exclaimed,
'Ah! hah! I have found thee then! This is the voice, thrice accursed! that came from the sacred Temple of the Sun! This, Romans, is the god whose thunder turned you pale.'
'Had it been my voice alone, priest, that was heard that day, I had been accursed indeed. I was out the humble instrument of him I serve—driven by his spirit. It was the voice of God, not of man.'
'These,' said Fronto, 'are the Christian devices, by which they would lead blindfold into their snares you, Romans, and your children. May Christ ever employ in Rome a messenger cunning and skilful as this prating god, and Hellenism will have naught to fear.'
'And,' cried Macer, 'let your priests be but like Fronto, and the eyes of the blindest driveler of you all will be unsealed. Ask Fronto into whose bag went the bull's heart, that on the day of dedication could not be found—
'Thou liest, Nazarene—'
'Ply him with your pincers,' cried Varus,—and the cruel irons were plunged into his flesh. Yet he shrunk not—nor groaned; but his voice was again heard in the midst of the torture,
'Ask him from whose robe came the old and withered heart, the sight of which so unmanned Aurelian—'
'Dash in his mouth,' shrieked Fronto, 'and stop those lies blacker than hell.'
But Macer went on, while the irons tore him in every part.