Freedom and life were in those cries. The crowds from the streets swept in at the doors like an advancing torrent. Varus and Fronto, followed by their myrmidons, vanished through secret doors in the walls behind them, and among the first to greet me and strike the chains from my limbs were Isaac and Demetrius.
'And where is the lady Julia?' cried Isaac.
'There!'
He flew to the platform, and, turning back the wheels, Julia was once more in my arms.
'And now,' I cried, 'what means it all? Am I awake or do I dream?'
'You are awake,' replied Demetrius. 'The tyrant is dead! and the senate and people all cry out for Tacitus.'
I now looked about me. The mob of priests was fled, and around me I beheld a thousand well-known faces of those who already had been released from their dungeons. Christians, and the friends of Christians, now filled the temple.
'We were led hither,' continued Demetrius, 'by your fast friend and the friend I believe of all, Isaac. None but he, and those to whom he gave the tidings, knew where the place of your confinement was; nor was the day of your trial publicly proclaimed, although we found the temple open. But for him we should have been, I fear, too late. But no sooner was the news of Aurelian's assassination spread through the city, than Isaac roused your friends and led the way.'
As Demetrius ceased, the name of "Tacitus Emperor," resounded again throughout the temple, and the crowds then making for the streets, about which they careered mad with joy, we were at liberty to depart; and accompanied by Isaac and Demetrius, were soon beneath our own roof upon the Cœlian.
With what joy then, in our accustomed place of prayer, did we pour forth our thanksgivings to the Overruling Providence, who had not only rescued ourselves from the very jaws of death, but had wrought out this great deliverance of his whole people! Never before, Fausta, was Christianity in such peril; never was there a man, who, like Aurelian, united to a native cruelty that could behold the shedding of blood with the same indifference as the flowing of water, a zeal for the gods and a love of country that amounted quite to a superstitious madness. Had not death interposed—judging as man—no power could have stayed that arm that was sweeping us from the face of the earth.