ved him against the
torment and misery of years in his slavery in the copper mines of Spain.

The precious moments were speeding irrevocably onwards. His impatience
was rapidly changing to rage and despair as he strained his eyes for
the last time in the direction of the palace gardens, and now at length
discerned a white robe among the distant trees. Vetranio was rapidly
approaching him.

Restored by his bath, no effect of the night's festivity but its
exhilaration remained in the senator's brain. But for a slight
uncertainty in his gait, and an unusual vacancy in his smile, the
elegant gastronome might now have appeared to the closest observer
guiltless of the influence of intoxicating drinks. He advanced,
radiant with exultation, prepared for conquest, to the place where
Ulpius awaited him, and was about to address the Pagan with that
satirical familiarity so fashionable among the nobles of Rome in their
communications with the people, when the object of his intended
pleasantries sternly interrupted him, saying, in tones more of command
than of advice, 'Be silent! If you would succeed in your purpose,
follow me without uttering a word!'

There was something so fierce and determined in the tones of the old
man's voice--low, tremulous, and husky though they were--as he uttered
those words, that the bold, confident senator instinctively held his
peace as he followed his stern guide into Numerian's house. Avoiding
the regular entrance, which at that early hour of the morning was
necessarily closed, Ulpius conducted the patrician through a small
wicket into the subterranean apartment, or rather outhouse, which was
his customary, though comfortless, retreat in his leisure hours, and
which was hardly ever entered by the other members of the Christian's
household.

From the low, arched brick ceiling of this place hung an earthenware
lamp, whose light, small and tremulous, left all the corners of the
apartment in perfect obscurity. The thick buttresses that projected
inwards from the walls, made visible by their prominence, displayed on
their surfaces rude representations of idols and temples drawn in
chalk, and covered with strange, mysterious hieroglyphics. On a block
of stone which served as a table lay some fragments of small statues,
which Vetranio recognised as having belonged to the old, accredited
representations of Pagan idols. Over the sides of the table itself
were scrawled in Latin characters these tw