hristian's prayers, to gain the use of your
power and station when the time to employ them should arrive. The hour
has now come when my part of the conditions of our engagement is to be
performed; the hour will yet come when your part shall be exacted from
you in turn! Do you wonder at what I have done and what I will do? Do
you marvel that a household drudge should speak thus to a nobleman of
Rome? Are you astonished that I risk so much as to venture on
enlisting you--by the sacrifice of the girl who now slumbers above--in
the cause whose end is the restoration of our fathers' gods, and in
whose service I have suffered and grown old? Listen, and you shall
hear from what I have fallen--you shall know what I once was!'

'I adjure you by all the gods and goddesses of our ancient worship, let
me hear you where I can breathe--in the garden, on the housetop,
anywhere but in this dungeon!' murmured the senator in entreating
accents.

'My birth, my parents, my education, my ancient abode--these I will not
disclose,' interrupted the Pagan, raising one arm authoritatively, as
if to obstruct Vetranio from approaching the door. 'I have sworn by my
gods, that until the day of restitution these secrets of my past life
shall remain unrevealed to strangers' ears. Unknown I entered Rome,
and unknown I will labour in Rome until the projects I have lived for
are crowned with success! It is enough that I confess to you that with
those sacred images whose fragments you have just beheld, I was once
lodged; that those sacred vestments whose remains you discerned at your
feet, I once wore. To attain the glories of the priesthood there was
nothing that I did not resign, to preserve them there was nothing I did
not perform, to recover them there is nothing that I will not attempt!
I was once illustrious, prosperous, beloved; of my glory, my happiness,
my popularity, the Christians have robbed me, and I will yet live to
requite it heavily at their hands! I had a guardian who loved me in my
youth; the Christians murdered him! A temple was under the rule of my
manhood; the Christians destroyed it! The people of a whole nation
once listened to my voice; the Christians have dispersed them! The
wise, the great, the beautiful, the good, were once devoted to me; the
Christians have made me a stranger at their doors, and outcast of their
affections and thoughts! For all this shall I take no vengeance? Shall
I not plot to rebuild my ruined