The speaker was indeed Paulus--and yet--not Paulus; it was Menander, the
pride of the Palaestra, who had never let pass a word of his comrades
that did not altogether please him. And yet yesterday in the oasis he
had quietly submitted to far worse insults than Polykarp had offered
him, and had accepted them with contented cheerfulness. Whence then
to-day this wild sensitiveness and eager desire to fight?

When, two days since, he had gone to his old cave to fetch the last of
his hidden gold pieces, he had wished to greet old Stephanus, but the
Egyptian attendant had scared him off like an evil spirit with angry
curses, and had thrown stones after him. In the oasis he had attempted
to enter the church in spite of the bishop's prohibition, there to put
up a prayer; for he thought that the antechamber, where the spring was
and in which penitents were wont to tarry, would certainly not be closed
even to him; but the acolytes had driven him away with abusive words,
and the door-keeper, who a short time since had trusted him with the
key, spit in his face, and yet he had not found it difficult to turn his
back on his persecutors without anger or complaint.

At the counter of the dealer of whom he had bought the woollen coverlet,
the little jug, and many other things for Sirona, a priest had passed
by, had pointed to his money, and had said, "Satan takes care of his
own."

Paulus had answered him nothing, had returned to his charge with an
uplifted and grateful heart, and had heartily rejoiced once more in the
exalted and encouraging consciousness that he was enduring disgrace and
suffering for another in humble imitation of Christ. What was it then
that made him so acutely sensitive with regard to Polykarp, and once
more snapped those threads, which long years of self-denial had twined
into fetters for his impatient spirit? Was it that to the man, who
mortified his flesh in order to free his soul from its bonds it seemed
a lighter matter to be contemned as a sinner, hated of God, than to
let his person and his manly dignity be treated with contempt? Was he
thinking of the fair listener in the cave, who was a witness to his
humiliation? Had his wrath blazed up because he saw in Polykarp, not so
much an exasperated fellow-believer, as merely a man who with bold scorn
had put himself in the path of another man?

The lad and the gray-bearded athlete stood face to face like mortal
enemies ready for the fight, and Polykarp did n