ce, and by the time the soldiers had
succeeded in driving the excited mob away from their victims, both the
young hearts, in the midst of the triumph of their faith, in the midst
of their hopes of an eternal and blissful life, had ceased to beat for
ever.

The occurrence disturbed the captain and made him very uneasy. This
girl, this beautiful boy, who lay before him pale corpses, had been
worthy of a better fate, and he might be made to answer for them; for
the law forbade that any Christian should be punished for his faith
without a judge's sentence. He therefore commanded that the dead should
be carried at once to the house to which they belonged, and threatened
every one, who should that day set foot in the Christian quarter, with
the severest punishment.

The beggar went off, shrieking and shouting, to his brother's house
to tell the mistress that lame Martha, who had nursed her daughter
to death, was slain; but he gained an evil reward, for the poor woman
bewailed Selene as if she had been her own child, and cursed him and her
murderers.

Before sundown Hadrian arrived at Besa, where he found magnificent tents
pitched to receive him and his escort. The disaster that had befallen
his statue was kept a secret from him, but he felt anxious and ill. He
wished to be perfectly alone, and desired Antinous to go to see the
city before it should be dark. The Bithynian joyfully embraced this
permission as a gift of the gods; he hurried through the decorated
high streets, and made a boy guide him from thence into the Christian
quarter. Here the streets were like a city of the dead; not a door was
open, not a man to be seen.

Antinous paid the lad, sent him away, and with a beating heart went from
one house to another. Each looked neat and clean, and was surrounded
by trees and shrubs, but though the smoke curled up from several of the
roofs every house seemed to have been deserted. At last he heard the
sound of voices. Guided by these he went through a lane to an open place
where hundreds of people, men, women and children, were assembled in
front of a small building which stood in the midst of a palm grove.

He asked where dame Hannah lived, and an old man silently pointed to
the little house on which the attention of the Christians seemed to be
concentrated. The lad's heart throbbed wildly and yet he felt anxious
and embarrassed, and he asked himself whether he had not better turn
back and return next morning when he