bed
before it came; fearing that her martyrdom would be deferred on that
account, because women with child were not allowed to be executed before
they were delivered: the rest also were sensibly afflicted on their part
to leave her alone in the road to their common hope. Wherefore they
unanimously joined in prayer to obtain of God that she might be
delivered against the shows. Scarce had they finished their prayer, when
Felicitas found herself in labor. She cried out under the violence of
her pain: one of the guards asked her, if she could not bear the throes
of childbirth without crying out, what she would do when exposed to the
wild beasts. She answered: "It is I that suffer what I now suffer; but
then there will be another in me that will suffer for me, because I
shall suffer for him." She was then delivered of a daughter, which a
certain Christian woman took care of, and brought up as her own child.
The tribune, who had the holy martyrs in custody, being informed by some
persons of little credit, that the Christians would free themselves out
of prison by some magic enchantments, used them the more cruelly on that
account, and forbade any to see them. Thereupon Perpetua said to him:
"Why do you not afford us some relief, since we are condemned by Caesar,
and destined to combat at his festival? Will it not be to your honor
that we appear well fed?" At this the tribune trembled and blushed, and
ordered them to be used with more humanity, and their friends to be
admitted to see them. Pudens, {538} the keeper of the prison, being
already converted, secretly did them all the good offices in his power.
The day before they suffered they gave them, according to custom, their
last meal, which was called a free supper, and they ate in public. But
the martyrs did their utmost to change it into an Agape, or Love-feast.
Their chamber was full of people, whom they talked to with their usual
resolution, threatening them with the judgments of God, and extolling
the happiness of their own sufferings. Saturus, smiling at the curiosity
of those that came to see them, said to them, "Will not to-morrow
suffice to satisfy your inhuman curiosity in our regard? However you may
seem now to pity us, to-morrow you will clap your hands at our death,
and applaud our murderers. But observe well our faces, that you may know
them again at that terrible day when all men shall be judged." They
spoke with such courage and intrepidity, as astonished the