' that was the phrase as I wrote it on
my tablets," sneered the prefect.

"Would that I could become one!" exclaimed the unhappy man.

"Suppose I take you at your word and believe you are one?" queried Naso
with a malignant leer.

"What new wickedness is this you have in your mind?" asked the Greek.

"How would you like to share the doom of your friends, the old Jew and
his pretty daughter, who are to be thrown to the lions to-day," went on
the remorseless man, toying with his victim like a tiger with its prey.

"Gladly, were I but worthy," said the Greek. "Had I their holy hopes, I
would rejoice to bear them company."

"But don't you see," said Naso, "a word of mine would send you to the
arena, whether you like it or not? Your neck is in the noose, my
handsome youth, and I do not think, with all your dexterity, you can
wriggle out of it."

"Oh! any fate but that!" cried the Greek, writhing in anguish. "Let me
die as a felon, a conspirator, an assassin, if you will; but not by the
doom of the martyrs."

"Well, you see," went on the prefect, "justice is meted out to the
Christians so much more swiftly and certainly than even against the
worst of felons, that I am tempted to take this plan to secure you your
deserts."

The craven-spirited Greek, to whom the very idea of death was torture,
blanched with terror and stood speechless, his tongue literally cleaving
to the roof of his mouth.

When the prefect perceived that he was sufficiently unnerved for his
final experiment he unveiled his diabolical purpose.

"Hark you, my friend," he whispered or rather hissed into his ear, "you
may do the State, yourself, and me a service, that will procure you life
and liberty and fortune. You know the way to the secret assemblies of
the accursed Christian sect; lead hither a maniple of soldiers and your
fortune's made."

"Tempter, begone!" exclaimed the Greek in a moment of virtuous
indignation, "you would make me worse than Judas whom the Christians
execrate as the betrayer of his Master whom they worship."

"As you please, my dainty youth," answered Naso, with his characteristic
gesture of clutching his sword. "Prepare to feed the lions on the
morrow," and he consigned him to a cell in the vaults of the Coliseum.

Very different was the night spent by this craven soul to that of the
destined martyrs. The darkness, to his distempered imagination, seemed
full of accusing eyes, which glared reproach and vengeance upon hi