n when the voices of several men were
heard in the very neighbourhood of the cottage; and hoping to effect a
diversion in favour of Caecilius, and being at once unsuspicious of danger
to herself, and careless of her life, she ran quickly forward to meet
them. Caecilius ought to have taken to flight without a moment's delay, but
a last sacred duty detained him. He knelt down and took the pyx from his
bosom. He had eaten nothing that day; but even if otherwise, it was a
crisis which allowed him to consume the sacred species without fasting. He
hastily opened the golden case, adored the blessed sacrament, and consumed
it, purifying its receptacle, and restoring it to its hiding-place. Then
he rose at once and left the cottage.

He looked about; Callista was nowhere to be seen. She was gone; so much
was certain, no enemy was in sight; it only remained for him to make off
too. In the confusion he turned in the wrong direction; instead of making
off at the back of the cottage from which the voices had scared him, he
ran across the garden into the hollow way. It was all over with him in an
instant; he fell at once into the hands of the vanguard of the mob.

Many mouths were opened upon him all at once. "The sorcerer!" cried one;
"tear him to shreds; _we'll_ teach him to brew his spells against the
city." "Give us back our grapes and corn," said a second. "Have a guard,"
said a third; "he can turn you into swine or asses while there is breath
in him," "Then be the quicker with him," said a fourth, who was lifting up
a crowbar to discharge upon his head. "Hold!" said a tall swarthy youth,
who had already warded off several blows from him, "hold, will you? don't
you see, if you kill him he can't undo the spell. Make him first reverse
it all; make him take the curse off us. Bring him along; take him to
Astarte, Hercules, or old Saturn. We'll broil him on a gridiron till he
turns all these canes into vines, and makes olive berries of the pebbles,
and turns the dust of the earth into fine flour for our eating. When he
has done all this he shall dance a jig with a wild cow, and sit down to
supper with an hyena."

A loud scream of exultation broke forth from the drunken and frantic
multitude. "Along with him!" continued the same speaker in a jeering tone.
"Here, put him on the ass and tie his hands behind his back. He shall go
back in triumph to the city which he loves. Mind, and don't touch him
before the time. If you kill him, you'