set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased
anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all
the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this
ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself
a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chimaera."

"Well, but, Aristo," said Jucundus, "I was going to tell you who is at the
bottom of it all. Callista's mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo
was mad;--but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad;--and there, I
think, is the beginning of our troubles.----Come in! come in, Cornelius!" he
cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into
his lugubrious tone; "Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you
can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will."

Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and
came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he
went.

"That's kind!" answered Jucundus: "but first tell me all about this
dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any
clue what has become of my poor Agellius?"

Cornelius had not heard of the young man's troubles, and was full of
consternation at the news.

"What! Agellius really a Christian?" he said, "and at such a moment? Why,
I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order?"

"She's a Christian too," replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. "It's a
bad world!" he continued. "She's imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be
the end of it?"

Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious.

"You don't mean it?" said Jucundus. "Not anything so dreadful, I do trust,
Cornelius. Not the stake?"

Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous.

"Nothing in the way of torture?" he went on; "not the rack, or the
pitchfork?"

"It's a bad business, on your own showing," said Cornelius: "it's a bad
business!"

"Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius?" cried Aristo. "The great people in
Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I'd do anything for you!--I'd be
your slave! She's no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing
about her of the cut;--not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair.
She's a Greek from head to foot--within and without. She's as bright as the
day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because
you are a foreigner!" and the passionate youth be