r nostrils. There were half a million people there, and every form
of disease, starvation, decomposition, filth and horror, all pent in
within a narrow compass. You know how the lion sheds smell behind the
Circus Maximus, acid and foul. It is like that, but there is a low,
deadly, subtle odour which lies beneath it and makes your very heart
sink within you. Such was the smell which came up from the city
to-night.

As I stood in the darkness, wrapped in my scarlet chlamys--for the
evenings here are chill--I was suddenly aware that I was not alone. A
tall, silent figure was near me, looking down at the town even as I was.
I could see in the moonlight that he was clad as an officer, and as I
approached him I recognized that it was Longinus, third tribune of my
own legion, and a soldier of great age and experience. He is a strange,
silent man, who is respected by all, but understood by none, for he
keeps his own council and thinks rather than talks. As I approached him
the first flames burst from the temple, a high column of fire, which
cast a glow upon our faces and gleamed upon our armour. In this red
light I saw that the gaunt face of my companion was set like iron.

"At last!" said he. "At last!"

He was speaking to himself rather than to me, for he started and seemed
confused when I asked him what he meant.

"I have long thought that evil would come to the place," said he. "Now
I see that it has come, and so I said 'At last!'"

"For that matter," I answered, "we have all seen that evil would come to
the place, since it has again and again defied the authority of the
Caesars."

He looked keenly at me with a question in his eyes. Then he said:

"I have heard, sir, that you are one who has a full sympathy in the
matter of the gods, believing that every man should worship according to
his own conscience and belief."

I answered that I was a Stoic of the school of Seneca, who held that
this world is a small matter and that we should care little for its
fortunes, but develop within ourselves a contempt for all but the
highest.

He smiled in grim fashion at this.

"I have heard," said he, "that Seneca died the richest man in all Nero's
Empire, so he made the best of this world in spite of his philosophy."

"What are your own beliefs?" I asked. "Are you, perhaps, one who has
fathomed the mysteries of Isis, or been admitted to the Society of
Mythra?"

"Have you ever heard," he asked, "of the Christians?"

"Yes,