lace. In that hope he ran forward, though every breeze brought not only
smoke, but sparks in thousands, which might raise a fire at the other
end of the alley and cut off his return.

At last he saw through the smoky curtain the cypresses in Linus's
garden.

The houses beyond the unoccupied field were burning already like piles
of fuel, but Linus's little "insula" stood untouched yet. Vinicius
glanced heavenward with thankfulness, and sprang toward the house though
the very air began to burn him. The door was closed, but he pushed it
open and rushed in.

There was not a living soul in the garden, and the house seemed
quite empty. "Perhaps they have fainted from smoke and heat," thought
Vinicius. He began to call,--

"Lygia! Lygia!"

Silence answered him. Nothing could be heard in the stillness there save
the roar of the distant fire.

"Lygia!"

Suddenly his ear was struck by that gloomy sound which he had heard
before in that garden. Evidently the vivarium near the temple of
Esculapius, on the neighboring island, had caught fire. In this vivarium
every kind of wild beast, and among others lions, began to roar from
affright. A shiver ran through Vinicius from foot to head. Now, a second
time, at a moment when his whole being was concentrated in Lygia, these
terrible voices answered, as a herald of misfortune, as a marvellous
prophecy of an ominous future.

But this was a brief impression, for the thunder of the flames, more
terrible yet than the roaring of wild beasts, commanded him to think of
something else. Lygia did not answer his calls; but she might be in a
faint or stifled in that threatened building. Vinicius sprang to the
interior. The little atrium was empty, and dark with smoke. Feeling for
the door which led to the sleeping-rooms, he saw the gleaming flame of
a small lamp, and approaching it saw the lararium in which was a cross
instead of lares. Under the cross a taper was burning. Through the head
of the young catechumen, the thought passed with lightning speed that
that cross sent him the taper with which he could find Lygia; hence he
took the taper and searched for the sleeping-rooms. He found one, pushed
aside the curtains, and, holding the taper, looked around.

There was no one there, either. Vinicius was sure that he had found
Lygia's sleeping-room, for her clothing was on nails in the wall, and
on the bed lay a capitium, or close garment worn by women next the body.
Vinicius seized that,