'Away with him!' cried Varus, 'away with him to the rack, and tear him
joint from joint!'

At the word he was borne bleeding away, but not insensible nor
speechless. All along as he went his voice was heard calling upon God
and Christ, and exhorting the people to abjure their idolatries.

He was soon stretched again upon the rack, which now quickly finished
its work; and the Christian Macer, after sufferings which I knew not
before that the human frame could so long endure and live, died a martyr
to the faith he had espoused; the last words which were heard throughout
the hall being these;

'Jesus, I die for thee, and my death is sweet!'

When it was announced to the Prefect that Macer was dead, he exclaimed,

'Take the carcass of the Christian dog and throw it upon the square of
the Jews: there let the dogs devour it.'

Saying which, he rose from his seat, and, accompanied by Fronto, left by
the same way he had before entered the hall of judgment.

Soon as he had withdrawn from the apartment, the base rabble that had
filled it, and had glutted their savage souls upon the horrors of that
scene, cried out tumultuously for the body of the Christian, which, when
it was gladly delivered to them by those who had already had enough of
it, they thrust hooks into, and rushed out dragging it toward the place
ordained for it by the Prefect. As they came forth into the streets the
mob increased to an immense multitude of those, who seemed possessed of
the same spirit. And they had not together proceeded far, filling the
air with their cries and uttering maledictions of every form against the
unhappy Christians, before a new horror was proclaimed by that
blood-thirsty crew. For one of them, suddenly springing up upon the base
of one of the public statues, whence he could be heard by the greater
part, cried out,

'To the house of Macer! To the house of Macer!'

'Aye, aye,' shouted another, 'to the house of Macer, in the ruins behind
the shop of Demetrius!'

'To the house of Macer!' arose then in one deafening shout from the
whole throng; and, filled with this new frenzy, maddened like wild
beasts at the prospect of fresh blood, they abandoned there, where they
had dragged it, the body of Macer, and put new speed into their feet in
their haste to arrive at the place of the expected sport. I knew not
then where the ruins were, or it was possible that I might have got in
advance of the mob, and given timely warning to the