, 'your friends must be few, that you should be left in
this place of horror, alone, to meet your fate.'

'I have no friend powerful enough, on earth at least, to cope with the
omnipotence of Aurelian,' replied Probus.

'Thy friends, Christian, are more, and more potent than thou dreamest
of. As I said to thee before, even Aurelian esteems thee.'

'Strange, that, if he esteems me, as thou sayest, he should thrust me
within the lions' den, with prospect of no escape but into their jaws.
And can I suppose that his esteem is worth much to me who crowds his
prisons with those who are nearest to me, reserving them there for a
death the most cruel and abhorred?'

'He may esteem thee, Probus, and not thy faith. 'Tis so with me. I like
not thy faith, but truly do I say it, I like thee, and would fain serve
and save thee. Nay, 'tis thy firmness and thy zeal in the cause thou
hast espoused that wins me. I honor those virtues. But, Probus, in thee
they are dangerous ones. The same qualities in a worthier cause would
make thee great. That which thou hast linked thyself to, Christian, is a
downward and a dying one. Its doom is sealed. The word of Aurelian is
gone forth, and, before the Ides, the blood of every Christian in Rome
shall flow--and not in Rome only, but throughout the empire. The forces
are now disposing over the whole of this vast realm, which, at a sign
from the great Head, shall fall upon this miserable people, and their
very name shall vanish from the earth. It is vain to contend. It is but
the struggling of a man with the will and the arm of Jove--'

'Varus!--' Probus began.

'Nay,' said the Prefect, 'listen first. This faith of thine, Christian,
which can thus easily be destroyed, cannot be that divine and holy thing
thou deemest it. So judges Porphyrius, and all of highest mark here in
Rome. It is not to be thought of one moment as possible, that what a God
made known to man for truth, he should afterward leave defenceless, to
be trodden to the dust, and its ministers and disciples persecuted,
tormented, and exterminated by human force. Christian, thou hast been
deceived--and all thy fellows are in the like delusion. Do thou then
save both thyself and them. It is in thy power to stop all this effusion
of blood, and restore unity and peace to an empire now torn and bleeding
in every part.'

'And how, Varus--seeing thou wouldst that I should hear all--how shall
it be done?'

'Embrace, Probus, the faith of R