“And did he too fall a victim?” inquired Esca, whose interest, notwithstanding occasional glances at the door through which Mariamne had gone out, seemed thoroughly awakened by the old man’s narrative.
“They might not crucify him,” answered Calchas, “for he was of noble lineage and a Roman citizen born; but they took him from amongst us, and they let him languish in a prison, till they released him at last and brought him out to be beheaded. Ay, Rome was a fearful sight that day; the foot was scorched as it trod the ashes of the devastated city, the eye smarted in the lurid smoke that hung like a pall upon the heavy air and would not pass away. Palaces were crumbling in ruins, the shrivelled spoils of an empire were blackening around, the dead were lying in the choked‐up highways half‐festering, half‐consumed—orphan children were wandering about starved and shivering, with sallow faces and large shining eyes, or, worse still, playing thoughtlessly, unconscious of their doom. They said the Christians had set fire to the city, and many an innocent victim suffered for this foul and groundless slander. The Christians, forsooth! oppressed, persecuted, reviled; whose only desire was to live in brotherhood with all men, whose very creed is peace and goodwill on earth. I counted twenty of them, men, women, and children, neighbours with whom I had held kindly fellowship, friends with whom I had broken bread, lying stiff and cold in the Flaminian Way on the morning Paul was led out to die. But there was peace on the dead faces, and the rigid hands were clasped in prayer; and though the lacerated emaciated body, the mere shell, was grovelling there in the dust, the spirit had gone home to God who made it, to the other world of which you have not so much as heard, yet which you too must some day visit, to remain for ever. Do you understand me? not for ages, but _for ever_—without end!”
“Where is it?” asked Esca, on whom the idea of a spiritual existence, innate from its very organisation in every intelligent being, did not now dawn for the first time. “Is it here, or there? below, or above? in the stars, or the elements? I know the world in which I live; I can see it, can hear it, can feel it; but that other world, where is it?”