“I am a slave,” repeated the Briton, “and I shall be free. But not till death.”
“And after death?” proceeded the old man, in the same gentle inquiring tone.
“After death,” answered the other, “I shall be free as the elements I have been taught to worship, and into which they tell me I shall be resolved. What need I know or care more than that in death there will be neither pleasure nor pain?”
“And is not life with all its changes too sweet to lose on such terms as these?” asked the older man. “Are you content to believe that, like one walking through a quicksand, the footsteps you leave are filled up and obliterated behind you as you pass on? Can you bear to think that yesterday is indeed banished and gone for ever? That a to‐morrow must come of black and endless night? Death should be really terrible if this is your conviction and your creed!”
“Death is never terrible to a brave man,” answered Esca. “A Briton need not be taught how to die sword in hand.”
“You think you are brave,” said Calchas, looking wistfully on the other’s rising colour and kindling eyes. “Ah! you have not seen my comrades die, or you would know that something better than courage is required for the service to which we belong. What think ye of weak women, tender shrinking maidens, worn with fatigue, emaciated with hunger, fainting with heat and thirst, brought out to be devoured by beasts, or to suffer long and agonising tortures, yet smiling the while in quiet calm contentment, as seeing the home to which they are hastening, the triumph but a few short hours off? What think ye of the captains under whom I served, who here at Rome, in the face of Cæsar and his power, vindicated the honour of their Lord and died without a murmur for His cause? I was with Peter, I tell you, Peter the Galilean, of whom men talk to this day, of whom men shall never cease to talk in after ages, when he opposed to Simon’s magic arts his simple faith in the Master whom he served, and I saw the magician hurled like a stricken vulture to the ground. I was present when the fiercest and the wickedest of the Cæsars, returning from the expedition to Greece, wherein his buffooneries had earned the contempt even of that subtle nation of flatterers, sentenced him to death upon the cross for that he had dared to oppose Nero’s vices, and to tell Nero the truth. I heard him petition that he might be crucified with his head downward, as not worthy to suffer in the same posture as his Lord—and I can see him now, the pale face, the noble head, the dark keen eye, the slender sinewy form, and, above all, the self‐sustaining confidence, the triumphant daring of the man as he walked fearlessly to death. I was with Paul, the noble Pharisee, the naturalised Roman citizen, when he, alone amongst a crowd of passengers and a century of soldiers, quailed not to look on the black waves raging round our broken ship, and bade us all be of good cheer, for that every soul, to the number of two hundred and seventy‐five, should come safe to shore. I remember how trustfully we looked on that low spare form, that grave and gracious face with its kindly eyes, its bushy brows and thick beard sprinkled here and there with grey. It was the soul, we knew, that sustained and strengthened the weakly body of the man. The very barbarians where we landed acknowledged its influence, and would fain have worshipped him for a god. Nero might well fear that quiet, humble, trusting, yet energetic nature; and where the imperial monster feared, as where he admired, loved, hated, envied, or despised, the sentiment must be quenched in blood.”