and there up the
side of the hill a tiny light glittered feebly. Taurus Antinor's senses
were only just sufficiently alert to keep in the right direction. The
house which he wished to reach was not more now than six hundred steps
away.

The darkness had become almost thick in its intensity, even the houses
were undistinguishable in the gloom. The two men stumbled as they
walked, loose stones detached themselves under their feet and their
heelless sandals slid in the mud. Once the Caesar lost his foothold
altogether; but for his convulsive hold on the praefect's arm he would
have measured his length in the mud.

Taurus Antinor felt after the wrench as if this must be the end, as if
body and brain and soul could not endure a moment longer and live.

A mist akin to the one that enveloped the hill seemed to fall over his
brain. He no longer walked now, he just tumbled along, blindly stumbling
at almost every step with that dead, dead weight upon his arm which an
invisible force compelled him to carry up the precipitous height to the
place of safety which was so far away.

"What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" asked that heavenly
murmur on the wings of memory. "For the Son of Man shall come in the
glory of the Father with His angels; and then He shall reward every man
according to his work."

With his burden lying like an insentient log on his arm, Taurus Antinor
fell up at last against the door of the house; his foot had stumbled
against its corner-stone.

A moment or two later the door was opened from within and the feeble
light of a tiny lamp was held above him whilst a kindly voice murmured:

"Who goes there?"

"The Caesar is in danger, and a fugitive. He asks shelter and protection
from thee," murmured Taurus Antinor feebly, "and I would lay down my
burden in thy house for I am weary and I would find rest."

"Enter friend," said the man simply.

The Caesar, trembling and nerveless, fell forward into the room.

The praefect of Rome lay unconscious upon its threshold but the
Christian had laid down his cross at the foot of the throne of God.

CHAPTER XXXIV

"Finally my brethren be strong."--EPHESIANS VI. 10.

The younger men were still inclined to rebel. They felt that they were
in great numbers and that they were strong: they believed--with that
optimism of excited youth--that their will must prevail in the end. In
their opinion the Caesar had done nothing to atone for his crime agai