o hold
back the populace, and by the time the soldiers had succeeded in driving
the excited mob away from their victims, both the young hearts, in the
midst of the triumph of their faith, in the midst of their hopes of an
eternal and blissful life, had ceased to beat for ever.

The occurrence disturbed the captain and made him very uneasy. This girl,
this beautiful boy, who lay before him pale corpses, had been worthy of a
better fate, and he might be made to answer for them; for the law forbade
that any Christian should be punished for his faith without a judge's
sentence. He therefore commanded that the dead should be carried at once
to the house to which they belonged, and threatened every one, who should
that day set foot in the Christian quarter, with the severest punishment.

The beggar went off, shrieking and shouting, to his brother's house to
tell the mistress that lame Martha, who had nursed her daughter to death,
was slain; but he gained an evil reward, for the poor woman bewailed
Selene as if she had been her own child, and cursed him and her
murderers.

Before sundown Hadrian arrived at Besa, where he found magnificent tents
pitched to receive him and his escort. The disaster that had befallen his
statue was kept a secret from him, but he felt anxious and ill. He wished
to be perfectly alone, and desired Antinous to go to see the city before
it should be dark. The Bithynian joyfully embraced this permission as a
gift of the gods; he hurried through the decorated high streets, and made
a boy guide him from thence into the Christian quarter. Here the streets
were like a city of the dead; not a door was open, not a man to be seen.

Antinous paid the lad, sent him away, and with a beating heart went from
one house to another. Each looked neat and clean, and was surrounded by
trees and shrubs, but though the smoke curled up from several of the
roofs every house seemed to have been deserted. At last he heard the
sound of voices. Guided by these he went through a lane to an open place
where hundreds of people, men, women and children, were assembled in
front of a small building which stood in the midst of a palm grove.

He asked where dame Hannah lived, and an old man silently pointed to the
little house on which the attention of the Christians seemed to be
concentrated. The lad's heart throbbed wildly and yet he felt anxious and
embarrassed, and he asked himself whether he had not better turn back and
return