breathless with exhaustion; but still, with an
obstinacy that had in it something of the heroic, he never failed in
his fierce resolution to effect his escape.

Slowly and painfully, moving with the pace and the perseverance of the
tortoise, hopeless yet determined as a navigator in a strange sea, he
writhed onward and onward upon his unguided course, until he reaped at
length the reward of his long suffering, by the sudden discovery of a
thin ray of moonlight toiling through a crevice in the murky brickwork
before him. Hardly did the hearts of the Magi when the vision of 'the
star in the East' first dawned on their eyes, leap within them with a
more vivid transport, than that which animated the heart of Ulpius at
the moment when he beheld the inspiring and guiding light.

Yet a little more exertion, a little more patience, a little more
anguish; and he stood once again, a ghastly and crippled figure, before
the outer cavity in the wall.

It was near daybreak; the moon shone faintly in the dull, grey heaven;
a small, vaporous rain was sinking from the shapeless clouds; the
waning night showed bleak and cheerless to the earth, but cast no
mournful or reproving influence over the Pagan's mind. He looked round
on his solitary lurking place, and beheld no human figure in its lonely
recesses. He looked up at the ramparts, and saw that the sentinels
stood silent and apart, wrapped in their heavy watch-cloaks, and
supported on their trusty weapons. It was perfectly apparent that the
events of his night of suffering and despair had passed unheeded by the
outer world.

He glanced back with a shudder upon his wounded and helpless limb; then
his eyes fixed themselves upon the wall. After surveying it with an
earnest and defiant gaze, he slowly moved the brushwood with his foot,
against the small cavity in its outer surface.

'Days pass, wounds heal, chances change,' muttered the old man,
departing from his haunt with slow and uncertain steps. 'In the mines
I have borne lashes without a murmur--I have felt my chains widening,
with each succeeding day, the ulcers that their teeth of iron first
gnawed in my flesh, and have yet lived to loosen my fetters, and to
close my sores! Shall this new agony have a power to conquer me
greater than the others that are past? I will even yet return in time
to overcome the resistance of the wall! My arm is crushed, but my
purpose is whole!'

CHAPTER 13.

THE HOUSE IN THE SU