eaviness, my well-beloved brother, the butcher,
saying: Paul, make ready thy neck; then blessed Paul looked up into
heaven marking his forehead and his breast with the sign of the cross,
and then said anon: My Lord Jesus Christ, into thy hands I commend my
spirit, etc. And then without heaviness and compulsion he stretched
forth his neck and received the crown of martyrdom, the butcher so
smiting off his head. The blessed martyr Paul took the keverchief, and
unbound his eyes, and gathered up his own blood, and put it therein and
delivered to the woman, Then the butcher returned, and Plautilla met him
and demanded him, saying: Where hast thou left my master? The knight
answered: He lieth without the town with one of his fellows, and his
visage is covered with thy keverchief, and she answered and said: I have
now seen Peter and Paul enter into the city clad with right noble
vestments, and also they had right fair crowns upon their heads, more
clear and more shining than the sun, and hath brought again my
keverchief all bloody which he hath delivered me. For which thing and
work many believed in our Lord and were baptized. And this is that St.
Dionysius saith. And when Nero heard say this thing he doubted him, and
began to speak of all these things with his philosophers and with his
friends; and as they spake together of this matter, Paul came in, and
the gates shut, and stood tofore Caesar and said: Caesar, here is tofore
thee Paul the knight of the king perdurable, and not vanquished. Now
believe then certainly that I am not dead but alive, but thou, caitiff,
thou shalt die of an evil death, because thou hast slain the servants
of God. And when he had said thus he vanished away. And Nero, what for
dread and what for anger, he was nigh out of his wit, and wist not what
to do. Then by the counsel of his friends he unbound Patroclus and
Barnabas and let them go where they would.

And the other knights, Longinus, master of the knights, and Accestus,
came on the morn to the sepulchre of Paul, and there they found two men
praying, that were Luke and Titus, and between them was Paul. And when
Luke and Titus saw them they were abashed and began to flee, and anon
Paul vanished away, and the knights cried after them and said: We come
not to grieve you, but know ye for truth that we come for to be baptized
of you, like as Paul hath said whom we saw now praying with you. When
they heard that they returned and baptized them with great