ender, paternal, and
merciful sentiment, with which the words of Jesus were so often
impressed. The slave was giving way to these reflections, when she saw
the door of the cellar open where she was confined. Gremion, her master,
returned, accompanied by two men; one held a bundle of cords, the other
a leather scourge. Genevieve had never seen these men; they wore foreign
garments.--Seigneur Gremion descended the first steps of the staircase,
and said to Genevieve: 'Undress yourself!' The slave looked at her
master with as much surprise as fear, scarcely believing what she had
heard. He continued: 'Undress yourself, otherwise these men, the
assistants of the town executioner, shall tear off your clothes, to flog
you as you deserve!'

This cruel punishment, so often suffered by female slaves, Genevieve,
thanks to the kindness of the gods and of her mistress, had not yet
undergone; thus, in her terror, she could only join her hands, stretch
them towards her master, and supplicating, fall upon her knees. But
Gremion, standing aside to make way for the two men who had remained on
the top step of the staircase, said to them, 'Undress her! flog her well
till the blood comes. She shall remember assisting at the predictions of
this cursed Nazarene.'

Genevieve was at that time scarcely twenty-three, and her husband,
Fergan, had told her sometimes that she was pretty. She was, despite her
tears, her prayers, and powerless resistance, stripped of her garments,
bound to one of the pillars of the room, and presently her body was
wealed with the lashes of the whip. She had at first hoped that shame
and horror would deprive her of all consciousness. It was not so; but
she forgot the pain of the lashes, on finding herself a prey to the
curiosity of her tormentors, and on hearing the infamous jests they
exchanged whilst flogging her. Gremion, standing up with his arms
crossed, said, laughing diabolically: 'Did the Nazarene, the famous
Messiah, who dabbles in prophesying, predict to you what would happen,
Genevieve? Think you he was right in proclaiming the slave to be equal
with his master? By Jupiter! I now regret I did not have you flogged in
the middle of the public place. 'Twould have been a good lesson given on
your back to these brigands who believe in the seditious insolences of
their chief and friend, Jesus.'

When the two executioners were weary of flogging, one of them unbound
Genevieve, and her master said to her:

'You