nd, in a
marble niche, stood an ugly image of the goddess Cybele, with her crown
of many towers, rudely carved out of olive wood, but quite embrowned,
and almost blackened with age. It was bedizened with costly jewels, and
was deemed to be of special sanctity. Before it was a small marble
altar, on which burned, day and night, a silver censer.

At the moment of which we write, Fausta approached the altar, and
kissing her hand to the image--an ancient mode of worship, from which we
get the word "adore"--she took some costly Sabean incense from a small
gold coffer, and sprinkled it on the glowing coals of the censer. Dense
white fumes arose, whose rich aromatic odour filled the large apartment.
Fausta had been an Illyrian peasant, and, notwithstanding her
embroidered robes and costly jewels, she still exhibited much of the
rude peasant character and lack of culture. Her coarse and wrinkled
features and swarthy complexion, were all the more striking by their
contrast with the snowy mantle, with its gold-embroidered border, which
she wore; and her bright black eyes glittered with an expression of
deadly malice like those of a serpent. While she stood before the altar,
a servant announced that Furca, the arch-priest of Cybele, had obeyed
her summons. As the curtain of the door was drawn aside, a little
weazened old man, as dark as mahogany, wearing a thick crop of snow
white hair, appeared.

"Thanks, good Furca," said Fausta, "I desire your counsel on a matter of
much importance to the State, and to the worship of the holy Cybele."

"At your service, your Excellency," said the obsequious priest, who also
kissed his hand to the black-faced image, and sprinkled a few grains of
incense on the censer.

"Thou knowest how the worship of the Galilean Christus has increased,
not only among the common people, the vile plebs, and the still viler
slave population, but even among the patricians and nobles. I have
evidence that even in this palace, and very near the throne, the
execrable superstition is cherished."

"Alas! your Excellency, I fear it is only too true," whined the bigot
arch-priest. "Certain it is that neither of the Empresses, Prisca or
Valeria, ever take part in the public worship of the gods, as from their
lofty station it is their duty to do."

"Yes, and I have reason to believe that there is plotting and conniving
between the Empress and the accursed Christian sect."

"Hast any proof of this?" asked the arch-p