; and where He is, there evil cannot come."

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FOOTNOTES:

[35] Lactantius, _De Mortibus Persecutorum._

[36] Tertull, _Ad Uzorem_, ii. 8.

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CHAPTER XXI.

A CRIME PREVENTED.

The deadly malice of Fausta, Furca, and Naso towards the Empress
Valeria, foiled in its attempt to invoke upon her the penalties of the
edict against the Christians, sought, by secret means, to procure her
death. Juba, the black slave, was heavily bribed to prepare some of her
most subtle poisons and procure their administration. But here a
difficulty presented itself, and it is a striking illustration of the
corruption of the Empire and of the daily peril in which the inhabitants
of the Imperial palace dwelt--a state of peril which finds its modern
analogue only in the continual menace under which the Czar of all the
Russias lives, with a sword of Damocles suspended by a single hair above
his head. Such was the atmosphere of suspicion which pervaded the whole
palace, such the dread of assassination or of poisoning, that trusty
guards and officers swarmed in the ante-chambers and prevented access to
the members of the Imperial family except under the most rigid
precautions of safety; and a special officer was appointed, whose duty,
as his title of _Pr[ae]gustalor_ implies, was to taste every kind of food
or drink provided for the Imperial table. Regard for his personal safety
was, of course, a guarantee that the utmost precautions were observed in
preparing the daily food of the Imperial household. Juba in vain
attempted to bribe some of the kitchen scullions and cooks to mix with
the savoury viands designed for the use of Valeria, who generally
lunched in her private apartments, a potent poison. They accepted,
indeed, her bribes, but prudently declined to carry out their part of
the agreement, well knowing that she dare not venture to criminate
herself by an open rupture with them.

At length she resolved on attempting a more subtle but less certain mode
of administering a deadly drug. While in the service of a priest of Isis
in Egypt, she had extorted or cajoled from an Abyssinian slave in his
service certain dark secrets, learned it was said by the Queen of Sheba
from Solomon, and handed down from age to age as the esoteric lore of
the realm. One of these was the preparation of a volatile poison so
subtle and powerful that its mere inhalation was of deadly potency. As a
means of conveying this to