uld end
in any way but one. He defied any two young people who loved each other,
to come to any but one conclusion. Agellius's mood was too excited, too
tragic to last. The sight of Callista in that dreadful prison, perhaps in
chains, waiting, in order to be free, for ability to say the words, "I am
not a Christian;" and that ability waiting for the same words from
himself, would bring the affair to a very speedy issue. As if he could
love a fancy better than he loved Callista! Agellius, too, had already
expressed a misgiving himself on that head; so far they were agreed. And,
to tell the truth, it was a very difficult transaction for a young man;
and giving our poor Agellius all credit for pure intention and firm
resolve, we really should have been very sorry to see him involved in a
trial, which would have demanded of him a most heroic faith and the
detachment of a saint. We, therefore, are not sorry that in matter of fact
he gained the merit of so virtuous a determination, without being called
on to execute it. For it so happened, that a most unexpected event
occurred to him not many hours afterwards, which will oblige us to take up
here rather abruptly the history of one of our other personages.

CHAPTER XXIII.

GURTA.

In the bosom of the woods which stretched for many miles from the
immediate environs of Sicca, and placed on a gravel slope reaching down to
a brook, which ran in a bottom close by, was a small, rude hut, of a kind
peculiar to Africa, and commonly ascribed to the wandering tribes, who
neither cared, nor had leisure for a more stable habitation. Some might
have called it a tent, from the goat's-hair cloth with which it was
covered; but it looked, as to shape, like nothing else than an inverted
boat, or the roof of a house set upon the ground. Inside it was seen to be
constructed of the branches of trees, twisted together or wattled, the
interstices, or rather the whole surface, being covered with clay. Being
thus stoutly built, lined, and covered, it was proof against the
tremendous rains, to which the climate, for which it was made, was
subject. Along the centre ridge or backbone, which varied in height from
six to ten feet from the ground, it was supported by three posts or
pillars; at one end it rose conically to an open aperture, which served
for chimney, for sky-light, and for ventilator. Hooks were suspended from
the r