istrust his own eyes.

The way seemed long to him. He knew the neighborhood exactly, but could
not fix places in the darkness. Every moment they came to some narrow
passage, or piece of wall, or booths, which he did not remember as being
in the vicinity of the city. Finally the edge of the moon appeared from
behind a mass of clouds, and lighted the place better than dim lanterns.
Something from afar began at last to glimmer like a fire, or the flame
of a torch. Vinicius turned to Chilo.

"Is that Ostrianum?" asked he.

Chilo, on whom night, distance from the city, and those ghostlike forms
made a deep impression, replied in a voice somewhat uncertain,--"I know
not, lord; I have never been in Ostrianum. But they might praise God in
some spot nearer the city."

After a while, feeling the need of conversation, and of strengthening
his courage, he added,--"They come together like murderers; still
they are not permitted to murder, unless that Lygian has deceived me
shamefully."

Vinicius, who was thinking of Lygia, was astonished also by the caution
and mysteriousness with which her co-religionists assembled to hear
their highest priest; hence he said,--"Like all religions, this has its
adherents in the midst of us; but the Christians are a Jewish sect.
Why do they assemble here, when in the Trans-Tiber there are temples to
which the Jews take their offerings in daylight?"

"The Jews, lord, are their bitterest enemies. I have heard that, before
the present Caesar's time, it came to war, almost, between Jews and
Christians. Those outbreaks forced Claudius Caesar to expell all the
Jews, but at present that edict is abolished. The Christians, however,
hide themselves from Jews, and from the populace, who, as is known to
thee, accuse them of crimes and hate them."

They walked on some time in silence, till Chilo, whose fear increased
as he receded from the gates, said,--"When returning from the shop of
Euricius, I borrowed a wig from a barber, and have put two beans in my
nostrils. They must not recognize me; but if they do, they will not kill
me. They are not malignant! They are even very honest. I esteem and love
them."

"Do not win them to thyself by premature praises," retorted Vinicius.

They went now into a narrow depression, closed, as it were, by two
ditches on the side, over which an aqueduct was thrown in one place. The
moon came out from behind clouds, and at the end of the depression
they saw a wall, cover