his
voice. Before it was over three panthers came bounding toward him. He
folded his arms, and looking up to heaven, his lips moved as if
murmuring prayers. The savage beasts fell upon him as he stood, and in a
few minutes he was torn in pieces.

Other wild animals were now let in. They bounded around the inclosure,
they leaped against the barrier, and in their rage assailed one another.
It was a hideous scene.

Into the midst of this a helpless band of prisoners were rudely thrust.
They were chiefly young girls, who were thus sacrificed to the
bloodthirsty passions of the savage Roman mob. The sight would have
moved to pity any heart in which all soft feelings had not been
blighted. But pity had no place in Rome. Cowering and fearful, the poor
young maidens showed the weakness of human nature when just confronted
with death in so terrible a form, but after a few moments faith resumed
its power, and raised them above all fear. As the beasts became aware of
the presence of their prey and began to draw near, these young maidens
joined hands, and raising their eyes to heaven, sang out a solemn chant
which rose clear and wondrously sweet upward to heaven:

"Unto Him that loved us
To Him that washed us from our sins
In his own blood;
To Him that made us kings and priests,
To God and the Father;
To Him be glory and dominion
Forever and ever.
Halleluiah. Amen!"

One by one the voices were hushed in blood, and agony, and death; one by
one the shrieks of anguish were mingled with the shouts of praise; and
these fair young spirits, so heroic under suffering and faithful unto
death, had carried their song to join it with the psalm of the redeemed
on high.

CHAPTER II.

THE PRETORIAN CAMP.

"Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feared God."

Marcellus was born in Gades, and had been brought up in the stern
discipline of a Roman army. He had been quartered in Africa, in Syria,
and in Britain, where he had distinguished himself not only by bravery
in the field but also by skill in the camp. For these reasons he had
received honors and promotions, and upon his arrival at Rome, to which
place he had come as the bearer of dispatches, he had so pleased the
emperor that he had been appointed to an honorable station among the
Pretorians.

Lucullus had never been out of Italy, scarcely indeed out of the city.
He belonged to one of the oldest and most noble Roman families,