ought he was dead; the flies clustered on his eyelids, but
suddenly he would reopen his bloodshot eyes. On the morning of the
fourth day, he sang, in a voice clearer and purer than that of a child--

"Tell us, Mary, what thou hast seen where thou hast been?"

Then he smiled and said--

"They come, the angels of the good Lord. They bring me wine and fruit.
How refreshing is the fanning of their wings!"

And he expired.

His features preserved in death an expression of ecstatic happiness.
Even the soldiers who guarded the cross were struck with wonder.
Vivantius, accompanied by some of the Christian brethren, claimed the
body, and buried it with the remains of the other martyrs in the crypt
of St. John the Baptist, and the Church venerated the memory of Saint
Theodore the Nubian.

Three years later, Constantine, the conquerer of Maxentius, issued an
edict which granted toleration to the Christians, and the believers were
not henceforth persecuted, except by heretics.

Thais had completed her eleventh year when her friend was tortured
to death, and she felt deeply saddened and shocked. Her soul was not
sufficiently pure to allow her to understand that the slave Ahmes was
blessed both in his life and his death. The idea sprang up in her little
mind that no one can be good in this world except at the cost of
the most terrible sufferings. And she was afraid to be good, for her
delicate flesh could not bear pain.

At an early age, she had given herself to the lads about the port, and
she followed the old men who wandered about the quarter in the evening,
and with what she received from them she bought cakes and trinkets.

As she did not take home any of the money she gained, her mother
continually ill-treated her. To get out of reach of her mother's arm,
she often ran, bare-footed, to the city walls, and hid with the lizards.
There she thought with envy of the ladies she had seen pass her, richly
dressed, and in a litter surrounded by slaves.

One day, when she had been beaten more brutally than usual, she was
crouching down beside the gate, motionless and sulky, when an old woman
stopped in front of her, looked at her for some moments in silence, and
then cried--

"Oh, the pretty flower! the beautiful child! Happy is the father who
begot thee, and the mother who brought thee into the world!"

Thais remained silent, with her eyes fixed on the ground. Her eyelids
were red, and it was evident she had been weeping.