There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. “My noble master,” said the constable, “she’s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot.”

“Cease your vile gutturals, you animal!” cried the officer, “or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius,” he said to a private, “kick him away, and bring the woman here.”

Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, “Mind what you are at, noble sir, it’s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don’t know what high places will say to it, but it’s your affair. Take notice,” he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, “yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty—I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of larvæ and maniæ before the end of the story.”

This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian’s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, “Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you.” And with these words he led the way to the Officium.