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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 “It is useless,” she replied, “to tempt me longer. My resolution is
unalterable. I despise thy false divinities, and can only love and serve the
one living God. Eternal Ruler, open wide the heavenly gates, until lately
closed to man. Blessed Christ, call to Thee the soul that cleaveth unto Thee:
victim first to Thee by virginal consecration; now to Thy Father by
martyrdom’s immolation.”[207]
“I waste time, I see,” said the impatient prefect, who saw symptoms of
compassion rising in the multitude. “Secretary, write the sentence. We
condemn Agnes, for contempt of the imperial edicts, to be punished by the
sword.”
“On what road, and at what mile-stone, shall the judgment be
executed?”[208] asked the headsman.
“Let it be carried into effect at once,” was the reply.
Agnes raised for one moment her hands and eyes to heaven, then calmly
knelt down. With her own hands she drew forward her silken hair over her
head, and exposed her neck to the blow.[209] A pause ensued, for the
executioner was trembling with emotion, and could not wield his sword.
[210] As the child knelt alone, in her white robe, with her head inclined, her
arms modestly crossed upon her bosom, and her amber locks hanging
almost to the ground, and veiling her features, she might not unaptly have
been compared to some rare plant, of which the slender stalk, white as the
lily, bent with the luxuriancy of its golden blossom.
The judge angrily reproved the executioner for his hesitation, and bid
him at once do his duty. The man passed the back of his rough left hand
across his eyes, as he raised his sword. It was seen to flash for an instant in
the air; and the next moment, flower and stem were lying scarcely displaced
on the ground. It might have been taken for the prostration of prayer, had
not the white robe been in that minute dyed into a rich crimson—washed in
the blood of the Lamb.
The man on the judge’s right hand had looked with unflinching eye upon
the stroke, and his lip curled in a wicked triumph over the fallen. The lady
opposite had turned away her head, till the murmur, that follows a
suppressed breath in a crowd, told her all was over. She then boldly
advanced forward, unwound from round her person her splendid brocaded
mantle, and stretched it as a pall, over the mangled body. A burst of
applause followed this graceful act of womanly feeling,[211] as the lady
stood, now in the garb of deepest mourning, before the tribunal.
“Sir,” she said in a tone clear and distinct, but full of emotion, “grant me
one petition. Let not the rude hands of

The Christian Martyr.

your servants again touch and profane the hallowed remains of her, whom I
have loved more than any thing on earth; but let me bear them hence to the
sepulchre of her fathers; for she was noble as she was good.”
Tertullus was manifestly irritated, as he replied: “Madam, whoever you
may be, your request cannot be granted. Catulus, see that the body be cast,
as usual, into the river, or burnt.”
 “I entreat you, sir,” the lady earnestly insisted, “by every claim which
female virtue has upon you, by any tear which a mother has shed over you,
by every soothing word which a sister has ever spoken to you, in illness or
sorrow; by every ministration of their gentle hands, I implore you to grant
my humble prayer. And if, when you return home this evening, you will be
met at the threshold by daughters, who will kiss your hand, though stained
with the blood of one, whom you may feel proud if they resemble, be able
to say to them, at least, that this slightest tribute to the maidenly delicacy
which they prize has not been refused.”
Such common sympathy was manifested that Tertullus, anxious to check
it, asked her sharply:
“Pray, are you, too, a Christian?”
She hesitated for one instant, then replied, “No, sir, I am not; but I own
that if anything could make me one, it would be what I have seen this day.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, that to preserve the religion of the empire such beings as she
whom you have slain” (her tears interrupted her for a moment) “should
have to die; while monsters who disgrace the shape and name of man
should have to live and flourish. Oh, sir, you know not what you have
blotted out from earth this day! She was the purest, sweetest, holiest thing I
ever knew upon it, the very flower of womanhood, though yet a child. And
she might have lived yet, had she not scorned the proffered hand of a vile
adventurer, who pursued her with his loathsome offers into the seclusion of
her villa, into the sanctuary of her home, and even into the last retreat of her
dungeon. For this she died, that she would not endow with her wealth, and
ennoble by her alliance, that Asiatic spy.”
She pointed with calm scorn at Fulvius, who bounded forward, and
exclaimed with fury: “She lies, foully and calumniously, sir. Agnes openly
confessed herself a Christian.”
“Bear with me, sir,” replied the lady, with noble dignity, “while I convict
him; and look on his face for proof of what I say. Didst thou not, Fulvius,
early this morning, seek that gentle child in her cell, and deliberately tell her
(for unseen, I heard you) that if she would but accept thy hand, not only
wouldst thou save her life, but, despising the imperial commands, secure
her still remaining a Christian?”
 Fulvius stood, pale as death: stood, as one does for a moment who is
shot through the heart, or struck by lightning. He looked like a man on
whom sentence is going to be pronounced,—not of death, but of eternal
pillory, as the judge addressed him, saying:
“Fulvius, thy very look confirms this grievous charge. I could arraign
thee on it, for thy head, at once. But take my counsel, begone hence forever.
Flee, and hide thyself, after such villany, from the indignation of all just
men, and from the vengeance of the gods. Show not thy face again here, nor
in the Forum, nor in any public place of Rome. If this lady pleases, even
now I will take her deposition against thee. Pray, madam,” he asked most
respectfully, “may I have the honor of knowing your name?”
“Fabiola,” she replied.
The judge was now all complacency, for he saw before him, he hoped,
his future daughter-in-law. “I have often heard of you, madam,” he said,
“and of your high accomplishments and exalted virtues. You are, moreover,
nearly allied to this victim of treachery, and have a right to claim her body.
It is at your disposal.” This speech was interrupted at its beginning by a
loud hiss and yell that accompanied Fulvius’s departure. He was pale with
shame, terror, and rage.
Fabiola gracefully thanked the prefect, and beckoned to Syra, who
attended her. The servant again made a signal to some one else; and
presently four slaves appeared bearing a lady’s litter. Fabiola would allow
no one but herself and Syra to raise the relics from the ground, place them
on the litter, and cover them with their precious pall. “Bear this treasure to
its own home,” she said, and followed as mourner with her maid. A little
girl, all in tears, timidly asked if she might join them.

A Blood Urn, used as a mark for

a martyr’s grave.
 “Who art thou?” asked Fabiola.
“I am poor Emerentiana, her foster-sister,” replied the child; and Fabiola
led her kindly by the hand.
The moment the body was removed, a crowd of Christians, children,
men, and women, threw themselves forward, with sponges and linen cloths,
to gather up the blood. In vain did the guards fall on them, with whips,
cudgels, and even with sharper weapons, so that many mingled their own
blood with that of the martyr. When a sovereign, at his coronation, or on
first entering his capital, throws, according to ancient custom, handfuls of
gold and silver coins among the crowd, he does not create a more eager
competition for his scattered treasures, than there was among those
primitive Christians, for what they valued more than gold or precious
stones, the ruby drops which a martyr had poured from his heart for his
Lord. But all respected the prior claim of one; and here it was the deacon
Reparatus, who, at risk of life, was present, phial in hand, to gather the
blood of Agnes’s testimony; that it might be appended, as a faithful seal, to
the record of martyrdom on her tomb.

The Resurrection of Lazarus,

from the Cemetery of St.
Domitilla.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE SAME DAY: ITS THIRD PART.

ERTULLUS hastened at once to the palace: fortunately, or unfortunately,
for these candidates for martyrdom. There he met Corvinus, with the
prepared rescript, elegantly engrossed in unical, that is, large capital letters.
He had the privilege of immediate admission into the imperial presence;
and, as a matter of business, reported the death of Agnes, exaggerated the
public feeling likely to be caused by it, attributed it all to the folly and
 mismanagement of Fulvius, whose worst guilt he did not
disclose for fear of having to try him, and thus bringing
out what he was now doing; depreciated the value of
Agnes’s property, and ended by saying that it would be a
gracious act of clemency, and one sure to counteract
unpopular feelings, to bestow it upon her relative, who by
settlement was her next heir. He described Fabiola as a
young lady of extraordinary intellect and wonderful
learning, who was most zealously devoted to the worship
of the gods, and daily offered sacrifice to the genius of the
emperors.
“I know her,” said Maximian, laughing, as if at the recollection of
something very droll. “Poor thing! she sent me a splendid ring, and
yesterday asked me for that wretched Sebastian’s life, just as they had
finished cudgelling him to death.” And he laughed immoderately, then
continued: “Yes, yes, by all means; a little inheritance will console her, no
doubt, for the loss of that fellow. Let a rescript be made out, and I will sign
it.”
Tertullus produced the one prepared, saying he had fully relied on the
emperor’s magnanimous clemency; and the imperial barbarian put a
signature to it which would have disgraced a schoolboy. The prefect at once
consigned it to his son.
Scarcely had he left the palace, when Fulvius entered. He had been home
to put on a proper court attire, and remove from his features, by the bath
and the perfumer’s art, the traces of his morning’s passion. He felt a keen
presentiment that he should be disappointed. Eurotas’s cool discussion of
the preceding evening had prepared him; the cross of all his designs, and his
multiplied disappointments that day, had strengthened this instinctive
conviction. One woman, indeed, seemed born to meet and baffle him
whichever way he turned; but, “thank the gods,” he thought, “she cannot be
in my way here. She has this morning blasted my character for ever; she
cannot claim my rightful reward; she has made me an outcast; it is not in
her power to make me a beggar.” This seemed his only ground of hope.
Despair, indeed, urged him forward; and he determined to argue out his
claims to the confiscated property of Agnes, with the only competitor he
could fear, the rapacious emperor himself. He might as well risk his life
over it, for if he failed, he was utterly ruined. After waiting some time, he
entered the audience-hall, and advanced with the blandest smile that he
could muster to the imperial feet.
“What want you here?” was his first greeting.
“Sire,” he replied, “I have come humbly to pray your royal justice, to
order my being put into immediate possession of my share of the Lady
Agnes’s property. She has been convicted of being a Christian upon my
accusation, and she has just suffered the merited penalty of all who disobey
the imperial edicts.”
“That is all quite right; but we have heard how stupidly you mismanaged
the whole business as usual, and have raised murmurings and discontent in
the people against us. So, now, the sooner you quit our presence, palace,
and city, the better for yourself. Do you understand? We don’t usually give
such warnings twice.”
“I will obey instantly every intimation of the supreme will. But I am
almost destitute. Command what of right is mine to be delivered over to me,
and I part immediately.”
“No more words,” replied the tyrant, “but go at once. As to the property
which you demand with so much pertinacity, you cannot have it. We have
made over the whole of it, by an irrevocable rescript, to an excellent and
deserving person, the Lady Fabiola.”
Fulvius did not speak another word; but kissed the emperor’s hand and
slowly retired. He looked a ruined, broken man. He was only heard to say,
as he passed out of the gate: “Then, after all, she has made me a beggar
too.” When he reached home, Eurotas, who read his answer in his nephew’s
eye, was amazed at his calmness.
“I see,” he drily remarked, “it is all over.”
“Yes; are your preparations made, Eurotas?”
“Nearly so. I have sold the jewels, furniture, and slaves, at some loss;
but, with the trifle I had in hand, we have enough to take us safe to Asia. I
have retained Stabio, as the most trusty of our servants; he will carry our
small travelling requisites on his horse. Two others are preparing for you
and me. I have only one thing more to get for our journey, and then I am
ready to start.”
“Pray what is that?”
“The poison. I ordered it last night, but it will only be ready at noon.”
 “What is that for?” asked Fulvius, with some alarm.
“Surely you know,” rejoined the other, unmoved. “I am willing to make
one more trial any where else; but our bargain is clear; my father’s family
must not end in beggary. It must be extinguished in honor.”
Fulvius bit his lip, and said, “Well, be it as you like, I am weary of life.
Leave the house as soon as possible, for fear of Ephraim, and be with your
horses at the third mile on the Latin gate soon after dusk. I will join you
there. For I, too, have an important matter to transact before I start.”
“And what is that?” asked Eurotas, with a rather keen curiosity.
“I cannot tell even you. But if I am not with you by two hours after
sunset, give me up, and save yourself without me.”
Eurotas fixed upon him his cold dark eye, with one of those looks which
ever read Fulvius through; to see if he could detect any lurking idea of
escape from his gripe. But his look was cool and unusually open, and the
old man asked no more. While this dialogue was going on, Fulvius had
been divesting himself of his court garments, and attiring himself in a
travelling suit. So completely did he evidently prepare himself for his
journey, without necessity of returning home, that he even took his weapons
with him; besides his sword, securing in his girdle, but concealed under his
cloak, one of those curved daggers, of highest temper and most fatal form,
which were only known in the East.
Eurotas proceeded at once to the Numidian quarters in the palace, and
asked for Jubala; who entered with two small flasks of different sizes, and
was just going to give some explanations, when her husband, half-drunk,
half-furious, was seen approaching. Eurotas had just time to conceal the
flasks in his belt, and slip a coin into her hand, when Hyphax came up. His
wife had mentioned to him the offers which Eurotas had made to her before
marriage, and had excited in his hot African blood a jealousy that amounted
to hatred. The savage rudely thrust his wife out of the apartment, and would
have picked a quarrel with the Syrian; had not the latter, his purpose being
accomplished, acted with forbearance, assured the archer-chief that he
should never more see him, and retired.
It is time, however, that we return to Fabiola. The reader is probably
prepared to hear us say, that she returned home a Christian: and yet it was
not so. For what as yet did she know of Christianity, to be said to profess it?
In Sebastian and Agnes she had indeed willingly admired the virtue,
unselfish, generous, and more than earthly, which now she was ready to
attribute to that faith. She saw that it gave motives of actions, principles of
life, elevation of mind, courage of conscience, and determination of
virtuous will, such as no other system of belief ever bestowed. And even if,
as she now shrewdly suspected, and intended in calmer moments to
ascertain, the sublime revelations of Syra, concerning an unseen sphere of
virtue, and its all-seeing Ruler, came from the same source, to what did it all
amount more than to a grand moral and intellectual system, partly practical,
partly speculative, as all codes of philosophic teaching were? This was a
very different thing from Christianity. She had as yet heard nothing of its
real and essential doctrines, its fathomless, yet accessible, depths of
mystery; the awful, vast, and heaven-high structure of faith, which the
simplest soul may contain; as a child’s eye will take in the perfect reflection
and counterpart of a mountain, though a giant cannot scale it. She had never
heard of a God, One in Trinity; of the co-equal Son incarnate for man. She
had never been told of the marvellous history, of Redemption by God’s
sufferings and death. She had not heard of Nazareth, or Bethlehem, or
Calvary. How could she call herself a Christian, or be one, in ignorance of
all this?
How many names had to become familiar and sweet to her which as yet
were unknown, or barbarous—Mary, Joseph, Peter, Paul, and John? Not to
mention the sweetest of all, His, whose name is balm to the wounded heart,
or as honey dropping from the broken honeycomb. And how much had she
yet to learn about the provision for salvation on earth, in the Church, in
grace, in sacraments, in prayer, in love, in charity to others! What
unexplored regions lay beyond the small tract which she had explored!
No; Fabiola returned home, exhausted almost by the preceding day and
night, and the sad scenes of the morning, and retired to her own apartment,
no longer perhaps even a philosopher, yet not a Christian. She desired all
her servants to keep away from the court which she occupied, that she
might not be disturbed by the smallest noise; and she forbade any one to
have access to her. There she sat in loneliness and silence, for several hours,
too excited to obtain rest from slumber. She mourned long over Agnes, as a
mother might over a child suddenly carried off. Yet, was there not a tinge of
light upon the cloud that overshadowed her, more than when it hung over
her father’s bier? Did it not seem to her an insult to reason, an outrage to
humanity, to think that she had perished; that she had been permitted to
walk forward in her bright robe, and with her smiling countenance, and
with her joyous, simple heart, straight on—into nothing; that she had been
allured by conscience, and justice, and purity, and truth, on, on, till with
arms outstretched to embrace them, she stepped over a precipice, beneath
which yawned annihilation? No. Agnes, she felt sure, was happy somehow,
somewhere; or justice was a senseless word.
“How strange,” she further thought, “that every one whom I have known
endowed with superior excellence, men like Sebastian, women like Agnes,
should turn out to have belonged to the scorned race of Christians! One
only remains, and to-morrow I will interrogate her.”
When she turned from these, and looked round upon the heathen world,
Fulvius, Tertullus, the Emperor, Calpurnius,—nay, she shuddered as she
surprised herself on the point of mentioning her own father’s name—it
sickened her to see the contrast of baseness with nobleness, vice with
virtue, stupidity with wisdom, and the sensual with the spiritual. Her mind
was thus being shaped into a mould, which some form of practical
excellence must be found to fill, or it must be broken; her soul was craving
as a parched soil, which heaven must send its waters to refresh, or it must
become an eternal desert.
Agnes, surely, well deserved the glory of gaining, by her death, her
kinswoman’s conversion; but was there not one, more humble, who had
established a prior claim? One who had given up freedom, and offered life,
for this unselfish gain?
While Fabiola was alone and desolate, she was disturbed by the entrance
of a stranger, introduced under the ominous title of “A messenger from the
emperor.” The porter had at first denied him admittance; but upon being
assured that he bore an important embassy from the sovereign, he felt
obliged to inquire from the steward what to do; when he was informed that
no one with such a claim could be refused entrance.
Fabiola was amazed, and her displeasure was somewhat mitigated, by
the ridiculous appearance of the person deputed in such a solemn character.
It was Corvinus, who with clownish grace approached her, and in a studied
speech, evidently got up very floridly, and intrusted to a bad memory, laid at
her feet an imperial rescript, and his own sincere affection, the Lady
Agnes’s estates, and his clumsy hand. Fabiola could not at all comprehend
the connection between the two combined presents, and never imagined that
the one was a bribe for the other. So she desired him to return her humble
thanks to the emperor for his gracious act; adding, “Say that I am too ill to-
day to present myself, and do him homage.”
“But these estates, you are aware, were forfeited and confiscated,” he
gasped out in great confusion, “and my father has obtained them for you.”
“That was unnecessary,” said Fabiola, “for they were settled on me long
ago, and became mine the moment”—she faltered, and after a strong effort
at self-mastery, she continued—“the moment they ceased to be another’s;
they did not fall under confiscation.”
Corvinus was dumb-foundered: at last he stumbled into something,
meant for an humble petition to be admitted as an aspirant after her hand,
but understood by Fabiola to be a demand of recompense, for procuring or
bringing so important a document. She assured him that every claim he
might have on her should be fully and honorably considered at a more
favorable moment; but as she was exceedingly wearied and unwell, she
must beg him to leave her at present. He did so quite elated, fancying that
he had secured his prize.
After he was gone she hardly looked at the parchment, which he had left
open on a small table by her couch, but sat musing on the sorrowful scenes
she had witnessed, till it wanted about an hour to sunset. Sometimes her
reveries turned to one point, sometimes to another of the late events; and, at
last, she was dwelling on her being confronted with Fulvius, that morning,
in the Forum. Her memory vividly replaced the entire scene before her, and
her mind gradually worked itself into a state of painful excitement, which
she at length checked by saying aloud to herself: “Thank heaven! I shall
never behold that villain’s face again.”
The words were scarcely out of her mouth, when she shaded her eyes
with her hand, as she raised herself up on her couch, and looked towards the
door. Was it her overheated fancy which beguiled her, or did her wakeful
eyes show her a reality? Her ears decided the question, by these words
which they heard:
“Pray, madam, who is the man whom you honor by that gracious
speech?”
“You, Fulvius,” she said, rising with dignity. “A further intruder still; not
only into the house, the villa, and the dungeon, but into the most secret
apartments of a lady’s residence; and what is worse, into the house of
sorrow of one whom you have bereaved. Begone at once, or I will have you
ignominiously expelled hence.”
“Sit down and compose yourself, lady,” rejoined the intruder; “this is my
last visit to you; but we have a reckoning to make together of some weight.
As to crying out, or bringing in help, you need not trouble yourself; your
orders to your servants to keep aloof, have been too well obeyed. There is
no one within call.”
It was true. Fulvius found the way prepared unwittingly for him by
Corvinus; for upon presenting himself at the door the porter, who had seen
him twice dine at the house, told him of the strict orders given, and assured
him that he could not be admitted unless he came from the emperor, for
such were his instructions. That, Fulvius said, was exactly his case; and the
porter, wondering that so many imperial messengers should come in one
day, let him pass. He begged that the door might be left unfastened, in case
the porter should not be at his post when he retired; for he was in a hurry,
and should not like to disturb the house in such a state of grief. He added
that he required no guide, for he knew the way to Fabiola’s apartment.
Fulvius seated himself opposite to the lady, and continued:
“You ought not to be offended, madam, with my unexpectedly coming
upon you, and overhearing your amiable soliloquies about myself; it is a
lesson I learned from yourself in the Tullian prison. But I must begin my
scores from an earlier date. When, for the first time, I was invited by your
worthy father to his table, I met one whose looks and words at once gained
my affections,—I need not now mention her name,—and whose heart, with
instinctive sympathy, returned them.”
“Insolent man!” Fabiola exclaimed, “to allude to such a topic here; it is
false that any such affection ever existed on either side.”
“As to the Lady Agnes,” resumed Fulvius, “I have the best authority, that
of your lamented parent, who more than once encouraged me to persevere
in my suit, by assuring me that his cousin had confided to him her
reciprocating love.”
Fabiola was mortified; for she now remembered that this was too true,
from the hints which Fabius had given her, of his stupid misunderstanding.
“I know well, that my dear father was under a delusion upon this subject;
but I, from whom that dear child concealed nothing——”
“Except her religion,” interrupted Fulvius, with bitter irony.
 “Peace!” Fabiola went on; “that word sounds like a blasphemy on your
lips—I knew that you were but an object of loathing and abhorrence to her.”
“Yes, after you had made me such. From that hour of our first meeting
you became my bitter and unrelenting foe, in conspiracy with that
treacherous officer, who has received his reward, and whom you had
destined for the place I courted. Repress your indignation, lady, for I will be
heard out,—you undermined my character, you poisoned her feelings, and
you turned my love into necessary enmity.”
“Your love!” now broke in the indignant lady; “even if all that you have
said were not basely false, what love could you have for her? How could
you appreciate her artless simplicity, her genuine honesty, her rare
understanding, her candid innocence, any more than the wolf can value the
lamb’s gentleness, or the vulture the dove’s mildness? No, it was her
wealth, her family connection, her nobility, that you grasped at, and nothing
more; I read it in the very flash of your eye, when first it fixed itself, as a
basilisk’s, upon her.”
“It is false!” he rejoined; “had I obtained my request, had I been thus
worthily mated, I should have been found equal to my position, domestic,
contented, and affectionate; as worthy of possessing her as——”
“As any one can be,” struck in Fabiola, “who, in offering his hand,
expresses himself equally ready, in three hours, to espouse or to murder the
object of his affection. And she prefers the latter, and he keeps his word.
Begone from my presence; you taint the very atmosphere in which you
move.”
“I will leave when I have accomplished my task, and you will have little
reason to rejoice when I do. You have then purposely, and unprovoked,
blighted and destroyed in me every honorable purpose of life, withered my
only hope, cut me off from rank, society, respectable ease, and domestic
happiness.
“That was not enough. After acting in that character, with which you
summed up my condemnation, of a spy, and listened to my conversation,
you this morning threw off all sense of female propriety, and stood forward
prominently in the Forum, to complete in public what you had begun in
private, excite against me the supreme tribunal, and through it the emperor,
and arouse an unjust popular outcry and vengeance; such as, but for a
feeling stronger than fear, which brings me hither, would make me now
skulk, like a hunted wolf, till I could steal out of the nearest gate.”
“And, Fulvius, I tell you,” interposed Fabiola, “that the moment you
cross its threshold, the average of virtue will be raised in this wicked city.
Again I bid you depart from my house, at least; or at any rate I will
withdraw from this offensive intrusion.”
“We part not yet, lady,” said Fulvius, whose countenance had been
growing every moment more flushed, as his lips had been becoming more
deadly pale. He rudely grasped her arm, and pushed her back to her seat;
“and beware,” he added, “how you attempt again either to escape or to
bring aid; your first cry will be your last, cost me what it may.
“You have made me, then, an outcast, not only from society but from
Rome, an exile, a houseless wanderer on a friendless earth; was not that
enough to satisfy your vengeance? No: you must needs rob me of my gold,
of my rightfully, though painfully earned wealth; peace, reputation, my
means of subsistence, all you have stolen from me, a youthful stranger.”
“Wicked and insolent man!” exclaimed now the indignant Roman lady,
reckless of consequences, “you shall answer heavily for your temerity. Dare
you, in my own house, call me a thief?”
“I dare; and I tell you this is your day of reckoning, and not mine. I have
earned, even if by crime, it is nothing to you, my full share of your cousin’s
confiscated property. I have earned it hardly, by pangs and rendings of the
heart and soul, by sleepless nights of struggles with fiends that have
conquered; ay, and with one at home that is sterner than they; by days and
days of restless search for evidence, amidst the desolation of a proud, but
degraded spirit. Have I not a right to enjoy it?
“Ay, call it what you will, call it my blood-money; the more infamous it
is, the more base in you to step in and snatch it from me. It is like a rich
man tearing the carrion from the hound’s jaws, after he has swollen his feet
and rent his skin in hunting it down.”
“I will not seek for further epithets by which to call you; your mind is
deluded by some vain dream,” said Fabiola, with an earnestness not
untinged with alarm. She felt she was in the presence of a madman, one in
whom violent passion, carried off by an unchecked, deeply-moved fancy,
was lashing itself up to that intensity of wicked excitement, which
constitutes a moral frenzy,—when the very murderer thinks himself a
virtuous avenger. “Fulvius,” she continued, with studied calmness, and
looking fully into his eyes, “I now entreat you to go. If you want money,
you shall have it; but go, in heaven’s name go, before you destroy your
reason by your anger.”
“What vain fancy do you mean?” asked Fulvius.
“Why, that I should have ever dreamt about Agnes’s wealth or property
on such a day, or should have taken any advantage of her cruel death.”
“And yet it is so; I have it from the emperor’s mouth that he has made it
over to you. Will you pretend to make me believe, that this most generous
and liberal prince ever parted with a penny unsolicited, ay, or unbribed?”
“Of this I know nothing. But I know, that I would rather have died of
want than petitioned for a farthing of such property!”
“Then would you make me rather believe, that in this city there is any
one so disinterested as, undesired, to have petitioned for you? No, no, Lady
Fabiola, all this is too incredible. But what is that?” And he pounced with
eagerness on the imperial rescript, which had remained unlooked at, since
Corvinus had left it. The sensation to him was like that of Æneas when he
saw Pallas’s belt upon the body of Turnus. The fury, which seemed to have
been subdued by his subtlety, as he had been reasoning to prove Fabiola
guilty, flashed up anew at the sight of this fatal document. He eyed it for a
minute, then broke out, gnashing his teeth with rage:
“Now, madam, I convict you of baseness, rapacity, and unnatural cruelty,
far beyond any thing you have dared to charge on me! Look at this rescript,
beautifully engrossed, with its golden letters and emblazoned margins; and
presume to say that it was prepared in the one hour that elapsed between
your cousin’s death and the emperor’s telling me that he had signed it? Nor
do you pretend to know the generous friend who procured you the gift.
Bah! while Agnes was in prison at latest; while you were whining and
moaning over her; while you were reproaching me for cruelty and treachery
towards her,—me, a stranger and alien to her! you, the gentle lady, the
virtuous philosopher, the loving, fondling kinswoman, you, my stern
reprover, were coolly plotting to take advantage of my crime, for securing
her property, and seeking out the elegant scribe, who should gild your
covetousness with his pencil, and paint over your treason to your own flesh
and blood, with his blushing minium.”[212]
 “Cease, madman, cease!” exclaimed Fabiola, endeavoring in vain to
master his glaring eye. But he went on in still wilder tone:
“And then, forsooth, when you have thus basely robbed me, you offer
me money. You have out-plotted me, and you pity me! You have made me a
beggar, and then you offer me alms,—alms out of my own wages, the
wages which even hell allows its fated victims while on earth!”
Fabiola rose again, but he seized her with a maniac’s gripe, and this time
did not let her go. He went on:
“Now listen to the last words that I will speak, or they may be the last
that you will hear. Give back to me that unjustly obtained property; it is not
fair that I should have the guilt, and you its reward. Transfer it by your sign
manual to me as a free and loving gift, and I will depart. If not, you have
signed your own doom.” A stern and menacing glance accompanied these
words.
Fabiola’s haughty self rose again erect within her; her Roman heart,
unsubdued, stood firm. Danger only made her fearless. She gathered her
robe with matronly dignity around her, and replied:
“Fulvius, listen to my words, though they should be the last that I may
speak; as certainly they shall be the last that you shall hear from me.
“Surrender this property to you? I would give it willingly to the first
leper that I might meet in the street, but to you never. Never shall you touch
thing that belonged to that holy maiden, be it a gem or be it a straw! That
touch would be pollution. Take gold of mine, if it please you; but any thing
that ever belonged to her, from me no treasures can ransom. And one legacy
I prize more than all her inheritance. You have now offered me two
alternatives, as last night you did her, to yield to your demands, or die.
Agnes taught me which to choose. Once again, I say, depart.”
“And leave you to possess what is mine? leave you to triumph over me,
as one whom you have outwitted—you honored, and I disgraced—you rich,
and I penniless—you happy, and I wretched? No, never! I cannot save
myself from what you have made me; but I can prevent your being what
you have no right to be. For this I have come here; this is my day of
Nemesis.[213] Now die!” While he was speaking these reproaches, he was
slowly pushing her backwards with his left hand towards the couch from
which she had risen; while his right was tremblingly feeling for something
in the folds of his bosom.
 As he finished his last word, he thrust her violently down upon the
couch, and seized her by the hair. She made no resistance, she uttered no
cry; partly a fainting and sickening sensation came over her; partly a noble
feeling of self-respect checked any unseemly exhibition of fear, before a
scornful enemy. Just as she closed her eyes, she saw something like
lightning above her; she could not tell whether it was his glaring eye or
flashing steel.
In another moment she felt oppressed and suffocated, as if a great weight
had fallen upon her; and a hot stream was flowing over her bosom.
A sweet voice full of earnestness sounded in her ears:
“Cease, Orontius; I am thy sister Miriam!”
Fulvius, in accents choked by passion, replied:
“It is false; give me up my prey!”
A few words more were faintly spoken in a tongue unknown to Fabiola;
when she felt her hair released, heard the dagger dashed to the ground, and
Fulvius cry out bitterly, as he rushed out of the room:
“O Christ! this is Thy Nemesis!”
Fabiola’s strength was returning; but she felt the weight upon her
increase. She struggled, and released herself. Another body was lying in her
place, apparently dead, and covered with blood.
It was the faithful Syra, who had thrown herself between her mistress’s
life and her brother’s dagger.

CHAPTER XXXI.

DIONYSIUS.
ΔΙΟΝΥCΙΟΥ[214]
ΙΑΤΡΟΥ
ΠΡΕCΒΥΤΕΡΟΥ

HE great thoughts, which this occurrence would naturally have suggested to

the noble heart of Fabiola, were suppressed, for a time, by the exigencies of
the moment. Her first care was to stanch the flowing blood with whatever
was nearest at hand. While she was engaged in this work, there was a
 general rush of servants towards her apartment. The stupid
porter had begun to be uneasy at Fulvius’s long stay (the
reader has now heard his real name), when he saw him dash
out of the door like a maniac, and thought he perceived stains
of blood upon his garment. He immediately gave the alarm to
the entire household.
Fabiola by a gesture stopped the crowd at the door of her
room, and desired only Euphrosyne and her Greek maid to
enter. The latter, since the influence of the black slave had
been removed, had attached herself most affectionately to
Syra, as we must still call her, and had, with great docility, listened to her
moral instructions. A slave was instantly despatched for the physician who
had always been sent for by Syra in illness, Dionysius, who, as we have
already observed, lived in the house of Agnes.
In the meantime Fabiola had been overjoyed at finding the blood cease
to flow so rapidly, and still more at seeing her servant open her eyes upon
her, though only for a moment. She would not have exchanged for any
wealth the sweet smile which accompanied that look.

Cemetery of Callistus.

In a few minutes the kind physician arrived. He carefully examined the

wound, and pronounced favorably on it for the present. The blow, as aimed,
would have gone straight to Fabiola’s heart. But her loving servant, in spite
of prohibition, had been hovering near her mistress during the whole day;
never intruding, but anxious for any opportunity which might offer, of
seconding those good impressions of grace, which the morning’s scenes
could not fail to have produced. While in a neighboring room she heard
violent tones which were too familiar to her ears; and hastened noiselessly
round, and within the curtain which covered the door of Fabiola’s own
apartment. She stood concealed in the dusk, on the very spot where Agnes
had, a few months before, consoled her.
She had not been there long when the last struggle commenced. While
the man was pushing her mistress backwards, she followed him close
behind; and as he was lifting his arm, passed him, and threw her body over
that of his victim. The blow descended, but misdirected, through the shock
she gave his arm; and it fell upon her neck, where it inflicted a deep wound,
checked, however, by encountering the collar-bone. We need not say what it
cost her to make this sacrifice. Not the dread of pain, nor the fear of death
could for a moment have deterred her; it was the horror of imprinting on her
brother’s brow the mark of Cain, the making him doubly a fratricide, which
deeply anguished her. But she had offered her life for her mistress. To have
fought with the assassin, whose strength and agility she knew, would have
been useless; to try to alarm the house before one fatal blow was struck was
hopeless; and nothing remained but to accomplish her immolation, by
substituting herself for the intended victim. Still she wished to spare her
brother the consummation of his crime, and in doing so manifested to
Fabiola their relationship and their real names.
In his blind fury he refused her credit; but the words, in their native
tongue, which said, “Remember my scarf which you picked up here,”
brought back to his memory so terrible a domestic tale, that had the earth
opened a cavern in that moment before his feet, he would have leaped into
it, to bury his remorse and shame.
Strange, too, it proved, that he should not have ever allowed Eurotas to
get possession of that family relic, but should, ever since he regained it,
have kept it apart as a sacred thing; and when all else was being packed up,
should have folded it up and put it in his breast. And now, in the act of
drawing out his eastern dagger, he had plucked this out too, and both were
found upon the floor.
Dionysius, immediately after dressing the wound, and administering
proper restoratives, which brought back consciousness, desired the patient
to be left perfectly quiet, to see as few persons as possible, so as to prevent
excitement, and to go on with the treatment which he prescribed until
midnight. “I will call,” he added, “very early in the morning, when I must
see my patient alone.” He whispered a few words in her ear, which seemed
to do her more good than all his medicines; for her countenance brightened
into an angelic smile.
Fabiola had her placed in her own bed, and, allotting to her attendants
the outward room, reserved to herself exclusively the privilege, as she
deemed it, of nursing the servant, to whom a few months before she could
hardly feel grateful for having tended her in fever. She had informed the
others how the wound had been inflicted, concealing the relationship
between her assailant and her deliverer.
Although herself exhausted and feverish, she would not leave the
bedside of the patient; and when midnight was past, and no more remedies
had to be administered, she sank to rest upon a low couch close to the bed.
And now what were her thoughts, when, in the dim light of a sick room, she
opened her mind and heart to them? They were simple and earnest. She saw
at once the reality and truth of all that her servant had ever spoken to her.
When she last conversed with her, the principles which she heard with
delight, had appeared to her wholly beyond practice, beautiful theories,
which could not be brought to action. When Miriam had described a sphere
of virtue, wherein no approbation or reward of man was to be expected, but
only the approving eye of God, she had admired the idea, which powerfully
seized her generous mind; but she had rebelled against its becoming the
constraining rule of hourly conduct. Yet, if the stroke under which she cast
herself had proved fatal, as it might easily have done, where would have
been her reward? What, then, could have been her motive but that very
theory, as it seemed, of responsibility to an unseen power?
And when Miriam had discoursed of heroism in virtue as being its
ordinary standard, how chimerical the principle had seemed! Yet here,
without preparation, without forethought, without excitement, without
glory,—nay, with marked desire of concealment, this slave had performed a
deed of self-sacrifice, heroic in every way. From what could that result but
from habitual heroism of virtue, ready at any hour to do what would
ennoble forever a soldier’s name? She was no dreamer, then, no theorist,
but a serious, real practiser of all that she taught. Could this be a
philosophy? Oh, no, it must be a religion! the religion of Agnes and of
Sebastian, to whom she considered Miriam every way equal. How she
longed to converse with her again!
 Early in the morning, according to his promise, the physician returned,
and found his patient much improved. He desired to be left alone with her;
when, having spread a linen cloth upon the table, and placed lighted tapers
upon it, he drew from his bosom an embroidered scarf, and uncovered a
golden box, the sacred contents of which she well knew. Approaching her
he said:
“My dear child, as I promised you, I have now brought you not merely
the truest remedy of every ailment, bodily and spiritual, but the very
Physician Himself, who by His word alone restoreth all things,[215] whose
touch opens the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, whose will
cleanses lepers, the hem of whose garment sends forth virtue to cure all. Are
you ready to receive Him?”
“With all my heart,” she replied, clasping her hands; “I long to possess
Him whom alone I have loved, in whom I have believed, to whom my heart
belongs.”
“Does no anger or indignation exist in your soul against him who has
injured you? does any pride or vanity arise in your mind at the thought of
what you have done? or are you conscious of any other fault requiring
humble confession and absolution before receiving the sacred gift into your
breast?”
“Full of imperfection and sin I know myself to be, venerable father; but I
am not conscious of any knowing offence. I have had no need to forgive
him to whom you allude; I love him too much for that, and would willingly
give my life to save him. And of what have I to be proud, a poor servant,
who have only obeyed my Lord’s commands?”
“Invite then, my child, this Lord into your house, that coming He may
heal you, and fill you with His grace.”
Approaching the table, he took from it a particle of the Blessed
Eucharist, in the form of unleavened bread, which, being dry, he moistened
in water, and placed within her lips.[216] She closed them upon it, and
remained for some time absorbed in contemplation.
And thus did the holy Dionysius discharge his twofold office of
physician and priest, attributed to him on his tomb.
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