CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER.

The body of the young martyr was deposited in peace on the Aurelian way, in the cemetery which soon bore his name, and gave it, as we have before observed, to the neighboring gate. In times of peace a basilica was raised over his tomb, and yet stands to perpetuate his honor.

The persecution now increased its fury, and multiplied its daily victims. Many whose names have appeared in our pages, especially the community of Chromatius’s villa, rapidly fell. The first was Zoë, whose dumbness Sebastian had cured. She was surprised by a heathen rabble praying at St. Peter’s tomb, and was hurried to trial, and hung with her head over a smoky fire, till she died. Her husband, with three others of the same party, was taken, repeatedly tortured, and beheaded. Tranquillinus, the father of Marcus and Marcellianus, jealous of Zoë’s crown, prayed openly at St. Paul’s tomb; he was taken and summarily stoned to death. His twin sons suffered also a cruel death. The treachery of Torquatus, by his describing his former companions, especially the gallant Tiburtius, who was now beheaded,[183] greatly facilitated this wholesale destruction.

Sebastian moved in the midst of this slaughter, not like a builder who saw his work destroyed by a tempest, nor a shepherd who beheld his flock borne off by marauders. He felt as a general on the battle-field, who looked only to the victory; counting every one as glorious who gave his life in its purchase, and as ready to give his own should it prove to be the required price. Every friend that fell before him was a bond less to earth, and a link more to heaven; a care less below, a claim more above. He sometimes sat lonely, or paused silently, on the spots where he had conversed with Pancratius, recalling to mind the buoyant cheerfulness, the graceful thoughts, and the unconscious virtue of the amiable and comely youth. But he never felt as if they were more separated than when he sent him on his expedition to Campania. He had redeemed his pledge to him, and now it was soon to be his own turn. He knew it well; he felt the grace of martyrdom swelling in his breast, and in tranquil certainty he awaited its hour. His preparation was simple: whatever he had of value he distributed to the poor, and he settled his property, by sale, beyond the reach of confiscation.

Fulvius had picked up his fair share of Christian spoils; but, on the whole, he had been disappointed. He had not been obliged to ask for assistance from the emperor, whose presence he avoided; but he had put nothing by; he was not getting rich. Every evening he had to bear the reproachful and scornful interrogatory of Eurotas on the day’s success. Now, however, he told his stern master--for such he had become--that he was going to strike at higher game, the emperor’s favorite officer, who must have made a large fortune in the service.

He had not long to wait for his opportunity. On the 9th of January a court was held, attended, of course, by all aspirants for favors, or fearers of imperial wrath. Fulvius was there, and, as usual, met with a cold reception. But after bearing silently the muttered curses of the royal brute, he boldly advanced, dropped on one knee, and thus addressed him:

“Sire, your divinity has often reproached me with having made, by my discoveries, but a poor return for your gracious countenance and liberal subsidies. But now I have found out the foulest of plots, and the basest of ingratitudes, in immediate contact with your divine person.”

“What dost thou mean, booby?” asked impatiently the tyrant. “Speak at once, or I’ll have the words pulled out of thy throat by an iron hook.”

Fulvius rose, and directing his hand, in accompaniment to his words, said with a bitter blandness of tone: “Sebastian is a Christian.”

The emperor started from his throne in fury.

“Thou liest, villain! Thou shalt prove thy words, or thou shalt die such a piecemeal death, as no Christian dog ever endured.”

“I have sufficient proof recorded here,” he replied, producing a parchment, and offering it, kneeling.

The emperor was about to make an angry answer, when, to his utter amazement, Sebastian, with unruffled looks and noble mien, stood before him, and in the calmest accents said:

“My liege, I spare you all trouble of proof. I _am_ a Christian, and I glory in the name.”

As Maximian, a rude though clever soldier, without education, could hardly when calm express himself in decent Latin, when he was in a passion his language was composed of broken sentences, mingled with every vulgar and coarse epithet. In this state he was now; and he poured out on Sebastian a torrent of abuse, in which he reproached him with every crime, and called him by every opprobrious name, within his well-stocked repertory of vituperation. The two crimes, however, on which he rung his loudest changes were, ingratitude and treachery. He had nursed, he said, a viper in his bosom, a scorpion, an evil demon; and he only wondered he was still alive.

The Christian officer stood the volley, as intrepidly as ever he had borne the enemy’s assault, on the field of battle.

“Listen to me, my royal master,” he replied, “perhaps for the last time. I have said I am a Christian; and in this you have had the best pledge of your security.”

“How do you mean, ungrateful man?”

“Thus, noble emperor: that if you want a body-guard around you of men who will spill their last drop of life’s blood for you, go to the prison and take the Christians from the stocks on the floor, and from the fetter-rings on the walls; send to the courts and bear away the mutilated confessors from the rack and the gridiron; issue orders to the amphitheatres, and snatch the mangled half that lives from the jaws of tigers; restore them to such shape as yet they are capable of, put weapons into their hands, and place them around you; and in this maimed and ill-favored host there will be more fidelity, more loyalty, more daring for you, than in all your Dacian and Pannonian legions. You have taken half their blood from them, and they will give you willingly the other half.”

“Folly and madness!” returned the sneering savage. “I would sooner surround myself with wolves than with Christians. Your treachery proves enough for me.”

“And what would have prevented me at any time from _acting_ the traitor, if I had been one? Have I not had access to your royal person by night as by day; and have I proved a traitor? No, emperor, none has ever been more faithful than I to you. But I have another, and a higher Lord to serve; one who will judge us both; and His laws I must obey rather than yours.”

“And why have you, like a coward, concealed your religion? To escape, perhaps, the bitter death you have deserved!”

“No, sire; no more coward than traitor. No one better than yourself knows that I am neither. So long as I could do any good to my brethren, I refused not to live amidst their carnage and my afflictions. But hope had at last died within me; and I thank Fulvius with all my heart, for having, by his accusation, spared me the embarrassment of choice between seeking death or enduring life.”

“I will decide that point for you. Death is your award; and a slow lingering one it shall be. But,” he added, in a lower tone, as if speaking to himself, “this must not get out. All must be done quietly at home, or treachery will spread. Here, Quadratus, take your Christian tribune under arrest. Do you hear, dolt? Why do you not move?”

“Because I too am a Christian!”

Another burst of fury, another storm of vile language, which ended in the stout centurion’s being ordered at once to execution. But Sebastian was to be differently dealt with.

“Order Hyphax to come hither,” roared the tyrant. In a few minutes, a tall, half-naked Numidian made his appearance. A bow of immense length, a gaily-painted quiver full of arrows, and a short broad-sword, were at once the ornaments and the weapons of the captain of the African archers. He stood erect before the emperor, like a handsome bronze statue, with bright enamelled eyes.

“Hyphax, I have a job for you to-morrow morning. It must be well done,” said the emperor.

“Perfectly, sire,” replied the dusky chief, with a grin which showed another set of enamels in his face.

“You see the captain Sebastian?” The negro bowed assent. “He turns out to be a Christian!”

If Hyphax had been on his native soil, and had trodden suddenly on a hooded asp or a scorpion’s nest, he could not have started more. The thought of being so near a Christian,--to him who worshipped every abomination, believed every absurdity, practised every lewdness, committed any atrocity!

Maximian proceeded, and Hyphax kept time to every member of his sentences by a nod, and what _he_ meant to be a smile;--it was hardly an earthly one.

“You will take Sebastian to your quarters; and early to-morrow morning,--not this evening, mind, for I know that by this time of day you are all drunk,--but to-morrow morning, when your hands are steady, you will tie him to a tree in the grove of Adonis, and you will slowly shoot him to death. Slowly, mind; none of your fine shots straight through the heart or the brain, but plenty of arrows, till he die exhausted by pain and loss of blood. Do you understand me? Then take him off at once. And mind, silence; or else----”