"Spread?" cried Jucundus, who was under the twofold excitement of personal feeling and of wine, "spread, they'll spread? yes, they'll spread. Yes, grow, like scorpions, twenty at a birth. The country already swarms with them; they are as many as frogs or gra.s.shoppers; they start up everywhere under one's nose, when one least expects them. The air breeds them like plague-flies; the wind drifts them like locusts. No one's safe; any one may be a Christian; it's an epidemic. Great Jove! _I_ may be a Christian before I know where I am. Heaven and earth! is it not monstrous?" he continued, with increasing fierceness. "Yes, Jucundus, my poor man, you may wake and find yourself a Christian, without knowing it, against your will. Ah! my friends, pity me! I may find myself a beast, and obliged to suck blood and live among the tombs as if I liked it, without power to tell you how I loathe it, all through their sorcery. By the genius of Rome something must be done. I say, no one is safe. You call on your friend; he is sitting in the dark, unwashed, uncombed, undressed. What is the matter?

Ah! his son has turned Christian. Your wedding-day is fixed, you are expecting your bride; she does not come; why? she will not have you; she has become a Christian. Where's young Nomenta.n.u.s? Who has seen Nomenta.n.u.s?

in the forum, or the campus, in the circus, in the bath? Has he caught the plague or got a sunstroke? Nothing of the kind; the Christians have caught hold of him. Young and old, rich and poor, my lady in her litter and her slave, modest maid and Lydia at the Thermae, nothing comes amiss to them.

All confidence is gone; there's no one we can reckon on. I go to my tailor's: 'Nergal,' I say to him, 'Nergal, I want a new tunic,' The wretched hypocrite bows, and runs to and fro, and unpacks his stuffs and cloths, like another man. A word in your ear. The man's a Christian, dressed up like a tailor. They have no dress of their own. If I were emperor, I'd make the sneaking curs wear a badge, I would; a dog's collar, a fox's tail, or a pair of a.s.s's ears. Then we should know friends from foes when we meet them."

"We should think that dangerous," said Cornelius; "however, you are taking it too much to heart; you are making too much of them, my good friend.

They have not even got the present, and you are giving them the future, which is just what they want."

"If Jucundus will listen to me," said Aristo, "I could satisfy him that the Christians are actually falling off. They once were numerous in this very place; now there are hardly any. They have been declining for these fifty years; the danger from them is past. Do you want to know how to revive them? Put out an imperial edict, forbid them, denounce them. Do you want them to drop away like autumn leaves? Take no notice of them."

"I can't deny that in Italy they _have_ grown," said Cornelius; "they _have_ grown in numbers and in wealth, and they intermarry with us. Thus the upper cla.s.s becomes to a certain extent infected. We may find it necessary to repress them; but, as you would repress vermin, without fearing them."

"The worshippers of the G.o.ds are the many, and the Christians are the few," persisted Aristo; "if the two parties intermarry, the weaker will get the worst of it. You will find the statues of the G.o.ds gradually creeping back into the Christian chapel; and a man must be an honest fellow who buys our images, eh, Jucundus?"

"Well, Aristo," said the paterfamilias, whose violence never lasted long, "if your sister's bright eyes win back my poor Agellius you will have something more to say for yourself than, at present, I grant."

"I see," said Cornelius, gravely, "I begin to understand it. I could not make out why our good host had such great fear for the stability of Rome.

But it is one of those things which the experience of life has taught me.

I have often seen it in the imperial city itself. Whenever you find a man show special earnestness against these fanatics, depend on it there is something that touches him personally in the matter. There was a very great man, the present Flamen Dialis, for whom I have unbounded respect; for a long time I was at a loss to conceive why a person of his weight, sound, sensible, well-judging, should have such a fear of the Christians.

One day he made an oration against them in the senate-house; he wanted to send them to the rack. But the secret came out; the good man was on the rack himself about his daughter, who persisted in calling herself a Christian, and refused to paint her face or go to the amphitheatre. To be sure, a most trying affair this for the old gentleman. The venerable Pater Patratus, too, what suppers he gave! a fine specimen of the Lucullus type; yet he was always advocating the lictor and the _commentariensis_ in the instance of the Christian. No wonder; his wife and son were disgracing him in the eyes of the whole world by frequenting the meetings of these Christians. However, I agree with Decius, they must be put down. They are not formidable, but they are an eyesore."

Here the rushing of the water-clock which measured time in the neighbouring square, ceased, signifying thereby that the night was getting on. Juba had already crept into the dark closet which served him for a sleeping-place; had taken off his sandals, and loosened his belt; had wrapt the serpent he had about him round his neck, and was breathing heavily. Jucundus made the parting libation, and Cornelius took his leave.

Aristo rose too; and Jucundus, accompanying them to the entrance, paid the not uncommon penalty of his potations, for the wine mounted to his head, and he returned into the room, and sat him down again with an impression that Aristo was still at table.

"My dear boy," he said, "Agellius is but a wet Christian; that's all, not obstinate, like his brother there. 'Twas his father; the less we say about him the better; he's gone. The Furies make his bed for him! an odious set!

Their priests, little ugly men. I saw one when I was a boy at Carthage. So unlike your n.o.ble Roman Saliares, or your fine portly priest of Isis, clad in white, breathing odours like spring flowers; men who enjoyed this life, not like that sour hypocrite. He was as black as an Ethiopian, and as withered as a Saracen, and he never looked you in the face. And, after all, the fellow must die for his religion, rather than put a few grains of golden incense on the altar of great Jove. Jove's the G.o.d for me; a glorious, handsome, curly G.o.d-but they are all good, all the G.o.ds are good. There's Bacchus, he's a good, comfortable G.o.d, though a sly, treacherous fellow-a treacherous fellow. There's Ceres, too; Pomona; the Muses; Astarte, too, as they call her here; all good;-and Apollo, though he's somewhat too hot in this season, and too free with his bow. He gave me a bad fever once. Ah! life's precious, most precious; so I felt it then, when I was all but gone to Pluto. Life never returns, it's like water spilt; you can't gather it up. It is dispersed into the elements, to the four winds. Ah! there's something more there than I can tell; more than all your philosophers can determine."

He seemed to think awhile, and began again: "Enjoyment's the great rule; ask yourself, 'Have I made the most of things?' that's what I say to the rising generation. Many and many's the time when I have not turned them to the best account. Oh, if I had now to begin life again, how many things should I correct! I might have done better this evening. Those abominable pears! I might have known they would not be worth the eating. Mutton, that was all well; doves, good again; crane, kid; well, I don't see that I could have done much better."

After a few minutes he got up half asleep, and put out all the lights but one small lamp, with which he made his way into his own bed-closet. "All is vanity," he continued, with a slow, grave utterance, "all is vanity but eating and drinking. It does not pay to serve the G.o.ds except for this.

What's fame? what's glory? what's power? smoke. I've often thought the hog is the only really wise animal. We should be happier if we were all hogs.

Hogs keep the end of life steadily in view; that's why those toads of Christians will not eat them, lest they should get like them. Quiet, respectable, sensible enjoyment; not riot, or revel, or excess, or quarrelling. Life is short." And with this undeniable sentiment he fell asleep.

CHAPTER VII.

PERSECUTION IN THE OFFING.

Next morning, as Jucundus was dusting and polishing his statues and other articles of taste and devotion, supplying the gaps in their ranks, and grouping a number of new ones which had come in from his workmen, Juba strutted into the shop, and indulged himself from time to time in an inward laugh or sn.i.g.g.e.r at the various specimens of idolatry which grinned or frowned or frisked or languished on all sides of him.

"Don't sneer at that Anubis," said his uncle; "it is the work of the divine Callista."

"That, I suppose, is why she brings into existence so many demons,"

answered Juba; "nothing more can be done in the divine line; like the queen who fell in love with a baboon."

"Now I come to think," retorted Jucundus, "that G.o.d of hers is something like _you_. She must be in love with you, Juba."

The youth, as was usual with him, tossed his head with an air of lofty displeasure; at length he said, "And why should she not fall in love with me, pray?"

"Why, because you are too good or too bad to need her plastic hand. She could not make anything out of you. 'Non ex quovis ligno.' But she'd be doing a good work if she wiled back your brother."

"_He_ does not want wiling any more than I," said Juba, "_I_ dare say!

he's no Christian."

"What's that?" said his uncle, looking round at him in surprise; "Agellius no Christian?"

"Not a bit of it," answered Juba; "rest a.s.sured. I taxed him with it only last night; let him alone, _he'll_ come round. He's too proud to change, that's all. Preach to him, entreat him, worry him, try to turn him, work at the bit, whip him, and he will turn restive, start aside, or run away; but let him have his head, pretend not to look, seem indifferent to the whole matter, and he will quietly sit down in the midst of your images there. Callista has an easy task; she'll bribe him to do what he would else do for nothing."

"The very best news I have heard since your silly old father died," cried Jucundus; "the very best-if true. Juba, I'll give you an handsome present the first sow your brother sacrifices to Ceres. Ha, ha, what fine fun to see the young farmer over his cups at the Nundinae! Ha, ha, no Christian!

bravo, Juba! ha, ha, I'll make you a present, I say, an Apollo to teach you manners, or a Mercury to give you wit."

"It's quite true," said Juba; "he would not be thinking of Callista, if he were thinking of his saints and angels."

"Ha, ha! to be sure!" returned Jucundus; "to be sure! yet why shouldn't he worship a handsome Greek girl as well as any of those mummies and death's heads and bogies of his, which I should blush to put up here alongside even of Anubis, or a scarabaeus?"

"Mother thinks she is not altogether the girl you take her for," said his nephew.

"No matter, no matter," answered Jucundus, "no matter at all; she may be a Lais or Phryne for me; the surer to make a man of him."

"Why," said Juba, "mother thinks her head is turning in the opposite way.

D'you see? Strange, isn't it?" he added, annoyed himself yet not unwilling to annoy his uncle.

"Hm!" exclaimed Jucundus, making a wry face and looking round at him, as if to say, "What on earth is going to turn up now?"

"To tell the truth," said Juba, gloomily, "I did once think of her myself.

I don't see why I have not as much right to do so as Agellius, if I please. So I thought old mother might do something for me; and I asked her for a charm or love potion, which would bring her from her brother down to the forest yonder. Gurta took to it kindly, for she has a mortal hatred of Callista, because of her good looks, though she won't say so, and because she's a Greek! and she liked the notion of humbling the haughty minx. So she began one of the most tremendous spells," he shrieked out with a laugh, "one of the most tremendous spells in her whole budget. All and everything in the most exact religious way: wine, milk, blood, meal, wax, old rags, G.o.ds, Numidian as well as Punic; such names; one must be barbarian to boot, as well as witch, to p.r.o.nounce them: a score of things there were besides. And then to see the old woman, with her streaming grey hair, twinkling eyes, and grim look, twirl about as some flute girl at a banquet; it was enough to dance down, not only the moon, but the whole milky way. But it did not dance down Callista; at which mother got savage, and protested that Callista was a Christian."

Jucundus looked much perplexed. "Medius fidius!" he said, "why, unless we look sharp, she will be converting him the wrong way;" and he began pacing up and down the small room.

Juba on his part began singing-

"Gurta the witch would have part in the jest; Though lame as a gull, by his highness possessed, She shouldered her crutch, and danced with the rest.

"Sporting and snorting, deep in the night, Their beards flashing fire, and their hoofs striking light, And their tails whisking round in the heat of their flight."

By this time Jucundus had recovered from the qualm which Juba's intelligence had caused him, and he cried out, "Cease your rubbish; old Gurta's jealous; I know her spite; Christian is the most blackguard word in her vocabulary, its Barbar for toad or adder. I see it all; no, Callista, the divine Callista, must take in hand this piece of wax, sing a charm, and mould him into a Vertumnus. She'll show herself the more potent witch of the two. The new emperor too will help the incantation."

"What! something is coming?" asked Juba, with a grin.

"Coming, boy? yes, I warrant you," answered his uncle. "_We'll_ make them squeak. If gentle means don't do, then we'll just throw in another ingredient or two: an axe, or a wild cat, or a firebrand."

"Take care what you are about, if you deal with Agellius," said Juba.

"He's a sawney, but you must not drive him to bay. Don't threaten; keep to the other line; he's weak-hearted."

"Only as a background to bring out the painting; the Muse singing, all in light, relieved by sardix or sepia. It _must_ come; but perhaps Agellius will come first."