How many hours passed while Cæcilius was thus employed, he did not know. The sun was declining when he was roused by a noise at the door. He hastily restored the sacred treasure to its hiding-place in his breast, and rose up from his knees. The door was thrown back, and a female form presented itself at the opening. She looked in at the priest, and said, “Then Agellius is not here?”
The woman was young, tall, and graceful in person. She was clad in a yellow cotton tunic, reaching to her feet, on which were shoes. The clasps at her shoulders, partly visible under the short cloak or shawl which was thrown over them, and which might, if necessary, be drawn over her head, seemed to serve the purpose, not only of fastening her dress, but of providing her with sharp prongs or minute stilettos for her defence, in case she fell in with ruffians by the way; and though the expression of her face was most feminine, there was that about it which implied she could use them for that purpose on an emergency. That face was clear in complexion, regular in outline, and at the present time pale, whatever might be its ordinary tint. Its charm was a noble and majestic calm. There is the calm of divine peace and joy; there is the calm of heartlessness; there is the calm of reckless desperation; there is the calm of death. None of these was the calm which breathed from the features of the stranger who intruded upon the solitude of Cæcilius. It was the calm of Greek sculpture; it imaged a soul nourished upon the visions of genius, and subdued and attuned by the power of a strong will. There was no appearance of timidity in her manner; very little of modesty. The evening sun gleamed across her amber robe, and lit it up till it glowed like fire, as if she were invested in the marriage flammeum, and was to be claimed that evening as the bride of her own bright god of day.
She looked at Cæcilius, first with surprise, then with anxiety; and her words were, “You, I fear, are of his people. If so, make the most of these hours. The foe may be on you tomorrow morning. Fly while you can.”
“If I am a Christian,” answered Cæcilius, “what are you who are so careful of us? Have you come all the way from Sicca to give the alarm to mere atheists and magic-mongers?”
“Stranger,” she said, “if you had seen what I have seen, what I have heard of today, you would not wonder at my wish to save from a like fate the vilest being on earth. A hideous mob is rioting in the city, thirsting for the blood of Christians; an accident may turn it in the direction of Agellius. He is gone; where is he? Murderous outrages have already been perpetrated; you remain.”
“She who is so tender of Christians,” answered the priest, “must herself have some sparks of the Christian flame in her own breast.”
Callista sat down half unconsciously upon the bench or stool near the door; but she at once suddenly started up again, and said, “Away, fly! perhaps they are coming; where is he?”
“Fear not,” said Cæcilius; “Agellius has been conveyed away to a safe hiding-place; for me, I shall be taken care of; there is no need for hurry; sit down again. But you,” he continued, “you must not be found here.”
“They know me,” she said; “I am well known here. I work for the temples. I have nothing to fear. I am no Christian;” and, as if from an inexplicable overruling influence, she sat down again.
“Not a Christian yet, you mean,” answered Cæcilius.
“A person must be born a Christian, sir,” she replied, “in order to take up the religion. It is a very beautiful idea, as far as I have heard anything about it; but one must suck it in with one’s mother’s milk.”
“If so, it never could have come into the world,” said the priest.
She paused for a while. “It is true,” she answered at length; “but a new religion begins by appealing to what is peculiar in the minds of a few. The doctrine, floating on the winds, finds its own; it takes possession of their minds; they answer its call; they are brought together by that common influence; they are strong in each other’s sympathy; they create and throw around them an external form, and thus they found a religion. The sons are brought up in their fathers’ faith; and what was the idea of a few becomes at length the profession of a race. Such is Judaism; such the religion of Zoroaster, or of the Egyptians.”
“You will find,” said the priest, “that the greater number of African Christians at this moment, for of them I speak confidently, are converts in manhood, not the sons of Christians. On the other hand, if there be those who have left the faith, and gone up to the capitol to sacrifice, these were Christians by hereditary profession. Such is my experience, and I think the case is the same elsewhere.”
She seemed to be speaking more for the sake of getting answers than of objecting arguments. She paused again, and thought; then she said, “Mankind is made up of classes of very various mental complexion, as distinct from each other as the colours which meet the eye. Red and blue are incommensurable; and in like manner, a Magian never can become a Greek, nor a Greek a Cœlicolist. They do but make themselves fools when they attempt it.”