Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century by William Ware (best color ebook reader .txt) 📖

'Let me then know it,' said Macer.

'Renounce Christ, Macer, and sacrifice; and thy life is thine, and honor too.'

Macer's form seemed to dilate to more than its com[Pg 365]mon size, his countenance seemed bursting with expression as he said,

'Renounce Christ? save life by renouncing Christ? How little, Varus, dost thou know what a Christian is! Not though I might sit in thy seat or Aurelian's, or on the throne of a new universe, would I renounce him. To Christ, Varus, do I owe it that I am not now what I was, when I dwelt in the caves of the Flavian. To Christ do I owe it that I am not now what I was when in the ranks of Aurelian. To Christ do I owe it that my soul, once steeped in sin as thy robe in purple dye, is now by him cleansed and, as I trust, thoroughly purged. To Christ do I owe it that once worshipping the dumb idols of Roman superstition, I now bow down to the only living God—' 'Away with him to the tormentors!' came from an hundred voices—'to Christ do I owe it, O Prefect, that my heart is not now as thine, or his who sits beside thee, or as that of these, hungering and thirsting—never after righteousness—but for the blood of the innocent. Shall I then renounce Christ? and then worship that ancient adulterer, Jupiter greatest and best?—' The hall here rang with the ferocious cries of those who shouted—

'Give him over to us!'—'To the rack with him!'—'Tear out the tongue of the blaspheming Galilean!'

'Romans,' cried Varus, rising from his chair, 'let not your zeal for the gods cause you to violate the sanctity of this room of Justice. Fear not but Varus, who, as you well know, is a lover of the gods, his country, and the city, will well defend their rights and honors against whoever shall assail them.'

He then turned to Macer and said,[Pg 366]

'I should ill perform my duty to thee, Christian, did I spare any effort to bring thee to a better mind—ill should I perform it for Rome did I not use all the means by the State entrusted to me to save her citizens from errors that, once taking root and growing up to their proper height, would soon overshadow, and by their poisonous neighborhood kill, that faith venerable through a thousand years, and of all we now inherit from our ancestors of greatest and best, the fruitful and divine spring.'

'There, Romans, spoke a Roman,' exclaimed Fronto.

As Varus ended—at a sign and a word from him, what seemed the solid wall of the room in which we were, suddenly flew up upon its screaming pulleys, and revealed another apartment black as night, save here and there where a dull torch shed just light enough to show its great extent, and set in horrid array before us, engines of every kind for tormenting criminals, each attended by its half-naked minister, ready at a moment's warning to bind the victim, and put in motion the infernal machinery. At this sight a sudden faintness overspread my limbs, and I would willingly have rushed from the hall—but it was then made impossible. And immediately the voice of the Prefect was again heard:

'Again, Christian, with Rome's usual mercy, I freely offer to thee thy life, simply on the condition, easily fulfilled by thee, for it asks but one little word from thy lips, that thou do, for thy own sake and for the sake of Rome, which thou sayest thou lovest, renounce Christ and thy faith.'

'I have answered thee once, O Prefect; dost thou think so meanly of me as to suppose that what but now I affirmed, I will now deny, and only for this show of[Pg 367] iron toys and human demons set to play them? It is not of such stuff Aurelian's men are made, much less the soldiers of the cross. For the love I bear to Rome and Christ, and even thee, Varus, I choose to die.'

'Be assured, Christian, I will not spare thee.'

'I ask it not, Prefect—do thy worst—and the worst is but death, which is life.'

'Pangs that shall keep thee hours dying,' cried the Prefect—'thy body racked and rent—torn piecemeal one part from another—this is worse than death. Bethink thee well. Do not believe that Varus will relent.'

'That were the last thing to find faith with one who knows him as well as Macer does,' replied the Christian.

A flush of passion passed over the face of Varus. But he proceeded in the same even tone,

'Is thy election made, Macer?'

'It is made.'

'Slaves,' cried the Prefect, 'away with him to the rack, and ply it well.'

'Yes,' repeated Pronto, springing with eager haste from his seat, that he might lose nothing of what was to be seen or heard, 'away with him to the rack, and ply it well.'

Unmoved and unresisting, his face neither pale nor his limbs trembling, did Macer surrender himself into the hands of those horrid ministers of a cruel and bloody faith, who then hastily approached him, and seizing him dragged him toward their worse than hell. Accomplished in their art, for every day is it put to use, Macer was in a moment thrown down and lashed to the iron bars; when, each demon having completed the pre[Pg 368]paration, he stood leaning upon his wheel for a last sign from the Prefect. It was instantly given, and while the breath even of every being in the vast hall was suspended, through an intense interest in the scene, the creating of the engine, as it began to turn, sounded upon the brain like thunder. Not a groan nor a sigh was heard from the sufferer. The engine turned till it seemed as if any body or substance laid upon it must have been wrenched asunder. Then it stopt. And the minutes counted to me like hours or ages ere the word was given, and the wheels unrestrained flew back again to their places. Macer was then unbound. He at first lay where he was thrown upon the pavement. But his life was yet strong within his iron frame. He rose at length upon his feet, and was again led to the presence of his judges. His eye had lost nothing of its wild fire, nor his air any thing of its lofty independence.

Varus again addressed him.

'Christian, you have felt what there is in Roman justice. Reject not again what Roman mercy again offers thee—life freely, honor too, and office, if thou wilt return once more to the bosom of the fond mother who reared thee.'

'Yes,' said Fronto, 'thy mother who reared thee! Die not with the double guilt of apostacy and ingratitude upon thy soul.'

'Varus,' said Macer, 'art thou a fool, a very fool, to deem that thy word can weigh more with me than Christ? Make not thyself a laughingstock to me and such Christians as may be here. The torments of thy importunity are worse to me than those of thy engines.'

'I wish thee well, Macer; 'tis that which makes me thus a fool,'[Pg 369]

'So, Varus, does Satan wish his victim well, to whom he offers his luscious baits. But what is it when the bait is swallowed, and hell is all that has been gained? What should I gain, but to live with thee, O greater fool?'

'Think, Macer, of thy wife and children.'

At those names, Macer bent his head and folded his hands upon his breast, and tears rolled down his cheeks. Till then there had been, as it seemed, a blessed forgetfulness of all but himself and the scene before him. Varus, misinterpreting this his silence, and taking it for the first sign of repentance, hastily cried out,

'There is the altar, Macer.—Slave! hold to him the sacred libation; he will now pour it out.'

Instantly a slave held out to him a silver ladle filled with wine.

Macer at the same instant struck it with his sinewy arm and sent it whirling to the ceiling.

'Bind him again to the rack,' cried the Prefect, leaping from his seat; 'and let him have it till the nerves break.'

Macer was again seized and stretched upon the iron bed—this time upon another, of different construction, and greater power. Again the infernal machine was worked by the naked slaves, and, as it was wound up, inflicting all that it was capable of doing without absolutely destroying life, groans and screams of fierce agony broke from the suffering Christian. How long our ears were assailed by those terrific cries, I cannot say. They presently died away, as I doubted not, only because Macer himself had expired under the torment. When they had wholly ceased, the engine was reversed and Macer again unbound. He fell lifeless upon the floor. Varus, who had sat the while conversing with Fronto, now said,[Pg 370]

'Revive him, and return him hither.'

Water was then thrown upon him, and powerful drinks were forced down his throat. They produced in a little while their intended effect, and Macer gave signs of returning life. He presently gazed wildly around him, and came gradually to a consciousness of where and what he was. His limbs refused their office, and he was supported and partly lifted to the presence of Varus.

'Now, Galilean,' cried Varus, 'again, how is it with thee?'

'Better than with thee, I trust in God.'

'Wilt thou now sacrifice?'

'I am myself, O Varus, this moment a sacrifice, well pleasing and acceptable to the God whom I worship, and the Master whom I serve.'

'Why, Varus,' said Fronto, 'do we bear longer his insults and impieties? Let me strike him dead.' And he moved his hand as if to grasp a concealed weapon, with which to do it.

'Nay, nay, hold, Fronto! let naught be done in haste or passion, nor in violation of the law, but all calmly and in order. We act for those who are not present as well as for ourselves.'

A voice from a dark extremity of the room shouted out,

'It is Macer, O Prefect, who acts for us.'

The face of Macer brightened up, as if he had suddenly been encompassed by a legion of friends. It was the first token he had received, that so much as one heart in the whole assembly was beating with his. He looked instantly to the quarter whence the voice came, and then, turning to the Prefect, said,

'Yes, Varus, I am now and here preaching to the[Pg 371] people of Rome, though I speak never a word. 'Tis a sermon that will fall deeper into the heart than ten thousand spoken ones.'

The Prefect commanded that he who had spoken should be brought before him. But upon the most diligent search he could not be found.

'Christian,' said Varus, 'I have other pains in store, to which what thou hast as yet suffered is but as the scratching of the lion's paw. It were better not to suffer them. They will leave no life in thee. Curse Christ—'tis but a word—and live.'

Macer bent his piercing eye upon the Prefect, but answered not.

'Curse Christ, and live.'

Macer was still silent.

'Bring in then,' cried the Prefect, 'your pincers, rakes and shells; and we will see what they may have virtue to bring forth.'

The black messengers of death hastened at the word from their dark recesses, loaded with those new instruments of torture, and stood around the miserable man.

'Now, Macer,' said Varus once more, 'acknowledge Jupiter Greatest and Best, and thou shalt live.'

Macer turned round to the people, and with his utmost voice cried out,

'There is, O Romans, but One God; and the God of Christ is he—'

No sooner had he uttered those words than Fronto exclaimed,

'Ah! hah! I have found thee then! This is the voice, thrice accursed! that came from the sacred[Pg 372] Temple of the Sun! This, Romans, is the god whose thunder turned you pale.'

'Had it been my voice alone, priest, that was heard that day, I had been accursed indeed. I was out the humble instrument of him I serve—driven by his spirit. It was the voice of God, not of man.'

'These,' said Fronto, 'are the Christian devices, by which they would lead blindfold into their snares you, Romans, and your children. May Christ ever employ in Rome a messenger cunning and skilful as this prating god, and Hellenism will have naught to fear.'

'And,' cried Macer, 'let your priests be but like Fronto, and the eyes of the blindest driveler of you all will be unsealed. Ask Fronto into whose bag went the bull's heart, that on the day of dedication could not be found—

'Thou liest, Nazarene—'

'Ply him with your pincers,' cried Varus,—and the