The Sacrifice of Abraham, from a picture in the Catacombs.
The Sacrifice of Abraham, from a picture in the Catacombs.
The Sacrifice of Abraham, from a picture in the Catacombs.
His friend saw how unrepenting persecutors died.
THE next morning, the pilgrim proceeded to discharge the business which had been interfered with by the circumstances related in the preceding chapter. He might have been first seen busily employed inquiring after some one about the Januses in the Forum. At length, the person was found; and the two walked towards a dirty little office under the Capitol, on the ascent called theClivus Asyli. Old musty books were brought out, and searched column after column, till they came to the date of the “Consuls Dioclesian Augustus, the eighth time, and Maximian Herculeus Augustus, the seventh time.”[240]Here they found sundry entries, with reference to certain documents. A roll of mouldy parchments of that date was produced, docketed as referred to, and the number corresponding to the entries was drawn out, and examined. The result of the investigation seemed perfectly satisfactory to both parties.
“It is the first time in my life,” said the owner of the den, “that I ever knew a person who had got clear off, come back, after fifteen years, to inquire after his debts. A Christian, I presume, sir?”
“Certainly, by God’s mercy.”
“I thought as much; good morning, sir. I shall be happy to accommodate you at any time, at as reasonable rates as my father Ephraim, now with Abraham. A great fool that for his pains, I must say, begging his pardon,” he added, when the stranger was out of hearing.
With a decided step and a brighter countenance than he had yet displayed, he went straight to the villa on the Nomentan way; and after again paying his devotions in the crypt, but with a lighter heart, he at once addressed the fossor, as if they had never been parted: “Torquatus, can I speak with the Lady Fabiola?”
“Certainly,” answered the other; “come this way.”
Neither alluded, as they went along, to old times, nor to the intermediate history of either. There seemed to be an understanding, instinctive to both, that all the past was to be obliterated before men, as they hoped it was before God. Fabiola had remained at home that and the preceding day, in hopes of the stranger’s return. She was seated in the garden close to a fountain, when Torquatus, pointing to her, retired.
She rose, as she saw the long-expected visitor approach, and an indescribable emotion thrilled through her, when she found herself standing in his presence.
“Madam,” he said, in a tone of deep humility and earnest simplicity. “I should never have presumed to present myself before you, had not an obligation of justice, as well as many of gratitude, obliged me.”
“Orontius,” she replied,—“is this the name by which I must address you?” (he signified his assent) “you can have no obligations towards me, except that which our great Apostle charges on us, that we love one another.”
“I know you feel so. And therefore I would not have pretended, unworthy as I am, to intrude upon you for anylower motive than one of strict duty. I know what gratitude I owe you for the kindness and affection lavished upon one now dearer to me than any sister can be on earth, and how you discharged towards her the offices of love which I had neglected.”
“And thereby sent her to me,” interposed Fabiola, “to be my angel of life. Remember, Orontius, that Joseph was sold by his brethren, only that he might save his race.”
“You are too good, indeed, towards one so worthless,” resumed the pilgrim; “but I will not thank you for your kindness to another who has repaid you so richly. Only this morning I have learnt your mercy to one who could have no claim upon you.”
“I do not understand you,” observed Fabiola.
“Then I will tell you all plainly,” rejoined Orontius. “I have now been for many years a member of one of those communities in Palestine, of men who live separated from the world in desert places, dividing their day, and even their night, between singing the Divine praises, contemplation, and the labor of their hands. Severe penance for our past transgressions, fasting, mourning, and prayer form the great duty of our penitential state. Have you heard of such men here?”
“The fame of holy Paul and Anthony is as great in the West as in the East,” replied the lady.
“It is with the greatest disciple of the latter that I have lived, supported by his great example, and the consolation he has given me. But one thought troubled me, and prevented my feeling complete assurance of safety even after years of expiation. Before I left Rome I had contracted a heavy debt, which must have been accumulating at a frightful rate of interest, till it had reached an overwhelming amount. Yet it was an obligation deliberately contracted, and not to be justlyevaded. I was a poor cenobite,[241]barely living on the produce of the few palm-leaf mats that I could weave, and the scanty herbs that would grow in the sand. How could I discharge my obligations?
“Only one means remained. I could give myself up to my creditor as a slave, to labor for him and endure his blows and scornful reproaches in patience, or to be sold by him for my value, for I am yet strong. In either case, I should have had my Saviour’s example to cheer and support me. At any rate, I should have given up all that I had—myself.
“I went this morning to the Forum, found my creditor’s son, examined his accounts, and found that you had discharged my debt in full. I am, therefore, your bondsman, Lady Fabiola, instead of the Jew’s.” And he knelt humbly at her feet.
“Rise, rise,” said Fabiola, turning away her weeping eyes. “You are no bondsman of mine, but a dear brother in our common Lord.”
Then sitting down with him, she said: “Orontius, I have a great favor to ask from you. Give me some account of how you were brought to that life, which you have so generously embraced.”
“I will obey you as briefly as possible. I fled, as you know, one sorrowful night from Rome, accompanied by a man”—his voice choked him.
“I know, I know whom you mean,—Eurotas,” interrupted Fabiola.
“The same, the curse of our house, the author of all mine, and my dear sister’s, sufferings. We had to charter a vessel at great expense from Brundusium, whence we sailed for Cyprus. We attempted commerce and various speculations, but all failed. There was manifestly a curse on all that we undertook. Our means melted away, and we were obliged toseek some other country. We crossed over to Palestine, and settled for a while at Gaza. Very soon we were reduced to distress; every body shunned us, we knew not why; but my conscience told me that the mark of Cain was on my brow.”
Orontius paused and wept for a time, then went on:
“At length, when all was exhausted, and nothing remained but a few jewels, of considerable price indeed, but with which, I knew not why, Eurotas would not part, he urged me to take up the odious office of denouncing Christians; for a furious persecution was breaking out. For the first time in my life I rebelled against his commands, and refused to obey. One day he asked me to walk out of the gates; we wandered far, till we came to a delightful spot in the midst of the desert. It was a narrow dell, covered with verdure, and shaded by palm-trees; a little clear stream ran down, issuing from a spring in a rock at the head of the valley. In this rock we saw grottoes and caverns; but the place seemed uninhabited. Not a sound could be heard but the bubbling of the water.
“We sat down to rest, when Eurotas addressed me in a fearful speech. The time was come, he told me, when we must both fulfil the dreadful resolution he had taken, that we must not survive the ruin of our family. Here we must both die; the wild beasts would consume our bodies, and no one would know the end of its last representatives.
“So saying, he drew forth two small flasks of unequal sizes, handed me the larger one, and swallowed the contents of the smaller.
“I refused to take it, and even reproached him for the difference of our doses; but he replied that he was old, and I young; and that they were proportioned to our respective strengths. I still refused, having no wish to die. But a sort of demoniacal fury seemed to come over him; he seized me with a giant’s grasp, as I sat on the ground, threw me on my back, and exclaiming, ‘We must both perish together,’ forciblypoured the contents of the phial, without sparing me a drop, down my throat.
“In an instant, I was unconscious; and remained so, till I awoke in a cavern, and faintly called for drink. A venerable old man, with a white beard, put a wooden bowl of water to my lips. ‘Where is Eurotas?’ I asked. ‘Is that your companion?’ inquired the old monk. ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘He is dead,’ was the reply. I know not by what fatality this had happened; but I bless God with all my heart, for having spared me.
“That old man was Hilarion, a native of Gaza, who, having spent many years with the holy Anthony in Egypt, had that year[242]returned to establish the cenobitic and eremitical life in his own country, and had already collected several disciples. They lived in the caves hard by, and took their refection under the shade of those palms, and softened their dry food in the water of that fountain.
“Their kindness to me, their cheerful piety, their holy lives, won on me as I recovered. I saw the religion which I had persecuted in a sublime form; and rapidly recalled to mind the instructions of my dear mother, and the example of my sister; so that yielding to grace, I bewailed my sins at the feet of God’s minister,[243]and received baptism on Easter-eve.”
“Then we are doubly brethren, nay twin children of the Church; for I was born to eternal life, also, on that day. But what do you intend to do now?”
“Set out this evening on my return. I have accomplished the two objects of my journey. The first was to cancel my debt; my second was to lay an offering on the shrine of Agnes. You will remember,” he added, smiling, “that your goodfather unintentionally deceived me into the idea, that she coveted the jewels I displayed. Fool that I was! But I resolved, after my conversion, that she should possess the best that remained in Eurotas’s keeping; so I brought it to her.”
“But have you means for your journey?” asked the lady, timidly.
“Abundant,” he replied, “in the charity of the faithful. I have letters from the Bishop of Gaza, which procure me every where sustenance and lodging; but I will accept from you a cup of water and a morsel of bread, in the name of a disciple.”
They rose, and were advancing towards the house, when a woman rushed madly through the shrubs, and fell at their feet, exclaiming: “Oh, save me! dear mistress, save me! He is pursuing me, to kill me!”
Fabiola recognized, in the poor creature, her former slave Jubala; but her hair was grizzly and dishevelled, and her whole aspect bespoke abject misery. She asked whom she meant.
“My husband,” she replied; “long has he been harsh and cruel, but to-day he is more brutal than usual. Oh, save me from him!”
“There is no danger here,” replied the lady; “but I fear, Jubala, you are far from happy. I have not seen you for a long, long time.”
“No, dear lady, why should I come to tell you of all my woes? Oh! why did I ever leave you and your house, where I ought to have been so happy? I might then with you, and Graja, and good old departed Euphrosyne, have learnt to be good myself, and have embraced Christianity!”
“What, have you really been thinking of this, Jubala?”
“For a long time, lady, in my sorrows and remorse. ForI have seen how happy Christians are, even those who have been as wicked as myself. And because I hinted this to my husband this morning, he has beaten me, and threatened to take my life. But, thank God, I have been making myself acquainted with Christian doctrines, through the teaching of a friend.”
“How long has this bad treatment gone on, Jubala?” asked Orontius, who had heard of it from his uncle.
“Ever,” she replied, “since soon after marriage, I told him of an offer made to me previously, by a dark foreigner, named Eurotas. Oh! he was indeed a wicked man, a man of black passions and remorseless villany. Connected with him, is my most racking recollection.”
“How was that?” asked Orontius, with eager curiosity.
“Why, when he was leaving Rome, he asked me to prepare for him two narcotic potions; one for any enemy, he said, should he be taken prisoner. This was to be certainly fatal; another had to suspend consciousness for a few hours only, should he require it for himself.
“When he came for them, I was just going to explain to him, that, contrary to appearances, the small phial contained a fatally concentrated poison, and the large one a more diluted and weaker dose. But my husband came in at the moment, and in a fit of jealousy thrust me from the room. I fear some mistake may have been committed, and that unintentional death may have ensued.”
Fabiola and Orontius looked at one another in silence, wondering at the just dispensations of Providence; when they were aroused by a shriek from the woman. They were horrified at seeing an arrow quivering in her bosom. As Fabiola supported her, Orontius, looking behind him, caught a glimpse of a black face grinning hideously through the fence. In the next moment a Numidian was seen flying away on his horse, with his bow bent, Parthian-wise over his shoulder, ready forany pursuer. The arrow had passed, unobserved, between Orontius and the lady.
“Jubala,” asked Fabiola, “dost thou wish to die a Christian?”
“Most earnestly,” she replied.
“Dost thou believe in One God in Three Persons?”
“I firmly believe in all the Christian Church teaches.”
“And in Jesus Christ, who was born and died for our sins?”
“Yes, in all that you believe.” The reply was more faint.
“Make haste, make haste, Orontius,” cried Fabiola, pointing to the fountain.
He was already at its basin, filling full his two hands, and coming instantly, poured their contents on the head of the poor African, pronouncing the words of baptism; and, as she expired, the water of regeneration mingled with her blood of expiation.
After this distressing, yet consoling, scene, they entered the house, and instructed Torquatus about the burial to be given to this doubly-baptized convert.
Orontius was struck with the simple neatness of the house, so strongly contrasting with the luxurious splendor of Fabiola’s former dwelling. But suddenly his attention was arrested, in a small inner room, by a splendid shrine or casket, set with jewels, but with an embroidered curtain before it, so as to allow only the frame of it to be seen. Approaching nearer, he read inscribed on it:
“The blood of the blessed Miriam, shed by cruel hands!”
Orontius turned deadly pale; then changed to a deep crimson; and almost staggered.
Fabiola saw this, and going up to him kindly and frankly, placed her hand upon his arm, and mildly said to him:
“Orontius, there is that within, which may well make us both blush deeply, but not therefore despond.”
So saying she drew aside the curtain, and Orontius saw within a crystal plate, the embroidered scarf so much connected with his own, and his sister’s history. Upon it were lying two sharp weapons, the points of both which were rusted with blood. In one he recognized his own dagger; the other appeared to him like one of those instruments of female vengeance, with which he knew heathen ladies punished their attendant slaves.
“We have both,” said Fabiola, “unintentionally inflicted a wound, and shed the blood of her, whom now we honor as a sister in heaven. But for my part, from the day when I did so, and gave her occasion to display her virtue, I date the dawn of grace upon my soul. What say you, Orontius?”
“That I, likewise, from the instant that I so misused her, and led to her exhibition of such Christian heroism, began to feel the hand of God upon me, that has led me to repentance and forgiveness.”
“It is thus ever,” concluded Fabiola. “The example of our Lord has made the martyrs; and the example of the martyrs leads us upwards to Him. Their blood softens our hearts; His alone cleanses our souls. Theirs pleads for mercy; His bestows it.
“May the Church, in her days of peace and of victories, never forget what she owes to the age of her martyrs. As for us two, we are indebted to it for our spiritual lives. May many, who will only read of it, draw from it the same mercy and grace!”
They knelt down, and prayed long together silently before the shrine.
They then parted, to meet no more.
After a few years, spent by Orontius in penitentialfervor, a green mound by the palms, in the little dell near Gaza, marked the spot where he slept the sleep of the just.
And after many years of charity and holiness, Fabiola withdrew to rest in peace, in company with Agnes and Miriam.