The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 12 September 1918, Page 3

The Storyteller

(By Cardinal Wiseman.)

FAB 10 LA; 08, THE CHURCH OF THE CATACOMBS

Part Second—Conflict CHAPTER XXIII.—THE FIGHT. The morning broke light and frosty; and the sun, glittering on the gilded ornaments of the temples and other public buildings, seemed to array them in holiday splendor. And the people, too, soon come forth into the streets in their gayest-attire, decked out with unusual richness. The various streams converge towards the Flavian amphitheatre, now better known by the name of the Coliseum. Each one directs his steps to the arch indicated by the number of his ticket, and thus the huge monster keeps sucking in by degrees that stream of life, which soon animates and enlivens its oval tiers over tiers of steps, till its interior is tapestried all round with human faces, and its walls seem to rock and wave to and fro, by the swaying of the living mass. And after this shall have been gorged with blood and inflamed with fury it will melt once more and rush out in a thick continuous flow through the many avenues by which it entered, now bearing their fitting name of Vomitoria; for never did a more polluted stream of the dregs and pests of humanity issue from an unbecoming reservoir, through ill-assorted channels, than the Roman mob drunk with the blood of martyrs, gushing forth from the pores of the splendid amphitheatre. The emperor came to the games surrounded by his court, with all the pomp and circumstance which befitted an imperial festival, keen as any of his subjects to witness the cruel games, and to feed his eyes with a feast of carnage. His throne was on the eastern side of the amphitheatre, where a large space, called the pulvinar, was reserved, and richly decorated for the imperial court. Various sports succeeded one another; and manv a gladiator, killed or wounded, had sprinkled the bright sand with blood, when the people, eager for fiercer combats, began to call, or roar, for the Christians and the wild beasts. It is time, therefore, for us to think of our captives. Before the citizens were astir they had been removed from the prison to a strong chamber called the spolia\toriurn, the press-room, where their fetters and chains were removed. An attempt was made to dress them gaudily as heathen priests and priestesses; but they resisted, urging that as they had come spontaneously to the fight, it was unfair to make them appear in a disguise which they abhorred. During the early part of the day they remained thus together encouraging one another and singing the Divine praises, in spite of the shouts which drowned their voices from time to time. While they were thus engaged Corvinus entered, and with a look of insolent triumph thus accosted Pancratius— "Thanks to the gods, the day is come which I have long desired. It has been a tiresome and tough struggle between us who should fall uppermost. I have won it." "How sayest thou, Corvinus? When and how have I contended with thee ?" "Alwayseverywhere. Thou hast haunted me in my dreams ; thou hast danced before me like a meteor, and I have tried in vain to grasp thee. Thou hast been my tormentor, my evil genius. I have hated thee; devoted thee to the infernal gods; cursed thee and loathed thee; and now my day of vengeance is come." "Methinks," replied Pancratius smiling, "this does not look like a combat. It has been all on one side; for I have done none of these things towards thee."

"No? Thinkest thou that I believe thee, when thou hast lain ever as a viper on my path, to bite my heel, and overthrow me "Where, I again ask?" "Everywhere, I repeat. At school in the Lady Agnes's house in the Forum in the cemetery in my father's own court; at Chromatius's villa. Yes, everywhere." "And nowhere else but where thou hast named? When thy chariot was dashed furiously along the Appian way, didst thou not hear the tramp of horses' hoofs trying to overtake thee?" "Wretch!" exclaimed the Prefect's son in a fury; "and was it thy accursed steed which, purposely urged forward, frightened mine, and nearly caused my death?" "No, Corvinus, hear me calmly. It is the last time we shall speak together. I was travelling quietly with a companion towards Rome, after having paid the last rites to our master Cassianus" (Corvinus winced, for the knew not this before), "when T heard the clatter of a runaway chariot; and then, indeed, I put spurs to my horse : and it is well for thee that I did." "How so?" "Because I reached thee just in time—when thy strength was nearly exhausted, and thy blood almost frozen by repeated plunges in the cold canal : and when thy arm, already benumbed, had let go its last stay, and thou wast falling backwards for the last time into the water. I saw thee—l knew thee, as I took hold of thee, insensible. I had in my grasp the murderer of one most dear to me. Divine justice seemed to have overtaken him ; there was only my will between him and his doom. It was my day of vengeance, and T fully gratified it." "Ha! and how, pray?" "By drawing thee out and laying thee on the bank, and chafing thee till thy heart resumed its functions ; and then consigning thee to thy servants, rescued from death." "Thou liest!" screamed Corvinus: "my servants told me that they drew me out." "And did they give thee my knife, together with thy leopard-skin purse, which T found on the ground after I had dragged thee forth?" "No; they said the purse was lost in the canal. It was a leopard-skin purse, the gift of an African sorceress! What sayest thou of the knife?" "That, it is here, see it, still rusty with the water; thy purse I gave to thy slaves ; my own knife I retained for myself; look at it again. Dost thou believe" me now? Have I been always a viper on thy path?" Too ungenerous to acknowledge that he had been conquered in the struggle between them, Corvinus only felt himself withered, degraded, before his late schoolfellow, crumbled like a clot of dust in his hands. His very heart seemed to him to blush.- He felt sick, and staggered, hung down his head, and sneaked away. He cursed the games, the emperor, the yelling rabble, the roaring beasts, his horses and chariot, his slaves, his father, himself—-everything and everybody except one—he could not, for his life, curse Pancratius. He had reached the door when the youth called him back. He turned and looked at him with a glance of respect, almost approaching to love. Pancratius put his hand on his arm and said, "Corvinus, / have freely forgiven thee. There is One above, who cannot forgive without repentance. Seek pardon from Him. If not, I foretell to thee this day, that by whatsoever death I die, thou too shalt one day perish." Corvinus slunk away and appeared no more thatday. He lost the sight on which his coarse imagination had gloated for days, which he had longed for during months. When the holiday was over he was found by his father completely intoxicated: it was the-only way he knew of drowning remorse. As he was leaving the prisoners the lamista, or master of the gladiators, entered the room and summoned them to the combat. They hastily embraced one another, and took leave on earth. They entered the arena, or pit of the amphitheatre, opposite the imperial

seat, and had to pass between two files of venatores, or huntsmen, who had the care of the wild beasts, each armed with a heavy whip, wherewith he inflicted a blow on every one as he went by him. They were then brought forward, singly or in groups, as the people desired, or the directors of the spectacle chose. Sometimes the intended prey was placed on an elevated platform to be more conspicuous; at another time he was tied up to posts to be more helpless. A favorite sport was to bundle up a female victim in a net and expose her to be rolled, tossed, or gored by wild cattle. One encounter with a single wild beast often finished the martyr's course; while occasionally three or four were successively let loose, without their inflicting a mortal wound. The confessor was then either remanded to prison for further torments or taken back to the spoliatorium, where the gladiators' apprentices amused themselves with despatching him. But we must content ourselves with following the last steps of our youthful hero, Pancratius. As he was passing through the corridor that led to the amphitheatre he saw Sebastian standing on one side, with a lady closely enwrapped in her mantle, and veiled. He at once recognised her, stopped before her, knelt, and taking her hand, affectionately kissed it. "Bless me, dear mother," he said, "in this your promised hour." "See, my child, the heavens," she replied, "and look up thither, where Christ with His saints expecteth thee. Fight the good fight, for thy soul's sake, and show thyself faithful and steadfast in thy Saviour's love. Remember him too, whose precious relic thou bearest round thy neck." "Its price shall be doubled in thine eyes, my sweet mother, ere many hours are over." "On, on, and let us have none of this fooling," exclaimed the lanista, adding a stroke of his cane. Lucina retreated, while Sebastian pressed the hand of her son and whispered in his ear, "Courage, dearest boy ; may God bless you ! I shall be close behind the emperor ; give me a last look there, and—your blessing." "Ha! ha! ha!" broke out a fiendish tone close behind him. Was it a demon's laugh ? He looked behind, and caught only a glimpse of a fluttering cloak rounding a pillar. Who could it be ? He guessed not. It was Fulvius, who in these words had got the last link in a chain of evidence that he had long been weaving—that Sebastian was certainly a Christian. Pancratius soon stood in the midst of the arena, the last of the faithful band. He had been reserved, in hopes that the sight of others' sufferings might shake his constancy ; but the effect had been the reverse. He took his stand where he was placed, and his yet delicate frame contrasted with the swarthy and brawny limbs of the executioners who surrounded him. They now left him alone; and we cannot better describe- him than Eusebius, an eye-witness, does a youth a few years older: "You might have seen a tender youth, who had not yet entered his twentieth year, standing without fetters, with his hands stretched forth in the form of a cross, and praying to God most attentively, with a fixed and untrembling heart; not retiring from the place where he first stood, nor swerving the least, while bears and leopards, breathing fury and death in their very snort, were just rushing on to tear his limbs in pieces. And yet, I know not how, their jaws seemed seized and closed by some divine and mysterious power, and they drew altogether back." Such was the attitude, and such the privilege, of our heroic youth. The mob were frantic as they saw one wild beast after another careering madly round him, roaring and lashing its sides with its tail, while he seemed placed in a charmed circle, which they could not approach. A furious bull, let loose upon him, dashed madly forward with his neck bent down, then stopped suddenly as though he had struck his head against a wall, pawed the ground and scattered the dust around him, bellowing fiercely. "Provoke him, thou coward!" roared out still louder the enraged emperor.

Pancratius awoke as from a trance, and waving his arms, ran towards his enemy but the savage brute, as if a lion had been rushing on him, turned round and ran away towards the entrance, where, meeting his keeper, he tossed him high into the air. All were disconcerted except the brave youth, who had resumed his attitude of prayer ; when one of the crowd shouted out, "Pie has a charm round his neck he is a sorcerer !" The whole multitude re-echoed the cry, till the emperor, having commanded silence, called out to him, "Take that amulet from thy neck and cast it from thee, or it shall be done more roughly for thee." "Sire," replied the youth, with a musical voice that rang sweetly through the hushed amphitheatre, "it is no charm that I wear, but a memorial of my father, who in this very place. ; made gloriously the same confession which I now humbly make ; I am a Christian ; and for love of Jesus Christ, God and man, I gladly give my life. Do not take from me this only legacy, which I have bequeathed, richer than I received it, to another. Try once more; it was a panther which gave him his crown ; perhaps it will bestow the same on me." For an instant there was dead silence : the multitude seemed softened, won. The graceful form of the gallant youth, his now inspired countenance, the thrilling music of his voice, the intrepidity of his speech, and his generous self-devotion to his cause, had wrought upon that cowardly herd. Pancratius felt it, and his heart quailed before their mercy more than before their rage: he had promised himself heaven that day : was he to be disappointed? Tears started into his eyes as, stretching forth his arms once more in the form of a cross, he called aloud, in a tone that again vibrated through every heart—- " To-day; oh yes, to-day, most blessed Lord, :'s the appointed day of Thy coming. Tarry not longer ; enough has Thy power been' shown in me to them that believe not in Thee : show 'now Thy mercy to me who in Thee believe !" "The panther!" shouted out a voice. "The panther!" responded twenty. "The panther!" thundered forth a hundred thousand in a chorus like the roaring of an avalanche. A cage started up as if by magic from the midst of the sand, and as it rose its sides fell down, and freed the captive of the desert. With one graceful bound the elegant savage gained its liberty : and though enraged by darkness, confinement, and hunger , it seemed almost playful as it leaped and turned about, frisked and gambolled noiselessly on the sand. At last it caught sight of its prey. All its feline cunning and cruelty seemed to return and to conspire together in animating the cautious and treacherous movements of its velvet-clothed frame. The whole amphitheatre was as silent as if it had been a hermit's cell, while every eye was intent, watching the stealthy approaches of the sleek brute to its victim. Pancratius was still standing in the same place, facing the emperor, apparently so absorbed in higher thoughts as not to heed the movements of his enemy. The panther had stolen round him, as if disdaining to attack him except in front. Crouching upon its breast, slowly advancing one paw before another, it had gained its measured distance, and there it lay for some moments of breathless suspense. A deep snarling growl, an elastic spring through the air, and it was seen gathered up like a leech with its hind feet on the chest and its fangs and fore claws on the throat of the martyr. He stood erect for a moment, brought his right hand to his mouth, and looking up at Sebastian with a smile, directed to him by a graceful wave of his arm the last salutation of his lips—and fell. The arteries of the neck had been severed, and the slumber of martyrdom at once settled on his eyelids. His blood softened, brightened, enriched, and blended inseparably with that of his father, which Lucina had hung about his neck. The mother's sacrifice had been accepted. (To be continued.)