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Updated: April 30, 2025
“No one shall touch him, craven as he is,” answered Juba. “I despise him, but let him alone.” “Don’t come across me,” said Gurta, sullenly; “I’ll have my way. Why, you know I could smite you to the dust, as well as him, if I chose.” “But you have not asked me about Callista,” answered Juba. “It is really a capital joke, but she has got into prison for certain, for being a Christian.
It’s not in my line; but you gloated over it; and when he wailed, you wailed in mimicry. You were panting with pleasure.” Gurta was still silent, and had an expression on her face, awful from the intensity of its malignity. She had uttered a low piercing whistle. “Yes!” continued Juba, “you revelled in it. You chattered to the poor babe when it screamed, as a nurse to an infant.
Fancy it! they caught her in the streets, and put her in the guard-house, and have had her up for examination. You see they want a Christian for the nonce: it would not do to have none such in prison; so they will flourish with her till Decius bolts from the scene.” “The Furies have her!” cried Gurta: “she is a Christian, my boy: I told you so, long ago!”
Gurta was almost suffocated with passion. “Cyprianus has not escaped, boy?” she asked at length. “I got him off,” said Juba, undauntedly. A shade, as of Erebus, passed over the witch’s face; but she remained quite silent. “Mother, I am my own master,” he continued, “I must break your assumption of superiority. I’m not a boy, though you call me so. I’ll have my own way. Yes, I saved Cyprianus.
“You may say it,” answered Juba. “The reptile! he turned right about, and would have made himself an honest fellow, when it couldn’t be helped.” “Good, good!” returned Gurta, as if she had got something very pleasant in her mouth; “ah! that is good! but he did not escape on that score, I do trust.” “They pulled him to pieces all the more cheerfully,” said Juba.
Gurta looked at him fiercely, and seemed waiting for his explanation. He began singing,— “She wheedled and coaxed, but he was no fool; He’d be his own master, he’d not be her tool; Not the little black moor should send him to school. “She foamed and she cursed—’twas the same thing to him; She laid well her trap; but he carried his whim;— The priest scuffled off, safe in life and in limb.”
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.
“Blaspheme not the great gods,” she answered, “or they’ll do you a mischief yet.” “I say again,” insisted Juba, “if I must lick the earth, it shall not be where your friend has trod. It shall be in my brother’s fashion, rather than in yours, Gurta.” “Agellius!” she shrieked out with such disgust, that it is wonderful she uttered the name at all. “Ah! you have not told me about him, boy.
Well, is he safe in the pit, or in the stomach of an hyena?” “He’s alive,” said Juba; “but he has not got it in him to be a Christian. Yes, he’s safe with his uncle.” “Ah! Jucundus must ruin him, debauch him, and then we must make away with him. We must not be in a hurry,” said Gurta, “it must be body and soul.”
Callista’s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad;—but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad;—and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles.——Come in! come in, Cornelius!” he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; “Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend!
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