United States or Tokelau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But suppose Glaucus to perish innocently? How take on his conscience a new murder, a new sin, a new offence against the Lamb? "There is no time for a trial, my son," said Chilo. "The traitor will hurry from Ostrianum straightway to Cæsar in Antium, or hide in the house of a certain patrician whom he is serving.
He had loved her when she was in the house of Aulus, when she was on the Palatine, when he saw her in Ostrianum listening to Peter's words, when he went with Croton to carry her away, when she watched at his bedside, and when she deserted him.
When the young tribune had recovered his strength altogether, he declared that he would search further for Linus that very night. Macrinus, who was a Christian, confirmed Chilo's report, that Linus, with Clement the chief priest, had gone to Ostrianum, where Peter was to baptize a whole company of confessors of the new faith.
The young tribune, in whose head the distinction between things possible and impossible had grown involved and faint since the discourse of the Apostle in Ostrianum, was also not too far from supposing that that might take place. But considering things more soberly, he remembered what he had said of the Greek, and asked again that Chilo be brought to him.
"He went out by the Nomentan Gate to Ostrianum two days ago. Peace be with thee, O king of Persia!" Vinicius rose to a sitting posture, and saw Chilo before him. "Thy house is burned surely, O lord," said the Greek, "for the Carinæ is in flames; but thou wilt be always as rich as Midas. Oh, what a misfortune!
He is permitted to pardon only offences against himself; hence he will kill Glaucus, even before the eyes of all the brethren and sisters, in Ostrianum to-morrow. But let Glaucus be condemned previously by the elders among the brethren, by the bishop, or by the Apostle. To kill is not a great thing; to kill a traitor is even as pleasant as to kill a bear or a wolf.
When I entered this house in company with Croton, no one saw us except a Greek who was with us in Ostrianum. I will indicate to you his lodgings; bring that man to me. On him I will enjoin silence; he is paid by me. I will send a letter to my own house stating that I too went to Beneventum.
"And He will bless thee and thy house," concluded the Apostle. Meanwhile they turned into another ravine, at the end of which a faint light was visible. Peter pointed to it and said, "There is the hut of the quarryman who gave us a refuge when, on the way from Ostrianum with the sick Linus, we could not go to the Trans-Tiber." After a while they arrived.
Waves covered their heads with foam; in the whirl only the hands of a few could be seen; but Peter saved the drowning time after time, and gathered them into his boat, which grew larger, as if by a miracle. Soon crowds filled it, as numerous as those which were collected in Ostrianum, and then still greater crowds.
For this reason he could not keep back his tears. After a while Peter took his palm from his forehead, and resumed the narrative. But Vinicius was overpowered by a new feverish, waking dream. What he heard now was in his mind mixed up with what the Apostle had told the night previous in Ostrianum, of that day in which Christ appeared on the shore of the sea of Tiberius.
Word Of The Day