morn they were sought and could not be found.  Wherefore Decius was sorrowful because he had lost such young men.  And then they were accused that they were hid in the mount of Celion, and had given their goods to poor men, and yet abode in their purpose.  And then commanded Decius that their kindred should come to him, and menaced them to the death if they said not of them all that they knew.  And they accused them, and complained that they had dispended all their riches.  Then Decius thought what he should do with them, and, as our Lord would, he inclosed the mouth of the cave wherein they were with stones, to the end that they should die therein for hunger and fault of meat.  Then the ministers and two Christian men, Theodorus and Rufinus, wrote their martyrdom and laid it subtlely among the stones.  And when Decius was dead, and all that generation, three hundred and sixty-two years after, and the thirtieth year of Theodosius the emperor, when the heresy was of them that denied the resurrection of dead bodies, and began to grow; Theodosius, then the most Christian emperor, being sorrowful that the faith of our Lord was so felonously demened, for anger and heaviness he clad him in hair and wept every day in a secret place, and led a full holy life, which God, merciful and piteous, seeing, would comfort them that were sorrowful and weeping, and give to them esperance and hope of the resurrection of dead men, and opened the precious treasure of his pity, and raised the foresaid martyrs in this manner following.

He put in the will of a burgess of Ephesus that he would make in that mountain, which was desert and aspre, a stable for his pasturers and herdmen.  And it happed that of adventure the masons, that made the said stable, opened this cave.  And then these holy saints, that were within, awoke and were raised and intersalued each other, and had supposed verily that they had slept but one night only, and remembered of the heaviness that they had the day tofore.  And then Malchus, which ministered to them, said what Decius had ordained of them, for he said:  We have been sought, like as I said to you yesterday, for to do sacrifice to the idols, that is it that the emperor desireth of us.  And then Maximian answered:  God our Lord knoweth that we shall never sacrifice, and comforted his fellows.  He commanded to Malchus to go and buy bread in the city, and bade him bring more that he did yesterday, and also to inquire and demand what the emperor had commanded to do.  And then Malchus took five shillings, and issued out of the cave, and when he saw the masons and the stones tofore the cave, he began to bless him, and was much amarvelled.  But he thought little on the stones, for he thought on other things.  Then came he all doubtful to the gates of the city, and was all amarvelled.  For he saw the sign of the cross about the gate, and then, without tarrying, he went to that other gate of the city, and found there also the sign of the cross thereon, and then