“He has said, ’Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I deny.’  I never read much Scripture, but I remember that the chaplain at Kenilworth, where I once lived as a page, impressed so much as this upon my mind.  No; I shall stand firm, and take my chance, God helping me.”

So they awaited the morning.  And when it came, they were all marshalled into the presence of the “Old Man of the Mountain.”

“Yesterday you heard the terms, today the choice remains—­liberty and the faith of the prophet; slavery and death if you remain obstinate.  Those who choose the former, file off to my right hand; those who select the latter, to my left.”

There were some thirty slaves.  A moment’s hesitation.  Then, at the signal from the guards, about twenty, amongst whom was Alphonse, stalked off to the right.  Ten, amongst whom was Hubert, passed to the left.

“Your selection is made.  Every moon the same choice will be repeated, until the end of the sixth, when no further grace will be granted; and the death he has chosen awaits the unbeliever.”

From this time the situation of the few who remained faithful became unbearable.  They slept in the cells we have described, as best they could, rose at the dawn, and laboured under the guardianship of ferocious dogs and crueler men till the sun set, and darkness put an end to their unremitting toil.  Only the briefest intervals were allowed for meals, and the food was barely sufficient to maintain life.  Conversation was utterly forbidden, and at night, if the slaves were heard talking, they were visited with stripes.

The cells in which they now slept were single ones.  Once only in many days Hubert was able to ask a fellow sufferer: 

“What happens in the end?”

“We are impaled on a stake, I believe, after the fashion of the Turcomans; or perhaps burnt alive; or the two may be combined.  God help us.  Although He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”

“God bless you for those words,” replied Hubert.

The merry laughter of boys filled the place at times, between their hours of instruction, for the youngsters had all the European languages to study amongst them, for the ends the founder of this “orphan asylum” had in view.  But nothing was done to make them tired of their work, or unfaithful in their attachment to the principles they were to maintain with cup and dagger.

Once or twice slaves disappeared, generally weak and worn-out men.

“Their time is come,” said the others in a terrified whisper.

And on such occasions a few shrieks would sometimes break the silence of a summer day, followed by the derisive laughter of youthful voices.  Yet these martyrs might have saved themselves by apostasy at any moment—­save, perhaps, at the last, when the appetite of the cruel Mussulmen had been whetted for blood, and must be satiated—­yet they would not deny their Lord.  Their behaviour was very unlike the conduct of an English officer in the Indian Mutiny, who saved his life readily by becoming a Mussulman, with the intention, of course, of throwing his new creed aside as soon as he was restored to society, and laughed at the folly of those who accepted his profession thereof.