This thought fell on her heart like a ray of light dispersing the clouds of uncertainty and alarm.  With a deep breath of relief she took the child in her arms and told him—­for he was whimpering to know where she was taking him, and why he might not go back to Dada—­that they were going to see a good, kind man who would tell them the way home to their father and mother.  Papias, however, still wailed to go to Dada and not to the man.

Half insisting and half coaxing him with promises, she dragged him along as far as the main street.  This was full of an excited throng; soldiers on foot and on horseback were doing what they could to keep the peace, and the bustle amused the little boy’s curiosity so that he soon forgot his homesickness.  When, at length, Ague found the street that led to the Prefect’s house she was fairly carried along by the surging, rushing mob.  To turn was quite impossible; the utmost she could do was to keep her wits about her, and concentrate her strength so as not to be parted from the child.  Pushed, pulled, squeezed, scolded, and abused by other women for her folly in bringing a child out into such a crowd, she at last found herself in the great square.  A hideous hubbub of coarse, loud voices pierced her unaccustomed ears; she could have sunk on the earth and cried; but she kept up her courage and collected all her energies, for she saw in the distance a large gilt cross over a lofty doorway.  It was like a greeting and welcome home.  Under its protection she would certainly, find rest, consolation and safety.

But how was she to reach it?  The space before her was packed with men as a quiver is packed with arrows; there was not room for a pin between.  The only chance of getting forward was by forcing her way, and nine-tenths of the crowd were men—­angry and storming men, whose wild and strange demeanor filled her with terror and disgust.  Most of them were monks who had flocked in at the Bishop’s appeal from the monasteries of the desert, or from the Lauras and hermitages of Kolzum by the Red Sea, or even from Tabenna in Upper Egypt, and whose hoarse voices rent the air with vehement cries of:  “Down with the idols!  Down with Serapis!  Death to the heathen!”

This army of the Saviour whose very essence was gentleness and whose spirit was love, seemed indeed to have deserted from his standard of light and grace to the blood-stained banner of murderous hatred.  Their matted locks and beards fringed savage faces with glowing eyes; their haggard or paunchy nakedness was scarcely covered by undressed hides of sheep and goats; their parched skins were scarred and striped by the use of the scourges that hung at their girdles.  One—­a “crown bearer”—­had a face streaming with blood, from the crown of thorns which he had vowed to wear day and night in memory and imitation of the Redeemer’s sufferings, and which on this great occasion he pressed hard into the flesh with ostentatious