"And yet," stammered Baudillas, "He hath compassion on the infirm and feeble. He forgave Peter. May He not pardon me if--? Glyceria is a heathen woman. She does not belong to my family. I did not propose this. I am not responsible for her acts. But no--it would be a betrayal of the truth, a dishonor to the Church. He that confesseth me before men--no, no, Pedo, it may not be."
"And now it is too late," said the slave. "They are at the door."
Blows resounded through the house, and the roar of voices from the street surged up over the roof, and poured in through the opening over the _impluvium_. It was as though a mighty sea were thundering against the house and the waves curled over it and plunged in through the gap above the court.
"You must open, Pedo. I will run upstairs for a moment and compose myself. Then--if it must be--but do not suffer the rabble to enter. If a prefect be there, or his underling and soldiers, let them keep the door. Say I shall be down directly. Yet stay--is the _posticum_ available for escape?"
"Sir--the mob have detailed a party to go to the backs of the houses and watch every way of exit."
"Then it is God's will that I be taken. I cannot help myself. I am glad I said No to the offer of Glyceria."
The deacon ascended a flight of limestone steps to the upper story. The slabs were worn and cracked, and had not been repaired owing to his poverty. He entered a room that looked out on the street, and went to the window.
The street above his doorway was dense with people, below it was completely empty. Torches threw up a glare illumining the white façades of the houses. He saw a sea of heads below. He heard the growl of voices breaking into a foam of coarse laughter. Curses uttered against the Christians, blasphemies against Christ, words of foulness, threats, brutal jests, formed the matter of the hubbub below. A man bearing a white wand with a sprig of artificial mistletoe at the end, gave directions to the people where to go, where to stop, what to do. He was the head of the branch of the guild of the Cultores Nemausi for that portion of the town.
Someone in the mob lifting his face, looked up and saw the deacon at the window, and at once shouted, "There! there he is! Baudillas Macer, come down, sacrilegious one! That is he who carried the maiden away."