THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER.
The body of the young martyr was deposited in peace on the Aurelian way,
in the cemetery which soon bore his name, and gave it, as we have before
observed, to the neighboring gate. In times of peace a basilica was
raised over his tomb, and yet stands to perpetuate his honor.
The persecution now increased its fury, and multiplied its daily
victims. Many whose names have appeared in our pages, especially the
community of Chromatius’s villa, rapidly fell. The first was Zoë, whose
dumbness Sebastian had cured. She was surprised by a heathen rabble
praying at St. Peter’s tomb, and was hurried to trial, and hung with her
head over a smoky fire, till she died. Her husband, with three others of
the same party, was taken, repeatedly tortured, and beheaded.
Tranquillinus, the father of Marcus and Marcellianus, jealous of Zoë’s
crown, prayed openly at St. Paul’s tomb; he was taken and summarily
stoned to death. His twin sons suffered also a cruel death. The
treachery of Torquatus, by his describing his former companions,
especially the gallant Tiburtius, who was now beheaded,[183] greatly
facilitated this wholesale destruction.
Sebastian moved in the midst of this slaughter, not like a builder who
saw his work destroyed by a tempest, nor a shepherd who beheld his flock
borne off by marauders. He felt as a general on the battle-field, who
looked only to the victory; counting every one as glorious who gave his
life in its purchase, and as ready to give his own should it prove to be
the required price. Every friend that fell before him was a bond less to
earth, and a link more to heaven; a care less below, a claim more above.
He sometimes sat lonely, or paused silently, on the spots where he had
conversed with Pancratius, recalling to mind the buoyant cheerfulness,
the graceful thoughts, and the unconscious virtue of the amiable and
comely youth. But he never felt as if they were more separated than when
he sent him on his expedition to Campania. He had redeemed his pledge to
him, and now it was soon to be his own turn. He knew it well; he felt
the grace of martyrdom swelling in his breast, and in tranquil certainty
he awaited its hour. His preparation was simple: whatever he had of
value he distributed to the poor, and he settled his property, by sale,
beyond the reach of confiscation.
Fulvius had picked up his fair share of Christian spoils; but, on the
whole, he had been disappointed. He had not been obliged to ask for
assistance from the emperor, whose presence he avoided; but he had put
nothing by; he was not getting rich. Every evening he had to bear the
reproachful and scornful interrogatory of Eurotas on the day’s success.
Now, however, he told his stern master--for such he had become--that he
was going to strike at higher game, the emperor’s favorite officer, who
must have made a large fortune in the service.
He had not long to wait for his opportunity. On the 9th of January a
court was held, attended, of course, by all aspirants for favors, or
fearers of imperial wrath. Fulvius was there, and, as usual, met with a
cold reception. But after bearing silently the muttered curses of the
royal brute, he boldly advanced, dropped on one knee, and thus addressed
him:
“Sire, your divinity has often reproached me with having made, by my
discoveries, but a poor return for your gracious countenance and liberal
subsidies. But now I have found out the foulest of plots, and the basest
of ingratitudes, in immediate contact with your divine person.”
“What dost thou mean, booby?” asked impatiently the tyrant. “Speak at
once, or I’ll have the words pulled out of thy throat by an iron hook.”
Fulvius rose, and directing his hand, in accompaniment to his words,
said with a bitter blandness of tone: “Sebastian is a Christian.”
The emperor started from his throne in fury.
“Thou liest, villain! Thou shalt prove thy words, or thou shalt die such
a piecemeal death, as no Christian dog ever endured.”
“I have sufficient proof recorded here,” he replied, producing a
parchment, and offering it, kneeling.
The emperor was about to make an angry answer, when, to his utter
amazement, Sebastian, with unruffled looks and noble mien, stood before
him, and in the calmest accents said:
“My liege, I spare you all trouble of proof. I _am_ a Christian, and I
glory in the name.”
As Maximian, a rude though clever soldier, without education, could
hardly when calm express himself in decent Latin, when he was in a
passion his language was composed of broken sentences, mingled with
every vulgar and coarse epithet. In this state he was now; and he poured
out on Sebastian a torrent of abuse, in which he reproached him with
every crime, and called him by every opprobrious name, within his
well-stocked repertory of vituperation. The two crimes, however, on
which he rung his loudest changes were, ingratitude and treachery. He
had nursed, he said, a viper in his bosom, a scorpion, an evil demon;
and he only wondered he was still alive.
The Christian officer stood the volley, as intrepidly as ever he had
borne the enemy’s assault, on the field of battle.
“Listen to me, my royal master,” he replied, “perhaps for the last time.
I have said I am a Christian; and in this you have had the best pledge
of your security.”
“How do you mean, ungrateful man?”
“Thus, noble emperor: that if you want a body-guard around you of men
who will spill their last drop of life’s blood for you, go to the prison
and take the Christians from the stocks on the floor, and from the
fetter-rings on the walls; send to the courts and bear away the
mutilated confessors from the rack and the gridiron; issue orders to the
amphitheatres, and snatch the mangled half that lives from the jaws of
tigers; restore them to such shape as yet they are capable of, put
weapons into their hands, and place them around you; and in this maimed
and ill-favored host there will be more fidelity, more loyalty, more
daring for you, than in all your Dacian and Pannonian legions. You have
taken half their blood from them, and they will give you willingly the
other half.”
“Folly and madness!” returned the sneering savage. “I would sooner
surround myself with wolves than with Christians. Your treachery proves
enough for me.”
“And what would have prevented me at any time from _acting_ the traitor,
if I had been one? Have I not had access to your royal person by night
as by day; and have I proved a traitor? No, emperor, none has ever been
more faithful than I to you. But I have another, and a higher Lord to
serve; one who will judge us both; and His laws I must obey rather than
yours.”
“And why have you, like a coward, concealed your religion? To escape,
perhaps, the bitter death you have deserved!”
“No, sire; no more coward than traitor. No one better than yourself
knows that I am neither. So long as I could do any good to my brethren,
I refused not to live amidst their carnage and my afflictions. But hope
had at last died within me; and I thank Fulvius with all my heart, for
having, by his accusation, spared me the embarrassment of choice between
seeking death or enduring life.”
“I will decide that point for you. Death is your award; and a slow
lingering one it shall be. But,” he added, in a lower tone, as if
speaking to himself, “this must not get out. All must be done quietly at
home, or treachery will spread. Here, Quadratus, take your Christian
tribune under arrest. Do you hear, dolt? Why do you not move?”
“Because I too am a Christian!”
Another burst of fury, another storm of vile language, which ended in
the stout centurion’s being ordered at once to execution. But Sebastian
was to be differently dealt with.
“Order Hyphax to come hither,” roared the tyrant. In a few minutes, a
tall, half-naked Numidian made his appearance. A bow of immense length,
a gaily-painted quiver full of arrows, and a short broad-sword, were at
once the ornaments and the weapons of the captain of the African
archers. He stood erect before the emperor, like a handsome bronze
statue, with bright enamelled eyes.
“Hyphax, I have a job for you to-morrow morning. It must be well done,”
said the emperor.
“Perfectly, sire,” replied the dusky chief, with a grin which showed
another set of enamels in his face.
“You see the captain Sebastian?” The negro bowed assent. “He turns out
to be a Christian!”
If Hyphax had been on his native soil, and had trodden suddenly on a
hooded asp or a scorpion’s nest, he could not have started more. The
thought of being so near a Christian,--to him who worshipped every
abomination, believed every absurdity, practised every lewdness,
committed any atrocity!
Maximian proceeded, and Hyphax kept time to every member of his
sentences by a nod, and what _he_ meant to be a smile;--it was hardly an
earthly one.
“You will take Sebastian to your quarters; and early to-morrow
morning,--not this evening, mind, for I know that by this time of day
you are all drunk,--but to-morrow morning, when your hands are steady,
you will tie him to a tree in the grove of Adonis, and you will slowly
shoot him to death. Slowly, mind; none of your fine shots straight
through the heart or the brain, but plenty of arrows, till he die
exhausted by pain and loss of blood. Do you understand me? Then take him
off at once. And mind, silence; or else----”
[Illustration: A Monogram of Christ, found in the Catacombs.]