* * * The prisoners are ushered in, heard, and ordered to death; among
whom a female veiled, as if Phœbus-chosen!
“What! dare they rend our dedicated maids,
Even from our altars? Haste! withdraw the veil,
In which her guilty face is shrouded close.
Ha! their magic mocks my sight! I seem to see
What cannot be——Margarita!
Answer, if thou art she!”
His mind was agonized at the thoughts of her position: silently, to
himself, he says—
“————————This pale and false Vopiscus
Hath from great Probus wrung his easy mandate;
Him Asia owns her præfect, if Olybius
Obey not this fell edict.” * * *
Much art and great argument were privately used to produce her
recantation; to which she calmly answers—
—————————“Who disown their Lord
On earth, will He disown in heaven!”
* * * Sent to the arena; the torture and execution of the prisoners
proceed, according to the order of their arraignment. The populace
become enraged, and loudly demand the blood of the apostate priestess;
while the præfect, in his palace, digests a plan to _surely_ save her
life. The high-priest of Apollo, her father, in his robes of office and
with his official attendants, must boldly enter the arena, and offer
pardon, in the name of his god, to any one who utters the cabalistic
word signifying “I RECANT;” must hastily apply to each in person; at
Margarita, one instructed must imitate her voice; instantly the priest
is to throw the mantle of the god upon her; and the attendants, by
force, to carry her to the palace of Olybius, where, instead of her
execution, her marriage with Olybius is to take place.
The procession of priests (of whom none but her father, and her sister
in disguise as a proxy for the act of recantation, knew the secret) are
urged instantly to action: “For,” says Olybius, “my very soul is
famished in every moment of delay!”
The procession moves in all pomp and splendour, with a view to produce
an alterative effect on the mind of the maddened populace. Its approach
to the arena is proclaimed by a sentinel there; on hearing which,
Margarita falls at the feet of the _headsman_, and successfully implores
instant death, that her father may be spared the misery of witnessing
it. She breathes a prayer in forgiveness of Olybius, and receives the
stroke of death as the procession enters. The father rages, demands
torture to make the Christians say how they enthralled her: a Christian
teacher explains, as with “a still, small voice;” the priests of Apollo
listen!
Rage and excitement had reached the utmost bound. There was a pause, as
the recess between two raging storms. The stillness reached even the
palace, and reason did feel as if
“There was darkness over all the land. Olybius, then:—
What means this deathlike stillness? Not a sound
Or murmur, from yon countless multitudes;
A pale, contagious horror seems to creep
Even to our palace. Men gaze mutely round,
As in their neighbour’s face to read a secret
They dare not speak themselves:
Even thus, along his vast domains of silence,
Dark Pluto gazes, when the sullen spirits
Speak only with fixed look and voiceless motion.
'Tis misery! Speak; Olybius orders; speak to me,
Nor let mine own voice, like an evil omen,
Load this hot air unanswered.”
A messenger announces the death of Margarita; Olybius rushes to kill
him; but, recovering self-command—
——————————“Oh, I’m sick
Of this accursed pomp: I will not use
Its privilege of revenge. Fatal trappings
Of proud authority! That * * * * *
* * * shine and burn into the very entrails!
Supremacy!! the great prerogative
Of being blasted by superior misery!”