“What indeed can we do?” he said. “To emancipate the slaves would be to doom them to starvation, unprotected, disorganized, helpless, degraded.” “We must _be_ Christian,” she said, with her victorious smile, “and let the rest follow! We must love them, worship with them, believe in the image of God in them, however defaced; in the brotherhood of Christ with them, however unrecognized. He is sure to conquer in the end. And He is sure to give us our bit of His battle to fight.” One day of their wanderings together among the mountains remained stamped for ever on Ethne’s heart. The dusk was falling on the valleys, but on a crest of the mountains above them, a temple of the ancient gods (Marius believed of Apollo) shone golden in the evening light. A little company of mountain folk were moving slowly towards the portals, bearing a lamb garlanded for sacrifice. After a time they reappeared, and a strain of wild, weird music wound in and out, echoing among the hills. Heathen rites were indeed still practised there, and forbidden worship was still offered, which would not have been ventured on in less remote places. At the same time, below, on the other side, on the top of a low hill near them, Ethne saw a rude uncouth wooden cross, like a gibbet, standing alone, stretching out its arms; a ghastly horror confronting the beautiful marble temple on the height. At the foot of that uncouth cross knelt a man, clothed in rough dark garments, with a sheepskin capote, such as was worn by the shepherds of the region. But as they drew nearer Ethne saw that his head was tonsured. His arms were clasped around the cross. Ethne and Marius stopped beside him and reverently bowed their heads. They felt in a sacred place. “_Patibulum crucis_, the gibbet of the cross!” Marius said in a low voice, quoting a well-known Ambrosian hymn. “The legend in the country is, that this cross is the last left of a multitude on which the vanquished slaves of one of the terrible Servile Wars were crucified ages ago. The cross, you know, was a punishment only awarded to a slave.” Ethne’s whole face quivered, and tears streamed from her eyes. As they stood there speechless, the kneeling figure arose. Approaching them, and seeing Ethne weeping, the stranger said, looking up at the cross, “Lady, _dost thou understand_?” She could not speak. She had indeed understood too keenly. Then a radiant joy shone from the stranger’s face, and looking up at the pagan temple glistening on the opposite height, with a slight accent which they recognized as Greek— “_This_ will conquer _that_,” he said; and looking down on a fetter on one of his wrists, he added, “will conquer _that_ and _this_. I also have been a slave.” “No longer a slave,” she murmured, taking his hard, wrinkled, aged hand in hers, “a brother beloved!”