When it was finished, the hostess cleared the tables, spread them again with food and drink, and made everything ready for the night in the sleeping-rooms. Then she carefully unpacked from the chest a silver candlestick with seven branches, and filled the seven lamps with oil, which when the sun set she lighted and set on their own table, the only decoration of the house. After this she sat down and elaborately did nothing, in a way which was evidently significant of some rite or festivity. Then after a time they stood up, and the host said prayers in the strange, deep-sounding language, whilst the captives watched their proceedings with much wonder and interest. It seemed to Ethne they must have fallen among some new variety of Christians. And yet with all the compassionate kindness of their hostess, they were evidently considered as apart from all these religious ceremonials, as well as excluded from sitting at the same table, whether as slaves and inferiors, or as of another race, or as in some way excommunicate, they could not quite determine. It was a relief to them both when they were allowed to go into a walled orchard at the back of the house, where, for the first time since the memorable evening in the cave, by the many-chambered cavern, before the reading of Patrick’s letter, they were once more alone together. They discussed their mysterious purchasers in low tones, but could arrive at no clear conclusion. Of one thing, however, they felt more and more clear, from what Dewi had told them, from chance words that had dropped from the other sailors, and the recurrence of the magic name “Roma,” as the only intelligible word in the conversation of their hosts—they were on their way to Rome. They slept the sound sleep of youth on the clean straw couches spread for them in one of the sleeping-chambers. When they awoke it had long been daylight, and their hosts were sitting in the eating-room, again elaborately doing nothing, with a seriousness which made Ethne and Baithene feel the immobility and stillness in some mysterious way part of a sacred ritual. Their only occupation was the reading aloud of their host from a manuscript wrapped in silken covers, with occasional responses from their hostess. They were courteously bidden to take their places at the meal set on their own table. But when they had finished they felt they would be better out of the way in the orchard, to which they gladly retired, enjoying the sunshine and rest. Whilst they were there, from within the house came frequently the sound of the monotonous reading or chanting, in that same strange language, with its deep guttural or nasal sounds. “Are we not in a Christian country?” said Baithene at last; “and can this be our sacred day, Sunday, the day of our Lord?”