The old man would have kept them till nightfall, but they felt bound in honour to return. Before they left the cells he gave them two small tablets, as letters of commendation to Anianus, Bishop of Orleans, and Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, who would, he said, be sure to help them if possible. “But,” he added, in a desponding tone, “who knows whether Anianus and Lupus will be still living? or their cities, Orleans and Troyes, still standing? From all sides come the news of this army of locusts, these myriads of monstrous savages, ravaging and burning and destroying. Surely the end of the world is at hand. Yet these tablets may do you service; keep them carefully.” And Ethne wrapped them in the folds of her plaid. The old monk accompanied them to the door of Eleazar’s lodging. “Kidnapped by Christians, purchased by a Jew!” he murmured, as he turned reluctantly away and left them. “Would to God our Martin were here!” Miriam received them affectionately, and not without a look of triumph at her husband, who had not been sure they would ever return. Ethne was somewhat perplexed at the good monk’s last words. “Why should we wish to call Martin down again?” she said. “Do not the saints always go on helping us in heaven? And does not God go on making saints on earth?” “I wonder if we shall ever find a living saint again on earth!” said Baithene. And Ethne returned to her “lorica,” her breastplate, Patrick’s Irish hymn— “Christ in the chariot; Christ in the ship; Christ behind me; Christ before me; Christ within me; Christ above me.” [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. FROM ROME TO THE BATTLE-FIELD. The morning after his conversation with Lucia on the way from the catacombs, Marius went on his way northward. Away from the corruption and lassitude of the Imperial Court, then resident for a time at Rome; away from the decrepitude of Rome itself; from the luxurious idleness of life among the rich in their palaces, among their thousands of slaves; from the beggarly idleness of the pauperized populace; from the aimlessness of life amongst all; northward among the barbarians, to beat back the lower elements among them by means of the higher; to find some battle worth fighting, some hero worth following, some new life worth living among these new races, who were pouring in on the decrepit old world. Three hundred years before, Tacitus had written with enthusiasm about the Teutons, their courage, their chastity, their fidelity to wife and children and chieftain. In Rome it had seemed to Marius impossible to find anything but childishness and senility, or both combined; childhood without innocence, old age without experience. Perhaps in the north he might find manhood and youth.