Having sent Corvinus sulky and fretting home, he returned to Torquatus, whom he wished to accompany, that he might ascertain his lodgings. As soon as he had left the room, his victim had arisen from his chair, and endeavored, by walking up and down, to steady his senses and regain self-possession. But it was in vain; his head was swimming from his inebriety, and his subsequent excitement. The apartment seemed to turn round and round, and float up and down; he was sick too, and his heart was beating almost audibly. Shame, remorse, self-contempt, hatred of his destroyers and of himself, the desolateness of the outcast, and the black despair of the reprobate, rolled like dark billows through his soul, each coming in turn uppermost. Unable to sustain himself longer on his feet, he threw himself on his face upon a silken couch, and buried his burning brow in his icy hands, and groaned. And still all whirled round and round him, and a constant moaning sounded in his ears. [Illustration: A Dove, as an Emblem of the Soul.] Fulvius found him in this state, and touched his shoulder to rouse him. Torquatus shuddered, and was convulsed; then exclaimed: “Can this be Charybdis?” [Illustration: Diogenes the excavator, from a painting in the Cemetery of Domitilla.[71]] Part Second.--Conflict. CHAPTER I. DIOGENES. The scenes through which we have hitherto led our reader have been laid in one of those slippery truces, rather than peace, which often intervened between persecution and persecution. Already rumors of war have crossed our path, and its note of preparation has been distinctly heard. The roar of the lions near the Amphitheatre, which startled but dismayed not Sebastian, the reports from the East, the hints of Fulvius, and the threats of Corvinus, have brought us the same news, that before long the horrors of persecution will re-appear, and Christian blood will have to flow, in a fuller and nobler stream than had hitherto watered the Paradise of the New Law. The Church, ever calmly provident, cannot neglect the many signs of a threatened combat, nor the preparations necessary for meeting it. From the moment she earnestly begins to arm herself, we date the second period of our narrative. It is the commencement of conflict. [Illustration: Jonas, after a painting in the Cemetery of Callistus.]