persecutions of our times incline our feeble hearts to murmur, we cannot do better than turn to that really golden, because truthful legend, or to the history of the noble martyrs of Vienne, or Lyons, or to the many similar, still extant records, to nerve our courage, by the contemplation of what children and women, catechumens and slaves, suffered, unmurmuring, for Christ. But we are wandering from our narrative. Pancratius, with some twenty more, fettered, and chained together, were led through the streets to prison. As they were thus dragged along, staggering and stumbling helplessly, they were unmercifully struck by the guards who conducted them; and any persons near enough to reach them, dealt them blows and kicks without remorse. Those further off pelted them with stones or offal, and assailed them with insulting ribaldry.[163] They reached the Mamertine prison at last, and were thrust down into it, and found there already other victims, of both sexes, awaiting their time of sacrifice. The youth had just time, while he was being handcuffed, to request one of the captors to inform his mother and Sebastian of what had happened, and he slipped his purse into his hand. A prison in ancient Rome was not the place to which a poor man might court committal, hoping there to enjoy better fare and lodging than he did at home. Two or three of these dungeons, for they are nothing better, still remain; and a brief description of the one which we have mentioned will give our readers some idea of what confessorship cost, independent of martyrdom. [Illustration: The Mamertine Prison.]