The judge angrily reproved the executioner for his hesitation, and bid him at once do his duty. The man passed the back of his rough left hand across his eyes, as he raised his sword. It was seen to flash for an instant in the air; and the next moment, flower and stem were lying scarcely displaced on the ground. It might have been taken for the prostration of prayer, had not the white robe been in that minute dyed into a rich crimson--washed in the blood of the Lamb. The man on the judge’s right hand had looked with unflinching eye upon the stroke, and his lip curled in a wicked triumph over the fallen. The lady opposite had turned away her head, till the murmur, that follows a suppressed breath in a crowd, told her all was over. She then boldly advanced forward, unwound from round her person her splendid brocaded mantle, and stretched it as a pall, over the mangled body. A burst of applause followed this graceful act of womanly feeling,[211] as the lady stood, now in the garb of deepest mourning, before the tribunal. “Sir,” she said in a tone clear and distinct, but full of emotion, “grant me one petition. Let not the rude hands of [Illustration: The Christian Martyr.] your servants again touch and profane the hallowed remains of her, whom I have loved more than any thing on earth; but let me bear them hence to the sepulchre of her fathers; for she was noble as she was good.” Tertullus was manifestly irritated, as he replied: “Madam, whoever you may be, your request cannot be granted. Catulus, see that the body be cast, as usual, into the river, or burnt.” “I entreat you, sir,” the lady earnestly insisted, “by every claim which female virtue has upon you, by any tear which a mother has shed over you, by every soothing word which a sister has ever spoken to you, in illness or sorrow; by every ministration of their gentle hands, I implore you to grant my humble prayer. And if, when you return home this evening, you will be met at the threshold by daughters, who will kiss your hand, though stained with the blood of one, whom you may feel proud if they resemble, be able to say to them, at least, that this slightest tribute to the maidenly delicacy which they prize has not been refused.” Such common sympathy was manifested that Tertullus, anxious to check it, asked her sharply: “Pray, are you, too, a Christian?” She hesitated for one instant, then replied, “No, sir, I am not; but I own that if anything could make me one, it would be what I have seen this day.” “What do you mean?”