I awoke with a sensation of pain in every limb. A female voice was singing a faint song near me. But the past was like a dream. I involuntarily looked down for the gulf on which I had trod; I looked upward for the burning rafters. I saw nothing but an earthen floor and a low roof hung with dried grapes and herbs. I uttered a cry. The singer approached me. There was nothing in her aspect to nurture a diseased imagination; she was an old and emaciated creature who yet rejoiced in my restoration. She in turn called her husband, a venerable Jew, whose first act was to offer thanksgiving to the God of Israel for the safety of a chief of His nation. But to my inquiries for the fate of my child, he could give no answer; he had discovered me among the ruins of the palace of the Æmilii, to which he, with many of his countrymen, had been attracted, with the object of collecting whatever remnants of furniture might be left by the flames. I had fallen by the edge of a fountain which extinguished the fire in its vicinage, and I was found breathing. During three days I had lain insensible. The Jew now went out and brought back with him some of the elders of our people, who, notwithstanding the decree of the Emperor Claudius, had remained in Rome, tho in increased privacy. I was carried to their house of assemblage, concealed among groves and vineyards beyond the gates, and attended to with a care which might cure all things but the wounds of the mind. On the great object of my solicitude, the fate of my Salome, I could obtain no relief. I wandered over the site of the palace; it was now a mass of ashes and charcoal; its ruins had been probed by hundreds; but search for even a trace of what would have been to me dearer than a mountain of gold, was in vain. [Sidenote: The Cry for Revenge] The conflagration continued for six days, and every day of the number gave birth to some monstrous report of its origin. Of the fourteen districts of Rome, but four remained. Thousands had lost their lives, tens of thousands were utterly undone; the whole empire shook under the blow. Then came the still deeper horror. Fear makes the individual feeble, but it makes the multitude ferocious. A universal cry arose for revenge. Great public misfortunes give the opportunity that the passions of men and sects love, and the fiercest crimes of selfishness are justified under the name of retribution. But the full calamity burst on the Christians, then too new to have fortified themselves in the national prejudices, if they would have suffered the alliance; too poor to reckon on any powerful protectors; and too uncompromising to palliate their scorn of the whole public system of morals, philosophy, and religion. The Emperor, the priesthood, and the populace conspired against them, and they were ordered to the slaughter.