Julian recognises the voice of his father; struggles to answer him--to run to his aid--but Labda holds back the child, murmuring, "Quiet! quiet! or they will be upon us!" and hides him under her chlamys. Hasty steps clatter upon the staircase--come nearer and nearer still; the door bursts into shivers and the soldiers of Cæsar, disguised as monks, invade the vault. The Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia directs the search; and coats of mail glitter under the black robes of the searchers. "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, answer--who is there?" Labda is crouching in a corner, still locking the children to her breast. Again comes the solemn cry-- "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost--who is there?" The legionaries, sword in hand, explore every hole and corner; Labda throws herself at their feet; shows them the sickly Gallus and Julian, defenceless-- "Fear God! what harm can a six-year-old innocent like this do to the Emperor?" And the legionaries force all the kneeling three to kiss the cross which Eusebius holds out to them, and to take the oath of faithfulness to the new Emperor. Julian remembers the great cross of cypress-wood. There was an enamelled picture of Christ on it. On the dark base of the wood stains of fresh blood were still visible, imprinted by the fingers of the cross-bearing assassin. Was it the blood of the father of Julian, or of one of his six cousins, Dalmatius, Hannibal, Nepotian, Constantine the Younger, or of the others? The murderer, in order to ascend the throne, had taken six corpses in his stride, doing each deed in the name of the Crucified. And still round the tyrant, day after day, rose the cloud of victims, a multitude which no man could number. Julian awoke full of fears. The rain had ceased and the wind fallen. The lamp burned steadily in its niche. Julian sat up on his bed, listening in the silence to the beatings of his own heart. The hush seemed curiously insupportable. Suddenly, voices and steps resounded from room to room, reverberated along the high arcades of Macellum as formerly along the vaults of the Flavii. Julian shivered. It seemed to him that he was dreaming still. The steps approached; the voices became distinct. The lad cried out, "Gallus, awake! Mardonius, don't you hear something?" Gallus awoke. Barefooted, his grey hair dishevelled, and clothed in a short sleeping-tunic, Mardonius, his face bloated, yellow and wrinkled like an old woman's, rushed towards the secret door. "The soldiers of the Prefect!... Dress!... We must fly." He was too late. The grinding of iron bolts told that the door was being shut from the outside. The stone columns of the public staircase flushed with the light of torches, illumining the purple dragon of a standard-bearer and the cross upon the breastplates of legionaries.