"I saw myself," added a young weaver, "a Pagan at Hieropolis, who was eating the liver of a deacon!" "What an abomination!" murmured the auditors crossing themselves. With the help of Aragaris, Strombix clambered on to a table, which was still sticky with the spilth of wine, and striking an oratorical attitude, addressed the crowd, while Aragaris proudly contemplated his friend. "Citizens," began Strombix; "how long shall we wait before we rebel? Don't you know that Julian has sworn, if he returns a conqueror from Persia, to gather together the holy defenders of the Church and throw them to beasts in the amphitheatre? To turn the porticoes of basilicas into granaries, and the churches into stables...." A hump-backed old man, livid with fear, tumbled over on the tavern floor. It was the husband of the rag-picker, himself a glass-blower. Rising, he slapped his thigh despairingly, stared at the company, and faltered-- "Ah, what a situation!... And there are two hundred corpses in the wells and the aqueducts!" "Where? What corpses?" "Hush!... Hush!" murmured the glass-blower. "They say that the renegade has long taken his auguries from the intestines of living men; and all this for his war against the Persians and his victory over the Christians!" Overcome with satisfaction he muttered under his breath-- "Why, in the cellars of the palace at Antioch they've discovered chests full of human bones ... and in the city of Karra, near Edessa, the Christians have found, in a subterranean temple, the corpse of a woman hanging by her hair with her body slit open.... Julian wanted to inspect the liver of an infant for his cursed war." "Eh? Gluturius! Is it true that human bones are found in the sewers? _You_ ought to know!" said a shoemaker, a confirmed sceptic. Gluturius, the scavenger, who stood near the door, not venturing in because he smelt badly, being thus addressed, began, according to his custom, to smile and to blink his inflamed eyelids: "No, worthy friends," he answered humbly. "Newborn infants are sometimes found there, or skeletons of asses and camels, but I never yet saw a corpse of man or woman." When Strombix resumed his speech, the scavenger listened religiously, rubbing his bare leg against the door post. "Brother men," cried the orator, with fiery indignation, "let us be revenged! Let us die like ancient Romans!" "No use bursting _your_ lungs," grumbled the shoemaker. "When we get to that stage, you'll be the first to turn tail and let the others die!" "You're a set of cowards," chimed in a painted woman, dressed in a poor and tawdry dress. She was a street-walker, nicknamed by her admirers the She-wolf. "Do you know," she went on wrathfully, "what the holy martyrs Macedonius, Theodulus, and Tertian replied to their executioners?" "No, She-wolf, tell us."