The chiliarch looked at Stephen glowing there Before him in the beauty of his youth, A beauty that was more than beauty now, Touched and illumined into nobleness By the pure ardor of the soul within Kindling upon the face in flames of zeal-- The Roman, on the boy ennobled so Feasting his eye a moment in fixed gaze, Caught the contagion of that nobleness. A waft perhaps of reminiscence waked Blew soft and warm upon his heart from Rome; Clear in the mirror of the Hebrew boy Shining in sudden apparition so, Fairer than fountain of Bandusia, There swam perhaps an image to the eye Of that stern Roman father, dear with home; Perhaps he thought of a young Claudius, Who, far away beneath Italian skies, Was blooming crescent in a grace like that, His father exile in Jerusalem! However wrought on, Claudius Lysias, Touched somehow to a mood of gentleness, Took Stephen by the hand and went with him Apart a little into privacy, And said: "And now, my pretty Hebrew lad, What matter is it thou hast hither brought?" "O, sir," said Stephen, with half-downcast face Of beautifying shame that he must bear Such witness unto Roman against Jew, "There are some Israelites not of Israel; Pray thee, judge not my race by this that I Must tell thee of my wicked countrymen. Forty vile men have in Jerusalem, By one the vilest who knows all the vile, Been found to bind themselves by oath in league Together all, under a dreadful curse, Neither to eat nor drink, till they the best, The noblest, of their countrymen have slain Thy prisoner Paul. These presently will ask, Or others speaking for them will--high climbs, Sir, and wide spreads, this foul conspiracy Of evil against good, among the Jews-- They soon will ask that thou to-morrow bring Thy prisoner before the Sanhedrim As of his cause to certify thyself. But, while he comes, those base complotters will, Lying in wait for this, upon him fall Too quickly for the soldiers to forefend, And slay him as beneath thy very eyes. O, sir, do not thou give them their desire." "Thou lookest truth, my boy," the chiliarch said; "But a mad bloody plot thou warnest me of. Thou knowest these things? But how these things knowest thou? And how shall _I_ know that thou knowest these things? How, too, that thou speakest truly as thou knowest?'