But hardly had been uttered those strong words, When, in the door, rudely burst open, stood Two arméd minions of the prefecture. "Wanted, for torture on the witness-rack"-- One of these spoke in strident tones and hard-- "Onesimus, a Phrygian runaway, Slave of the late lord Felix, harbored here. Point out the rogue; we are under strait command, And Tigellinus will brook no delay. Ah, there he is--he has betrayed himself-- White as a corpse; were he as innocent! Come, rascal, and cheer thee up, thou art to have Thy Syrus for a fellow on the rack." With rally such, in coarsest irony, They hurried off Onesimus to doom-- Scarce time to Paul for breathing in his ear To bid him in the strength of Christ be strong. "O, uncle, 'all things' to Onesimus, Him also, in a fearful stead like this?" Said Stephen, in vicarious agony. "Would I could take his stead for him!" said Paul. "I cannot, but Christ can, and will--nay, did, Then when He suffered all on Calvary. Pray for Onesimus that he his trust Withdraw not from the Lord who thus proves him-- And pray for Syrus that his faith fail not. Now, O Lord Jesus, in Gethsemane And on the bitter cross of Calvary Thyself so anguished once in that frail flesh Thou worest for our sake--that Thou mightst suffer!-- Help, help, thy servants in their sudden hour." The soldier that was manacled to Paul Wondered, but reverenced, when these things he heard. BOOK XXIV. THE END. The two slaves, Onesimus and Syrus, bear their torture with constancy, refusing to testify otherwise than in grateful praise of Paul. The emperor, at Seneca's prompting, has secretly overheard their testimony, and, obeying a caprice of justice and of pity, he follows a further hint from Seneca to let Paul go free under bond to appear again when formal accusation shall be laid against him from Jerusalem. Paul thus released sends home to Holy Land the friends that had thence accompanied him to Rome, and accomplishes his last missionary tours, with Luke only for companion. Meantime Drusilla, in a desperate hope revived by the rumored fall from imperial favor of Poppæa, sends Simon once more to secure for his mistress the long-postponed meeting with Nero. Simon plays Drusilla false and pretends to the emperor that she had indulgently sent him, Simon, to sue on his own behalf for the privilege of practising his art in the palace. Nero agrees that he may do this on condition that he shall first have secured from his mistress fresh consent to receive an imperial visit in her house. Simon, stung by the emperor's scorn of him, had wrought himself up to the temerity of attempting to play on Nero's guilty conscience by an exhibition that should bring up before the tyrant a dreadful recollection of one of his own most heinous crimes. The result proves suddenly fatal to Simon.