"Thou knowest this fellow-countryman of thine?" To the apostle speaking, Julius said. "I know him, yea," said Paul. "And knowest perhaps," Said Julius, further sounding, "what the chance Of mischief from him thou hast late escaped?" "Nay, but not yet have I, I trow," Paul said, "Escaped the evil he fain would bring on me. He hates me, and, if but he could, he would Quite rid me from the world; that know I well." "But knowest thou," the centurion pressed, "how he Plotted last night to have thee overboard To wrestle, swimming, with the swirling sea?" "Nay," Paul said, "nay; I knew not that." He spoke Without surprise couched in his tone; far less, Horror or fear expressed in look or act; No sidelong stab at Shimei from his eye; Only some sadness, with the patience, dashed The weariness with which he spoke. "And yet-- And yet," he added, half as if he would Extenuate what he could, "it is his way, The natural way in which he works his will. His will I well can understand, though not, Not so, his way. From that I was averse Ever, but once I had myself his will." "Thou canst not mean his will to get Paul slain," Baffled, the Roman said. "Nay, but his will To persecute and utterly to destroy," Said Paul, "the Name, and all that own the Name, Of my Lord Jesus Christ from off the earth." At that Name, thus with loyal love confessed, The hoarded hatred, deep in Shimei's heart, Toward Jesus, which so long had fed and fired The embers of the hatred his for Paul, Stirred angrily; it almost overcame The cringing craven personal fear in him. Though he indeed spoke not, uttered no sound, There passed upon his visage and his port A change, from abject while malign, to look Malign more, and less abject, fierce and fell. It was a strange transfiguration wrought, An horrible redemption thus achieved-- From what before one only could despise To what one now, forsooth, might reprobate! The quite-collapsed late liar and poltroon Rallied to a resistant attitude, Which stiffened and grew hard like adamant, While further Julius thus his wiles exposed: "The 'way' of this thy fellow-countryman, O Paul, thou hast yet, I judge, in full to learn. When, by the soldier whom he sought to bribe For thy destruction, of his crime accused To me, how, thinkest thou, he would purge himself? Why, by persuading me that Paul, instead, Had himself bought his keeper to forswear Against _him_, Shimei, such foul plot to slay. Hold I not well thou hadst something still to learn Of the unsounded depths his 'way' seeks out?"