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“True,” interposed Fulvius; “but I know that orders have been sent to all parts, to forward hither all prisoners, and all persons condemned to the mines in Spain, Sardinia, and even Chersonesus, who can possibly be spared, to come and labor at the Thermæ. A few thousand Christians, thus set to the work, will soon finish it.”

“And why Christians better than other criminals?” asked, with some curiosity, Fabiola.

“Why, really,” said Fulvius, with his most winning smile, “I can hardly give a reason for it; but the fact is so. Among fifty workmen so condemned, I would engage to pick out a single Christian.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed several at once; “pray how?”

“Ordinary convicts,” answered he, “naturally do not love their work, and they require the lash at every step to compel them to perform it; and when the overseer’s eye is off them, no work is done. And, moreover, they are, of course, rude, sottish, quarrelsome, and querulous. But the Christians, when condemned to these public works, seem, on the contrary, to be glad, and are always cheerful and obedient. I have seen young patricians so occupied in Asia, whose hands had never before handled a pickaxe, and whose weak shoulders had never borne a weight, yet working hard, and as happy, to all appearance, as when at home. Of course, for all that, the overseers apply the lash and the stick very freely to them; and most justly; because it is the will of the divine emperors that their lot should be made as hard as possible; but still they never complain.”