Читать книгу Fabiola; Or, The Church of the Catacombs онлайн

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“Then shall we never see you in the amphitheatre, Sebastian?” asked Fulvius, with a bland but taunting tone.

“If you do,” the soldier replied, “depend upon it, it will be on the side of the defenceless, not on that of the brutes that would destroy them.”

David with his Sling, from the Catacomb of St. Petronilla.

“Sebastian is right,” exclaimed Fabiola, clapping her hands, “and I close the discussion by my applause. I have never heard Sebastian speak, except on the side of generous and high-minded sentiments.”

Fulvius bit his lip in silence, and all rose to depart.

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But we must leave our nobler guests for more humble scenes, and follow Syra from the time that she left her young mistress’s apartment. When she presented herself to Euphrosyne, the good-natured nurse was shocked at the cruel wound, and uttered an exclamation of pity. But immediately recognizing in it the work of Fabiola, she was divided between two contending feelings. “Poor thing!” she said, as she went on first washing, then closing and dressing, the gash; “it is a dreadful cut! What did you do to deserve it? How it must have hurt you, my poor girl! But how wicked you must have been to bring it upon yourself! It is a savage wound, yet inflicted by the gentlest of creatures! (You must be faint from loss of blood; take this cordial to support you): and no doubt she found herself obliged to strike.”