Eustace, and his sons occupied no mean place in the banquet hall.

"To-morrow," said the emperor, "we will sacrifice to the great gods of war, and offer our thanks for this thy victory."

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As my lord pleases," said Eustace; "one thing I pray, that my lord will not regard my absence from the temple as an intentional slight on his royal person."

"Absence, sir!" exclaimed the emperor; "I command your attendance; see that you and yours are before the altar of Mars at noon to-morrow; thou shalt offer there with thine own hands."

"I will cut off the hand that so offends," replied Eustace. "Ah! a Christian-be it so-sacrifice or die?"

"Death then, my lord; I worship Christ, not idols."

"Let him save thee from the lions' mouths," exclaimed the impious emperor : Ho, guards! this Christian and his sons to the beasts' den; come, my guests, to the arena."

"And me to my lord," said Theosbyta, advancing from the lower part of the hall.

"As thou wilt: come, sirs; our lions will be well fed."

The party reached the amphitheatre, it was crowded with spectators. Rumour had soon carried abroad the tidings that the triumphant general was to die by the lion's mouth, for his Christianity. Some pitied him for what they called his folly; What, die for a little incense thrown on the fire!" Others gloried in his expected death, for they hated the new faith. A few in secret prayed to God, to give their brother strength to undergo his fearful martyrdom, for they were Christians. Eustace stood in the arena; his wife knelt by his side, his sons stood before him to meet the lion's first bound. crowd grew impatient-a sudden silence; a sound as of revolving hinges, and then a sullen roar, as with a bound the lion sprung into the centre of the amphitheatre. One look he cast on the youths; and then he bowed his head, crept to their feet and licked them; another, and another, was

The

loose; but the old lion kept guard over the family, and fought with the other lions, and drove them back to their dens.

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It is enough," said the emperor," he has a charm against the teeth of beasts; we will test his powers against the heat of fire prepare the brazen ox."

A fire was lighted beneath the animal, a vast hollow frame that represented an ox, and into the belly of which the victims were introduced through a door in the right side. As soon as it was heated to its utmost heat, the executioners hastened to throw their victims in; Eustace forbade them, and then clasping his wife in his arms, and followed by his sons, he moved slowly up the ladder that led to the horrid cell, and entered the belly of the brazen ox calmly and without fear.

For three days the fire was kept burning beneath the creature. On the third evening the beast was opened; within, lay Eustace, his wife, and his sons, as it were in a deep and placid sleep. Not a hair of their heads was burnt, nor was the smell of fire upon their persons.

So died they all: the father, the wife, and the children. The people buried them with honour, and remembered with sorrow the martyrdom of the Christian general.

"The scene of the conversion," said Thompson, "recalls to my mind Doddridge's account of Col. Gardiner, converted from his licentious life by an almost similar vision of our Saviour on the cross, and by an address not less effective than the words heard by the Eustace of your tale."

"Few of my old monk's tales are more true, in their leading features," said Herbert, "than this of the trials of Eustace and his family. It has been told more than once as an authentic history, and you will find it alluded to in Butler's Lives of the Saints,' where it is stated, that a church at Rome was dedicated to the memory of St. Eustachius."

Surely the incident of the stag and the cross, is very similar to that in the legend of St. Herbert."

"Almost identical, Thompson," rejoined Herbert ;" in the foreign

pictures, the two incidents are generally depicted in nearly the same

manner.

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Another curious similiarity occurs in the early English romance of Sir Isumbras," said Lathom. "That knight's misfortunes came upon him in a very similar manner to poor Eustace's: the knight, his wife, and his three children wander on their pilgrimage to the Holy Land; she wrapped in his surcoat, his scarlet mantle being divided among his three children. They so reach a river, and two of their children are carried off by a lion and leopard; one child, however, and the mother are left: then sings the old poet, Through the forest they went days three,

Till they came to the Greekish sea;

They grieved, and were full wo!

As they stood upon the land

They saw a fleet come sailand (sailing),
Three hundred ships and mo. (more)

With top castles set on loft,

Richly then were they wrought,
With joy and mickle pride:

A heathen king was therein,
That Christendom came to win,

His power was full wide.'"

The king, of course, plays the part of the cruel ship captain," said Herbert.

"Yes. Seven days' hunger drives the knight and his lady to the sultan's galley to ask for bread: taken for spies, they are at first driven off, until the noble stature of the knight, and the fair complexion of the wife, 'bright as a blossom on a tree,' convinces the Saracens that their piteous tale is true, To the knight the sultan offers rank, honour, and wealth, if he will renounce Christianity and fight under the Moslem banners. Sir Isumbras refuses, and renews his petition for bread. Then, continues the poet,

• The sultan beheld that lady there,
Him thought an angel that she were,
Comen a-down from heaven:
Man-I will give thee gold and fee,
An thou that woman will sellen me,

More than thou can never (name).

I will give thee a hundred pound

Of pennies that be whole and round,
And rich robes seven.

She shall be queen of my land ;

And all men bow unto her hand;

And none withstand her steven (voice).

Sir Isumbras said-Nay;

My wife I will not sell away,

Though ye me for her sloo (slew).

I wedded her in goddis lay

To hold her to my ending day,

Both for weal and woe.'

"A decided refusal to complete the bargain," said Thompson. "Yet not so taken by the sultan; the money is counted into the knight's cloak, the lady taken forcible possession of, and Sir Isumbras and his child carried on shore, and beat until hardly able to move. But here we must stop with the early English romance, having already gone beyond its similarity to the old monk's story. And now I must break off for to-night; I know it is but a short allowance, and shall be compensated for when we next meet."

CHAPTER XI.

ANOTHER CHAT ABOUT WITCHES AND WITCHCRAFT-LATE PERIOD OF THE EXISTENCE OF BELIEF IN WITCHES-WITCHCRAFT OF LOVETALE OF THE QUEEN SEMIRAMIS-ELFIN ARMOURERS-THE SWORD OF THE SCANDINAVIAN KING-MYSTICAL MEANING OF TALES OF MAGIC ANGLO-SAXON ENIGMAS-CELESTINUS AND THE MILLER'S HORSE THE Emperor conrad and THE COUNT'S SON.

"YOUR stories about sorcerers and sorcery, Lathom," said Herbert, "have made me consider a little as to the amount of truth on which such fictions may have been founded.”

"Perhaps you believe in witches, magicians, and all that tribe, that gather deadly herbs by moonlight, and ride through the air on broomsticks," said Thompson, with a smile.

“May not Herbert fairly ask you," said Lathom, "whether there is any antecedent improbability in mortal beings obtaining, from the spirit of evil, a temporary superhuman power; or in the idea of Satan awarding the riches and honours of this world to those who will fall down and worship him ?"

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"Selden's apology for the law against witches in his time, shows a lurking belief," remarked Herbert. 'If,' says that sour old awyer, one man believes that by turning his hat thrice and crying "buz," he could take away a fellow-creature's life, this were a just law made by the state, that whosoever should do so, should forfeit

his life.""