Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

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be applied to one who believes all tins? It is by baptism, by
beiii-r l>oni again of water anil the Holy Ghost."
"What?" exclaimed the sick man, loathiugly.
"By being washed in the laver of re^em-niting water."
He was interrupted by a convulsive growl rather than a
FABIOLA; Oil
THE next morning the pilgrim proceeded to discharge the
business which had been interfered with by the circumstances
related in the preceding chapter. He might have been first
Been busily employed inquiring after some one, about the
Januses in the Forum. At length the person was found; and
the two walked toward a dirty little office under the Capitol, on
the ascent called the Clivus Asyli. Old musty books were
brought out, and searched column after column, till they came
to the date of the " Consuls Dioclesian Augustus, the eighth
time, and Maxirnian Herculeus Augustus, the seventh time."t
Here they found sundry entries with reference to certain docu-
ments. A roll of mouldy parchments of that date was produced,
docketed as referred to, and the number corresponding
to the entries was drawn out and examined. The result of the
investigation seemed perfectly satisfactory to both parties.
" It is the first time in my life," said the owner of the den,
" that I ever knew a. person who had got clear off, come back,
after fifteen years, to inquire after his debts. A Christian, I
sir ?"
presume,
"
Certainly, by God's mercy."
* Clinical baptism, or that of persons confined to their bods, was administered
by pouring or sprinkling tho water on the head. See Bingham, book xl. o. 11.
t A. D. 303.
" I thought, as much ; good morning, air. I shall be happy
to accommodate you at any time, at as reasonable rates as my
f:;!hrr Epliraim, now with Abraham. A great fool that for his
'
]>:iius, Imustsav. his pardon," he added, when the
stranger was out of hearing.
moan. "Water! water! no water for me! Take it away! "
And a strong spasm seized the patient's throat.
His attendant was alarmed, but sought to calm him. "Think
not," he said, "that you coca to be taken hence in your present
fever, and to be plunged into water" (the sick man shuddered
and moaned); "in clinical baptism,* a few drops suffice, not
"
more than is in this pitcher. And ho showed him the water
in a small vessel. At the sight of it, the patient writhed and
foamed at the mouth, and was shaken by a violent convulsion.
The sounds that proceeded from him resembled a howl from a
wild beast more than any utterance of human lips.
The pilgrim saw at once that hydrophobia, with all its horrible
symptoms, had come upon the patient from the bite of the
enraged animal. It was with difficulty that he and the servant
could hold him down at times. Occasionally he broke out into
frightful paroxysms of blasphemous violence against God and
man. And then, when this subsided, he would go on moaning
thus:
"Water they want to give me! water! water! none for me!
It is fire! fire! that I have, and that is my portion. I am already
on fire, within, without! Look how it comes creeping
up, all around me, it, advances every moment nearer and
nearer! " And he b