themselves from amazement.

"Vinicius, art thou not mistaken?" asked Petronius. "Did Lygia really
draw a fish for thee?"

"By all the infernal gods, one might go mad!" cried the young man, with
excitement. "If she had drawn a bird for me, I should have said a
bird."

"Therefore she is a Christian," repeated Chilo.

"This signifies," said Petronius, "that Pomponia and Lygia poison wells,
murder children caught on the street, and give themselves up to
dissoluteness! Folly! Thou, Vinicius, wert at their house for a time,
I was there a little while; but I know Pomponia and Aulus enough, I know
even Lygia enough, to say monstrous and foolish! If a fish is the symbol
of the Christians, which it is difficult really to deny, and if those
women are Christians, then, by Proserpina! evidently Christians are not
what we hold them to be."

"Thou speakest like Socrates, lord," answered Chilo. "Who has ever
examined a Christian? Who has learned their religion? When I was
travelling three years ago from Naples hither to Rome (oh, why did I not
stay in Naples!), a man joined me, whose name was Glaucus, of whom
people said that he was a Christian; but in spite of that I convinced
myself that he was a good and virtuous man."

"Was it not from that virtuous man that thou hast learned now what the
fish means?"