and his manly dignity be treated with contempt? Was he thinking of the
fair listener in the cave, who was a witness to his humiliation? Had his
wrath blazed up because he saw in Polykarp, not so much an exasperated
fellow-believer, as merely a man who with bold scorn had put himself in
the path of another man?

The lad and the gray-bearded athlete stood face to face like mortal
enemies ready for the fight, and Polykarp did not waver, although he,
like most Christian youths, had been forbidden to take part in the
wrestling-games in the Palaestra, and though he knew that he had to deal
with a strong and practised antagonist.

He himself was indeed no weakling, and his stormy indignation added to
his desire to measure himself against the hated seducer.

"Come on--come on!" he cried; his eyes flashing, and leaning forward
with his neck out-stretched and ready on his part for the struggle.
"Grip hold! you were a gladiator, or something of the kind, before you
put on that filthy dress that you might break into houses at night, and
go unpunished. Make this sacred spot an arena, and if you succeed in
making an end of me I will thank you, for what made life worth having to
me, you have already ruined whether or no. Only come on. Or perhaps you
think it easier to ruin the life of a woman than to measure your strength
against her defender? Clutch hold, I say, clutch hold, or--"

"Or you will fall upon me," said Paulus, whose arms had dropped by his
side during the youth's address. He spoke in a quite altered tone of
indifference. "Throw yourself upon me, and do with me what you will; I
will not prevent you. Here I shall stand, and I will not fight, for you
have so far hit the truth--this holy place is not an arena. But the