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274 ROMAN DA YS.
The placid joy with which Paul spoke to the guard,
and the happiness that shone forth from his features, had
astonished and struck many of the soldiers. And when
the executioner’s sword had fallen, and the next instant
three springs welled up from the sloping mound of grass
—all bloody with the head of the victim—some of the
soldiers threw themselves upon their knees and cried,
" This w^as surely a righteous man, for God himself hath
witnessed to the truth of his words !
"
Three of them, Longinus, Alcestes and Megistus,
stretched out their hands and cried :
" Cast us, also, into
chains, and deliver us up to the judge and death ; for of
that of which Paul of Tarsus was guilty, we are guilty,
too, as we say ; We believe in one God, our Creator and
Father, and in his son, Jesus Christ !
"
Two days after, Longinus, Alcestes and Megistus suf-
fered martyrdom on the same spot as Paul.
On the Salvian field of blood, now stands the Trap-
pist monastery Abbadia delle tre Fontane, with its three
churches. In one of them, S, Paolo alle trc Fontane, are
shown the three springs named above, and a column, to
which Paul is said to have been bound, when he obtained
the martyr’s crown. The springs lie on different levels
above the ground, and are graced with structures of mar-
ble, like tabernacles.
Peter was executed the same day as Paul. After tak-
ing leave of the latter, he was conveyed back to the city,
and over the Sublicius bridge, through the Trasteverine
quarter, up to Janiculus ; on the highest summit of which,
the cross awaited him.
In Rome there is a story, also found in the old writers
of the Roman church, that the Ararat, on which Noah’s
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