in the town; as they went all round about the town-wall, they searched in every place wherever they could enquire ; nor could any man anywhere find them.
Then the emperor, sad in mind, spake to his thanes with words such as these, " The missing of my favorites is a great unhappiness to me, that they have so suddenly and entirely escaped us. Being men of so great kindred as they were, therefore they have feared, and altogether dreaded that we should be angry with them, because they would not obey us before." Then said the emperor to the bystanders, " Nay, behold, So one knoweth, and I also know it myself, if we see any man who will submit himself zealously to our gods, all that he hath before been guilty of, less or more, we let it [pass out] of mind as if it had never been." After such words and manifold others, then stepped in to the emperor the chiefest who were in his household, and accused the Saints to him, and thus spake concerning them : " Lord of all men throughout this wide world, we pray thy kingship til at thou be not at all dreary or sorry for the young boys, enemies of all gods, because they have continued in evil under thee, lord, until this present day; according to that which we have heard, after that thou didst allow them that respite wherein they might bethink themselves, they have ever sought how they might misplease thee utterly. All the evil that they had begun before, they have afterward fully performed ; they have taken from their kinsmen countless treasures, and cast them all about the open city-ways, and are now concealed and hidden in secret so that no man can anywhere find them. If thy kingship so sayeth, it shall instantly happen that their kinsmen be summoned, and be sternly threatened, that they, by means of torture, may betray them, and bring them, lord, to thee." When the emperor heard these words he immediately comforted his mind; then bade he fetch the kinsmen, and began to say these words to them, " Where are the apostates, your wicked kinsmen, who have slighted my command, so that they have not offered any sacrifice to the worthy gods? Unless ye now here betray them, ye shall endure their punishment."
Then answered the kinsmen and took great oaths, and implored
