MARTYRDOM OF FOUR MISSIONARIES. 363 put them to death. James of Padua had his head split by a scimitar ; one of the wretches then, seizing hold of the beard of Thomas de Tolentino, whose age rendered him even more venerable than the others, plunged his sword into his back, and as at this moment he was invoking the Holy Virgin in a loud voice, another cut his throat. Pierre de Sienna was decapitated, and Demetrius of Tiflis, after receiving several wounds, was killed with a scimitar. The blood of these noble martyrs, however, was not shed without effect, and many were converted through its means. The Annates des Freres Mineurs * states, that the governor of Tana saw one night as he slept the four Franciscans, one at each angle of his bed, brandishing four swords of fire, and threatening him with death if he did not treat the Christians more humanely. Alarmed at this vision, he uttered loud cries, implored mercy, and the next day caused the chains of the Christian captives to be broken, recalled those who had been banished, and, by a public edict, forbade, under pain of capital punishment, offering the smallest insult to the adorers of Jesus Christ. These new regulations favoured the conversion of a great number of idolaters and Mussulmans. It was under these circumstances that Oderic of Friuli arrived at Tana, where he learned the details of the glorious martyrdom of his brethren. He knew that it had been their intention to bear to China the faith of Jesus Christ, for which they had so nobly shed their blood in the Indies ; and Oderic would not have China
- Wadding, Annales Minorum, vol. vii. p. 232.
