or the
last ten years, he had fed exclusively on gourds, snails, locusts and
Nile water. Another was chained inseparably to a comrade, and the couple
dwelt together in a cave in the limestone hills near Lycopolis. These two
had vowed never to let each other sleep, that so their time for
repentance might be doubled, and their bliss in the next world enhanced
in proportion to their mortifications in this.

One and all, they were allies in a great fight, and the same hopes,
ideas, and wishes fired them all. The Abominable Thing--which imperilled
hundreds of thousands of souls, which invited Satan to assert his
dominion in this world--should fall this day and be annihilated forever!
To them the whole heathen world was the "great whore;" and though the
gems she wore were beautiful to see and rejoiced the mind and heart of
fools, they must be snatched from her painted brow; they would scourge
her from off the face of the redeemed earth and destroy the seducer of
souls forever. "Down with the idols! Down with Serapis! Down with the
heathen!" Their shouts thundered and bellowed all about Agne; but, just
as the uproar and crush were at the worst, a tall and majestic figure
appeared on a balcony above the cross and extended his hand in calm and
dignified benediction towards the seething mass of humanity. As he raised
it all present, including Ague, bowed and bent the knee.

Agne felt, knew, that this stately man was the Bishop whom she sought,
but she did not point him out to her little brother, for his aspect was
that of some proud sovereign rather than of "the good, kind man" of whom
she had dreamed. She could never dare to force her way into the presence
of this great lord! How should the ruler over a million souls find time
or patience for her and her trivial griefs?

However, there must be within his dwelling sundry presbyters and deacons,
and she would address herself to one of them, as soon as the crowd had
dispersed enough for her to make her way to the door beneath the cross.
Twenty times at least did she renew her efforts, but she made very small
progress; most of the monks, as she tried to squeeze past them, roughly
pushed her back; one, on whose arm she ventured to lay her hand, begging
him to make way for her, broke out into shrieks as though a serpent had
stung him, and when the crush brought her into contact with the
crown-bearer he thrust her away exclaiming:

"Away woman! Do not touch me, spawn of Satan tool o