ned encouragement to her son, had terrible visions of the Imperial
legions putting Olympius to rout, with the Libyans under Barkas and the
Biamite rabble under Pachomius; storming the Serapeum and reducing it to
ruin: Firebrands flying through its sacred halls, the roof giving way,
the vaults falling in; the sublime image of the god--the magnificent work
of Bryaxis--battered by a hail of stones, and sinking to mingle with the
reeking dust. Then a cry rose up from all nature, as though every star in
heaven, every wave of ocean, every leaf of the forest, every blade in the
meadow, every rock on the shore and every grain of sand in the
measureless desert had found a voice; and this universal wail of "Woe,
woe!" was drowned by rolling thunder such as the ear of man had never
heard, and no mortal creature could hear and live. The heavens opened,
and out of the black gulf of death-bearing clouds poured streams of fire;
consuming flames rose to meet it from the riven womb of earth, rushing
up to lick the sky. What had been air turned to fire and ashes, the
silver and gold stars fell crashing from the firmament, and the heavens
themselves bowed and collapsed, burying the ruined earth. Ashes, ashes,
fine grey dusty ashes pervaded space, till presently a hurricane rose and
swept away the chaos of gloom, and vast nothingness yawned before her: a
bottomless abyss--an insatiable throat, swallowing down with greedy
thirst all that was left; till where the world had been, with gods and
men and all their works, there was only nothingness; hideous, inscrutable
and unfathomable. And in it, above it, around it--for what are the
dimensions of nothingness?--there reigned the incomprehensible Unity of
the Primal One, in calm and pitiless self-concentration, beyond--the
Real, nay even beyond the Conceivable--for conception implies
plurality--the Supreme One of the Neo-Platonists to whose school she
belonged.

The old woman's blood ran cold and hot as she pictured the scene; but she
believed in it, and chose to believe in it; "Nothing, nothing . . ." which
she had begun by muttering, insensibly changed to "Nothingness,
nothingness!" and at last she spoke it aloud.

Gorgo stood spellbound as she gazed at her grandmother. What had come
over her? What was the meaning of this glaring eye, this gasping breath,
this awful expression in her face, this convulsive action of her hands?
Was she mad? And what did she mean by "Nothingness, nothingness. . .