den to his own table; but she dreaded any social contact
with men whom she knew, and preferred to remain where she was at the feet
of the goddess.

Wherever the high-priest went he was hailed with enthusiasm: "Rejoice,"
he would say to encourage the feasters, cheering them with wise and
fervid exhortations, reminding them of Pharaoh Mycerinus who, having been
told by an oracle that he had only six years to live, determined to prove
the prophecy false, and by carousing through every night made the six
years allotted to him a good dozen.

"Imitate him!" cried Olympius as he raised a cup to his lips, "crowd the
joys of a year into the few hours that still are left us, and pour a
libation to the god as I do, out of every cup ere you drink."

His appeal was answered by a rapturous shout; the flutes and cymbals
piped and clanged, metal cups rang sharply as the drinkers pledged each
other, and the girls thumped their tambourines, till the calf-skin droned
and the bells in the frames tinkled shrilly.

Olympius thanked them, and bowed on all sides, as he walked from group to
group of his adherents. Seldom, indeed, had his heart beat so high! His
end perhaps was very near, but it should at least be worthy of his life.

He knew how the sunbeam had been reflected so as to kiss the statue's
lips. For centuries had this startling little scene and the sudden
illumination of the niche round the head of the god been worked in
precisely the same way at high festivals--[They are mentioned by
Rufinus.]--these were mere stimulants to the dull souls of the vulgar who
needed to be stirred up by the miraculous power of the god, which the
elect recognized throughout the universe, in the wondrous co-operation of
forces and results in nature, and in the lives of men. He, for his part,
firmly believed in Serapis and his might, and in the prophecies and
calculations which declared that his fall must involve the dissolution of
the organic world and its relapse into chaos.

Many winds were battling in the air, each one driving the ship of life
towards the whirlpool. To-day or to-morrow--what matter which? The
threatened cataclysm had no terrors for Olympius. One thing only was a
pang to his vanity: No succeeding generations would preserve the memory
of his heroic struggle and death for the cause of the gods. But all was
not yet lost, and his sunny nature read in the glow of the dying clay the
promise and dawn of a brilliant morrow. If the expect