desert monasteries, who, seeing the
beast for sacrifice, abused them loudly, cursing the heathen. The slaves
indignantly drove them off, but then the starveling anchorites fell upon
the innocent beast which was the chief abomination in their eyes. The
bull tossed his huge head, snuffing and snorting to right and left, stuck
out his tail and rushed away from the boy whose guidance he had till now
meekly followed, flung a monk high in the air with his huge horns, and
then turned in his fury on the women who were behind.

They fled like a flock of doves on which a hawk comes swooping down; some
were driven quite into the lake and others up against the paling of the
shipyard, while Damia herself--who was going through it all again in the
midst of her efforts to rise to the divinity--and the young wife whom she
had vainly tried to shelter and support, were both knocked down. To that
hour of terror Gorgo owed her birth, while to her mother it was death.

On the following day Alexandria beheld a funeral ceremony as solemn, as
magnificent, and as crowded as though a conquering hero were being
entombed; it was that of the monk whom the bull had gored; the Bishop had
proclaimed that by this attack on the abomination of desolation--the
blood-sacrifice of idolatry--he had won an eternal crown in Paradise.

But now the black ravens crossed Damia's vision once more, till presently
a handsome young Greek gaily drove them off with his thyrsus. His
powerful and supple limbs shone with oil, applied in the gymnasium of
Timagetes, the scene of his frequent triumphs in all the sports and
exercises of the youthful Greeks. His features and waving hair were those
of her son Apelles; but suddenly his aspect changed: he was an emaciated
penitent, his knees bent under the weight of a heavy cross; his widow,
Mary, had declared him a martyr to the cause of the crucified Jew and
defamed his memory in the eyes of his own son and of all men. Damia
clenched her trembling hands. Again those ravens came swirling round,
flapping their wings wildly over the prostrate penitent.

Then her husband appeared to her, calmly indifferent to the birds of
ill-omen. He looked just as she remembered him many--so many years ago,
when he had come in smiling and said: "The best stroke of business I ever
did! For a sprinkling of water I have secured the corn trade with
Thessalonica and Constantinople; that is a hundred gold solidi for each
drop."

Yes, he had made a