despair. Wailing, sobbing,
howling-furious, but impotent, they appealed to each other; and though
they had no hope of living to see another morning, or perhaps another
hour, each one thought only of himself, of his garments, and of how he
might best cover his limbs that shivered with terror and cold. From the
Scuffling mob round the heaps of cast-off clothes came deep groans,
piteous weeping, the shrieks of women, and the despairing moans of the
panic-stricken wretches.

It was a fearful scene, at once heart-rending and revolting; Gorgo looked
on, gnashing her teeth with rage and disgust, and only wishing for the
end of the world and of her own life as a respite from it all. These
crazed and miserable wretches, cowardly fools, these beasts in the guise
of human beings, deserved no better than to perish; but was it
conceivable that the supreme being should destroy the whole of the
beautiful and wisely-planned world for the sake of this base and
loathsome rabble.

It thundered, it lightened, the foundations of the temple shook--but she
no longer looked for the final crash; she had ceased to believe in the
majesty, the power and the purity of the divinity behind the veil. Her
cheeks burnt with shame, she felt it a disgrace ever to have been
numbered among his adherents; and, as the howling of the terrified crowd
grew every moment louder and wilder, the memory of Constantine's grave
and fearless manliness rose before her, in all its strength and beauty.
She was his, his wholly and forever; and for the future all that was his
should be hers: his love, his home, his noble purpose--and his God.

CHAPTER XXII.

The doubtful light of dawn was beginning to break through the
storm-clouds as they exhausted their fury on the Serapeum, but the
terrified heathen did not notice it. No captain, no prophet, no comforter
had come to revive their courage and hopes; for Olympius and his guests,
the leaders of the intellectual life of Alexandria--and among them the
chief priests of the sanctuary--were tardy in making their appearance.

The lightning-flash which had fallen on the brassplated cupola, and then
discharged its force along a flagstaff, had alarmed even the sages and
philosophers; and the Symposium had come to an abrupt end but little more
dignified than the orgy in the temple-halls. Few, to be sure, of the
high-priest's friends had allowed themselves to be so far scared as to
betray their terrors frankly; on the contra