ent to a gesture of Tiberius, the Bacchante was placed upon a
pedestal. For a moment, she stood before them an exquisite statue Of
despair--exquisite even in the excess of her bewilderment. For a moment,
she stood there stunned by the suddenness of the commotion, and frantic
with the consciousness of her peril. For a moment she gazed about her
for aid, wildly but, alas! vainly. No pity beamed upon her in that more
horrible Gomorrah. The marble trembled under her feet--a sulphurous
stench shot through its crevices--the virgin shrieked and fell forwards,
scorched and blackened to a cinder. She was blasted, as if by a
thunderbolt.[11] Cagliostro looked with horror upon the ashes of the
Bacchante. He had seen youth stricken down by age; he had seen virtue
annihilated, so to speak, at the mandate of vice; he had seen--and even
_his_ callous heart exulted at the thought--he had seen innocence
snatched from pollution, when upon the very threshold of an earthly
hell. While rejoicing in this reflection, he was aroused by the
stertorous breathing of the emperor. The crowned demon of the island was
being borne away to his palace upon the shoulders of his attendants.
Although maddened by an insatiable thirst, and by a gloom that was
becoming habitual, the monster lay upon his cushions as impotent as a
child, in the midst of his diseases and iniquities.[12]

At the feet of the Rosicrucian were huddled the bones of the virgin of
Apulia; and the babbling of the fountains was alone audible in the
solitude.

"Such," said the mournful Voice, as Cagliostro again felt himself
carried through the darkness--"such, Balsamo, are the miseries of a
debauched appetite."

AGRIPPA.

In another instant, the impostor was standing upon the floor of a
gigantic amphitheatre in Palestine. The whole air was refulgent with the
light of a summer morning, and through the loopholes of the structure,
the eye caught the blue shimmer of the Mediterranean. Banners,
emblazoned with the ciphers of Rome, fluttered from the walls of the
amphitheatre. Its internal circumference was thronged with a vast
concourse of citizens; and, immediately about the Rosicrucian, groups of
foreign traders, habited as if for some unusual ceremony, were scattered
over the arena. Expectation was evinced in every movement of the
assemblage, in every murmur that floated round the benches. The
worshippers were there, it seemed, and were awaiting the high-priest.
That high-priest was