e of this wide road was composed of marble blocks, reminding him of
the Roman Appian way--his mind was in a whirl, his head ached with the
glare of the sun on the gold, and with the deep concentration of his
sight upon so much colour and glitter. Again and again he paused, and
looked upwards and backwards, he had a difficulty in tearing himself
away. But he had much to do, and could not afford to linger.

* * * * * *

It was the day before the official opening of the Temple. Jerusalem
was thronged--inside and outside, for Jerusalem, (according to
Zechariah ii. 4) was "inhabited as a town _without walls_." The
environs, and the suburbs had spread in every direction. For the first
time in the history of the world, the hills, Gareb and Goath, _outside_
Jerusalem, had, a few years before this, been covered with villas,
bungalows, hotels, etc., absolutely fulfilling Jeremiah xxxi. 38-40.

Lucien Apleon's Palace, which had been built concurrently with the
Temple, and which, in its way, was almost as gorgeous a building, was
filled with the ten Kings of the Confederacy, and their suites.

Soldiers of every one of the ten nationalities--though all wearing one
uniform, save that the "facings" were different to denote the land to
which they belonged--were everywhere to be seen.

Itinerant venders moved about among the throngs bawling their chief
ware--"Programs for the Temple, to-morrow." George Bullen bought one
of the Programs.

It was an amazing production, and as blasphemous as it was amazing. It
was most sumptuously got up, printed in a style unknown to the days of
even the end of the first decade of the 20th century.

But before he began to read the order of the events, or even to note
the marks of sumptuousness of the appearance of the program, his
attention was arrested by a bold, curious hieroglyphic which headed the
program. This figuring was in richest purple and gold, and bore this
form:

[Illustration: Mark of the Beast]

For a long time he puzzled over the sign. Then, suddenly a memory
returned to him. One night when Ralph Bastin had been speaking to him
about the Anti-Christ he had said:

"Here is a curious thing, George! I have just read in the Revelation,
thirteen, eighteen, that The Number of the Beast--the Anti-christ--is
THE Number of MAN; and his number is 666." Now this number, _in the
Greek_, is made up of two characters which stand for the name of
Chri