ggle, and divide, and
then they might be disposed of in detail. They were showing symptoms of
returning fury, when a voice suddenly cried out, "Agellius the Christian!
Agellius the sorcerer! Agellius to the lions! To the farm of Varius--to the
cottage of Agellius--to the south-west gate!" A sudden yell burst forth
from the vast multitude when the voice ceased. The impulse had been given
as at the first; the tide of human beings ebbed and retreated, and,
licking the base of the hill, rushed vehemently on one side, and roared
like a torrent towards the south-west. Juba, thy prophecy is soon to be
fulfilled! The locusts will bring more harm on thy brother's home than
imperial edict or local magistrate. The decline of day will hardly prevent
the visitation.

CHAPTER XVIII.

AGELLIUS FLITS.

A change had passed over the fair face of Nature, as seen from the cottage
of Agellius, since that evening on which our story opened; and it is so
painful to contemplate waste, decay, and disappointment, that we mean to
say little about it. There was the same cloudless sky as then; and the sun
travelled in its silent and certain course, with even a more intense
desire than then to ripen grain and fruit for the use of man; but its
occupation was gone, for fruit and grain were not, nor man to collect and
to enjoy them. A dark broad shadow passed across the beautiful prospect
and disfigured it. When you looked more closely, it was as if a fire had
burned up the whole surface included under that shadow, and had stripped
the earth of its clothing. Nothing had escaped; not a head of khennah, not
a rose or carnation, not an orange or an orange blossom, not a _boccone_,
not a cluster of unripe grapes, not a berry of the olive, not a blade of
grass. Gardens, meadows, vineyards, orchards, copses, instead of rejoicing
in the rich variety of hue which lately was their characteristic, were now
reduced to one dreary cinder-colour. The smoke of fires was actually
rising from many points, where the spoilt and poisonous vegetation was
burning in heaps, or the countless corpses of the invading foe, or of the
cattle, or of the human beings whom the pestilence had carried off. The
most furious inroad of savage hordes, of Vandals, or of Saracens, who were
destined at successive eras to come and waste that country, could not have
spread such thorough desolation. The slaves of the farm of