and their tactics might yet be defeated.

Tears of rage, of the bitter sense of impotence, started to the old
soldier's eyes; and when, at length, one of his messengers came back and
told him that the men and women alike seemed quite demented, and all
and each refused to come up on the roof, he uttered a wrathful curse and
rushed down-stairs himself.

He stormed in on the trembling wretches; and when he beheld with his
own eyes all that his volunteers had done dining that fateful night, he
raved and thundered; asked them, rather confusedly perhaps, if they knew
what it was to be expected to command and find no obedience; scolded the
refractory, driving some on in front of him; and then, as he perceived
that some of them were making off with the girls through the door
leading to the secret passage, he placed himself on guard with his sword
drawn, and threatened to cut down any who attempted to escape.

In the midst of all this Olympius and his party had come into the
ball and seeing the commander struggling, sword in hand, with the
recalcitrant fugitives, where the noise was loudest, he and his guests
hastened to the rescue and defended the door against the hundreds who
were crowding to fly. The old man was grieved to turn the weapons they
had seized in their sacred ardor, against the seceders from their own
cause; but it had to be. While the loyal party--among them Karnis and
Orpheus--guarded the passage to the underground rooms with shield and
lance, Olympius took council of the veteran captain, and they rapidly
decided to allow all the women to depart at once and to divide the men
into two parties-one to be sent to fight on the roof, and the other to
defend the wall where the Roman battering-ram was by this time almost
ready to attack.

The high-priest took his stand boldly between his adherents and the
would-be runaways and appealed to them in loud and emphatic tones to do
their duty. They listened to him silently and respectfully; but when he
ended by stating that the women were commanded to withdraw, a terrific
outcry was raised, some of the girls clung to their lovers, while others
urged the men to fight their way out.

Several, however, and among them the fair Glycera who a few hours since
had smiled down triumphantly on her worshippers as Aphrodite, availed
themselves at once of the permission to quit this scene of horrors,
and made their way without delay to the subterranean passages. They had
adorers in