ped pressed onwards, while fresh ranks
of soldiers made their way in, over the bodies of the fallen. The
well-drilled foe came creeping up to the barricade on their knees, and
protected by bronze bucklers, while others, in the rear, flung lances
and arrows over their heads at the besieged. A few of the heathen fell,
and the sight of their blood had a wonderful effect on their comrades.
Rage surged up in the breasts of the most timid, and fear vanished
before the passion for revenge; cowardice turned to martial ardor, and
philosophers and artists thirsted for blood. The red glare of strife
danced before the eyes of the veriest book-worm; fired by the terrible
impulse to kill, to subdue, to destroy the foe, they fought desperately
and blindly, staking their lives on the issue.

Karnis, that zealous votary of the Muses, stood with Orpheus, on the
very top of the barricade throwing lance after lance, while he sang at
the top of his voice snatches of the verses of Tyrtaeus, in the teeth,
as it were, of the foe who were crowding through the breach; the sweat
streamed from his bald head and his eye flashed fire. By his side stood
his son, sending swift arrows from an enormous bow. The heavy curls of
his hair had come unbound and fell over his flushed face. When he hit
one of the Imperial soldiers his father applauded him eagerly; then,
collecting all his strength, flung another lance, chanting a hexameter
or a verse of an ode. Herse crouched half hidden behind a sacrificial
stone which lay at the top of the hastily-constructed rampart, and
handed weapons to the combatants as they needed them. Her dress was torn
and blood-stained, her grey hair had come loose from the ribbands and
crescent that should have confined it; the worthy matron had become a
Megaera and shrieked to the men: "Kill the dogs! Stand steady! Spare
never a Christian!"

But the little garrison needed no incitement; the fevered zeal which
possessed them wholly, seconded their thirst for blood and doubled their
strength.

An arrow, shot by Orpheus, had just glanced over the breastplate and
into the throat of a centurion who had already set foot on the lowest
step, when Karnis suddenly dropped the spear he was preparing to fling
and fell without a cry. A Roman lance had hit him, and he lay transfixed
by the side of a living purple fount, like a rock in the surf from which
a sapling has sprung. Orpheus saw his father's life-blood flowing and
fell on his knees b