o soothe her, praising his mother's
virtues with the affectionate blindness of a son; but she only half
listened to his eulogy, for, as they approached Rhacotis the throng grew
denser, they had no opportunities for conversation, they could think
of nothing but battling their way through the crowd; still, they were
happy.

[The quarter of the city inhabited by the Egyptians. It was the old
town close to which Alexander the Great built his splendid new
city.]

They thus got to the street of the Sun--one of the main arteries of
the city cutting the Canopic way at right angles--and they went down it
towards the Gate of Helios in the south wall. The Serapeum lay to their
right, several streets leading to it from the street of the Sun. To
reach the house where Eusebius lived they ought to have turned down the
street of the Acropolis, but a compact mass of frenzied creatures came
storming down it from the Serapeum, and towards them. The sun was now
fast setting over the City of the Dead on the western horizon. Marcus
tried to get out of the middle of the road and place Dada in safety by
the house at the corner, but in vain; the rabble that came crowding out
of the side street was mad with excitement, and could think of nothing
but the trophies it had snatched from the temple. Several dozen men,
black and white alike--and among them some monks and even women,
had harnessed themselves to an enormous truck, commonly used for the
carriage of beams, columns, and heavy blocks of stone, on which they
had erected a huge but shapeless mass of wood, the core, and all that
remained, of the image of Serapis; this they were dragging through the
streets.

"To the Hippodrome! Burn it! Down with the idols! Look at the divine
form of Serapis! Behold the god!"

These were the cries that rent the air from a thousand throats, an
ear-splitting accompaniment to the surging storm of humanity.

The monks had torn the desecrated block from the niche in the Serapeum,
hauled it through the courts on to the steps, and were now taking it to
the arena where it was to be burnt. Others of their kidney, and some of
the Christian citizens who had caught the destructive mania, had forced
their way into the temple of Anubis, hard by the Serapeumn, where they
had overthrown and wrecked the jackal-headed idols and the Canopic
gods--four huge jars with lids representing respectively a man's head,
an ape's, a hawk's and a jackal's. They were now beari