as standing behind the balustrades. With the zaimph which was
wrapped about him, he looked like a sidereal god surrounded by the
firmament. The slaves were going to fall upon him, but she stopped them:

"Touch it not! It is the mantle of the goddess!"

She had drawn back into a corner; but she took a step towards him, and
stretched forth her naked arm:

"A curse upon you, you who have plundered Tanith! Hatred, vengeance,
massacre, and grief! May Gurzil, god of battles, rend you! may Mastiman,
god of the dead, stifle you! and may the Other--he who may not be
named--burn you!"

Matho uttered a cry as though he had received a sword-thrust. She
repeated several times: "Begone! begone!"

The crowd of servants spread out, and Matho, with hanging head, passed
slowly through the midst of them; but at the door he stopped, for the
fringe of the zaimph had caught on one of the golden stars with which
the flagstones were paved. He pulled it off abruptly with a movement of
his shoulder and went down the staircases.

Spendius, bounding from terrace to terrace, and leaping over the hedges
and trenches, had escaped from the gardens. He reached the foot of the
pharos. The wall was discontinued at this spot, so inaccessible was the
cliff. He advanced to the edge, lay down on his back, and let himself
slide, feet foremost, down the whole length of it to the bottom; then
by swimming he reached the Cape of the Tombs, made a wide circuit of the
salt lagoon, and re-entered the camp of the Barbarians in the evening.

The sun had risen; and, like a retreating lion, Matho went down the
paths, casting terrible glances about him.

A vague clamour reached his ears. It had started from the palace, and it
was beginning afresh in the distance, towards the Acropolis. Some said
that the treasure of the Republic had been seized in the temple of
Moloch; others spoke of the assassination of a priest. It was thought,
moreover, that the Barbarians had entered the city.

Matho, who did not know how to get out of the enclosures, walked
straight before him. He was seen, and an outcry was raised. Every one
understood; and there was consternation, then immense wrath.

From the bottom of the Mappalian quarter, from the heights of the
Acropolis, from the catacombs, from the borders of the lake, the
multitude came in haste. The patricians left their palaces, and the
traders left their shops; the women forsook their children; swords,
hatchets, and sticks w