uns. The navigators might be
distinguished by their rolling gait, while the men of agriculture
smelt of the wine-press, dried herbs, and the sweat of mules. These
old pirates had lands under tillage, these money-grubbers would fit
out ships, these proprietors of cultivated lands supported slaves who
followed trades. All were skilled in religious discipline, expert in
strategy, pitiless and rich. They looked wearied of prolonged cares.
Their flaming eyes expressed distrust, and their habits of travelling
and lying, trafficking and commanding, gave an appearance of cunning
and violence, a sort of discreet and convulsive brutality to their whole
demeanour. Further, the influence of the god cast a gloom upon them.

They first passed through a vaulted hall which was shaped like an egg.
Seven doors, corresponding to the seven planets, displayed seven squares
of different colours against the wall. After traversing a long room they
entered another similar hall.

A candelabrum completely covered with chiselled flowers was burning at
the far end, and each of its eight golden branches bore a wick of byssus
in a diamond chalice. It was placed upon the last of the long steps
leading to a great altar, the corners of which terminated in horns of
brass. Two lateral staircases led to its flattened summit; the stones
of it could not be seen; it was like a mountain of heaped cinders, and
something indistinct was slowly smoking at the top of it. Then further
back, higher than the candelabrum, and much higher than the altar, rose
the Moloch, all of iron, and with gaping apertures in his human breast.
His outspread wings were stretched upon the wall, his tapering hands
reached down to the ground; three black stones bordered by yellow
circles represented three eyeballs on his brow, and his bull's head was
raised with a terrible effort as if in order to bellow.

Ebony stools were ranged round the apartment. Behind each of them was
a bronze shaft resting on three claws and supporting a torch. All these
lights were reflected in the mother-of-pearl lozenges which formed the
pavement of the hall. So lofty was the latter that the red colour of the
walls grew black as it rose towards the vaulted roof, and the three eyes
of the idol appeared far above like stars half lost in the night.

The Ancients sat down on the ebony stools after putting the trains of
their robes over their heads. They remained motionless with their hands
crossed inside their