g blow stretched him to
the earth--with a loud and exulting yell Arbaces brandished the knife on
high. Glaucus gazed upon his impending fate with unwinking eyes, and in
the stern and scornful resignation of a fallen gladiator, when, at that
awful instant, the floor shook under them with a rapid and convulsive
throe--a mightier spirit than that of the Egyptian was abroad!--a giant
and crushing power, before which sunk into sudden impotence his passion
and his arts. IT woke--it stirred--that Dread Demon of the
Earthquake--laughing to scorn alike the magic of human guile and the
malice of human wrath. As a Titan, on whom the mountains are piled, it
roused itself from the sleep of years, it moved on its tortured
couch--the caverns below groaned and trembled beneath the motion of its
limbs. In the moment of his vengeance and his power, the self-prized
demigod was humbled to his real clay. Far and wide along the soil went
a hoarse and rumbling sound--the curtains of the chamber shook as at the
blast of a storm--the altar rocked--the tripod reeled, and high over the
place of contest, the column trembled and waved from side to side--the
sable head of the goddess tottered and fell from its pedestal--and as
the Egyptian stooped above his intended victim, right upon his bended
form, right between the shoulder and the neck, struck the marble mass!
The shock stretched him like the blow of death, at once, suddenly,
without sound or motion, or semblance of life, upon the floor,
apparently crushed by the very divinity he had impiously animated and
invoked!

'The Earth has preserved her children,' said Glaucus, staggering to his
feet. 'Blessed be the dread convulsion! Let us worship the providence
of the gods!' He assisted Apaecides to rise, and then turned upward the
face of Arbaces; it seemed locked as in death; blood gushed from the
Egyptian's lips over his glittering robes; he fell heavily from the arms
of Glaucus, and the red stream trickled slowly along the marble. Again
the earth shook beneath their feet; they were forced to cling to each
other; the convulsion ceased as suddenly as it came; they tarried no
longer; Glaucus bore Ione lightly in his arms, and they fled from the
unhallowed spot. But scarce had they entered the garden than they were
met on all sides by flying and disordered groups of women and slaves,
whose festive and glittering garments contrasted in mockery the solemn
terror of the hour; they did not appear t