Ere long the laughter of the Pagan, while he moved slowly hither and thither in the darkness of the temple, was overpowered by the sound of For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he wound-her voice-deep, groaning, but yet steady-as she eth, and his hands make whole."

Jens, a prey to the viper and the asp. Thus she spoke:

I swore to be avenged! while I went forth from Aquileia with the child that was killed and the child that was wounded; while I climbed the high wall in the night time, and heard the tumult of the beating waves on the shore, where I buried the dead; while I wandered in the darkness over the raked heath, and through the lonely forest; while I climbed the pathless sides of the mountains, and made my refuge in the cavern by the bank of the dark lake.

which light had been admitted into the place when Numerian and Antonina first entered it. Even the black chasm formed by the mouth of the vault of the dragon now disappeared, with all other objects, in the thick darkness. But no obscurity could confuse the senses of Ulpius in the Temple, whose every corner he visited in his restless wanderings by night as by day. Led as if by a mysterious penetration of sight, he traced his way unerringly to the entrance of the vault, knelt down there, and placing his hands on the first of the steps by which it was descended, listened, breathless and attentive, to the sounds that rose from the abyss-listened, rapt and unmoving, a formidable and unearthly figure,-like a magi. cian waiting for a voice from the oracles of Hell,

"I swore to be avenged! while the warriors approached me on their march, and the roaring of the trumpets and the clash of the armor sounded in my ears; while I greeted my kinsman, Hermanric, a mighty chieftain, at the King's side, like a spirit of Night looking down into the among the invading hosts; while I looked on my last child, dead like the rest, and knew that he was buried afar from the land of his people, and from the others that the Romans had slain before him.

mid caverns of the earth, and watching the mysteries of subterranean creation, the giant pulses of Action and Heat, which are the life-springs of the rolling world.

The fitful wind whistled up, wild and plain"I swore to be avenged! while the army en- tive; the river chafed and bubbled through the camped before Rome, and I stood with Herman-iron grating below; the loose scales of the dragon ric, looking on the great walls in the misty even-clashed as the night-breezes reached them, and ing; while the daughter of the Roman was a these sounds were still to him as the language of prisoner in our tent, and I eyed her as she lay on his gods, which filled him with a fearful rapture, my knees; while for her sake my kinsman turned and inspired him in the terrible degradation of traitor, and withheld my hand from the blow; his being, as with a new soul. He listened and while I passed unseen into the lonely farm-house, listened yet. Fragments of wild fancies—the to deal judgment on him with my knife; while vain yearnings of the disinherited mind to recover I saw him die the death of a deserter at my feet. its divine birthright of boundless thought-now and knew that it was a Roman who had lured thrilled through him, and held him still and him from his people, and blinded him to the speechless where he knelt. righteousness of revenge.

I swore to be avenged! while I walked round the grave of the chieftain who was the last of my race; while I stood alone out of the army of my people, in the city of the slayers of my babes; while I tracked the footsteps of the daughter of the Roman who had twice escaped me, as she fled through the street; while I watched and was patient among the pillars of the Temple, and waited till the sun went down, and the victim was unshielded, for the moment to strike.

"I swore to be avenged! and my oath has been fulfilled-the knife that still bleeds drops with her blood-the chief vengeance has been wreaked! The rest that were to be slain remain for others, and not for me; for now I go to my husband and my children. Now the hour is near at hand when I shall herd with their spirits in the Twilight World of Shadows, and make my long abidingplace with them in the Valley of Eternal Repose! The Destinies have willed it-it is enough!"

But at length, through the gloomy silence of the recess, he heard the voice of Goisvintha raised once more, and in hoarse wild tones calling aloud for light and help. The agony of pain and sus pense, the awful sense of darkness and stillness, of solitary bondage and slow torment, had at last effected that which no open peril, no common menace of violent death could have produced. She yielded to fear and despair,-sank prostrate under a paralyzing, superstitious dread. misery that she had inflicted on others recoiled in retribution on herself, as she shuddered under the consciousness of the first emotions of helpless terror that she had ever felt.

The

Ulpius instantly rose from the vault, and advanced straight through the darkness to the gates of the partition; but he passed his prisoner without stopping for an instant, and advancing into the outer apartment of the Temple, began to grope over the floor for the knife which the woman had dropped when he bound her. He was laughing to himself once more, for the evil spirit was prompting him to a new project, tempting him to a pitiless refinement of cruelty and deceit.

He found the knife, and returning with it to Goisvintha, cut the rope that confined her wrists, Then as she became silent, when the first sharpness of her suffering was assuaged, he whispered softly in her ear, "Follow me, and escape!"

Her voice quivered and sank in tone, as she pronounced the last words. The anguish of the fastenings at her wrists was at last overpowering her senses, conquering, spite of all resistance, her stubborn endurance. For a little while yet she spoke at intervals; but her speech was fragmentary and incoherent. At one moment she still gloried in her revenge, at another she exulted in the fancied contemplation of the girl's body still lying before her; and her hands writhed beneath their bonds, in the effort to repossess themselves Bewildered and daunted amid the darkness and of the knife, and strike again. But soon all sounds the mystery around her, she vainly strained her cease to proceed from her lips, save the loud, thick, regular breathings, which showed that she was yet conscious, and yet lived.

Meanwhile the madman had passed into the inner recess of the Temple, and had drawn the shutter over the opening in the wall, through

eyes to look through the obscurity, as Ulpius
drew her on into the recess. He placed her at
the mouth of the vault, and here she strove to
speak; but low, inarticulate sounds alone pro-
ceeded from her powerless utterance.
there was no light; still, the burning, gnawing

Still,

agony at her wrists (relieved but for an instant when the rope was cut) continued and increased; and still she felt the presence of the unseen being at her side, whom no darkness could blind, and who bound and loosed at his arbitrary will.

Fierce and resolute, desperate and implacable by nature, she was a terrible evidence of the debasing power of crime, as she now stood, enfeebled by the weight of her own avenging guilt, upraised to crush her in the hour of her pride, by the agency of Darkness, whose perils the innocent and the weak have been known to brave; by Suspense whose agony they have resisted by Pain, whose infliction they have endured in patience.

"Go down, far down the steep steps, and escape!" whispered the madman, in soft, beguiling tones. "The darkness above leads to the light below! Go down, far down!"

He quitted his hold of her as he spoke. She hesitated, shuddered, and drew back; but again she was urged forward, and again she heard the whisper. The darkness above leads to the light below! Go down, far down!"

Despair gave the firmness to proceed, and dread the hope to escape. Her wounded arms trembled as she now stretched them out, and felt for the walls of the vault on either side of her. The horror of death in utter darkness, from unseen lands, and the last longing aspiration to behold the light of heaven once more, were at their strongest within her as she began slowly and cautiously to tread the fatal stairs.

of the Temple; he looked more like the spectrai genius of departed Paganism than a living man. But, lifeless though he seemed, his quick eye was still on the watch, still directed by the restless suspicion of insanity. Minute after minute quietly elapsed, and as yet nothing was presented to his rapid observation but the desolate roadway, and the high gloomy houses that bounded it on either side. It was soon, however, stined to be attracted by objects far different rom these,—by objects which startled the repose of the tranquil streets to the tumult of action and life.

He was still gazing earnestly on the narrow view before him, vaguely imagining to himself, the while, Goisvintha's fatal descent into the vault, and thinking triumphantly of her dead body that now lay on the grating beneath it, when a red glare of torchlight, thrown wildly on the moon-brightened pavement, whose purity it seemed to stain, caught his eye.

The light appeared at the end of the street leading from the more central portion of the city, and ere long displayed clearly a body of forty or fifty people advancing toward the temple. The Pagan looked eagerly on them as they came nearer and nearer. The assembly was composed of priests, soldiers and citizens—the priests bearing torches, the soldiers carrying hammers, crowbars, and other similar tools, or bending under the weight of large chests secured with iron fastenings, close to which the populace walked, as if guarding them with jealous care. This strange procession was preceded by two men, who were considerably in advance of it-a priest and a soldier. An expression of impatience and exultation appeared on their pale, famine-wasted countenances, as they approached the temple with rapid steps.

While she descended, the Pagan dropped into his former attitude at the mouth of the vault, and listened breathlessly. Minutes seemed to elapse between each step, as she went lower and lower down. Suddenly he heard her pause, as if panic- Ulpius never moved from his position, but stricken in the darkness, and her voice ascended fixed his piercing eyes on them as they advanced to him, groaning, “Light! light! Oh, where is Not vainly did he now stand, watchful and mer. the light!" He rose up, and stretched out his acing, before the entrance of his gloomy shrine. hands to hurl her back if she should attempt to He had seen the first degradations heaped on fallen return; but she descended again. Twice he Paganism, and he was now to see the last. He heard her heavy footfall on the steps,-then had immolated all his affections and all his hopes, there was once more an interval,-then a sharp, all his faculties of body and mind, his happiness grinding clash of metal echoed piercingly through of boyhood, his enthusiasm in youth, his courthe vault, followed by the noise of a dull, heavy fall, faintly audible far beneath,—and then the old familiar sounds of the place were heard again, and were not interrupted more. The sacrifice to the Dragon was achieved!

age in manhood, his reason in old age, at the altar of his gods; and now they were to exact from him, in their defense, lonely, criminal, maddened, as he already was in their cause, more than all this! The decree had gone forth from the senate which devoted to legalized pillage the treasures in the temples of Rome!

The madman stood on the steps of the sacred building, and looked out on the street shining be- Rulers of a people impoverished by former fore him in the bright Italian moonlight. No exactions, and comptrollers only of an exhausted remembrance of Numerian and Antonina, and of treasury, the government of the city had searched all the earlier events in the Temple, remained vainly among all ordinary resources for the means within him. He was pondering imperfectly, in of paying the heavy ransom exacted by Alaric vague pride and triumph, over the sacrifice that as the price of peace. The one chance of meethe had offered up at the shrine of the Dragon of ing the emergency that remained was to strip Brass. Thus secretly exulting, he remained in- the Pagan temples of the mass of jeweled ornaactive, absorbed in his wandering meditations, and delayed to trace the subterranean passages leading to the iron grating where the corpse of Goisvintha lay washed by the waters, as they struggled onward through the bars, and waiting But his hand to be cast into the river, where all past sacrifices had been engulfed before it.

ments and utensils, the costly robes, the idols of gold and silver which they were known to contain, and which, under that mysterious, hereditary influence of superstition, whose power it is the longest labor of truth to destroy, had remained untouched and respected, alike by the people and the senate, after the worship that they represented had been interdicted by the laws, and

His tall solitary figure was lit by the moonlight streaming through the pillars of the portico; abandoned by the nation.* his loose robes waved slowly about him in the wind, as he stood firm and erect before the door pendix

See Note. "The Pillage of the Temples," in Ap

This last expedient for freeing Rome from the to massacre each prisoner who was seized mountbckade was adopted almost as soon as imagined. ing the ramparts to the assault; and as they Te impatience of the starved populace for the looked up to the building from the street, they in mediate collection of the ransom allowed little saw at intervals through the bars of the closed tive for deliberation. The soldiers were provid- gates the figure of Ulpius passing swift and shaed with the necessary implements for the task dowy; his arms extended, his long gray hair and imposed on them; certain chosen members of the white robes streaming behind him, as he rushed senate and the people followed them, to see that round and round the temple, reiterating his wild, they honestly gathered in the public spoil; and Pagan war-cries as he went. The enfeebled, the priests of the Christian churches volunteered superstitious populace trembled while they gazed to hallow the expedition by their presence, and a specter driven on a whirlwind would not led the way with their torches into every secret have been more terrible to their eyes. apartinent of the temples where treasure might But the priests among the crowd, roused to be contained. At the close of the day, imme- fury by the murder of one of their own body, diately after it had been authorized, this strange revived the courage of those around them. Even search for the ransom was hurriedly commenced. the shouts of Ulpius were now overpowered by Already much had been collected; votive offer- the sound of their voices, raised to the highest ings of price had been snatched from the altars, pitch, promising heavenly and earthly rewardswhere they had so long hung undisturbed; hidden salvation, money, absolution, promotion—to all treasure-chests of sacred utensils had been discovered and broken open; idols had been stripped of their precious ornaments, and torn from their massive pedestals; and now the procession of gold-seekers, proceeding along the banks of the Tiber, had come in sight of the little Temple of Serapis, and were hastening forward to empty it, n its turn, of every valuable that it contained. The priest and the soldier, calling to their comcanions behind to hasten on, had now arrived opposite the temple steps; and saw confronting them in the pale moonlight, from the eminence on which he stood, the weird and solitary figure of Ulpius-the apparition of a Pagan in the gorgeous robes of his priesthood, bidden back from the tombs to stay the hands of the spoilers before the shrine of his gods.

who would follow them up the steps, and burst their way into the Temple. Animated by the words of the priests, and growing gradually confident in their own numbers, the boldest in the throng seized a piece of timber lying by the river-side, and using it as a battering-ram, assailed the gate. But they were weakened with famine; they could gain little impetus, from the necessity of ascending the Temple steps to the attack; the iron quivered as they struck it; but hinge and lock remained firm alike. They were preparing to renew the attempt, when a tremendous shock-a crash as if the whole heavy roof of the building had fallen in-drove them back in terror to the street.

Recalled by the sight of the armed men, the priests and the attendant crowd of people advanThe soldier dropped his weapon to the ground; cing to invade his sanctuary, to the days when and, trembling in every limb, refused to proceed. he had defended the great Temple of Serapis at But the priest, a tall, stern, emaciated man, went Alexandria, against enemies similar in appearon defenseless and undaunted. He signed him-ance, though far superior in numbers; persuaded self solemnly with the cross as he slowly ascend-in the revival of these, the most sanguinary vised the steps; fixed his unflinching eyes on the ions of his insanity, that he was still resisting madman, who glared back on him in return; and the Christian fanatics, supported by his adhe called aloud in a harsh, steady voice: "Man, or de-rents in his sacred fortress of former years, the mon! in the name of Christ whom thou deniest, Pagan displayed none of his accustomed cunning stand back!" and care in moving through the darkness around

For an instant, as the priest approached him, him. He hurried hither and thither, encouragthe Pagan averted his eyes and looked on the ing his imaginary followers, and glorying in his concourse of people and the armed soldiers rap-dreams of slaughter and success, forgetful in his idly advancing. His fingers closed round the frenzy of all that the Temple contained. hilt of Goisvintha's knife, which he had hitherto As he pursued his wild course round and round. keld loosely in his hand, as he exclaimed in low, the altar of idols, his robe became entangled, and concentrated tones, “Aha! the siege—the siege was torn by the projecting substances at one of Serapis !" The priest, now standing on the corner of it. The whole overhanging mass totsame step with him, stretched out his arm to tered at the moment, but did not yet fall. A few fling him back, and at that moment received the of the smaller idols, however, at the outside stroke of the knife. He staggered, lifted his dropped to the ground; and with them an image hand again to sign his forehead with the cross; of Serapis, which they happened partially to supand, as he raised it, rolled back dead on the pave-port-a heavy, monstrous figure, carved life-size ment of the street. in wood, and studded with gold, silver, and The soldier, standing motionless with super-precious stones-fell at the Pagan's feet. stitious terror a few feet from the corpse, called this was all-the outer materials of the perilous to his companions for help. Hurling his bloody structure had been detached only at one point; weapon at them in defiance, as they ran in con- the pile itself still remained in its place. fusion to the base of the temple steps, Ulpius entered the building, and locked and chained the gates

But

The madman seized the image of Serapis in his arms, and passed blindly onward with it through the passage in the partition into the reThen the concourse of people standing round cess beyond. At that instant the shock of the the corpse of the priest, heard the madman first attack on the gates resounded through the shouting in his frenzy, as if to a great assembly building. Shouting, as he heard it, "A sally! a of adherents around him, to pour down the molt- sally! men of the Temple, the gods and the high en lead and the scorching sand; to hurl back priest lead you on!" and still holding the idol every scaling ladder planted against the walls; before him, he rushed straight forward to the en

trance, and struck in violent collision against the backward part of the pile.

The ill-balanced, top-heavy mass of images and furniture of many Temples swayed, parted, and fell over against the gates and the walls on either side of them. Maimed and bleeding, struck down by the lower part of the pile, as it was forced back against the partition when the upper part fell, the fury of Ulpius was but increased by the crashing ruin around him. He struggled up again into an erect position; mounted on the top of the fallen mass-now spread out at the sides over the floor of the building, but confined at one end by the partition, and at the other by the opposite wall and the gates-and still clasping the image of Serapis in his arms, called louder and louder to "the men of the Temple," to mount with him the highest ramparts, and pour down on the besiegers the molten lead!

The priests were again the first men to approach the gates of the building after the shock that had been heard within it. The struggle for the possession of the Temple had assumed to them the character of a holy warfare against Heathenism and magic-a sacred conflict to be sustained by the Church, for the sake of her servant who had fallen a martyr at the outset of the strife. Strong in their fanatical boldness, they advanced with one accord close to the gates. Some of the smaller images of the fallen pile had been forced through the bars, behind which appeared the great idols, the broken masses of furniture, the long robes and costly hangings, all locked together in every wild variety of position -a chaos of distorted objects heaped up by an earthquake! Above and further inward, the ower part of the Pagan's robe was faintly discernible through the upper interstices in the gate as he stood, commanding, on the summit of his prostrate altar, with his idol in his arms.

words of the priest, in allaying their supersts tious fears, had aroused the deadly passions that superstition brings forth. A few among the throng hurried to the nearest guard-house for assistance, but the greater part pressed closely round the Temple; some pouring forth impotent execrations against the robber of the public spoil; some joining the priests in calling on him to yield. But the clamor lasted not long, it was suddenly and strangely stilled by the voice of one man in the crowd, calling loudly to the rest to fire the Temple!

The words were hardly spoken ere they were repeated triumphantly on all sides. "Fire the Temple!" cried the people, ferociously. "Burn it over the robber's head! A furnace-a furnace! to melt down the gold and silver ready to our hands! Fire the Temple! Fire the Temple !"

Those who were most active among the crowd (which was now greatly increased by stragglers from all parts of the city) entered the houses behind them, and returned in a few minutes with every inflammable substance that they could collect in their hands. A heap of fuel, two or three feet in hight, was raised against the gates immediately, and soldiers and people pressed forward with torches to light it. But the priest who had before spoken waved them back. "Wait!" he cried; "the fate of his body is with the people, but the fate of his soul is with the church !"

When, turning to the Temple, he called solemnly and sternly to the madman, “Thy hour is come! repent, confess, and save thy soul!"

66

Slay on! Slay on!" answered the raving voice from within. "Slay, till not a Christian is left! Victory! Serapis! See, they drop from our walls!-they writhe bleeding on the earth beneath us! There is no worship but the wor ship of the gods! Slay! Slay on!"

"Light" cried the priest. "His damnation be on his own head! Anathema! Maranatha ! Let him die accursed!"

*

**

The priests felt an instant conviction of certain triumph when they discerned the cause of the shock that had been heard within the Temple. One of their number snatched up a small image that had fallen through to the pavement where he stood; and holding it before the people below, The dry fuel was fired at once at all pointsexclaimed exultingly:it was an anticipation of an "Auto da Fè;" a "Children of the Church, the mystery is re-burning of a heretic, in the fifth century! As the vealed! Idols more precious than this lie by flames rose the people fell back and watched hundreds on the floor of the Temple! It is no their rapid progress. The priests, standing demon, but a man, one man, who still defies us before them in a line, stretched out their hands within!-a robber who would defraud the Ro-in denunciation against the Temple, and repeated mans of the ransom of their lives!-the pillage together the awful excommunication service of of many temples is around him; remember that the Roman Church. the nearer we came to this place the fewer were the spoils of idolatry that we gathered in; that The fire without had communicated with the treasure which is yours, that treasure which is idols within. It was no longer on his prostrate to free you from the famine, has been seized by altar, but on his funeral pile that Ulpius now the assassin of our holy brother; it is there scat-stood; and the image that he clasped was the tered at his feet! 1 the gates! To the gates stake to which he was bound. A red glare, dull again! Absolution for all their sins to the men at first, was now brightening and brightening who burst in the gates!" below him; flames, quick and noiseless, rose and fell, and rose again, at different points, illuminating the interior of the Temple with fitful and changing light. The grim, swarthy forms of the idols seemed to sway and writhe like living things in torment, as fire and smoke alter. nately displayed and concealed them. A deadly stillness now overspread the face and form of the Pagan as he looked down steadfastly on the The people gave vent to a cry of fury, as they deities of his worship engendering his destruc now heard from the Temple the hollow laughter tion beneath him. His cheek-the cheek whic of the madman triumphing in their defeat. The 'had rested in boyhood on his mother's bosom

Again the mass of timber was taken up; again the gates were assailed; and again they stood firm-they were now strengthened, barricaded by the fallen pile. It seemed hopeless to attempt to break them down without a reinforcement of men, without employing against them the heaviest missiles, the strongest engines of

war.