, cradled in bliss in the pure
radiance of the ideal world and yet unable to free herself from the gross
clay of matter fouled by sensuality and the vehicle of sin.

The head of Serapis was the eternal Mind; in his broad breast slept the
Soul of the Universe, and the prototypes of all created things; the world
of matter was the footstool under his feet. All the subordinate forces
obeyed him, the mighty first Cause, whose head towered up to the realm of
the incomprehensible and inconceivable One. He was the sum total of the
universe, the epitome of things created; and at the same time he was the
power which gave them life and intelligence and preserved them from
perishing by perpetual procreation. It was his might that kept the
multiform structure of the material and psychical world in perennial
harmony. All that lived--Nature and its Soul as much as Man and his
Soul--were inseparably dependent on him. If he--if Serapis were to fall,
the order of the universe must be destroyed; and with him: The Synthesis
of the Universe--the Universe itself must cease to exist.

But what would survive would not be the nothingness--the void of which
her grandmother had spoken; it would be the One--the cold, ineffable,
incomprehensible One! This world would perish with Serapis; but perhaps
it might please that One to call another world into being out of his
overflowing essence, peopled by other and different beings.

Gorgo was startled out of these meditations by a wild tumult which came
up from the slaves' hall some distance off and reached her ears in the
women's sitting-room. Could her grandmother have opened the wine stores
all too freely; were the miserable wretches already drunk?

No, the noise was not that of a troop of slaves who have forgotten
themselves, and given the rein to their wild revelry under the influence
of Dionysus! She listened and could distinctly hear lamentable howls and
wild cries of grief. Something frightful must have happened! Had some
evil befallen her father? Greatly alarmed she flew across the courtyard
to the slaves' quarters and found the whole establishment, black and
white alike, in a state of frenzy. The women were rushing about with
their hair unbound over their faces, beating their breasts and wailing,
the men squatted in silence with their wine-cups before them untouched,
softly sobbing and whining.

What had come upon them--what blow had fallen on the house?

Gorgo called her old nurse and lea