t, he and his guests hastened to the
rescue and defended the door against the hundreds who were crowding to
fly. The old man was grieved to turn the weapons they had seized in their
sacred ardor, against the seceders from their own cause; but it had to
be. While the loyal party--among them Karnis and Orpheus--guarded the
passage to the underground rooms with shield and lance, Olympius took
council of the veteran captain, and they rapidly decided to allow all the
women to depart at once and to divide the men into two parties-one to be
sent to fight on the roof, and the other to defend the wall where the
Roman battering-ram was by this time almost ready to attack.

The high-priest took his stand boldly between his adherents and the
would-be runaways and appealed to them in loud and emphatic tones to do
their duty. They listened to him silently and respectfully; but when he
ended by stating that the women were commanded to withdraw, a terrific
outcry was raised, some of the girls clung to their lovers, while others
urged the men to fight their way out.

Several, however, and among them the fair Glycera who a few hours since
had smiled down triumphantly on her worshippers as Aphrodite, availed
themselves at once of the permission to quit this scene of horrors, and
made their way without delay to the subterranean passages. They had
adorers in plenty in the city. But they did not get far; they were met by
a temple-servant flying towards the great hall, who warned them to return
thither at once: the Imperial soldiers had discovered the entrance to the
aqueduct and posted sentries in the timber-yard. They turned and followed
him with loud lamentations, and hardly had they got back into the temple
when a new terror came upon them: the iron battering-ram came with a
first heavy shock, thundering against the southern wall.

The Imperial troops were in fact masters of the secret passage; and they
had begun the attack on the Serapeum in earnest. It was serious--but all
was not yet lost; and in this fateful hour Olympius and Memnon proved
their mettle. The high-priest commanded that the great stone trap-doors
should be dropped into their places, and that the bridges across the
gulfs, in the underground rooms reserved for the initiated, should be
destroyed; and this there was yet time to do, for the soldiers had not
yet ventured into those mysterious corridors, where there could not fail
to be traps and men in ambush. Memnon meanwhil