of mortals could be offered
looked down on her, hewn in marble or cast in bronze; for on the roof, on
brackets or on pedestals; in niches or as supporting the parapets and
balconies, were statues of all the guests at the Olympian banquet, with
images or busts of every hero or king, philosopher, poet, or artist whose
deeds or works had earned him immortality.

From infancy Melissa had looked up at this temple with admiration and
pride, for here every art had done its utmost to make it without parallel
on earth. It was the work of her beloved native city, and her mother had
often taken her into the Serapeum, where she herself had found comfort in
many a sorrow and disappointment, and had taught the child to love it.
That it had afterward been spoiled for her she forgot in her present
mood.

Never had she seen the great temple surrounded by so much gay and busy
life. The front of the building, toward the square, had in the early
hours of the morning been decked with garlands and heavy wreaths of
flowers, by a swarm of slaves standing on ladders and planks and benches
let down from the roof by ropes. The inclined ways, by which vehicles
drove up to the great door, were still deserted, and on the broad steps
in the middle no one was to be seen as yet but a few priests in gala
robes, and court officials; but the immense open space in front of the
sanctuary was one great camp, where, among the hastily pitched canvas
tents, horses were being dressed and weapons polished. Several maniples
of the praetorians and of the Macedonian phalanx were already drawn up in
compact ranks, to relieve guard at the gate of the imperial residence,
and stand at Caesar's orders.

But more attractive to the girl than all this display were a number of
altars which had been erected at the extreme edge of the great square,
and on each of which a fire was burning. Heavy clouds of smoke went up
from them in the still, pure atmosphere, like aerial columns, while the
flames, paling in the beams of the morning sun, flew up through the reek
as though striving to rise above it, with wan and changeful gleams of red
and yellow, now curling down, and now writhing upward like snakes. Of all
these fires there was not one from which the smoke did not mount straight
to heaven, though each burned to a different god; and Melissa regarded it
as a happy sign that none spread or failed to rise. The embers were
stirred from time to time by the priests and augurs of eve