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 hands, 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.

While she descended, the Pagan dropped into his former attitude at the
month 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-stricken in the darkness, and her voice
ascended to him, groaning, 'Light! light! oh, where is the light!' He
rose up, and stretched out his hands to hurl her back if she should
attempt to return; but she descended again. Twice he heard her heavy
footfall on the steps--then there was an interval of deep silence--then
a sharp, grinding clash of metal echoed piercingly through the 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!

* * * * *

The madman stood on the steps of the sacred building, and looked out on
the street shining before him in the bright Italian moonlight. No
remembrance of Numerian and Antonina, and of the earlier events in the
temple, remained within him. He was pondering imperfectly, in vague
pride and triumph, over the sacrifice that he had offered up at the
shrine of the Dragon of brass. Thus secretly exulting, he now remained
inactive. Absorbed in his wandering meditations, he 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 engulphed before it.

His tall solitary figure was lit by the moonlight streaming through the
pillars of the portico; his loose robes waved slowly about him in the
wind, as he stood firm and erect before the door of the temple: he
looked more like the spectral 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 p