resented to his
rapid observation but the desolate roadway, and the high, gloomy houses
that bounded it on either side. It was soon, however, destined to be
attracted by objects which startled the repose of the tranquil street
with 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 towards 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 soldier. An
expression of impatience and exultation appeared on their pale,
famine-wasted countenances, as they approached the temple with rapid
steps.

Ulpius never moved from his position, but fixed his piercing eyes on
them as they advanced. Not vainly did he now stand, watchful and
menacing, before the entrance of his gloomy shrine. He had seen the
first degradations heaped on fallen Paganism, and he was now to see the
last. He had immolated all his affections and all his hopes, all his
faculties of body and mind, his happiness in boyhood, his enthusiasm in
youth, his courage in manhood, his reason in old age, at the altar of
his gods; and now they were to exact from him, in their defence, 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
legalised pillage the treasures in the temples of Rome.

Rulers of a people impoverished by former exactions, and comptrollers
only of an exhausted treasury, the government of the city had searched
vainly among all ordinary resources for the means of paying the heavy
ransom exacted by Alaric as the price of peace. The o