ne chance of
meeting the emergency that remained was to strip the Pagan temples of
the mass of jewelled ornaments and utensils, the costly robes, the
idols of gold and silver which they were known to contain, and which,
under that mysterious hereditary influence of superstition, whose power
it is the longest labour of truth to destroy, had remained untouched
and respected, alike by the people and the senate, after the worship
that they represented had been interdicted by the laws, and abandoned
by the nation.

This last expedient for freeing Rome from the blockade was adopted
almost as soon as imagined. The impatience of the starved populace for
the immediate collection of the ransom allowed the government little
time for the tedious preliminaries of deliberation. The soldiers were
provided at once with the necessary implements for the task imposed on
them; certain chosen members of the senate and the people followed
them, to see that they honestly gathered in the public spoil; and the
priests of the Christian churches volunteered to hallow the expedition
by their presence, and led the way with their torches into every secret
apartment of the temples where treasure might be contained. At the
close of the day, immediately after it had been authorised, this
strange search for the ransom was hurriedly commenced. Already much
had been collected; votive offerings of price had been snatched from
the altars, where they had so long hung undisturbed; hidden
treasure-chests of sacred utensils had been discovered and broken open;
idols had been stripped of their precious ornaments and torn from their
massive pedestals; and now the procession of gold-seekers, proceeding
along the banks of the Tiber, had come in sight of the little temple of
Serapis, and were hastening forward to empty it, in its turn, of every
valuable that it contained.

The priest and the soldier, calling to their companions behind to hurry
on, had now arrived opposite the temple steps, and saw confronting them
in the pale moonlight, from the eminence on which he stood, the weird
and solitary figure of Ulpius--the apparition of a Pagan in the
gorgeous robes of his priesthood, bidden back from the tombs to stay
the hand of the spoiler before the shrine of his gods.

The soldier dropped his weapon to the ground, and, trembling in every
limb, refused to proceed. But the priest, a tall, stern, emaciated man,
went on defenceless and undaunted. He signed himself