ls!--they writhe bleeding on the earth beneath us! There is no
worship but the worship of the gods! Slay! Slay on!'

'Light!' cried the priest. 'His damnation be on his own head!
Anathema! Maranatha! Let him die accursed!'

The dry fuel was fired at once at all points--it was an anticipation of
an 'Auto da Fe', a burning of a heretic, in the fifth century! As the
flames rose, the people fell back and watched their rapid progress.
The priests, standing before them in a line, stretched out their hands
in denunciation against the temple, and repeated together the awful
excommunication service of the Roman Church.

* * * * *

The fire at the gates had communicated with the idols inside. It was
no longer on his prostrate altar, but on his funeral pile that Ulpius
now stood; and the image that he clasped was the stake to which he was
bound. A red glare, dull at first, was now brightening and brightening
below him; flames, quick and noiseless, rose and fell, and rose again,
at different points, illuminating the interior of the temple with
fitful and changing light. The grim, swarthy forms of the idols seemed
to sway and writhe like living things in torment, as fire and smoke
alternately displayed and concealed them. A deadly stillness now
overspread the face and form of the Pagan, as he looked down
steadfastly on the deities of his worship engendering his destruction
beneath him. His cheek--the cheek which had rested in boyhood on his
mother's bosom--was pressed against the gilded breast of the god
Serapis, his taskmaster in life--his pillow in death!

'I rise! I rise to the world of light, with my deities whom I have
served!' he murmured; 'the brightness of their presence is like a
flaming fire; the smoke of their breath pours forth around me like the
smoke of incense! I minister in the Temples of the Clouds; and the
glory of eternal sunlight shines round me while I adore! I rise! I
rise!'

The smoke whirled in black volumes over his head; the fierce voice of
the fast-spreading fire roared on him; the flames leapt up at his
feet--his robes kindled, burst into radiant light, as the pile yawned
and opened under him.

* * * * *

Time had passed. The strife between the Temple and the Church was
ended. The priests and the people had formed a wider circle round the
devoted building; all that was inflammable in it had been burnt; smoke
and flame now bu