us all make offering
to El and Baaltis upon yonder altar, thus renouncing your faith and
entering into ours, or she must die and you, your rank having passed
from you with her breath, will be expelled from the city."

Now Aziel understood the trap that had been laid for him, and saw in it
the handiwork of Sakon and Metem. Elissa having flagrantly violated the
religious law, and he, being the cause of her crime, even the authority
of the governor of the city could not prevent his daughter and his
guest from being put upon their trial. Therefore, they had arranged this
farce, for so it would seem to them, whereby both the offenders might
escape the legal consequences of their offence, trusting, doubtless, to
accident and the future to unravel this web of forced marriage, and to
free Aziel from a priestly rank which he had not sought. It was only
necessary that Elissa should formally choose him as her husband, and
that Aziel should go through rite of throwing a few grains of incense
upon an altar, and, the law satisfied, they would be both free and safe.
What Metem, and those who worked with him, had forgotten was, that this
offering of incense to Baal would be the most deadly of crimes in the
eyes of any faithful Jew--one, indeed, which, were he alone concerned,
he would die rather than commit.

When the prince heard this decree, and the full terror of the choice
came home to his mind, his blood turned cold, and for a while his senses
were bewildered. There was no escape for him; either he must abjure his
faith at the price of his own soul, or, because of it, the woman whom
he loved, now, before his eyes, must suffer a most horrible and sudden
death. It was hideous to think of, and yet how could he do this sin in
the face of heaven and of these ministers of Satan?

The moment was at hand; a priest held out to him a bowl of incense, a
golden bowl, he noticed idly, with handles of green stone fashioned in
the likeness of Baaltis, whose servant he was asked to declare himself.
He, Aziel of the royal house of Israel, a servant of Baal and Baaltis,
nay, a high-priest of their worship! It was monstrous, it might not be.
But Elissa? Well, she must die--if this was not a farce, and in truth
they meant to murder her; her life could not be bought at such a price.

"I cannot do it," he gasped with dry lips, thrusting aside the bowl.

Now all looked astonished, for his refusal had not been foreseen.
There was a pause, and once m