"

"Nay."

"What then, Queen?"

"One only, the first-born child of a woman."

As this command, which they supposed to be divine and from above, issued
out of the lips of the gashed and bleeding Pythoness, the multitude that
hitherto had listened in perfect silence, shouted aloud, while the girl
herself, utterly exhausted, fell to the earth swooning.

Now the high priest of El, who was named the Shadid, none other indeed
than the husband of her who lay sick, sprang upon the platform and
cried:--

"The goddess has spoken by the mouth of her oracle. She who is the
mother of all demands one life out of the many she has given, that the
Lady Baaltis, who is her priestess upon earth, may be recovered of her
sickness. Say, who will lay down a life for the honour of the goddess,
and that her regent in this land may be saved alive?"

Now--for all this scene had been carefully prepared--a woman stepped
forward, wearing the robe of a priestess, who bore in her arms a drugged
and sleeping child.

"I, father," she cried in a shrill, hard voice, though her lips trembled
as she spoke. "Let the goddess take this child, the first-fruit of my
body, that our mother the Lady Baaltis may be cured of her sickness, and
that I, her daughter, may be blessed by the goddess, and through me, all
we who worship her." And she held out the little victim towards him.

The Shadid stretched out his arms to take it, but he never did take
it, for at that moment appeared upon the platform the tall and bearded
figure of Issachar clad in his white robes.

"Hold!" he cried in a loud, clear voice, "and touch not the innocent
child. Spawn of Satan, would you do murder to appease the devils whom
you worship? Well shall they repay you, people of Zimboe. Oh! mine eyes
are open and I see," he went on, shaking his thin arms above his head
in a prophetic frenzy. "I see the sword of the true God, and it flames
above this city of idolaters and abominations. I see this place of
sacrifice, and I tell you that before the moon is young again it shall
run red with the blood of you, idol worshippers, and of you, women of
the groves. The heathen is at your gates, ye followers of demons, and my
God sends them as He sends the locusts of the north wind to devour you
like grass, to sweep you away like the dust of the desert. Cry then upon
El and Baaltis, and let El and Baaltis save you if they can. Doom is
upon you; Azrael, angel of death, writes his name upon your for