er must be announced: no discussion or recalcitrancy
could help that.

And what could they, for their part, do for the complaining crowd?

The plague was snatching them away; the vegetables, which constituted
half their food at this season, were dried up; the river, their
palatable and refreshing drink, was poisoned; the dates, their chief
luxury, ripened only to be rejected with loathing. Then there was the
comet in the sky, no hope of a harvest--even of a single ear, for months
to come. The bishop dead, all confidence lost in the intercessions of
the Church, God's mercy extinct as it would seem, withdrawn from the
land under infidel rule!

And they on whose help the populace counted,--poor, weak men,
councillors of no counsel, liable from hour to hour to be called to
follow those who had succumbed to the plague, and who had but just
quitted their vacant seats in obedience to the fateful word.

Yesterday each one had felt convinced that their necessity and misery
had reached its height, and yet in the course of the night it had
redoubled for many. Their self-dependence was exhausted; but there still
was one sage in the city who might perhaps find some new way, suggest
some new means of saving the people from despair.

Stones were again flying down through the open roof, and the members of
the council started up from their ivory seats and sought shelter
behind the marble piers and columns. A wild turmoil came up from the
market-place to the terror-stricken Fathers of the city, and the mob was
hammering with fists and clubs on the heavy doors of the Curia. Happily
they were plated with bronze and fastened with strong iron bolts, but
they might fly open at any moment and then the furious mob would storm
into the hall.

But what was that?

For a moment the roar and yelling ceased, and then began again, but in a
much milder form. Instead of frenzied curses and imprecations shouts
now rose of "Hail, hail!" mixed with appeals: "Help us, save us, give
us council. Long live the sage!" "Help us with your magic, Father!" "You
know the secrets and the wisdom of the ancients!" "Save us, Save us!
Show those money-bags, those cheats in the Curia the way to help us!"

At this the president of the town-council ventured forth from his refuge
behind the statue of Trajan--the only image that the priesthood had
spared--and to climb a ladder which was used for lighting the hanging
lamps, so as to peep out of the high window.

He