municated
to us the means of deliverance to which they resorted, when they
suffered from such afflictions as have befallen us in these dreadful
days; and this venerable man at my side, the wise and truthful
Horapollo, will acquaint us with it. You see the antique scrolls in his
hand: They teach us the wonders it wrought in times past."

Here the speaker was interrupted by a cry of: "Hail Horapollo, the
Deliverer!" and thousands took it up and expressed their satisfaction
and gratitude by loud shouting.

The old man bowed modestly, pointed to his narrow chest and toothless
mouth and then to the head of the Council as the man who had undertaken
to transmit his opinion to the populace; so Alexander went on:

"Great favors, my friends and fellow-citizens, must be purchased by
great gifts. The ancients knew this, and when the river--on which, as we
know only too well, the weal or woe of this land solely depends--refused
to rise, and its low ebb brought evils of many kinds upon its banks,
they offered in sacrifice the thing they deemed most noble of all the
earth has to show a pure and beautiful maiden.

"It is just as we expected: you are horrified! I hear your murmur, I see
your horror-stricken faces; how can a Christian fail to be shocked at
the thought of such a victim? But is it indeed so extraordinary? Have
we ever wholly given up everything of the kind? Which of us does not
entreat Saint Orion, either at home or under the guidance of the priests
in church, whenever he craves a gift from our splendid river; and this
very year as usual, on the Night of Dropping, did we not cast into the
waters a little box containing a human finger.

[So late as in the XIV. century after Christ the Egyptian Christians
still threw a small casket containing a human finger into the Nile
to induce it to rise. This is confirmed by the trustworthy
Makrizi.]

"This lesser offering takes the place of the greater and more precious
sacrifice of the heathen; it has been offered, and its necessity
has never at any time been questioned; even the severest and holiest
luminaries of the Church--Antonius and Athanasius, Theophilus and
Cyrillus had nothing to say against it, and year after year it has been
thrown into the waters under their very eyes.

"A finger in a box! What a miserable exchange for the fairest and purest
that God has allowed to move on earth among men. Can we wonder if the
Almighty has at last disdained and rejected