"There is now no place," replied he, "for an impeacher of the Gods. My
cause is won, my part is played. I am rewarded for my love of man by myself
becoming human. When I shall have proved myself also mortal I may haply
traverse realms which Zeus never knew, with, I would hope, Elenko by my
side."

Elenko's countenance expressed her full readiness to accompany Prometheus
as far beyond the limits of the phenomenal world as he might please to
conduct her. A thought soon troubled her delicious reverie, and she
inquired:

"Peradventure, then, the creed which I have execrated may be truer and
better than that which I have professed?"

"If born in wiser brains and truer hearts, aye," answered Prometheus, "but
of this I can have no knowledge. It seems from thy tale to have begun but
ill. Yet Saturn mutilated his father, and his reign was the Golden Age."

While conversing, hand locked in hand, they had been strolling aimlessly
down the mountain. Turning an abrupt bend in the path, they suddenly found
themselves in presence of an assembly of early Christians.

These confessors were making the most of Elenko's dilapidated temple, whose
smoking shell threw up a sable column in the background. The effigies of
Apollo and the Muses had been dragged forth, and were being diligently
broken up with mallets and hammers. Others of the sacrilegious throng were
rending scrolls, or dividing vestments, or firing the grove of laurel that
environed the shrine, or pelting the affrighted birds as they flew forth.
The sacred vessels, however, at least those of gold and silver, appeared
safe in the guardianship of an episcopal personage of shrewd and jovial