the King of the Gods! A work for all time. Its youth has lasted five
hundred years, its future will extend to all eternity.--Aye, so it is;
and so long as it endures in all its glory the old gods cannot be
deposed!"

"No one will ever dare to touch a stone of it," said the steward. "Every
child in Alexandria knows that the world will crumble into dust and ashes
if a finger is laid on that Temple, and the man who ventures to touch the
sacred image. . ."

"The god can protect himself!" interrupted the singer. "But you--you
Christian hypocrites who pretend to hate life and love death--if you
really long so vehemently for the end of all things, you have only to
fall upon this glorious structure.--Do that, do that--only do that!"

The old man shook his fist at the invisible foe and Herse echoed his
words:

"Aye, aye, only do that!" Then she added more calmly: "Well, if
everything comes to an end at once the enemies of the gods will die with
us; and there can be nothing terrible in perishing at the same time with
everything that is beautiful or dear to us."

"Nevertheless," said the steward, "the Bishop has put out his hand to
touch the sanctuary. But our noble Olympius would not suffer the
sacrilegious host to approach, and they had to retire with broken heads.
Serapis will not be mocked; he will stand though all else perish.
'Eternity,' the priest tells us, 'is to him but as an instant, and while
millions of generations bloom and fade, he is still and forever the
same!'"