themselves, and given the rein to their wild revelry under the influence
of Dionysus! She listened and could distinctly hear lamentable howls and
wild cries of grief. Something frightful must have happened! Had
some evil befallen her father? Greatly alarmed she flew across the
courtyard to the slaves' quarters and found the whole establishment,
black and white alike, in a state of frenzy. The women were rushing
about with their hair unbound over their faces, beating their breasts and
wailing, the men squatted in silence with their wine-cups before them
untouched, softly sobbing and whining.

What had come upon them--what blow had fallen on the house?

Gorgo called her old nurse and learnt from her that the Moschosphragist
had just told them that the troops had been placed all round the Serapeum
and that the Emperor had commanded the Prefect of the East to lay violent
hands on the temple of the King of gods. Today or to-morrow the crime
was to be perpetrated. They had been warned to pray and repent of their
sins, for at the moment when the holiest sanctuary on earth should fall
the whole world would crumble into nothingness. The entrails of the
beast sacrificed by Damia had been black as though scorched, and a
terrific groan had been heard from the god himself in the great shrine;
the pillars of the great hypostyle had trembled and the three heads of
Cerberus, lying at the feet of Serapis; had opened their jaws.

Gorgo listened in silence to the old woman's story; and all she said in
reply was: "Let them wail."