Gorgo crossed her hands over her bosom as she saw the god revealed in his
glorious beauty. Spotlessly pure, complete and perfect, the noble statue
stood before her; an idol indeed, and perishable--but still divine as a
matchless work, wrought by the loving hands of a votary of the god,
inspired by the immortals. She gazed spell-bound on the form which,
though human, transcended humanity as eternity transcends time, as the
light of the sun transcended the blazing beacon on Pharos; and she said
to herself that it was impossible that an irreverent hand should be laid
on this supremely lovely statue, crowned with the might of undying
beauty.

She saw that even the Bishop drew back a step when the curtain had
fallen, and his lips parted involuntarily to utter a cry of admiration
like the others; but she saw, too, that he closed them again and pressed
them more firmly together; that his eye sparkled with a fiercer light as
the shout of the heathen rose to heaven, that the knotted veins on his
high forehead swelled with rage as he heard the cry of "Serapis, Hail,
all hail!" Then she noted the Comes, as he whispered soothing words in
the prelate's ear, praying him perhaps to spare the statue--not as an
idol, but as a work of art; as he turned from Theophilus with a shrug;
and then--her heart stood still, and she had to cling to the curtain--he
pointed to the statue, with a nod of intelligence to Constantine. The
young officer bowed with military formality and gave a word of command to
his men, which was drowned by the wild cries of the heathen as soon as
they apprehended with dismay what its import was.

The veterans were stirred. A subaltern officer, putting the standard he
bore into the hands of the man next to him and taking his axe from him
instead, rushed towards the statue, gazed up at it--and then, letting the
axe sink, withdrew slowly to rejoin the others who still stood