which several ladders were propped, while the ground was heaped and
strewed with scraps of ivory, fragments of gold-plate, and chips of
marble. Constantine had disappeared; the ladders and the plinth of the
statue were covered with a swarm of soldiers and monks who were finishing
the work of destruction. As soon as the young officer had struck the
first blow, and the god had submitted in abject impotence, they had
rushed upon him and saved their captain the trouble of ending the task he
had begun.

The great idol was desecrated. Serapis was no more--the heaven of the
heathen had lost its king. The worshippers of the deposed god, sullen,
furious, and bitterly disabused, made their way out of the temple and
looked up at the serene blue sky, the unclouded sunshine, for some
symptoms of an avenging tempest; but in vain.

Theophilus had also quitted the scene with the Comes, leaving the work of
devastation in the competent hands of the monks. He knew his skin-clad
adherents well; and he knew that within a very few days not an idol, not
a picture, not a token would remain intact to preserve the memory of the
old gods; a thousand slaves charged to sweep the Serapeum from the face
of the earth would have given his impatience twenty times as long to
wait. The Comes went off at once to the Hippodrome, preceded by hundreds
who had hurried off to tell the assembled multitude that Alexandria had
lost her god.

Constantine, however, had not left the temple; he had withdrawn into one
of the aisles and seated himself on the steps, where he remained, sunk in
thought and gazing at the ground. He was a soldier and took service and
discipline in earnest. What he had done he had been forced to do; but no
one could guess how hard it had been to him to fulfil this terrible duty.