Serapis | Page 8

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!'"
"Hail, all hail to the great god!" cried Orpheus with hands outstretched
towards the temple.
"Yea, hail! for everlasting glory shall be his!" repeated his father.
"Great is Serapis, and his house and his image shall last. . ."
"Till the next full moon!" said a passer-by in a tone of sinister mockery,
shaking his fist in the face, as it were, of the god. Orpheus turned
quickly to punish the prophet of evil; but he had disappeared in the
crowd and the tide of men had borne him onwards. "Till the next full
moon!" murmured Agne, who had shuddered at her companion's
rapturous ejaculations, and she glanced uneasily at Orpheus; but by the
time Herse addressed her a minute or two later she had controlled the
expression of her features, and the matron's heart was gladdened by her
bright smile. Nay, many a young Alexandrian, passing the group on
foot or in a carriage, looked at her a second time, for that smile lent a
mysterious charm to her pale, calm face. Nor had it faded away when
they had crossed the bridge and were nearing the shores of the lake, for
an idea once conceived lingered long in Agne's mind; and as she

walked on in the bright glory of the morning's sun her mind's eye was
fixed on a nocturnal scene--on the full moon, high in the sky--on the
overthrow of the great idol and a glittering army among the marble
ruins of the Serapeum. Apostles and martyrs soared around, the Saviour
sat enthroned in glory and triumph, while angels, cradled on the clouds
that were his footstool, were singing beatific hymns which sounded
clearly in her ear above the many-voiced tumult of the quays. The
vision did not vanish till she was desired to get into the boat.
Herse was a native of Alexandria and Karnis had passed some of the
best years of his life there; but to Orpheus and Agne all was new, and
even the girl, when once she had escaped from the crowd and noise
which oppressed her, took an interest in the scene and asked a question
now and then. The younger man had not eyes enough to see all that
claimed his attention and admiration.
There were the great sluice-gates at the entrance to the canal that joined
the lake to the sea--there, in a separate dock, lay the splendid imperial
Nile-boats which served to keep up communication between the
garrison of Alexandria and the military stations on the river--there,
again, were the gaudy barges intended for the use of the 'comes', the
prefect and other high officials--and there merchant-vessels of every
size lay at anchor in countless number. Long trains of many-colored
sails swept over the rippling lake like flights of birds across a cornfield,
and every inch of the shore was covered with stores or buildings. Far
away to the south long trellices of vine covered the slopes, broken by
the silvery glaucous tones of the olive-groves, and by clumps of
towering palms whose crowns mingled to form a lofty canopy. White
walls, gaudily-painted temples and private villas gleamed among the
green, and the slanting rays of the low sun, shining on the drops that
fell from the never-resting wheels and buckets that irrigated the land,
turned them into showers of diamonds. These water-works, of the most
ingenious construction, many of them invented and contrived by
scientific engineers, were the weapons with which man had conquered
the desert that originally surrounded this lake, forcing it into green
fertility and productiveness of grain and fruit. Nay, the desert had, for
many centuries, here ceased to exist. Dionysus the generous, and the

kindly garden-gods had blest the toil of men, and yet, now, in many a
plot--in all which belonged to Christian owners--their altars lay
scattered and overthrown.
During the last thirty years much indeed was changed, and nothing to
the satisfaction of old Karnis; Herse, too, shook her head, and when the
rowers