The truce once agreed on, the wide space before the respited edifice was
gradually cleared of its occupants. Slowly and sadly the Archbishop and
his followers departed from the ancient walls whose summits they had
assaulted in vain; and when the sun went down, of the great multitude
congregated in the morning a few corpses were all that remained. Within
the sacred building, Death and Repose ruled with the night, where
morning had brightly glittered on Life and Action. The wounded, the
wearied, and the cold, all now lay hushed alike, fanned by the night
breezes that wandered through the lofty porticoes, or soothed by the
obscurity that reigned over the silent halls. Among the ranks of the
Pagan devotees but one man still toiled and thought. Round and round
the temple, restless as a wild beast that is threatened in his lair,
watchful as a lonely spirit in a city of strange tombs, wandered the
solitary and brooding Ulpius. For him there was no rest of body--no
tranquility of mind. On the events of the next few days hovered the
fearful chance that was soon, either for misery or happiness, to
influence irretrievably the years of his future life.
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