It was only when he entered with the
victorious ravagers into the vast apartment occupied by the idol Serapis
that the man's countenance began to give evidence of the agony under
which his heart was writhing within him. He mounted a private staircase
cut in the hollow of the massive wall of the room, and gaining a passage
that ran round the extremities of the ceiling, looked through a sort of
lattice concealed in the ornaments of the cornice. As he gazed down and
saw the soldier mounting, axe in hand, to the idol's head, great drops
of perspiration trickled from his forehead. His hot, thick breath
hissed through his closed teeth, and his hands strained at the strong
metal supports of the lattice until they bent beneath his grasp. When
the stroke descended on the image, he closed his eyes. When the
fragment detached by the blow fell on the floor, a groan burst from his
quivering lips. For one moment more he glared down with a gaze of
horror upon the multitude at his feet, and then with frantic speed he
descended the steep stairs by which he had mounted to the roof, and fled
from the temple.
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