Karnis, that zealous votary of the Muses, stood with Orpheus, on the very top of the barricade throwing lance after lance, while he sang at the top of his voice snatches of the verses of Tyrtaeus, in the teeth, as it were, of the foe who were crowding through the breach; the sweat streamed from his bald head and his eye flashed fire.  By his side stood his son, sending swift arrows from an enormous bow.  The heavy curls of his hair had come unbound and fell over his flushed face.  When he hit one of the Imperial soldiers his father applauded him eagerly; then, collecting all his strength, flung another lance, chanting a hexameter or a verse of an ode.  Herse crouched half hidden behind a sacrificial stone which lay at the top of the hastily-constructed rampart, and handed weapons to the combatants as they needed them.  Her dress was torn and blood-stained, her grey hair had come loose from the ribbands and crescent that should have confined it; the worthy matron had become a Megaera and shrieked to the men:  “Kill the dogs!  Stand steady!  Spare never a Christian!”

But the little garrison needed no incitement; the fevered zeal which possessed them wholly, seconded their thirst for blood and doubled their strength.

An arrow, shot by Orpheus, had just glanced over the breastplate and into the throat of a centurion who had already set foot on the lowest step, when Karnis suddenly dropped the spear he was preparing to fling and fell without a cry.  A Roman lance had hit him, and he lay transfixed by the side of a living purple fount, like a rock in the surf from which a sapling has sprung.  Orpheus saw his father’s life-blood flowing and fell on his knees by his side; but the old man pointed to the bow that his son had cast aside and murmured eagerly:  “Leave me—­let me be.  What does it matter about me?  Fight—­for the gods—­I say.  For the gods!  Go on, aim truly!”

But the lad would not leave the dying man, and seeing how deeply the spear had struck to the old man’s heart he groaned aloud, throwing up his arms in despair.  Then an arrow hit his shoulder, another pierced his neck, and he, too, fell gasping for breath.  Karnis saw him drop, and painfully raised himself a little to help him; but it was too much for him; he could only clench his fist in helpless fury and chant, half-singing, half-speaking, as loud he was able, Electra’s curse: 

         “This my last prayer, ye gods, do not disdain! 
          For them turn day to night and joy to pain!”

But the heavy infantry, who by this time were crowding through the breach, neither heard nor heeded his curse.  He lost consciousness and did not recover it till Herse, after lifting up her son and propping him against a plinth, pressed a cloth against the stump of the lance still remaining in the wound to staunch the swiftly flowing blood, and sprinkled his brow with wine.  He felt her warm tears on his face, and as he looked up into her kind, faithful eyes, brimming