When had a troop of enthusiastic students and hastily-collected peasant-soldiers ever been able to snake an effectual stand against the hosts of Rome?  Damia, who only a few minutes since had spoken with such determined encouragement to her son, had terrible visions of the Imperial legions putting Olympius to rout, with the Libyans under Barkas and the Biamite rabble under Pachomius; storming the Serapeum and reducing it to ruin:  Firebrands flying through its sacred halls, the roof giving way, the vaults falling in; the sublime image of the god—­the magnificent work of Bryaxis—­battered by a hail of stones, and sinking to mingle with the reeking dust.  Then a cry rose up from all nature, as though every star in heaven, every wave of ocean, every leaf of the forest, every blade in the meadow, every rock on the shore and every grain of sand in the measureless desert had found a voice; and this universal wail of “Woe, woe!” was drowned by rolling thunder such as the ear of man had never heard, and no mortal creature could hear and live.  The heavens opened, and out of the black gulf of death-bearing clouds poured streams of fire; consuming flames rose to meet it from the riven womb of earth, rushing up to lick the sky.  What had been air turned to fire and ashes, the silver and gold stars fell crashing from the firmament, and the heavens themselves bowed and collapsed, burying the ruined earth.  Ashes, ashes, fine grey dusty ashes pervaded space, till presently a hurricane rose and swept away the chaos of gloom, and vast nothingness yawned before her:  a bottomless abyss—­an insatiable throat, swallowing down with greedy thirst all that was left; till where the world had been, with gods and men and all their works, there was only nothingness; hideous, inscrutable and unfathomable.  And in it, above it, around it—­for what are the dimensions of nothingness?—­there reigned the incomprehensible Unity of the Primal One, in calm and pitiless self-concentration, beyond—­the Real, nay even beyond the Conceivable—­for conception implies plurality—­the Supreme One of the Neo-Platonists to whose school she belonged.

The old woman’s blood ran cold and hot as she pictured the scene; but she believed in it, and chose to believe in it; “Nothing, nothing . . .” which she had begun by muttering, insensibly changed to “Nothingness, nothingness!” and at last she spoke it aloud.

Gorgo stood spellbound as she gazed at her grandmother.  What had come over her?  What was the meaning of this glaring eye, this gasping breath, this awful expression in her face, this convulsive action of her hands?  Was she mad?  And what did she mean by “Nothingness, nothingness. . .” repeated in a sort of hollow cry?

Terrified beyond bearing she laid her hand on Dalnia’s shoulder, saying:  “Mother, mother! wake up!  What do you mean by saying ’nothingness, nothingness’ in that dreadful way?”