The last words were spoken to the winds, for a shout of triumph, louder and wilder than had ever before been heard even on this favorite meeting-place of the populace, rent the very skies.  Nor did it cease, nor yield to any trumpet-blast, but rolled on in spreading waves down every street and alley; it reached the ships in the port, and rang through the halls of the rich and the hovels of the poor; it even found a dull echo in the light-house at the point of Pharos, where the watchman was trimming the lamp for the night; and in an incredibly short time all Alexandria knew that Caesar had dealt a death-blow to the worship of the heathen gods.

The great and fateful rumor was heard, too, in the Museum and the Serapeum; once more the youth who had grown up in the high schools of the city, studying the wisdom of the heathen, gathered together; men who had refined and purified their intellect at the spring of Greek philosophy and fired their spirit with enthusiasm for all that was good and lovely in the teaching of ancient Greece—­these obeyed the summons of their master, Olympius, or flew to arms under the leadership of Orestes, the Governor, for the High-Priest himself had to see to the defences of the Serapeum.—­Olympius had weapons ready in abundance, and the youths rapidly collected round the standards he had prepared, and rushed into the square before the Prefect’s house to drive away the monks and to insist that Cynegius should return forthwith to Rome with the Emperor’s edict.

Young and noble lads were they who marched forth to the struggle, equipped like the Helleman soldiers of the palmy days of Athens; and as they went they sang a battle-song of Callinus which some one—­who, no one could tell—­had slightly altered for the occasion: 

       “Come, rouse ye Greeks; what, sleeping still! 
        Is courage dead, is shame unknown? 
        Start up, rush forth with zealous will,
        And smite the mocking Christians down!”

Everything that opposed their progress was overthrown.  Two maniples of foot-soldiers who held the high-road across the Bruchium attempted to turn them, but the advance of the inflamed young warriors was irresistible and they reached the street of the Caesareum and the square in front of the Prefect’s residence.  Here they paused to sing the last lines of their battlesong: 

       “Fate seeks the coward out at home,
        He dies unwept, unknown to fame,
        While by the hero’s honored tomb
        Our grandsons’ grandsons shall proclaim: 
       ’In the great conflict’s fiercest hour
        He stood unmoved, our shield and tower.’”

It was here, at the wide opening into the square, that the collision took place:  on one side the handsome youths, crowned with garlands, with their noble Greek type of heads, thoughtful brows, perfumed curls, and anointed limbs exercised in the gymnasium—­on the other the sinister fanatics in sheep-skin, ascetic visionaries grown grey in fasting, scourging, and self-denial.