Then he suddenly realized that the white house had been attacked, that his friend must be rescued from robbers or the fury of a mob of Biamites, and, like the bent wood of a projectile when released from the noose which holds it to the ground, the virile energy that characterized him sprang upward with mighty power.  The swift glance that swept the room was sent to discover a weapon, and before it completed the circuit Hermon had already grasped the bronze anchor with the long rod twined with leaves and the teeth turned downward.  Only one of the three little vessels filled with oil that hung from it was burning.  Before swinging the heavy standard aloft, he freed it from the lamps, which struck the floor with a clanging noise.

The man to whom he dealt a blow with this ponderous implement would forget to rise.  Then, as if running for a prize in the gymnasium, he rushed through the darkness to the staircase, and with breathless haste groped his way down the narrow, ladderlike steps.  He felt himself an avenging, punishing power, like the Nemesis who had pursued him in his dreams.  He must wrest the friend who was to him the most beloved of mortals from the rioters.  To defeat them himself seemed a small matter.  His shout—­“I am coming, Myrtilus!  Snuphis, Bias, Dorcas, Syrus! here, follow me!” was to summon the old Egyptian doorkeeper and the slaves, and inform his friend of the approach of a deliverer.

The loudest uproar echoed from his own studio.  Its door stood wide open, and black smoke, mingled with the deep red and yellow flames of burning pitch, poured from it toward him.

“Myrtilus!” he shouted at the top of his voice as he leaped across the threshold into the tumult which filled the spacious apartment, at the same time clashing the heavy iron anchor down upon the head of the broad-shouldered, half-naked fellow who was raising a clumsy lance against him.

The pirate fell as though struck by lightning, and he again shouted “Myrtilus!” into the big room, so familiar to him, where the conflict was raging chaotically amid a savage clamour, and the smoke did not allow him to distinguish a single individual.

For the second time he swung the terrible weapon, and it struck to the floor the monster with a blackened face who had rushed toward him, but at the same time the anchor broke in two.

Only a short metal rod remained in his hand, and, while he raised his arm, determined to crush the temples of the giant carrying a torch who sprang forward to meet him, it suddenly seemed as if a vulture with glowing plumage and burning beak was attacking his face, and the terrible bird of prey was striking its hard, sharp, red-hot talons more and more furiously into his lips, cheeks, and eyes.

At first a glare as bright as sunshine had flashed before his gaze; then, where he had just seen figures and things half veiled by the smoke, he beheld only a scarlet surface, which changed to a violet, and finally a black spot, followed by a violet-blue one, while the vulture continued to rend his face with beak and talons.