“That whereby the blinded sons of men hope to escape from the evil, that, and that only, is the source of their sufferings and I stand here to stay that spring and dig a channel for its overflow.

“Children of Moloch ye try to be and I hope to make you Christians again.  But the maiden whom your fury would cast into the abyss of the river is under the merciful protection of the supreme Church, for the death of her body will bring death to your souls.  Saint Orion turns from you with horror!  Away from the hapless victim!  Away, I say, with your accursed desires and sacrilegious hands!”

“And sit with them in our laps and wring them in prayer till they ache, while want and the plague snatch away those that are left!” interrupted the old man’s voice, thin and feeble, but audible at a considerable distance, and from the market-place thousands proclaimed their approval by loud shouts.

The president of the senate had listened with a penitent mien and bowed head, but now he recovered his presence of mind and exclaimed indignantly: 

“The people die, the town and country are going to ruin, plague and horrors rise up from the river.  Show us some other way of escape, or let us trust to our forefathers and try this last means.”

But the litttle man drew himself up more stiffly, pointed with his left hand to the crucifix, and cried with unmoved composure: 

“Believe, hope, and pray!”

“Perhaps you think that no evil is come upon us!” cried Alexander.  “You, to be sure, have seen no wife with glazing eyes, no child struggling for breath. . . .”  And a fresh tumult came up from below, wilder and louder than ever.  Each one whose home or beasts had been blighted by death, whose gardens and fields had perished of drought, whose dates had dropped one by one from the trees, lifted up his voice and shrieked: 

“The victim, the victim!”

“To the river with the maiden!”

“All hail to our deliverer, the wise Horapollo!” But others shouted against them: 

“Let us remain Christians!  Hail to Bishop John!”

“Think of our souls!”

The prelate made an effort once more to rivet the attention of the populace, and failing in this he turned to the senators and the trumpeters, whom at length he succeeded in persuading to blow again and again, and more loudly through their brazen tuba.  But the call produced no effect, for in the market square groups had formed on opposite sides, and blows and wrestling threatened to end in a sanguinary street-riot.

The women succeeded in getting away from the scene of action under the protection of the Masdakite, before the Arab cavalry rode across to separate the combatants; but in the Curia Bishop John explained to the Fathers that he would make every effort to prevent this inhuman and unchristian sacrifice of a young girl, even though she was a Melchite and under sentence of death.  This very day a carrier pigeon should be dispatched to the patriarch in Upper Egypt, and bring back his decision.