The street was still desolate; no help was at hand.
Not advancing at once, she concealed herself near the door behind a projection in the pile of idols, watching from it until Ulpius, in the progress of his frenzy, should turn away from Antonina, whom he stood fronting at this instant.

But she had not entered unperceived; Antonina had seen her again.

And now the bitterness of death, when the young die unprotected in their youth, came over the girl, and she cried in a low wailing voice, as she knelt by Numerian's side: 'I must die, father, I must die, as Hermanric died! Look up at me, and speak to me before I die!' Her father was still praying; he heard nothing, for his heart was bleeding in atonement at the shrine of his boyish home, and his soul still communed with its Maker.

The voice that followed hers was the voice of Ulpius.
'Oh, beautiful are the gardens round the sacred altars, and lofty the trees that embower the glittering shrines!' he exclaimed, rapt and ecstatic in his new visions.

'Lo, the morning breaks, and the spirits of light are welcomed by a sacrifice! The sun goes down behind the mountain, and the beams of evening tremble on the victim beneath the knife of the adoring priest! The moon and stars shine high in the firmament, and the Genii of Nights are saluted in the still hours with blood!' As he paused, the lament of Antonina was continued in lower and lower tones: 'I must die, father, I must die!' And with it murmured the supplicating accents of Numerian: 'God of Mercy! deliver the helpless and forgive the afflicted! Lord of Judgment! deal gently with Thy servants who have sinned!' While, mingling with both in discordant combination, the strange music of the temple still poured on its lulling sound--the rippling of the running waters and the airy chiming of the bells! 'Worship!--emperors, armies, nations, glorify and worship me!' shouted the madman, in thunder-tones of triumph and command, as his eye for the first time encountered the figure of Numerian prostrate at his feet.
'Worship the demi-god who moves with the deities through spheres unknown to man! I have heard the moans of the unburied who wander on the shores of the Lake of the Dead--worship! I have looked on the river whose black current roars and howls in its course through the caves of everlasting night--worship! I have seen the furies lashed by serpents on their wrinkled necks, and followed them as they hurled their torches over the pining ghosts! I have stood unmoved in the hurricane-tumult of hell--worship! worship! worship!' He turned round again towards the altar of idols, calling upon his gods to proclaim his deification, and at the moment when he moved, Goisvintha sprang forward.