A deadly stillness now overspread the face and form of the Pagan, as he looked down steadfastly on the deities of his worship engendering his destruction beneath him.

His cheek--the cheek which had rested in boyhood on his mother's bosom--was pressed against the gilded breast of the god Serapis, his taskmaster in life--his pillow in death! 'I rise! I rise to the world of light, with my deities whom I have served!' he murmured; 'the brightness of their presence is like a flaming fire; the smoke of their breath pours forth around me like the smoke of incense! I minister in the Temples of the Clouds; and the glory of eternal sunlight shines round me while I adore! I rise! I rise!' The smoke whirled in black volumes over his head; the fierce voice of the fast-spreading fire roared on him; the flames leapt up at his feet--his robes kindled, burst into radiant light, as the pile yawned and opened under him.
* * * * * Time had passed.

The strife between the Temple and the Church was ended.

The priests and the people had formed a wider circle round the devoted building; all that was inflammable in it had been burnt; smoke and flame now burst only at intervals through the gates, and gradually both ceased to appear.

Then the crowd approached nearer to the temple, and felt the heat of the furnace they had kindled, as they looked in.
The iron gates were red hot--from the great mass behind (still glowing bright in some places, and heaving and quivering with its own heat) a thin, transparent vapour rose slowly to the stone roof of the building, now blackened with smoke.