The sacrifice to the Dragon was achieved! * * * * * The madman stood on the steps of the sacred building, and looked out on the street shining before him in the bright Italian moonlight.

No remembrance of Numerian and Antonina, and of the earlier events in the temple, remained within him.

He was pondering imperfectly, in vague pride and triumph, over the sacrifice that he had offered up at the shrine of the Dragon of brass.

Thus secretly exulting, he now remained inactive.

Absorbed in his wandering meditations, he delayed to trace the subterranean passages leading to the iron grating where the corpse of Goisvintha lay washed by the waters, as they struggled onward through the bars, and waiting but his hand to be cast into the river, where all past sacrifices had been engulphed before it.
His tall solitary figure was lit by the moonlight streaming through the pillars of the portico; his loose robes waved slowly about him in the wind, as he stood firm and erect before the door of the temple: he looked more like the spectral genius of departed Paganism than a living man.