From the arid solitudes of the desert, from their convents on rocks and their caverns in the earth, hosts of rejoicing monks flew to the city gates, and ranged themselves with the soldiery and the citizens, impatient for the assault.

At the dawn of morning this assembly of destroyers was convened, and as the sun rose over Alexandria they arrived before the temple walls.
The gates of the glorious structure were barred; the walls were crowded with their Pagan defenders.

A still, dead, mysterious silence reigned over the whole edifice; and, of all the men who thronged it, one only moved from his appointed place--one only wandered incessantly from point to point, wherever the building was open to assault.

Those among the besiegers who were nearest the temple saw in this presiding genius of the preparations for defence the object at once of their most malignant hatred and their most ungovernable dread--Ulpius the priest.
As soon as the Archbishop gave the signal for the assault, a band of monks--their harsh, discordant voices screaming fragments of psalms, their tattered garments waving in the air, their cadaverous faces gleaming with ferocious joy--led the way, placed the first ladders against the walls, and began the attack.

From all sides the temple was assailed by the infuriated besiegers, and on all sides it was successfully defended by the resolute besieged.