Farewell." As he spoke those words "the Angel of the Lord hangs over you," so great was the preacher's power, and in that weary darkness so sharply had he touched the imagination of his strange audience, that with a sound like to the stir of rustling trees, thousands of faces were turned upwards, as though in search of that dread messenger.
"Look, look!" screamed a hundred voices, while dim arms pointed to some noiseless thing that floated high above them against the background of the sky, which grew grey with the coming dawn.

It appeared and disappeared, appeared again, then seemed to pass downward in the direction of Agrippa's throne, and vanished.
"It is that magician's angel," cried one, and the multitudes groaned.
"Fool," said another, "it was but a bird." "Then for Agrippa's sake," shrilled a new voice, "the gods send that it was not an owl." Thereat some laughed, but the most were silent.

They knew the story of King Agrippa and the owl, and how it had been foretold that this spirit in the form of a bird would appear to him again in the hour of his death, as it had appeared to him in the hour of his triumph.[*] [*] See Josephus, "Antiquities of the Jews," Book XVII., Chap.VI., Sec.

7; and Book XIX., Chap.VIII., Sec.

2.
Just then from the palace to the north arose a sound of the blare of trumpets.