An obscure consciousness of having insulted the god and incurred his wrath lurked in every soul.

To many a one prompt death would have seemed most welcome, and one man--a promising pupil of Helladius, had actually taken the leap from existence into the non-existence which, as he believed, he should find beyond the grave; he had run his had violently against a pillar, and lay at the foot of it with a broken skull.
With reeling brains, aching brows, and dejected hearts, the unhappy creatures had got so far as to curse the present; and those who dared to contemplate the future thought of it only as a bottomless abyss, towards which the flying hours were dragging them with unfelt but irresistible force.

Time was passing--each could feel and see that; night was gone, it would soon be day; the storm had passed over, but instead of the inexorable powers of nature a new terror now hung over them: the no less inexorable power of Caesar.

To the struggle of man against the gods there was but one possible end: Annihilation.

In the conflict of man against man there might yet be, if not victory, at least escape.