‘To the Cinaron! Burn the bones to ashes! Scatter them into the sea!’ And the mob poured past him again....
He turned to flee: but, once outside the church, he sank exhausted, and lay upon the steps, watching with stupid horror the glaring of the fire, and the mob who leaped and yelled like demons round their Moloch sacrifice.
A hand grasped his arm; he looked up; it was the porter.
‘And this, young butcher, is the Catholic and apostolic Church?’
‘No! Eudaimon, it is the church of the devils of hell!’ And gathering himself up, he sat upon the steps and buried his head within his hands. He would have given life itself for the power of weeping: but his eyes and brain were hot and dry as the desert.
Eudaimon looked at him a while. The shock had sobered the poor fop for once.
‘I did what I could to die with her!’ said he.
‘I did what I could to save her!’ answered Philammon.
‘I know it. Forgive the words which I just spoke. Did we not both love her?’
And the little wretch sat down by Philammon’s side, and as the blood dripped from his wounds upon the pavement, broke out into a bitter agony of human tears.