The wildest frenzy was now beginning to possess the dancers. They cried with voices no longer their own, “He is descending!”
In spite of all his efforts Tichon felt he was growing weaker and losing control over himself. He convulsively gripped the bench he was sitting upon, in order to resist the impetuous desire to whirl away in this mad dance, growing swifter and swifter at every moment. He suddenly shrieked and felt himself lifted up and carried away by this hurricane.
A last roar of voices:—
“Eva, Evoe!”
Then suddenly all stopped and prostrated themselves on the ground as if struck by lightning, covering their faces with their hands. The white tunics on the floor resembled white wings.
“Here cometh the stainless lamb to offer himself as food for the faithful!” These words were said by the Queen in a sepulchral, mysterious voice from the subterranean apartment below. To Tichon it seemed to be the voice of the Earth, the Bountiful Mother of All.
The Queen appeared. She held in her hands a large silver cup, a kind of small baptismal font, in which on white swaddling clothes there lay a naked infant. He was sound asleep; some sleeping draught had probably been administered to him. Numerous burning tapers had been fixed on a hoop round the foot of the cup; the flames, coming up to the rim, surrounded the infant with a luminous aureola. He seemed to be lying in a white water lily with a fiery nimbus.
The Queen brought the cup to the King, saying:—
“What is thine is brought to thee for the salvation of all.”
The King blessed the child with the sign of the cross.