The prophetess of Papusa, among her anxious Copts, stood up, terrible, pale, half-swooning, and groaned, as if her troubled eyes saw nothing, as if her ears heard nothing—
"Maran Atha"—"The Lord is coming!"
The disciples of the youth Epiphanes, a Pagan demi-god or Christian martyr, worshipped in the oratories of Cephalonia, were declaiming brotherhood and equality—
"There are no laws but these: Destroy all; let all be in common—women, lands, riches, like earth, air, and sun!"
The Ophites, serpent-worshippers, raised above their heads a cross, round which a tame adder was coiling—
"The wisdom of the Serpent," they said, "gives man a knowledge of good and evil; behold the saviour, Ophiomorphos, the serpentiform! Fear nothing! Hearken to him! Taste the forbidden fruit, and ye shall be even as gods!"
A perfumed and curled Marcosianist, lifting on high a crystal cup full of water with the skilful gestures of a juggler, invited curiosity—
"Look at this miracle! the water's going to boil and be turned into blood!"
Colabasians were there, counting their fingers with inconceivable celerity, and demonstrating that all the numbers of Pythagoras, every mystery of heaven and earth, were comprised in the letters of the Greek alphabet—
"Alpha, Omega—the beginning and the end, and between them the Trinity; Beta, Gamma, Delta—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! You see how simple it is!"