She carried by its bail a great copper kettle filled with bitumen, but, as she planted feet upon the stone, she dropped her torch and, whirling upon the wave of fury, swept the full contents of the giant pot over every face and garment for yards about her. She caught up her torch; the looping flame uncoiled itself like a springing snake and shot down into the pack. Instantly there was a running flash, the rip of explosive ignition, and the breast of the riot turned, each a great towering flame, and drove itself into the heart of the oncoming thousands behind!
The rabble in cotton tunics had absolutely no defense against one another. The riot of bloodthirst turned instantly into panic and a revel of terrible death. The sound, the scene were indescribably awful.
In the hideous uproar that ensued, events followed swiftly. Vasti and her tall torch, in fearful fellowship, shrilled and spun on the rock in a frenzy of heathen triumph. Marsyas, for the instant stunned and scorched, flung his arm over his face, to shut out the horror. But the Jews, the instant the ram was dropped, realizing that their citadel was hopeless with breaches in its gate, and seeing a respite in the riot's attention upon Lydia, broke from the sanctuary and poured like a sea in flight into the open. The miraculous intervention of the bayadere gave them the opportunity to save themselves. But when Marsyas came to himself and sprang to take up Lydia, the inundation of fleeing Jews had swept over the reader's stone behind him, and Lydia was gone!
CHAPTER XXXIV
CAPTIVES OF THE MIGHTY
The second night after the riot about the Synagogue, one of Flaccus' sentries, posted about the small cramped portion of the Regio Judæorum, into which the forty thousand Jews had been driven, brought his spear at guard and called "Halt!"
But the object approaching spun on toward him noiselessly, passed the lines, and disappeared up the dark, sandy roadway, into the night on the beleaguered quarter.
"Ha, ha! Ho, ho!" roared the next post, who had heard his challenge, "challenging sand-columns, Sergius? Flaccus should know of thy thoroughness!"
The discomfited sentry muttered and shouldered his weapon.