He ceased and a murmur ran through the crowd; but no hand was raised against the old man. The priests looked at Hiram, who passed on without so much as turning his eyes, and they continued their chant. Not even when the brother who walked beside Artemisia was struck down by an arrow on the threshold of the temple did Hiram pause. The shaft, falling obliquely, buried itself between its victim's shoulders, and he fell upon his face in his death agony. His comrades lifted him quickly and bore him out of sight; but the people continued to gaze at the stain of blood upon the stones where he had fallen.
As Artemisia and Thais vanished in the doorway, the sounds of conflict caused by the rising of the Hebrews reached the temple.
"It is Alexander!" said one to another in the crowd, and because of the words of Pethuel, the cry was more easily believed. Panic seized upon the multitude. Thousands of those who had assembled fled back to their homes. Others ran toward the royal palace, and still others sought the harbors. Scores found refuge in the temple, fighting with each other to enter first through the wide doorway. The dread that had weighed them down had taken shape. The evil was upon them.
CHAPTER XLVI
THE PASSING OF A GOD
Inside the Temple of Baal-Moloch the chant of the priests swelled to a triumphant hymn of praise. The throbbing of drums and the droning of strange musical instruments increased the volume of sound. It drowned the uproar of the conflict between the guards and the Israelites, who had reached the gardens of the temple, and it rose above the wailing of the infants destined for the sacrifice. The children were held by the priests, who formed in a deep semicircle before the idol. The throng of devotees filled the body of the temple beyond their line and the dim reaches of the arcades behind the rows of columns.
The pungent smell of smoke from the sacrificial fire was mingled with the odor of incense that floated from censors swung by neophytes clad in robes of scarlet.
Amid the crowd that burst into the temple in such numbers as to forbid all semblance of the usual ceremonial order, rose the image of the Giver of Life and its Destroyer, gigantic and terrible. Its broad breast glowed dull red, and a spurt of flame issued from its sneering lips like a fiery tongue. The terror that had driven the people into the temple gave way to awe when they found themselves in the presence of the God. Many of the votaries fell upon their faces before the colossal figure; others stretched their hands toward it in an agony of supplication. Sharp cries pierced the maddening pulsations of the music. The gusts of the storm, entering through the opening in the temple roof, drove the smoke in eddies through the obscurity.
Hiram walked straight to the idol and prostrated himself upon the lowest of the steps that rose to the platform on which it stood. He remained for a moment in silent prayer, and then, rising, he stretched forth his arms and repeated the ancient formula that always preceded the sacrifice, calling upon the God by the numerous titles that signified his manifold attributes.