In the wild confusion of their onslaught, many of the infants were trampled to death. Others were killed by the priests, who seemed crazed by the fall of their idol. At first they stood stupefied. Hiram's voice was no longer heard. They called upon him in vain. Finally one of them ran to the fragments of the prostrate image. Bending above it, he saw the distorted face of the chief priest gazing up into his own. The unfortunate man had been caught beneath the breast of the God to whom he had offered so many innocents, and his crushed body was being slowly roasted under the red-hot metal.
"Moloch has taken him!" the priest shouted, tossing his arms in the air.
He ran into the crowd, and, seizing one of the infants by the heels, dashed out its brains against a pillar. His example was followed by others no less frantic than himself.
"Strike, brothers!" he cried. "Baal has fallen! The end is at—"
Before he could finish the sentence, Leonidas' sword pierced his throat, and he fell upon the body of the child that he had slain.
Down the dim arcade, behind the pillars, strode the Spartan and Chares, hacking and thrusting at the black-robed minions of Moloch. They showed no mercy. Neither prayer nor entreaty availed. They sought the priests through the terrified crowd, and dragged them from every place of concealment, until of all who had been in the temple not one remained alive.
With the crash of the stone as it smote the idol, Clearchus realized what had happened. He saw the iron arms drop, and he leaped forward in time to snatch Artemisia from their embrace. The hot iron grazed his body as the image fell. Artemisia's pale, sweet face lay upon his shoulder, and he clasped her close to his breast. In the revulsion from his despair he felt his muscles endowed with strength.
He smiled to see his friends dash past him, and he looked smilingly upon the clamorous crowd in which every man fought for his life. One of the priests, whose face had been gashed to the bone, rushed upon him, with hands extended, and tried to tear Artemisia from his arms. The man was unarmed, and Clearchus thrust him through the breast. He sank and died without a moan.
Amid the fragments of Moloch's image, the fire that had been kindled in the iron bosom flickered with blue and crimson tongues of flame.
Suddenly the crowd was split by a rush from the great doorway, and Clearchus saw Nathan leading the Israelites into the temple. With the name of Jehovah upon their lips, the swarthy, black-eyed Hebrews poured in, smiting the Tyrians and beating them down with merciless strokes in the delirium of their exaltation. They swept through the temple like wolves through a sheepfold. The floor was heaped with the dead, and the stones were slippery with blood. Nathan recognized the Athenian and sprang to his side, shouting to his followers to strike and spare not.