“Elect of the god, bride of Nemausus!” said the chief priestess, “ascend the balustrade of the holy perennial fountain.”
Without shrinking, the girl obeyed.
She fixed her eyes steadily on the sky, and then made the sacred sign on her brow.
“What doest thou?” asked the priestess. “Some witchcraft I trow.”
“No witchcraft, indeed,” answered the girl. “I do but invoke the Father of Lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
“Ah, Apollo!—he is not so great a god as our Nemausus.”
Then at a sign, the trumpeters blew a furious bellow and as suddenly ceased. Whereupon to the strains of flutes and the tinkling of triangles, the choir broke forth into the last verse of the hymn:
“Thou, the perennial, loving tender virgins,
Do thou accept the sacrifice we offer;
May thy selection be the best and fittest,