As sudden as the darkness, there now came a hurricane blast that tore at the Temple walls as if it would hurl its gold and marbles into the valley below. No man could keep his footing in the courtyard or on that summit, and everyone flung themselves prone to the earth—save Apleon. He stood smiling his sardonic, contemptuous smile.
Cohen and a few others crawled towards the wide, folding-doors of the Temple. But the hurricane was before them, and the doors slammed to, and, in some way jammed.
The horses started in stampede, terrified by the storm. Apleon spoke the one word "Soh!" and they stood absolutely still, save for a long, shuddering kind of shiver that ran through each beast at the same instant.
Now, for a few minutes, the thunder roared louder and deeper, until it drowned the thunderous roar of the wind. Peal followed peal with hideous, horrible swiftness. The lightning was a succession of fierce, white ribbons of blood-red flaming fire.
For ten minutes this extraordinary storm raged. There was not one drop of rain. Then, with a suddenness only equalled by that of the starting of the storm, it ceased. The blackness of the heavens rolled away like mist before the rising sun, and while all the western horizon suddenly glowed with the fierce red glow of a furnace blaze, the sun appeared once more over-head shining as though nought had happened.
The procession now re-formed, in the order in which it had arrived, and to the lilt of the gay music of the powerful band, the volatile spirits of the multitude revived, and the loud "huzzahs" rent the air as Apleon—the Anti-christ—passed through the waiting masses of the people.
George Bullen contrived to keep Apleon full in view. In a general way no item of the procession of the ceremony at the Temple, or of aught else had escaped him—but it was in, and on Apleon that his special attention had been concentrated.
He watched the procession sweep through the great gate-way of the Emperor's Palace. Then, when the last of the guests had passed in, the huge folding gates closed, and the multitudes began to disperse.
The vast bulk of the people were lodged outside the city, and now poured out through the gates—for, with the practical re-building of the city, the exits had been made very numerous.
Bullen was lodging with a Christian Syrian about half-a-mile outside the city. He moved on in a line with one of the exodus streams.