I stood with Esther in my arms upon the altar-slab, poised on that unsteady resting place high in the Temple void. There was no refuge anywhere. Over me was the vault; far underneath the Ant with its gleaming, upraised tentacle.
As I stood there the little solar light went out.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE HEART OF THE PEOPLE
The Temple was profoundly dark. Crouched on the swinging stone, helpless in Sanson’s power, I was not conscious of fear. Rather, a melancholy regret possessed me that this was the end, as it inevitably must be. A hundred years of separation, the knowledge of each other’s love—no more; and all had gone for nothing. Yet, there was cause for happiness that this much had been granted me, to die with Esther; and the loss of all hope brought calmness to my spirit and acceptance of the inevitable.
It may have been two hours later when I heard the cries of the mob once more. I heard the tramp of feet upon stone; and then, through every swinging door below, invisible forms came trooping in until they covered the whole of the vast floor. They shouted against the Christians in an unceasing pandemonium, and the walls and hollow roof re-echoed that infernal din until another spirit that underlay the mob fury, something of awed expectancy, swept over the concourse, and the last shout died down, and a new and dreadful silence arose.
It lasted minutes, perhaps, broken only by the stir of feet on the floor, the rustle of robes, the sighs that whispered through the darkness; then, out of that silence a low chant began. It was that dreadful chant that I had heard before, crooned first by a few and then by many, tossed back and forth from side to side of the Temple floor, until all caught it up and made the walls echo with it:
“We are immortal in the germ-plasm; make us immortal in the body before we die.”
There was a dreadful melody, one of those tunes that seem to rise spontaneously to a people’s lips as the outpouring of its aspirations. Again and again that dreadful, hopeless chant rose from below, swelled into a din, and died.
Then shouts broke out again as the mob spirit seized upon some who had assembled there:
“Make us immortal in these bodies of ours!”