"The Imperator ordered us to march forward and, on the very same day, we crossed the Tigris. At sunset several of the men who had killed the martyr Simeon Stylites were suddenly filled with horror and cried out loudly; for lo! he stood before them on a hilltop with arms outstretched like a cross, while amid continual bowing he struck his knees with his head. And I had helped to bury the lifeless form! The night was dark; clouds, rising from all directions, covered the horizon; flashes of lightning darted to and fro in the distance as if they were fighting with one another. The pealing of thunder echoed nearer and nearer, the world was veiled in gloom, sounds never heard before began to roar about us, and when a vivid flash of lightning seemed to cleave the depths of the firmament, we imagined that we beheld countless shining forms gazing down at us. It appeared to every legion as though the other legions were engaged in a fierce, bloody conflict, the clashing of swords and lances echoed around us, but there was no fighting anywhere. In the darkness we thought that our whole army was transformed into a single vast, confused mass, in which man fought against man, the mounted cohorts trampled down the foot-soldiers, the tribunes rode at the head of the legions, and the troops met in desperate, destructive shocks. Only while the lightning glared did we see the legions standing in motionless squares in their places. Suddenly, amid a terrific peal of thunder, a quivering mass of fire crashed down amid our ranks, shaking the earth beneath and the air around us. Horror made us fall upon our knees, every animal hid its head in the earth, and the fearful tumult roared into our ears the judgment of a mighty God. When we ventured to look up again, a fire was blazing in the midst of our camp. The lightning had struck the tent of the Augustus. No one dared to extinguish it, though the Caesar and the statues of the protecting gods of the army were within its walls. All were burned. Then who are the gods, if not they? O Mesembrius, is it true that above us dwells an invisible Being, who is the Lord of heaven and earth, and that the lifeless stone images which we worship are not even able to defend themselves?" Mesembrius pressed the youth's hand. He had heard enough. "We will say no more about it, Manlius. You shrank from the power that barred your way. It was God! How did the army behave later?" "The soldiers could not be induced to march forward; they walled up the place where Carus Augustus was helplessly burned with the protecting gods of Rome, and now there stands in the midst of the wilderness a building with neither doors nor windows, that no human foot may enter the spot which God has cursed. The troops chose Numerian for their commander, and demanded that he should lead them back to Illyria. I was commissioned to bear these tidings to Carinus; that is why I am here with you."