"A miracle!" they murmured, and prostrated themselves, crying, "O Baal, hear us! O Baal, guide us!" Egbalus had remained standing, in unchanged attitude, watching the sunlight. He now whispered, impressing into his tones the simulation of awe: "I see a mighty altar. On it lies one enrobed as a king. By it stands, august and venerable, a kingly priest, and--slays the victim. But hark! a voice! It is that of Melkarth himself, who bids me remember how, in our sacred traditions, it is recorded that the mighty god El, when a dire calamity had come upon his favorite city of Gebal, took his own son, adorned him in the robes of royalty, carried him to the altar, slew him, and so brought blessings for ages upon his people. Hear, O ye priests of Baal!" He lowered his voice, either through sense of the awful solemnity of what he was about to utter, or fear of being overheard by others than those whom he owned, body and soul, as he did his infatuated band of priests. His followers arose from their prostrate positions, and drew close to him. This they heard: "Tyre must offer to Baal its king!" A deep hush followed. Egbalus glanced nervously from one to another. Had he mistaken his men? "The king?" said one, in a tone that might have been regarded as either assent or surprised interrogation. "We have another king," was Egbalus's quick and altogether unghostly response. "Baal save us!" cried one. "The will of Baal be done!" was the sharp rejoinder of another--Mattan, a man of ferocious severity of countenance, whose body showed more scars from self-inflicted wounds than could be counted in half the circle besides. Egbalus suddenly dropped all his mysteriousness of manner, with keen eyes searched their faces, by his very look challenging each one to dare resistance. He was now less high priest than he was politician and leader; seemingly forgetting his spiritual, he asserted his secular, power. Satisfied with what he saw in the half-cowed superstition or the crafty ambition of his followers, he boldly declared: "It must be. Woe to the priest who, at this crisis of our order, dares to betray it!" He drew his long knife, such as was used in sacrificing--"This for the heart of the first faithless priest!" "And this!" "And this!" Half a score of gleaming blades were raised. Egbalus continued: "King Hiram believes not in the gods; would destroy them, and us with them. Rubaal must be king. It is the will of Baal, and it is the wisdom of men."