Round the palace resounded deafening cries from the revolted army, shaking the old brickwork of the walls. But when a baggage-carrier, livid with fear, ran in exclaiming, "Mutiny! The soldiers are breaking in the iron gates!" Julian said with an imperious gesture, "Fear nothing! We will arrange that matter presently. Let no one come into my presence!" and taking the high-priest by the hand he hastily led him into a dark underground vault, and closed the heavy iron door. All was there ready. Torch-flames were glittering over the silver image of the Sun-god, and tripods fuming; the holy vessels, full of water, wine, and honey, stood prepared, with salt and flour to be sprinkled on the bodies of the victims. Geese, doves, hens, an eagle, and a white lamb which bleated plaintively, stood round in different cages. "Quicker, quicker!" exclaimed Julian, giving a long dagger to the priest. The old man, who was panting heavily, began hurriedly to mutter prayers; he killed the lamb, put a portion of the flesh and fat upon the coals of the altar, and with mysterious exorcisms began the inspection of its organs. With expert hands he drew forth the liver, heart, and lungs, and scanned them from every side. "The powerful shall be overthrown!" he said, pointing to the heart, which was still warm; "a terrible death...." "Whose?" Julian asked. "His or mine?" "I know not." "You know not?" "Cæsar," said the old man, "be not hasty. Decide nothing to-night; wait for the day; the presages are doubtful...." He did not finish his sentence, but took another victim, a gander, and then an eagle. Overhead the noise of the crowd at the gates swept like the roar of a torrent. Blows of a battering-ram shook the iron doors, but Julian heard nothing. He examined the bloody organs with eager curiosity. The old sacrificial priest repeated: "Decide nothing to-night; the gods are silent." "But now is the moment!" cried Julian in vexation. Nogodarès came in, and solemnly spoke: "Julian, rejoice! to-night your destiny is decided ... but make haste! Afterwards it will be too late." The soothsayer looked at the hierophant; the hierophant at the soothsayer. "Wait!" said the priest of Eleusis. "Dare!" said Nogodarès. Julian stood between the two, in perplexity scrutinising both. The faces of the augurs remained impenetrable. "What is to be done?" he murmured to himself. Then he remembered, and exclaimed joyfully: "One moment! I have an ancient book in my library, _Concerning Contradiction in Auguries_; we shall see!" He hurried to the library; but in a passage he encountered the bishop Dorotheus, in sacerdotal dress, bearing the crucifix and the sacred Viaticum. "What is this?" asked Julian. "The Viaticum for your wife, who is dying, O Cæsar!" Dorotheus looked with severity at the robes of Julian, his pale face, and his blood-stained hands. "Your wife," continued the bishop, "desires to see you before her death. Will you come?"