Upon the second span, now dimly visible, drawn back against the wall opposite Sanson, I saw the prisoners from the vaults, marshaled under the charge of the Guard. There, at the extreme edge, Elizabeth stood, a slender, virginal figure, her hands clasped over her bosom; at her side David, behind them the patriarchal figure of Bishop Alfred. Behind him were ranged the other victims of Sanson’s rage. They, too, under that single light, seemed to be poised in air. At the sight of them, hysteria swept the minds of the mob into frenzy. “The Christians!” they screamed. “Kill them! Kill them! Out with the dogs who hold their bodies cheap! To the Rest Cure! Ah—h!” The groaning end was drawn out as the vibration of a G-string. The air was heavy and foul with hate; I felt it as something ponderable. A woman’s voice rang shrill through the Temple, and the devil that goaded her had raised his head now after two thousand years of stupor. He returned into a world that had forgotten him since the first shapings of Europe’s peoples began, out of the deepest place in hell. “Sacrifice them!” she shrieked. “A human sacrifice upon the altar-stone!” The whistling, strident voices of the mob answered her: “Sacrifice them! A human sacrifice!” Surely Sanson’s stage-craft was working well. He stood there, facing his victims across the void. He raised his hand, and every voice was stilled. “I have called you together, citizens, upon this day,” he said, “because, as you once chose freedom in place of bondage, so, now, the time has come to choose again. I have given you liberty, I have given you peace, I have enlightened you and raised you to man’s true dignity. The Christians used to say that man was half ape and half that mythical vertebrate known as the angel. I have driven the ape out of you and made you all angel. That is to say, all man, standing on his own feet, not leaning against imaginary gods to prop him. It has been a difficult battle, for all the vested evils in the world have fought against me. But I have won: your God, your Christ, the superstitious, stubborn heart of man have yielded. Now the old order is ripe to perish everlastingly. There remains one more enemy—” “Death!” screamed the shrill woman’s voice. “Make us immortal in our beautiful bodies, Sanson! Give us life, everlasting life!” “The Ant,” pursued the speaker patiently. It was an unexpected anticlimax. The crowd groaned in disappointment, and the silence that followed was of unutterable grief. That Sanson would bestow his boon upon them, all had believed. Nor had they anticipated Sanson’s declaration. For the idolatrous symbol, which was all they knew of worship, had possessed itself of their imaginations, their aspirations had cleaved to it, and, as must be, what had begun as a symbol had ended as a god.