THE DREGS OF THE CUP OF FURY
The great stars were further withdrawn into the immeasurable arch of
blue night; the winds had fled away into the ocean; the bay was angry
with fire for leagues. The space before Lydia was open as far as the
reader's stone of the proseucha, for the attacking party had demanded
room for their proceedings. Beyond that was the front of the
besiegers, a sea of bodies lighted by torches, tunics bloody with
murder which had been done, mouths open, teeth shining, and eyes filled
with the fury of bloodthirst.
As yet she was unnoticed, because the attention of the multitude was
engaged with the assault upon the easternmost gate.
Lydia's mind did not direct her. It had sunk long ago under the stress
of womanly terror. Only an involuntary obedience to an impulse
conceived during the last conscious suggestions of her Nazarene faith,
moved her toward the reader's stone, straight in the face of the
multitude. She went as all young and tender martyrs have gone, with
the spirit already lifted out of the body.
She mounted the rock; the alabarch, unable to reach her in time, unable
to make her hear him, gave up with a groan of despair, and followed her.
Then the multitude saw and understood.
A yell of fury went up; a mass of innumerable heads and shoulders
lurched toward her. Even the assailants at the gate dropped their ram
to come.
Then up and out of it Marsyas leaped!
Lydia saw him, and a great light swept over her face. He had come to
die with her, to sweeten the bitter martyrdom with the faithfulness of
his love.
After Marsyas, the bayadere bounded, as if pitched from the front of
the wave. Between the murdering front and the three on the stone she
interposed herself, a creature of primal fury, terrible and ferocious.
A torch was in her hand, the badge of eligibility, which had let her to
the forefront of this mob, that received none but destroyers. But the
sibilant utterance of the crimson flame, raking the air, and taller by
half than the screaming fury that whipped it before her, was turned
upon them that had kindled it.
She carried by its bail a great copper kettle filled with bitumen, but,
as she planted feet upon the stone, she dropped her torch and, whirling
upon the wave of fury, swept the full contents of the giant pot over
every face and garment for yards about her. She caught up her torch;
the looping flame uncoiled itself like a springing snake and shot down
into the pack. Instantly there was a running flash, the rip of
explosive ignition, and the breast of the riot turned, each a great
towering flame, and drove itself into the heart of the oncoming
thousands behind!
The rabble in cotton tunics had absolutely no defense against one
another. The riot of bloodthirst turned instantly into panic and a
revel of terrible death. The sound, the scene were indescribably awful.
In the hideous uproar that ensued, events followed swiftly. Vasti and
her tall torch, in fearful fellowship, shrilled and spun on the rock in
a frenzy of heathen triumph. Marsyas, for the instant stunned and
scorched, flung his arm over his face, to shut out the horror. But the
Jews, the instant the ram was dropped, realizing that their citadel was
hopeless with breaches in its gate, and seeing a respite in the riot's
attention upon Lydia, broke from the sanctuary and poured like a sea in
flight into the open. The miraculous intervention of the bayadere gave
them the opportunity to save themselves. But when Marsyas came to
himself and sprang to take up Lydia, the inundation of fleeing Jews had
swept over the reader's stone behind him, and Lydia was gone!