Ch. 10 - The Rift in the Wall

When Ulpius suddenly departed from Numerian's house on the morning of
the siege, it was with no distinct intention of betaking himself to any
particular place, or devoting himself to any immediate employment. It
was to give vent to his joy--to the ecstacy that now filled his heart to
bursting--that he sought the open streets. His whole moral being was
exalted by that overwhelming sense of triumph, which urges the physical
nature into action. He hurried into the free air, as a child runs on a
bright day in the wide fields; his delight was too wild to expand under
a roof; his excess of bliss swelled irrepressibly beyond all artificial
limits of space.

The Goths were in sight! A few hours more, and their scaling ladders
would be planted against the walls. On a city so weakly guarded as
Rome, their assault must be almost instantaneously successful.
Thirsting for plunder, they would descend in infuriated multitudes on
the defenceless streets. Christians though they were, the restraints of
religion would, in that moment of fierce triumph, be powerless with such
a nation of marauders against the temptations to pillage. Churches
would be ravaged and destroyed; priests would be murdered in attempting
the defence of their ecclesiastical treasures; fire and sword would
waste to its remotest confines the stronghold of Christianity, and
overwhelm in death and oblivion the boldest of Christianity's devotees!
Then, when the hurricane of ruin and crime had passed over the city,
when a new people were ripe for another government and another
religion--then would be the time to invest the banished gods of old Rome
with their former rule; to bid the survivors of the stricken multitude
remember the judgment that their apostacy to their ancient faith had
demanded and incurred; to strike the very remembrance of the Cross out
of the memory of man; and to reinstate Paganism on her throne of
sacrifices, and under her roof of gold, more powerful from her past
persecutions; more universal in her sudden restoration, than in all the
glories of her ancient rule!

Such thoughts as these passed through the Pagan's toiling mind as,
unobservant of all outward events, he paced through the streets of the
beleaguered city. Already he beheld the array of the Goths preparing
the way, as the unconscious pioneers of the returning gods, for the
march of that mighty revolution which he was determined to lead. The
warmth of his past eloquence, the glow of his old courage, thrilled
through his heart, as he figured to himself the prospect that would soon
stretch before him--a city laid waste, a people terrified, a government
distracted, a religion destroyed. Then, arising amid this darkness and
ruin; amid this solitude, desolation, and decay, it