“Why must these people die who are better than we?”

“Friend,” answered the bishop, in ringing tones, which in that heavy silence seemed to search out even the recesses of the great and crowded place, “we must die because it is the will of King Agrippa, to whom God has given power to destroy us.  Mourn not for us because we perish cruelly, since this is the day of our true birth, but mourn for King Agrippa, at whose hands our blood will be required, and mourn, mourn for yourselves, O people.  The death that is near to us perchance is nearer still to some of you; and how will you awaken who perish in your sins?  What if the sword of God should empty yonder throne?  What if the voice of God should call on him who fills it to make answer of his deeds?  Soon or late, O people, it will call on him and you to pass hence, some naturally in your age, others by the sharp and dreadful roads of sword, pestilence or famine.  Already those woes which He whom you crucified foretold, knock at your door, and within a few short years not one of you who crowd this place in thousands will draw the breath of life.  Nothing will remain of you on earth save the fruit of those deeds which you have done—­these and your bones, no more.  Repent you, therefore, repent while there is time; for I, whom you have doomed, I am bidden to declare that judgment is at hand.  Yes, even now, although you see him not, the Angel of the Lord hangs over you and writes your names within his book.  Now while there is time I would pray for you and for your king.  Farewell.”

As he spoke those words “the Angel of the Lord hangs over you,” so great was the preacher’s power, and in that weary darkness so sharply had he touched the imagination of his strange audience, that with a sound like to the stir of rustling trees, thousands of faces were turned upwards, as though in search of that dread messenger.

“Look, look!” screamed a hundred voices, while dim arms pointed to some noiseless thing that floated high above them against the background of the sky, which grew grey with the coming dawn.  It appeared and disappeared, appeared again, then seemed to pass downward in the direction of Agrippa’s throne, and vanished.

“It is that magician’s angel,” cried one, and the multitudes groaned.

“Fool,” said another, “it was but a bird.”

“Then for Agrippa’s sake,” shrilled a new voice, “the gods send that it was not an owl.”

Thereat some laughed, but the most were silent.  They knew the story of King Agrippa and the owl, and how it had been foretold that this spirit in the form of a bird would appear to him again in the hour of his death, as it had appeared to him in the hour of his triumph.[*]

     [*] See Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews,” Book XVII.,
     Chap.  VI., Sec. 7; and Book XIX., Chap.  VIII., Sec. 2.