As he lay blinking drowsily, his chin upon his hands, there was still
in his face and attitude a suggestion of the monster cat.
And he thought fondly of his wreaking of vengeance when he should be
crowned the great king of prophetic promise--of the fury of armies, of
the stench of the slain, of the cry of the ravished, of "mountains
melting in blood."
CHAPTER 9
It was the fifth anniversary of that resolution of the senate fathers
to consecrate the altar of Peace. Pilgrims thronged the city, and some
had journeyed far. Tens of thousands surrounded the great monument,
immense and beautiful beyond any in the knowledge of men. It
signalized a remarkable state of things--the world was at peace. More
than seven centuries before that day an idea had entered the heart of a
prophet; now it was in the very heart of the world. This heap of
marble, under pagan gods, had given it grand, if only partial,
expression. There was no symbol of war in the long procession of its
upper frieze, and its lower was like a sculptured song of peace wrought
in fruits and bees and birds and blossoms.
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