Below the great multitude, with its face lifted to the midnight sky, passed from uproar into silence and from silence into thunders of applause. The immense voice was the voice of admiration, for the cooling hand of wonder pressed back the crowd's passion for a let to its reason. They forgot their disappointment, their bloodthirst, their hate of the Nazarenes, and stood to marvel that the goddess burned but was not consumed.
But Marsyas, patiently working his way forward, pressed by a tall black man who was saying over and over to himself in Hindu:
"It is the bayadere dance, for the glory of Brahma! A sacrilege!"
The rest of Flora's program meanwhile was proceeding. Slowly and mightily, magnificent young athletes, for only such could drive their way through so solid a pack of humanity, were working toward the portico of the Temple. These were candidates for Flora's favor. Among them were black-eyed Roman youths with laurel around their heads; golden-haired Greeks, crowned with stephanes; lithe, bronze Egyptians with ribboned locks at the temple which were the badge of princehood. And after them came one, crowned with grape-leaves, with a thyrsus in his hand, but he had shining black curls, the silken beard and the crimson cheeks of a Jew. The eyes of this one glittered, not from excitement of fancy, but from desperate resolution and astounded recognition. The pagans were far in advance of him.
Now the crowd understood where they were bound and shouted to them; now the youths forced themselves past the cornucopia, the mimes, the flamens, and ran into the open space before the Temple. In poses characteristic of their captivation and intent, they looked up at the dancing fires and cried aloud to the goddess.
Meanwhile the morning-tinted mists whirled in a circular plane about the girl; suddenly they began to tremble and rise,--up, up until the ripple and shiver of the shaken silk took on the action and appearance of an illuminated cataract. Through it, the beautiful outlines of the dancer were distinguished, veiled as a Nereid beneath waters, leaping, running. Thousands below instinctively raised their arms to catch the figure which inevitably must leap through the inspirited cataract and over the parapet of the Temple unless the rosy element pent her within its bosom.