These thoughts were rampant in every breast, and no one came to the five men beneath the olive tree to beg for God's mercy.
Sadly Bar Noemi watched the frenzy of the devoted people, till, in the bitterness of his heart, he uttered another and still more grievous curse.
"Let everything which is dear to man become his abhorrence. Let the sweet become bitter, and the bitter sweet. Let meat and drink turn to poison. May your dreams haunt you with images of terror. May you find sorrow where you seek for joy. May the plague lurk in every kiss. May ulcers deform the flushing cheek and the smiling countenance, and may loathing take the place of lust."
And when, after seven days, the clouds passed away and the dwellers in Triton's city came forth, they shrank back from one another with horror and loathing. Ulcers and scabs disfigured every face. Noses and lips had vanished; the hair of the damsels had fallen out; their bodies had grown crooked. God had obliterated His own image in those whose creation He had repented of. And the sky above their heads had lost its bright blueness, and henceforth remained dull and livid, and men could gaze without winking into the pale disc of the midday sun, and count the spots thereon.
Yet even all this was not enough.
People had no longer any reason to find fault with their neighbours. As they were all equally hideous, it became a point of honour to deny the fact, so scorn grew all the more outrageous, and defiance all the more determined.
The domestic animals no longer recognized their masters. The tame beasts with their mates escaped from the city, and fled with anxious, plaintive cries to the mountains. The dogs and the little yellow birds forsook the city in swarms, and fled to the mountains, where they agreed among themselves never to utter another sound. The dogs will bark no more, the yellow birds will sing no more, lest their loathsome owners discover where they are. In their stead ravens and wolves came into the city.
There these natural scavengers held a great council, at which they partitioned among themselves the inheritance of man.
Bar Noemi raised his avenging hand for the eighth time, and cried with a deeply sorrowful voice--
"Let there be death."
And he came, that cruel angel, that terrible angel, Malach Hamovez, with his two-edged sword of flame, the slayer of hosts, before whom nothing in the height or in the depth can remain hidden, and began his awful work of desolation.
The small and the insignificant perished first.
In one day, every little worm and beetle vanished from off the face of the earth, just as if autumn had come and taken them away.
On the second day the serpents and other reptiles came forth from their holes to breathe their last in the plague-stricken sunshine. They lay in thousands at the gates of the city.
On the third day the fowls of the air fell down upon the earth. Stiff and stark they whizzed down from the roofs and covered the streets with their carcases. The wolves saw their companions, the ravens, stiffen out before their eyes, and they had not the courage to fall upon the carrion, but assembled in troops before the gates of the city and began to howl for fear, as if they would say: "Is there then none to help?"
On the fourth day the mammals perished; there they died at the very feet of their masters. No other thing was now to be found in the city, but man and the primeval monster.
And even this last plague did not startle them; they did not shrink back horror-stricken from the appalling solitude; every beast had already fallen a prey to death, only they and their idol still lived on.
There was still time for enjoyment; still they had days to look forward to. Still God had not pronounced His most terrible judgment upon them.
"Let us wait!" said they.
And at length the angel of death began his fearful work on this race, which thus disowned their very consciences. A terrible epidemic went from city to city; men died off helplessly, irremediably; a brief moment put an end to their lives; the young and healthy to-day were corpses on the morrow. Already there were more graves than houses; the living no longer sufficed to bury their dead. A wail of anguish resounded through the whole land. Lamentations went from province to province. Men writhed convulsively in the dust.
But wherefore in the dust? Must not God be sought for in heaven? Does He dwell in the dust? Oh! they could not look up. They had prayers only for their idols. They said: "These are our gods. We ourselves made them so."
And none of them had the courage to say: "Descend from your altars, ye abortions of the earth, ye who are lower than the dust itself, and give place to God, who is the only Lord."
Instead of this, they rushed in their frenzied despair to the youths encamped beneath the olive-tree, and, hoarsely bellowing, threatened Bar Noemi, the author of all these evils, with poisoned arrows and instant death.
"Ye who have not bowed beneath the eighth plague, recognize the Almighty's hand in the ninth miracle!" cried the ambassador of God, stamping with his foot on the ground.
And oh, wonder! the hard earth began to tremble beneath the feet of the raging multitude. At first there was only a sound like a distant wailing wind in the depths below, but soon it seemed as if a gigantic car were thundering along underground, and shaking the palaces which rose above the surface.
Merciful Heaven! Surely some angry spirit of the depths, striving to escape from his dungeon, is shaking the very foundations of the earth, grinding the mountains to pieces, and hurling the rocks into the plains.
The surface of the earth resembles a billowy sea; the crowns of the loftiest palms sweep the reeling earth, and towers and bastions sink down in ruins.
Who can now sustain those golden palaces? Thousands of columns collapse on every side. The proud golden cupola topples, and crushes multitudes beneath its falling fragments; the _debris_ of the gigantic pyramidal gates cover the ground; the remains of the arched bridges strew the ruined streets. Dust and rubbish where once was pomp and splendour.
The terrified people, hastening to the temples of their idols, were crushed by the falling rubbish; the houses of the besotted Bacchanalians bury their own secrets; the sinner perishes in the secret haunts of forbidden joys.
The people fly in terror to Triton, the chief of all their idols.
All around lay the rubbish of the eight walls of the temple; the silver effigy of the god had been cast down and lay with its face to the earth.
But the living idol sat on its throne as immovable as ever, only the large, cruel eyes seemed to roll in their sockets as if wondering why the light of day had been withheld from them so long.
The people threw themselves at the feet of the monster, and, folding their hands over their heads, cried and howled: "Help us, O Triton!"
The monster himself began to feel the earth trembling beneath his feet, and there, on his left side, where a sluggish pulsation was visible beneath the scaly skin, a fear, unfelt before, made his heart throb quicker and quicker, and, arising from his throne and raising aloft his frightful head, the monster stood like a tower among the people.
The idolaters shrieked with joy: "Ha! God Triton has arisen! Triton has heard our words. Triton will fight against the strange God. Now, show thy countenance, thou strange God, and tremble before Triton, whose height measures twenty cubits, and whose hand is stronger than the lightning."
The blasphemy penetrated to the tent of the five men. Then Bar Noemi arose; the youths threw their swords over their shoulders, and boldly advanced in the name of the one Almighty God to answer Triton's challenge.
The priests brought them face to face with the monster, and said--
"God Triton has arisen to protect us. He has stretched out his strong arm, and opened his mouth, whose voice puts to silence the thunder. Ye strangers, who have brought destruction upon us, cast yourselves in the dust before him, and await the pouring out of his fury, which shall destroy both you and your God!"
In Bar Noemi's breast the flames of a superhuman enthusiasm began to glow. Round about him swarmed the raging multitude; before him the uncouth and unearthly monster towered up to heaven. With a far-resounding voice he spoke to the crowd--
"Ye dwellers in the dust! Ye dust-worshippers, whom neither blessing, nor cursing, neither good nor evil days, can turn from your sins. Ye loathsome worms, let the tenth plague smite you that ye may have none to pray to. Impotent monster, vile brood of hell, bow thee before the Name of Him who created thee once, and now annihilates thee, and return to thy forefathers--to the worms of the earth."
Thus speaking, he swung his sharp spear around his head with all his might, and hurled it at the monster. The spear flew hissing over the heads of the priests, and there, where the beating of the heart was visible on the left side of the monster, beneath its hard, scaly skin, the spear penetrated, and remained quivering in its heart.
Triton fell down upon his face with a frightful roar, vomiting forth streams of black blood from his gaping jaws, shaking the earth beneath the lashing of his tail, and tearing up the stones all around with his claws.
Bar Noemi and his comrades fled before the crowd had time to recover from its consternation; and when the men of Triton's city at last bethought themselves of pursuing the deicides, the ground burst asunder, so that a broad gulf lay between the pursuers and the pursued, and a stifling, infernal smoke rose up from the abyss.
The five men reached their home among the glaciers in safety. A great joy awaited Bar Noemi on the day of his return. His wife bare him a son, who equally resembled its father and its mother. And this befell to the great consolation of the dwellers among the glaciers; for it was as if Heaven had told them that the spot where an innocent babe was born, on this awful day, had nothing to fear from God's wrath.
The eldest of the elders received from Bar Noemi's lips an account of the events, and of the marvels which had taken place in the plains below. Amongst the eleven glaciers, absolutely nothing of all this could be discerned. Here warm summer, bright days, pure air prevailed; the meadows were green, the brooks murmured merrily; here, from the gnat buzzing in the air to the ox lowing in the stall, everything lived and rejoiced to live, and a blessing rested on the trees and grasses.
When the eldest of the elders had heard from Bar Noemi all these evil things, he commanded that every one who dwelt near the valleys should gather together all that he had, and, taking with him his animals, migrate to the uplands and settle there. Heaven would certainly provide for them, and make the dismal snow to melt, and give place to trees and grasses for the nourishment of man and beast.
Three days and three nights did the mortally wounded Triton suffer before he could breathe forth his millennial life in the dust. For three days his fearful roaring could be heard from one mountain-top to the other like incessant thunder, and these ghastly sounds brought forth from their secret lurking-places the Earth's remaining monsters, the hole-inhabiting, subterraneous beasts whose skeletons still excite the wonder of a late posterity. The shuddering earth awoke from her slumber of centuries, and forth they all came, with their misshapen bodies, their gigantic heads, their enormous horns, and their dusky, mail-clad bodies, to terrify the world once more.
"Triton is dead! The earth has no longer a god!" was the furious wail which ran through the whole land. "Only the God of the Glaciers still lives. Let us go out against him! Let us kill him also! He, too, shall live no more!"
And the rabid millions seized their weapons and marched forth to fight against God. The monsters that formed a separate people among them whetted their teeth and horns, and rushed madly in their thousands towards the glaciers; and the mammoths stormed their way through the primaeval woods in order to stamp to pieces the people of the glaciers.
The roar of battle re-echoed through the wide continent. The natural order of things seemed to be suspended or abolished. Even the trees and grasses began to fight against Heaven. The leaves of the palm-trees stood out stiffly against the sky, like so many swords, and every blade of grass, every leaf of every tree turned its point upwards. The rocks, hurled one upon another, split asunder, discovering bottomless abysses, and the mountains, hitherto so still and peaceful, hurled flames and burning stones into the sky in impious anarchy. The earth burst asunder in a hundred places, and vomited forth foul, stinking morasses and loathsome, black slime into her own bosom, and the woods burst into flame, colouring the heavens blood-red.
Only the rocks of the glaciers still remained white and calm.
As now the host of the rebel millions and the ghastly shapes of the mongrel monsters stormed over the land of the God they blasphemed, vast thunderclouds enveloped them on every side. The loud, rattling peals rose above the battle din of the wild host, and the vivid lightnings scattered death among them with their glowing darts, and scourged them incessantly for three days and three nights with fiery scourges.