obeyed, and the chief advanced, followed by his whole troop. There were many women among them, who seemed more eager and resolute than their male companions. They pressed round their leader, as if to shield him, while they loudly bestowed on him every sacred denomination and epithet of worship. Adrian met them halfway; they halted: “What,” he said, “do you seek? Do you require anything of us that we refuse to give, and that you are forced to acquire by arms and warfare?”
His questions were answered by a general cry, in which the words election, sin, and red right arm of God, could alone be heard.
Adrian looked expressly at their leader, saying, “Can you not silence your followers? Mine, you perceive, obey me.”
The fellow answered by a scowl; and then, perhaps fearful that his people should become auditors of the debate he expected to ensue, he commanded them to fall back, and advanced by himself. “What, I again ask,” said Adrian, “do you require of us?”
“Repentance,” replied the man, whose sinister brow gathered clouds as he spoke. “Obedience to the will of the Most High, made manifest to these his Elected People. Do we not all die through your sins, O generation of unbelief, and have we not a right to demand of you repentance and obedience?”
“And if we refuse them, what then?” his opponent inquired mildly.
“Beware,” cried the man, “God hears you, and will smite your stony heart in his wrath; his poisoned arrows fly, his dogs of death are unleashed! We will not perish unrevenged—and mighty will our avenger be, when he descends in visible majesty, and scatters destruction among you.”