Some devout persons had at the beginning wished to count
them, to see whether their number corresponded with the days of
the solar year; but others were brought, and it was impossible to
distinguish them in the giddy motion of the horrible arms. This lasted
for a long, indefinite time until the evening. Then the partitions
inside assumed a darker glow, and burning flesh could be seen. Some even
believed that they could descry hair, limbs, and whole bodies.
Night fell; clouds accumulated above the Baal. The funeral-pile, which
was flameless now, formed a pyramid of coals up to his knees; completely
red like a giant covered with blood, he looked, with his head
thrown back, as though he were staggering beneath the weight of his
intoxication.
In proportion as the priests made haste, the frenzy of the people
increased; as the number of the victims was diminishing, some cried
out to spare them, others that still more were needful. The walls, with
their burden of people, seemed to be giving way beneath the howlings
of terror and mystic voluptuousness. Then the faithful came into the
passages, dragging their children, who clung to them; and they beat them
in order to make them let go, and handed them over to the men in red.
The instrument-players sometimes stopped through exhaustion; then the
cries of the mothers might be heard, and the frizzling of the fat as it
fell upon the coals.
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