All the fluttering angel throngs hastened thither, shouting for joy, and the shepherds hurried so that they almost ran. Upon reaching the city, they found the angels had assembled over a stable near the gate. It was a wretched structure with a roof of straw, and a naked cliff for a wall. But over it hung the star, and thither flocked more and more angels. Some seated themselves on the roof or alighted on the steep mountain wall back of the house, others poised themselves in air on outspread pinions, while high up, high up, the sky was illuminated by creatures with wings as white as pearl.
The instant the star kindled over the mountain city all nature awoke. Trees swayed, the Tiber began to murmur, stars twinkled, and the moon stood out of the sky and lighted the world. Out of the clouds a dove circled down and alighted on the shoulders of Augustus.
The Emperor was proud and happy, and his friends and slaves fell at his feet.
“Hail, Cæsar!” they cried. “Thou art the god who shall be worshiped on Capitol Hill!”
This cry of homage was so loud that the sibyl heard it and roused from her vision. She turned from her place at the edge of the cliff and came down among the people, so twisted, so shriveled, so terrifying in her tangled hair and marks of age, that they fell back in awe. With one hand she clutched the hand of the Emperor, with the other she pointed toward the east.
The vaulted heavens opened before his eyes, and his glance traveled slowly to the distant Orient. He saw a lowly stable behind a steep rock wall and shepherds kneeling in an open doorway. He saw a young mother with a child upon her knees, resting on a bundle of straw.
The sibyl’s big, knotty fingers pointed toward the Babe.
“Hail, Cæsar!” she cried in a burst of scornful laughter. “There is the God who shall be worshiped on Capitol Hill!”
Augustus shrank back from her as from a maniac. But upon the sibyl fell the mighty spirit of prophecy. Her dim eyes began to burn, her hands were stretched toward heaven, her voice rang out with such resonance and power that it must have been heard throughout the world. And she uttered words which she seemed to be reading among the stars.
“Upon Capitol Hill shall the Redeemer of the world be worshiped—Christ, but not frail mortals.”