eyes at the amethyst precipice and to rub them and turn them away.  And now those wonderful kingdoms of song that the dark musicians established all night by magical chords dropped back again to the sway of that ancient silence who ruled before the gods, and the musicians wrapped their cloaks about them and covered up their marvellous instruments and stole away to the plains; and no one dared ask them whither they went or why they dwelt there, or what god they served.  And the dance stopped and all the queens departed.  And then the female slave came out again by a door and emptied her basket of sapphires down the abyss as I saw her do before.  Beautiful Saranoora said that those great queens would never wear their sapphires more than once and that every day at noon a merchant from the mountains sold new ones for that evening.  Yet I suspected that something more than extravagance lay at the back of that seemingly wasteful act of tossing sapphires into an abyss, for thee were in the depths of it those two dragons of gold of whom nothing seemed to be known.  And I thought, and I think so still, that Singanee, terrific though he was in war with the elephants, from whose tusks he had built his palace, well knew and even feared those dragons in the abyss, and perhaps valued those priceless jewels less than he valued his queens, and that he to whom so many lands paid beautiful tribute out of their dread of his spear, himself paid tribute to the golden dragons.  Whether those dragons had wings I could not see; nor, if they had, could I tell if they could bear that weight of solid gold from the abyss; nor by what paths they could crawl from it did I know.  And I know not what use to a golden dragon should sapphires be or a queen.  Only it seemed strange to me that so much wealth of jewels should be thrown by command of a man who had nothing to fear—­to fall flashing and changing their colours at dawn into an abyss.

I do not know how long we lingered there watching the sunrise on those miles of amethyst.  And it is strange that that great and famous wonder did not move me more than it did, but my mind was dazzled by the fame of it and my eyes were actually dazzled by the blaze, and as often happens I thought more of little things and remember watching the daylight in the solitary sapphire that Saranoora had and that she wore upon her finger in a ring.  Then, the dawn wind being all about her, she said that she was cold and turned back into the ivory palace.  And I feared that we might never meet again, for time moves differently over the Lands of Dream than over the fields we know; like ocean-currents going different ways and bearing drifting ships.  And at the doorway of the ivory palace I turned to say farewell and yet I found no words that were suitable to say.  And often now when I stand in other lands I stop and think of many things to have said; yet all I said was “Perhaps we shall meet again.”  And she said that it was likely that we should often