not all his power come from the knowledge of the necessity of obedience to the spiritual powers within and without?  Quick as light the words spoken to me by Aztul regarding him came back to my remembrance:  “Even as he is my Beloved, so let him not fail to hear my voice.”  What if he should fail?  A kind of instinct came upon me that some immediate danger of this threatened him, and I braced myself up to a firm determination, that, if this was so, I, out of my deep gratitude to him, would do my utmost best to warn him in time.  While these thoughts possessed me, the hum of gay conversation went on, and Zara’s bright laughter ever and again broke like music on the air.  Father Paul, too, proved himself to be of quite a festive and jovial disposition, for he made himself agreeable to Mrs. Challoner and her daughters, and entertained them with the ease and bonhomie of an accomplished courtier and man of the world.

Dinner was announced in the usual way—­that is, with the sound of music played by the electric instrument devoted to that purpose, a performance which elicited much admiration from all the guests.  Heliobas led the way into the dining-room with Mrs. Everard; Colonel Everard followed, with Zara on one arm and the eldest Miss Challoner on the other; Mr. Challoner and myself came next; and Father Paul, with Mrs. Challoner and her other daughter Effie, brought up the rear.  There was a universal murmur of surprise and delight as the dinner-table came in view; and its arrangement was indeed a triumph of art.  In the centre was placed a large round of crystal in imitation of a lake, and on this apparently floated a beautiful gondola steered by the figure of a gondolier, both exquisitely wrought in fine Venetian glass.  The gondolier was piled high with a cargo of roses; but the wonder of it all was, that the whole design was lit up by electricity.  Electric sparkles, like drops of dew, shone on the leaves of the flowers; the gondola was lit from end to end with electric stars, which were reflected with prismatic brilliancy in the crystal below; the gondolier’s long pole glittered with what appeared to be drops of water tinged by the moonlight, but which was really an electric wire, and in his cap flashed an electric diamond.  The whole ornament scintillated and glowed like a marvellous piece of curiously contrived jewel-work.  And this was not all.  Beside every guest at table a slender vase, shaped like a long-stemmed Nile lily, held roses and ferns, in which were hidden tiny electric stars, causing the blossoms to shine with a transparent and almost fairy-like lustre.

Four graceful youths, clad in the Armenian costume, stood waiting silently round the table till all present were seated, and then they commenced the business of serving the viands, with swift and noiseless dexterity.  As soon as the soup was handed round, tongues were loosened, and the Challoners, who had been gazing at everything in almost open-mouthed astonishment, began to relieve their feelings by warm expressions of unqualified admiration, in which Colonel and Mrs. Everard were not slow to join.