crescent that seems suspended by some invisible thread in the air.  Is it the young moon?  No; for as I gaze it breaks apart into a thousand points of vivid light like wandering stars.  These meet; they blaze into letters of fire.  I strain my dazzled eyes to spell out their meaning.  They form one word—­Heliobas.  I read it.  I utter it aloud.  The rose-chain breaks at my feet, and disappears.  The fairy voices die away on my ear.  There is utter silence, utter darkness,—­save where that one name writes itself in burning gold on the blackness of the heavens.

* * * *

The interior of a vast cathedral is opened before my gaze.  The lofty white marble columns support a vaulted roof painted in fresco, from which are suspended a thousand lamps that emit a mild and steady effulgence.  The great altar is illuminated; the priests, in glittering raiment, pace slowly to and fro.  The large voice of the organ, murmuring to itself awhile, breaks forth in a shout of melody; and a boy’s clear, sonorous treble tones pierce the incense-laden air.  “Credo!”—­and the silver, trumpet-like notes fall from the immense height of the building like a bell ringing in a pure atmosphere—­“Credo in unum Deum; Patrem omni-potentum, factorem coeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium.”

The cathedral echoes with answering voices; and, involuntarily kneeling, I follow the words of the grand chant.  I hear the music slacken; the notes of rejoicing change to a sobbing and remorseful wail; the organ shudders like a forest of pines in a tempest, “Crucifixus etiam pro nobis; passus et sepultus est.”  A darkness grows up around me; my senses swim.  The music altogether ceases; but a brilliant radiance streams through a side-door of the church, and twenty maidens, clad in white and crowned with myrtle, pacing two by two, approach me.  They gaze at me with joyous eyes.  “Art thou also one of us?” they murmur; then they pass onward to the altar, where again the lights are glimmering.  I watch them with eager interest; I hear them uplift their fresh young voices in prayer and praise.  One of them, whose deep blue eyes are full of lustrous tenderness, leaves her companions, and softly approaches me.  She holds a pencil and tablet in her hand.

“Write!” she says, in a thrilling whisper; “and write quickly! for whatsoever thou shalt now inscribe is the clue to thy destiny.”

I obey her mechanically, impelled not by my own will, but by some unknown powerful force acting within and around me.  I trace upon the tablet one word only; it is a name that startles me even while I myself write it down—­Heliobas.  Scarcely have I written it when a thick white cloud veils the cathedral from my sight; the fair maiden vanishes, and all is again still.

* * * *