“That is not an ordinary orchestra,” said Dr. Dean in his ear.  “The instruments are ancient, and the form of melody is barbaric.”

Gervase answered nothing, for the Princess Ziska just then approached them.

“Come into the Red Saloon,” she said.  “I am persuading my guests to pass on there.  I have an old bas-relief on the walls which I would like you to see,—­you, especially, Dr. Dean!—­for you are so learned in antiquities.  I hear you are trying to discover traces of Araxes?”

“I am,” replied the Doctor.  “You interested me very much in his history.”

“He was a great man,” said the Princess, slowly piloting them as she spoke, without hurry and with careful courtesy, through the serried ranks of the now freely chattering and animated company.  “Much greater than any of your modern heroes.  But he had two faults; faults which frequently accompany the plentitude of power,—­cruelty and selfishness.  He betrayed and murdered the only woman that ever loved him, Ziska-Charmazel.”

“Murdered her!” exclaimed Dr. Dean.  “How?”

“Oh, it is only a legend!” and the Princess smiled, turning her dark eyes with a bewitching languor on Gervase, who, for some reason or other which he could not explain, felt as if he were walking in a dream on the edge of a deep chasm of nothingness, into which he must presently sink to utter destruction.  “All these old histories happened so long ago that they are nothing but myths now to the present generation.”

“Time does not rob any incident of its interest to me,” said Dr. Dean.  “Ages hence Queen Victoria will be as much a doubtful potentate as King Lud.  To the wise student of things there is no time and no distance.  All history from the very beginning is like a wonderful chain in which no link is ever really broken, and in which every part fits closely to the other part,—­though why the chain should exist at all is a mystery we cannot solve.  Yet I am quite certain that even our late friend Araxes has his connection with the present, if only for the reason that he lived in the past.”

“How do you argue out that theory!” asked Gervase with sudden interest.

“How do you argue it?  The question is, how can you argue at all about anything that is so plain and demonstrated a fact?  The doctrine of evolution proves it.  Everything that we were once has its part in us now.  Suppose, if you like, that we were originally no more than shells on the shore,—­some remnant of the nature of the shell must be in us at this moment.  Nothing is lost,—­nothing is wasted,—­not even a thought.  I carry my theories very far,” pursued the Doctor, looking keenly from one to the other of his silent companions as they walked beside him through a long corridor towards the Red Saloon, which could be seen, brilliantly lit up and thronged with people.  “Very far indeed, especially in regard to matters of love.  I maintain that if it is decreed that the soul of a man and the soul