tropical fern and bade her two companions sit beside her, sounds of the wildest, most melancholy and haunting character began to palpitate upon the air in the mournful, throbbing fashion in which a nightingale sings when its soul is burdened with love.  The passionate tremor that shakes the bird’s throat at mating-time seemed to shake the unseen instruments that now discoursed strange melody, and Gervase, listening dreamily, felt a curious contraction and aching at his heart and a sense of suffocation in his throat, combined with an insatiate desire to seize in his arms the mysterious Ziska, with her dark fathomless eyes and slight, yet voluptuous, form,—­to drag her to his breast and crush her there, whispering: 

“Mine!—­mine!  By all the gods of the past and present—­mine!  Who shall tear her from me,—­who dispute my right to love her—­ruin her—­murder her, if I choose?  She is mine!”

“The bas-relief I told you of is just above us,” said the Princess then, addressing herself to the Doctor; “would you like to examine it?  One of the servants shall bring you a lighted taper, and by passing it in front of the sculpture you will be able to see the design better.  Ah, Mr. Murray!” and she smiled as she greeted Denzil, who just then approached.  “You are in time to give us your opinion.  I want Dr. Dean to see that very old piece of stone carving on the wall above us,—­it will serve as a link for him in the history of Araxes.”

“Indeed!” murmured Denzil, somewhat abstractedly.

The Princess glanced at his brooding face and laughed.

“You, I know, are not interested at all in old history,” she went on.  “The past has no attraction for you.”

“No.  The present is enough,” he replied, with a glance of mingled hope and passion.

She smiled, and signing to one of her Egyptian attendants, bade him bring a lighted taper.  He did so, and passed it slowly up and down and to the right and left of the large piece of ancient sculpture that occupied more than half the wall, while Dr. Dean stood by, spectacles on nose, to examine the carving as closely as possible.  Several other people, attracted by what was going on, paused to look also, and the Princess undertook to explain the scene depicted.

“This piece of carving is of the date of the King Amenhotep or Amenophis III., of the Eighteenth Dynasty.  It represents the return of the warrior Araxes, a favorite servant of the king’s, after some brilliant victory.  You see, there is the triumphal car in which he rides, drawn by winged horses, and behind him are the solar deities—­Ra, Sikar, Tmu, and Osiris.  He is supposed to be approaching his palace in triumph; the gates are thrown open to receive him, and coming out to meet him is the chief favorite of his harem, the celebrated dancer of that period—­Ziska-Charmazel.”

“Whom he afterwards murdered, you say?” queried Dr. Dean meditatively.

“Yes.  He murdered her simply because she loved him too well and was in the way of his ambition.  There was nothing astonishing in his behavior, not even if you consider it in the light of modern times.  Men always murder—­morally, if not physically—­the women who love them too well.”