beast, who, while submitting to his caress, never for a moment ceased her smothered snarling.  Presently, however, she was seized with a sudden fit of savage playfulness,—­and throwing herself on the ground before him, she rolled her lithe body to and fro with brief thirsty roars of satisfaction, . . roars that echoed through the whole pavilion with terrific resonance:  then rising, she shook herself vigorously and commenced a stealthy, velvet-footed pacing up and down, lashing her tail from side to side, and keeping those sly, emerald-like eyes of hers watchfully fixed on Sah-luma, who merely laughed at her fierce antics.  Leaning against one of the dark, gnarled trees, he tapped his sandaled foot with some impatience on the marble pavement, while Theos, standing close beside him, wondered whether the mysterious Lysia knew of their arrival.

Sah-luma appeared to guess his thoughts, for he answered them as though they had been spoken aloud.

“Yes,” he said, “she knows we are here—­she knew the instant we entered her gates.  Nothing is or can be hidden from her!  He who would have secrets must depart out of Al-Kyris and find some other city to dwell in, . . for here he shall be unable to keep even his own counsel.  To Lysia all things are made manifest; she reads human nature as one reads an open scroll, and with merciless analysis she judges men as being very poor creatures, limited in their capabilities, disappointing and monotonous in their passions, unproductive and circumscribed in their destinies.  To her ironical humor and icy wit the wisest sages seem fools; she probes them to the core, and discovers all their weaknesses; . . she has no trust in virtue, no belief in honesty.  And she is right!  Who but a madman would be honest in these days of competition and greed of gain?  And as for virtue, ’tis a pretty icicle that melts at the first touch of a hot temptation!  Aye! the Virgin Priestess of Nagaya hath a most profound comprehension of mankind’s immeasurable brute stupidity; and, strong in this knowledge, she governs the multitude with iron will, intellectual force, and dictative firmness:  . . when she dies I know not what will happen.”

Here he interrupted himself, and a dark shadow crossed his brows.  “By my soul!” he muttered, “how this thought of death haunts me like the unburied corpse of a slain foe!  I would there were no such thing as Death; ’tis a cruel and wanton sport of the gods to give us life at all if life must end so utterly and so soon!”

He sighed deeply.  Theos echoed the sigh, but answered nothing.  At that moment the restless Aizif gave another appalling roar, and pounced swiftly toward the eastern side of the pavilion, where a large painted panel could be dimly discerned, the subject of the painting being a hideous idol, whose long, half-shut, inscrutable eyes leered through the surrounding foliage with an expression of hateful cunning and malevolence.  In front of this panel the tigress