lay down, licking the pavement thirstily from time to time and giving vent to short purring sounds of impatience:  . . then all suddenly she rose with ears pricked, in an attitude of attention.  The panel slowly moved, it glided back,—­and the great brute leaped forward, flinging her two soft paws on the shoulders of the figure that appeared—­the figure of a woman, who, clad in glistening gold from head to foot, shone in the dark aperture like a gilded image in a shrine of ebony.  Theos beheld the brilliant apparition in some doubt and wonder.  Was this Lysia?  He could not see her face, as she wore a thick white veil through which only the faintest sparkle of dark eyes glimmered like flickering sunbeams; nor was he able to discern the actual outline of her form, as it was completely enveloped and lost in the wide, shapeless folds of her stiff, golden gown.  Yet every nerve in his body thrilled at her presence! ... every drop of blood seemed to rush from his heart to his brain in a swift, scorching torrent that for a second blinded his eyes with a red glare and made him faint and giddy.

Woman and tigress!  They looked strangely alike, he thought, as they stood mutually caressing each other under the great drooping masses of fantastic leaves.  Yet where was the resemblance?  What possible similarity could there he between a tawny, treacherous brute of the forests, full of sly malice and voracious cruelty, and that dazzling, gold-garmented creature, whose small white hand, flashing with jewels, now tenderly smoothed the black, silken stripes on the sleek coat of her savage favorite?

“Down, sweet Aizif, down!” she said, in a grave, dulcet voice as softly languorous as the last note of a love-song.  “Down, my gentle one! thou art too fond, down! so!” this as the tigress instantly removed its embracing paws from her neck, and, trembling in every limb, crouched on the ground in abjectly submissive obedience.  Another moment, and she advanced leisurely into the pavilion, Aizif slinking stealthily along beside her and seeming to imitate her graceful gliding movements, till she stood within a few paces of Theos and Sah-luma, just near the spot where the lotus-flowers swayed over the grass-green, stagnant pool.  There she paused, and apparently scrutinized her visitors intently through the folds of her snowy veil.  Sah-luma bent his head before her in a half haughty, half humble salutation.

“The tardy Sah-luma!” she said, with an undercurrent of laughter in her musical tones, “the poet who loves the flattery of a foolish king, and the applause of a still more foolish court!  And so Khosrul disturbed the flood of thine inspiration to-night, good minstrel?  Nay, for that he should die, if for no other crime!  And this,” here she turned her veiled features toward Theos, whose heart beat furiously as he caught a luminous flash from those half-hidden, brilliant eyes, “this is the unwitting stranger who honored me by so daring