On, still on he went, treading closely in Sah-luma’s footsteps and wistfully noting how often the myrtle-garlanded head of his friend drooped caressingly toward Lysia’s dusky perfumed locks, whence those jewelled serpents’ fangs darted flashingly upward like light from darkness.  On, still on, till at last he found himself in a grand vestibule, built entirely of sparkling red granite.  Here were ten sphinxes, so huge in form that a dozen men might have lounged at ease on each one of their enormous paws; they were ranged in rows of five on each side, and their coldly meditative eyes appeared to dwell steadfastly on the polished face of a large black Disc placed conspicuously on a pedestal in the exact centre of the pavement.  Strange letters shone from time to time on this ebony tablet, . . letters that seemed to be written in quicksilver; they glittered for a second, then ran off like phosphorescent drops of water, and again reappeared, but the same signs were never repeated twice over.  All were different, . . all were rapid in their coming and going as flashes of lightning.  Lysia, approaching the Disc, turned it slightly; at her touch it revolved like a flying wheel, and for a brief space was literally covered with mysterious characters, which the beautiful Priestess perused with an apparent air of satisfaction.  All at once the fiery writing vanished, the Disc was left black and bare,—­and then a silver ball fell suddenly upon it, with a clang, from some unseen height, and rolling off again instantly disappeared.  At the same moment a harsh voice, rising as it were from the deepest underground, chanted the following words in a monotonous recitative: 

“Fall, O thou lost Hour, into the dreadful Past!  Sink, O thou Pearl of Time, into the dark and fathomless abyss!  Not all the glory of kings or the wealth of empires can purchase thee back again!  Not all the strength of warriors or the wisdom of sages can draw thee forth from the Abode of Silence whither thou art fled!  Farewell, lost Hour!—­and may the gods defend us from thy reproach at the Day of Doom!  In the name of the Sun and Nagaya, ...  Peace!”

The voice died away in a muffled echo, and the slow, solemn boom of a brazen-tongued bell struck midnight.  Then Theos, raising his eyes, saw that all further progress was impeded by a great wall of solid rock that glistened at every point with flashes of pale and dark violet light—­a wall composed entirely of adamantine spar, crusted thick with the rough growth of oriental amethyst.  It rose sheer up from the ground to an altitude of about a hundred feet, and apparently closed in and completed the vestibule.

Surely there was no passing through such a barrier as this? ... he thought wonderingly; nevertheless Lysia and Sah-luma still went on, and he—­as perforce he was compelled—­still followed.  Arrived at the foot of the huge erection that towered above him like a steep cliff of molten gems, he fancied he heard a faint sound behind it as of clinking glasses and boisterous laughter, but before he had time to consider what this might mean, Lysia laid her hand lightly on a small, protruding knob of crystal, pressed it, and lo! ... the whole massive structure yawned open suddenly without any noise, suspending itself as it were in sparkling festoons of purple stalactites over the voluptuously magnificent scene disclosed.