Lysia paid no further heed to his evident discomfiture; bidding Sah-luma and Theos follow her, she descended the few steps that led from the raised platform into the body of the brilliant hall; the rocky screen of amethyst closed behind her as noiselessly as it had opened, and in another moment she stood among her assembled guests, who at once surrounded her with eager salutations and gracefully worded flatteries.  Smiling on them all with that strange smile of hers that was more scornful than sweet, and yet so infinitely bewitching, she said little in answer to their greetings, . . she moved as a queen moves through a crowd of courtiers, the varied light of crimson and green playing about her like so many sparkles of living flame, . . her dark head, wreathed with those jewelled serpents, lifting itself proudly erect from her muffling golden mantle, and her eyes shining with that frosty gleam of mockery which made them look so lustrous yet so cold.  And now Theos perceived that at one end of the splendid banquet table a dais was erected, draped richly in carnation-colored silk, and that on this dais a throne was placed—­a throne composed entirely of black crystals, whose needle-like points sparkled with a dark flash as of bayonets seen through the smoke of battle.  It was cushioned in black velvet, and above it was a bent arch of ivory on which glittered a twisted snake of clustered emeralds.

With that slow, superb ease that distinguished all her actions, Lysia, attended closely by her tigress, mounted the dais,—­and as she did so a loud clash of brazen bells rang out from some invisible turret beyond the summit of the great dome.  At the sound of the jangling chime four negresses appeared—­goblin creatures that looked as though they had suddenly sprung from some sooty, subterranean region of gnomes—­and humbly prostrating themselves before Lysia, kissed the ground at her feet.  This done, they rose, and began to undo the fastenings of her golden, domino-like garment; but either they were slow, or the fair priestess was impatient for she suddenly shook herself free of their hands, and, loosening the gorgeous mantle herself from its jewelled clasps, it fell slowly from her symmetrical form on the perfumed floor with a rustle as of falling leaves.

A sigh quivered audibly through the room—­whether of grief, joy, hope, relief, or despair it was difficult to tell.  The pride and peril of a matchless loveliness was revealed in all its fatal seductiveness and invincible strength—­the irresistible perfection of woman’s beauty was openly displayed to bewilder the sight and rouse the reckless passions of man!  Who could look on such delicate, dangerous, witching charms unmoved?  Who could gaze on the exquisite outlines of a form fairer than that of any sculptured Venus and refuse to acknowledge its powerfully sweet attraction?