“Oh, ye malignant gods!” he cried fiercely—­“ye immortal Furies that made Woman for Man’s torture, ...  Bear witness to my death! ... bear witness to my parting spirit’s malediction!  Cursed be they who love unwisely and too well! ... cursed be all the wiles of desire and the haunts of dear passion!—­cursed he all fair faces whose fairness lures men to destruction! ... cursed be the warmth of caresses, the beating of heart against heart, the kisses that color midnight with fire!  Cursed be Love from birth unto death!—­may its sweetness be brief, and its bitterness endless!—­ its delight a snare, and its promise treachery!  O ye mad lovers!—­ fools all!” ... and he turned his splendid wild eyes round on the hushed assemblage,—­“Despise me and my words as ye will, throughout ages to come, the curse of the dead Nir-jalis shall cling!”

He lifted the goblet to his lips, and just then his delirious glanced lighted on Sah-luma.

“I drink to thee, Sir Laureate!” he said hoarsely, and with a ghastly attempt at levity—­“Sing as sweetly as thou wilt, thou must drain the same cup ere long!”

And without another second’s hesitation he drank off the entire contents of the chalice at a draught.  Scarcely had he done so, when with a savage scream he fell prone on the ground, his limbs twisted in acute agony,—­his features hideously contorted,—­his hands beating the air wildly, as though in contention with some invisible foe, ..while in strange and terrible dissonance with his tortured cries, Lysia’s laughter, musically mellow, broke out in little quick peals, like the laughter of a very young child.

“Ah, ah, Nir-jalis!” she exclaimed.  “Thou dost suffer!  That is well! ...  I do rejoice to see thee fighting for life in the very jaws of death!  Fain would I have all men thus tortured out of their proud and tyrannous existence! ... their strength made strengthless, their arrogance brought to naught, their egotism and vain-glory beaten to the dust!  Ah, ah! thou that wert the complacent braggart of love,—­the self-sufficient proclaimer of thine own prowess, where is thy boasted vigor now? ...  Writhe on, good fool! ... thy little day is done! ...  All honor to the Silver Nectar whose venom never fails!”

Leaning forward eagerly, she clapped her hands in a sort of fierce ecstasy—­and apparently startled by the sound, the tigress rose up from its couchant posture, and shaking itself with a snarling yawn, glared watchfully at the convulsed human wretch whose struggles became with each moment more and more frightful to witness.  The impassive, cold-blooded calmness with which all the men present, even Sah-luma, looked on at the revolting spectacle of their late comrade’s torture, filled Theos with shuddering abhorrence, ... sick at heart, he strove to turn away his eyes from the straining throat and upturned face of the miserable Nir-jalis,—­a face that had a moment or two before been beautiful, but was now so disfigured as to be almost beyond recognition.