“We men have yet to learn the true meaning of love,”—­he mused rather sadly—­“We consider it from the selfish standpoint of our own unbridled passions,—­we willingly accept a fair face as the visible reflex of a fair soul, and nine times out of ten, we are utterly mistaken!  We begin wrongly, and we therefore end miserably,—­we should love a woman for what she is, and not for what she appears to be.  Yet, how are we to fathom her nature? how shall we guess, . . how can we decide?  Are we fooled by an evil fate?—­or do we in our loves and marriages deliberately fool ourselves?”

He pondered the question hazily without arriving at any satisfactory answer, . . and as Sah-luma still did not return, he resumed his slow, unguided, and solitary way.  He presently found himself in a close boscage of tall trees straight as pines, and covered with very large, thick leaves that exhaled a peculiarly faint odor,—­and here, pausing abruptly, he looked anxiously about him.  This was certainly not the avenue through which he had previously come with Sah-luma, . . and he soon felt uncomfortably convinced that he had somehow taken the wrong path.  Perceiving a low iron gate standing open in front of him, he went thither and discovered a steep stone staircase leading down, down into what seemed to be a vast well, black and empty as a starless midnight.  Peering doubtfully into this gloomy pit, he fancied he saw a small, blue flame wavering to and fro at the bottom, and, pricked by a sudden impulse of curiosity, he made up his mind to descend.

He went down slowly and cautiously, counting each step as he placed his foot upon it, . . there were a hundred steps in all, and at the end the light he had seen completely vanished, leaving him in the most profound darkness.  Confused and startled, he stretched out his hands instinctively as a blind man might do, and thus came in contact with something sharp, pointed, and icy cold like the frozen talon of a dead bird.  Shuddering at the touch, he recoiled,—­and was about to try and grope his way up the stairs again, when the light once more appeared, this time casting a thin, slanting, azure blaze through the dense shadows,—­and he was able gradually to realize the horrors of the place into which he had unwittingly adventured.  One faint cry escaped his lips,—­and then he was mute and motionless,—­chilled to the very heart.  A great awe and speechless dread overwhelmed him, . . for he—­a living man and fully conscious of life—­stood alone, surrounded by a ghastly multitude of skeletons, skeletons bleached white as ivory and glistening with a smooth, moist polish as of pearl.  Shoulder to shoulder, arm against arm, they stood, placed upright, and as close together as possible,—­every bony hand held a rusty spear,—­ and on every skull gleamed a small metal casque inscribed with hieroglyphic characters.  Thousands of eyeless sockets seemed to turn toward him in blank yet questioning wonder, suggesting awfully to his mind that the eyes might