meekness?  All know him for the King—­all make servile way for him,—­all flatter him! ... and his progress to the Temple resembles as much a triumphal procession as though he were mounted in his chariot and returning from some wondrous victory.  Besides, humility in my opinion is more a weakness than a virtue, . . and even granting it were a virtue, it is not possible to Kings,—­not as long as people continue to fawn on royalty like grovelling curs, and lick the sceptred hand that often loathes their abject touch.”

He spoke with a certain bitterness and impatience as though he were suffering from some inward nervous irritation, and Theos, observing this, prudently made no attempt to continue the conversation.  They were just then passing down a narrow, rather dark street, lined on both sides by lofty buildings of quaint and elaborate architecture.  Long, gloomy shadows had gathered in this particular spot, where for a short space the silence was so intense that one could almost hear one’s own heart beat.  Suddenly a yellowish-green ray of light flashed across the pavement, and lo! the upper rim of the moon peered above the house-tops, looking strangely large and rosily brilliant, . . the air seemed all at once to grow suffocating and sulphurous, and between whiles there came the faint plashing sound of water lapping against stone with a monotonous murmur as of continuous soft whispers.

The vast silence, the vast night, were full of a solemn weirdness,—­the moon, curiously magnified to twice her ordinary size, soared higher and higher, firing the lofty solitudes of heaven with long, shooting radiations of rose and green, while still in the purple hollow of the horizon lay that immense, immovable Cloud, nerved as it were with living lightning which leaped incessantly from its centre like a thousand swords drawn and re-drawn from as many scabbards.

Presently the deep booming noise of a great bell smote heavily on the stillness, . . a sound that Theos, oppressed by the weight of unutterable forebodings, welcomed with a vague sense of relief, while Sah-luma, hearing it, quickened his pace.  They soon reached the end of the street, which terminated in a spacious quadrangular court guarded on all sides by gigantic black statues, and quickly crossing this place, which was entirely deserted, they came out at once into a dazzling blaze of light, . . the Temple of Nagaya in all its stately magnificence towered before them, a stupendous pile of marvellously delicate architecture so fine as to seem like lace-work rather than stone.

It was lit up from base to summit with glittering lamps of all colors, . . the twelve revolving stars on its twelve tall turrets cast forth wide beams of penetrating radiance into the deepening darkness of the night, . . aloft in its topmost crown of pinnacles swung the prayer-commanding bell, . . while the enormous crowds swarming thick about it gave it the appearance of a brilliant Pharos set in the midst of a surging sea.  The steps leading up to it were strewn ankle-deep with flowers, . . the doors stood open, and a thunderous hum of solemn music vibrated in wave-like pulsations through the heavy, heated air.