“O Nagaya, great, everlasting and terrible! 
      Thou who dost wind thy coils of wisdom into the heart! 
      Thou, whose eyes, waking and sleeping, do behold all things! 
      Thou who art the joy of the Sun and the Master of Virgins! 
      Hear us, we beseech thee, when we call upon thy name!”

Their young treble voices were clear and piercing, and pealed up to the dome to fall again like the drops of distinct round melody from a lark’s singing-throat,—­and when they ceased there came a short impressive pause.  The Silver Veil quivered from end to end as though swayed by a faint wind, and the flaming Arch above turned from pale blue to a strange shimmering green.  Then, in mellow unison, the kneeling priests intoned: 

     “O thou who givest words of power to the dumb mouth of the
       soul in Hades; hear us, Nagaya! 
      O thou who openest the grave and givest peace to the heart;
       plead for us, Nagaya! 
      O thou who art companion of the Sun and controller of the
       East and of the West; comfort us, Nagaya!

Here they ended, and the children began again, not to chant but to sing.. a strange and tristful tune, wilder than any that vragrant winds could play on the strings of an aeolian lyre: 

 “O Virgin of Virgins, Holy Maid, to what shall we resemble thee? 
  Chaste Daughter of the Sun, how shall we praise thy peerless
    beauty! 
  Thou art the Gate of the House of Stars!—­thou art the first of
    the Seven Jewels of Nagaya! 
  Thou dost wield the sceptre of ebony, and the Eye of Raphon
    beholds thee with love and contentment! 
  Thou art the Chiefest of Women, ... thou hast the secrets of earth
   and heaven, thou knowest the dark mysteries! 
  Hail, Lysia!  Queen of the Hall of Judgment! 
  Hail, pure Pearl in the Sea of the Sun’s glory! 
  Declare unto us, we beseech thee, the Will of Nagaya!”

They closed this canticle softly and slowly, . . then flinging themselves prone, they pressed their faces to the earth, . . and again the glittering Veil waved to and fro suggestively, while Theos, his heart beating fast, watched its shining woof with straining eyes and a sense of suffocation in his throat, . . what ignorant fools, what mad barbarians, what blind blasphemers were these people, he indignantly thought, who could thus patiently hear the praise of an evil woman like Lysia publicly proclaimed with almost divine honors!

Did they actually intend to worship her, he wondered?  If so, he at any rate would never bend the knee to one so vile!  He might have done so once, perhaps, ... but now ...!  At that instant a flute like murmur of melody crept upward as it seemed from the ground, with a plaintive whispering sweetness like the lament of some exiled fairy,—­so exquisitely tender and pathetic, and yet withal so heart-stirring and passionate, that, despite himself, he listened with a strange, swooning sense of languor stealing insidiously over him,—­a dreamy lassitude, that while it made him feel enervated and deprived of strength, was still not altogether unpleasing, . . a faint sigh escaped his lips,—­and he kept his gaze fixed on the Silver Veil as pertinaciously as though behind it lay the mystery of his soul’s ruin or salvation.