in a vase of polished crystal!  To Niphrata, Sah-luma remained as a sort of splendid divinity, for whom no devotion was too vast, too high, or too complete, . . better, oh surely far better that she should die in her beautiful self-deception, than live to see her elected idol descend to his true level, and openly display all the weaknesses of his volatile, flippant, godless, sensual, yet, alas! most fascinating and genius-gifted nature, . . a nature, which, overflowing as it was with potentialities of noble deeds, yet lacked sufficient intrinsic faith and force to accomplish them!  This thought stung Theos like a sharp arrow-prick, and filled him with a strange, indescribable penitence; and he stood in dumb misery, remorsefully eyeing his friend’s consternation, disappointment, and pained bewilderment, without being able to offer him the slightest consolation.

Sah-luma was indeed the very picture of dismay, . . if he had never suffered in his life before, surely he suffered now!  Niphrata, the tender, the humbly adoring Niphrata, positively rejected him!—­ refused to recognize his actual presence, and turned insanely away from him toward some dream-ideal Sah-luma whom she fancied could only be found in that unexplored country bordered by the cold river of Death!  Meanwhile, the silence in the Temple was intense, —­the Priests were like so many wax figures fastened in fixed positions; the King, leaning slightly forward in his chair, had the appearance of a massively moulded image of bronze,—­and to Theos’s overwrought condition of mind, the only actually living things present seemed to be the monster Serpent whose scaly folds palpitated visibly in the strong light, . . and the hideous “Eye of Raphon,” that blazed on Lysia’s breast with a menacing stare, as of a wrathful ghoul.  All at once a flash of comprehension lightened the Laureate’s sternly perplexed face,—­a bitter laugh broke from his lips.

“She has been drugged!” he cried fiercely, pointing to Niphrata’s white and rigid form, . .  “Poisoned by some deadly potion devised of devils, to twist and torture the quivering centres of the brain!  Accursed work!—­Will none undo it?” and springing forward nearer the Shrine, he raised his angry, impassioned eyes to the dark, inscrutable ones of the High Priestess, who met his troubled look with serene and irresponsive gravity ...  “Is there no touch of human pity in things divine? ... no mercy in the icy fate that rules our destinies? ...  This child knows naught of what she does; she hath been led astray in a moment of excitement and religious exaltation, . . her mind hath lost its balance,—­her thoughts float disconnectedly on a sea of vague illusions, ...  Ah! ... by the gods! ...  I understand it all now!” and he suddenly threw himself on his knees, his appealing gaze resting, not on the Snake-Deity, but on the lovely countenance of Lysia, fair and brilliant as a summer morn, with a certain waving light of triumph about it, like the reflected radiance of sunbeams, ...  “She is under the influence of Raphon! ...  O withering madness! ...  O cureless misery..  She is ruled by that most horrible secret force, unknown as yet to the outer world of men! ... and she hears things that are not, and sees what has no existence!  O Lysia, Daughter of the Sun! ...  I do beseech thee, by all the inborn gentleness of womanhood, unwind the Mystic Spell!”