over its prey with a sullen roar, as though it were some gigantic beast devouring food too long denied.  And instead of the vanished fane arose a mighty Pillar of Fire! ... a vast increasing volume of scarlet and gold flame that spread outward and upward,—­higher and higher, in tapering lines and dome-like curves of living light, . . while Theos, being hurled along resistlessly by the force of the convulsion, had reached, though he knew not how, the dark and quiet cell-like portal with its out-leading steps, . . the only visible last hope and chance of safety, . . and he now leaned against its cold stone arch, trembling in every limb, clasping the dead Sah-luma close, and looking back in affrighted awe at the tossing vortex of fury from which he had miraculously escaped.  And,—­as he looked,—­a host of spectral faces seemed to rise whitely out of the flames and wonder at him! ... faces that were solemn, wistful, warning, and beseeching by turns! ... they drifted through the fire and smiled, and wept, and vanished, to reappear again and yet again! ... and as, with painfully beating heart, he strove to combat the terror that seized him at this strange spectacular delusion, all suddenly the heavy wreaths of smoke that had till now hung over the Inner Shrine of Nagaya parted like drapery drawn aside from a picture.. and for a brief breathing space of direst agony he saw Lysia once more,—­Lysia, in a torture as horrible as any ever depicted in a bigot’s idea of his enemy’s Hell!  Round and round her writhing form the sacred Serpent was twined in all his many coils,—­with both hands she had grasped the creature’s throat in her frenzy, striving to thrust back its quivering fangs from her breast, whereon the evil “Eye of Raphon” still gleamed distinctly with its adamantine chilly stare, . . at her feet lay the body of the King her lover, dead and wrapped in a ring of flames! ...  Alone—­all, all alone, she confronted Death in its most appalling shape.. her countenance was distorted, yet beautiful still with the beauty of a maddened Medusa, . . white and glittering as a fair ghost invoked from some deadly gulf of pain, she stood, a phantom-figure of mingled loveliness and horror, circled on every side by fire!

With wild, straining eyes Theos gazed upon her thus, ... for the last time! ...  For with a crash that seemed to rend the very heavens, the great bronze columns surrounding her, which had, up to the present, resisted the repeated onslaughts of the flames, bent together all at once and fell in a melting ruin.. and the victorious fire roared loudly above them, enveloping the whole Shrine anew in dense clouds of smoke and jets of flame,—­Lysia had perished!  All that proud loveliness, that dazzling supremacy, that superb voluptuousness, that triumphant dominion, . . swept away into a heap of undiscoverable ashes!  And Zephoranim’s haughty spirit too had fled,—­fled, stained with guilt and most unroyal dishonor, all for the sake of one woman’s fairness—­the fairness of body only—­the brilliant mask of flesh that too often hides the hideousness of a devil’s nature!