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!