“The High Priestess of Nagaya,” responded Sah-luma slowly—­ “Charmer of the god, as well as of the hearts of men!  The hot passion of love is to her a toy, clasped and unclasped so! in the pink hollow of her hand...” and as he spoke he closed his fingers softly on the air and unclosed them again with an expressive gesture—­“And so long as she retains the magic of her beauty, so long will Nagaya worship hold Al-Kyris in check.  Otherwise ... who knows!—­there have been many disturbances of late,—­the teachings of the Philosophers have aroused a certain discontent,—­and there are those who are weary of perpetual sacrifices and the shedding of innocent blood.  Moreover this mad Khosrul of whom Niphrata spoke lately, thunders angry denunciations of Lysia and Nagaya in the open streets, with so much fervid eloquence that they who pass by cannot choose but hear, . . he hath a strange craze,—­a doctrine of the future which he most furiously proclaims in the language prophets use.  He holds that far away in the centre of a Circle of pure Light, the true God exists,—­a vast all glorious Being who with exceeding marvellous love controls and guides Creation toward some majestic end—­even as a musician doth melodize his thought from small sweet notes to perfect chord-woven harmonies.  Furthermore, that thousands of years hence, this God will embody a portion of his own Existence in human form and will send hither a wondrous creature, half-God, half-Man, to live our life, die our death, and teach us by precept and example, the surest way to eternal happiness.  ’Tis a theory both strange and wild!—­hast ever heard of it before?”

He put the question indifferently, but Theos was mute.  That horrible sense of a straining desire to speak when speech was forbidden again oppressed him,—­he felt as though he were being strangled with his own unfalling tears.  What a crushing weight of unutterable thoughts burdened his brain!—­he gazed up at the serenely glowing sky in aching, dumb despair,—­till slowly ... very slowly, words came at last like dull throbs of pain beating between his lips ...

“I think ...  I fancy ...  I have heard a rumor of such doctrine ... but I know as little of it as ... as thou, Sah-luma! ...  I can tell thee no more ... than thou hast said! ...”  He paused and gaining more firmness of tone went on—­“It seems to me a not altogether impossible conception of Divine Benevolence,—­for if God lives at all, He must be capable of manifesting Himself in many ways both small and great, common and miraculous, though of a truth there are no miracles beyond what appear as such to our limited sight and restricted intelligence.  But tell me”—­and here his voice had a ring of suppressed anxiety within it—­“tell me, Sah-luma, thine own thought concerning it!”

“I?—­I think naught of it!” replied Sah-luma with airy contempt—­ “Such a creed may find followers in time to come,—­but now, of what avail to warn us of things that do not concern our present modes of life?  Moreover in the face of all religion, my own opinion should not alter,—­I have studied science sufficiently well to know that there is no God!—­and I am too honest to worship an unproved and merely supposititious identity!”