was carved the figure of a winged archer, with his arrow set
to the string and his bow drawn.

The doorway between the pillars, which opened upon the
terrace of the roof, was covered with a heavy curtain of the
colour of a ripe pomegranate, embroidered with innumerable
golden rays shooting upward from the floor. In effect the
room was like a quiet, starry night, all azure and silver,
flushed in the cast with rosy promise of the dawn. It was, as
the house of a man should be, an expression of the character
and spirit of the master.

He turned to his friends when the song was ended, and
invited them to be seated on the divan at the western end of
the room.

"You have come to-night," said he, looking around the
circle, "at my call, as the faithful scholars of Zoroaster, to
renew your worship and rekindle your faith in the God of Purity,
even as this fire has been rekindled on the altar. We worship
not the fire, but Him of whom it is the chosen symbol, because it
is the purest of all created things. It speaks to us of one who
is Light and Truth. Is it not so, my father?"

"It is well said, my son," answered the venerable Abgarus.
"The enlightened are never idolaters. They lift the veil of
form and go in to the shrine of reality, and new light and
truth are coming to them continually through the old symbols."
"Hear me, then, my father and my friends," said Artaban,
"while I tell you of the new light and truth that have come to