too old for this journey, but my heart shall be a companion of the
pilgrimage day and night, and I shall know the end of thy quest. Go in
peace."

So one by one they went out of the azure chamber with its silver stars,
and Artaban was left in solitude.

He gathered up the jewels and replaced them in his girdle. For a long
time he stood and watched the flame that flickered and sank upon the
altar. Then he crossed the hall, lifted the heavy curtain, and passed
out between the dull red pillars of porphyry to the terrace on the
roof.

The shiver that thrills through the earth ere she rouses from her night
sleep had already begun, and the cool wind that heralds the daybreak
was drawing downward from the lofty, snow-traced ravines of Mount
Orontes. Birds, half awakened, crept and chirped among the rustling
leaves, and the smell of ripened grapes came in brief wafts from the
arbors.

Far over the eastern plain a white mist stretched like a lake. But
where the distant peak of Zagros serrated the western horizon the sky
was clear. Jupiter and Saturn rolled together like drops of lambent
flame about to blend in one.

As Artaban watched them, behold, an azure spark was born out of the
darkness beneath, rounding itself with purple splendors to a crimson
sphere, and spiring upward through rays of saffron and orange into a
point of white radiance. Tiny and infinitely remote, yet perfect in
every part, it pulsated in the enormous vault as if the three jewels in