circle, as though she had been the duly appointed priest for the
sacrifice. And after her came a knot of men, dressed as priests,
and bearing the victim. Some of these were creatures of her own,
and it was easy to forgive mere ignorant laymen, won over by the
glamour of Phorenice's presence. But some, to their shame, were
men born in the Priests' Clan, and brought up in the groves and
colleges of the Sacred Mountain, and for their apostasy there could
be no palliation.

The wood had already been stacked on the altar-stone in the
due form required by the ancient symbolism, and the Empress stood
aside whilst those who followed did what was needful. As they
opened out, I saw that the victim was one of the small,
cloven-hoofed horses that roam the plains--a most acceptable
sacrifice. They bound its feet with metal gyves, and put it on the
pyre, where, for a while, it lay neighing. Then they stepped
aside, and left it living. Here was an innovation.

The false priests went back to the farther side of the circle,
and Phorenice stood alone before the altar. She lifted up her
voice, sweet, tuneful, and carrying, and though the din of the
siege still came from over the city, no ear there lost a word of
what was spoken.

She raised her glance aloft, and all other eyes followed it.
The heaven was clear as the deep sea, a gorgeous blue. But as the
words came from her, so a small mist was born in the sky, wheeling
and circling like a ball, although the day was windless, and
rapidly growing darker and more compact. So dense had it become,
that presently it threw a shadow on part of the sacred circle and