western city of barbarians where music is but an unvalued name!"

And he smiled--a dazzling, child-like smile, half petulant, half-
pleased--a smile of supreme self-consciousness as of one who knew
his own resistless power to charm away all discord.

Several voices answered him in clamorous unison:

"A traitor, Sah-luma!" "A profane rebel!" ... "An unbeliever!" ... "A
most insolent knave!"--"He refused homage to the High Priestess!"
... "A renegade from the faith!"

"Now, by the Sacred Veil!" cried Sah-luma impatiently--"Think ye I
can distinguish your jargon, when like ignorant boors ye talk all
at once, tearing my ears to shreds with such unmelodious tongue-
clatter! Whom have ye seized thus roughly? ... Let him stand
forth!"

At this command, the men who held Theos relaxed their grasp, and
he, breathless and burning with indignation at the treatment he
had received, shook himself quickly free of all restraint, and
sprang forward, confronting his rescuer. There was a brief pause,
during which the two surveyed each other with looks of mutual
amazement. What mysterious indication of affinity did they read in
one another's faces? ... Why did they stand motionless, spell-
bound and dumb for a while, eying half-admiringly, half-enviously,
each other's personal appearance and bearing? ...

Undoubtedly a curious, far-off resemblance existed between them,--
yet it was a resemblance that had nothing whatever to do with the