to soften the tyrannic humor of the Invincible Devourer of all
things. We know how men hate Wisdom and cannot endure to be
instructed, and yet they prostrate themselves in abject crowds
before Wisdom's symbol every day in the Sacred Temple yonder,--
though I much doubt whether such constant devotional attendance is
not more for the sake of Lysia than the Deified Worm!"

He laughed with a little undercurrent of scorn in his laughter,--
and Theos saw as it were, the lightning of an angry or disdainful
thought flashing through the sombre splendor of his eyes.

"And Lysia is..--?" began Theos suggestively.

"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