over him,--instinctively he turned round, uttered a hasty
exclamation, and springing erect, found himself face to face with
a huge black,--a man of some six feet in height and muscular in
proportion, who, clad, in a vest and tunic of the most vivid
scarlet hue, leered confidentially upon him as their eyes met.
Sah-luma rising also, but with less precipitation, surveyed the
intruder languidly and with a certain haughtiness.

"What now, Gazra? Always art thou like a worm in the grass,
crawling on thine errand with less noise than the wind makes in
summer, . . I would thy mistress kept a fairer messenger!"

The black smiled,--if so hideous a contortion of his repulsive
countenance might be called a smile, and slowly raising his jetty
arms hung all over with strings of coral and amber, made a curious
gesture, half of salutation, half of command. As he did this, the
clear, olive cheek of Sah-luma flushed darkly red,--his chest
heaved, and linking his arm through that of Theos, he bent his
head slightly and stood like one in an enforced attitude of
attention. Then Gazra spoke, his harsh, strong voice seeming to
come from some devil in the ground rather than from a human
throat.

"The Virgin Priestess of the Sun and the Divine Nagaya hath need
of thee to-night, Sah-luma!" he said, with a sort of suppressed
derision underlying his words,--and taking from his breast a ring
that glittered like a star, he held it out in the palm of one
hand--"And also"--he added--"of thy friend the stranger, to whom
she desires to accord a welcome. Behold her signet!"