the midnight horizon. With straining necks, tossed manes, and foam
flying from their nostrils, Sah-luma's fiery coursers dashed
onward at almost lightning speed, and the journey became a wild,
headstrong rush through the dividing air--a rush toward some
voluptuous end, dimly discerned, yet indefinite!

At last they stopped. Before them rose a lofty building, crested
with fantastic pinnacles such as are formed by ice on the roof in
times of intense cold; a great gate stood open, and pacing slowly
up and down in front of it was a tall slave in white tunic and
turban, who, turning his gleaming eyeballs on Sah-luma, nodded by
way of salutation, and then uttered a sharp, peculiar whistle.
This summons brought out two curious, dwarfish figures of men,
whose awkward misshapen limbs resembled the contorted branches of
wind-blown trees, and whose coarse and repulsive countenances
betokened that malignant delight in evil-doing which only demons
are supposed to know. These ungainly servitors possessed
themselves of the Laureate's chafing steeds, and led them and the
chariot away into some unseen courtyard; while the Laureate
himself, still saying no word, kept fast hold of his companion's
arm, and hurried him along a dark avenue overshadowed with thick
boughs that drooped heavily downward to the ground--a solitary
place where the intense quiet was disturbed only by the occasional
drip, drip of dewy moisture trickling tearfully from the leaves,
or the sweet, faint, gurgling sound of fountains playing somewhere
in the distance.

On they went for several paces, till at a sharp bend in the moss-
grown path, an amethystine light broke full between the arched
green branches; directly in front of them glimmered a broad piece