rested as softly as sunlight on young rose-petals! Where, . . where,
in God's name, had he seen all this marvelous, witching, maddening
loveliness BEFORE? His heart beat with heavy, laboring thuds, . .
his brain reeled, . . a dim, golden, suffused radiance seemed to
hover like an aureole above that dazzling white brow, adorned with
a clustering wealth of raven-black tresses, whose massive coils
were crowned with the strangest sort of diadem--a wreath of small
serpents' heads cunningly fashioned in rubies and rose brilliants,
and set in such a manner that they appeared to lift themselves
erect from out the dusky hair as though in darting readiness to
sting. Full of a vague, wild longing, he instinctively stretched
out his arms, . . then on a sudden impulse turned swiftly away, in a
dizzy effort to escape from the basilisk fire-gleam of those
sombre, haunting eyes that plunged into his inmost soul, and there
aroused such dark desires, such retrospective evil, such wild
weakness as shamed the betterness of his nature! Sah-luma's clear,
mocking laugh just then rang sharply through the perfumed
stillness.

"Thou mad Theos! Whither art thou bound?" cried the Laureate
mirthfully. "Wilt leave our noble hostess ere the entertainment
has begun? Ungallant barbarian! What frenzy possesses thee?"

These words recalled him to himself. He came back slowly step by
step, and with bowed head, to where Lysia stood--Lysia, whose
penetrating gaze still rested upon him with strangely fixed
intensity.

"Forgive me," he said, in a low, unsteady voice that to his own
ears sounded full of suppressed yet passionate appeal. "Forgive