falcon dwell on its prey, and her smile was touched with a little
malice, as she said, addressing them both:

"Come, fair sirs! we will not linger in this wilderness of wild
flowers. A feast awaits us yonder--a feast prepared for those who,
like yourselves obey the creed of sweet self indulgence, ... the
world-wide creed wherein men find no fault, no shadow of
inconsistency! The truest wisdom is to enjoy,--the only philosophy
that which teaches us how best to gratify our own desires! Delight
cannot satiate the soul, nor mirth engender weariness! Follow me!--"
and with a lithe movement she swept toward the door, her pet
tigress creeping closely after her; then suddenly looking back she
darted a lustiously caressing glance over her shoulder at Sah-luma
and stretched out her hand. He at once caught it in his own and
kissed it with an almost brusque eagerness.

"I thought you had forgotten me!" he murmured in a vexed, half-
reproachful tone.

"Forgotten you? Forgotten Sah-luma? Impossible!" and her silvery
laughter shook the air into little throbs of music. "When the
greatest poet of the age is forgotten, then fall Al-Kyris! ... for
there shall be no more need of kingdoms!"

Laughing still and allowing her hand to remain in his, she passed
out of the pavilion, and Theos followed them both as a man might
follow the beckoning sylphs in a fairy dream.

A mellow, luminous, witch-like radiance seemed to surround them
as they went--two dazzling figures gliding on before him with the