like so many sparkles of living flame, . . her dark head, wreathed
with those jewelled serpents, lifting itself proudly erect from
her muffling golden mantle, and her eyes shining with that frosty
gleam of mockery which made them look so lustrous yet so cold. And
now Theos perceived that at one end of the splendid banquet table
a dais was erected, draped richly in carnation-colored silk, and
that on this dais a throne was placed--a throne composed entirely
of BLACK crystals, whose needle-like points sparkled with a dark
flash as of bayonets seen through the smoke of battle. It was
cushioned in black velvet, and above it was a bent arch of ivory
on which glittered a twisted snake of clustered emeralds.

With that slow, superb ease that distinguished all her actions,
Lysia, attended closely by her tigress, mounted the dais,--and as
she did so a loud clash of brazen bells rang out from some
invisible turret beyond the summit of the great dome. At the sound
of the jangling chime four negresses appeared--goblin creatures
that looked as though they had suddenly sprung from some sooty,
subterranean region of gnomes--and humbly prostrating themselves
before Lysia, kissed the ground at her feet. This done, they rose,
and began to undo the fastenings of her golden, domino-like
garment; but either they were slow, or the fair priestess was
impatient for she suddenly shook herself free of their hands, and,
loosening the gorgeous mantle herself from its jewelled clasps, it
fell slowly from her symmetrical form on the perfumed floor with a
rustle as of falling leaves.

A sigh quivered audibly through the room--whether of grief, joy,
hope, relief, or despair it was difficult to tell. The pride and
peril of a matchless loveliness was revealed in all its fatal