seductiveness and invincible strength--the irresistible perfection
of woman's beauty was openly displayed to bewilder the sight and
rouse the reckless passions of man! Who could look on such
delicate, dangerous, witching charms unmoved? Who could gaze on
the exquisite outlines of a form fairer than that of any
sculptured Venus and refuse to acknowledge its powerfully sweet
attraction?

The Virgin Priestess of the Sun had stepped out of her
shrine; . . no longer a creature removed, impersonal, and sacred,
she had become most absolutely human. Moreover, she might now have
been taken for a bacchante, a dancer, or any other unsexed example
of womanhood inasmuch as with her golden mantle she had thrown off
all disguise of modesty. Her beautiful limbs, rounded and smooth
as pearl, could be plainly discerned through the filmy garb of
silvery tissue that clung like a pale mist about the voluptuous
curves of her figure and floated behind her in shining gossamer
folds; her dazzling white neck and arms were bare; and from slim
wrist to snowy shoulder, little twining diamond snakes glistened
in close coils against the velvety fairness of her flesh. A silver
serpent with a head of sapphires girdled her waist, and just above
the full wave of her bosom, that rose and fell visibly beneath the
transparent gathers of her gauzy drapery, shone a large, fiery
jewel, fashioned in the semblance of a human Eye. This singular
ornament was so life-like as to be absolutely repulsive, and as it
moved to and fro with its wearer's breathing it seemed now to
stare aghast,--anon to flash wickedly as with a thought of evil,--
while more often still it assumed a restlessly watchful expression
as though it were the eye of a fiend-inquisitor intent on the
detection of some secret treachery. Poised between those fair