He lay full length on his silk divan, his feet touching Theos, who
sat upright,--and, singing little snatches of song to himself, he
pulled the vine-wreath from his tumbled fair locks as though he
found it too weighty, and flung it on the ground among the other
debris of the feast. Then folding his arms lazily behind his head,
he stared straight and fixedly before him at Lysia, seeming to
note every jewel on her dress, every curve of her body, every
slight gesture of her hand, every faint, cold smile that played on
her lovely lips. One young man whom the others addressed as Ormaz,
a haughty, handsome fellow enough, though with rather a sneering
mouth just visible under his black mustache, was talking somewhat
excitedly on the subject of Khosrul's cunningly devised flight, . .
for it seemed to be universally understood that the venerable
Prophet was one of the Circle of Mystics,--persons whose knowledge
of science, especially in matters connected with electricity,
enabled them to perform astonishing juggleries, that were
frequently accepted by the uninitiated vulgar as almost divine
miracles. Not very long ago, according to Ormaz, who was
animatedly recalling the circumstance for the benefit of the
company, the words "FALL, AL-KYRIS!" had appeared emblazoned in
letters of fire on the sky at midnight, and the phenomenon had
been accompanied by two tremendous volleys of thunder, to the
infinite consternation of the multitude, who received it as a
supernatural manifestation. But a member of the King's Privy
Council, a satirical skeptic and mistruster of everybody's word
but his own, undertook to sift the matter,--and adopting the dress
of the Mystics, managed to introduce himself into one of their
secret assemblies, where with considerable astonishment, he saw
them make use of a small wire, by means of which they wrote in
characters of azure flame on the whiteness of a blank wall,--