There was something truly awful in the radiant unquenchable
laughter that lurked in Lysia's lovely eyes, . . something
positively devilish in the grace of her manner, as with a
negligent movement, she reseated herself in her crystal throne,
and taking a knot of magnolia-flowers that lay beside her, idly
toyed with their creamy buds, all the while keeping her basilisk
gaze fixed immovably and relentlessly on her sentenced victim. He,
grasping the lily-shaped chalice convulsively in his right hand,
looked up despairingly to the polished dome of malachite, with its
revolving globe of fire that shed a solemn blood-red glow upon his
agonized young face, . . a smile was on his lips,--the dreadful
smile of desperate, maddened misery.

"Oh, ye malignant gods!" he cried fiercely--"ye immortal Furies
that made Woman for Man's torture, ... Bear witness to my death!
... bear witness to my parting spirit's malediction! Cursed be
they who love unwisely and too well! ... cursed be all the wiles
of desire and the haunts of dear passion!--cursed he all fair
faces whose fairness lures men to destruction! ... cursed be the
warmth of caresses, the beating of heart against heart, the kisses
that color midnight with fire! Cursed be Love from birth unto
death!--may its sweetness be brief, and its bitterness endless!--
its delight a snare, and its promise treachery! O ye mad lovers!--
fools all!" ... and he turned his splendid wild eyes round on the
hushed assemblage,--"Despise me and my words as ye will,
throughout ages to come, the curse of the dead Nir-jalis shall
cling!"

He lifted the goblet to his lips, and just then his delirious