glanced lighted on Sah-luma.

"I drink to thee, Sir Laureate!" he said hoarsely, and with a
ghastly attempt at levity--"Sing as sweetly as thou wilt, thou
must drain the same cup ere long!"

And without another second's hesitation he drank off the entire
contents of the chalice at a draught. Scarcely had he done so,
when with a savage scream he fell prone on the ground, his limbs
twisted in acute agony,--his features hideously contorted,--his
hands beating the air wildly, as though in contention with some
invisible foe, ..while in strange and terrible dissonance with his
tortured cries, Lysia's laughter, musically mellow, broke out in
little quick peals, like the laughter of a very young child.

"Ah, ah, Nir-jalis!" she exclaimed. "Thou dost suffer! That is
well! ... I do rejoice to see thee fighting for life in the very
jaws of death! Fain would I have all men thus tortured out of
their proud and tyrannous existence! ... their strength made
strengthless, their arrogance brought to naught, their egotism and
vain-glory beaten to the dust! Ah, ah! thou that wert the
complacent braggart of love,--the self-sufficient proclaimer of
thine own prowess, where is thy boasted vigor now? ... Writhe on,
good fool! ... thy little day is done! ... All honor to the Silver
Nectar whose venom never fails!"

Leaning forward eagerly, she clapped her hands in a sort of fierce
ecstasy--and apparently startled by the sound, the tigress rose up
from its couchant posture, and shaking itself with a snarling
yawn, glared watchfully at the convulsed human wretch whose