concerning this too tranquil death of the undeserving and impure?"

Drawing all together in a close group they held a whispered
consultation, and finally, appearing to have come to some sort of
decision, they took up the dead bodies one after another, and
flung them carelessly into the dark aperture lately unclosed. As
they did this, a stealthy, rustling sound was heard, as of some
great creature moving to and fro in the far interior, but they
soon locked and barred the iron portal once more, and then took
their departure rather hurriedly, leaving the vault by the way
Theos had entered it--namely, up the stone stairway that led into
Lysia's palace-gardens. As the last echo of their retreating steps
died away and the last glimmer of their lurid torches vanished,
Theos sprang out from his hiding-place,--his venerable companion
slowly followed.

"Oh, God! Can such things be!" he cried loudly, reckless of all
possible risk for himself as his voice rang penetratingly through
the deep silence--"Were these brute-murderers actual men?--or but
the wandering, grim shadows of some long past crime? ... Nay,--
surely I do but dream!--and ghouls and demons born out of
nightmare-sleep do vex my troubled spirit! Justice! ... justice
for the innocent! ... Is there none in all Al-Kyris?"

"None!" replied the old man who stood beside him, lamp in hand,
fixing his dark, melancholy eyes upon him as he spoke--"None! ...
neither in Al-Kyris nor in any other great city on the peopled
earth! Justice? ... I who am named Zuriel the Mystic, because of
my tireless searching into things that are hidden from the
unstudious and unthinking,--I know that Justice is an idle name,--