it was still blood red, and every now and then, between the
sluggish ripples, multitudes of dead fish could be seen drifting
along in shoals, and tangled in nets of slimy weed that at a
little distance looked like the floating tresses of drowned women.

It was an uncanny sight, and though it might certainly be as the
wise Mira Khabur had stated, the purely natural effect of purely
natural causes, still those natural causes were not as yet
explained satisfactorily. An earthquake or land-slip would perhaps
account sufficiently for everything,--but then an inquiring mind
would desire to know WHERE the earthquake or land-slip occurred,--
and also WHY these supposed far-off disturbances should thus
curiously affect the river surrounding Al-Kyris? Answers to such
questions as these were not forthcoming either from Professor
Mira-Khabur or any other sagacious pundit,--and Theos was
therefore still most illogically and unscientifically puzzled as
well as superstitiously uneasy.

Turning up a side street, he quickened his pace, in order to
overtake a young vendor of wines whom he perceived sauntering
along in front of him, balancing a flat tray, loaded with thin
crystal flasks, on his head. How gloriously the sunshine quivered
through those delicately tinted glass bottles, lighting up the
glittering liquid contained within them!--why, they look more like
soap-bubbles than anything else! ... and the boy who carried them
moved with such a lazy, noiseless grace that he might have been
taken for a dream-sylph rather than a human being!

"Hola, my lad!" called Theos, running after him.. "Tell me,--is
this the way to the palace of the King's Laureate?"