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His eyes were misty, but he could very well see the Emblem to which Sah-luma alluded, it was the Cross again! ... the same sacred Prefigurement of things "to come," according to the perplexing explanation given by the Mystic Zuriel whom he had met in the Passage of the Tombs, though to his own mind it conveyed no such meaning.

An awful darkness seemed to close in upon him, and a chaotic confusion of memories began to whirl and drift through his mind like flotsam and jetsam tossed upon a storm-swept sea. The aged and shadowy-looking Zuriel stood motionless, watching him with something of timid pity and mild patience.

The figure of Elzear looked scarcely more substantial than the phantom-forms of Sah-luma, Zephoranim, Khosrul, Zuriel, or Zabastes, while Lysia's exquisite face and seductive form, Niphrata's pensive beauty, and all the local characteristics of the place, were stamped on the dreamer's memory as faithfully as scenes flashed by the sun on the plates of photography!

"What Name?".. interrupted Theos, with eager abruptness ... "Canst thou pronounce it?" Zuriel shook his head. "Not I, my son" he answered gravely.. "Not even Khosrul can penetrate thus far! The Name of Him who is to come, is hidden deep among God's unfathomed silences! It should suffice thee that thou knowest now the sum and substance of the Prophecy.

"Hush, hush, my son!" said the aged Zuriel anxiously "These stone walls hear thee far too loudly, who knows but they may echo forth thy words to unsuspected listeners! Peace peace! ... Lysia is as much Queen, as Zephoranim is King of Al-Kyris; and surely thou knowest that the sins of tyrants are accounted virtues, so long as they retain their ruling powers?

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, an empty braggart-word forever on the mouths of kings and judges, but never in their hearts! Moreover, what is guilt? ... What is innocence?

Yet, . . warn him against what? So had said Zuriel the Mystic, but to the laurelled favorite of the monarch, and idol of the people, such an admonition would seem more than absurd! It was useless to talk to him about the prophecies of Khosrul, he had heard them all, and laughed them to scorn.

Zuriel regarded him more compassionately than ever, with a penetrating, mournful expression in his serious dark eyes. "Alas, alas, my son! thou art most grievously distraught!" he said in troubled tones. "Thy words but prove the dark disorder of thy wits, may Heaven soon heal thee of thy mental wound!

"The annals of its recorded history reach over a period of twelve thousand years" replied Zuriel, . . "But 'tis the present fashion to count from the Deification of Nagaya or the Snake, and, according to this, we are now in the nine hundred and eighty-ninth year of so-called Grace and Knowledge, rather say Dishonor and Crime! ... for a crueler, more bloodthirsty creed than the worship of Nagaya never debased a people!

"And this Prophecy?" he asked listlessly.. "What is its nature and whom doth it concern?" "Nay, in very truth it is a strange and marvellous thing!" replied Zuriel, his calm voice thrilling with a mellow touch of fervor.. "Khosrul, 'tis said, has heard the angels whispering in Heaven, and his attentive ears have caught the echo of their distant speech.