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Updated: June 19, 2025
Many strange suggestions began to glimmer ghost-like through this same Adagio, the fair, dead face of Niphrata flitted past him, as a wandering moonbeam flits athwart a cloud, then came flashing reflections of light and color, the bewildering dazzlement of Lysia's beauty shone before the eyes of his memory with a blinding lustre as of flame, . . the phantasmagoria of the city of Al-Kyris seemed to float in the air like a faintly discovered mirage ascending from the sea, again he saw its picturesque streets, its domes and bell-towers, its courts and gardens.. again he heard the dreamy melody of the dance that had followed the death of Nir-jalis, and saw the cruel Lysia's wondrous garden lying white in the radiance of the moon; anon he beheld the great Square, with its fallen Obelisk and the prostrate, lifeless form of the Prophet Khosrul.. and.. Oh, most sad and dear remembrance of all! ... the cherished Shadow of Himself, the brilliant, the joyous Sah-luma appeared to beckon him from the other side of some vast gulf of mist and darkness, with a smile that was sorrowful, yet persuasive; a smile that seemed to say "O friend, why hast thou left me as though I were a dead thing and unworthy of regard?
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.
"Oh, too swift and too degrading a surrender!" interrupted Theos suddenly with reproachful vehemence ... "Thy words do madden patience! Better a thousand times that thou shouldst perish, Sah- lama, now in the full plenitude of thy poet-glory, than thus confess thyself a prey to thine own passions, a credulous victim of Lysia's treachery!"
Theos, lifting his gaze toward Lysia's seat, saw that she was now surrounded by the four attendant negresses, who, standing two on each side of her throne, held large fans of peacock plumes, which, as they were waved slowly to and fro, emitted a thousand scintillations of jewel-like splendor.
Presently he inquired: "How comes it, Sah-luma, that the corpse of Nir-jalis was found on the shores of the river? Did we not see it weighted with iron and laid elsewhere ... ?" "O simpleton!" laughed Sah-luma "Thinkest thou Lysia's lake of lilies is a common grave for criminals?
At the extreme end of the glittering vista of pale-green, transparent columns, a door suddenly opened, and a flock of doves came speeding forth, their white, spread wings colored softly in the clear rose-radiance, they circled round and round the dome three times, then fluttered in a palpitating arch over Lysia's head, and finally sped straight across the hall to the other end, where they streamed snowily through another aperture and disappeared.
Step by step he came hesitatingly to the foot of her throne, . . and it was then that Theos perceived rear at hand a personage he immediately recognized, the black scarlet-clad slave Gazia, who had brought Lysia's message to Sah-luma that same afternoon.
Another deep and death like pause ensued, ... and then Lysia's silvery cold tones smote the profound silence with calm, clear resonance.
But Theos cared nothing for his own life, some inward excitation of feeling kept him resolute and perfectly controlled. "Kill me, Sah-luma!" he gasped "Kill me, friend whom I love! ... death will be easy at thy hands! Deprive me of my sad existence, . . 'tis better so, than that I should have slain THEE last night at Lysia's bidding!"
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.
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