United States or France ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Meantime he watched the bewildering evolutions and witching entanglements of the gliding maze of fair faces, snowy bosoms and twining limbs, that palpitated to and fro under the soft rose-light of the dome like white flowers colored by the sunset, and, glancing ever and again at Lysia's imperial sorceress-beauty, he thought dreamily ... "Better the love that kills than no love at all!"
Of Lysia's treachery I may perhaps convince him, ... yet even in this attempt I may fail, and incur his hatred for my pains! If I had only myself to consider! ... " And here his reflections suddenly took a strange, unbidden turn. If he had only himself to consider! ... well, what then!
"Up, Aizif! up!" she cried mirthfully.. "Up! and be like a man for once! ... snatch thy pleasure at all hazards!" With a roar, the savage brute leaped and sprang, its sharp white teeth fully displayed, its sly green eyes glisteningly prominent, and again Lysia's rich laughter pealed forth, mingling with the impatient snarls of her terrific favorite.
Come, let me lead thee hence, . . this place is known as the Passage of the Tombs, and communicates with the Inner Court of the Sacred Temple, and if, as I fear, thou art a stray fugitive from the accursed Lysia's band of lovers, thou mayest be tracked hither and quickly slain.
It was a picture worthy of the grandest painter's brush, ... that glistening throne black as jet, with the fair form of Lysia shining within it, like a white sea-nymph at rest in a grotto of ocean-stalactites, . . the fantastically attired negresses on each side, with their waving peacock-plumes, the vivid carnation-color of the dais, against which the black and yellow stripes of the tigress showed up in strong and brilliant contrast, . . and the graceful, jewel-decked figure of the Poet Laureate, who, half sitting, half reclining on a black velvet cushion, leaned his handsome head indolently against the silvery folds of Lysia's robe, and looked up at her with eyes in which burned the ardent admiration and scarcely restrained passion of a privileged lover.
But concerning the Black Disc in Lysia's hall, it is a curiously elaborate piece of workmanship. It corresponds with an electric wheel in the Interior Chamber of the Temple, where all the priests and flamens meet and sum up the entire events of the day, both public and private, condensing the same into brief hieroglyphs.
A great weariness weighed down his spirit a dim consciousness of the futility of all ambition and all endeavor he was haunted, too, by the sharp hiss of Lysia's voice when she had said, "KILL SAH-LUMA!"...Her look, her attitude, her murderous smile, troubled his memory and made him ill at ease, the thing she had thus demanded at his hands seemed more monstrous than if she had bidden him kill himself!
"'Tis plain enough!" replied Sah-luma somewhat sulkily, with the deep flush still coming and going on his face "It means that we are summoned, . . thou as well as I, . . to one of Lysia's midnight banquets, an honor that falls to few, a mandate none dare disobey!
He sat, however, in a somewhat stern silence, now and then glancing wistfully and anxiously at Sah-luma, on whom the potent wines were beginning to take effect, and who had just thrown himself down on the dais at Lysia's feet, close to the tigress that still lay couched there in immovable quiet.
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!
Word Of The Day