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Updated: June 3, 2025
"Peace! ... Thou art suddenly distraught, Sah-luma! ..." he said, in half-smothered, fierce accents "How darest thou uplift thy clamorous tongue thus wantonly before Nagaya, and interrupt the progress of his Sacred Ritual? ... check thy mad speech! ... if ever yonder maid were thine, 'tis certain she is thine no longer; ... she hath offered herself, a voluntary sacrifice, and the gods are pleased to claim what thou perchance hast failed to value!"
He laughed with a little undercurrent of scorn in his laughter, and Theos saw as it were, the lightning of an angry or disdainful thought flashing through the sombre splendor of his eyes. "And Lysia is.. ?" began Theos suggestively. "The High Priestess of Nagaya," responded Sah-luma slowly "Charmer of the god, as well as of the hearts of men!
Then followed the strangest, weirdest scene that even the pen of poets or brush of painter devised, . . a march round and round the Temple of all the priests, bearing lighted flambeaux and singing in chorus a wild Litany, a confused medley of supplications to the Sun and Nagaya, which, accompanied as it was by the discordant beating drums and the clanging of bells, had an evidently powerful effect on the minds of the assembled populace, for presently they also joined in the maddening chant, and growing more and more possessed by the contagious fever of fanaticism, began to howl and shriek and clap their hands furiously, creating a frightful din suggestive of some fiendish clamor in hell.
Thou art the Gate of the House of Stars! thou art the first of the Seven Jewels of Nagaya! Thou dost wield the sceptre of ebony, and the Eye of Raphon beholds thee with love and contentment! Thou art the Chiefest of Women, ... thou hast the secrets of earth and heaven, thou knowest the dark mysteries! Hail, Lysia! Queen of the Hall of Judgment! Hail, pure Pearl in the Sea of the Sun's glory!
And truly it now appeared as if mercy, and not cruelty, were to be the order of the hour, . . for just then the Priest Zel, after having exchanged a few inaudible words with Lysia, advanced again to the front of the Shrine and spoke in distinct tones of forced gentleness and bland forbearance: "Hear me, O King, Princes and People! ... Whereas it has unhappily occurred, to the wonder and sorrow of many, that the holy Spouse of the divine Nagaya is delayed in her desired departure, by the unforeseen opposition and unedifying contumacy of Sah-luma, Poet Laureate of this realm; and lest it may be perchance imagined by the uninitiated, that the maiden is in any way unwilling to fulfil her glorious destiny, the High and Immaculate Priestess of the Shrine doth bid me here pronounce a respite; a brief interval wherein, if the King and the People be willing, he who is named Sah-luma shall, by virtue of his high renown, be permitted to address the Virgin-victim and ascertain her own wishes from her own lips.
They soon reached the end of the street, which terminated in a spacious quadrangular court guarded on all sides by gigantic black statues, and quickly crossing this place, which was entirely deserted, they came out at once into a dazzling blaze of light, . . the Temple of Nagaya in all its stately magnificence towered before them, a stupendous pile of marvellously delicate architecture so fine as to seem like lace- work rather than stone.
"Come forth, O Nagaya, Friend of the gods and the people, and comfort us with the Divine Silence of thy Wisdom supernal!"
Now in the worship of Nagaya, we have the natures of Man and Woman conjoined, . . the Snake is the emblem of male wisdom united with female subtilty and the two essences, mingled in one, make as near an approach to what we may imagine the positive Divine capacity as can be devised on earth by earthly intelligences.
The hot passion of love is to her a toy, clasped and unclasped so! in the pink hollow of her hand..." and as he spoke he closed his fingers softly on the air and unclosed them again with an expressive gesture "And so long as she retains the magic of her beauty, so long will Nagaya worship hold Al-Kyris in check.
The Shrine of Nagaya was enveloped in thick black smoke, crossed here and there by flashes of flame, the bare outline of its Titanic architecture was scarcely discernible! Yet the thought of the dreadful end of Lysia, the loveliest woman he had ever seen, moved him now to no emotion whatever save..gladness!
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