snake-deity

Updated: May 5, 2025

Will none undo it?" and springing forward nearer the Shrine, he raised his angry, impassioned eyes to the dark, inscrutable ones of the High Priestess, who met his troubled look with serene and irresponsive gravity ... "Is there no touch of human pity in things divine? ... no mercy in the icy fate that rules our destinies? ... This child knows naught of what she does; she hath been led astray in a moment of excitement and religious exaltation, . . her mind hath lost its balance, her thoughts float disconnectedly on a sea of vague illusions, ... Ah! ... by the gods! ... I understand it all now!" and he suddenly threw himself on his knees, his appealing gaze resting, not on the Snake-Deity, but on the lovely countenance of Lysia, fair and brilliant as a summer morn, with a certain waving light of triumph about it, like the reflected radiance of sunbeams, ... "She is under the influence of Raphon! ... O withering madness! ... O cureless misery.. She is ruled by that most horrible secret force, unknown as yet to the outer world of men! ... and she hears things that are not, and sees what has no existence!

Marie Corelli - Ardath