cages suspended from the ceiling there were birds of strange form and
bright plumage, which at our entrance set up a chorus of song, modulated
into tune as is that of our piping bullfinches. A delicious fragrance,
from censers of gold elaborately sculptured, filled the air. Several
automata, like the one I had seen, stood dumb and motionless by the
walls. The stranger placed me beside him on a divan and again spoke
to me, and again I spoke, but without the least advance towards
understanding each other.

But now I began to feel the effects of the blow I had received from the
splinters of the falling rock more acutely that I had done at first.

There came over me a sense of sickly faintness, accompanied with acute,
lancinating pains in the head and neck. I sank back on the seat and
strove in vain to stifle a groan. On this the child, who had hitherto
seemed to eye me with distrust or dislike, knelt by my side to support
me; taking one of my hands in both his own, he approached his lips to
my forehead, breathing on it softly. In a few moments my pain ceased; a
drowsy, heavy calm crept over me; I fell asleep.

How long I remained in this state I know not, but when I woke I felt
perfectly restored. My eyes opened upon a group of silent forms, seated
around me in the gravity and quietude of Orientals--all more or less
like the first stranger; the same mantling wings, the same fashion of
garment, the same sphinx-like faces, with the deep dark eyes and red
man's colour; above all, the same type of race--race akin to man's, but
infinitely stronger of form and grandeur of aspect--and inspiring the
same unutterable feeling of dread. Yet each countenance was mild and
tranquil, and even kindly in expression. And, strangely enough, it
seemed to me that in this very calm and benignity consisted the secret