ask?" and with a majestic gliding motion she advanced a little and
pointed upward to the sparkling gold-patterned roof. "Above us,
the Great Pyramid lifts its summit to the stars; and here below,--
here where you will presently lie, my lover and lord, asleep in
the delicate bosom of love--here..."

She paused, and a low laugh broke from her lips; then she added
slowly and impressively:

"Here is the tomb of Araxes!"

As she spoke, a creeping sense of coldness and horror stole into
his veins like the approach of death,--the strange impressions he
had felt, the haunting and confusing memory he had always had of
her face and voice, the supernatural theories he had lately heard
discussed, all rushed at once upon his mind, and he uttered a loud
involuntary cry.

"My God! What frenzy is this! A woman's vain trick!--a fool's mad
scheme! What is Araxes to me?--or I to Araxes?"

"Everything!" replied Ziska, the vindictive demon light in her
eyes blazing with a truly frightful intensity. "Inasmuch as ye are
one and the same! The same dark soul of sin--unpurged, uncleansed
through ages of eternal fire! Sensualist! Voluptuary! Accursed
spirit of the man I loved, come forth from the present Seeming-of-
things! Come forth and cling to me! Cling!--for the whole forces
of a million universes shall not separate us! O Eternal Spirits of
the Dead!" and she lifted her ghostly white arms with a wild
gesture. "Rend ye the veil! Declare to the infidel and unbeliever