CHAPTER VII.


Within the palace of the Princess Ziska a strange silence reigned.
In whatever way the business of her household was carried on, it
was evidently with the most absolute noiselessness, for not a
sound disturbed the utter stillness environing her. She herself,
clad in white garments that clung about her closely, displaying
the perfect outlines of her form, stood waiting for her guest in a
room that was fairly dazzling to the eye in its profusion of
exquisitely assorted and harmonized colors, as well as impressive
to the mind in its suggestions of the past rather than of the
present. Quaint musical instruments of the fashion of thousands of
years ago hung on the walls or lay on brackets and tables, but no
books such as our modern time produces were to be seen; only tied-
up bundles of papyri and curious little tablets of clay inscribed
with mysterious hieroglyphs. Flowers adorned every corner--many of
them strange blossoms which a connoisseur would have declared to
be unknown in Egypt,--palms and ferns and foliage of every
description were banked up against the walls in graceful
profusion, and from the latticed windows the light filtered
through colored squares, giving a kind of rainbow-effect to the
room, as though it were a scene in a dream rather than a reality.
And even more dream-like than her surroundings was the woman who
awaited the approach of her visitor, her eyes turned towards the
door--fiery eyes filled with such ardent watchfulness as seemed to