in pretty, reposeful attitudes along the edge of the gilded prow, holding garlands of red and yellow blossoms which trailed down to the surface of the water.
Theos, gazing dreamily and wonderingly upon the scene, was suddenly roused to feverish excitement, and with a smothered cry of ecstasy fixed his straining eager gaze on one supreme, fair figure—the central glory of the marvelous picture.
"A woman or a Goddess?—a rainbow Flame in
mortal shape?—a spirit of earth, air, fire, water?—or
a Thought of Beauty embodied into human
sweetness and made perfect? Clothed in gold
attire, and girded with gems, she stood, leaning indolently
against the middle mast of the vessel, her
great sombre dusky eyes resting drowsily on the
swarming masses of people, whose frenzied roar of
rapture and admiration sounded like the breaking of
billows."
Beauty-stricken, Theos was roughly brought back
to a sense of his position as a stranger in the city.
Al-Kyris was given up to the worship of a serpent,
Nagâya. This woman who had passed was Nagâya's
High Priestess, the chief power in the place.
All the people worshiped her, and Theos had not,
with them, fallen down before her. Immediately
he was seized and roughly handled by the mob,
who proclaimed him an infidel and a spy. At this
opportune moment the Poet Laureate of the Realm,
