many strange happenings and were about to join in solemn unison to implore the favor of Nagâya and the gods. The Temple of Nagâya was magnificently decorated for this New Year's Festival. There Sah-Lûma found that the maiden to be sacrificed was Niphrâta, and he made an impassioned demand, then an appeal, for her life. Niphrâta was permitted her choice, but she repudiated Sah-Lûma, appearing to be in love with some ghostly representation of the Poet and to be unconscious of his material existence. She had, she plaintively cried, waited for happiness so long; and, the Sacrificial Priest calling for the victim, she rushed upon the knife the Priest held ready for her. One second and she was seen speeding towards the knife; the next—and the whole place was enveloped in darkness. Fire broke out in every part of the Temple. A terrible scene of destruction was enacted, and the terrified people rushed hither and thither in the effort to save their lives;—efforts vain, because the last day of the city had come,—Al-Kyris was doomed,—there was rescue neither for people nor priests.
Sah-Lûma, death being certain, desired to die with Lysia, but his claim was contested by the King. Sovereign and Poet then learned that they had been rivals in love. The prophecy of Khosrûl was being fulfilled. The barbarous Lysia, even in these last
