Layah's pride, when she ushered Hiram into the presence of her mistress, was warranted, for she truly thought there was no more beautiful woman in Tyre than the daughter of Ahimelek. And, indeed, Zillah's radiance this night was refracted in additional lustre through the toilet her maid had given her. A simple band of ribbon, with a single pearl studding it, bound her jet-black hair, but did not confine it. Her locks overflowed in clustering ringlets upon her forehead and temples, and fell in waves upon her white neck. Her features were small, but so clear-cut as to seem larger than in reality, and so animated were they with health and joy that the long, pendent ear-rings of crystal, which rested upon her shoulders, seemed to borrow from her face the light that flashed in them. Her upper garment came close to the throat, and was gathered into a sinus beneath the breast, by a girdle which was knotted in front. Her exposed arms were of such graceful shape that one scarcely noticed the wristlets and armlets with which her maid had insisted on decorating them. Her full-flowing skirt of silk was so artfully looped at the bottom as to reveal a foot and ankle, about which a serpent of silver coiled in loving embrace. Zillah's first welcome of Hiram was followed by a playful frown. She held him at arm's-length, and curiously inspected his raiment. "For shame, my Lord Hiram! I believe you have borrowed your cousin Rubaal's clothes--the same he came to woo me in the day before you and I were betrothed. You are more goodly-appearing with your sailor's cap and coarse chiton than in these fashions of Tyre. See! I have discarded my cap of pearls, and would not put on half the jewels Layah wanted me to, because I thought you would like me better as I am." She dexterously loosed his triple collar, and flung it upon a divan; then plucked the great diamond from his scarf. "Hold!" cried Hiram. "Do not throw that away. It may buy back our throne, if Egbalus steals it. Let me put it here, where Artaxerxes himself would not dare to pluck it." He inserted the glowing jewel in the folds of the sinus of her dress. "But why do you talk so much of Egbalus, dear Hiram?" she asked, as she drew him to her side upon the divan. "Egbalus is only a priest, not even a prince. And you have often said you did not believe in the priests. Why care for what you do not believe in?" "I do believe in the priests," said he, "just as I believe in scorpions and other pests, because they are disagreeable facts. I suppose I ought to be above letting them annoy me, as the people in the country build booths on the roofs of their houses, and go to sleep there, knowing that the scorpions cannot crawl so high. But I cannot sleep if I so much as hear these priestly vermin scratch.