In the thickening darkness, a huge object loomed suddenly before him. Startled for an instant, he paused, but a second careful look enabled him to recognize it. It was the tomb of Hiram, his great ancestor, the most famous of all the kings of Tyre. Five centuries had drifted over it, wearing away the very stone as by the friction of the years, but only brightening the fame of him who lay within it. If the living cherish the memory of the dead, do the dead have no interest in the living? It seemed to the young king as if the very dust within that great stone box must move with pity for him. Would the great king curse him for refusing to become a sacrifice to Baal for the welfare of Tyre? The mighty dead had been a worshipper of the gods of his people, but surely not with such cruel and bigoted frenzy as that of the priests now. The great Hiram had been the friend of the Judean kings, David and Solomon. He had built for them the temple of their God, Jehovah, though the Jews believed in no blood-loving Moloch; nay, they cursed the abominations of the Phoenician worship, as they cursed the other idols of the nations, and swept them from their land. Surely Hiram the Great would be a liberal monarch, were he living. A blessing seemed to drop into the young Hiram's soul from the white form of the marble, that clear-cut its shape out of the black night. He climbed the lofty pedestal, and stood beside the upper shaft. It was but a moment he lingered, yet time seemed to halt, while the olden ages came back and passed in review before him, all grand with Phoenicia's prowess, since first his people taught the nations the alphabet, and pioneered the commerce of the world. Dark clouds came up on the horizon, and blotted out the bright early stars; and so, he thought, death's oblivion had buried one by one his ancestors, the kings of Tyre; yet their glory was untarnished, even as these stars will shine out again, and shine forever. But himself! Would not his flight from death blot his honorable memory in subsequent generations? Suddenly the clouds parted, and the bright evening-star glowed in the east--the star of Astarte, Queen of Heaven, Goddess of Love. As he watched, it was again obscured. Then Hiram thought of Zillah, whose soul, purer than light, had set in his dark destiny. He clenched his hands as if to crush the edge of the stone beneath them, and swore a horrid oath, in which writhed all the black passions of his being; an oath at the star, at Astarte, at Baal, at all the powers that controlled the world, or at that blind chance that drifted its affairs. Then the star emerged again. It floated into a large lake of blue. Was it an omen? He worshipped it, and called it Zillah. He noted that it floated westward from over the Jews' land. Then he prayed: "O spirit of Hiram, guide thy son! O spirits of David and Solomon, befriend the son of Hiram! O Jehovah, God of Israel, give me welcome to thy land!"