"No, a thousand times no!" cried Alumion with fervour. "For you have opened up to me a new source of happiness--of blessedness which I have never known before. Only let us go together to your world and minister to the unfortunate." "Well, darling, we will think of it; but see! the sun has set and you are free again. I came to marry you, but since I must return so soon to my own world, perhaps it would be well to postpone the ceremony until I come back here." "Why should we do that?" Evidently she had no idea of the dangers of the journey, or how long it would take. "If anything should happen to me. If I should die and never return." "Ah! do not speak of that. The Giver will preserve you." "But life is uncertain." "Beloved, I shall never love another but you; therefore, let us unite ourselves, as we are already united in heart and soul, henceforth and forever. Come!" With these words she turned and glided towards the sacred grotto. I held aside the flowering creeper which hung over the entrance like a curtain, and followed her within. To my great surprise the interior was neither dark nor dusky, but filled with a soft and luscious light from myriads of glow-worms and fire-flies of various colours, which glimmered on the walls like tiny electric lamps, or sparkled in the facets of the gems and spars depending from the roof. Judging by their shape and tint I imagine that some of these incrustations are native crystals of the diamond and ruby, the sapphire, topaz, and emerald. In a deep recess or alcove on one side a spring of clear water gushed from the rock into a natural basin of sinter, enamelled inside and out with the precious opal. Owing perhaps to the minerals through which it had passed the liquid shed a delicious perfume in the air, and made a bath fit for the goddess of beauty. I had scarcely time to look about me when a strange and wonderful melody of most entrancing sweetness echoed through the cavern. "Siloo, Siloo!" cried Alumion softly, and the music, which I cannot compare to any earthly strain, ceased in a moment. Presently I was more than startled to see in the gloomier background of the cavern a great white serpent glide like a ghost along the floor and come straight towards us. His milk-white body was speckled all over with jewelled scales, and shone with a pale blue phosphorescence; his eyes blazed in his head like twin carbuncles, and in spite of my instinctive dread of snakes, I could not help admiring his repulsive beauty. Presently he reared his long neck, and faced us with his forked tongue playing out and in. I shrank back, for I thought he was about to spring upon me; but Alumion, laughing gaily at my fears, stepped quickly up to him, and stroked him with her hand. The serpent laid his head caressingly upon her shoulder and emitted a low faint note of pleasure. Alumion then took a shallow dish or patera, and, filling it from a vase which she carried with her set it upon the floor for the snake to feed.