Suddenly, however, their noisy voices ceased--with one accord, as though drawn by some magnetic spell, they all turned their heads toward the platform where Lysia had just silently made her appearance,--and springing from their seats they broke into a boisterous shout of acclamation and welcome. One young man whose flushed face had all the joyous, wanton, effeminate beauty of a pictured Dionysius, reeled forward, goblet in hand, and tossing the wine in air so that it splashed down again at his feet, staining his white garments as it fell with a stain as of blood, he cried, tipsily: "All hail, Lysia! Where hast thou wandered so long, thou Goddess of Morn? We have been lost in the blackness of night, sunk in the depths of a hell-like gloom--but lo! now the clouds have broken in the east, and our hearts rejoice at the birth of day! Vanish, dull moon, and be ashamed! ... for a fairer planet rules the sky! Hence, ye stars! ... puny glow-worms lazily crawling in the fields of ether! Lysia invests the heaven and earth, and in her smile we live! Ha! art thou there, Sah-luma? Come, praise me for my improvised love-lines; they are as good as thine, I warrant thee! Canst compose when thou art drunk, my dainty Laureate? Drain a cup then, and string me a stanza! Where is thy fool Zebastes? I would fain tickle his long ears with ribald rhyme, and hearken to the barbarous braying forth of his asinine reflections! Lysia! what, Lysia! ... dost thou frown at me? Frown not, sweet queen, but rather laugh! ... thy laughter kills, 'tis true, but thy frown doth torture spirits after death! Unbend thy brows! Night looms between them like a chaos! ... we will have no more night, I say, but only noon! ... a long, languorous, lovely noon, flower-girdled and sunbeam-clad! "'With roses, roses, roses crown my head, For my days are few! And remember, sweet, when I am dead, That my heart was true!'" Singing unsteadily, with the empty goblet upside-down in his hand, he looked up laughing,--his bright eyes flashing with a wild feverish fire, his fair hair tossed back from his brows and entangled in a half-crushed wreath of vine-leaves,--his rich garments disordered, his whole demeanor that of one possessed by a semi-delirium of sensuous pleasure...when all at once, meeting Lysia's keen glance, he started as though he had been suddenly stabbed,--the goblet fell from his clasp, and a visible shudder ran through his strong, supple frame. The low, cold, merciless laughter of the beautiful Priestess cut through the air hissingly like the sweep of a scimetar.