Sah-luma met her look with one of mingled vexation and reproach; she smiled and raising a goblet of wine to her lips, kissed the brim, and gave it to him with an indescribably graceful, swaying gesture of her whole form that reminded one of a tall white lily bowing in the breeze. He seized the cup eagerly, drank from it and returned it,--his momentary annoyance, whatever it was, passed, and a joyous elation illumined his fine features. Then Lysia, refilling the cup, kissed it again and handed it to Theos with so much soft animation and tenderness in her face as she turned to him, that his enforced calmness nearly gave way, and he had much ado to restrain himself from falling at her feet in a transport of passion, and crying out! ... "Love me, O thou sorceress-sovereign of beauty! ... love me, if only for an hour, and then let me die! ... for I shall have lived out all the joys of life in one embrace of thine!" His hand trembled as he took the goblet, and he drank half its contents thirstily,--then imitating Sah-luma's example, he returned it to her with a profound salutation. Her eyes dwelt meditatively upon him. "What a dark, still, melancholy countenance is thine, Sir Theos!" she said abruptly--"Thou art, for sure, a man of strongly repressed and concentrated passions, ... 'tis a nature I love! I would there were more of thy proud and chilly temperament in Al-Kyris! ... Our men are like velvet-winged butterflies, drinking honey all day and drowsing in sunshine--full to the brows of folly,--frail and delicate as the little dancing maidens of the King's seraglio, . . nervous too, with weak heads, that art apt to ache on small provocation, and bodies that are apt to fail easily when but slightly fatigued. Aye!--thou art a man clothed complete in manliness,--moreover..." She paused, and leaning forward so that the dark shower of her perfumed hair brushed his arm ... "Hast ever heard travellers talk of volcanoes? ... those marvellous mountains that oft wear crowns of ice on their summits and yet hold unquenchable fire in their depths? ... Methinks thou dost resemble these,--and that at a touch, the flames would leap forth uncontrolled!" Her magical low voice, more melodious in tone than the sound of harps played by moonlight on the water, thrilled in his ears and set his pulses beating madly,--with an effort he checked the torrent of love-words that rushed to his lips, and looked at her in a sort of wildly wondering appeal. Her laughter rang out in silvery sweet ripples, and throwing herself lazily back in her throne, she called.. "Aizif! ... Aizif!" The great tigress instantly bounded forward like an obedient hound, and placed its fore-paws on her knees, while she playfully held a sugared comfit high above its head. "Up, Aizif! up!" she cried mirthfully.. "Up! and be like a man for once! ... snatch thy pleasure at all hazards!"