The revels were continued through the night, wine flowed as freely as water, and long before the gray dawn began to break in the east, many had sunk down in a helpless, drunken sleep. Corianton also was intoxicated, but not so much with wine as with the beauty and chic of Joan. When she left him, as she did soon after midnight, he began to realize the situation into which his half thoughtless indiscretion had plunged him, and he knew not how he would well answer his brethren for his conduct. Though he had drunk but little wine, not being accustomed to it his brain was on fire, and a mad spirit of recklessness seized him. Passing a group of young fellows in an advanced stage of intoxication in one of the recesses of the saloon, he was hailed by them, and congratulated upon his conquest of the fairest lady in all their land. He joined them in their praises of her beauty and in their revel. What he did, what was done he knew not, his brain was confused--he had an indistinct recollection of boisterous, frenzied jollity, then high words, a quarrel, but not the reason of it, and then all was darkness, oblivion. CHAPTER NINE. ISABEL. As the grey light of morning struggled through the heavy curtained windows of the saloon, Corianton awoke. For some time he lay half bewildered, unable to call to mind what had happened, or where he was, conscious only of the heavy, dull pain in his head. At last, however, the revels of the past night were conjured up by his recollection; but awakening consciousness brought with it a sickening sense of shame. He was lying on a cushioned divan in one of the many recesses opening into the saloon, and near him in a heavy stupor, on the floor, was a young Lamanite girl. He arose and staggered from the recess to seek the open air. In the saloon the lights in the cressets were burning low, but giving out sufficient of their pale, yellow light to reveal the general disorder that prevailed. Fruits, drinking bowls, withered flowers and ottomans lay scattered about promiscuously. The banquet table itself with its burden of fruits and wines and silver furniture, had been overturned, doubtless in the melee which followed the quarrel, of which Corianton had but an indistinct recollection. Near the door leading into the hall were two slaves sleeping in each other's arms--worn out by the services of the past night. Corianton wended his way through all this debris and at last reached the garden; but neither the cool morning air, the song of birds nor the perfume of flowers brought relief to his aching heart or troubled mind.