Then with a strange thrill of wonder I saw that these tiny constellations were not in the irises alone; that they clustered even within the pupils--deep within them, like far-flung stars in the depths of velvety, midnight heavens. Whence had come those cold fires that had flared from them, I wondered--more menacing, far more menacing, in their cold tranquillity than the hot flames of wrath? These eyes were not perilous--no. Calm they were and still--yet in them a shadow of interest flickered; a ghost of friendliness smiled. Above them were level, delicately penciled brows of bronze. The lips were coral crimson and--asleep. Sweet were those lips as ever master painter, dreaming his dream of the very soul of woman's sweetness, saw in vision and limned upon his canvas--and asleep, nor wistful for awakening. A proud, straight nose; a broad low brow, and over it the masses of the tendriling tresses--tawny, lustrous topaz, cloudy, METALLIC. Like spun silk of ruddy copper; and misty as the wisps of cloud that Soul'tze, Goddess of Sleep, sets in the skies of dawn to catch the wandering dreams of lovers. Down from the wondrous face melted the rounded column of her throat to merge into exquisite curves of shoulders and breasts, half revealed beneath the swathing veils. But upon that face, within her eyes, kissing her red lips and clothing her breasts, was something unearthly. Something that came straight out of the still mysteries of the star-filled spaces; out of the ordered, the untroubled, the illimitable void. A passionless spirit that watched over the human passion in the scarlet mouth, in every slumbering, sculptured line of her--guarding her against its awakening. Twilight calm dropping down from the sun sleep to still the restless mountain tarn. Ishtar dreamlessly asleep within Nirvana. Something not of this world we know--and yet of it as the winds of the Cosmos are to the summer breeze, the ocean to the wave, the lightnings to the glowworm. “She isn't--human,” I heard Ventnor whispering at my ear. “Look at her eyes; look at the skin of her--” Her skin was white as milk of pearls; gossamer fine, silken and creamy; translucent as though a soft brilliancy dwelt within it. Beside it Ruth's fair skin was like some sun-and-wind-roughened country lass's to Titania's. She studied us as though she were seeing for the first time beings of her own kind. She spoke--and her voice was elfin distant, chimingly sweet like hidden little golden bells; filled with that tranquil, far off spirit that was part of her--as though indeed a tiny golden chime should ring out from the silences, speak for them, find tongues for them. The words were hesitating, halting as though the lips that uttered them found speech strange--as strange as the clear eyes found our images. And the words were Persian--purest, most ancient Persian. “I am Norhala,” the golden voice chimed forth, whispered down into silence. “I am Norhala.”