But even then the melody did not cease suddenly. It gradually grew fainter and fainter—dying away, as it were, in expiring sounds of silver harmony, as if yielding to the voluptuous enhancement of its own magic influence. And now, just as the last murmur floated to the ears of the raptured listeners, a bell tinkled at a distance; and in an instant—as if by magic—the spacious saloon was lighted up with a brilliancy which produced a sensation like an electric shock. At the same time, the music struck up in thrilling sounds once more; and a bevy of lovely creatures, whom the glare suddenly revealed upon a stage at the farther end of the apartment, became all life and activity in a voluptuous dance. Three chandeliers of transparent crystal had suddenly vomited forth jets of flame; and round the walls the illumination had sprung into existence, with simultaneous suddenness, from innumerable silver sconces. A glance around showed Greenwood that he was in a vast and lofty apartment, furnished with luxurious ottomans in the oriental style; and with tables groaning beneath immense vases filled with the choicest flowers. The walls were covered with magnificent pictures, representing the most voluptuous scenes of the heathen mythology and of ancient history. The figures in those paintings were as large as life; and no prudery had restrained the artist's pencil in the delineation of the luxuriant subjects which he had chosen. There was Lucretia, struggling—vainly struggling with the ardent Tarquin,—her drapery torn by his rude hands away from her lovely form, which the brutal violence of his mad passion had rendered weak, supple, and yielding. There was Helen, reclining in more than semi-nudity on the couch to which her languishing and wanton looks invited the enamoured Phrygian youth, who was hastily laying aside his armour after a combat with the Greeks. There was Messalina—that imperial harlot, whose passions were so insatiable and whose crimes were so enormous,—issuing from a bath to join her lover, who impatiently awaited her beneath a canopy in a recess, and which was surmounted by the Roman diadem. Then there were pictures representing the various amours of Jupiter,—Leda, Latona, Semele, and Europa—the mistresses of the god—all drawn in the most exciting attitudes, and endowed with the most luscious beauties. But if those creations of art were sufficient to inflame the passions of even that age when the blood seems frozen in the veins, how powerful must have been the effect produced by those living, breathing, moving houris who were now engaged in a rapid and exciting dance to the most ravishing music. They wore six in number, and all dressed alike, in a drapery so light and gauzy that it was all but transparent, and so scanty that it afforded no scope for the sweet romancing of fancy, and left but little need for guesses. But if their attire were thus uniform, their style of beauty was altogether different.