But after about an hour, my thoughts were forcibly recalled from Aelios to the spectacle in the great theatre. A sudden flickering of the great golden orbs attracted our attention; and we noted that those luminaries were being dimmed as though by unseen hands until they had less than half their usual brightness. At the same time, long shafts of light began to shoot out simultaneously from all points of the horizon,--multicolored shafts that included all the hues of the rainbow. In wide ambling curves they met the dark glass of the roof, splashing it with red and purple, orange and green, lavender and violet; and for many minutes the play and interplay of color continued, the searchlights seeming to work out all manner of patterns and arabesques which endured for a moment and vanished. * * * * * The one thing to which I could liken this pageant of light was the music that sometimes preceded theatrical performances in our own land. The flashing colors had all the ethereal loveliness of music; and like music they prepared one for a mood of rapture and contemplation. And when at length the original lights had faded out, to be replaced by others that shone directly down upon the open platform or stage, this mood was strengthened and intensified; and at the same time I felt that we had but beheld an introduction to the real exhibition. Suddenly, in the illumination of the many-hued searchlights, a white-gowned woman appeared upon the stage. She was very young, scarcely more than a girl, I thought, and her face had something of that sweetness and radiance which distinguished Aelios; while in the colored glow of the everchanging lights she seemed some shimmering, ethereal thing, possibly a butterfly, possibly some apparition as unreal as rainbows or moonlit cloud. I was surprised, accordingly, when the fairy-like creature began to speak. Or perhaps it would not be correct to say that she spoke; her words came in a soft, wonderfully melodious voice more than half like song; and merely to listen to her was to be lulled and soothed as though by music. Yet, despite the spirit of exaltation and almost of worship she aroused in me, I did not miss the drift of what she was saying.