Instantly the tall Ethiopian appeared, and obeying his master’s instructions, assisted him to lift the prone figure and lay it on a bench near at hand. Then they both set to work to move a number of ropes and pulleys which, noiselessly manipulated, proved to be an ingenious device for lowering a sort of stretcher or couch, canopied in tent-like fashion and made entirely of the same sort of double stranded silk material in which Diana had clothed herself for her “sacrifice.” This stretcher was lowered from the very centre of the dome of the laboratory,--and upon it the two men, Dimitrius and his servant, carefully and almost religiously placed the passive form, which now had an appearance of extreme rigidity, like that of a corpse. Dimitrius looked anxiously at the closed eyes, the waxen pallor of the features, and the evident tension of the muscles of the neck and throat,--then, with a kind of reckless swiftness and determination, he began to bind the apparently lifeless body round and round with broad strips of the same luminous sheeny stuff which composed the seeming funeral couch of his “subject” in the fashion of an Egyptian mummy. Vasho, acting under orders, assisted him as before--and very soon Diana’s form was closely swathed from head to foot, only the eyes, mouth and ears being left uncovered. The laboratory was now illumined only by its own mysterious fires--outside was a dark summer sky, powdered with faint stars, and every lingering reflex of the sunset had completely vanished. With the utmost care and minutest attention Dimitrius now looked to every detail of the strange, canopied bier on which the insensible subject of his experiment was laid,--then, giving a sign to Vasho, the ropes and pulleys by which it was suspended were once more set in motion, and slowly, aerially and without a sound it swung away and across the dark pool of water to a position just under the great Wheel. The Wheel, revolving slowly and casting out lambent rays of fire, illumined it as a white tent might be illumined on the night blackness of a bare field,--it rested just about four feet above the level of the water and four feet below the turning rim of the Wheel. When safely and accurately lodged in this position, Dimitrius and his servant fastened the ropes and pulleys to a projection in the wall, attaching them to a padlock of which Dimitrius himself took the key. Then, pausing, they looked at each other. Vasho’s glittering eyes, rolling like dark moonstones under his jetty brows, asked mutely a thousand questions; he was stricken with awe and terror and gazed at his master as beseechingly as one might fancy an erring mortal might look at an incarnate devil sent to punish him, but in the set white face of Dimitrius there was no sign of response or reassurance. Two or three minutes passed, and, going to the edge of the pool, Dimitrius looked steadily across it at the white pavilion with its hidden burden