Part Two In Al-Kyris Chapter 19 A Strange Temptation

On went the dance, ... faster, faster, and ever faster! Only the pen of some mirth-loving, rose-crowned Greek bard could adequately describe the dazzling, wild beauty and fantastic grace of those whirling fairy forms, that now inspired to a bacchante-like ardor, urged one another to fresh speed with brief soft cries of musical rapture! Now advancing,--now retreating ... now intermingling all together in an undulating garland of living loveliness, ... now parting asunder with an air of sweet coquettishness and caprice, ...--anon meeting again, and winding arm within arm,--till bending forward in attitudes of the tenderest entreaty, they seemed, with their languid, praying eyes and clasped hands, to be waiting for Love to soothe the breathless sweetness of their parted lips with kisses!

The light in the dome again changed its hue,--from pale rose-pink it flickered to delicate amber-green, flooding the floor with a radiance as of watery moonbeams, and softening the daintily draped outlines of that exquisite group of human blossoms, till they looked like the dimly imagined shapes of Nereids floating on the glistening width of the sea.

And now the extreme end of the vast hall began to waver to and fro as though shaken at its foundation by subterranean forces,--a flaring shaft of flame struck through it like the sweeping blade of a Titan's sword,--and presently with a thunderous noise the whole wall split asunder, and recoiling backwards on either side, disclosed a garden, golden with the sleepy glory of the late moon, and peacefully fair in all the dreamy attractiveness of drooping foliage, soft turf, and star-sprinkled, violet sky.