"Ziska! Woman! Devil! Speak before you drive me to madness! What passion moves you thus--what mystic fooling? Into what place have I been decoyed at your bidding? Why am I brought hither? Speak, speak!--or I shall murder you!"

"Nay!" she said, and her slight swaying form dilated and grew till she seemed to rise up from the very ground and to tower above him like an enraged demon evoked from mist or flame. "You have done that once! To murder me twice is beyond your power!" And as she spoke her hands slipped from his like the hands of a corpse newly dead. "Never again can you hurl forth my anguished soul unprepared to the outer darkness of things invisible; never again! For I am free!--free with an immortal freedom--free to work out repentance or revenge,--even as Man is free to shape his course for good or evil. He chooses evil; I choose revenge! What place is this, you ask?" and with a majestic gliding motion she advanced a little and pointed upward to the sparkling gold-patterned roof. "Above us, the Great Pyramid lifts its summit to the stars; and here below,-- here where you will presently lie, my lover and lord, asleep in the delicate bosom of love--here..."

She paused, and a low laugh broke from her lips; then she added slowly and impressively: "Here is the tomb of Araxes!"