you cherish the desire to increase our scanty
and scattered host by new converts and allies; Surely, surely, thy
experience might have taught thee that scarcely once in a thousand years
is born the being who can pass through the horrible gates that lead into
the worlds without. Is not thy path already strewed with thy victims? Do
not their ghastly faces of agony and fear,--the blood-stained suicide,
the raving maniac,--rise before thee and warn what is yet left to thee
of human sympathy from thy insane ambition?"

"Nay," answered Mejnour, "have I not had success to counterbalance
failure? And can I forego this lofty and august hope, worthy alone of
our high condition,--the hope to form a mighty and numerous race, with
a force and power sufficient to permit them to acknowledge to mankind
their majestic conquests and dominion; to become the true lords of
this planet, invaders perchance of others, masters of the inimical and
malignant tribes by which at this moment we are surrounded,--a race
that may proceed, in their deathless destinies, from stage to stage
of celestial glory, and rank at last among the nearest ministrants and
agents gathered round the Throne of Thrones? What matter a thousand
victims for one convert to our band? And you, Zicci," continued Mejnour,
after a pause, "you, even you, should this affection for a mortal
beauty that you have dared, despite yourself, to cherish, be more than a
passing fancy; should it, once admitted into your inmost nature, partake
of its bright and enduring essence,--even you may brave all things to
raise the beloved one into your equal. Nay, interrupt me not. Can you
see sickness menace her, danger hover around, years creep on, the eyes
grow dim, the beauty fade, while the heart, youthful still, clings and
fastens round your own,--can you see this, and know it is yours to--"

"Cease," cried Zicci, fiercely. "What is all other fate as compared
to the death of terror? What! when the coldest sage, the most heated
enthusiast, the hardiest warrior, with his nerves of iron, have been
found dead in their beds, with straining eyeballs and horrent hair,
at the first step of the Dread Progress, thinkest thou that this weak
woman--from whose cheek a sound at the window, the screech of the
night-owl, the sight of a drop of blood on a man's sword, would start
the color--could brave one glance of--Away! the very thought of such
sights for her makes even myself a coward!"

"When you told her