followed the gaze of that terrifying audience and saw a sight that
printed itself on my brain with a vividness which time can never erase.
Closing my eyes, I see it even now, and I shudder.

Exactly in the center of the lake, in the midst of the columns of fire,
was a fourth column, built of some strangely lustrous rock. Prisms of
a formation new to me--innumerable thousands of them--caused its sides
to sparkle and glisten like an immense tower of whitest diamonds,
blinding the eye.

The effect was indescribable. The huge cavern was lined and dotted
with the rays shot forth from their brilliant angles. The height of
this column was double that of the others; it rose straight toward the
unseen dome of the cavern to the height of a hundred feet.

It was cylindrical in shape, not more than ten feet in diameter. And
on its top, high above the surface of the lake, surrounded by the
mounting tongues of flame, whirled and swayed and bent the figure of a
woman.

Her limbs and body, which were covered only by long, flowing strands of
golden hair, shone and glistened strangely in the lurid, weird light.
And of all the ten thousand reflections that shot at us from the length
of the column not one was so brilliant, so blinding, as the wild glow
of her eyes.

Her arms, upraised above her head, kept time with and served as a key
to every movement of her white, supple body. She glided across, back
and forth, now this way, now that, to the very edge of the dizzy
height, with wild abandon, or slow, measured grace, or the rushing
sweep of a panther.

The thing was beauty incarnate--the very idea of beauty itself realized
and perfected. It was staggering, overwhelming. Have you ever stood
before a great painting or a beautiful statue and felt a thrill--the
thrill of perception--run through your body to the very tips of your
fingers?

Well, imagine that thrill multiplied a thousandfold and you will
understand the sensation that overpowered me as I beheld, in the midst
of that dazzling blaze of light, the matchless Dance of the Sun.

For I recognized it at once. I had never seen it, but it had been
minutely described to me--described by a beautiful and famous woman as
I sat on the deck of a yacht steaming into the harbor of Callao.

She had promised me then that she would dance it for me some day--

I looked at Harry, who had remained standing beside me, gazing as I had
gazed. His eyes were opened wide, staring at the s