insects of an Oriental night. Leaning
against an ottoman was a large brazen shield of ancient fashion, and
near it some helmets and curious weapons.

'An irresistible impulse hath carried me into this chamber!' exclaimed
the prophetess. 'The light haunted me like a spectre; and wheresoever I
moved, it seemed to summon me.

'A couch and a slumberer!'

She approached the object, she softly withdrew the curtain. Pale and
panting, she rushed back, yet with a light step. She beheld Alroy!

For a moment she leant against the wall, overpowered by her emotions.
Again she advanced, and gazed on her unconscious victim.

'Can the guilty sleep like the innocent? Who would deem this gentle
slumberer had betrayed the highest trust that ever Heaven vouchsafed to
favoured man? He looks not like a tyrant and a traitor: calm his brow,
and mild his placid breath! His long dark hair, dark as the raven's
wing, hath broken from its fillet, and courses, like a wild and stormy
night, over his pale and moon-lit brow. His cheek is delicate, and yet
repose hath brought a flush; and on his lip there seems some word of
love, that will not quit it. It is the same Alroy that blessed our
vision when, like the fresh and glittering star of morn, he rose up in
the desert, and bringing joy to others, brought to me only----

'Oh! hush my heart, and let thy secret lie hid in the charnel-house of
crushed affections. Hard is the lot of woman: to love and to conceal is
our sharp doom! O bitter life! O most unnatural lot! Man made society,
and made us slaves. And so we droop and die, or else take refuge in idle
fantasies, to which we bring the fervour that is meant for nobler ends.

'Beauteous hero! whether I bear thee most hatred or most love I cannot
tell. Die thou must; yet I feel I should die with thee. Oh! that
to-night could lead at the same time unto our marriage bed and funeral
pyre. Must that white bosom bleed? and must those delicate limbs be
hacked and handled by these bloody butchers? Is that justice? They lie,
the traitors, when they call thee false to our God. Thou art thyself a
god, and I could worship thee! See those beauteous lips; they move. Hark
to the music!'

'Schirene, Schirene!'

'There wanted but that word to summon back my senses. Fool! whither is
thy fancy wandering? I will not wait for tardy justice. I will do the
deed myself. Shall I not kill my Sisera?' She seized a dagger from the
ottoman, a rare and highly-tempered blad