hrough the
tables of the captains, who drew back somewhat as they watched her pass.

Her hair, which was powdered with violet sand, and combined into the
form of a tower, after the fashion of the Chanaanite maidens, added to
her height. Tresses of pearls were fastened to her temples, and fell to
the corners of her mouth, which was as rosy as a half-open pomegranate.
On her breast was a collection of luminous stones, their variegation
imitating the scales of the murena. Her arms were adorned with diamonds,
and issued naked from her sleeveless tunic, which was starred with
red flowers on a perfectly black ground. Between her ankles she wore a
golden chainlet to regulate her steps, and her large dark purple mantle,
cut of an unknown material, trailed behind her, making, as it were, at
each step, a broad wave which followed her.

The priests played nearly stifled chords on their lyres from time to
time, and in the intervals of the music might be heard the tinkling of
the little golden chain, and the regular patter of her papyrus sandals.

No one as yet was acquainted with her. It was only known that she led a
retired life, engaged in pious practices. Some soldiers had seen her in
the night on the summit of her palace kneeling before the stars amid the
eddyings from kindled perfuming-pans. It was the moon that had made her
so pale, and there was something from the gods that enveloped her like a
subtle vapour. Her eyes seemed to gaze far beyond terrestrial space. She
bent her head as she walked, and in her right hand she carried a little
ebony lyre.

They heard her murmur:

"Dead! All dead! No more will you come obedient to my voice as
when, seated on the edge of the lake, I used to through seeds of the
watermelon into your mouths! The mystery of Tanith ranged in the depths
of your eyes that were more limpid than the globules of rivers." And she
called them by their names, which were those of the months--"Siv! Sivan!
Tammouz, Eloul, Tischri, Schebar! Ah! have pity on me, goddess!"

The soldiers thronged about her without understanding what she said.
They wondered at her attire, but she turned a long frightened look upon
them all, then sinking her head beneath her shoulders, and waving her
arms, she repeated several times:

"What have you done? what have you done?

"Yet you had bread, and meats and oil, and all the malobathrum of the
granaries for your enjoyment! I had brought oxen from Hecatompylos;
I had sent hunter