preparations: he resolved to place an irrevocable barrier between
himself and his rivals: he resolved to possess himself of the person of
Ione: not that in his present love, so long nursed and fed by hopes
purer than those of passion alone, he would have been contented with
that mere possession. He desired the heart, the soul, no less than the
beauty, of Ione; but he imagined that once separated by a daring crime
from the rest of mankind--once bound to Ione by a tie that memory could
not break, she would be driven to concentrate her thoughts in him--that
his arts would complete his conquest, and that, according to the true
moral of the Roman and the Sabine, the empire obtained by force would be
cemented by gentler means. This resolution was yet more confirmed in him
by his belief in the prophecies of the stars: they had long foretold to
him this year, and even the present month, as the epoch of some dread
disaster, menacing life itself. He was driven to a certain and limited
date. He resolved to crowd, monarch-like, on his funeral pyre all that
his soul held most dear. In his own words, if he were to die, he
resolved to feel that he had lived, and that Ione should be his own.

Chapter IX

WHAT BECOMES OF IONE IN THE HOUSE OF ARBACES. THE FIRST SIGNAL OF THE
WRATH OF THE DREAD FOE.

WHEN Ione entered the spacious hall of the Egyptian, the same awe which
had crept over her brother impressed itself also upon her: there seemed
to her as to him something ominous and warning in the still and mournful
faces of those dread Theban monsters, whose majestic and passionless
features the marble so well portrayed:

Their look, with the reach of past ages, was wise,
And the soul of eternity thought in their eyes.
The tall AEthiopian slave grinned as he admitted her, and motioned to
her to proceed. Half-way up the hall she was met by Arbaces himself, in
festive robes, which glittered with jewels. Although it was broad day
without, the mansion, according to the practice of the luxurious, was
artificially darkened, and the lamps cast their still and odor-giving
light over the rich floors and ivory roofs.

'Beautiful Ione,' said Arbaces, as he bent to touch her hand, 'it is you
that have eclipsed the day--it is your eyes that light up the halls--it
is your breath which fills them with perfumes.'

'You must not talk to me thus,' said Ione, smiling, 'you forget that
your lore has sufficiently instructed my mind to render the