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RV 24 (THE SAPPHIRE SIREN) simple action had upon me can never be imagined or described. It had to be undergone to be understood, and what little sense I'd still managed to retain thus far left me entirely

I awoke! I was stretched out on a couch, suffused with untellable fatigue, acutely conscious of agonies endured beyond all endurance

"O my beloved! Such sufferings! But never again! In my arms, O loved man, shall you regain strength and know bliss beyond all thinking."

Hovering over me, holding me in her arms, shielding and protecting me from further harm, was a superbly beautiful woman. Azure was her hair, blue as the midsummer skies was her shimmering skin that shone with a clear luster surpassing any gem; yet in nowise was she a stone statue, but a living, breathing, loving, tender, soft-bodied woman of flesh and blood! I reached up feeble arms about her neck, drawing her down to me—almost had her lips touched mine—a lambent reddish light flickered momentarily in her wondrous blue eyes

"You infernal bag!"

It was but a putrid corpse I held so lovingly within the circle of my arms—and in it the worms and maggots were acrawl!

The Princess of Hell, on her gorgeous throne, gave utterance to a trill of merry laughter at the success of that final glamorous torment of the man who had dared refuse her proffered love

That laugh changed to a shriek of fury ere the last silvery note of her mirth died out! Facing her where she sat surrounded by her guards and courtiers, stood a tall, robed figure, grimly eyeing her in a silence more fraught with menace than any words could have conveyed.

"Agnor Halit!" she screamed in a paroxysm of terror, as she recognized the mighty sorcerer.

"Even so, O Princess of Hell, Queen over a ghostly race and a ghost city that I shattered with my magic, ages agone. And now! For that you have not felt the weight of my hand in the last few centuries, you have grown overbold. You actually dared molest this man, knowing that he was at the time engaged in serving my purpose!"

Agnor Halit drew from the breast of his robe a most peculiar reptile, more like a short, extremely thick centipede than aught else. He held it up between thumb and finger. His words came slow, heavy, laden with doom:

"Into this vileness shalt thou go, nor ever come forth from it until I, Agnor Halit, am no more!"

He flung the small abhorrence on the dais, before the feet of the Princess. It remained there, immovable, its full eyes fixed on her face; and she stared back in awe-stricken, horrified fascination.

The sorcerer stretched out his arms, his quivering fingers aimed at the beauteous, erotic fiend trembling in an ecstasy of fear there on her sumptuous seat. Over guards and courtiers, priests and populace an icy terror fell; they