Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/104

 in pretty, reposeful attitudes along the edge of the gilded prow, holding garlands of red and yellow blossoms which trailed down to the surface of the water.

Theos, gazing dreamily and wonderingly upon the scene, was suddenly roused to feverish excitement, and with a smothered cry of ecstasy fixed his straining eager gaze on one supreme, fair figure—the central glory of the marvelous picture.

"A woman or a Goddess?—a rainbow Flame in mortal shape?—a spirit of earth, air, fire, water?—or a Thought of Beauty embodied into human sweetness and made perfect? Clothed in gold attire, and girded with gems, she stood, leaning indolently against the middle mast of the vessel, her great sombre dusky eyes resting drowsily on the swarming masses of people, whose frenzied roar of rapture and admiration sounded like the breaking of billows."

Beauty-stricken, Theos was roughly brought back to a sense of his position as a stranger in the city. Al-Kyris was given up to the worship of a serpent, Nagâya. This woman who had passed was Nagâya's High Priestess, the chief power in the place. All the people worshiped her, and Theos had not, with them, fallen down before her. Immediately he was seized and roughly handled by the mob, who proclaimed him an infidel and a spy. At this opportune moment the Poet Laureate of the Realm,