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 Your wish was Vanity, for the mystic Jewel that bestows godlike power is Vanity, and. . . . Does not Exist.”

Then it was terrible. The queen, a living idol, burned with rage, blazed with rage; her heart was inflamed with rage.

Around her, decked out for sacrifice, in festive garb, in the sunshine and her own dazzling splendour, her people trembled with fear. And cruelty gleamed in her fixed face; her emerald eyes started so revengefully from their sockets as though blinded by their own splendour, and she pulled at the numerous reins. . ..

The horses reared, the white roses fell down, the people screamed with joy and the fear of death, and the triumphal chariot rattled on.

Swift as an arrow it thundered on over the people, who paved the way in ecstacy, and Psyche saw the maddened horses approaching, snorting, foaming, panting, trampling, pulling, their eyes round and mad. . ..

For a moment she stood firm, proud, tall, pearl-white in the sacred knowledge she possessed; then the angry hoofs struck her down, and the horses trampled her as a flower. Emeralda’s chariot rattled over her, with its