n for your safety. Also she said that she is well, though it is
lonesome there in the grave among the bodies of the dead priestesses
of Baaltis whose spirits, as she vows, haunt her dreams, reviling her
because she desecrates their sepulchre and has renounced their god."

"Lonesome, indeed," said Aziel with a shudder; "but tell me, Metem, had
she no other word?"

"Yes, Prince, but not of good omen, for now as always she is sure that
her doom is at hand, and that you two will meet no more. Still she
bade me tell you that all your life long her spirit shall companion you
though it be unseen, to receive you at the last on the threshold of the
underworld."

Aziel turned his head away, and said presently:--

"If that be so, may it receive me soon."

"Have no fear, Prince," replied Metem with a grim laugh, "look yonder,"
and he pointed to the advancing hosts.

"These walls are strong and we shall beat them back," said Aziel.

"Nay, Prince, for strong walls do not avail without strong hearts to
guard them, and those of the womanish citizens of Zimboe and their hired
soldiers are white with fear. I tell you that the prophecies of Issachar
the Levite, made yonder in the temple on the day of the sacrifice, and
again in the hour of his death, have taken hold of the people, and by
eating out their valour, fulfil themselves.

"Men hint at them, the women whisper them in closets, and the very
children cry them in the streets.

"More--one man last night pointed to the skies and shrieked that in them
he saw that fiery sword of doom of which the prophet spoke hanging point
downwards above the city, whereon all present vowed they saw it too,
though, as I think, it was but a cross of stars. Another tells how that
he met the very spirit of Issachar stalking through the market-place,
and that peering into the eyes of the wraith, as in a mirror, he saw a
great flame wrapping the temple walls, and by the light of it his own
dead body. This man was the priest who first struck down the holy Levite
yonder in the place of judgment.

"Again, when the lady Mesa did sacrifice last night on behalf of the
Baaltis who has fled, the child they offered, an infant of six months,
stirred on the altar after it was dead and cried with a loud voice that
before three suns had set, its blood should be required at their hands.
That is the story, and if I do not believe it, this at least is true,
that the priestesses fled fast from the secret chamber o