nterior that
I felt like a man suddenly transported from the bustle of the out-door
world into the mystic recesses of some Eastern temple.

The causes of this effect were simple, A dim light suggesting worship;
the faint scent of slowly burning incense; women and men sitting on low
benches about the walls. In the center, on a kind of raised dais, backed
by a drapery of black velvet, a woman was seated, in the semblance of
a Hindoo god, so nearly did her heavy, compactly crouched figure, wound
about with Eastern stuffs and glistening with gold, recall the images we
are accustomed to associate with the worship of Vishnu. Her face, too,
so far as it was visible in the subdued light, had the unresponsiveness
of carven wood, and if not exactly hideous of feature, had in it a
strange and haunting quality calculated to impress a sensitive mind
with a sense of implacable fate. Cruel, hard, passionless, and yet
threatening to a degree, must this countenance have seemed to those who
willingly subjected themselves to its baneful influence.

I was determined not to be one of these, and yet I had not regarded her
for two minutes before I found myself forgetting the real purpose of my
visit, and taking a seat with the rest, in anticipation of something for
which as yet I had no name, even in my own mind.

How long I sat there motionless I do not know. A spell was on me--a
spell from which I suddenly roused with a start. Why or through what
means I do not know. Nobody else had moved. Fearing a relapse into
this trance-like state, I made a persistent effort to be freed from its
dangers. Happily the full signification of my errand there burst upon
me. Finding myself really awake, I ventured to peer about, expecting to
see the more willing devotees affected as I had been. I encountered a
flash from the eyes of the young lady whose bag I held in my hand. She
was under no spell. She had not only seen but recognized me.

I held the bag towards her. She gave a furtive glance in the direction
of Madame--a glance not free from fear--then clutched the bag. Before
releasing my hold upon it I ventured upon a word of explanation. I got
no further, for at this moment a voice was heard.

By the effect it had upon the expectant ones, I knew it could have
emanated only from the idol-like being who had filled the place with her
awesome personality.

At first the voice sounded like a distant call, musically sweet and low;
the kind of note that we