"LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL!" Yes! ... he remembered,-- those were the words,--the simple-wise words that for positive- practical minds had neither meaning nor reason,--and that yet were so infinitely pathetic in their perfect humility and absolute trust!
"LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION!" ... He murmured the phrase under his breath as he gazed with straining eyes out into the languorous beauty of that garden-scene that spread its dewy, emerald glamour before him,--and--"deliver us from evil!" broke from his lips in a half-sobbing sigh, as the peal of the chiming bells softened by degrees into a subdued tunefulness of indistinct and tremulous semitones, and the clarion-clearness of the cymbals again smote the still air with forceful and jarring clangor.
Then...like a rainbow-garmented Peri floating easefully out of some far-off sphere of sky-wonders,--an aerial Maiden-Shape glided into the full lustre of the varying light,--a dancer, nude save for the pearly glistening veil that was carelessly cast about her dainty limbs, her white arms and delicate ankles being adorned with circlets of tiny, golden bells, which kept up a melodious jingle- jangle as she moved. And now began the strangest music,--music that seemed to hover capriciously between luscious melody and harsh discord,--a wild and curious medley of fantastic, minor suggestions in which the imaginative soul might discover hints of tears and folly, love and madness. To this uncertain yet voluptuous measure the glittering girl-dancer leaped forward with a startlingly beautiful abruptness,--and halting, as it were, on the boundary-line between the dome and the garden beyond, raised her rounded arms in a snowy arch above her head, and so for one brief instant, looked like an exquisite angel ready to soar upward to her native realm. Her pause was a mere breathing space in duration, ... dropping her arms again with a swift decision that set all the little bells on them clashing stormily, she straightway hurled herself, so to speak, into the giddy paces of a dance that was more like an enigma than an exercise. Round and round she floated wildly, like an opal-winged butterfly in a net of sunbeams,--now seemingly shaken by delicate tremors as aspen leaves are shaken by the faintest wind, ..now assuming the most voluptuous eccentricities of posture, . . sometimes bending wistfully toward the velvet turf on which she trod, as though she listened to the chanting of demon voices underground, . . and again, with her waving white hands, appearing to summon spirits downward from their wanderings in upper air.
Her figure was in perfect harmony with the seductive grace of her gestures,--not only her twinkling feet, but her whole body danced,--her very features bespoke entire abandonment to the frenzy of rapid movement,--her large black eyes flashed with something of fierceness as well as languor; her raven hair streamed behind her like a dark spread wing, . . her parted lips pouted and quivered with excitement and ardor while ever and anon she turned her beautiful head toward the eagerly attentive group of revelers who watched her performance, with an air of indescribable sweetness, malice, and mockery. Again and again she whirled,--she flew, she sprang,--and wild cries of "Hail, Nelida!" "Triumph to Nelida!" resounded uproariously through the dome. Suddenly the character of the music changed, ... from an appealing murmurous complaint and persuasion, it rose to a martial and almost menacing fervor; the roll of drums and the shrill, reedy warbling of pipes and other fluty minstrelsy crossed the silvery thread of strung harps and viols, ... the light from the fiery globe shot forth a new effulgence, this time in two broad rays, one a dazzling, pale azure, the other a clear, pearly white.