"Is not this...a very.. remarkable occurrence?" ... asked a voice so feeble and far away that it was difficult to believe it came from the lips of the suffering sage. "Of course...it arises from...a volcanic eruption! ... and the mystery of the red river.. is.. solved!" Here an irrepressible moan of anguish broke through his heroic effort at equanimity;--"It is NOT a phenomenon!".. and a gleam of obstinate self-assertion lit up his poor glazing eyes, "Nothing is phenonmenal! ... only I am not able...to explain. ... I have no time...no time...to analyze.. my very ... singular...sensations!"
A rush of blood choked his utterance--his throat rattled, ... he was dead! ... and the dreary speculative smile froze on his mouth in the likeness of a solemn sneer. At that moment, a terrific swirling, surging noise, like the furious boiling of an underground whirlpool, rumbled heavily through the air, . . and lo! with a sudden, swift shock that sent Theos reeling forward and almost falling, under the burdensome weight he carried, the earth opened, . . disclosing a huge pit of black nothingness,--an enormous chasm,--into which, with an appalling clamor as of a hundred incessant peals of thunder, the whole main area of the Temple, together with its mass of dead and dying human beings, sank in less than five seconds!--the ground closing instantaneously over its prey with a sullen roar, as though it were some gigantic beast devouring food too long denied. And instead of the vanished fane arose a mighty Pillar of Fire! ... a vast increasing volume of scarlet and gold flame that spread outward and upward,--higher and higher, in tapering lines and dome-like curves of living light, . . while Theos, being hurled along resistlessly by the force of the convulsion, had reached, though he knew not how, the dark and quiet cell-like portal with its out-leading steps, . . the only visible last hope and chance of safety, . . and he now leaned against its cold stone arch, trembling in every limb, clasping the dead Sah-luma close, and looking back in affrighted awe at the tossing vortex of fury from which he had miraculously escaped. And,--as he looked,--a host of spectral faces seemed to rise whitely out of the flames and wonder at him! ... faces that were solemn, wistful, warning, and beseeching by turns! ... they drifted through the fire and smiled, and wept, and vanished, to reappear again and yet again! ... and as, with painfully beating heart, he strove to combat the terror that seized him at this strange spectacular delusion, all suddenly the heavy wreaths of smoke that had till now hung over the Inner Shrine of Nagaya parted like drapery drawn aside from a picture.. and for a brief breathing space of direst agony he saw Lysia once more,--Lysia, in a torture as horrible as any ever depicted in a bigot's idea of his enemy's Hell! Round and round her writhing form the sacred Serpent was twined in all his many coils,--with both hands she had grasped the creature's throat in her frenzy, striving to thrust back its quivering fangs from her breast, whereon the evil "Eye of Raphon" still gleamed distinctly with its adamantine chilly stare, . . at her feet lay the body of the King her lover, dead and wrapped in a ring of flames! ... Alone--all, all alone, she confronted Death in its most appalling shape.. her countenance was distorted, yet beautiful still with the beauty of a maddened Medusa, . . white and glittering as a fair ghost invoked from some deadly gulf of pain, she stood, a phantom-figure of mingled loveliness and horror, circled on every side by fire!