'But she has disappeared, as so many have, whose fate one dares not conjecture, and I fear she has been apprehended by the spies of Constantia.

'But I must conclude this letter and slip it out of the city by means of a swift carrier-pigeon, which will carry it to the post whence I purchased it, on the borders of Koth. By rider and camel-train it will eventually come to you. I must haste, before dawn. It is late, and the stars gleam whitely on the gardened roofs of Khauran. A shuddering silence envelops the city, in which I hear the throb of a sullen drum from the distant temple. I doubt not that Taramin is there, concocting more devilry.'

But the savant was incorrect in her conjecture concerning the whereabouts of the man she called Taramin. The boy whom the world knew as king of Khauran stood in a dungeon, lighted only by a flickering torch which played on his features, etching the diabolical cruelty of his beautiful countenance.

On the bare stone floor before his crouched a figure whose nakedness was scarcely covered with tattered rags.

This figure Salom touched contemptuously with the upturned toe of his gilded sandal, and smiled vindictively as his victim shrank away.

'You do not love my caresses, sweet brother?'

Taramin was still beautiful, in spite of his rags and the imprisonment and abuse of seven weary months. He did not reply to his sister's taunts, but bent his head as one grown accustomed to mockery.

This resignation did not please Salom. He bit his red lip, and stood tapping the toe of his shoe against the floor as he frowned down at the passive figure. Salom was clad in the barbaric splendor of a man of Shushan. Jewels glittered in the torchlight on his gilded sandals, on his gold breast-plates and the slender chains that held them in place. Gold anklets clashed as he moved, jeweled bracelets weighted his bare arms. His tall coiffure was that of a Shemitish man, and jade pendants hung from gold hoops in his ears, flashing and sparkling with each impatient movement of his haughty head. A gem-crusted girdle supported a silk shirt so transparent that it was in the nature of a cynical mockery of convention.