sound. All the furnishings of the rooms were in excellent condition so it was strange that I should associate the grim building with great age. Still the suggestion of age persisted.
At last I came to a room larger and higher-vaulted than any of the others. The wealth of the house now dimmed, by comparison to the wealth I found here. Only Gautier could do justice in description. It was so gorgeous that it stunned. There is more intoxication in a truly beautiful picture than in rare wine. Here the colors were more of one tone, blues of exquisite harmony, soft velvets and silks more fragile than cobwebs. Through a great window the sun splashed into the room in wondrous glory, drenching everything with a soft yellow light. Nothing, I thought, could be more beautiful than this. And yet almost immediately I changed my mind, for in a far corner I beheld the form of a lovely girl. Softly I bent over her, and just as the loveliness of the other rooms had been dwarfed by comparison to the wealth of this one, so was the beauty of the great room dwarfed by comparison to the loveliness of Lun Pei Lo, for I knew that it was she. The same voice that urged me to enter the house now acquainted me with the name of the sleeping girl. Her eyes were closed but the lids were blue, canopied by lashes of wondrous length which caressed her cheeks. Like ivory was her skin, ivory which though pale seemed to glow with an inward pink coral light. Her lips were very red, softer and more fragrant than any flower. Lying there she seemed very young, little more than a child. Her body, though perfectly formed, was small and fragile, and I longed to crush her in my arms as though she were indeed a flower.
At that moment time ceased to be for me, even as it had ceased to be for the other things upon the island. I just stood and gazed down on the sleeping girl in open adoration. Never had I been as intense in my religious worship as I was in my worship of that girl.
I tried to picture how gorgeous she must be when those soft eyes were open. My forehead throbbed. I was as much a slave as any of the heroes told about in Greek legend. I longed to rouse Lun Pei Lo from her sleep, to hear her sing, to behold her smile. For the moment I forgot that the island was more silent than the heart of the Great Desert. That moment was the turning point in my life. I knew that having once seen the loveliness of Lun Pei Lo, everything would be changed thereafter.
My reveries were interrupted by a
sudden dull murmur. It came
like a shock. The house trembled as
though it were about to awake from
a long sleep. It sounded more frightful
to me than if it had been at drum-pitch.
At last the menace which I
had felt was about to confront me.
I wished to flee, but I could not leave
little Lun Pei Lo to the mercies of unknown,
invisible terrors. I hesitated
for a moment only, then I seized her
in my arms. At once the most awful
thing happened that man could dream
of. Her form was as light as air, as
light as though it were but a shell,
and as I drew her to me, she crumpled
into dust even as mummies ofttimes
crumble that have been hidden for
centuries in Egyptian tombs. One
moment she had lain before me as
lovely as any flower, the next she was
but dust at my feet. Dully I stood
and gazed down upon the spot where
she had vanished. The lovely face
was gone, never to return. Mechanically
I stooped and picked up a large
blue-purple amethyst which had hung
from a golden chain about her neck.
And now the murmurings increased to a mighty roar, a roar that shattered the crystal silence into a thousand tinkling fragments. It was
