his eyes quickly searched the vast chamber for a hiding place,
finally alighting upon the black screen em- broidered with the likeness
of Var- chuk.
Hastily drawing the curtains to- gether behind
him, he moved down the steps and attained the temporary security of the
screen just as the ponderous double-doors swung open.
A lone
figure entered—a figure in a gown of Chinese gold tissue. Tre- maine
caught his breath voluntarily, for it was the creature who had bent over
him while he lay in the cell.
Her gilded form seemed to swim
in the glow of the globular lamp as she drifted toward the crimson
tapes- tries. Reaching the top of the steps, she thrust apart the
curtains and stood for an instant with her draper- ies spread
wing-fashion, looking down upon the man in the sarco- phagus ; then she
bent over him, her dark hair cascading about her white neck, a laugh
rippling from her lips.
“My king!” Tremaine heard her murmur
in liquid tones.
Then she moved back, shoulders against the
crimson tapestries, her eyes upon the face in the sarco-
phagus.
“Come forth, O Moon-brow!” she
commanded.
Tremaine watched breathlessly...
Slowly,
very slowly, the black clad figure in the sarcophagus sat up, his face
burning with an unearthly pal- lor in the shadowy
alcove.
“Come, O my king!” continued the caressing
voice.
With a dream-like movement Lance Amber abandoned the
stone sarcophagus and stood erect between the crimson tapestries, his
eyes open, glassy, his black robe dragging on the floor about his
feet.
The woman in the Chinese gold tissue backed down the
stairs, step by step, never removing her eyes from those of the man, and
with a slow tread he followed . . . across the hall to the lacquered
chest.
“Be seated!” she commanded.
He obeyed and as
he sank on the chest she bent low—lower yet—until her jet-black eyes
were on a level with his ....
Tremaine, watching the strange
performance from behind the screen, was beginning to grasp a tangible
so- lution for Amber’s condition. Hyp- nosis ! This gold-robed woman ex-
erted that power over her victims. He understood now the lassitude that
he had felt when she bent over him in the cell. *=> She was speaking
again—“Now— awaken!”
At her evocation the eyes of Lance Amber
lost the glassy expression, be- came almost normal, and he lifted one
thin white hand, passing it over his brow—as if to wipe away the re-
maining tangles of a nightmare.
The woman laughed again,
allur- ingly and low. He got to his feet, staring at
her.
“You, you again?” he said in the half drowsy voice of the
recently awakened sleeper, “Good God!” “And why should not I be here,
beloved ?”
Amber dropped on the chest, his haggard face
falling in his hands, and the woman knelt, locking her white arms about
him.
“Art thou not glad to see me, O Moon-brow?” she purred,
“Am not I fair to look upon? Does not the sight of me stir in thee some
flame of love?”
A sob broke from the man.
“Love
you,” he echoed fiercely, thrusting her away, “Knowing you to be what
you are?”
Slie only laughed—that siren
laugh.