The strange man approached the curtain of the apartment and hesitatingly drew it aside.
Zillah sprang to her feet. She was clad in the white robe of a priestess of Astarte. One who believed that Hiram had entered the estate of the gods would have declared that Astarte had herself entered the person of this woman. Her look was superhuman. An unearthly passion burned in her eyes. Her whole frame seemed to glow with the radiation of her soul, as a lantern globe with the light that is centred in, but not contained by, it. Her attitude, as she retreated a few steps to the rear of the little room, was majesty itself. Her jewelled hand held a dagger at her breast. She pressed it until the blood trickled beneath its gleaming edge, but, in the ecstasy of her mental mood, she was evidently unconscious of pain.
The man raised his hands in entreaty against the intended deed. He stepped towards her. She retreated farther, and stopped his approach by the very spell of her gesture as she raised her left hand and bade him stand. He tried to speak, but she silenced him by her words:
"Go! tell the priests that I offer myself to my Adonai Hiram, whose spirit calls me."
A look of agonizing terror came upon the intruder. He hastily threw back his outer garment, and pointed, speechless with excitement, to his own breast. Upon his white chiton glowed a ring of crimson.
Zillah's dagger fell from her hand.
"The circle!" she cried, and dropped into a swoon.
A slight scream as of an echo to Zillah's cry rang from the adjoining apartment of Layah. It was a tone of mingled determination and pain, shrill, brief, and followed by the sound of one falling to the ground.
Silently the man waited. At length Zillah raised her head. She gazed around her in a daze.
"He is not here, my lord! my Hiram!"