It was no longer a sea of water, no longer a sea of pitch;
It was a sea of nothing but flame, pitch-black flame, a sea of jet-black fire, fire and flame, that waved from the horizon, where a single streak of pale light appeared. In the black flames burned the shades, in the black flames wound the hydras in and out; the thick smoke shot up into the clouds, and the clouds sent it back again....
“Spirits in the pitch-black flames, where shall I find the Jewel for Emeralda...???”
“Vanity, vanity...!”
The hurricane kept blowing, the plaintive viol kept trembling, and ever sounded the same note, the unchangeable answer. But scorchingly, more scorchingly blew the wind, like a tempest from a sun for ever doomed. The black night now assumed a dark-purple aspect, like purple steam; the clouds drove a bloody vapour into the heavens.
And on either side of Psyche’s path suddenly shot out the flaming hurricane of the sun, gigantic purple tongues of fire, scarlet and orange. The lower clouds drove them back, and when Psyche looked round, she stood in a flaming fire. The flaming hurricane seethed round her; behind her feet the path was on fire. The air was fire. But Psyche, whose own soul was on fire, in her own scorching fire of remorse, felt not the glowing heat, and she saw,
Out of the living scarlet craters, the orange caves, the hellish chimeras working up their sinuous way like glowing spirals: half arabesque, half beast; half dragon, half tail; flaming sea-horses. They spat and fanned the glowing fire, and, riding aloft on the burning hurricane, the shades swept past Psyche.
“Spirits in the scarlet flames....”
“Vanity, vanity!”
This was the only answer, that sounded afar off in her ears, the answer of the tortured, angry spirits, which in the strength of their sin and passion came flying up from the craters.