The third division contained the gods Orphitano, or Conjuration; Orielano, or Divination; Pridano, or Clairvoyance; Cideshano, or Electro-biology; Omdohlopano, or Theosophy; Bischanamano, or Spiritualism, etc.
The climax of all was the throne of the goddess. It was a seat of aloe-green velvet that, revolving slowly in the centre of the supporting throne, presented the goddess to every section of the vast audience. Thus seated, the goddess radiated an Orient splendor, herself a blaze of beauty and the focus of every eye. The music of an introductory opera warbled its soft strains with breathless execution. It seemed the carolling of a thousand nightingales, mingling with the musical crying of silver trumpets and the clear electric chiming of golden bells.
CHAPTER XX.
THE WORSHIP OF LYONE, SUPREME GODDESS.
The worship of the goddess began with the appearance on a revolving stage between the nearest worshippers and the base of the throne itself of a veritable forest of trees about one hundred feet in width. There were trees like magnolias, oaks, elms and others splendid in foliage, and amid these there was an undergrowth of beds of the most brilliant flowers.
It was the work of the magicians and sorcerers!
There were thickets of camellias and rhododendrons, amid which bloomed flowers like scarlet geraniums, primroses, violets and poppies. What appeared to be apple, peach, cherry and hawthorn trees, all in full bloom, tossed their white and pink foam of flowers.
They were real trees and flowers, made to exist for a time by the sorcery of the masters of spirit power. They had never before known the outer air. The priests of Harikar had made them, and would dissipate them as living bodies are dissipated by death.
A sacred opera was chanted by the priests of invention, art, and spirituality, on their terraces of silver above the trees and flowers. As the music continued, groups of singers would at times sweep forth on wings and float in wheeling circles around the throne. Their delightful choruses swelling upward were like draughts of rich wine, keen and intoxicating. The priests and spiritual powers marching beneath filled the vast building with broad recitatives, full of vividly descriptive passages and finely contrasted measures, until the soul seemed melted in a sea of bliss.