Drawn by some magnetic force which I could not resist, I let my eyes rest upon her shining orbs, and felt a current pass from them to me that bewildered and half-blinded me.
She laughed--ah, how musically! and nodded her little head at me with an air of sublimated coquetry that would have done credit to a Venus Victrix.
"Rash man!" she said; "like Actæon, thou hast had thy will; be careful lest, like Actæon, thou too dost perish miserably, torn to pieces by the ban-hounds of thine own passions. I too, oh Holly, am a virgin goddess, not to be moved of any man, save one, and it is not thou. Say, hast thou seen enough!"
"I have looked on beauty, and I am blinded," I said hoarsely, lifting my hand to cover up my eyes.
"So! what did I tell thee? Beauty is like the lightning; it is lovely, but it destroys--especially trees, oh Holly!" and again she nodded and laughed.
Suddenly she paused, and through my fingers I saw an awful change come over her countenance. Her great eyes suddenly fixed themselves into an expression in which horror seemed to struggle with some tremendous hope arising through the depths of her dark soul. The lovely face grew rigid, and the gracious willowy form seemed to erect itself.
"Man," she half whispered, half hissed, throwing back her head like a snake about to strike--"Man, whence hadst thou that scarab on thy hand? Speak, or by the Spirit of Life I will blast thee where thou standest!" and she took one light step towards me, and from her eyes there shone such an awful light--to me it seemed almost like a flame--that I fell, then and there, on the ground before her, babbling confusedly in my terror.
"Peace," she said, with a sudden change of manner, and speaking in her former soft voice. "I did affright thee! Forgive me! But at times, oh Holly, the almost infinite mind grows impatient of the slowness of the very finite, and am I tempted to use my power out of vexation--very nearly wast thou dead, but I remembered----. But the scarab--about the scarabæus!"
"I picked it up," I gurgled feebly, as I got on to my feet again, and it is a solemn fact that my mind was so disturbed that at the moment I could remember nothing else about the ring except that I had picked it up in Leo's cave.
"It is very strange," she said with a sudden access of womanlike trembling and agitation which seemed out of place in this awful woman--"but once I knew a scarab like to that. It--hung round the neck--of one I loved," and she gave a little sob, and I saw that after all she was only a woman, although she might be a very old one.