TWILIGHT LAND

“T hear and obey,” said the Demon.

He seized the young man by the girdle, and in an
instant flew away with him to a hanging-garden that lay
before the queen’s palace.

“Thou art the first man,” said Zadok, ‘ who has seen
what thou art about to see for seven-and-thirty years.
Come, I will show thee a queen, the most beautiful that
the eyes of man ever looked upon.”

He led the way, and the young man followed, filled
with wonder and astonishment. Not a sound was to be
heard, not a thing moved, but silence hung like a veil
between the earth and the sky. ;

Following the Demon, the young man ascended a flight
of steps, and so entered the vestibule of the palace.
There stood guards in armour of brass and silver and
gold. But they were without life—they were all of stone
as white as alabaster. Thence they passed through room
after room and apartment after apartment, crowded with
courtiers and nobles and lords in their robes of office,
magnificent beyond fancying, but each silent _and motion-
less—each a stone as white as alabaster. At last they
entered an apartment in the very centre of the palace.
There sat seven-and-forty female attendants around a
couch of purple and gold. Each of the seven-and-forty
was beautiful beyond what the young man could have
believed possible, and each was clad in a garment of silk
as White as snow, embroidered with threads of silver and
studded with glistening diamonds. But each sat silent
and motionless—each was a stone as white as alabaster.

Upon the couch in the centre of the apartment reclined
a queen with a crown of gold upon her head. She lay
there motionless, still. She was cold and dead—of stone

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