"I found my darling in a magnificent chamber, where every luxury that art and ingenuity could devise assisted in making the whole harmonious and splendid. She was reclining on a low couch, draped with rich dark furs of silky softness, her flossy hair falling all free and unrestrained around her bust and shoulders, one shapely arm resting along the back of the couch, the other pillowing her lovely head. What incarnation of female beauty! was my single thought as I beheld her there in all her splendour; and for a moment I stood upon the threshold of her room, spell-bound between my maiden guides, dazzled and bewildered by the vision of perfectness before me. With a smile for which any man would cheerfully have sold his soul, she rose into a sitting posture, saying:
"'Cyni, thou and thy sister may now leave.'
"Neither of us spoke nor moved further until the two maids had gone, leaving me standing as in a dream, watching the sweet picture before me. Then Volinè rose to her feet, and with smiles and blushes lending an added charm to her countenance, came towards me, murmuring my name! The spell was broken; and oblivious to aught else, I ran forward and clasped her in my arms again.
"'Oh, Volinè, Volinè! my darling; this is rapture indeed. How good of you to send for me thus!'
"'Happy do I feel to have thee with me again,' she answered, as her head sank nestling on my breast.
"We kissed each other's lips, and together we drank the cup of our joy to the dregs in one long, intoxicating draught, without a single drop of bitterness to taint its sweetness.
"But why dwell on the ecstasy of our embrace and of our meeting, after so much terrible sorrow? I led her unresistingly to the couch she had so lately left, arranged the fallen furs around her, and sat me down by her side. There, with one arm around her waist, and with my eyes feasting upon the beauty of her face and form, we conversed of all that had befallen us since last we talked together and parted in the garden Siccoth, on that dreadful night before Remagaloth. We talked those lovers' trifles, so sweet and apt when spoken, yet so cold and passionless and uninteresting when read by others unconcerned.
"Then Volinè told me of all that had happened on the night we parted, as we thought for ever. How all her efforts were in vain; how she had visited Echri and been comforted in her despair; how he had promised to intercede with the King. How he came too late; and how she spent the time that we were at Remagaloth praying fervently for our salvation. She told me of her joy when the news of our wondrous escape was brought to Edos; of Echri's visit to the King; and of how the high and mighty priest had exerted his power, and delivered us from an unrighteous doom!