Chapter 3 THE MIDNIGHT OF THE FULL MOON.

It yet lacked several hours of the fateful midnight, as Sarthia, her body perfumed and annointed, according to the prescribed rites, was borne by faithful attendants from the bath into the courts of the Sanctuary and placed upon a couch beside another, upon which already rested the unconscious form of the lovely Princess Nu-nah.

But Sarthia, although to an external, observer as unconscious as the fair Nu-nah, was never more intensely awake, every atom of her being and soul alert to all transpiring about her and conveyed to her through her marvelous new gifts of clairvoyance and clairaudience.

Never, with the external eye, had she seen more vividly the vista upon vista of columns and corridors winding in and about the Sanctuary, now illuminated by the full-orbed Queen of the Night, which she could see shining through a certain archway, and her heart thrilled as she counted the number of archways fair Luna must pass until, at midnight, she would shine down through the one just above her.

Already had begun the weird chants, interspersed with solos of exquisite harmonies of stringed and wind instruments-responses and echoes.

Incense burned and perfumes arose and blended in an indescribable union with melody and motion, while as the fragrant vapors from the burning censers wafted and wreathed about the colonnades and porticoes, Spirit forms added their presence to the sublime scene, bringing with them flowers, aromas and harmonies from the divine abodes of the very Gods themselves.

Oblivious of the passage of time, while intently absorbed in every minutest detail of the wonders passing about her, Sarthia was almost becoming drowsy, when suddenly, the Moon looked in upon her, fast nearing the final archway, and yet she was undecided. She turned and gazed upon her companion, mentally asking, "Can I become Nu-nah?"

Nu-nah was very beautiful and a Princess. But Sarthia was also beautiful and the blood in her veins was royal, though of a different branch from the present ruling House.

Nu-nah was cold and haughty, accustomed to rule and be obeyed.

Sarthia was humble externally, a Vestal of the Temple, but in her mind and soul as imperious as a Queen of the realm of Heaven. Passionately devoted to the pursuit of Wisdom and the possibilities of obtaining knowledge, even Magic was open to her, in the Temple Service. Could she leave her Temple home, her opportunities for growth, her idolized Priestess, to go into the environments of Nu-nah?

The thought seemed to her worse than death itself. "Every one has to die," she mused, "and I may as well die one time as another."

Then another thought came into her mind-Hermo. He had begun to teach her the mysteries of his science of Astrology. Hermo, for whom she had a pure sisterly regard and who was so proud of her swift proficiency in his favorite study. And then she recalled the vision of the previous night when Hermo had shown to her clairvoyant eye his agitation at her impending doom.

"But if I become Nu-nah and Nu-nah becomes Sarthia, Hermo will never know the difference and thus be spared the pain of loving his young sister. And furthermore, Nu-nah has a lover to whom she is betrothed and would have married, ere this, but for her lingering malady, the superb young Prince Rathunor, whom I have never seen."

Ah! here was indeed a most dire complication. Love was a most mysterious and unknown emotion to her. She might hate Prince Rathunor and "then we would both wish I had died," and she half laughed to herself at the domestic comedy thus presented to her mind.

At this period, either as a reaction from the light thrown, or lighter thought upon her overwrought nature, or possibly from some subtle, potent influence emanating from the censer burning near her, Sarthia lapsed into sudden and most profound unconsciousness.

A few moments later-it seemed to Sarthia as if ages had intervened-she began a fierce struggle to awake. "Why, how is this?" she thought. She seemed enveloped in a dead wall of some kind. The brain, the heart, the infinite ramification of nerves in no way responded to her will and her utmost effort. Almost worn out with the unequal battle it began to dawn upon her that she was really endeavoring to animate the other body. "Am I becoming Nu-nah?" Yes, in the excitement of the moment she raised herself upon her couch and, resting upon her elbow, gazed upon the rigid form of what a moment before had been herself.

But her movement had startled a form beside the couch, some one who had approached, unobserved by Sarthia, during the interval of unconsciousness.

A young man who seemed to her the most God-like being she had ever beheld and perceiving her glance, with a low exclamation of joy, sprang toward her, clasped her hand in his, and turning her face upward, gazed with most passionate tenderness into her eyes.

"My Nu-nah, you will live," he murmured. "Do you know your Rathunor?"

Thrilled to suffocation by the love in his eyes, every atom of her soul vibrating to a new-born and overwhelming emotion, she felt herself slowly but surely losing control of her new body. With, however, one supreme effort she pressed the hand holding hers and returning the look in his eyes she gave one deep, quivering sigh and was gone.

When again she regained consciousness she was within her own body. Rathunor had vanished and the first slanting rays of the Moon were descending the last aperture.

It was midnight, and she found herself in communication with the Hierophant, who, from a different portion of the Sanctuary, was seriously regarding her and again reading her inmost thoughts.

A few moments before she had all but decided that she could not be Nu-nah, that death now, here in this Holy Sanctuary were better far than hundreds of years as a Princess of the realm of materiality. But, a new factor had now entered her being. A force, more subtle than all Wisdom,-more potent than life or eternity itself,-had transfused her soul-Love! Love, the first, the highest, the all-embracing force of the mighty Universe, and with this new love had been ushered also into being, Jealousy.

"Rathunor loved Nu-nah! Am I not a strange interloper? Was it not worse by my decision to rob Nu-nah of her lover than to deprive her of continued physical life?"

For, it seemed to her now, that life without love would be more than the agonies of the lowest hells. Then again, to live with Rathunor as his wife, while he all the time thought her to be Nu-nah, would be an incessant torture, keener and more intense than if she were chained by, as a third person, to behold him loving the actual Nu-nah in her own body.

"Holy Father and revered Hierophant," she moaned, "help me, I can not decide."

"My child," came the mental response to her call, "if you could be assured that Rathunor would love you in Nu-nah's body, would the decision be easy?"

"Aye, indeed, dear Father."

"Then rest assured it will be as you desire. We give you our sacred word that Rathunor will love you."

Then, raising his arm, as in benediction, he slowly repeated thrice, like an incantation, the words, "Rest in Peace," and, ere the echoes of his voice had died away, the soul of Sarthia had left forever its earthly abode and Temple.

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