"Come," said Ayesha, after we had gazed and gazed, I know not for how
long, "and I will show you the stony flower of Loveliness and Wonder's
very crown, if yet it stands to mock time with its beauty and fill
the heart of man with longing for that which is behind the veil," and,
without waiting for an answer, she led us through two more pillared
courts into the inner shrine of the old fane.
And there, in the centre of the inmost court, that might have been some
fifty yards square, or a little more, we stood face to face with what
is perhaps the grandest allegorical work of Art that the genius of her
children has ever given to the world. For in the exact centre of the
court, placed upon a thick square slab of rock, was a huge round ball of
dark stone, some twenty feet in diameter, and standing on the ball was a
colossal winged figure of a beauty so entrancing and divine that when
I first gazed upon it, illuminated and shadowed as it was by the soft
light of the moon, my breath stood still, and for an instant my heart
ceased its beating.
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