Excerpt from Ardath the Story of a Dead Self, Vol. 2 of 3 Compared with the turbulence and terror just left behind at the King's palace, this weird hush was uncomfortably impressive, and gave a sense of fantastic unreality to the scene The Sleepy mesmeric radiance of the full moon, shining on the delicate traceries Of the quaintly-sculptured houses on either hand made them look brittle and evanescent; the great heavy hanging orange-boughs, and the feathery frondage Of the tall palms seemed outlined in mere mist against the sky; and the glimpses caught from time to time Of the broad and quietly-flowing river were like so many flashes of light seen through a veil Of cloud. Theos, standing beside his friend with one hand resting familiarly on his shoulder, dreamily admired the phantom-like beauty Of the city thus transfigured in the moonbeams. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.