A rich, warm blush crimsoned the maiden's cheeks at these dulcet words,--she drew a quick, uneasy breath, and then went on,--

"I love Niphrata!" she murmured in a soft tone of touching tenderness, . . "And I have watched her often when she deemed herself unseen, . .

she has, methinks, shed many tears for sake of some deep, heart-buried sorrow! We have lived as sisters, sharing the same room, and the same couch of sleep, but alas! in spite of all my lord's most constant kindly favor, Niphrata is not happy, ..and.. and I have sometimes thought--" here her mellow voice sank into a nervous indistinctness--"that it may be because she loves my lord Sah-luma far too well!"

And as she said this she looked up with a sudden affright in her dark, lovely eyes, as though she were alarmed at her own presumption.

Sah-luma met her troubled gaze calmly and with a bright smile of complacent vanity.

"And dost thou plead for thine absent friend, Zoralin?" ... he asked with just sufficient satire in his utterance to render it almost cruel.. "Am I to blame for the foolish fancies of all the amorous maidens in Al-Kyris? ... Many there be who love me, . . well,--what then?--Must I love many in return? Nay! Not so! the Poet is the worshiper of Ideal Beauty, and for him the brief pa.s.sions of mortal men and women serve as mere pastime to while away an hour! But.. by my faith, thou hast gained wondrous boldness in thy speech to prate so glibly of the heart's emotion,--what knowest THOU concerning such things.. thou, who hast counted scarcely fifteen summers! ... hast thou caught contagion from Niphrata, and art thou too, sick of love?"

Oh, the dazzling smile with which he accompanied this poignant question! ... the pitiless, burning ardor he managed to convey into the sleeping brilliancy of his soft, poetic eyes! ... the beautiful languor of his att.i.tude, as leaning his head back easily on one arm, he turned upon the shrinking girl a look that seemed intended to pierce into the very inmost recesses of her soul! The roseate color faded from her cheeks, . . white as a marble image she stood, her breath coming between her lips in quick, frightened gasps...

"My lord! ..." she stammered ... "I ..." Here her voice failed her, and suddenly covering her face with her hands, she broke into a pa.s.sion of weeping. Sah-luma's delicate brows darkened into a close frown,--and he waved his hand with a petulant gesture of impatience.

"Ye G.o.ds! what fools are women!" he said wearily. "Ever hovering uncertainly on a narrow verge between silly smiles and sillier tears!

As I live, they are most uncomfortable play-fellows!--and dwelling with them long would drive all the inspiration out of man, no matter how n.o.bly he were gifted! Ye b.u.t.terflies--ye little fluttering souls!" and beginning to laugh as readily as he had frowned, he addressed the other maidens, who, though they did not dare to move or speak, were evidently affected by the grief of their companion--"Go hence all!-and take this sensitive baby, Zoralin, into your charge, and console her for her fancied troubles--'tis a mere frenzy of feminine weakness, and will pa.s.s like an April shower. But, ... by the Sacred Veil!--if I saw much of woman's weeping, I would discard forever woman's company, and dwell in peaceful hermit fashion alone among the treetops! ... so heed the warning, pretty ones! ... Let me witness none of your tears if ye are wise,--or else say farewell to Sah-luma, and seek some less easy and less pleasing service!"

With this injunction he signed to them all to depart,--whereupon the awed and trembling girls noiselessly surrounded the still convulsively sobbing Zoralin, and gently leading her away, they quickly withdrew, each one making a profound obeisance to their imperious master ere leaving his presence. When they had finally disappeared Sah-luma heaved a sigh of relief.

"Can anything equal the perverseness of these frivolous feminine toys!"

he murmured pettishly, turning his head round toward Theos as he spoke--"Was ever a more foolish child than Zoralin? ... Just as I would fain have consoled her for her p.r.i.c.king heartache, she must needs pour out a torrent of tear-drops to change my humor and quench her own delight! 'Tis the most irksome inconsistency!"

Theos glanced at him with a vague emotion of wonder and self-reproachful sadness.

"Nay, wouldst thou indeed have consoled her, Sah-luma?" he inquired gravely, "How?"

"How?" and Sah-luma laughed musically.. "My simple friend, dost thou ask me such a babe's question?"... He sprang from his couch, and standing erect, pushed his cl.u.s.tering dark hair off his wide, bold brows. . "Am I disfigured, aged, lame, or crooked-limbed? ... Cannot these arms embrace?--these lips engender kisses?--these eyes wax amorous? ... and shall not one brief hour of love with me console the weariest maid that ever pined for pa.s.sion? ... Now, by my faith, how solemn is thy countenance! ... Art thou an anchorite, good Theos, and wouldst thou have me scourge my flesh and groan, because the G.o.ds have given me youth and vigorous manhood?"

He drew himself up with an inimitable gesture of pride,--his att.i.tude was statuesque and n.o.ble,--and Theos looked at him as he would have looked at a fine picture, with a sense of critically satisfied admiration.

"Most a.s.suredly I am no anchorite, Sah-luma!" he said smiling slightly, yet with a touch of sorrow in his voice. "But methinks the consolement thou wouldst offer to enamoured maids is far more dangerous than lasting! Thy love to them means ruin,--thy embraces shame,--thy unthinking pa.s.sion death! What!--wilt thou be a spendthrift of desire?--wilt thou drain the fond souls of women as a bee drains the sweetness of flowers?--wilt thou, being honey-cloyed, behold them droop and wither around thee, and wilt thou leave them utterly destroyed and desolate? Hast thou no vestige of a heart, my friend? a poet-heart, to feel the misery of the world? ..the patient grief of all-appealing Nature, commingled with the dreadful, yet majestic silence of an unknown G.o.d? ... Oh, surely, thou hast this supremest gift of genius, .

. this loving, enduring, faithful, sympathetic HEART! ... for without it, how shall thy fame be held long in remembrance? ... how shall thy muse-grown laurels escape decay? Tell me! ..." and leaning forward he caught his friend's hand in his eagerness.. "Thou art not made of stone, . . thou art human, . . thou art not exempt from mortal suffering ..."

"Not exempt--no!" interposed Sah-luma thoughtfully ... "But, as yet,--I have never really suffered!"

"Never really suffered!".. Theos dropped the hand he held, and an invisible barrier seemed to rise slowly up between him and his beautiful companion. Never really suffered! ... then he was no true poet after all, if he was ignorant of sorrow! If he could not spiritually enter into the pathos of speechless griefs and unshed tears,--if he could not absorb into his own being the prayers and plaints of all Creation, and utter them aloud in burning and immortal language, his calling was in vain, his election futile! This thought smote Theos with the strength of a sudden blow,--he sat silent, and weighed with a dreary feeling of disappointment to which he was unable to give any fitting expression.

"I have never really suffered ..." repeated Sah-luma slowly: . .

"But--I have IMAGINED suffering! That is enough for me! The pa.s.sions, the tortures, the despairs of imagination are greater far than the seeming REAL, petty afflictions with which human beings daily perplex themselves; indeed, I have often wondered.. "here his eyes grew more earnest and reflective ..." whether this busy working of the brain called 'Imagination' may not perhaps be a special phase or supreme effort of MEMORY, and that therefore we do not IMAGINE so much as we remember. For instance,--if we have ever lived before, our present recollection may, in certain exalted states of the mind, serve to bring back the shadow-pictures of things long gone by, . . good or evil deeds, . . scenes of love and strife, . . ethereal and divine events, in which we have possibly enacted each our different parts as unwittingly as we enact them here!".. He sighed and seemed somewhat troubled, but presently continued in a lighter tone.. "Yet, after all, it is not necessary for the poet to personally experience the emotions whereof he writes. The divine Hyspiros depicts murderers, cowards, and slaves in his sublime Tragedies,--but thinkest thou it was essential for him to become a murderer, coward, and slave himself in order to delineate these characters? And I ... I write of Love,--love spiritual, love eternal,--love fitted for the angels I have dreamt of--but not for such animals as men,--and what matters it that I know naught of such love, . . unless perchance I knew it years ago in some far-off fairer sphere! ... For me the only charm of worth in woman is beauty! ...

Beauty! ... to its entrancing sway my senses all make swift surrender ..."

"Oh, too swift and too degrading a surrender!" interrupted Theos suddenly with reproachful vehemence ... "Thy words do madden patience!--Better a thousand times that thou shouldst perish, Sah-lama, now in the full plenitude of thy poet-glory, than thus confess thyself a prey to thine own pa.s.sions,--a credulous victim of Lysia's treachery!"

For one second the Laureate stood amazed, . . the next, he sprang upon his guest and grasping him fiercely by the throat.

"Treachery?" he muttered with white lips.. "Treachery? ... Darest thou speak of treachery and Lysia in the same breath? ... O thou rash fool!

dost thou blaspheme my lady's name and yet not fear to die?"

And his lithe brown fingers tightened their clutch. But Theos cared nothing for his own life,--some inward excitation of feeling kept him resolute and perfectly controlled.

"Kill me, Sah-luma!" he gasped--"Kill me, friend whom I love! ... death will be easy at thy hands! Deprive me of my sad existence, . . 'tis better so, than that _I_ should have slain THEE last night at Lysia's bidding!"

At this, Sah-luma suddenly released his hold and started backward with a sharp cry of anguish, . . his face was pale, and his beautiful eyes grew strained and piteous.

"Slain ME! ... Me! ... at Lysia's bidding!" he murmured wildly.. "O ye G.o.ds, the world grows dark! is the sun quenched in heaven? ... At Lysia's bidding! ..Nay, . . by my soul, my sight is dimmed! ... I see naught but flaring red in the air, . . Why! ..." and he laughed discordantly.. "thou poor Theos, thou shalt use no dagger's point,--for lo! ... I am dead already! ... Thy words have killed me! Go, . . tell her how well her cruel mission hath sped,--my very soul is slain...at her bidding! Hasten to her, wilt thou!".. and his accents trembled with pathetic plaintiveness! ... "Say I am gone! ... lost! drawn into a night of everlasting blackness like a taper blown swiftly out by the wind, . . tell her that Sah-luma,--the poet Sah-luma, the foolish-credulous Sah-luma who loved her so madly is no more!"

His voice broke, . . his head drooped, . . while Theos, whose every nerve throbbed in responsive sympathy with the pa.s.sion of his despair, strove to think of some word of comfort, that like soothing balm might temper the bitterness of his chafed and wounded spirit, but could find none. For it was a case in which the truth must be told, . . and truth is always hard to bear if it destroys, or attempts to destroy, any one of our cherished self-delusions!

"My friend, my friend!" he said presently with gentle earnestness,--"Control this fury of thy heart! ... Why such unmanly sorrow for one who is not worthy of thee?"

Sah-luma looked up,--his black, silky lashes were wet with tears.

"Not worthy! ... Oh, the old poor consolation!" he exclaimed, quickly dashing the drops from his eyes, . . "Not worthy?--No! ... what mortal woman IS ever worthy of a poet's love?--Not one in all the world!

Nevertheless, worthy or unworthy, true or treacherous, naught can make Lysia otherwise than fair! Fair beyond all fairness! ... and I--I was sole possessor of her beauty!--for me her eyes warmed into stars of fire,--for me her kisses ripened in their pearl and ruby nest, . .

all--all for me!--and now! ..." He flung himself desolately on his couch, and fixed his wistful gaze on his companion's grave, pained countenance,--till all at once a hopeful light flashed across his features, . . a light that seemed to shine through him like an inwardly kindled flame.

"Ah! what a querulous fool am I!" he cried, joyously,--so joyously that Theos knew not whether to be glad or sorry at his sudden and capricious change of mood.. "why should I thus bemoan myself for fancied wrong?--Good, n.o.ble Theos, thou hast been misled!--My Lysia's words were but to try thy mettle! ... to test thee to the core, and prove thee truly faithful as Sah-luma's friend! She bade thee slay me! ...

Even so!--but hadst thou rashly undertaken such a deed, thine own life would have paid the forfeit! Now I begin to understand it all--'tis plain!"--and his face grew brighter and brighter, as he cheated himself into the pleasing idea his own fancy had suggested.. "She tried thee,--she tempted thee, . . she found thee true and incorruptible..

Ah! 'twas a jest, my friend!"--and entirely recovering from his depression, he clapped his hand heartily on Theos's shoulder--"'Twas all a jest!--and she the fair inquisitor will herself prove it so ere long, and make merry with our ill-omened fears! Why, I can laugh now at mine own despondency!--come, look thou also more cheerily, gentle Theos,--and pardon these uncivil fingers that so nearly gripped thee into silence!"--and he laughed--"Thou art the best and kindest of loyal comrades, and I will so a.s.sure Lysia of thy merit, that she shall inst.i.tute no more torture-trials upon thy frank and trusting nature.

Heigho!"--and stretching out his arms lazily, he heaved a sigh of tranquil satisfaction--"Methought I was wounded into death! but 'twas the mere fancied p.r.i.c.k of an arrow after all, and I am well again!

What, art thou still melancholy! ... still sombre! ... Nay, surely thou wilt not be a veritable kill-joy!"

Theos stood mute and sorely perplexed. He saw at once how useless it was now to try and convince Sah luma of any danger threatening him through the instigation of the woman he loved,--he would never believe it! And yet ... something must be done to put him on his guard. Taking up the scroll of the public news, where the account of the finding of the body of Nir-jalis was written with all that exaggerated attention to repulsive details which seems to be a special gift of the cheap re-porters, Theos pointed to it.

"His was a cruel end!"--he said in a low, uncertain voice,--"Sah-luma, canst thou expect mercy from a woman who has once been so merciless?"

"Bah!" returned the Laureate lightly. "Who and what was Nir-jalis? A hewer of stone images--a no-body!--he will not be missed! Besides, he is only one of many who have perished thus."

"Only one of many!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Theos with a shudder of aversion.. "And yet, . . O thou most reckless and misguided soul! ... thou dost love this wanton murderess!"

A warm flush tinted Sah-luma's olive skin,--his hands clenched and unclenched slowly as though he held some struggling, prisoned thing, and raising his head he looked at his companion full and steady with a singularly solemn and reproving expression in his luminous eyes.

"Hast THOU not loved her also?" he demanded, a faint, serious smile curving his lips as he spoke, . . "If only for the s.p.a.ce of some few pa.s.sing moments, was not thy soul ravished, thy heart enslaved, thy manhood conquered by her spell? ... Aye! ... Thou dost shrink at that!"

And his smile deepened as Theos, suddenly conscience-stricken, avoided his friend's too-scrutinizing gaze.. "Blame ME not, therefore, for THINE OWN weakness!"

He paused.. then went on slowly with a meditative air.. "I love her, ... yes!--as a man must always love the woman that baffles him, ... the woman whose moods are complex and fluctuating as the winds on the sea,--and whose humor sways between the softness of the dove and the fierceness of the tiger. Nothing is more fatally fascinating to the masculine sense than such a creature,--more especially if to this temperament is united rare physical grace, combined with keen intellectual power. 'Tis vain to struggle against the irresistible witchery exercised over us by the commingling of beauty and ferocity,--we see it in the wild animals of the forest and the high-soaring birds of the air,--and we like nothing better than to hunt it, capture it, tame it.. or.. kill it--as suits our pleasure!"

He paused again,--and again smiled, . . a grave, reluctant, doubting smile such as seemed to Theos oddly familiar, suggesting to his bewildered fancy that he must have seen it before, ON HIS OWN FACE, reflected in a mirror!

"Even thus do I love Lysia!" continued Sah-luma--"She perplexes me, . .

she opposes her will to mine, ... the very irritation and ferment into which I am thrown by her presence adds fire to my genius, . . and but for the spur of this never-satiated pa.s.sion, who knows whether I should sing so well!"

He was silent for a little s.p.a.ce--then he resumed in a more ordinary tone:

"The wretched Nir-jalis, whose fate thou dost so persistently deplore, deserved his end for his presumption, ... didst thou not hear his insolent insinuation concerning the King?"

"I heard it--yes!" replied Theos--"And I saw no harm in the manner of his utterance."

"No harm!" exclaimed Sah-luma excitedly--"No harm! Nay, but I forget!

... thou art a stranger in Al-Kyris, and therefore thou art ignorant of the last words spoken by the Sacred Oracle some hundred years or more ago. They are these: