SAH-LUMA.
The new-comer thus enthusiastically welcomed bowed right and left, with
a condescending air, in response to the general acclamation, and
advancing to the spot where Theos stood, an enforced prisoner in the
close grip of three or four able-bodied citizens, he said:
"What turbulence is here? By my faith! ... when I heard the noise of
quarrelsome contention jarring the sweetness of this nectarous noon,
methought I was no longer in Al-Kyris, but rather in some western city
of barbarians where music is but an unvalued name!"
And he smiled--a dazzling, child-like smile, half petulant,
half-pleased--a smile of supreme self-consciousness as of one who knew
his own resistless power to charm away all discord.
Several voices answered him in clamorous unison:
"A traitor, Sah-luma!" "A profane rebel!" ... "An unbeliever!" ... "A
most insolent knave!"--"He refused homage to the High Priestess!" ...
"A renegade from the faith!"
"Now, by the Sacred Veil!" cried Sah-luma impatiently--"Think ye I can
distinguish your jargon, when like ignorant boors ye talk all at once,
tearing my ears to shreds with such unmelodious tongue-clatter! Whom
have ye seized thus roughly? ... Let him stand forth!"
At this command, the men who held Theos relaxed their grasp, and he,
breathless and burning with indignation at the treatment he had
received, shook himself quickly free of all restraint, and sprang
forward, confronting his rescuer. There was a brief pause, during which
the two surveyed each other with looks of mutual amazement. What
mysterious indication of affinity did they read in one another's faces?
... Why did they stand motionless, spell-bound and dumb for a while,
eying half-admiringly, half-enviously, each other's personal appearance
and bearing? ...
Undoubtedly a curious, far-off resemblance existed between them,--yet
it was a resemblance that had nothing whatever to do with the actual
figure, mien, or countenance. It was that peculiar and often
undefinable similarity of expression, which when noticed between two
brothers who are otherwise totally unlike, instantly proclaims their
relationship.
Theos realized his own superior height and superior muscular
development,--but what were these physical advantages compared to the
classic perfection of Sah-luma's beauty?--beauty combining the delicate
with the vigorous, such as is shadowed forth in the artist-conceptions
of the god Apollo. His features, faultlessly regular, were redeemed
from all effeminacy by the ennobling impress of high thought and inward
inspiration,--his eyes were dark, with a brilliant under-reflection of
steel-gray in them, that at times flashed out like the soft glitter of
summer-lightning in the dense purple of an August heaven,--his
olive-tinted complexion was flushed warmly with the glow of
health,--and he had broad, bold, intellectual brows over which the rich
hair clustered in luxuriant waves,--hair that was almost black, with
here and there a curious fleck of reddish gold brightening its curling
masses, as though a stray sunbeam or two had been caught and entangled
therein. He was arrayed in a costume of the finest silk,--his armlets,
belt, and daggersheath were all of jewels,--and the general brilliancy
of his attire was furthermore increased by a finely worked flexible
collar of gold, set with diamonds. The first exchange of wondering
glances over, he viewed Theos with a critical, half supercilious air.
"What art thou?" he demanded ... "What is thy calling?"
"Theos hesitated,--then spoke out boldly and unthinkingly--
"I am a Poet!" he said.
A murmur of irrepressible laughter and derision ran through the
listening crowd. Sah-luma's lip curled haughtily--
"A Poet!" and his fingers played idly with the dagger at his belt
--"Nay, not so! There is but one Poet in Al-Kyris, and I am he!"
Theos looked at him steadily,--a subtle sympathy attracted him toward
this charming boaster,--involuntarily he smiled, and bent his head
courteously.
"I do not seek to figure as your rival ..." he began.
"Rival!" echoed Sah-luma--"I have no rivals!"
A burst of applause from those nearest to them in the throng declared
the popular approval of this assertion, and the boy bearing the harp,
who had loitered to listen to the conversation, swept the strings of
his instrument with a triumphant force and fervor that showed how
thoroughly his feelings were in harmony with the expression of his
master's sentiments. Sah-luma conquered, with an effort, his momentary
irritation, and resumed coldly:
"From whence do you come, fair sir? We should know your name,--POETS
are not so common!" This with an accent of irony.
Taken aback by the question, Theos stood irresolute, and uncertain what
to say. For he was afflicted with a strange and terrible malady such as
he dimly remembered having heard of, but never expected to suffer
from,--a malady in which his memory had become almost a blank as
regarded the past events of his life--though every now and then shadowy
images of by-gone things flitted across his brain, like the transient
reflections of wind-swept clouds on still, translucent water. Presently
in the midst of his painful indecision, an answer suggested itself like
a whispered hint from some invisible prompter:
"Poets like Sah-luma are no doubt as rare as nightingales in snow!" he
said with a soft deference, and an increasing sense of tenderness for
his haughty, handsome interlocutor--"As for me, I am a singer of sad
songs that are not worth the hearing! My name is Theos,--I come from
far beyond the seas, and am a stranger in Al-Kyris,--therefore if I
have erred in aught, I must be blamed for ignorance, not malice!"
As he spoke Sah-luma regarded him intently,--Theos met his gaze frankly
and unflinchingly. Surely there was some singular power of attraction
between the two! ... for as their flashing eyes again dwelt earnestly
on one another, they both smiled, and Sah-luma, advancing, proffered
his hand. Theos at once accepted it, a curious sensation of pleasure
tingling through his frame, as he pressed those slender blown fingers
in his own cordial clasp.
"A stranger in Al-Kyris?--and from beyond the seas? Then by my life and
honor, I insure thy safety and bid thee welcome! A singer of sad songs?
... Sad or merry, that thou are a singer at all makes thee the guest of
the King's Laureate!" A look of conscious vanity illumined his face as
he thus announced with proud emphasis his own title and claim to
distinction. "The brotherhood of poets," he continued laughingly--"is a
mystic and doubtful tie that hath oft been questioned,--but provided
they do not, like ill-conditioned wolves, fight each other out of the
arena, there should be joy in the relationship". Here, turning full
upon the crowd, he lifted his rich, melodious voice to higher and more
ringing tones:
"It is like you, O hasty and misjudging Kyrisians, that finding a
harmless wanderer from far off lands, present at the pageant of the
Midsummer Benediction, ye should pounce upon him, even as kites on a
straying sea-bird, and maul him with your ruthless talons! Has he
broken the law of worship! Ye have broken the law of hospitality! Has
he failed to kneel to the passing Ship of the Sun? So have ye failed to
handle him with due courtesy! What report shall he bear hence of your
gentleness and culture to those dim and unjoyous shores beyond the gray
green wall of ocean-billows, where the very name of Al-Kyris serves as
a symbol for all that is great and wise and wondrous in the whole round
circle of the world? Moreover ye know full well that foreigners and
sojourners in the city are exempt from worship,--and the King's command
is that all such should be well and nobly entertained, to the end that
when they depart they may carry with them a full store of pleasant
memories. Hence, scatterbrains, to your homes!--No festival can ye
enjoy without a gust of contention!--ye are ill-made instruments all,
whose jarring strings even I, crowned Minstrel of the King, can scarce
keep one day in happy tune! Look you now! ... this stranger is my
guest!--. Is there a man in Al-Kyris who will treat as an enemy one
whom Sah-luma calls friend?"
A storm of applause followed this little extempore speech,--applause
accompanied by an odorous rain of flowers. There were many women in the
crowd, and these had pressed eagerly forward to catch every word that
dropped from the Poet-Laureate's mellifluous lips,--now, moved by one
common impulse, they hastily snatched off their posies and garlands,
and flung them in lavish abundance at his feet. Some of the blossoms
chancing to fall on Theos and cling to his garments, he quickly shook
them off, and gathering them together, presented them to the personage
for whom they were intended. He, however, gayly rejected them, moving
his small sandalled foot playfully among the thick wealth of red and
white roses that lay waiting to be crushed beneath his tread.
"Keep thy share!" he said, with an amused flash of his glorious eyes.
"Such offerings are my daily lot! ... I can spare thee one handful from
the overflowing harvest of my song!"
It was impossible to be offended with such charming
self-complacency,--the naive conceit of the man was as harmless as the
delight of a fair girl who has made her first conquest, and Theos
smiling, kept the flowers. By this time the surrounding throng had
broken up into little knots and groups,--all ill-humor on the part of
the populace had completely vanished,--and large numbers were now
leaving the embankment and dispersing in different directions to their
several homes. All those who had been within hearing distance of
Sah-luma's voice appeared highly elated, as though they had enjoyed
some special privilege and pleasure, ... to be reproved by the Laureate
was evidently considered better than being praised by any one else.
Many persons pressed up to Theos, and shaking hands with him, offered
their eager excuses and apologies for the misunderstanding that had
lately taken place, explaining with much animation both of look and
gesture, that the fact of his wearing the same style of dress as
themselves had induced them to take it for granted that he must be one
of their fellow-citizens, and therefore subject to the laws of the
realm. Theos was just beginning to feel somewhat embarrassed by the
excessive politeness and cordiality, of his recent antagonists, when
Sah-luma, again interposing, cut all explanations short.
"Come, come! cease this useless prating!" he said imperatively yet
good-naturedly--"In everything ye showed your dullard ignorance and
lack of discernment. For, concerning the matter of attire, are not the
fashions of Al-Kyris copied more or less badly in every quarter of the
habitable globe?--even as our language and literature form the chief
study and delight of all scholars and educated gentlemen? A truce to
your discussions!--Let us get hence and home;" here he turned to Theos
with a graceful salutation--"You, my good friend, will doubtless be
glad to rest and recover from my countrymen's ungentle treatment of
your person."
Thus saying, he made a slight commanding sign,--the clustering people
drew back on either side,--and he, taking Theos by the arm, passed
through their ranks, talking, laughing, and nodding graciously here and
there as he went, with the half-kindly, half-indifferent ease of an
affable monarch who occasionally bows to some of his poorest subjects.
As he trod over the flowers that lay heaped about his path, several
girls rushed impetuously forward, struggling with each other for
possession of those particularly favored blossoms that had received the
pressure of his foot, and kissing them, they tied them in little knots,
and pinned them proudly on the bosoms of their white gowns.
One or two, more daring, stretched out their hands to touch the golden
frame of the harp as it was carried past them by the youth in
crimson,--a pretty fellow enough, who looked extremely haughty, and
almost indignant at this effrontery on the part of the fair
poet-worshippers, but he made no remonstrance, and merely held his head
a little higher and walked with a more consequential air, as he
followed his master at a respectful distance. Another long ecstatic
shout of "Hail Sah-luma!" arose on all sides, rippling
away,--away,--down, as it seemed, to the very furthest edge of echoing
resonance,--and then the remainder of the crowd quickly scattered right
and left, leaving the spacious embankment almost deserted, save for the
presence of several copper-colored, blue-shirted individuals who were
commencing the work of taking down and rolling up the silken awnings,
accompanying their labors by a sort of monotonous chant that, mingling
with the slow, gliding plash of the river, sounded as weird and
mournful as the sough of the wind through leafless trees.
Meanwhile Theos, in the company of his new friend, began to express his
thanks for the timely rescue he had received,--but Sah-luma waived all
such acknowledgments aside.
"Nay, I have only served thee as a crowned Laureate should ever serve a
lesser minstrel,"--he said, with that indescribably delicious air of
self-flattery which was so whimsical, and yet so winning,--"And I tell
thee in all good faith that, for a newly arrived visitor in Al-Kyris,
thy first venture was a reckless one! To omit to kneel in the presence
of the High Priestess during her Benediction, was a violation of our
customs and ceremonies dangerous to life and limb! A religiously
excited mob is merciless,--and if I had not chanced upon the scene of
action, . ."
"I should have been no longer the man I am!" smiled Theos, looking down
on his companion's light, lithe, elegant form as it moved gracefully by
his side--"But that I failed in homage to the High Priestess was a most
unintentional lack of wit on my part,--for if THAT was the High
Priestess,--that dazzling wonder of beauty who lately passed in a
glittering ship, on her triumphant way down the river, like a priceless
pearl in a cup of gold..."
"Aye, aye!" and Sah-luma's dark brows contracted in a slight
frown--"Not so many fine words, I pray thee! Thou couldst not well
mistake her,--there is only one Lysia!"
"Lysia!" murmured Theos dreamily, and the musical name slid off his
lips with a soft, sibilant sound,--"Lysia! And I forgot to kneel to
that enchanting, that adorable being! Oh unwise, benighted fool!--where
were my thoughts? Next time I see her I will atone! .--no matter what
creed she represents,--I will kiss the dust at her feet, and so make
reparation for my sin!"
Sah-luma glanced at him with a somewhat dubious expression.
"What!--art thou already persuaded?" he queried lightly, "and wilt thou
also be one of us? Well, thou wilt need to kiss the dust in very truth,
if thou servest Lysia, . . no half-measures will suit where she, the
Untouched and Immaculate, is concerned,"--and here there was a faint
inflection of mingled mockery and sadness in his tone--"To love her is,
for many men, an absolute necessity,--but the Virgin Priestess of the
Sun and the Serpent receives love, as statues may receive it,--moving
all others to frenzy, she is herself unmoved!"
Theos listened, scarcely hearing. He was studying every line in
Sah-luma's face and figure with fixed and wistful attention. Almost
unconsciously he pressed the arm he held, and Sah-luma looked up at him
with a half-smile.
"I fancy we shall like each other!" he said--"Thou art a western
singing bird-of-passage, and I a nested nightingale amid the roses of
the East,--our ways of making melody are different,--we shall not
quarrel!"
"Quarrel!" echoed Theos amazedly--"Nay! ... I might quarrel with my
nearest and dearest, but never with thee, Sah-luma! For I know thee for
a very prince of poets! ... and would as soon profane the sanctity of
the Muse herself, as violate thy proffered friendship!"
"Why, so!" returned Sah-luma, his brilliant eyes flashing with
undisguised pleasure,--"An' thou thinkest thus of me we shall be firm
and fast companions! Thou hast spoken well and not without good
instruction--I perceive my fame hath reached thee in thine own
ocean-girdled lands, where music is as rare as sunshine. Right glad am
I that chance has thrown us together, for now thou wilt be better able
to judge of my unrivalled master-skill in sweet word-weaving! Thou must
abide with me for all the days of thy sojourn here.... Art willing?"
"Willing? ... Aye! more than willing!" exclaimed Theos
enthusiastically--"But,--if I burden hospitality.."
"Burden!" and Sah-luma laughed--"Talk not of burdens to me!--I, who
have feasted kings, and made light of their entertaining! Here," he
added as he led the way through a broad alley, lined with magnificent
palms--"here is the entrance to my poor dwelling!" and a sparkling,
mischievous smile brightened his features.--"There is room enough in
it, methinks to hold thee, even if thou hadst brought a retinue of
slaves!"
He pointed before him as he spoke, and Theos stood for a moment
stock-still and overcome with astonishment, at the size and splendor of
the palace whose gates they were just approaching. It was a dome-shaped
building of the purest white marble, surrounded on all sides by long,
fluted colonnades, and fronted by spacious court paved with mosaics,
where eight flower-bordered fountains dashed up to the hot, blue sky,
incessant showers of refreshing spray.
Into this court and across it, Sah-luma led his wondering guest, . .
ascending a wide flight of steps, they entered a vast open hall, where
the light poured in through rose-colored and pale blue glass, that gave
a strange yet lovely effect of mingled sunset and moonlight to the
scene. Here--reclining about on cushions of silk and velvet--were
several beautiful girls in various attitudes of indolence and
ease,--one laughing, black-haired houri was amusing herself with a tame
bird which flew to and from her uplifted finger,--another in a
half-sitting posture, played cup-and-ball with much active and graceful
dexterity,--some were working at gold and silver embroidery,--others,
clustered in a semicircle round a large osier basket filled with
myrtle, were busy weaving garlands of the fragrant leaves,--and one
maiden, seemingly younger than the rest, and of lighter and more
delicate complexion, leaned somewhat pensively against an ebony-framed
harp, as though she were considering what sad or suggestive chords she
should next awaken from its responsive strings. As Sah-luma and Theos
appeared, these nymphs all rose from their different occupations and
amusements, and stood with bent heads and folded hands in statuesque
silence and humility.
"These are my human rosebuds!" said Sah-luma softly and gayly, as
holding the dazzled Theos by the arm he escorted him past these radiant
and exquisite forms--"They bloom, and fade, and die, like the flowers
thrown by the populace,--proud and happy to feel that their perishable
loveliness has, even, for a brief while, been made more lasting by
contact with my deathless poet-fame! Ah, Niphrata!" and he paused at
the side of the girl standing by the harp--"Hast thou sung many of my
songs to-day? ... or is thy voice too weak for such impassioned
cadence? Thou art pale, . . I miss thy soft blush and dimpling
smile,--what ails thee, my honey-throated oriole?"
"Nothing, my lord"--answered Niphrata in a low tone, raising a pair of
lovely, dusky, violet eyes, fringed with long black
lashes,--"Nothing,--save that my heart is always sad in thine absence!"
Sah-luma smiled, well pleased.
"Let it be sad no longer then!" he said, caressing her cheek with his
hand,--and Theos saw a wave of rich color mounting swiftly to her fair
brows at his touch, as though she were a white poppy warming to crimson
in the ardent heat of the sun--"I love to see thee merry,--mirth suits
a young and beauteous face like thine! Look you, Sweet!--I bring with
me here a stranger from far-off lands,--one to whom Sah-luma's name is
as a star in the desert!--I must needs have thy voice in all its full
lusciousness of tune to warble for his pleasure those heart-entangling
ditties of mine which thou hast learned to render with such matchless
tenderness! ... Thanks, Gisenya," ... this as another maiden advanced,
and, gently removing the myrtle-wreath he wore, placed one just freshly
woven on his clustering curls, . . then, turning to Theos, he
inquired--"Wilt thou also wear a minstrel-garland, my friend? Niphrata
or Gisenya will crown thee!"
"I am not worthy"--answered Theos, bending his head in low salutation
to the two lovely girls, who stood eying him with a certain wistful
wonder--"One spray from Sah-luma's discarded wreath will best suffice
me!"
Sah-luma broke into a laugh of absolute delight.
"I swear thou speakest well and like a true man!" he said joyously.
"Unfamous as thou art, thou deservest honor for the frank confession of
thy lack of merit! Believe me, there are some boastful rhymers in
Al-Kyris who would benefit much by a share of thy becoming modesty!
Give him his wish, Gisenya--" and Gisenya, obediently detaching a sprig
of myrtle from the wreath Sah-luma had worn all day, handed it to Theos
with a graceful obeisance--"For who knows but the leaves may contain a
certain witchery we wot not of, that shall endow him with a touch of
the divine inspiration!"
At that moment, a curious figure came shuffling across the splendid
hall,--that of a little old man somewhat shabbily attired, upon whose
wrinkled countenance there seemed to be a fixed, malign smile, like the
smile of a mocking Greek mask. He had small, bright, beady black eyes
placed very near the bridge of his large hooked nose,--his thin, wispy
gray locks streamed scantily over his bent shoulders, and he carried a
tall staff to support his awkward steps,--a staff with which he made a
most disagreeable tapping noise on the marble pavement as he came along.
"Ah, Sir Gad-about!" he exclaimed in a harsh, squeaky voice as he
perceived Sah-luma--"Back again from your self-advertising in the city!
Is there any poor soul left in Al-Kyris whose ears have not been
deafened by the parrot-cry of the name of Sah-luma?--If there is,--at
him, at him, my dainty warbler of tiresome trills!--at him, and storm
his senses with a rhodomontade of rhymes without reason!--at him,
Immortal of the Immortals!--Bard of Bards!--stuff him with quatrains
and sextains!--beat him with blank verse, blank of all meaning!--lash
him with ballad and sonnet-scourges, till the tortured wretch, howling
for mercy, shall swear that no poet save Sah-luma, ever lived before,
or will ever live again, on the face of the shuddering and astonished
earth!"
And breathless with this extraordinary outburst, he struck his staff
loudly on the floor, and straightway fell into such a violent fit of
coughing that his whole lean body shook with the paroxysm.
Sah-luma laughed heartily,--laughter in which he was joined by all the
assembled maidens, including the gentle, pensive-eyed Niphrata.
Standing erect in his glistening princely attire, with one hand resting
familiarly on Theos's arm, and the sparkle of mirth lighting up his
handsome features, he formed the greatest contrast imaginable to the
little shrunken old personage, who, clinging convulsively to his staff,
was entirely absorbed in his efforts to control and overcome his sudden
and unpleasant attack of threatened suffocation.
"Theos, my friend,"--he said, still laughing--"Thou must know the
admirable Zabastes,--a man of vast importance in his own opinion! Have
done with thy wheezing,"--he continued, vehemently thumping the
struggling old gentleman on the back--"Here is another one of the
minstrel craft thou hatest,--hast aught of bitterness in thy barbed
tongue wherewith to welcome him as guest to mine abode?"
Thus adjured, the old man peered up at Theos inquisitively, wiping away
the tears that coughing had brought into his eyes, and after a minute
or two began also to laugh in a smothered, chuckling way,--a laugh that
resembled the croaking of frogs in a marshy pool.
"Another one of the minstrel-craft," he echoed derisively--"Aye, aye!
... Like meets like, and fools consorts with fool. The guest of
Sah-luma, . . Hearken, young man,--" and he drew closer, the malign
grin widening on his furrowed face,--"Thou shalt learn enough trash
here to stock thee with idiot-songs for a century. Thou shalt gather up
such fragments of stupidity, as shall provide thee with food for all
the puling love-sick girls of a nation! Dost thou write follies also?
... thou shalt not write them here, thou shalt not even think
them!--for here Sah-luma,--the great, the unrivalled Sah-luma,--is sole
Lord of the land of Poesy. Poesy,--by all the gods!--I would the
accursed art had never been invented ... so might the world have been
spared many long-drawn nothings, enwoofed in obscure and distracting
phraseology! ... THOU a would-be Poet?--go to!--make brick, mend
sandals, dig entrenchments, fight for thy country,--and leave the idle
stringing of words, and the tinkling of rhyme, to children like
Sah-luma, who play with life instead of living it."
And with this, he hobbled off uneasily, grunting and grumbling as he
went, and waving his staff magisterially right and left to warn the
smiling maidens out of his way,--and once more Sah-luma's laughter,
clear and joyous, pealed through the vaulted vestibule.
"Poor Zabastes!" he said in a tone of good-humored tolerance--"He has
the most caustic wit of any man in Al-Kyris! He is a positive marvel of
perverseness and ill-humor, well worth the four hundred golden pieces I
pay him yearly for his task of being my scribe and critic. Like all of
us he must live, eat and wear decent clothing,--and that his only
literary skill lies in the abuse of better men than himself is his
misfortune, rather than his fault. Yes! ... he is my paid Critic, paid
to rail against me on all occasions public or private, for the
merriment of those who care to listen to the mutterings of his
discontent,--and, by the Sacred Veil! ... I cannot choose but laugh
myself whenever I think of him. He deems his words carry weight with
the people,--alas, poor soul! his scorn but adds to my glory,--his
derision to my fame! Nay, of a truth I need him,--even as the King
needs the court fool,--to make mirth for me in vacant moments,--for
there is something grotesque in the contemplation of his cankered
clownishness, that sees nought in life but the eating, the sleeping,
the building, and the bargaining. Such men as he can never bear to know
that there are others, gifted by heaven, for whom all common things
take radiant shape and meaning,--for whom the flowers reveal their
fragrant secrets,--for whom birds not only sing, but speak in most
melodious utterance--for whose dreaming eyes, the very sunbeams spin
bright fantasies in mid-air more lasting than the kingdoms of the
world! Blind and unhappy Zabastes! ... he is ignorant as a stone, and
for him the mysteries of Nature are forever veiled. The triumphal
hero-march of the stars,--the brief, bright rhyme of the flashing
comet,--the canticle of the rose as she bears her crimson heart to the
smile of the sun,--the chorus of green leaves chanting orisons to the
wind--the never completed epic of heaven's lofty solitudes where the
white moon paces, wandering like a maiden in search of love,--all these
and other unnumbered joys he has lost--joys that Sah-luma, child of the
high gods and favorite of Destiny drinks in with the light and the air."
His eyes softened with a dreamy, intense lustre that gave them a new
and almost pathetic beauty, while Theos, listening to each word he
uttered, wondered whether there were ever any sounds sweeter than the
rise and fall of his exquisite voice,--a voice as deliciously clear and
mellow as a golden flute tenderly played.
"Yes!--though we must laugh at Zabastes we should also pity him,"--he
resumed in gayer accents--"His fate is not enviable. He is nothing but
a Critic--he could not well be a lesser man,--one who, unable himself
to do any great work, takes refuge in finding fault with the works of
others. And those who abhor true Poesy are in time themselves
abhorred,--the balance of Justice never errs in these things. The Poet
wins the whole world's love, and immortal fame,--his adverse Critic,
brief contempt, and measureless oblivion. Come,"--he added, addressing
Theos--"we will leave these maidens to their duties and
pastimes,--Niphrata!" here his dazzling smile flashed like a beam of
sunlight over his face--"thou wilt bring us fruit and wine yonder,--we
shall pass the afternoon together within doors. Bid my steward prepare
the Rose Chamber for my guest, and let Athazel and Zimra attend there
to wait upon him."
All the maidens saluted, touching their heads with their hands in token
of obedience, and Sah-luma leading the way, courteously beckoned Theos
to follow. He did so, conscious as he went of two distinct
impressions,--first, that the mysterious mental agitation he had
suffered from when he had found himself so unexpectedly in a strange
city, was not completely dispelled,--and secondly, that he felt as
though he must have known Sah-luma all his life! His memory still
remained a blank as regarded his past career,--but this fact had ceased
to trouble him, and he was perfectly tranquil, and altogether satisfied
with his present surroundings. In short, to be in Al-Kyris, seemed to
him quite in keeping with the necessary course of events,--while to be
the friend and companion of Sah-luma was more natural and familiar to
his mind, than all once natural and familiar things.