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She is the strangest maiden!" ... and he brushed his lips lightly against the golden curl he held, She loves me, . . and yet repulses all attempted passion, I remember" ... here his face grew more serious "I remember one night in the beginning of summer, the moon was round and high in heaven, we were alone together in this room, the lamps burned low, and she.. Niphrata, . . sang to me.
"So thou dost think that, wheresoever Niphrata hath strayed, Lysia can find her?" he said. "Assuredly!" returned Sah-luma with easy complacency "I would swear that, even at this very moment, Lysia could restore her to my arms in safety." "Then why" ... suggested Theos anxiously "why not go forth and seek her now?"
Thou knowest 'tis a common occurrence, and that the Court is bereft of all pleasure and sweetness when Sah-luma is silent." "My lord's guest goes with him?" pursued Niphrata gently.
"Dare not!" laughed Sah-luma lazily stretching out his hand and helping himself to a luscious nectarine from the basket at his side "Sweet Niphrata! ... settest thou a limit to the power of the King? As well draw a boundary-line for the imagination of the poet!
Furthermore, he is graciously pleased to be in a manner solicitous on behalf of the maiden Niphrata, who hath suddenly disappeared from the household, leaving no message to explain the cause of her evanishment.
Her young, plaintive voice quavered into a half sob, and again she endeavored to break away from the Laureate's hold. But he, overcome by the excess of his own grief and agitation, seized her other hand, and drew her close up to him. "Niphrata, Niphrata!" he cried despairingly. "What evil hath befallen thee?
"Niphrata!" continued the Laureate, passionately pressing the little, cold fingers that lay so passively in his grasp.. "Look at me! ... I have come to save thee! ... to take thee home again, . . home to thy flowers, thy birds, thy harp, . . thy pretty chamber with its curtained nook, where thy friend Zoralin waits and weeps all day for thee! ... O ye gods! how weak am I!".. and he fiercely dashed away the drops that glistened on his black silky lashes, . . "Come with me, sweet one! ..." he resumed tenderly "Come!
"Why art thou so unmoved?" he demanded almost sternly. "What hast thou done to Niphrata, to thus grieve her gentle spirit beyond remedy?" Sah-luma looked up, like a surprised child. "Done? ... Nay, what should I do? ... I have let her love me!" O sublime permission! ... he had "LET HER LOVE" him! ... He had condescendingly allowed her, as it were, to waste all the treasures of her soul upon him!
"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!
With the last word a sullen bell boomed heavily through and through the Temple.. and, at once, . . like a frenzied bird or butterfly winging its way into scorching flame, . . Niphrata rushed forward with swift, unhesitating, dreadful precision straight on the knife outheld by the untrembling ruthless hands of the Priest Zel!
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