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Updated: May 3, 2025
Suddenly and quite involuntarily Theos thought of Niphrata, ... alas, poor maiden! how utterly her devotion to Sah-luma was wasted! What did he care for her timid tenderness, . . her unselfish worship? Nothing? ... less than nothing!
It was strange to note how quickly Sah-luma returned that glance, how thoroughly, in so short a space of time, their friendship had cemented itself into a more than fraternal bond of union! Niphrata, meanwhile, stood a little aside, her wistful looks wandering from one to the other as though in something of doubt or wonder. Presently she spoke, inclining her fair head toward Sah-luma.
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.
"And how hast thou left thy pale beauty Niphrata?" she was asking Sah-luma in half-cold, half-caressing accents. "Does her singing still charm thee as of yore? I understand thou hast given her her freedom. Is that prudent? Was she not safer as thy slave?" Sah-luma glanced up quickly in surprise. "Safer? She is as safe as a rose in its green sheath," he replied. "What harm should come to her?"
"My friend, all women speak of dying when they are love-wearied" ... replied Sah-luma with a slight smile ... "Niphrata will not die, ... she is too young and fond of life, ... the world is as a garden wherein she has but lately entered, all ignorant of the pleasures that await her there.
"Niphrata! ... Niphrata! ..." and his rich voice shook with a passion of appeal, "O ye gods! ... what mad, blind, murderous cruelty! Zephoranim!" ... and he turned impetuously on the astonished monarch: "As thou livest crowned King I say this maid is MINE! ... and in the very presence of Nagaya, I swear she shall NOT die!" A solemn silence ensued.
As the rich and solemn strains swept grandly through the spacious Temple, Niphrata stretched out her hands toward the High Priestess, a smile of wonderful beauty lighting up her fair child-face.
Come!".. and Theos, struggling to repress his own rising tears, heard his friend's accents sink into a still lower, more caressing cadence ... "Thou shalt never again have cause for grief, my Niphrata, never! ... We will never part! ... Listen! ... am I not he whom thou lovest?" The poor child's set mouth trembled, her beautiful sad eyes gazed at him uncomprehendingly.
On his way, however, he paused and turned round: "Has Niphrata yet come home?" he demanded of the page who still lingered. "No, my lord! ... naught hath been seen or heard concerning her." Sah-luma gave a petulant gesture of annoyance and passed on. Arrived in his study he seated himself, and allowed his eyes to rest more attentively on the packet just given him.
Niphrata, the tender, the humbly adoring Niphrata, positively rejected him! refused to recognize his actual presence, and turned insanely away from him toward some dream-ideal Sah-luma whom she fancied could only be found in that unexplored country bordered by the cold river of Death!
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