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Updated: June 25, 2025
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!
"Alas, most potent Sovereign!" he murmured.. "I am a man of sad memories, whose soul is like the desert, barren of all beauty! I may have sung of love in my time, but my songs were never new, never worthy to last one little hour! And whatsoever of faith, passion, or heart-ecstasy my fancy could with devious dreams devise, Sah-luma knows, . . and in Sah-luma's song all my best thoughts are said!"
Save me, if only for the sake of Sah-luma's future honor! thou knowest not how warmly, how generously, how nobly, I can praise the dead!" True! ... How easy to praise the poor, deaf, stirless clay when sense and spirit have fled from it forever!
All at once a hideous scream assailed his ears, another, and yet another rang above the crackling roar of the gradually conquering fire, . . and half-lifting Sah-luma's body in his arms, he looked up...O horror, horror! his nerves contracted, his blood seemed to turn to ice in his veins, . . his head swam giddily, . . and he thought the moment of his own death had come, for surely no man could behold the sight he saw and yet continue to live on!
He endeavored to grope his way to Sah-luma's side, and just then lights appeared, . . lights that were not of earth's kindling, . . strange, wandering flames that danced and flitted along the tapestried walls like will-o'-the- wisps on a dark morass, and flung a ghastly blue glare on the pale, uneasy faces of the scared people, till gathering in a sort of lurid ring round the throne, they outlined in strong relief the enraged, Titanesque figure of Zephoranim whose upraised sword looked in itself like an arrested flash of lightning.
If, for instance, the King were made aware of Sah-luma's intrigue with Lysia, would not his rage and jealousy exceed all bounds? ... and if, on the other hand, Sah-luma were convinced of the King's passion for the same fatally fair traitress, would not his wrath and injured self-love overbear all loyalty and prudence?
Of course he could easily repeat his boyhood's verses word for word, ... but what of that? He, a stranger in the city, befriended and protected by the Laureate, would certainly be considered by the people of Al-Kyris as far more likely to steal Sah-luma's thoughts than that Sah-luma should steal his!
"Thou droll knave!" cried Zephoranim at last, dashing away the drops his merriment had brought into his eyes "Wilt kill me with thy bitter-mouthed jests? ... of a truth my sides ache at thee! What ails thee now? ... Come, we will have patience, if so be our mirth can be restrained, speak! what flaw canst thou find in our Sah-luma's pearl of poesy? what spots on the sun of his divine inspiration?
Not a single countenance was there that did not openly betray the complacent hauteur and tranquil vanity of absolute Egotism, Sah-luma's especially. But then Sah-luma had something to be proud of his genius; it was natural that he should be satisfied with himself he was a great man! But was it well for even a great man to admire his own greatness?
As he said this he stopped and extinguished the lamp he carried. There was no longer any need of it, for a broad patch of gray light fell through an aperture in the wall, showing a few rough, broken steps that led upwards, and pointing to these he bade the bewildered Theos a kindly farewell. "Thou wilt find Sah-luma's palace easily," he said "Not a child in the streets but knows the way thither.
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