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Updated: May 24, 2025
As he ceased a deep sigh ran, like the first sound of a rising wind among trees, through the heretofore motionless multitude, a faint, dawning, yet doubtful smile reflected itself on their faces, and the old familiar shout broke feebly from their lips: "Hail, Sah-luma! Let us hear Sah-luma!" Sah-luma looked down upon them all in airy derision.
Trembling violently, he gazed beseechingly at Sah-luma, who held his arm in a firm and friendly grasp, and who, apparently quickly perceiving that he was distressed and embarrassed, undertook himself to furnish forth what he evidently considered a fitting response to Khosrul's adjuration.
"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 passion, who knows whether I should sing so well!"
"'Tis plain enough!" replied Sah-luma somewhat sulkily, with the deep flush still coming and going on his face "It means that we are summoned, . . thou as well as I, . . to one of Lysia's midnight banquets, an honor that falls to few, a mandate none dare disobey!
Sah-luma broke into a laugh.. "Now by my faith, good comrade, as well ask me for my head as demand such impossibilities!
An undertone of mockery rang through the languid silvery sweetness of his accents, and the Priest's dark brows knitted in an irritated frown. "Thou art over-flippant of speech, Sah-luma!" he observed austerely. "Take heed thou be not snared into misfortune by the glibness of thy tongue! Thou dost speak of the chaste Lysia with unseemly lightness. learn to be reverent, and so shalt thou be wiser!"
Even now, as I passed by the embankment, the crowd there was thick as a hive of swarming bees!" He paused, but Sah-luma made no remark, and he continued more glibly, "Also, to-day's 'Circular' contains the full statement of the King's reward for the capture of the Prophet Khosrul, and the formal Programme of the Sacrificial Ceremonial announced to take place this evening in the Temple of Nagaya.
No wonder, he thought, that Sah-luma's eyes darkened with passions as they dwelt on her! ... and no wonder that he, like Sah-luma, was content to be gently but surely drawn within the glittering web of her magic spell a spell fatal, yet too bewilderingly sweet for human strength to fight against.
"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!
A slight tremor shook him as he discovered that Sah-luma was no longer by his side ... the friend whom he so ardently desired to protect had gone, and he could not tell where.
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