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Updated: June 24, 2025
Presently the deep booming noise of a great bell smote heavily on the stillness, . . a sound that Theos, oppressed by the weight of unutterable forebodings, welcomed with a vague sense of relief, while Sah-luma, hearing it, quickened his pace.
The figure of Elzear looked scarcely more substantial than the phantom-forms of Sah-luma, Zephoranim, Khosrul, Zuriel, or Zabastes, while Lysia's exquisite face and seductive form, Niphrata's pensive beauty, and all the local characteristics of the place, were stamped on the dreamer's memory as faithfully as scenes flashed by the sun on the plates of photography!
It was a very singular thing too, that he should find himself strongly and personally affected by Khosrul's address to Sah-luma, yet such was the case, ... so much so, indeed, that he accepted all the Prophet's reproaches as though they applied solely TO HIS OWN PAST LIFE! He could not understand his emotion, ... nevertheless he kept on dreamily regretting that things WERE as Khosrul had said, ... that he had NOT fulfilled his vocation, and that he had neither been humble enough nor devout enough nor unselfish enough to deserve the high and imperial name of POET.
"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!
Khosrul was mad!" retorted Sah-luma. "Are not all men thought mad who speak the truth?" queried Theos gently. The priest Zel looked at him with proud and supercilious eyes. "Thou hast strange notions for one still young," he said ... "What art thou? ... a new disciple of the Mystics? ... or a student of the Positive Doctrines?" Theos met his gaze unflinchingly.
As he did this, the clear, olive cheek of Sah-luma flushed darkly red, his chest heaved, and linking his arm through that of Theos, he bent his head slightly and stood like one in an enforced attitude of attention. Then Gazra spoke, his harsh, strong voice seeming to come from some devil in the ground rather than from a human throat.
"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!
"Niphrata! .. .Niphrata!" he said in a tremulous half-whisper, "I am here, Sah-luma! ... Dost thou not know me!" She sighed, . . a long, shivering sigh, and smiled, . . what a strange, wistful, dying smile it was! ... but she made no answer.
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!"
As it is, I warn thee! ... dare not to make public mention of the Cross, the accursed Emblem of the dead Khosrul's idolatry, ... guard thy tongue heedfully! and thou, Sah-luma if thou dost bring this rashling with thee to the Temple, thou must take upon thyself all measures for his safety.
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