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Come, place thyself at ease upon this cushioned couch, and give me thy attention, ... I feel the fervor rising within me, ... I will summon Zabastes, ... " Here he pulled a small silken cord which at once set a clanging bell echoing loudly through the palace, ... "And thou shalt freely hear, and freely judge, the last offspring of my fertile genius, my lyrical romance 'Nourhalma!" Theos started violently, ... he had the greatest difficulty to restrain the anguished cry that arose to his lips.
Zabastes the Critic glided in also, almost unnoticed, and joined a group of courtiers at the furthest end of the long, gorgeously lighted room, while at sight of the Laureate the assembled officers saluted, and all conversation ceased.
Yet he was not altogether free from a certain eager and decidedly painful suspense with regard to the "Nourhalma" problem, and he was conscious of what he in his own opinion considered an absurd and unnecessary degree of excitement, when the door of the apartment presently opened to admit Zabastes, who entered, carrying several sheets of papyrus and other material for writing.
I pray thee extend not thy range of learning beyond the proper temperature of the bath, and the choice of rare unguents for thy skin-greater knowledge than this would injure the tender texture of thy fragile brain! Pah!" and Zabastes sniffed the air in disgust "Thou hast a most vile odor of jessamine about thee! ... I would thou wert clean of perfumes and less tawdry in attire!"
"I thank thee for thy warning, young jackanapes!" retorted Zabastes, pausing in his walk and leaning on his staff while he peered with his small, black, bad-tempered eyes at the speaker- "Thou art methinks somewhat over well-informed for a little lacquey! What knowest thou of His Majesty's humors? Hast been his fly-i'-the-ear or cast-off sandal-string?
While Zabastes thus spoke, Sah-luma had helped himself, by way of refreshment, to two ripe figs, in whose luscious crimson pulp his white teeth met, with all the enjoying zest of a child's healthy appetite. He now held up the rind and stalks of these devoured delicacies, and smiled.
All at once, as he strove to force his way over a fallen altar from which the hideous presiding stone idol had toppled headlong, killing in its descent some twenty or thirty people whose bodies lay crushed beneath it, a face horribly disfigured and tortured into a mere burnt sketch of its former likeness twisted itself up and peered at him, the face of Zabastes, the Critic.
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!
As I live, 'twas not ill-devised for a madman's brain! ... and so solemn a ranter should serve your Majesty to make merriment withal, in place of my poor Zabastes, whose peevish jests grow somewhat stale owing to the Critic's chronic want of originality!
"Undoubtedly your 'Zabastes' was no phantom!" he observed emphatically "His was evidently a very real existence, and he must have divided himself from one into several, to sit in judgment again upon you in this present day!
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