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Blind and unhappy Zabastes! ... he is ignorant as a stone, and for him the mysteries of Nature are forever veiled.
Zabastes bowed with a sort of mock humility. "It may be so, most mighty Zephoranim," he returned composedly "Nevertheless ashes are always ashes, and the scattering of them is but a question of time!
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!
Again in imagination he beheld the burning "Temple of Nagaya" in his Dream of Al-Kyris, again he saw himself carrying the corpse of his FORMER Self through fire and flame, and again he heard the last words of the dying Zabastes "I was the Poet's adverse Critic, and who but I should write his Eulogy?
In the immediate interest of the moment, Sah-luma and his hot interference seemed to be almost forgotten, . . a few people, indeed, cast injured and indignant looks toward the corner where he dejectedly leaned, and once the wrinkled, malicious head of old Zabastes peered at him, with an expression of incredulous amazement, but otherwise no sympathy was manifested by any one for the popular Laureate's suffering and discomfiture.
The modern 'Zabastes' must always be careful to impress his readers in the first place with his personal superiority to all men and all things, and the musical Oracle yonder will no doubt be clever enough to make his report of Sarasate in such a manner as to suggest the idea that he could play the violin much better himself, if he only cared to try!"
The discomfited Zabastes retired, grumbling to himself in an undertone, and the Laureate, whose dreamy eyes had till now rested on Theos, his self constituted advocate, with an appreciative and almost tender regard, once more took up his harp, and striking a few rich, soft chords was about to sing again, when a great noise as of clanking armor was heard outside, mingled with a steadily increasing, sonorous hum of many voices and the increased tramp, tramp of marching feet.
And by my soul! thou hast a musical tongue of thine own! who knows but that thou also may be a poet yet in time to come! And thou, Zabastes " here he turned upon the old Critic, who, while Theos spoke, had surveyed him with much cynical disdain "get thee hence! Thine arguments are all at fault, as usual! Thou art thyself a disappointed author hence thy spleen!
"And thou also, Zabastes!" retorted the King with a dark smile, jestingly drawing his sword and pointing it full at him, then, as the old Critic shrank slightly at the gleam of the bare steel, replacing it dashingly in its sheath, "Thou also! ... and thine ashes shall be cast to the four winds of heaven as suits thy vocation, while those of thy master and thy master's King lie honorably urned in porphyry and gold!"
"In safety?" croaked Zabastes with an accent of ironic surprise.. "To be sure! ... Is he a baby in swaddling-clothes that he cannot be trusted out alone to take care of himself? In safety? aye!
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