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Updated: June 9, 2025
"Laugh laugh!" said Zabastes, recovering himself and eying the throng with a derisive smile "Laugh, ye witless bantlings born of folly! and cling as you will to the unsubstantial dreams your Laureate blows for you in the air like a child playing with soap- bubbles!
Zabastes meanwhile had witnessed the scene with an expression of mingled impatience, malignity, and disgust written plainly on his furrowed features, and as soon as the hubbub of applause had subsided, he struck his staff on the ground with an angry clang, and exclaimed irritably: "Now may the god shield us from a plague of fools! What means this throaty clamor?
Moved, all three at once, by the same instinctive desire to know what was going on, Theos, Sah-luma, and Zabastes sprang from their different places in the room, and hurried out on the marble terrace, dashing aside the silken awnings as they went in order the better to see the open glimpses of the city thoroughfares that lay below.
Just then Sah-luma raised his hand by way of signal to Zabastes, . . his face became earnest, pathetic, even grand in the fervent concentration of his thoughts, ... he was about to begin his dictation, ... now ... now! ... and Theos leaned forward nervously, his heart beating with apprehensive expectation ... Hush! ... the delicious, suave melody of his friend's voice penetrated the silence like the sweet harmonic of a harp-string..
The critical mind dwells too persistently on the mere surface of things, ever to comprehend or probe the central deeps and well-springs of thought. Will a Zabastes move us to tears and passion? ... Will he make our pulses beat with any happier thrill, or stir our blood into a warmer glow?
"Write " said he slowly.. "write first the title of my poem thus: 'Nourhalma: A Love-Legend of the Past." There was a pause, during which the pen of Zabastes traveled quickly over the papyrus for a moment, then stopped.
And he handed the volume in question to its author, who turned it over with the most curious air of careless recognition in his fancy he again saw Zabastes writing each line of it down to Sah- luma's dictation! "It's very well printed" he said at last, "and very tastefully bound. You have superintended the work con amore, Villiers, . . and I am as obliged to you as friendship will let me be.
Thou shalt hear a most choice legend of love an thou wilt listen " here he laid his hand affectionately on Theos's shoulder "a legend set about, methinks, with wondrous jewels of poetic splendor! ... 'tis a rare privilege I offer thee, my friend, for as a rule Zabastes is my only auditor, but I would swear thou art no plagiarist, and wouldst not dishonor thine own intelligence so far as to filch pearls of fancy from another minstrel!
There was a great quietness everywhere, the rising and falling inflections of Sah-luma's soft, rich voice rather, deepened than disturbed the stillness, the pen of Zabastes glided noiselessly over the slips of papyrus, and the small sounds of the outer air, such as the monotonous hum of bees among the masses of lily-bloom that towered in white clusters between the festooned awnings, the thirsty twitterimg of birds hiding under the long palm leaves to shelter themselves from the heat, and the incessant splash of the fountains, ... all seemed to be, as it were, mere appendages to enhance the breathless hush of nature.
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