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Updated: June 26, 2025
'Tis the first time in all my days of Laureateship that Zephoranim hath failed to reverently salute me as he passed!" And he looked far more perturbed than when the falling Obelisk had threatened him with imminent destruction. Theos caught his arm with a quick movement of vexed impatience. "Tush, man, no matter!" he said hastily "What are Kings to thee? ... thou who art an Emperor of Song?
He spied out Sah-luma at once and smiled kindly, there was not a trace of coldness in his manner toward his favored minstrel, and Theos noted this with a curious sense of sudden consolation and encouragement. "Why should I have feared Zephoranim?" he thought. "Sah-luma has no greater friend, . . except myself! The King would be the last person in the world to do him any injury!"
Zephoranim meanwhile called for his cup- bearer, a beautiful youth radiant as Ganymede, who at a sign from his royal master approached the Prophet, and pouring wine from a jewelled flagon into a goblet of gold, offered it to him with a courteous salute and smile.
At that instant one side of the Sanctuary split asunder, giving way to a bursting wreath of flames. Seeing this, she uttered a piercing cry, and stretched out her arms. "Zephoranim! ... Save me!" In a second, the King sprang toward her, but not before Sah-luma, wild with wrath, had interposed himself between them.
Khosrul, in terms that were piercing and dolorous as the whistling of the wind among hollow reeds, "Zephoranim, THOU SHALT DIE TO-NIGHT! ART THOU READY? Art thou ready, proud King? ... ready to be made less than the lowest of the low? Hush! ... Hush!" and his aged face took upon itself a ghastly greenish pallor "Hear you not the muttering of the thunder underground?
As he thus spoke, Theos was able to observe him more attentively; indeed it seemed as though a sudden and impressive pause had occurred in the action of a drama in order to allow him as spectator, to thoroughly master the meaning of one special scene. Therefore he took the opportunity offered, and, looking full at Zephoranim, thought he had never beheld so magnificent a man.
His withered countenance appeared to harden itself into lines of impenetrable obstinacy, tucking his long staff under his arm he put his fingers together in the manner of one who inwardly counts up certain numbers, and with a preparatory smack of his lips he began: "Free speech being permitted to me, O most mighty Zephoranim, I would in the first place say that the poem so greatly admired by your Majesty, is totally devoid of common sense.
I, Zephoranim, the destroyer of my friend and first favorite in the realm? ... Old man, thy frenzy exceeds belief and exhausts patience, though of a truth I am sorry for the shattering of thy wits, 'tis sad that reason should be lacking to one so revered and grave of aspect.
"Halt!" echoed a voice, discordantly sharp and wild.. "Halt thou also, great Zephoranim! for Death bars thy further progress!"
'Prepare to die, O Zephoranim? he cried 'For thy time of reckoning is come! By my soul!" and the monarch broke into a boisterous laugh "Had he bade me prepare live 'twould have been more to the purpose! But yon frantic graybeard prates of naught but death, ... 'twere well he should be silenced." And as he spoke, he frowned, his hand involuntarily playing with the jewelled hilt of his sword.
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