Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self Part 19

"Criminal as I am," he murmured tremulously, "I glory in my crime, nor will I seek forgiveness? Nay, rather will I plead, with thee that I may sin so sweet a sin again, and blind myself with beauty unreproved!"

Slowly she withdrew her fingers from his clasp.

"Thou art bold!" she said, with a touch of indolent amus.e.m.e.nt in her accents. "But in thy boldness there is something of the hero. Knowest thou not that I, Lysia, High Priestess of Nagaya, could have thee straightway slain for that unwise speech of thine?--unwise because over-hasty and somewhat over-familiar. Yes, I could have thee slain!"

and she laughed,--a rippling little laugh like that of a pleased child.

"Howbeit thou shalt not die this time for thy foolhardiness--thy looks are too much in thy favor! Thou art like Sah-luma in his n.o.blest moods, when tired of verse-stringing and sonnet-chanting he condescends to remember that he is not quite divine! See how he chafes at that!" and plucking a lotus-bud she threw it playfully at the Laureate, whose handsome face flushed vexedly at her words. "And thou art prudent, Sir Theos--do I not p.r.o.nounce thy name aptly?--thou wilt be less petulant than he, and less absorbed in self-adoration, for here men--even poets --are deemed no more than men, and their constant querulous claim to be considered as demi-G.o.ds meets with no acceptance! Wilt 'blind thyself with beauty' as thou say'st? Well then, lose thine eyes, but guard thy heart!"

And with a careless movement she loosened her veil; it fell from her like a soft cloud, and Theos, springing to his feet, gazed upon her with a sense of enraptured bewilderment and pa.s.sionate pain. It was as though he saw the wraith of some fair, dead woman he had loved of old, risen anew to redemand from him his former allegiance. O, unfamiliar yet well-known face! ... O, slumbrous, starry eyes that seemed to hold the memory of a thousand love-thoughts! ... O, sweet curved lips whereon a delicious smile rested as softly as sunlight on young rose-petals! Where, . . where, in G.o.d's name, had he seen all this marvelous, witching, maddening loveliness BEFORE? His heart beat with heavy, laboring thuds, . . his brain reeled, . . a dim, golden, suffused radiance seemed to hover like an aureole above that dazzling white brow, adorned with a cl.u.s.tering wealth of raven-black tresses, whose ma.s.sive coils were crowned with the strangest sort of diadem--a wreath of small serpents' heads cunningly fas.h.i.+oned in rubies and rose brilliants, and set in such a manner that they appeared to lift themselves erect from out the dusky hair as though in darting readiness to sting. Full of a vague, wild longing, he instinctively stretched out his arms, . . then on a sudden impulse turned swiftly away, in a dizzy effort to escape from the basilisk fire-gleam of those sombre, haunting eyes that plunged into his inmost soul, and there aroused such dark desires, such retrospective evil, such wild weakness as shamed the betterness of his nature! Sah-luma's clear, mocking laugh just then rang sharply through the perfumed stillness.

"Thou mad Theos! Whither art thou bound?" cried the Laureate mirthfully. "Wilt leave our n.o.ble hostess ere the entertainment has begun? Ungallant barbarian! What frenzy possesses thee?"

These words recalled him to himself. He came back slowly step by step, and with bowed head, to where Lysia stood--Lysia, whose penetrating gaze still rested upon him with strangely fixed intensity.

"Forgive me," he said, in a low, unsteady voice that to his own ears sounded full of suppressed yet pa.s.sionate appeal. "Forgive me, lady, that for one moment I have seemed discourteous. I am not so, in very truth. Sad fancies fret my brain at times, and--and there is that within thine unveiled beauty which sword-like wounds my soul! I am not joyous natured: ...unlike Sah-luma, chosen favorite of fortune, I have lost all, all that made my life once seem fair. I am dead to those that loved me, ... forgotten by those that honored me, . . a wanderer in strange lands, a solitary wayfarer perplexed with many griefs to which I cannot give a name! Nevertheless," and he drew a quick, hard breath, "if I may serve thee, fairest Lysia,--as Sah-luma serves thee,--subject to thy sovereign favor,--thou shalt not find me lacking in obedience!

Command me as thou wilt; let me efface myself to wors.h.i.+p thee! Let me, if it be possible, drown thought,--slay memory,--murder conscience,--so that I may once more, as in the old time, be glad with the gladness that only love can give and only death can take away!"

As he finished this unpremeditated, uncontrollable outburst his eyes wistfully sought hers. She met his look with a languid indifference and a half-disdainful smile.

"Enough! restrain thine ardor!" she said coldly, her dark dilating orbs s.h.i.+ning like steel beneath the velvet softness of her long lashes.

"Thou dost speak ignorantly, unknowing what thy words involve--words to which I well might bind thee, were I less forbearing to thine inconsiderate rashness. How like all men thou art! How keen to plunge into unfathomed deeps, merely to s.n.a.t.c.h the pearl of present pleasure!

How martyr-seeming in thy fancied sufferings, as though THY little wave of personal sorrow swamped the world! O wondrous human Egotism! that sees but one great absolute 'I' scrawled on the face of Nature! 'I' am afflicted, let none dare to rejoice! 'I' would be glad, let none presume to grieve!" ... She laughed, a little low laugh of icy satire, and then resumed: "I thank thee for thy proffered service, sir stranger, albeit I need it not,--nor do I care to claim it at thy hands. Thou art my guest--no more! Whether thou wilt hereafter deserve to be enrolled my bondsman depends upon thy prowess and--my humor!"

Her beautiful eyes flashed scornfully, and there was something cruel in her glance. Theos felt it sting him like a sharp blow. His nerves quivered,--his spirit rose in arms against the cynical hauteur of this woman whom he loved; yes,--LOVED, with a curious sense of revived pa.s.sion--pa.s.sion that seemed to have slept in a tomb for ages, and that now suddenly sprang into life and being, like a fire kindled anew on dead ashes!

Acting on a sudden proud impulse he raised his head and looked at her with a bold steadfastness,--a critical scrutiny,--a calmly discriminating valuation of her physical charms that for the moment certainly appeared to startle her self-possession, for a deep flush colored the fairness of her face and then faded, leaving her pale as marble. Her emotion, whatever it was, lasted but a second,--yet in that second he had measured his mental strength against hers, and had become aware of his own supremacy! This consciousness filled him with peculiar satisfaction. He drew a long breath like one narrowly escaped from close peril. He had now no fear of her--only a great, all-absorbing, all-evil love, and to that he was recklessly content to yield. Her eyes dwelt glitteringly first upon him and then on Sah-luma, as the eyes of a falcon dwell on its prey, and her smile was touched with a little malice, as she said, addressing them both:

"Come, fair sirs! we will not linger in this wilderness of wild flowers. A feast awaits us yonder--a feast prepared for those who, like yourselves obey the creed of sweet self indulgence, ... the world-wide creed wherein men find no fault, no shadow of inconsistency! The truest wisdom is to enjoy,--the only philosophy that which teaches us how best to gratify our own desires! Delight cannot satiate the soul, nor mirth engender weariness! Follow me!--" and with a lithe movement she swept toward the door, her pet tigress creeping closely after her; then suddenly looking back she darted a l.u.s.tiously caressing glance over her shoulder at Sah-luma and stretched out her hand. He at once caught it in his own and kissed it with an almost brusque eagerness.

"I thought you had forgotten me!" he murmured in a vexed, half-reproachful tone.

"Forgotten you? Forgotten Sah-luma? Impossible!" and her silvery laughter shook the air into little throbs of music. "When the greatest poet of the age is forgotten, then fall Al-Kyris! ... for there shall be no more need of kingdoms!"

Laughing still and allowing her hand to remain in his, she pa.s.sed out of the pavilion, and Theos followed them both as a man might follow the beckoning sylphs in a fairy dream.

A mellow, luminous, witch-like radiance seemed to surround them as they went--two dazzling figures gliding on before him with the slow, light grace of moonbeams flitting over a smooth ocean. They seemed made for each other, ... he could not separate them in his thoughts; but the strangest part of the matter was the feeling he had, that he himself somehow belonged to them and they to him. His ideas on the subject, however, were very indefinite; he was in a condition of more or less absolute pa.s.siveness, save when strong shudders of grief, memory, remorse or roused pa.s.sion shook him with sudden force like a storm blast shaking some melancholy cypress whose roots are in the grave. He mused on Lysia's scornful words with a perplexed pain. Was he then so selfish? "The one great absolute 'I' scrawled on the face of Nature!"

Could that apply to him? Surely not! since in his present state of mind he could hardly lay claim to any distinct personality, seeing that that personality was forever merging itself and getting lost in the more clearly perfect ident.i.ty of Sah-luma, whom he regarded with a species of profound hero-wors.h.i.+p such as one man seldom feels for another. To call himself a Poet NOW seemed the acme of absurdity; how should such an one as he attempt to conquer fame with a rival like Sah-luma already in the field and already supremely victorious?

Full of these fancies, he scarcely heeded the wonders through which he pa.s.sed, as he followed his two radiant guides along. His eyes were tired, and rested almost indifferently on the magnificence that everywhere surrounded him, though here and there certain objects attracted his attention as being curiously familiar. These lofty corridors, gorgeously frescoed, . . these splendid groups of statuary, . . these palm-shaded nooks of verdure where imprisoned nightingales warbled plaintive songs that were all the sweeter for their sadness, ... these s.p.a.cious marble loggias cooled by the rising and falling spray of myriad fountains--did he not dimly recognize all these things?

He thought so, yet was not sure,--for he had arrived at a pa.s.s when he could neither rely on his reason nor his memory. Naught of deeper humiliation could he have than this, to feel within himself that he was still AN INTELLECTUAL, THINKING, SENTIENT HUMAN BEING, and that yet at the same time, his INTELLIGENCE COULD DO NOTHING TO EXTRICATE HIM from the terrific mystery which had engulfed him like a huge flood, and wherein he was now tossed to and fro as helplessly as a floating straw.

On, still on he went, treading closely in Sah-luma's footsteps and wistfully noting how often the myrtle-garlanded head of his friend drooped caressingly toward Lysia's dusky perfumed locks, whence those jewelled serpents' fangs darted flas.h.i.+ngly upward like light from darkness. On, still on, till at last he found himself in a grand vestibule, built entirely of sparkling red granite. Here were ten sphinxes, so huge in form that a dozen men might have lounged at ease on each one of their enormous paws; they were ranged in rows of five on each side, and their coldly meditative eyes appeared to dwell steadfastly on the polished face of a large black Disc placed conspicuously on a pedestal in the exact centre of the pavement.

Strange letters shone from time to time on this ebony tablet, . .

letters that seemed to be written in quicksilver; they glittered for a second, then ran off like phosph.o.r.escent drops of water, and again reappeared, but the same signs were never repeated twice over. All were different, . . all were rapid in their coming and going as flashes of lightning. Lysia, approaching the Disc, turned it slightly; at her touch it revolved like a flying wheel, and for a brief s.p.a.ce was literally covered with mysterious characters, which the beautiful Priestess perused with an apparent air of satisfaction. All at once the fiery writing vanished, the Disc was left black and bare,--and then a silver ball fell suddenly upon it, with a clang, from some unseen height, and rolling off again instantly disappeared. At the same moment a harsh voice, rising as it were from the deepest underground, chanted the following words in a monotonous recitative:

"Fall, O thou lost Hour, into the dreadful Past! Sink, O thou Pearl of Time, into the dark and fathomless abyss! Not all the glory of kings or the wealth of empires can purchase thee back again! Not all the strength of warriors or the wisdom of sages can draw thee forth from the Abode of Silence whither thou art fled! Farewell, lost Hour!--and may the G.o.ds defend us from thy reproach at the Day of Doom! In the name of the Sun and Nagaya, ... Peace!"

The voice died away in a m.u.f.fled echo, and the slow, solemn boom of a brazen-tongued bell struck midnight. Then Theos, raising his eyes, saw that all further progress was impeded by a great wall of solid rock that glistened at every point with flashes of pale and dark violet light--a wall composed entirely of adamantine spar, crusted thick with the rough growth of oriental amethyst. It rose sheer up from the ground to an alt.i.tude of about a hundred feet, and apparently closed in and completed the vestibule.

Surely there was no pa.s.sing through such a barrier as this? ... he thought wonderingly; nevertheless Lysia and Sah-luma still went on, and he--as perforce he was compelled--still followed. Arrived at the foot of the huge erection that towered above him like a steep cliff of molten gems, he fancied he heard a faint sound behind it as of clinking gla.s.ses and boisterous laughter, but before he had time to consider what this might mean, Lysia laid her hand lightly on a small, protruding k.n.o.b of crystal, pressed it, and lo! ... the whole ma.s.sive structure yawned open suddenly without any noise, suspending itself as it were in sparkling festoons of purple stalact.i.tes over the voluptuously magnificent scene disclosed.

At first it was difficult to discern more than a gorgeous maze of swaying light and color as though a great field of tulips in full bloom should be seen waving to and fro in the breath of a soft wind; but gradually this bewildering dazzle of gold and green, violet and crimson, resolved itself into definite form and substance; and Theos, standing beside his two companions on the elevated threshold of the part.i.tion through which they had entered, was able to look down and survey with tolerable composure the wondrous details of the glittering picture--a picture that looked like a fairy-fantasy poised in a haze of jewel-like radiance as of vaporized sapphire.

He saw beneath him a vast circular hall or amphitheatre, roofed in by a lofty dome of richest malachite, from the centre of which was suspended a huge globe of fire, that revolved with incredible swiftness, flinging vivid, blood-red rays on the amber-colored silken carpets and embroideries that strewed the floor below. The dome was supported by rows upon rows of tall, tapering crystal columns, clear as translucent water and green as the gra.s.s in spring, . . and between and beyond these columns on the left-hand side there were large, oval-shaped cas.e.m.e.nts set wide open to the night, through which the gleam of a broad lake laden with water-lilies could be seen s.h.i.+mmering in the yellow moon. The middle of the hall was occupied by a round table covered with draperies of gold, white, and green, and heaped with all the costly accessories of a sumptuous banquet such as might have been spread before the G.o.ds of Olympus in the full height of their legendary prime. Here were the lovely hues of heaped-up fruit,--the tender bloom of scattered flowers,--the glisten of jewelled flagons and goblets, the flash of ma.s.sive golden dishes carried aloft by black slaves attired in white and crimson,--the red glow of poured-out wine; and here, in the drowsy warmth, lounging on divans of velvet and embroidered satin, eating, drinking, idly gossiping, loudly laughing, and occasionally bursting into wild s.n.a.t.c.hes of song, were a company of brilliant-looking personages,--all men, all young, all handsome, all richly clad, and all evidently bent on enjoying the pleasures offered by the immediate hour. Suddenly, however, their noisy voices ceased--with one accord, as though drawn by some magnetic spell, they all turned their heads toward the platform where Lysia had just silently made her appearance,--and springing from their seats they broke into a boisterous shout of acclamation and welcome. One young man whose flushed face had all the joyous, wanton, effeminate beauty of a pictured Dionysius, reeled forward, goblet in hand, and tossing the wine in air so that it splashed down again at his feet, staining his white garments as it fell with a stain as of blood, he cried, tipsily:

"All hail, Lysia! Where hast thou wandered so long, thou G.o.ddess of Morn? We have been lost in the blackness of night, sunk in the depths of a h.e.l.l-like gloom--but lo! now the clouds have broken in the east, and our hearts rejoice at the birth of day! Vanish, dull moon, and be ashamed! ... for a fairer planet rules the sky! Hence, ye stars! ...

puny glow-worms lazily crawling in the fields of ether! Lysia invests the heaven and earth, and in her smile we live! Ha! art thou there, Sah-luma? Come, praise me for my improvised love-lines; they are as good as thine, I warrant thee! Canst compose when thou art drunk, my dainty Laureate? Drain a cup then, and string me a stanza! Where is thy fool Zebastes? I would fain tickle his long ears with ribald rhyme, and hearken to the barbarous braying forth of his asinine reflections!

Lysia! what, Lysia! ... dost thou frown at me? Frown not, sweet queen, but rather laugh! ... thy laughter kills, 'tis true, but thy frown doth torture spirits after death! Unbend thy brows! Night looms between them like a chaos! ... we will have no more night, I say, but only noon! ...

a long, languorous, lovely noon, flower-girdled and sunbeam-clad!

"'With roses, roses, roses crown my head, For my days are few! And remember, sweet, when I am dead, That my heart was true!'"

Singing unsteadily, with the empty goblet upside-down in his hand, he looked up laughing,--his bright eyes flas.h.i.+ng with a wild feverish fire, his fair hair tossed back from his brows and entangled in a half-crushed wreath of vine-leaves,--his rich garments disordered, his whole demeanor that of one possessed by a semi-delirium of sensuous pleasure...when all at once, meeting Lysia's keen glance, he started as though he had been suddenly stabbed,--the goblet fell from his clasp, and a visible shudder ran through his strong, supple frame. The low, cold, merciless laughter of the beautiful Priestess cut through the air hissingly like the sweep of a scimetar.

"Thou art wondrous merry, Nir-jalis," she said, in languid, lazily enunciated accents. "Knowest thou not that too much mirth engenders weeping, and that excessive rejoicing hath its fitting end in grievous lamentation? Nay, even now already thou lookest more sadly! What sombre cloud has crossed thy wine-hued heaven? Be happy while thou mayest, good fool! ... I blame thee not! Sooner or later all things must end!

... in the mean time, make thou the most of life while life remains; 'tis at its best an uncertain heritage, that once rashly squandered can never be restored,--either here or hereafter."

The words were gently, almost tenderly, spoken; but Nir-jalis hearing them, grew white as death--his smile faded, leaving his lips set and stern as the lips of a marble mask. Stooping, he raised his fallen goblet and held it out almost mechanically to a pa.s.sing slave, who re-filled it with wine, which he drank off thirstily at a draught, though the generous liquid brought no color back to his drawn and ashy features.

Lysia paid no further heed to his evident discomfiture; bidding Sah-luma and Theos follow her, she descended the few steps that led from the raised platform into the body of the brilliant hall; the rocky screen of amethyst closed behind her as noiselessly as it had opened, and in another moment she stood among her a.s.sembled guests, who at once surrounded her with eager salutations and gracefully worded flatteries.

Smiling on them all with that strange smile of hers that was more scornful than sweet, and yet so infinitely bewitching, she said little in answer to their greetings, . . she moved as a queen moves through a crowd of courtiers, the varied light of crimson and green playing about her like so many sparkles of living flame, . . her dark head, wreathed with those jewelled serpents, lifting itself proudly erect from her m.u.f.fling golden mantle, and her eyes s.h.i.+ning with that frosty gleam of mockery which made them look so l.u.s.trous yet so cold. And now Theos perceived that at one end of the splendid banquet table a dais was erected, draped richly in carnation-colored silk, and that on this dais a throne was placed--a throne composed entirely of BLACK crystals, whose needle-like points sparkled with a dark flash as of bayonets seen through the smoke of battle. It was cus.h.i.+oned in black velvet, and above it was a bent arch of ivory on which glittered a twisted snake of cl.u.s.tered emeralds.

With that slow, superb ease that distinguished all her actions, Lysia, attended closely by her tigress, mounted the dais,--and as she did so a loud clash of brazen bells rang out from some invisible turret beyond the summit of the great dome. At the sound of the jangling chime four negresses appeared--goblin creatures that looked as though they had suddenly sprung from some sooty, subterranean region of gnomes--and humbly prostrating themselves before Lysia, kissed the ground at her feet. This done, they rose, and began to undo the fastenings of her golden, domino-like garment; but either they were slow, or the fair priestess was impatient for she suddenly shook herself free of their hands, and, loosening the gorgeous mantle herself from its jewelled clasps, it fell slowly from her symmetrical form on the perfumed floor with a rustle as of falling leaves.

A sigh quivered audibly through the room--whether of grief, joy, hope, relief, or despair it was difficult to tell. The pride and peril of a matchless loveliness was revealed in all its fatal seductiveness and invincible strength--the irresistible perfection of woman's beauty was openly displayed to bewilder the sight and rouse the reckless pa.s.sions of man! Who could look on such delicate, dangerous, witching charms unmoved? Who could gaze on the exquisite outlines of a form fairer than that of any sculptured Venus and refuse to acknowledge its powerfully sweet attraction?

The Virgin Priestess of the Sun had stepped out of her shrine; . . no longer a creature removed, impersonal, and sacred, she had become most absolutely human. Moreover, she might now have been taken for a bacchante, a dancer, or any other uns.e.xed example of womanhood inasmuch as with her golden mantle she had thrown off all disguise of modesty.

Her beautiful limbs, rounded and smooth as pearl, could be plainly discerned through the filmy garb of silvery tissue that clung like a pale mist about the voluptuous curves of her figure and floated behind her in s.h.i.+ning gossamer folds; her dazzling white neck and arms were bare; and from slim wrist to snowy shoulder, little twining diamond snakes glistened in close coils against the velvety fairness of her flesh. A silver serpent with a head of sapphires girdled her waist, and just above the full wave of her bosom, that rose and fell visibly beneath the transparent gathers of her gauzy drapery, shone a large, fiery jewel, fas.h.i.+oned in the semblance of a human Eye. This singular ornament was so life-like as to be absolutely repulsive, and as it moved to and fro with its wearer's breathing it seemed now to stare aghast,--anon to flash wickedly as with a thought of evil,--while more often still it a.s.sumed a restlessly watchful expression as though it were the eye of a fiend-inquisitor intent on the detection of some secret treachery. Poised between those fair white b.r.e.a.s.t.s it glared forth a glittering Menace; . . a warning of unimaginable horror; and Theos, gazing at it fixedly, felt a curious thrill run through him, as if, so to speak, a hook of steel had been suddenly thrust into his quivering veins to draw him steadily and securely on toward some pitfall of unknown tortures. Then he remembered what Sah-luma had said about the "all-reflecting Eye, the weird mirror and potent dazzler of human sight," and wondered whether its mystical properties were such as to compel men to involuntarily declare their inmost thoughts, for it seemed to him that its sinister glow penetrated into the very deepest recesses of his mind, and there discovered all the hidden weaknesses, follies, and pa.s.sions of the worst side of his nature!

He trembled and grew faint,--his dazed eyes wandered over the dainty grace and marvel of Lysia's almost unclad loveliness with mingled emotions of allurement and repugnance. Fascinated, yet at the same time repelled, his soul yearned toward her as the soul of the knight in the Lore-lei legend yearned toward the singing Rhine-siren, whose embrace was destruction; and then..... he became filled with a strange, sudden fear; fear, not for himself, but for Sah-luma, whose ardent glance burned into her dark, languid-lidded, amorous...o...b.. with the l.u.s.tre of flame meeting flame--Sah-luma, whose beautiful flushed face was as that of a G.o.d inspired, or lover triumphant. What could he do to s.h.i.+eld and save this so idolized friend of his?--this dear familiar for whom he had such close and ever-increasing sympathy! Might he not possibly guard him in some way and ward off impending danger? But what danger?

What spectral shadow of dread hovered above this brilliant scene of high feasting and voluptuous revelry? None that he could imagine or define, and yet he was conscious, of an omimous, unuttered premonition of peril in the very air--peril for Sah-luma, always for Sah-luma, never for himself, ... Self seemed dead and entombed forever!

Involuntarily lifting his eyes to the great green dome where the globe of fire twirled rapidly like a rolling star, he saw some words written round it in golden letters, they were large and distinct, and ran thus:

"Live in the Now, but question not the Afterwards!"

A wise axiom! ... yet almost a plat.i.tude, for did not every one occupy themselves exclusively with the Now, regardless of future consequences?

Of course! Who but sages--or fools--would stop to question the Afterwards!

Just then Lysia ascended her black crystal throne in all her statuesque majesty, and sinking indolently amid its sable cus.h.i.+ons, where she shone in her wonderful whiteness like a glistening pearl set in ebony, she signed to her guests to resume their places at table. She was instantly obeyed. Sah-luma took what was evidently his accustomed post at her right hand, while Theos found a vacant corner on her left, next to the picturesque, lounging figure of the young man Nir jahs, who looked up at him with a half smile as he seated himself, and courteously made more room for him among the tumbled emerald silk diapers of the luxurious divan, they now shared together. Nir jahs was by no means sober, but he had recovered a little of his self-possession since Lysia's sleepy eyes had darted such cold contempt upon him, and he seemed for the present to be on his guard against giving any further possible cause of offence.

"Thou art a new comer,--a stranger, if I mistake not?" he inquired in a low, abrupt, yet kindly tone.

"Yes," replied Theos in the same soft sotto-voce. "I am a mere sojourner in Al-Kyris for a few days only, ... the guest of the divine Sah-luma."

Nir-jahs raised his eyebrows with an expression of amused wonder.

"Divine!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed "By my faith! what neophyte have we here!" and supporting himself on one elbow he stared at his companion as though he saw in him some singular human phenomenon. "Dost thou really believe,"

he went on jestingly, "in the divinity of poets? Dost thou think they write what they mean, or practice what they preach? Then art thou the veriest innocent that ever wore the muscular semblance of man! Poets, my friend, are the most absolute impostors, . . they melodize their rhymed music on phases of emotion they have never experienced; as for instance our Lameate yonder will string a pretty sonnet on the despair of love, he knowing nothing of despair, . . he will write of a broken heart, his own being unp.r.i.c.ked by so much as a pin's point of trouble; and he will speak in his verso of dying for love when he would not let his little finger ache for the sake of a woman who wors.h.i.+pped him! Look not so vaguely! 'tis so, indeed! and as for the divine part of him, wait but a little, and thou shalt see thy poet-G.o.d become a satyr!"

He laughed maliciously, and Theos felt an angry flush rising to his brows. He could not bear to hear Sah-luma thus lightly maligned even by this half-drunken reveller, it stung him to the quick, as if he personally were included in the implied accusation of unworthiness.