"By my word, a most sooty and repellent bearer of a lady's greeting!" laughed Theos lightly, as he sauntered arm in arm with his host on the downward path leading to the garden and palace-- "And I have yet to learn the true meaning of his message!"
"'Tis plain enough!" replied Sah-luma somewhat sulkily, with the deep flush still coming and going on his face--"It means that we are summoned, . . thou as well as I, . . to one of Lysia's midnight banquets,--an honor that falls to few,--a mandate none dare disobey! She must have spied thee out this morning--the only unkneeling soul in all the abject multitude-hence, perhaps, her present desire for thy company."
There was a touch of vexation in his voice, but Theos heeded it not. His heart gave a great bound against his ribs as though pricked by a fire-tipped arrow,--something swift and ardent stirred in his blood like the flowing of quicksilver, . . the picture of the dusky-eyed, witchingly beautiful woman he had seen that morning in her gold-adorned ship, seemed to float between him and the light,--her face shone out like a growing glory-flower in the tangled wilderness of his thoughts, and his lips trembled a little as he replied: "She must be gracious and forgiving then, even as she is fair! For in my neglect of reverence due, I merited her scorn, . . not her courtesy. But tell me, Sah-luma, how could she know I was a guest of thine?"
Sah-luma glanced at him half-pityingly, half disdainfully.
"How could she know? Easily!--inasmuch as she knows all things. 'Twould have been strange indeed had she NOT known!" and he caught at a down-drooping rose and crushed its fragrant head in his hand with a sort of wanton petulance--"The King himself is less acquainted with his people's doings than the wearer of the All- Reflecting Eye! Thou hast not yet seen that weird mirror and potent dazzler of human sight, . . no,--but thou WILT see it ere long,--the glittering Fiend-guarding of the whitest breast that ever shut in passion!" His voice shook, and he paused,--then with some effort continued--"Yes,--Lysia has her secret commissioners everywhere throughout the length and breadth of the city, who report to her each circumstance that happens, no matter how trifling,--and doubtless we were followed home,--tracked step by step as we walked together, by one of her stealthy-footed servitors,--in this there would be naught unusual."
"Then there is no freedom in Al-Kyris,--" said Theos wonderingly-- "if the whole city thus lies under the circumspection of a woman?"
Sah-luma laughed rather harshly.