"Death and fury!" he shouted, striking his sword with a fierce clang against the silver pedestal of the throne, . . "Where is Khosrul?"
The silence of an absolute dismay answered him, ... Khosrul had fled! Like a cloud melting in air, or a ghost vanishing into the nether-world, he had mysteriously disappeared! ... he had escaped, no one knew how, from under the very feet and out of the very grasp of the irate monarch, whose baffled wrath now knew no bounds.
"Dolts, idiots, cowards!".. and he hurled these epithets at the timorous crowd with all the ferocity of a giant hurling stones at a swarm of pigmies.. "Babes that are frighted by a summer thunder- storm! ... Ye have let yon accursed heretic slip from my hands ere I had choked him with his own lie! O ye fools! Ye puny villains! ... I take shame to myself that I am King of such a race of weaklings! Lights! ... Bring lights hither, ye whimpering slaves, --ye shivering poltroons! ... What! call yourselves men! Nay, ye are feeble girls prankt out in men's attire, and your steel corselets cover the faintest hearts that ever failed for dastard fear! Shut fast the palace-gates! ... close every barrier! ... search every court and corner, lest haply this base false Prophet be still here in hiding,--he that blasphemed with ribald tongue the High Priestess of our Faith, the holy Virgin Lysia! ... Are ye all turned renegades and traitors that ye will suffer him to go free and triumph in his lawless heresy? Ye shameless knaves! Ye milk-veined rascals! ... What abject terror makes ye thus quiver like aspen-leaves in a storm? ... this darkness is but a conjurer's trick to scare women, and Khosrul's followers can so play with the strings of electricity that ye are duped into accepting the witch-glamour as Heaven's own cloud-flame! By the gods! If Al-Kyris falls, as yon dotard pronounceth, her ruins shall bury but few heroes! O superstitious and degraded souls! ... I would ye were even as I am--a man dauntless,--a soldier unafraid."
His powerful and indignant voice had the effect of partially checking the panic and restoring something like order,--the pushing and struggling for an immediate exit ceased,--the armed guards in shamed silence began to marshal themselves together in readiness to start on the search for the fugitive,--and several pages rushed in with flaring torches, which cast a wondrous fire- glow on the surging throng of eager and timid faces, the brilliant costumes, the flash of jewels, the glimmer of swords and the dark outlines of the fluttering tapestry,--all forming together a curious chiaroscuro, from which the massive figure of Zephoranim stood out in bold and striking prominence against the white and silver background of his throne. Vaguely bewildered and lost in a dim stupefaction of wonderment, Theos looked upon everything with an odd sense of strained calmness, . . the glittering saloon whirled before his eyes like a passing picture in a magic glass...and then...an imperative knowledge forced itself upon his mind,--HE HAD WITNESSED THIS SELF-SAME SCENE BEFORE! Where? and when? ... Impossible to say,--but he distinctly remembered each incident! This impression however left him as rapidly as it had come, before he had any time to puzzle himself about it, . . and just at that moment Sah-luma's hand caught his own,--Sah-luma's voice whispered in his ear: "Let us away, my friend,--there will be naught now but mounting of guards and dire confusion,--the King is as a lion roused, and will not cease growling till his vengeance be satisfied! A plague on this shatter-pated Prophet!--he hath broken through my music, and jarred poesy into discord!--By the Sacred Veil!--Didst ever hear such a hideous clamor of contradictory tongues! ... all striving to explain what defies explanation, namely, Khosrul's flight, for which, after all, no one is to blame so much as Zephoranim himself,--but 'tis the privilege of monarchs to shift their own mistakes and follies on to the shoulders of their subjects! Come! Lysia awaits us, and will not easily pardon our tardy obedience to her summons,--let us hence ere the gates of the palace close."