He spoke with a rush of earnestness and eloquence that was both persuasive and powerful, and he now stood silent and absorbed, his dreamy eyes resting meditatively on the massive bust of the immortal personage he called Hyspiros, which smiled out in serene, cold whiteness from the velvet-shadowed shrine it occupied. Theos watched him with fascinated and fraternal fondness, . . did ever man possess so dulcet a voice, he thought? ... so grave and rich and marvellously musical, yet thrilling with such heart-moving suggestions of mingled pride and plaintiveness?
"Thou art a most alluring orator, Sah-luma!" he said suddenly-- "Methinks I could listen to thee all day and never tire!"
"I' faith, so could not I!" interposed Zabastes grimly. "For when a bard begins to gabble goose-like platitudes which merely concern his own vocation, the gods only know when he can be persuaded to stop! Nay, 'tis more irksome far than the recitation of his professional jingle--for to that there must in time come a merciful fitting end, but, as I live, if 'twas my custom to say prayers, I would pray to be delivered from the accursed volubility of a versifier's tongue! And perchance it will not be considered out of my line of duty if I venture to remind my most illustrious and renowned MASTER--" this with a withering sneer,--"that if he has any more remarkable nothings to dictate concerning this particularly inane creation of his fancy 'Nourhalma,' 'twill be well that we should proceed therewith, for the hours wax late and the sun veereth toward his House of Noon."
And he spread out fresh slips of papyrus and again prepared his long quill.
Sah-luma smiled, as one who is tolerant of the whims of a hired buffoon,--and, this time seating himself in his ebony chair, was about to commence dictating his Second Canto when Theos, yielding to his desire to speak aloud the idea that had just flashed across his brain said abruptly: "Has it ever seemed to thee, Sah-luma, as it now does to me, that there is a strange resemblance between thy imaginative description of the ideal 'Nourhalma,' and the actual charms and virtues of thy strayed singing-maid Niphrata?"
Sah-luma looked up, thoroughly astonished, and laughed.
"No!--Verily I have not traced, nor can I trace the smallest vestige of a similarity! Why, good Theos, there is none!--not the least in the world,--for this heroine of mine, Nourhalma, loves in vain, and sacrifices all, even her innocent and radiant life, for love, as thou wilt hear in the second half of the poem,--moreover she loves one who is utterly unworthy of her faithful tenderness. Now Niphrata is a child of delicate caprice ... she loves ME,--me, her lord,--and methinks I am not negligent or undeserving of her devotion! ... again, she has no strength of spirit,--her timorous blood would freeze at the mere thought of death,--she is more prone to play with flowers and sing for pure delight of heart than perish for the sake of love! 'Tis an unequal simile, my friend!-- as well compare a fiery planet with a twinkling dewdrop, as draw a parallel between the heroic ideal maid 'Nourhalma'--and my fluttering singing-bird, Niphrata!"