Sah-luma took the missive carelessly, scarcely glancing at it, and crossed the hall toward his own apartment, Theos following him. On his way, however, he paused and turned round: "Has Niphrata yet come home?" he demanded of the page who still lingered.
"No, my lord! ... naught hath been seen or heard concerning her."
Sah-luma gave a petulant gesture of annoyance and passed on. Arrived in his study he seated himself, and allowed his eyes to rest more attentively on the packet just given him. As he looked he uttered a slight exclamation, . . Theos hastened to his side. "What has happened, Sah-luma? ... hast thou ill news?"
"Ill news?--nay, of a truth I know not".. and the Laureate gazed up blankly into his friend's face.. "But this" ... and he touched the fair silken substance that tied the scroll he held, "this is Niphrata's hair!"
"Niphrata's hair!".. Theos was too much surprised to do more than repeat the words mechanically, while a strange pang shot through his heart as of inward shame or sorrow.
"Naught can deceive me in the color of that gold!" went on Sah- luma dreamily, as with careful, somewhat tremulous fingers, he gently loosened the twisted shining threads that were so delicately knotted together, and smoothing them out to their full length, displayed what was indeed a lovely tress of hair bright as woven sunlight with a rippling wave in it that, like the tendril of a vine caught and wound about his hand as though it were a fond and feeling thing.
"See you not, Theos, how warm and soft and shuddering a curl it is? ... It clings to me as if it knew my touch!--as if it half remembered how many and many a time it had been drawn with its companions to my lips and kissed full tenderly! ... How sad and desolate it seems thus severed and alone!"
He spoke gently, yet not without a touch of passion, and twined the fair tresses lingeringly round his fingers, ..then, with the air of one who is instinctively prepared for some unpleasing tidings, he opened the scroll and perused its contents in silence. As he read on, his face grew very grave, and full of pained and wondering regret.. quietly he passed the missive to Theos, who took it from his hand with a tremor of something like fear. The delicately traced characters with which it was covered floated for a moment in a faint blur before his eyes,--then they resolved themselves into legible shape and meaning, as follows: "To the ever-worshiped and immortally renowned "Sah-luma. "Poet-Laureate of the Kingdom of Al-Kyris. "Blame me not, O my beloved Lord, that I have left thy dearest presence thus unwarnedly forever, staying no time to weary thee with my too fond and foolish tears and kisses of farewell! I owe to thee the gift of freedom, and while I thank thee for that gift, I do employ it now to serve me as a sacrifice to Love,--an immolation of myself upon the altars of my own desire! For thou knowest I have loved thee, O Sah-luma--not too well but most unwisely,--for what am I that thou shouldst stoop to cover my unworthiness with the royal purple of thy poet-passion? ... what could I ever be save the poor trembling slave-idolater, of whose endearments thou must needs most speedily tire! Nevertheless I cannot still this hunger of my heart,--this love that stings me more than it consoles,--and out of the very transport of my burning thoughts I have learned many and strange things,--things whereby I, a woman feebled and unlessoned, have grasped the glimmering foreknowledge of events to come,--events wherein I do perceive for thee, thou Chiefest among men, some dark and threatening disaster. When fore I have prayed unto the most high gods, that they will deign to accept me as thy hostage to misfortune, and set me as a bar between thy life and dawning peril, so that I, long valueless, may serve at least awhile to avert doom from thee who art unparagoned throughout the world!