The hours wore on with stealthy rapidity,--but the two friends, reclining together under a deep-branched canopy of cypress-boughs, paid little or no heed to the flight of time. The heat in the garden was intense--the grass was dry and brittle as though it had been scorched by passing flames,--and a singularly profound stillness reigned everywhere, there being no wind to stir the faintest rustle among the foliage. Lying lazily upon his back, with his arms clasped above his head, Theos looked dreamily up at the patches of blue sky seen between the dark-green gnarled stems and listened to the measured cadence of the Laureate's mellow voice as he recited with much tenderness the promised poem.
Of course it was perfectly familiar,--the lines were precisely the same as those which he, Theos, remembered to have written out, thinking them his own, in an old manuscript book he had left at home. "At-home!" ... Where was that? It must be a very long way off! ... He half-closed his eyes,--a sense of delightful drowsiness was upon him, . . the rise and fall of his friend's rhythmic utterance soothed him into a languid peace, . . the "Idyl of Roses" was very sweet and musical, and, though he knew it of old, he heard it now with special satisfaction, inasmuch as, it being no longer his, he was at liberty to bestow upon it that full measure of admiration which he felt it deserved!
Yet every now and then his thoughts wandered,--and though he anxiously strove to concentrate his attention on the lovely stanzas that murmured past his ears like the gentle sound of waves flowing beneath the mesmerism of the moon, his brain was in a continual state of ferment, and busied itself with all manner of vague suggestions to which he could give no name.
A great weariness weighed down his spirit--a dim consciousness of the futility of all ambition and all endeavor--he was haunted, too, by the sharp hiss of Lysia's voice when she had said, "KILL SAH-LUMA!"...Her look, her attitude, her murderous smile, troubled his memory and made him ill at ease,--the thing she had thus demanded at his hands seemed more monstrous than if she had bidden him kill himself! For there had been one moment, when, mastered by her beauty and the force of his own passion, he WOULD have killed himself had she requested it...but to kill his adored, his beloved friend! ... ah no! not for a thousand sorceress-queens as fair as she!
He drew a long breath, . . an irresistible desire for rest came over him, . . the air was heavy and warm and fragrant,--his companion's dulcet accents served as a lullaby to his tired mind,--it seemed a long time since he had enjoyed a pleasant slumber, for the previous night he had not slept at all. Lower and lower drooped his aching lids, . . he was almost beginning to slip away slowly into a blissful unconsciousness, . . when all at once Sah-luma ceased reciting, and a harsh, brazen clang of bells echoed through the silence, storming to and fro with a violent, hurried uproar suggestive of some sudden alarm. He sprang to his feet, rubbing his eyes,--Sah-luma rose also, a slightly petulant expression on his face.