Ardath, Marie Corelli [e ink ebook reader txt] 📗

was joined by all the assembled maidens, including the gentle, pensive-eyed Niphrata. Standing erect in his glistening princely attire, with one hand resting familiarly on Theos’s arm, and the sparkle of mirth lighting up his handsome features, he formed the greatest contrast imaginable to the little shrunken old personage, who, clinging convulsively to his staff, was entirely absorbed in his efforts to control and overcome his sudden and unpleasant attack of threatened suffocation.

 

“Theos, my friend,”—he said, still laughing—“Thou must know the admirable Zabastes,—a man of vast importance in his own opinion!

Have done with thy wheezing,”—he continued, vehemently thumping the struggling old gentleman on the back—“Here is another one of the minstrel craft thou hatest,—hast aught of bitterness in thy barbed tongue wherewith to welcome him as guest to mine abode?”

 

Thus adjured, the old man peered up at Theos inquisitively, wiping away the tears that coughing had brought into his eyes, and after a minute or two began also to laugh in a smothered, chuckling way,—a laugh that resembled the croaking of frogs in a marshy pool.

 

“Another one of the minstrel-craft,” he echoed derisively—“Aye, aye! … Like meets like, and fools consorts with fool. The guest of Sahluma, . . Hearken, young man,—” and he drew closer, the malign grin widening on his furrowed face,—“Thou shalt learn enough trash here to stock thee with idiot-songs for a century.

Thou shalt gather up such fragments of stupidity, as shall provide thee with food for all the puling love-sick girls of a nation!

Dost thou write follies also? … thou shalt not write them here, thou shalt not even think them!—for here Sahluma,—the great, the unrivalled Sahluma,—is sole Lord of the land of Poesy.

Poesy,—by all the gods!—I would the accursed art had never been invented … so might the world have been spared many long-drawn nothings, enwoofed in obscure and distracting phraseology! …

THOU a would-be Poet?—go to!—make brick, mend sandals, dig entrenchments, fight for thy country,—and leave the idle stringing of words, and the tinkling of rhyme, to children like Sahluma, who play with life instead of living it.”

 

And with this, he hobbled off uneasily, grunting and grumbling as he went, and waving his staff magisterially right and left to warn the smiling maidens out of his way,—and once more Sahluma’s laughter, clear and joyous, pealed through the vaulted vestibule.

 

“Poor Zabastes!” he said in a tone of good-humored tolerance—“He has the most caustic wit of any man in Al-Kyris! He is a positive marvel of perverseness and ill-humor, well worth the four hundred golden pieces I pay him yearly for his task of being my scribe and critic. Like all of us he must live, eat and wear decent clothing,—and that his only literary skill lies in the abuse of better men than himself is his misfortune, rather than his fault.

Yes! … he is my paid Critic, paid to rail against me on all occasions public or private, for the merriment of those who care to listen to the mutterings of his discontent,—and, by the Sacred Veil! … I cannot choose but laugh myself whenever I think of him. He deems his words carry weight with the people,—alas, poor soul! his scorn but adds to my glory,—his derision to my fame!

Nay, of a truth I need him,—even as the King needs the court fool,—to make mirth for me in vacant moments,—for there is something grotesque in the contemplation of his cankered clownishness, that sees nought in life but the eating, the sleeping, the building, and the bargaining. Such men as he can never bear to know that there are others, gifted by heaven, for whom all common things take radiant shape and meaning,—for whom the flowers reveal their fragrant secrets,—for whom birds not only sing, but speak in most melodious utterance—for whose dreaming eyes, the very sunbeams spin bright fantasies in mid-air more lasting than the kingdoms of the world! Blind and unhappy Zabastes! … he is ignorant as a stone, and for him the mysteries of Nature are forever veiled. The triumphal hero-march of the stars,—the brief, bright rhyme of the flashing comet,—the canticle of the rose as she bears her crimson heart to the smile of the sun,—the chorus of green leaves chanting orisons to the wind—the never completed epic of heaven’s lofty solitudes where the white moon paces, wandering like a maiden in search of love,—

all these and other unnumbered joys he has lost—joys that Sahluma, child of the high gods and favorite of Destiny drinks in with the light and the air.”

 

His eyes softened with a dreamy, intense lustre that gave them a new and almost pathetic beauty, while Theos, listening to each word he uttered, wondered whether there were ever any sounds sweeter than the rise and fall of his exquisite voice,—a voice as deliciously clear and mellow as a golden flute tenderly played.

 

“Yes!—though we must laugh at Zabastes we should also pity him,”

—he resumed in gayer accents—“His fate is not enviable. He is nothing but a Critic—he could not well be a lesser man,—one who, unable himself to do any great work, takes refuge in finding fault with the works of others. And those who abhor true Poesy are in time themselves abhorred,—the balance of Justice never errs in these things. The Poet wins the whole world’s love, and immortal fame,—his adverse Critic, brief contempt, and measureless oblivion. Come,”—he added, addressing Theos—“we will leave these maidens to their duties and pastimes,—Niphrata!” here his dazzling smile flashed like a beam of sunlight over his face—

“thou wilt bring us fruit and wine yonder,—we shall pass the afternoon together within doors. Bid my steward prepare the Rose Chamber for my guest, and let Athazel and Zimra attend there to wait upon him.”

 

All the maidens saluted, touching their heads with their hands in token of obedience, and Sahluma leading the way, courteously beckoned Theos to follow. He did so, conscious as he went of two distinct impressions,—first, that the mysterious mental agitation he had suffered from when he had found himself so unexpectedly in a strange city, was not completely dispelled,—and secondly, that he felt as though he must have known Sahluma all his life! His memory still remained a blank as regarded his past career,—but this fact had ceased to trouble him, and he was perfectly tranquil, and altogether satisfied with his present surroundings.

In short, to be in Al-Kyris, seemed to him quite in keeping with the necessary course of events,—while to be the friend and companion of Sahluma was more natural and familiar to his mind, than all once natural and familiar things.

 

CHAPTER XIII.

 

A POET’S PALACE.

 

Gliding along with that graceful, almost phantom-like swiftness of movement that was so much a part of his manner, Sahluma escorted his visitor to the further end of the great hall. There,—throwing aside a curtain of rich azure silk which partially draped two large folding-doors,—he ushered him into a magnificent apartment opening out upon the terrace and garden beyond,—a garden filled with such a marvellous profusion of foliage and flowers, that looking at it from between the glistening marble columns surrounding the palace, it seemed as though the very sky above rested edge-wise on towering pyramids of red and white bloom.

Awnings of pale blue stretched from the windows across the entire width of the spacious outer colonnade, and here two small boys, half nude, and black as polished ebony, were huddled together on the mosaic pavement, watching the arrogant deportment of a superb peacock that strutted majestically to and fro with boastfully spreading tail and glittering crest as brilliant as the gleam of the hot sun on the silver fringe of the azure canopies.

 

“Up, lazy rascals!” cried Sahluma imperiously, as with the extreme point of his sandaled foot he touched the dimpled, shiny back of the nearest boy—“Up, and away! … Fetch rose-water and sweet perfumes hither! By the gods! ye have let the incense in yonder burner smoulder!”—and he pointed to a massive brazen vessel, gorgeously ornamented, from whence rose but the very faintest blue whiff of fragrant smoke—“Off with ye both, ye basking blackamoors! bring fresh frankincense,—and palm-leaves wherewith to stir this heated air—hence and back again like a lightning-flash! … or out of my sight forever!”

 

While he spoke, the little fellows stood trembling and ducking their woolly heads, as though they half expected to be seized by their irate master and flung, like black balls, out into the wilderness of flowers, but glancing timidly up and perceiving that even in the midst of his petulance he smiled, they took courage, and as soon as he had ceased they darted off with the swiftness of flying arrows, each striving to outstrip the other in a race across the terrace and garden. Sahluma laughed as he watched them disappear,—and then stepping back into the interior of the apartment he turned to Theos and bade him be seated. Theos sank unresistingly into a low, velvet-cushioned chair richly carved and inlaid with ivory, and stretching his limbs indolently therein, surveyed with new and ever-growing admiration the supple, elegant figure of his host, who, throwing himself full length on a couch covered with leopard-skins, folded his arms behind his head, and eyed his guest with a complacent smile of vanity and self-approval.

 

“‘Tis not an altogether unfitting retreat for a poet’s musings”—

he said, assuming an air of indifference, as he glanced round his luxurious, almost royally appointed room—“I have heard of worse!

—But truly it needs the highest art of all known nations to worthily deck a habitation wherein the divine Muse may daily dwell, … nevertheless, air, light, and flowers are not lacking, and on these methinks I could subsist, were I deprived of all other things!”

 

Theos sat silent, looking about him wistfully. Was ever poet, king, or even emperor, housed more sumptuously than this, he thought? … as his eyes wandered to the domed ceiling, wreathed with carved clusters of grapes and pomegranates,—the walls, frescoed with glowing scenes of love and song-tournament,—the groups of superb statuary that gleamed whitely out of dusky, velvet-draped corners,—the quaintly shaped book-cases, overflowing with books, and made so as to revolve round and round at a touch, or move to and fro on noiseless wheels,—the grand busts, both in bronze and marble, that stood on tall pedestals or projecting bracket; and,—while he dimly noted all these splendid evidences of unlimited wealth and luxury,—the perfume and lustre of the place, the glitter of gold and azure, silver and scarlet, the oriental languor pervading the very air, and above all the rich amber and azure-tinted light that bathed every object in a dream-like and fairy radiance, plunged his senses into a delicious confusion,—a throbbing fever of delight to which he could give no name, but which permeated every fibre of his being.

 

He felt half blinded with the brilliancy of the scene,—the dazzling glow of color,—the sheen of deep and delicate hues cunningly intermixed and contrasted,—the gorgeous lavishness of waving blossoms that seemed to surge up like a sea to the very windows,—and though many thoughts flitted hazily through his brain, he could not shape them into utterance. He stared vaguely at the floor,—it was paved with variegated mosaic and strewn with the soft, dark, furry skins of wild animals,—at a little distance from where he sat there was a huge bronze lectern supported by a sculptured griffin with horns,—horns which curving over at the top, turned upward again in the form of candelabra,—the harp-bearer had brought in the harp, and it now stood in a conspicuous position decked with myrtle, some of the garlands woven by the maidens being no doubt used for this purpose.

 

Yet there was something mirage-like and fantastic in the splendor that everywhere surrounded him,—he felt as though he were one of the spectators