Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self Part 16

"Most potent sovereign!" went on the stammering herald--"Sah-luma waits thy royal pleasure!"

"Sah-luma!" and the monarch sprang erect, his eyes flashing fire--"Nay, that HE should wait, bodes ill for thee, thou knave! How darest thou bid him wait?--Entreat him hither with all gentleness, as befits mine equal in the realm!"

As he thus spoke, Theos was able to observe him more attentively; indeed it seemed as though a sudden and impressive pause had occurred in the action of a drama in order to allow him as spectator, to thoroughly master the meaning of one special scene. Therefore he took the opportunity offered, and, looking full at Zephoranim, thought he had never beheld so magnificent a man. Of stately height and herculean build, he was most truly royal in outward bearing,--though a physiognomist judging him from the expression of his countenance would at once have given him all the worst vices of a reckless voluptuary and utterly selfish sensualist. His straight, low brows indicated brute force rather than intellect,--his eyes, full, dark, and brilliant, had in them a suggestion of something sinister and cruel, despite their fine clearness and l.u.s.tre, while the heavy lines of his mouth, only partly concealed by a short, thick black beard, plainly betokened that the monarch's tendencies were by no means toward the strict and narrow paths of virtue.

Nevertheless he was a splendid specimen of the human animal at its best physical development, and his attire, which was a mixture of the civilized and savage, suited him as it certainly would not have suited any less stalwart frame. His tunic was of the deepest purple broidered with gold,--his vest of pale amber silk was thrown open so as to display to the greatest advantage his broad muscular chest and throat glittering all over with gems,--and he wore, flung loosely across his left shoulder, a superb leopard skin, just kept in place by a clasp of diamonds. His feet were shod with gold-colored sandals,--his arms were bare and lavishly decked with jewelled armlets,--his rough, dark hair was tossed carelessly about his brow, whereon a circlet of gold studded with large rubies glittered in the light,--from his belt hung a great sheathed sword, together with all manner of hunting implements,--and beside him, on a velvet-covered stand, lay a short sceptre, having at its tip one huge egg-shaped pearl set in sapphires.

Noting the grand poise of his figure, and the statuesque grace of his att.i.tude, a strange, hazy, far-off memory began to urge itself on Theos's mind,--a memory that with every second grew more painfully distinct, ... HE HAD SEEN ZEPHORANIM BEFORE! Where, he could not tell,--but he was as positive of it as that he himself lived! ... and this inward conviction was accompanied by a certain undefinable dread,--a vague terror and foreboding, though he knew no actual cause for fear.

He had however no time to a.n.a.lyze his emotion,--for just then the Herald-in-Waiting, having performed a backward evolution from the throne to the threshold of the audience-chamber, beckoned impatiently to Sah-luma, who at once stepped forward, bidding Theos keep close behind him. The harp-bearer followed, . . and thus all three approached the dais where the King still stood erect, awaiting them. Zabastes the Critic glided in also, almost unnoticed, and joined a group of courtiers at the furthest end of the long, gorgeously lighted room, while at sight of the Laureate the a.s.sembled officers saluted, and all conversation ceased. At the foot of the throne Sah-luma paused, but made no obeisance,--raising his glorious eyes to the monarch's face he smiled,--and Theos beheld with amazement, that here it was not the Poet who reverenced the King, but the King who reverenced the Poet!

What a strange state of things! he thought,--especially when the mighty Zephoranim actually descended three steps of his flower-strewn dais, and grasping Sah-luma's hands raised them to his lips with all the humility of a splendid savage paying homage to his intellectual conqueror! It was a scene Theos was destined never to forget, and he gazed upon it as one gazes on a magnificently painted picture, wherein two central figures fascinate and most profoundly impress the beholder's imagination. He heard, with a vague sense of mingled pleasure and sadness, the deep, mellow tones of the monarch's voice vibrating through the silence, ... .

"Welcome, my Sah-luma!--Welcome at all times, but chiefly welcome when the heart is weighted by care! I have thought of thee all day, believe me! ... aye, since early dawn, when on my way to the chase I heard in the depths of the forest a happy nightingale singing, and deemed thy voice had taken bird-shape and followed me! And that I sent for thee in haste, blame me not!--as well blame the desert athirst for rain, or the hungry heart agape for love to come and fill it!" Here his restless eye flashed on Theos, who stood quietly behind Sah-luma, pa.s.sive, yet expectant of he knew not what.

"Whom hast thou there? ... A friend?" This as Sah-luma apparently explained something in a low tone, ... "He is welcome also for thy sake"--and he extended one hand, on which a great ruby signet burned like a red star, to Theos, who, bending over it, kissed it with the grave courtesy he fancied due to kings. Zephoranim appeared good-naturedly surprised at this action, and eyed him somewhat scrutinizingly as he said: "Thou art not of Sah-luma's divine calling a.s.suredly, fair sir, else thou wouldst hardly stoop to a mere crowned head like mine! Soldiers and statesmen may bend the knee to their chosen rulers, but to whom shall poets bend? They, who with arrowy lines cause thrones to totter and fall,--they, who with deathless utterance brand with infamy or hallow with honor the most potent names of kings and emperors,--they by whom alone a nation lives in the annals of the future,--what homage do such elect G.o.ds owe to the pa.s.sing holders of one or more earthly sceptres? Thou art too humble, methinks, for the minstrel-vocation,--dost call thyself a Minstrel? or a student of the art of song?"

Theos looked up, his eyes resting full on the monarch's countenance, as he replied in low, clear tones:

"Most n.o.ble Zephoranim, I am no minstrel! ... nor do I deserve to be called even a student of that high, sweet music-wisdom in which Sah-luma alone excels! All I dare hope for is that I may learn of him in some small degree the lessons he has mastered, that at some future time I may approach as nearly to his genius as a common flower on earth can approach to a fixed star in the furthest blue of heaven!"

Sah-luma smiled and gave him a pleased, appreciative glance,--Zephoranim regarded him somewhat curiously.

"By my faith, thou'rt a modest and gentle disciple of Poesy!" he said--"We receive thee gladly to our court as suits Sah-luma's pleasure and our own! Stand thee near thy friend and master, and listen to the melody of his matchless voice,--thou shalt hear therein the mysteries of many things unravelled, and chiefly the mystery of love, in which all other pa.s.sions centre and have power."

Re-ascending the steps of the dais, he flung himself indolently back in his throne,--whereupon two pages brought a magnificent chair of inlaid ivory and placed it near the foot of the dais at his right hand. In this Sah-luma seated himself, the pages arranging his golden mantle around him in shining, picturesque folds,--while Theos, withdrawing slightly into the background, stood leaning against a piece of tapestry on which the dead figure of a man was depicted lying p.r.o.ne on the sward with a great wound in his heart, and a bird of prey hovering above him expectant of its grim repast. Kneeling on one knee close to Sah-luma, the harp-bearer put the harp in tune, and swept his fingers lightly over the strings,--then came a pause. A clear, small bell chimed sweetly on the stillness, and the King, raising himself a little, signed to a black slave who carried a tall silver wand emblematic of some office.

"Let the women enter!" he commanded--"Speak but Sah-luma's name and they will gather like waves rising to the moon,--but bid them be silent as they come, lest they disturb thoughts more lasting than their loveliness."

This with a significant glance toward the Laureate, who, sunk in his ivory chair, seemed rapt in meditation.

His beautiful face had grown grave, . . even sad, ... he played idly with the ornaments at his belt, ... and his eyes had a drowsy yet ardent light within them, as they flashed now and then from under the shade of his long curling lashes. The slave departed on his errand ...

and Zabastes edging himself out from the hushed and attentive throng of n.o.bles stood as it were in the foreground of the picture, his thin lips twisted into a sneer, and his lean hands grasping his staff viciously as though he longed to strike somebody down with it.

A moment or so pa.s.sed, and then the slave returned, his silver rod uplifted, marshalling in a lovely double procession of white-veiled female figures that came gliding along as noiselessly as fair ghosts from forgotten tombs, each one carrying a garland of flowers. They floated, rather than walked, up to the royal dais, and there prostrated themselves two by two before the King, whose fiery glance rested upon them more carelessly than tenderly,--and as they rose, they threw back their veils, displaying to full view such exquisite faces, such languishing, brilliant eyes, such snow-white necks and arms, such graceful voluptuous forms, that Theos caught at the tapestry near him in reeling dazzlement of sight and sense, and wondered how Sah-luma seated tranquilly in the reflective att.i.tude he had a.s.sumed, could maintain so unmoved and indifferent a demeanor.

Indifferent he was, however, even when the unveiled fair ones, turning from the King to the Poet, laid all their garlands at his feet,--he scarcely noticed the piled-up flowers, and still less the lovely donors, who, retiring modestly backwards, took their places on low silken divans, provided for their accommodation, in a semicircle round the throne. Again a silence ensued,--Sah-luma was evidently centred like a spider in a web of his own thought-weaving,--and his attendant gently swept the strings of the harp again to recall his wandering fancies. Suddenly he looked up, . . his eyes were sombre, and a musing trouble shadowed the brightness of his face.

"Strange it is, O King"--he said in low, suppressed tones that had in them a quiver of pathetic sweetness,--"Strange it is that to-night the soul of my singing dwells on sorrow! Like a stray bird flying 'mid falling leaves, or a ship drifting out from sunlight to storm, so does my fancy soar among drear, flitting images evolved from the downfall of kingdoms,--and I seem to behold in the distance the far-off shadow of Death..."

"Talk not of death!" interrupted the King loudly and in haste,--"'Tis a raven note that hath been croaked in mine ears too often and too harshly already! What! ... hast thou been met by the mad Khosrul who lately sprang on me, even as a famished wolf on prey, and grasping my bridle-rein bade me prepare to die! 'Twas an ill jest, and one not to be lightly forgiven! 'Prepare to die, O Zephoranim?' he cried--'For thy time of reckoning is come!' By my soul!" and the monarch broke into a boisterous laugh--"Had he bade me prepare live 'twould have been more to the purpose! But yon frantic graybeard prates of naught but death, ... 'twere well he should be silenced." And as he spoke, he frowned, his hand involuntarily playing with the jewelled hilt of his sword.

"Aye,--death is an unpleasing suggestion!" suddenly said Zabastes, who had gradually moved up nearer and nearer till he made one of the group immediately round Sah-luma--"'Tis a word that should never be mentioned in the presence of Kings! Yet, . . notwithstanding the incivility of the statement, . . it is most certain that His Most Potent Majesty as well as His Majesty's Most Potent Laureate, MUST..DIE.. !" And he accompanied the words "must..die..." with two decisive taps of his staff, smacking his withered lips meanwhile as though he tasted something peculiarly savory.

"And thou also, Zabastes!" retorted the King with a dark smile, jestingly drawing his sword and pointing it full at him,--then, as the old Critic shrank slightly at the gleam of the bare steel, replacing it dashingly in its sheath,--"Thou also! ... and thine ashes shall be cast to the four winds of heaven as suits thy vocation, while those of thy master and thy master's King lie honorably urned in porphyry and gold!"

Zabastes bowed with a sort of mock humility.

"It may be so, most mighty Zephoranim," he returned composedly--"Nevertheless ashes are always ashes,--and the scattering of them is but a question of time! For urns of gold and porphyry do but excite the cupidity of the vulgar-minded, and the ashes therein sealed, whether of King or Poet, stand as little chance of reverent handling by future generations as those of many lesser men. And 'tis doubtful whether the winds will know any difference in the scent or quality of the various pinches of human dust tossed on their sweeping circles,--for the substance of a man reduced to earth-atoms is always the same,--and not a grain of him can prove whether he was once a Monarch crowned, a Minstrel pampered, or a Critic contemned!"

And he chuckled, as one having the best of the argument. The King deigned no answer, but turned his eyes again on Sah-luma, who still sat pensively silent.

"How long wilt thou be mute, my singing-emperor?" he demanded gently--"Canst thou not improvise a canticle of love even in the midst of thy soul's sudden sadness?"

At this, Sah-luma roused himself,--signing to his attendant he took the harp from him, and resting it lightly on one knee, pa.s.sed his hands over it once or twice, half musingly, half doubtfully. A ripple of music answered his delicate touch,--music as soft as the evening wind murmuring among willows. Another instant and his voice thrilled on the silence,--a voice wonderful, far-reaching, mellow, and luscious as with suppressed tears, containing within it a pa.s.sion that pierced to the heart of the listener, and a divine fullness such as surely was never before heard in human tones!

Theos leaned forward breathlessly, his pulses beating with unwonted rapidity, . . what.. WHAT was it that Sah-luma sang? ... A Love-song!

in those caressing vowel-sounds which composed the language of Al-Kyris, . . a love-song, burning as strong wine, tender as the murmur of the sea on mellow, moon-entranced evenings,--an arrowy shaft of rhyme tipped with fire and meant to strike home to the core of feeling and there inflict delicious wounds! ... but, as each well-chosen word echoed harmoniously on his ears, Theos shrank back shuddering in every limb, . . a black, frozen numbness seemed to pervade his being, an awful, maddening terror possessed his brain and he felt as though he were suddenly thrown into a vast, dark chaos where no light should ever shine! For Sah-luma's song was HIS song! ... HIS OWN, HIS VERY OWN! ...

He knew it well? He had written it long ago in the hey-day of his youth when he had fancied all the world was waiting to be set to the music of his inspiration, . . he recognized every fancy, . . every couplet..

every rhyme! ... The delicate glowing ballad was HIS, . . HIS ALONE!

... and Sah-luma had no right to it! He, Theos, was the Poet, . . not this royally favored Laureate who had stolen his deas and filched his jewels of thought...aye! and he would tell him so to his face! ... he would speak! ... he would cry aloud his claims in the presence of the King and demand instant justice! ... .

He strove for utterance,--his voice was gone! ... his lips were moveless as the lips of a stone image! Stricken absolutely mute, but with his sense of hearing quickened to an almost painful acuteness, he stood erect and motionless,--rage and fear contending in his heart, enduring the torture of a truly terrific mystery of mind-despair, . .

forced, in spite of himself, to listen pa.s.sively to the love-thoughts of his own dead Past revived anew in his Rival's singing!

CHAPTER XVI.

THE PROPHET OF DOOM.

A few slow, dreadful minutes elapsed, . . and then,--then the first sharpness of his strange mental agony subsided. The strained tension of his nerves gave way, and a dull apathy of grief inconsolable settled upon him. He felt himself to be a man mysteriously accurst,--banished as it were out of life, and stripped of all he had once held dear and valuable. HOW HAD IT HAPPENED? Why was he set apart thus, solitary, poor, and empty of all worth, WHILE ANOTHER REAPED THE FRUITS OF HIS GENIUS? ... He heard the loud plaudits of the a.s.sembled court shaking the vast hall as the Laureate ended his song--and, drooping his head, some stinging tears welled up in his eyes and fell scorchingly on his clasped hands--tears wrung from the very depth of his secretly tortured soul. At that moment the beautiful Sah-luma turned toward him smiling, as one who looked for more sympathetic approbation than that offered by a mixed throng,--and meeting that happy self-conscious, bland, half-inquiring gaze, he strove his best to return the smile. Just then Zephoranim's fiery glance swept over him with a curious expression of wonder and commiseration.

"By the G.o.ds, yon stranger weeps!" said the monarch in a half-bantering tone...then with more gentleness he added.. "Yet 'tis not the first time Sah-luma's voice hath unsealed a fountain of tears! No greater triumph can minstrel have than this,--to move the strong man's heart to woman's tenderness! We have heard tell of poets, who singing of death have persuaded many straightway to die,--but when they sing of sweeter themes, of lover's vows, of pa.s.sion-frenzies, and languorous desires, cold is the blood that will not warm and thrill to their divinely eloquent allurements. Come hither, fair sir!" and he beckoned to Theos, who mechanically advanced in obedience to the command--"Thou hast thoughts of thine own, doubtless, concerning Love, and Love's fervor of delight, . . hast aught new to tell us of its bewildering spells whereby the most dauntless heroes in every age have been caught, conquered, and bound by no stronger chain than a tress of hair, or a kiss more luscious than all the honey hidden in lotus-flowers?"

Theos looked up dreamily...his eyes wandered from the King to Sah-luma as though in wistful search for some missing thing, . . his lips were parched and burning and his brows ached with a heavy weight of pain, ... but he made an effort to speak and succeeded, though his words came slowly and without any previous reflection on his own part.

"Alas, most potent Sovereign!" he murmured.. "I am a man of sad memories, whose soul is like the desert, barren of all beauty! I may have sung of love in my time, but my songs were never new,--never worthy to last one little hour! And whatsoever of faith, pa.s.sion, or heart-ecstasy my fancy could with devious dreams devise, Sah-luma knows, . . and in Sah-luma's song all my best thoughts are said!"

There was a ring of intense pathos in his voice as he spoke,--and the King eyed him compa.s.sionately.

"Of a truth thou seemest to have suffered!" he observed in gentle accents.. "Thou hast a look as of one bereft of joy. Hast lost some maiden love of thine? ... and dost thou mourn her still?"

A pang bitter as death shot through Theos's heart, . . had the monarch suddenly pierced him with his great sword he could scarcely have endured more anguish! For the knowledge rushed upon him that he had indeed lost a love so faithful, so unfathomable, so pure and perfect, that all the world weighed in the balance against it would have seemed but a grain of dust compared to its inestimable value! ... but what that love was, and from whom it emanated, he could no more tell than the tide can tell in syllabled language the secret of its attraction to the moon. Therefore he made no answer, . . only a deep, half-smothered sigh broke from him, and Zephoranim apparently touched by his dejection continued good-naturedly:

"Nay, nay!--we will not seek to pry into the cause of thy spirit's heaviness...Enough! think no more of our thoughtless question,--there is a sacredness in sorrow! Nevertheless we shall strive to make thee in part forget thy grief ere thou leavest our court and city, . .

meanwhile sit thou there"--and he pointed to the lower step of the dais, . . "And thou, Sah-luma, sing again, and this time let thy song he set to a less plaintive key."

He leaned hack in his throne, and Theos sat wearily down among the flowers at the foot of the dais as commanded. He was possessed by a strange, inward dread,--the dread of altogether losing the consciousness of his own ident.i.ty,--and while he strove to keep a firm grasp on his mental faculties he at the same time abandoned all hope of ever extricating himself from the perplexing enigma in which he was so darkly involved. Forcing himself by degrees into comparative calmness, he determined to resign himself to his fate,--and the idea he had just had of boldly claiming the ballad sung by Sah-luma as his own, completely pa.s.sed out of his mind.

How could he speak against this friend whom he loved, ..aye!--more than he had ever loved any living thing!--besides what could he prove? To begin with, in his present condition ho could give no satisfactory account of himself,--if he were asked questions concerning his nation or birth-place he could not answer them, . . he did not even know where he had come from, save that his memory persistently furnished him with the name of a place called "ARDATH." But what was this "Ardath" to him, he mused?--What did it signify? ... what had it to do with his immediate position? Nothing, so far as he could tell! His intellect seemed to be divided into two parts--one a total blank, . . the other filled with crowding images that while novel were yet curiously familiar. And how could he accuse Sah-luma of literary theft, when he had none of his own dated ma.n.u.scripts to bear out his case? Of course he could easily repeat his boyhood's verses word for word, ... but what of that? He, a stranger in the city, befriended and protected by the Laureate, would certainly be considered by the people of Al-Kyris as far more likely to steal Sah-luma's thoughts than that Sah-luma should steal his!

No!--there was no help for it,--as matters stood he could say nothing,--he could only feel as though he were the sorrowful ghost of some long-ago dead author returned to earth to hear others claiming his works and pa.s.sing them off as original compositions. And thus he was scarcely moved to any fresh surprise when Sah-luma, giving back the harp to his attendant, rose up, and standing erect in an att.i.tude unequalled for grace and dignity, began to recite a poem he remembered to have written when he was about twenty years of age,--a poem daringly planned, which when published had aroused the bitterest animosity of the press critics on account of what they called its "forced sublimity." The sublimity was by no means "forced"--it was the spontaneous outcome of a fresh and ardent nature full of enthusiasm and high-soaring aspiration, but the critics cared nothing for this, . .

all they saw was a young man presuming to be original, and down they came upon him accordingly.

He recollected all the heart-sore sufferings he had endured through that ill-fated and cruelly condemned composition,--and now he was listlessly amazed at the breathless rapture and excitement it evoked here in this marvellous city of Al-Kyris, where everything seemed more strange and weird than the strangest dream! It was a story of the G.o.ds before the world was made,--of love deep buried in far eternities of light, . . of vast celestial shapes whose wanderings through the blue deep of s.p.a.ce were tracked by the birth of stars and suns and wonder-spheres of beauty, . . a fanciful legend of transcendent heavenly pa.s.sion, telling how all created worlds throbbed amorously in the purple seas of pure ether, and how Love and Love alone was the dominant cloud of the triumphal march of the Universe...And with what matchless eloquence Sah-luma spoke the glowing lines! ..with what clear and rounded tenderness of accent! ... how exquisitely his voice rose and fell in a rhythmic rush like the wind surging through many leaves, ... while ever and anon in the very midst of the divinely entrancing joy that chiefly characterized the poem, his musicianly art infused a touch of minor pathos,--a suggestion of the eternal complaint of Nature which even in the happiest moments a.s.serts itself in mournful under-tones. The effect of his splendid declamation was heightened by a few soft, running pa.s.sages dexterously played on the harp by his attendant harpist and introduced just at the right moments; and Theos, notwithstanding the peculiar position in which he was placed, listened to every well-remembered word of his own work thus recited with a gradually deepening sense of peace,--he knew not why, for the verses, in themselves, were strangely pa.s.sionate and wild. The various impressions produced on the hearers were curious to witness--the King moved restlessly, his bronzed cheeks alternately flushing and paling, his hand now grasping his sword, now toying with the innumerable jewels that blazed on his breast--the women's eyes at one moment sparkled with delight and at the next grew humid with tears,--the a.s.sembled courtiers pressed forward, awed, eager, and attentive,--the very soldiers on guard seemed entranced, and not even a small side-whisper disturbed the harmonious fall and flow of dulcet speech that rippled from the Laureate's lips.