veritable madman, for all his many years and seeming wisdom! Hath
he not denounced the faith of Nagaya and foretold the destruction
of the city times out of number? ... and are we not all weary to
death of his bombastic mouthing? If the King deemed a poet's
counsel worth the taking, he would long ago have shut this bearded
ranter within the four walls of a dungeon, where only rats and
spiders would attend his lectures on approaching Doom!"

"Nay, but my lord--" Niphrata ventured to say timidly--"The King
dare not lay hands on Khosrul ..."

"Dare not!" laughed Sah-luma lazily stretching out his hand and
helping himself to a luscious nectarine from the basket at his
side--"Sweet Niphrata! ... settest thou a limit to the power of
the King? As well draw a boundary-line for the imagination of the
poet! Khosrul may be loved and feared by a certain number of
superstitious malcontents who look upon a madman as a sort of
sacred wild animal,--but the actual population of Al-Kyris,--the
people who are the blood, bone, and sinew of the city,--these are
not in favor of change either in religion, laws, manners, or
customs. But Khosrul is old,--and that the King humors his
vagaries is simply out of pity for his age and infirmity,
Niphrata,--not because of fear! Our Monarch knows no fear."

"Khosrul prophesies terrible things!" ... murmured the girl
hesitatingly--"I have often thought ... if they should come true.
..."

"Thou timid dove!" and Sah-luma, rising from his couch, kissed her
neck lightly, thus causing a delicate flush of crimson to ripple