"I?--I think naught of it!" replied Sah-luma with airy contempt--
"Such a creed may find followers in time to come,--but now, of
what avail to warn us of things that do not concern our present
modes of life? Moreover in the face of all religion, my own
opinion should not alter,--I have studied science sufficiently
well to know that there is NO God!--and I am too honest to worship
an unproved and merely supposititious identity!"

A shudder, as of extreme cold, ran through Theos's veins, and as
if impelled on by some invisible monitor he said almost
mournfully:

"Art thou sure, Sah-luma, thou dost not instinctively feel that
there is a Higher Power hidden behind the veil of visible Nature?
--and that in the Far Beyond there may be an Eternity of Joy where
thou shalt find all thy grandest aspirations at last fulfilled?"

Sah-luma laughed,--a clear, vibrating laugh as mellow as the note
of a thrush in spring-time.

"Thou solemn soul!" he exclaimed mirthfully--"My aspirations ARE
fulfilled!--I aspire to no more than fame,--and that I hold,--that
I shall keep so long as this world is lighted by the sun!"

"And what use is Fame to thee in Death!" demanded Theos with
sudden and emphatic earnestness.

Sah-luma stood still,--over his beautiful face came a shadow of
intense melancholy,--he raised his brilliant eyes full of wistful