pathos and pleading.

"I pray thee do not make me sad, my friend!" he murmured
tremulously--"These thoughts are like muttering thunder in my
heaven! Death!".. and a quick sigh escaped him--"'Twill be the
breaking of my harp and heart! ... the last note of my failing
voice and eversilenced song!"

A moisture as of tears glistened on the silky fringe of his
eyelids,--his lips quivered,--he had the look of a Narcissus
regretfully bewailing his own perishable loveliness. On a swift
impulse of affection Theos threw one arm round, his neck in the
fashion of a confiding school-boy walking with his favorite
companion.

"Nay, thou shalt never die, Sah-luma!" he said with a sort of
passionate eagerness,--"Thy bright soul shall live forever in a
sunshine sweeter than that of earth's fairest midsummer noon! Thy
song can never be silenced while heaven pulsates with the
unwritten music of the spheres,--and even were the crown of
immortality denied to lesser men, it is, it must be the heritage
of the poet! For to him all crowns belong, all kingdoms are thrown
open, all barriers broken down,--even those that divide us from
the Unseen,--and God Himself has surely a smile to spare for His
Singers who have made the sad world joyful if only for an hour!"

Sah-luma looked up with a pleased yet wondering glance.

"Thou hast a silvery and persuasive tongue!" he said gently--"And
thou speakest of God as if thou knewest one akin to Him. Would I