once or twice restlessly as he inwardly reflected how poor and
unsatisfying were his own poetical powers, and how totally
unfitted he was to cope with a rival so vastly his superior. Not
that he by any means desired to cross swords with Sah-luma in a
duel of song,-that was an idea that never entered his mind; he was
simply conscious of a certain humiliated feeling,--an impression
that it' he would be a poet at all, he must go back to the very
first beginning of the art and re-learn all he had ever known, or
thought he knew.

Many strange and complex emotions were at work within him, . .
emotions which he could neither control nor analyze,--and though
he felt himself fully alive,--alive to his very finger-tips, he
was ever and anon aware of a curious sensation like that
experienced by a suddenly startled somnambulist, who, just on the
point of awaking, hesitates reluctantly on the threshold of
dreamland, unwilling to leave one realm of shadows for another
more seeming true, yet equally transient. Entangled in perplexed
reveries he scarcely noticed the brilliant crowds of people that
were flocking hither and thither through the streets, many of whom
recognizing Sah-luma waved their hands or shouted some gay word of
greeting,--he saw, as it were without seeing. The whirling pageant
around him was both real and unreal,--there was always a deep
sense of mystery that hung like a cloud over his mind,--a cloud
that no resolution of his could lift,--and often he caught himself
dimly speculating as to what lay BEHIND that cloud. Something, he
felt sure,--something that like the clew to an. intricate problem,
would explain much that was now altogether incomprehensible,--
moreover he remorsefully realized that he had formerly known that
clew and had foolishly lost it, but how he could not tell.