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 prone 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 nobles 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 passed, and then the slave returned, his silver rod