"Thou art a new comer,--a stranger, if I mistake not?" he inquired
in a low, abrupt, yet kindly tone.

"Yes," replied Theos in the same soft sotto-voce. "I am a mere
sojourner in Al-Kyris for a few days only, ... the guest of the
divine Sah-luma."

Nir-jahs raised his eyebrows with an expression of amused wonder.

"Divine!" he ejaculated "By my faith! what neophyte have we here!"
and supporting himself on one elbow he stared at his companion as
though he saw in him some singular human phenomenon. "Dost thou
really believe," he went on jestingly, "in the divinity of poets?
Dost thou think they write what they mean, or practice what they
preach? Then art thou the veriest innocent that ever wore the
muscular semblance of man! Poets, my friend, are the most absolute
impostors, . . they melodize their rhymed music on phases of emotion
they have never experienced; as for instance our Lameate yonder
will string a pretty sonnet on the despair of love, he knowing
nothing of despair, . . he will write of a broken heart, his own
being unpricked by so much as a pin's point of trouble; and he
will speak in his verso of dying for love when he would not let
his little finger ache for the sake of a woman who worshipped him!
Look not so vaguely! 'tis so, indeed! and as for the divine part
of him, wait but a little, and thou shalt see thy poet-god become
a satyr!"

He laughed maliciously, and Theos felt an angry flush rising to
his brows. He could not bear to hear Sah-luma thus lightly
maligned even by this half-drunken reveller, it stung him to the