"KILL SAH-LUMA!"

The brief sentence leaped into his brain with the swift, fiery
action of some burning drug,--a red mist rose to his eyes,--
pushing her fiercely from him, he started to his feet in a
bewildered, sick horror. KILL SAH-LUMA! ... kill the gracious,
smiling, happy creature whose every minute of existence was a
joy,--kill the friend he loved,--the poet he worshipped! ... Kill
him! ... ah God! ... never! ... never! ... He staggered backward
dizzily,--and Lysia with a sudden stealthy spring, like that of
her favorite tigress, threw herself against his breast and looked
up at him, her splendid eyes ablaze with passion, her black hair
streaming, her lips curved in a cruel smile, and the hateful Jewel
on her breast seeming to flash with ferocious vindictiveness.

"Kill him!" she repeated eagerly--"Now--in his sottish slumber,--
now when he hath lost sight of his Poetmission in the hot fumes of
wine,--now, when, despite his genius, he hath made of himself a
thing lower than the beasts! Kill him! ...--I will keep good
council, and none shall ever know who did the deed! He loves me,
and I weary of his love, . . I would have him dead--dead as Nir-
jalis! ... but were he to drain the Silver Nectar, the whole city
would cry out upon me for his loss,--therefore he may not perish
so. But an thou wilt slay him, . . see!" and she clung to Theos with
the fierce tenacity of some wild animal--"All this beauty of mine,
is thine!--thy days and nights shall be dreams of rapture,--thou
shalt be second to none in Al-Kyris,--thou shalt rule with me over
King and people,--and we will make the land a pleasure-garden for
our love and joy! Here is thy weapon.."--and she thrust into his
hand a dagger,--the very dagger her slave Gazra, had deprived him