The King muttered the name, evidently at a loss. But the Pythoness, with tranced eyes fixed upon some imaginary figure before her, pointed, her shoulder level with her chin, and spoke its qualifications,—
“I read a healing sweetness there, as of a pine tree taken from some harsh plantation, and put to root within its native soil. The man is of that Province, strong and honoured—no stranger from beyond its bourne, like him that hath planted its pastures with dark hate and shadow, looking to reap the storm. O, name! in thy bright influence I see the clouds dispersing, the darkness leave the land, the eclipse become no more. Pass on in silence!”
The final words seemed as if addressed to some ghostly scene-shifter. She had vanished in their utterance, and the chamber was recommitted to its shadowy glooms.
Shaking with agitation, the King turned upon the Magician.
“Let this Léotade, this sound health-giving tree, supplant the other. I say it, and will see it done. I know him not—what matter! Truth shall be vindicated.”
Bonito laughed grimly.
“Not so easily, O, King! are the powers of darkness despoiled. This Prefect will not budge at thy command.”
“He will not?”
“Why, of what texture, think you, is this same shadow that spreads from before his feet—this shadow of thine eclipse? Is it not woven of black sedition, which ever answers slavishly to him its master, obedient to his least gesture? He’d have a fine dark following, did he once turn him to the sun of monarchy, and march to overwhelm it. Why should he budge? And yet maybe I could induce him.”
“How? Your words fall on me like a pitchy rain, heralding that Egyptian darkness. Before God, how?”