He seemed about to speak, and raised his hand with the graceful yet commanding gesture of one accustomed to the art of elegant rhetoric, … when suddenly his expression changed, . . shrugging his shoulders lightly as who should say.. "Here comes the conclusion of the matter,—no time for further argument"—he silently pointed across the Square, while a smile dazzling yet cruel played on his delicately parted lips, . . a smile, the covert meaning of which was soon explained. For all at once a brazen roar of trumpets split the silence into torn and discordant echoes,—the crowd turned swiftly, and seeing who it was that approached, rushed hither and thither in the wildest confusion, making as though they would have fled, . . and in less than a minute, a gleaming cohort of mounted and armed spearmen galloped furiously into the thick of the melee.
Following these came a superb car drawn by six jet-black horses that plunged and pranced through the multitude with no more heed than if these groups of living beings had been mere sheafs of corn, . . a car flashing from end to end with gold and precious stones, in which towered the erect, massive form of Zephoranim, the King. His dark face was ablaze with wrath, … tightly grasping the reins of his reckless steeds, he drew himself haughtily upright and turned his rolling, fierce black eyes indignantly from side to side on the scared people, as he drove through their retreating ranks, smiting down and mangling with the sharp spikes of his tall chariot-wheels men, women, and children without care or remorse, till he forced his terrible passage straight to the foot of the Obelisk. There he came to an abrupt standstill, and, lifting high his strong hand and brawny arm glittering with jewels, he cried:
"Soldiers! Seize yon traitorous rebel! Ten thousand pieces of gold for the capture of Khosrul!"
There was an instant of hesitation, … not one of the populace stirred to obey the order. Then suddenly, as though released by their monarch's command from some mesmeric spell, the before inactive mounted guards started into action, cantered sharply forward and surrounded the Obelisk, while the armed spearsmen closed together and made a swift advance upon the venerable figure that stood alone and defenseless, tranquilly awaiting their approach. But there was evidently some unknown and mysterious force pent up within the Prophet's feeble frame, for when the soldiers were just about an arm's length from him, they seemed all at once troubled and irresolute, and turned their looks away, as though fearing to gaze too steadfastly upon that grand, thought-furrowed countenance in which the eyes, made young by inward fervor, blazed forth with unearthly lustre beneath a silvery halo of tossed white hair. Zephoranim perceived this touch of indecision on the part of his men, and his black brows contracted in an ominous frown.
"Halt!" he shouted fiercely, apparently to make it seem to the mob that the pause in the action of the soldiery was in compliance with his own behest, . . "Halt! … Bind him, and bring him hither, . . I myself will slay him!"
"Halt!" echoed a voice, discordantly sharp and wild.. "Halt thou also, great Zephoranim! for Death bars thy further progress!"
And Khosrul, manifestly possessed by some superhuman access of frenzy, leaped from his position on the back of the stone Lion, and slipping agilely through the ranks of the startled spearmen and guards, who were all unprepared for the suddenness and rapidity of his movements, he sprang boldly on the edge of the Royal chariot, and there clung to the jewelled wheel, looking like a gaunt aerial spectre, an ambassador of coming ruin. The King, speechless with amazement and fury, dragged at his huge sword till he wrenched it out of its sheath, . . raising it, he whirled it round his head so that it gave a murderous hiss in the air, … and yet.. was his strong arm paralyzed that he forbore to strike!
"Zephoranim!" Khosrul, in terms that were piercing and dolorous as the whistling of the wind among hollow reeds,—"Zephoranim, THOU SHALT DIE TO-NIGHT! ART THOU READY? Art thou ready, proud King? … ready to be made less than the lowest of the low? Hush! … Hush!" and his aged face took upon itself a ghastly greenish pallor—"Hear you not the muttering of the thunder underground? There are strange powers at work! … powers of the undug earth and unfathomed sea! … hark how they tear at the stately foundations of Al-Kyris! … Flame! flame! it is already kindled!—it shall enwrap thee with more closeness than thy coronation robe, O mighty Sovereign! … with more gloating fondness than the serpent-twining arms of thy beloved! Listen, Zephoranim, listen!"
Here he stretched out his skinny hand and pointed upwards,—his eyes grew fixed and glassy,—his throat rattled convulsively. At that moment the monarch, recovering his self-possession, once more lifted his sword with direct and deadly aim, but the Prophet, uttering a wild shriek, caught at his descending wrist and gripped it fast.
"See.. See!" he exclaimed.. "Put up thy weapon! … Thou shalt never need it where thou art summoned! … Lo! how yon blood-red letters blaze against the blue of heaven! … There! … there it comes!—Read.. read! 'tis written plain.. 'AL-KYRIS SHALL FALL, AND THE KING SHALL DIE!'.. Hist … hist! … Dumb oracles speak and dead voices find tongue! … hark how they chant together the old forgotten warning: