Zephoranim frowned,—and threw the blood-stained dagger from him.
"Peace, clamorous fool!" he said, "Sah-luma hath gone but a moment before me, . . as Poet he hath received precedence even in death! When the last hour comes for all of us, it matters not how we die, . . and whether I am hereafter remembered or forgotten I care not! I have lived as a man should live,—fearing nothing and conquered by none,—except perchance by Love, that hath brought many kings ere now to untimely ruin!" Here his moody eyes lighted on Lysia. "How many lovers hast thou had, fair soul?".. he demanded in a stern yet tremulous voice … "A thousand? … I would swear this dead Minstrel of mine was one,—for though I slew him at thy bidding I saw the truth in his dying eyes! … No matter!—We shall meet in Hades,—and there we shall have ample time to urge our rival claims upon thy favor! Ah!".. and he suddenly laid his two strong hands on her white uncovered shoulders, and gazed at her reproachfully as she shrank a little beneath his close scrutiny, . . "Thou divine Traitress! Have I not challenged the very heavens for thy sake? … and lo! the prophecy is fulfilled and Al-Kyris must fall! How many men would have loved thee as I have loved? … None! not even this dead Sah-luma, slain like a dog to give thee pleasure! Come! … Let me kiss thee once again ere death makes cold our lips! False or true, thou art nevertheless fair!—and the wrathful gods know best how I worship thy fairness!"
And folding his arms about her, he kissed her passionately. She clung to him like a lithe serpentine thing,—her eyes ablaze, her mouth quivering with suppressed hysterical laughter. Pointing to Sah-luma's body, she said in a strange excited whisper:
"Nay, hast thou slain him in very truth, Zephoranim! … slain him utterly? For I have heard that poets cannot die,—they live when the whole world deems them dead,—they rise from their shut graves and re-invest the earth with all the secrets of past time, . . Oh! my brain reels! … I talk mere madness! … there is no afterwards of death!—No, no! No gods, no anything but blankness.. forgetfulness.. and silence! … for us, and for all men! … How good it is!—how excellently devised a jest! … that the whole wide Universe should be but a cheat of time! … a bubble blown into Space, to float, break, and perish,—all for the idle sport of some unknown and shapeless Devil-Mystery!"
Shuddering, half-laughing, half-weeping, she clasped her hands round the monarch's throat, and hid her wild eyes in his breast, while he, unnerved by her distraction and his own inward torture, glared about him on all sides for some glimmering chance of rescue, but could see none. The flames were now attacking the Shrine on every side like a besieging army,—their leaping darts of blue and crimson gleaming here and there with indescribable velocity, . . and still Theos knelt by Sah-luma's corpse in dry-eyed despair, endeavoring with feverish zeal to stanch the oozing blood with a strip torn from his own garments, and listening anxiously for the feeblest heart-throb, or smaller pulsation of smouldering life in the senseless stiffening clay.
All at once a hideous scream assailed his ears,—another, and yet another rang above the crackling roar of the gradually conquering fire, . . and half-lifting Sah-luma's body in his arms, he looked up…O horror, horror! his nerves contracted,—his blood seemed to turn to ice in his veins, . . his head swam giddily, . . and he thought the moment of his own death had come, for surely no man could behold the sight he saw and yet continue to live on! Lysia the captor was made captive at last! ..bound, helpless, imprisoned, and hopelessly doomed, ..Nagaya had claimed his own! The huge Snake, terrified beyond all control at the bursting breadth of fire environing the shrine, had turned in its brute fear to the mistress it had for years been accustomed to obey, and had now, with one stealthy noiseless spring, twisted its uppermost coil close about her waist, where its restless head, alarmed eyes, and darting fangs all glistened together like a blazing cluster of gems! the more she struggled to release herself from its deathful embrace, the tighter its body contracted and the more maddened with fright it became. Shriek upon shriek broke from her lips and pierced the suffocating air, . . while with all his great muscular force Zephoranim the King strove in desperate agony to tear her from the awful clutch of the monster he had but lately knelt to as divine! In vain, ..in vain! … the strongest efforts were useless, … the cruel, beautiful, pitiless Priestess of Nagaya was condemned to suffer the same frightful death she had so often mercilessly decreed for others! Closer and closer grew the fearful Python's constricting clasp, . . nearer and nearer swept the dancing battalion of destroying flames! … For one fleeting breath of time Theos stared aghast at the horrid scene, . . then making a superhuman effort he raised Sah-luma's corpse entirely from the ground and staggered with his burden away, . . away from the burning Shrine, . . the funeral pyre, as it vaguely seemed to him, of a wasted Love and a dead passion!
* * * * * * *
Whither should he go! … Down into the blazing area of the fast-perishing Temple? Surely no safety could be found there, where the fire was raging at its utmost height! … yet he went on mechanically, as though urged forward by some force superior to his own, . . always clinging to the idea that his friend still lived and that if he could only reach some place of temporary shelter he might yet be able to restore him. It was possible the wound was not fatal, . . far more possible to his mind than that so gloriously famed a Poet should be dead!
So he dimly thought, while he stumbled dizzily along, . . his forehead wet with clammy dews, . . his limbs trembling under the weight he bore, . . his eyes half-blinded by the hot flying sparks and drifting smoke, . . and his soul shaken and appalled by the ghastly sights that met his view wheresoever he turned. Crushed and writhing bodies of men, women, and children, half-living, half-dead, . . heaps of corpses, fast blazing to ashes,—broken and falling columns, . . yawning gaps in the ground, from which were cast forth volleys of red cinders and streams of lava, … all these multitudinous horrors surrounded him, as with uncertain, faltering steps he moved on like a sick man walking in sleep, carrying his precious burden! He knew nothing of where he was bound,—he saw no outlet anywhere—no corner wherein the Fire-fiend had not set up devouring dominion, . . but nevertheless he steadily continued his difficult progress, clasping Sah-luma's corpse with a strange tenacity, and concentrating all his attention on protecting it from the withering touch of the ravenous flames. All at once,—as he strove to force his way over a fallen altar from which the hideous presiding stone idol had toppled headlong, killing in its descent some twenty or thirty people whose bodies lay crushed beneath it,—a face horribly disfigured and tortured into a mere burnt sketch of its former likeness twisted itself up and peered at him, the face of Zabastes, the Critic. His protruding eyes glistened with something of their old malign expression as he perceived whose helpless form it was that was being carried by.
"What! … is the famous Sah-luma gone?" he gasped, his words half choking him in their utterance as he stretched out a skinny hand and caught at Theos's garments … "Good youth, stay! … Stay! … Why burden thyself with a corpse when thou mightest rescue a living man? Save ME! … Save ME! … I was the Poet's adverse Critic, and who but I should write his Eulogy now that he is no more! … Pity! … Pity, most courteous, gentle sir! … Save me if only for the sake of Sah-luma's future honor! Thou knowest not how warmly, how generously, how nobly, I can praise the dead!"