“I am beginning to remember,” said Féraz steadily.
“My dear boy, anybody but myself hearing you would say you were mad—hopelessly mad!”
“They would be at perfect liberty to say so”—and Féraz smiled a little—“Every one is free to have his own opinion—I have mine. My star exists; and I once existed in it—so did you.”
“Well, I know nothing about it then,” declared El-Râmi—“I have forgotten it utterly.”
“Oh no! You think you have forgotten”—said Féraz mildly—“But the truth is, your very knowledge of science and other things is only—memory.”
El-Râmi moved in his chair impatiently.
“Let us not argue;”—he said—“We shall never agree. Sing to me again!”
Féraz thought a moment, and then laid aside his mandoline and went to the piano, where he played a rushing rapid accompaniment like the sound of the wind among trees, and sang the following:
“Winds of the mountain, mingle with my crying,
Clouds of the tempest, flee as I am flying,