“So soon a braggart of the knife?” he said. “What theatrical show is this? You—you—the poet, the dreamer, the musician—the gentle lad whose life was one of peaceful and innocent reverie—are you so soon changed to the mere swaggering puppy of manhood who pranks himself out in gaudy clothing, and thinks by vulgar threatening to overawe his betters? If so, ’tis a pity—but I shall not waste time in deploring it. Hear me, Féraz—I said ‘dishonour,’—swallow the word as best you may, it is the only one that fits the act of prying into secrets not your own. But I am not angered,—the mischief wrought is not beyond remedy, and if it were there would be still less use in bewailing it. What is done cannot be undone. Now tell me,—you say you have seen Her. Whom have you seen?”
Féraz regarded him amazedly.
“Whom have I seen?” he echoed—“Whom should I see, if not the girl you keep locked in those upper rooms,—a beautiful maiden, sleeping her life away, in cruel darkness and ignorance of all things true and fair!”
“An enchanted princess, to your fancy—” said El-Râmi derisively. “Well, if you thought so, and if you believed yourself to be a new sort of Prince Charming, why, if she were only sleeping, did you not wake her?”
“Wake her?” exclaimed Féraz excitedly.—“Oh, I would have given my life to see those fringed lids uplift and show the wonders of the eyes beneath! I called her by every endearing name—I took her hands and warmed them in my own—I would have kissed her lips——”
“You dared not!” cried El-Râmi, fired beyond his own control, and making a fierce bound towards him—“You dared not pollute her by your touch!”
Féraz recoiled,—a sudden chill ran through his blood. His brother was transformed with the passion that surged through him,—his eyes flashed—his lips quivered—his very form seemed to tower up and tremble and dilate with rage.
“El-Râmi!” he stammered nervously, feeling all his newly-born defiance and bravado oozing away under the terrible magnetism of this man, whose fury was nearly as electric as that of a sudden thunderstorm,—“El-Râmi, I did no harm,—Zaroba was there beside me——”
“Zaroba!” echoed El-Râmi furiously—“Zaroba would stand by and see an angel violated, and think it the greatest happiness that could befall her sanctity! To be of common clay, with household joys and kitchen griefs, is Zaroba’s idea of noble living. Oh rash unhappy Féraz! you say you know my secret—you do not know it—you cannot guess it! Foolish, ignorant boy!—did you think yourself a new Christ with power to raise the Dead?”
“The dead?” muttered Féraz, with white lips—“The dead? She—the girl I saw—lives and breathes ...”