"All is in readiness, my lord!" he announced in his disagreeable croaking tones,--"Here are the clean and harmless slips of river- reed waiting to be soiled and spotted with my lord's indelible thoughts,--here also are the innocent quills of the white heron, as yet unstained by colored writing-fluid whether black, red, gold, silver, or purple! Mark you, most illustrious bard, the touching helplessness and purity of these meek servants of a scribbler's fancy! ... Blank papyrus and empty quills! Bethink you seriously whether it were not better to leave them thus unblemished, the simple products of unfaulty Nature, than use them to indite the wondrous things of my lord's imagination, whereof, all wondrous though they seem, no man shall ever be the wiser!"
And he chuckled, stroking his stubbly gray beard the while with a blandly suggestive, yet malign look directed at Sah-luma, who met it with a slight, cold smile of faintly amused contempt.
"Peace, fool!" he said,--"That barbarous tongue of thine is like the imperfect clapper of a broken bell that strikes forth harsh and undesired sounds suggesting nothing! Thy present duty is to hear, and not to speak,--therefore listen discerningly and write with exactitude, so shall thy poor blank scrolls of reed grow rich with gems, . . gems of high poesy that the whole world shall hoard and cherish miser-like when the poet who created their bright splendor is no more!"
He sighed--a short, troubled sigh,--and stood for a moment silent in an attitude of pensive thought. Theos watched him yearningly,-- waiting in almost breathless suspense till he should dictate aloud the first line of his poem. Zabastes meanwhile settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and taking up one of the long quills with which he was provided, dipped it in a reddish-purple liquid which at once stained its point to a deep roseate hue, so that when the light flickered upon it from time to time, it appeared as though it were tipped with fire. How intense the heat was, thought Theos!--as with one hand he pushed his clustering hair from his brow, not without noticing that his action was imitated almost at once by Sah-luma, who also seemed to feel the oppressiveness of the atmosphere. And what a blaze of blue pervaded the room! ... delicate ethereal blue as of shimmering lakes and summer skies melted together into one luminous radiance, ... radiance that, while filmy, was yet perfectly transparent, and in which the Laureate's classic form appeared to be gloriously enveloped like that of some new descended god!
Theos rubbed his eyes to cure them of their dazzled ache, . . what a marvellous scene it was to look upon, he mused! ... would he,-- could he ever forget it? Ah no!--never, never! not till his dying day would he be able to obliterate it from his memory,--and who could tell whether even after death he might not still recall it! Just then Sah-luma raised his hand by way of signal to Zabastes, . . his face became earnest, pathetic, even grand in the fervent concentration of his thoughts, ... he was about to begin his dictation, ... now ... now! ... and Theos leaned forward nervously, his heart beating with apprehensive expectation ... Hush! ... the delicious, suave melody of his friend's voice penetrated the silence like the sweet harmonic of a harp-string..