Books: Ardath

M >> Marie Corelli >> Ardath

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Zabastes bowed with a sort of mock humility.

"It may be so, most mighty Zephoranim," he returned composedly--
"Nevertheless ashes are always ashes,--and the scattering of them
is but a question of time! For urns of gold and porphyry do but
excite the cupidity of the vulgar-minded, and the ashes therein
sealed, whether of King or Poet, stand as little chance of
reverent handling by future generations as those of many lesser
men. And 'tis doubtful whether the winds will know any difference
in the scent or quality of the various pinches of human dust
tossed on their sweeping circles,--for the substance of a man
reduced to earth-atoms is always the same,--and not a grain of him
can prove whether he was once a Monarch crowned, a Minstrel
pampered, or a Critic contemned!"

And he chuckled, as one having the best of the argument. The King
deigned no answer, but turned his eyes again on Sah-luma, who
still sat pensively silent.

"How long wilt thou be mute, my singing-emperor?" he demanded
gently--"Canst thou not improvise a canticle of love even in the
midst of thy soul's sudden sadness?"

At this, Sah-luma roused himself,--signing to his attendant he
took the harp from him, and resting it lightly on one knee, passed
his hands over it once or twice, half musingly, half doubtfully. A
ripple of music answered his delicate touch,--music as soft as the
evening wind murmuring among willows. Another instant and his
voice thrilled on the silence,--a voice wonderful, far-reaching,
mellow, and luscious as with suppressed tears, containing within
it a passion that pierced to the heart of the listener, and a
divine fullness such as surely was never before heard in human
tones!

Theos leaned forward breathlessly, his pulses beating with
unwonted rapidity, . . what.. WHAT was it that Sah-luma sang? ... A
Love-song! in those caressing vowel-sounds which composed the
language of Al-Kyris, . . a love-song, burning as strong wine,
tender as the murmur of the sea on mellow, moon-entranced
evenings,--an arrowy shaft of rhyme tipped with fire and meant to
strike home to the core of feeling and there inflict delicious
wounds! ... but, as each well-chosen word echoed harmoniously on
his ears, Theos shrank back shuddering in every limb, . . a black,
frozen numbness seemed to pervade his being, an awful, maddening
terror possessed his brain and he felt as though he were suddenly
thrown into a vast, dark chaos where no light should ever shine!
For Sah-luma's song was HIS song! ... HIS OWN, HIS VERY OWN! ...
He knew it well? He had written it long ago in the hey-day of his
youth when he had fancied all the world was waiting to be set to
the music of his inspiration, . . he recognized every fancy, . . every
couplet.. every rhyme! ... The delicate glowing ballad was HIS, . .
HIS ALONE! ... and Sah-luma had no right to it! He, Theos, was the
Poet, . . not this royally favored Laureate who had stolen his deas
and filched his jewels of thought...aye! and he would tell him so
to his face! ... he would speak! ... he would cry aloud his claims
in the presence of the King and demand instant justice! ... .

He strove for utterance,--his voice was gone! ... his lips were
moveless as the lips of a stone image! Stricken absolutely mute,
but with his sense of hearing quickened to an almost painful
acuteness, he stood erect and motionless,--rage and fear
contending in his heart, enduring the torture of a truly terrific
mystery of mind-despair, . . forced, in spite of himself, to listen
passively to the love-thoughts of his own dead Past revived anew
in his Rival's singing!

CHAPTER XVI.

THE PROPHET OF DOOM.

A few slow, dreadful minutes elapsed, . . and then,--then the first
sharpness of his strange mental agony subsided. The strained
tension of his nerves gave way, and a dull apathy of grief
inconsolable settled upon him. He felt himself to be a man
mysteriously accurst,--banished as it were out of life, and
stripped of all he had once held dear and valuable. HOW HAD IT
HAPPENED? Why was he set apart thus, solitary, poor, and empty of
all worth, WHILE ANOTHER REAPED THE FRUITS OF HIS GENIUS? ... He
heard the loud plaudits of the assembled court shaking the vast
hall as the Laureate ended his song--and, drooping his head, some
stinging tears welled up in his eyes and fell scorchingly on his
clasped hands--tears wrung from the very depth of his secretly
tortured soul. At that moment the beautiful Sah-luma turned toward
him smiling, as one who looked for more sympathetic approbation
than that offered by a mixed throng,--and meeting that happy self-
conscious, bland, half-inquiring gaze, he strove his best to
return the smile. Just then Zephoranim's fiery glance swept over
him with a curious expression of wonder and commiseration.

"By the gods, yon stranger weeps!" said the monarch in a half-
bantering tone...then with more gentleness he added.. "Yet 'tis
not the first time Sah-luma's voice hath unsealed a fountain of
tears! No greater triumph can minstrel have than this,--to move
the strong man's heart to woman's tenderness! We have heard tell
of poets, who singing of death have persuaded many straightway to
die,--but when they sing of sweeter themes, of lover's vows, of
passion-frenzies, and languorous desires, cold is the blood that
will not warm and thrill to their divinely eloquent allurements.
Come hither, fair sir!" and he beckoned to Theos, who mechanically
advanced in obedience to the command--"Thou hast thoughts of thine
own, doubtless, concerning Love, and Love's fervor of delight, . .
hast aught new to tell us of its bewildering spells whereby the
most dauntless heroes in every age have been caught, conquered,
and bound by no stronger chain than a tress of hair, or a kiss
more luscious than all the honey hidden in lotus-flowers?"

Theos looked up dreamily...his eyes wandered from the King to Sah-
luma as though in wistful search for some missing thing, . . his
lips were parched and burning and his brows ached with a heavy
weight of pain, . . but he made an effort to speak and succeeded,
though his words came slowly and without any previous reflection
on his own part.

"Alas, most potent Sovereign!" he murmured.. "I am a man of sad
memories, whose soul is like the desert, barren of all beauty! I
may have sung of love in my time, but my songs were never new,--
never worthy to last one little hour! And whatsoever of faith,
passion, or heart-ecstasy my fancy could with devious dreams
devise, Sah-luma knows, . . and in Sah-luma's song all my best
thoughts are said!"

There was a ring of intense pathos in his voice as he spoke,--and
the King eyed him compassionately.

"Of a truth thou seemest to have suffered!" he observed in gentle
accents.. "Thou hast a look as of one bereft of joy. Hast lost
some maiden love of thine? ... and dost thou mourn her still?"

A pang bitter as death shot through Theos's heart, . . had the
monarch suddenly pierced him with his great sword he could
scarcely have endured more anguish! For the knowledge rushed upon
him that he had indeed lost a love so faithful, so unfathomable,
so pure and perfect, that all the world weighed in the balance
against it would have seemed but a grain of dust compared to its
inestimable value! ... but what that love was, and from whom it
emanated, he could no more tell than the tide can tell in
syllabled language the secret of its attraction to the moon.
Therefore he made no answer, . . only a deep, half-smothered sigh
broke from him, and Zephoranim apparently touched by his dejection
continued good-naturedly:

"Nay, nay!--we will not seek to pry into the cause of thy spirit's
heaviness...Enough! think no more of our thoughtless question,--
there is a sacredness in sorrow! Nevertheless we shall strive to
make thee in part forget thy grief ere thou leavest our court and
city, . . meanwhile sit thou there"--and he pointed to the lower
step of the dais, . . "And thou, Sah-luma, sing again, and this time
let thy song he set to a less plaintive key."

He leaned hack in his throne, and Theos sat wearily down among the
flowers at the foot of the dais as commanded. He was possessed by
a strange, inward dread,--the dread of altogether losing the
consciousness of his own identity,--and while he strove to keep a
firm grasp on his mental faculties he at the same time abandoned
all hope of ever extricating himself from the perplexing enigma in
which he was so darkly involved. Forcing himself by degrees into
comparative calmness, he determined to resign himself to his
fate,--and the idea he had just had of boldly claiming the ballad
sung by Sah-luma as his own, completely passed out of his mind.

How could he speak against this friend whom he loved, ..aye!--more
than he had ever loved any living thing!--besides what could he
prove? To begin with, in his present condition ho could give no
satisfactory account of himself,--if he were asked questions
concerning his nation or birth-place he could not answer them, . .
he did not even know where he had come from, save that his memory
persistently furnished him with the name of a place called
"ARDATH." But what was this "Ardath" to him, he mused?--What did
it signify? ... what had it to do with his immediate position?
Nothing, so far as he could tell! His intellect seemed to be
divided into two parts--one a total blank, . . the other filled with
crowding images that while novel were yet curiously familiar. And
how could he accuse Sah-luma of literary theft, when he had none
of his own dated manuscripts to bear out his case? Of course he
could easily repeat his boyhood's verses word for word, ... but
what of that? He, a stranger in the city, befriended and protected
by the Laureate, would certainly be considered by the people of
Al-Kyris as far more likely to steal Sah-luma's thoughts than that
Sah-luma should steal his!

No!--there was no help for it,--as matters stood he could say
nothing,--he could only feel as though he were the sorrowful ghost
of some long-ago dead author returned to earth to hear others
claiming his works and passing them off as original compositions.
And thus he was scarcely moved to any fresh surprise when Sah-
luma, giving back the harp to his attendant, rose up, and standing
erect in an attitude unequalled for grace and dignity, began to
recite a poem he remembered to have written when he was about
twenty years of age,--a poem daringly planned, which when
published had aroused the bitterest animosity of the press critics
on account of what they called its "forced sublimity." The
sublimity was by no means "forced"--it was the spontaneous outcome
of a fresh and ardent nature full of enthusiasm and high-soaring
aspiration, but the critics cared nothing for this, . . all they saw
was a young man presuming to be original, and down they came upon
him accordingly.

He recollected all the heart-sore sufferings he had endured
through that ill-fated and cruelly condemned composition,--and now
he was listlessly amazed at the breathless rapture and excitement
it evoked here in this marvellous city of Al-Kyris, where
everything seemed more strange and weird than the strangest dream!
It was a story of the gods before the world was made,--of love
deep buried in far eternities of light, . . of vast celestial shapes
whose wanderings through the blue deep of space were tracked by
the birth of stars and suns and wonder-spheres of beauty, . . a
fanciful legend of transcendent heavenly passion, telling how all
created worlds throbbed amorously in the purple seas of pure
ether, and how Love and Love alone was the dominant cloud of the
triumphal march of the Universe...And with what matchless
eloquence Sah-luma spoke the glowing lines! ..with what clear and
rounded tenderness of accent! ... how exquisitely his voice rose
and fell in a rhythmic rush like the wind surging through many
leaves, . . while ever and anon in the very midst of the divinely
entrancing joy that chiefly characterized the poem, his musicianly
art infused a touch of minor pathos,--a suggestion of the eternal
complaint of Nature which even in the happiest moments asserts
itself in mournful under-tones. The effect of his splendid
declamation was heightened by a few soft, running passages
dexterously played on the harp by his attendant harpist and
introduced just at the right moments; and Theos, notwithstanding
the peculiar position in which he was placed, listened to every
well-remembered word of his own work thus recited with a gradually
deepening sense of peace,--he knew not why, for the verses, in
themselves, were strangely passionate and wild. The various
impressions produced on the hearers were curious to witness--the
King moved restlessly, his bronzed cheeks alternately flushing and
paling, his hand now grasping his sword, now toying with the
innumerable jewels that blazed on his breast--the women's eyes at
one moment sparkled with delight and at the next grew humid with
tears,--the assembled courtiers pressed forward, awed, eager, and
attentive,--the very soldiers on guard seemed entranced, and not
even a small side-whisper disturbed the harmonious fall and flow
of dulcet speech that rippled from the Laureate's lips.

When he ceased, there broke forth such a tremendous uproar of
applause that the amber pendents of the lamps swung to and fro in
the strong vibration of so many uplifted voices,--shouts of
frenzied rapture echoed again and again through the vaulted roof
like thuds of thunder,--shouts in which Theos joined,--as why
should he not? He had as good a right as any one to applaud his
own poem! It had been sufficiently abused heretofore,--he was glad
to find it now so well appreciated, at least in Al-Kyris,--though
he had no intention of putting forward any claim to its
authorship. No,--for it was evident he had in some inscrutable way
been made an outcast from all literary honor,--and a sort of wild
recklessness grew up within him,--a bitter mirth, arising from
curiously mingled feelings of scorn for himself and tenderness for
Sah-luma,--and it was in this spirit that he loudly cheered the
triumphant robber of his stores of poesy, and even kept up the
plaudits long after they might possibly have been discontinued.
Never perhaps did any poet receive a grander ovation, . . but the
exquisitely tranquil vanity of the Laureate was not a whit moved
by it, . . his dazzling smile dawned like a gleam of sunshine all
over his beautiful face, but, save for this, he gave no sign of
even hearing the deafening acclamations that resounded about him
on all sides.

"A new Ilyspiros!" cried the King enthusiastically, and, detaching
a magnificently cut ruby from among the gems he wore, he flung it
toward his favored minstrel. It flashed through the air like a
bright spark of flame and fell, glistening redly, on the pavement
just half-way between Theos and Sah-luma...Theos eyed it with
faintly amused indifference, . . the Laureate bowed gracefully, but
did not stoop to raise it,--he left that task to his harp-bearer,
who, taking it up, presented it to his master humbly on one knee.
Then, and only then Sah-luma received it, kissed it lightly and
placed it negligently among his other ornaments, smiling at the
King as he did so with the air of one who graciously condescends
to accept a gift out of kindly feeling for the donor. Zabastes
meanwhile had witnessed the scene with an expression of mingled
impatience, malignity, and disgust written plainly on his furrowed
features, and as soon as the hubbub of applause had subsided, he
struck his staff on the ground with an angry clang, and exclaimed
irritably:

"Now may the god shield us from a plague of fools! What means this
throaty clamor? Ye praise what ye do not understand, like all the
rest of the discerning public! Many is the time, as the weariness
of my spirit witnesseth, that I have heard Sah-luma rehearse,--but
never in all my experience of his prolix multiloquence, hath he
given utterance to such a senseless jingle-jangle of verse-jargon
as to-night! Strange it is that the so-called 'poetical' trick of
confusedly heaping words together regardless of meaning, should so
bewilder men and deprive them of all wise and sober judgment! By
my faith! ... I would as soon listen to the gabble of geese in a
farmyard as to the silly glibness of such inflated twaddle, such
mawkish sentiment, such turgid garrulity, such ranting
verbosity..."

A burst of laughter interrupted and drowned his harsh voice,--
laughter in which no one joined more heartily than Sah-luma
himself. He had resumed his seat in his ivory chair, and leaning
back lazily, he surveyed his Critic with tolerant good-humor and
complete amusement, while the King's stentorian "Ha, ha, ha!"
resounded in ringing peals through the great audience-chamber.

"Thou droll knave!" cried Zephoranim at last, dashing away the
drops his merriment had brought into his eyes--"Wilt kill me with
thy bitter-mouthed jests? ... of a truth my sides ache at thee!
What ails thee now? ... Come,--we will have patience, if so be our
mirth can be restrained,--speak!--what flaw canst thou find in our
Sah-luma's pearl of poesy?--what spots on the sun of his divine
inspiration? As the Serpent lives, thou art an excellent
mountebank and well deservest thy master's pay!"

He laughed again,--but Zabastes seemed in nowise disconcerted. His
withered countenance appeared to harden itself into lines of
impenetrable obstinacy,--tucking his long staff under his arm he
put his fingers together in the manner of one who inwardly counts
up certain numbers, and with a preparatory smack of his lips he
began: "Free speech being permitted to me, O most mighty
Zephoranim, I would in the first place say that the poem so
greatly admired by your Majesty, is totally devoid of common
sense. It is purely a caprice of the imagination,--and what is
imagination? A mere aberration of the cerebral nerves,--a
morbidity of brain in which the thoughts brood on the impossible,
--on things that have never been, and never will be. Thus, Sah-
luma's verse resembles the incoherent ravings of a moon-struck
madman,--moreover, it hath a prevailing tone of FORCED
SUBLIMITY..." here Theos gave an involuntary start,--then,
recollecting where he was, resumed his passive attitude--"which is
in every way distasteful to the ears that love plain language. For
instance, what warrant is there for this most foolish line:

"'The solemn chanting of the midnight stars.'

'Tis vile, 'tis vile! for who ever heard the midnight stars or any
other stars chant? ... who can prove that the heavenly bodies are
given to the study of music? Hath Sah-luma been present at their
singing lesson?" Here the old critic chuckled, and warming with
his subject, advanced a step nearer to the throne as he went on:
"Hear yet another jarring simile:

"'The wild winds moan for pity of the world.'

Was ever a more indiscreet lie? A brazen lie!--for the tales of
shipwreck sufficiently prove the pitilessness of winds,--and
however much a verse-weaver may pretend to be in the confidence of
Nature, he is after all but the dupe of his own frenetic dreams.
One couplet hath most discordantly annoyed my senses--'tis the
veriest doggerel:

"'The sun with amorous clutch
Tears off the emerald girdle of the rose!'

O monstrous piece of extravagance!--for how can the Sun (his Deity
set apart) 'clutch' without hands?--and as for 'the emerald girdle
of the rose'--I know not what it means, unless Sah-luma considers
the green calyx of the flower a 'girdle,' in which case his wits
must be far gone, for no shape of girdle can any sane man descry
in the common natural protection of a bud before it blooms! There
was a phrase too concerning nightingales,--and the gods know we
have heard enough and too much of those over-praised birds! ..."
Here he was interrupted by one of his frequent attacks of
coughing, and again the laughter of the whole court broke forth in
joyous echoes.

"Laugh--laugh!" said Zabastes, recovering himself and eying the
throng with a derisive smile--"Laugh, ye witless bantlings born of
folly!--and cling as you will to the unsubstantial dreams your
Laureate blows for you in the air like a child playing with soap-
bubbles! Empty and perishable are they all,--they shine for a
moment, then break and vanish,--and the colors wherewith they
sparkled, colors deemed immortal in their beauty, shall pass away
like a breath and be renewed no more!"

"Not so!" interposed Theos suddenly, unknowing why he spoke, but
feeling inwardly compelled to take up Sah-luma's defence-"for the
colors ARE immortal, and permeate the Universe, whether seen in
the soap-bubble or the rainbow! Seven tones of light exist, co-
equal with the seven tones in music, and much of what we call Art
and Poesy is but the constant reflex of these never-dying tints
and sounds. Can a Critic enter more closely into the secrets of
Nature than a Poet? ... nay!--for he would undo all creation were
he able, and find fault with its fairest productions! The critical
mind dwells too persistently on the mere surface of things, ever
to comprehend or probe the central deeps and well-springs of
thought. Will a Zabastes move us to tears and passion? ... Will he
make our pulses beat with any happier thrill, or stir our blood
into a warmer glow? He may be able to sever the petals of a lily
and name its different sections, its way of growth and habitude,--
but can he raise it from the ground alive and fair, a perfect
flower, full of sweet odors and still sweeter suggestions? No!--
but Sah-luma with entrancing art can make us see, not one lily but
a thousand lilies, all waving in the light wind of his fancy,--not
one world but a thousand worlds, circling through the empyrean of
his rhythmic splendor,--not one joy but a thousand joys, all
quivering song-wise through the radiance of his clear illumined
inspiration. The heart,--the human heart alone is the final
touchstone of a poet's genius,--and when that responds, who shall
deny his deathless fame!"

Loud applause followed these words, and the King, leaning forward,
clapped Theos familiarly on the shoulder:

"Bravely spoken, sir stranger!" he exclaimed--"Thou hast well
vindicated thy friend's honor! And by my soul!--thou hast a
musical tongue of thine own!--who knows but that thou also may be
a poet yet in time to come!--And thou, Zabastes--" here he turned
upon the old Critic, who, while Theos spoke, had surveyed him with
much cynical disdain--"get thee hence! Thine arguments are all at
fault, as usual! Thou art thyself a disappointed author--hence thy
spleen! Thou art blind and deaf, selfish and obstinate,--for thee
the very sun is a blot rather than a brightness,--thou couldst, in
thine own opinion, have created a fairer luminary doubtless had
the matter been left to thee! Aye, aye!--we know thee for a beauty
hating fool,--and though we laugh at thee, we find thee wearisome!
Stand thou aside and be straightway forgotten!--we will entreat
Sah-luma for another song."

The discomfited Zabastes retired, grumbling to himself in an
undertone,--and the Laureate, whose dreamy eyes had till now
rested on Theos, his self constituted advocate, with an
appreciative and almost tender regard, once more took up his harp,
and striking a few rich, soft chords was about to sing again, when
a great noise as of clanking armor was heard outside, mingled with
a steadily increasing, sonorous hum of many voices and the
increased tramp, tramp of marching feet. The doors were flung
open,--the Herald-in-Waiting entered in hot haste and excitement,
and prostrating himself before the throne exclaimed:

"O great King, may thy name live forever! Khosrul is taken!"

Zephoranim's black brows drew together in a dark scowl and he set
his lips hard.

"So! For once thou art quick tongued in the utterance of news!" he
said half-scornfully--"Bring hither the captive,--an he chafes at
his bonds we will ourselves release him..." and he touched his
sword significantly--"to a wider freedom than is found on earth!"

A thrill, ran through the courtly throng at these words, and the
women shuddered and grew pale. Sah-luma, irritated at the sudden
interruption that had thus distracted the general attention from
his own fair and flattered self, gave an expressively petulant
glance toward Theos, who smiled back at him soothingly as one who
seeks to coax a spoilt child out of its ill-humor, and then all
eyes were turned expectantly toward the entrance of the audience-
chamber.

A band of soldiers clad from head to foot in glittering steel
armor, and carrying short drawn swords, appeared, and marched with
quick, ringing steps, across the hall toward the throne--arrived
at the dais, they halted, wheeled about, saluted, and parted
asunder in two compact lines, thus displaying in their midst the
bound and manacled figure of a tall, gaunt, wild-looking old man,
with eyes that burned like bright flames beneath the cavernous
shadow of his bent and shelving brows,--a man whose aspect was so
grand, and withal so terrible, that an involuntary murmur of
mingled admiration and affright broke from the lips of all
assembled, like a low wind surging among leaf-laden branches. This
was Khosrul,--the Prophet of a creed that was to revolutionize the
world,--the fanatic for a faith as yet unrevealed to men,--the
dauntless foreteller of the downfall of Al-Kyris and its King!