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.”