He sighed despondingly, ... a curious, vague contrition stirred within him, ... he felt as though HE were in some mysterious way to blame for all his poet-friend's short-comings!
In a few minutes he found himself on the broad marble embankment, close to the very spot from whence he had first beheld the beautiful High Priestess sailing slowly by in all her golden pomp and splendor, and as he thought of her now, a shudder, half of aversion, half of desire, quivered through him, flushing his brows with the warm uprising blood that yet burned rebelliously at the remembrance of her witching, perfect loveliness!
Here too he had met Sah-luma, . . ah Heaven!--how many things had happened since then! ... how much he had seen and heard! ... Enough, at any rate, to convince him, that the men and women of Al-Kyris were more or less the same as those of other great cities he seemed to have known in far-off, half-forgotten days,--that they plotted against each other, deceived each other, accused each other falsely, murdered each other, and were fools, traitors, and egotists generally, after the customary fashion of human pigmies, --that they set up a Sham to serve as Religion, Gold being their only god,--that the rich wantoned in splendid luxury, and wilfully neglected the poor,--that the King was a showy profligate, ruled by a treacherous courtesan, just like many other famous Kings and Princes, who, because of their stalwart, martial bearing, and a certain surface good-nature, manage to conceal their vices from the too lenient eyes of the subjects they mislead,--and that finally all things were evidently tending toward some great convulsion and upheaval possibly arising from discontent and dissension among the citizens themselves,--or, likelier still, from the sudden invasion of a foreign foe,--for any more terrific termination of events did not just then suggest itself to his imagination.
Absorbed in thought, he walked some paces along the embankment, before he perceived that a number of people were already assembled there,--men, women, and children, who, crowding eagerly together to the very edge of the parapet, appeared to be anxiously watching the waters below.
What unusual sight attracted them? ... and why were they all so silent as though struck dumb by some unutterable dismay? One or two, raising their heads, turned their pale, alarmed faces toward Theos as he approached, their eyes seeming to mutely inquire his opinion, concerning the alarming phenomenon which held them thus spellbound and fear-stricken.
He made his way quickly to where they stood, and looking where they looked, uttered a sharp, involuntary exclamation, ... the river, the clear, rippling river was RED AS BLOOD. Beneath the slowly breaking light of dawn, that streaked the heavens with delicate lines of silver-gray and daffodil, the whole visible length and breadth of the heaving waters shone with a darkly flickering crimson hue, deeper than the lustre of the deepest ruby, flowing sluggishly the while as though clogged with some thick and weedy slime.